Skirmish S4 - Dice and Destiny
Welcome to the second half of last Saturday, where I attended yet another Skirmish.
I hopped on a train right after my Rule Zero Skirmish in London and dashed right over to Dice and Destiny in Canterbury. Thankfully, nothing went awry and my plan to compete in both Skirmishes was successful.
There were 10 players at Dice and Destiny and the field in Canterbury looked something like this
- 2 Oldhim
- 1 Bravo
- 1 Lexi
- 1 Rhinar
- 1 Viserai
- 1 Benji
- 1 Ira
- 1 Levia
- 1 Iyslander
A wide variety of heroes were represented!
The tournament this time will be 4 rounds of swiss and a cut to top 4. Let's see how I did.
Round 1
Starting off round 1 with a canonical Blitz hero, Ira, Crimson Haze, piloted by Aidan Keown. I believe Ira was the poster-hero for Blitz, a strong hero that should not be underestimated. Aidan was also running the Kodachi and Zephyr Needle setup, which spells trouble for me as I don't have as many defence reactions in my deck as would classic Oldhim builds.
I admit, I was also a bit out of practise against Ira, having not seen her in a while. I haven't tested my new agressive Oldhim build against Ira either. My new build tend to use Stalagmite, Bastion of Isenloft as my shield, but I thought I'd play it a bit safe by taking out Rampart of the Ram's Head for this match instead.
The turns played out as you'd expect. I let the first kodachi hit, and block the second or third attack to prevent mask trigger. However, I started to mess up when I had my disruptive or aggressive hand. I would take a hit, just so that I could play out my hand and try to take tempo. This ended up being the wrong strategy, Aidan was able to maneuver around my big hitters by defending really well, whilst still able to play out a decent turn because Ninja attacks don't cost too much. Whilst I eventually did get some of the big hits in, Oldhim had already taken a lot of damage. This allowed Aidan to go wide and defeated Oldhim with a beautiful Flying Kick.
The strategy I should have taken was classic fatigue, letting Ira play out all her stronger attacks, especially since I decided to play Rampart at the beginning. Aidan played really well and had a lot of control over the match, it was well fought. Well played Aidan.
Round 2
My second match was against Lexi. Another scary matchup for me, to be honest, as I recall memories of playing against Shahmir's Ice Lexi deck. However, Kyle Mullings seems to be playing a Lightning Lexi deck against me today.
Lightning Lexi went wide with cards like Endless Arrow and Voltaire, Strike Twice giving it go-again.
My experience from ProQuest helped me a lot here as I knew which arrows to block and which I can let hit. Needless to say, I blocked Endless Arrow to not give Lexi free damage.
However, Kyle's build did have some arrows I haven't encountered much, such as Dazzling Crescendo.
Dazzling fused gives go-again, no ifs or buts about it. I was quite okay to let Oldhim tank some of these arrows, as they do not have on-hit effects that disrupts my turn. Sure enough, Kyle was able to bring Oldhim's health down very low. I was on 1 health for like 3 turns. But, I did manage to find tempo when I played my ol' favourite, Awakening. I fetched Pulverized, took the tempo and continued applying pressure until Oldhim broke through the defence and defeated Lexi with a dominated attack via Tear Asunder. The battle was well fought. It was quite refreshing to see a different Lexi build that performed really well. Well played Kyle!
Round 3
My third round was against Benji, Piercing Wind, piloted by Philippa Searle. I am quite fortunate in that I have practised the Benji matchup quite a bit. I did see that Philippa was using Mask of the Pouncing Lynx.
This signalled to me that I must not let an attack action card hit, else risking Benji fetching his new specialization, Spring Tidings.
Whenever Philippa played an attack action card, I would defend with my equipments and Oldhim's Earth defence reaction. Oldhim is a very strong hero against Benji because of the amount of defensive options he has, despite Benji's ability not letting other heroes block from hand.
I started taking tempo when I managed to play an Endless Winter fused, it was a lucky draw. Endless is very much the anti-Benji card, as Benji is already on lower health than other heroes and relies on low-cost attacks. From that point forward, I continued to apply pressure with big attacks and took the win when I pummeled a Winter's Wail. This match was a good example of when practise pays off, as practise was the only reason I knew how to play against Benji. Well fought Philippa!
Round 4
I've made it to the last swiss round, coming up against a hero that I think is a scarier matchup for Oldhim, Rhinar piloted Toby Beckham.
Rhinar is scary because he essentially takes away Oldhim's greatest strength, his defence. Luckily, my Oldhim deck is able to switch it up and play aggressive, so I don't mind if my hand got intimidated away. Toby was playing claw Rhinar as well, so I knew I had to bring out Oldhim's new (old?) friend, Stalagmite, Bastion of Isenloft.
I found that I have been using this shield in the majority of my games so far. It doesn't cost to block. It gives opponent a frostbite, which could stop their turn from getting out of hand. Its a very good equipment to pair with my agressive Oldhim build because I can block with it, stop the opponent's turn and therefore take less damage, then swing back with my entire hand. It's also an Ice card!
I managed to get out a turn 1 Channel Lake Frigid, so a very happy start. From that point on, I was keeping my health up whilst slowing down the game with Ice effects and Winter's Wail, waiting for my more disruptive cards like Pummel and CnC. My deck ran smoothly in this match as I continued to play hands that forced Toby to block or take a lot of damage, still potentially having disrupt effects from Pummel.
The scariest moment in the game for me was when Rhinar intimidated everything out of my hand with multiple Barraging Beatdown
The attack came then came in at 20 damage. I was fortunate to still have my equipments to block. When damage resolved, Oldhim still took 16 and went down to 4 from full health. A scary turn.
But, I had a full hand on my turn. The hand had Oaken Old and Pulse of Isenloft as well. I could not think of a pair of cards more fitting to take the victory swing. It was a really good match and I thoroughly enjoyed it! I'm very glad my Oldhim was able to overcome such a difficult obstacle.
Top 4 Semi-Finals
With 3 victories and 1 defeat, I was able to make it to the top 4 cut!
My fellow top 4 were Nicholas Blower on Viserai, Charlie Wallace on Oldhim (yeah!) and Dan White on Iyslander. Winter has come for Dice and Destiny.
As fate would have it, my semi-finals was against Charlie's Oldhim deck. A mirror!
Charlie's record was 4-0 so far. I was up against a formidable opponent who knows how to play Oldhim. Charlie's Oldhim deck was more defensive than mine, and Charlie took Tectonic Plating and Rampart of the Ram's Head into our matchup. Two different Oldhim builds, one outcome, which Oldhim will prevail?
I started off the game strong and with control. I managed to play out all of my disruptive combos and also bigger attacks like Oaken Old and Endless Winter. However, I was not able to get past my opponent's defence, which I really should have known. I did also purposely take some hits to see if I can take tempo back with Awakening. Charlie was aware of my plan and made sure that even if I had an Awakening in hand, our health difference would not be enough for me to fetch Pulverize.
My brain was clearly dozing off at this point, after nearly 10 matches of FaB, because I made a mistake playing Awakening fused anyway, but then realised I didn't create enough Seismic to fetch Pulverize. I also accidentally drew more cards than I'm supposed to at one point (owned up to it of course and resolved by judge). I don't think that it really would have made much difference though, seeing how much control my opponent had over the game at that point.
The game slowly became a slugfest as we started trading blows with Winter's Wail. But, as you know, in a longer game, fatigue Oldhim has the advantage. Without any threats left in my deck, Charlie was able to take tempo in the mid-game, coming in with the big hitters that I had no choice but to block. I slowly decked out until I only had 2 or no blocks left in my library.
Charlie's Oldhim took the game in the cleanest Oldhim-fatigue fashion. It was such an excellent match and it really taught me a lot about how I can adjust my deck to defeat Oldhim next time!
Results and Lessons
This was definitely a high point in my Flesh and Blood career, being able to make top 4 in a Skirmish. I'm really happy to have done it with my main hero, Oldhim, as well. I'm even more happy that Charlie later took Oldhim through to the finals and won the event! The Ollin would be proud.
I took home a Cold Foil Lexi as my prize.
Dice and Destiny was also so gracious to have added additional prize support as well, as I received a pack of Everfest for making semi-finals. Thank you Dice and Destiny folks!
This Saturday was the most fun I've had in a while, I'm super glad to have been able to make both this event and Rule Zero's. I've learnt a great deal about how my Oldhim build performed, and where its weakneses are. I will be adjusting my build for upcoming Skirmishes, so stay tuned for more Blitz Oldhim!