Skirmish S4 - Dice Saloon

Alright! Dice Saloon, Season 4 Skirmish, let's go!

I adjusted my Oldhim deck from week 1. I learnt from last week that my build wasn't aggressive enough, or a bit of a close call for some matchups. I have decided to include a bigger pool of threats to make my Oldhim even more aggressive, but still keeping with the disrupt theme.

I added Snapdragon Scalers to pair with a single Enlightened Strike, a combo I stole from my game with Saul last week. This combo enables me to draw a card and still able to go-again, gaining value from Earthlore Bounty along the way.

I also added a second copy of both Pulverize and Awakening, this bumped up my aggressive potential and doesn't compromise my style, because I've been playing Awakening since last season.

I also teched in some yellow Pummels in addition to red ones. I figured I had many targets for pummel. It's a card that makes my opponents think. And, it has helped me close out games before, so a decent include to my build.

Let's see how these adjustments worked out for me.

Round 1

My first round was, like last week, an Oldhim mirror. I was to play against Adam Smith's Oldhim deck. I have played against Adam a couple times on webcam before. Adam is a very good Oldhim player, very good. A tough game to be had for sure.

The first couple of bouts were back and forth, a few Winter's Wail swing, a few CnCs here and there. But, both Oldhim was able to block well and return the favour. The turning point came when Adam was able to play Tome of Harvest, drew a bunch of cards and really punish me with a fused Oaken Old. The biggest salt to the wound was that the card Adam used to fuse was another Tome. So, on the following turn, Adam drew another Oaken Old to come at me again. And on the turn after that, Adam played the Tome, drawing another bunch of cards to punish me with.

I did manage to survive the ordeal, but was on the backfoot. I couldn't even swing hammer with Ice, Adam took 4 damage with confidence to swing back big and take me out. Without a doubt, Adam was the more practised player, a deserving victory!

Round 2

My second round was against Oldhim again 😂 Just cannot catch a break. I was playing against Sean Damario's Oldhim deck this time.

Sean's deck was more defensive than mine. It felt like it was going in the direction of Charlie's Oldhim build from my playoffs at Canterbury Skirmish last week. A match that I lost. Good thing my deck adjustments took these builds into account, I hope my pummels are enough to snatch me a victory this time.

Similar story to round 1, Oldhim trading blows for the first couple of bouts. My turnaround was when I lucky drew into an Oaken Old with Ice and Earth cards to fuse. After taking the tempo that turn, I did manage to keep the pressure up, playing disruptive hands with my pummels to claim victory. Sean was able to utilise Oldhim's defensive capabilities well, managing to block out a lot of my big attacks. But, I did include a bigger pool of aggressive cards today for this very reason, I am glad that it had worked out for me. Well fought Sean!

Round 3

My third match was against another hero I have been watching out for, Kano, piloted by Sandy Green.

Kano is scary in Blitz because they can do a ridiculous amount of damage, and they can do it at instant speed when you don't have resources to prevent arcane damage. Playing against wizards is just so different from playing against other classes.

I have brought along two cards to deal with Kano. Heart of Ice and Arcane Lantern.

Heart of Ice is a key card for the matchup. My plan was to activate Heart at the beginning of my turns. This will mean one of two things

1. Kano either have to play out their hand at instant speed before the layer with Heart resolves, otherwise everything they do will cost an additional resource. I will still have nearly my full hand to prevent however much arcane damage is coming my way, and likely still swing hammer. Even without the hammer swing, I'm forcing Kano into fatigue.
2. Kano lets Heart activation resolves. I continue with my turn, likely a hammer swing. If Kano responds, it'll cost them even more to do so, and therefore they cannot do me a ridiculous amount of damage. I should able to chip them slowly or fatigue them.

I feel like its a decent plan, as I dictate the terms of engagement. Having Arcane Lantern along with Heart of Ice, Crown of Seeds, Nullrune Boots and Nullrune Gloves, means I have arcane barrier (AB) 4.5 (Crown is a conditional 1 AB). So, I'm likely to be able to prevent quite a lot of arcane damage. Being a Guardian, Oldhim also have a lot of blue pitch to spare for AB.

The only sacrifice I made was taking out Rampart of the Ram's Head to spare enough equipment slots. But, I think it was a wise decision as I did not found a matchup where it was necessary, Stalagmite was more than enough.

With patience, my strategy worked. I was able to chip away at Kano's health and slowly grinded them down whilst preventing loads of arcane damage. Sandy played really well. Had I not have these equipments, this would have been a much quicker match with Sandy as the victor instead.

Round 4

Round 4 was yet another scary matchup, claw Rhinar, piloted by William Finn Tiddy. William claimed to be a newer player to the game, but their performance showed much greater skill.

Turn 1 of this game, William managed to 'discard a random card' as an additional cost of Wrecker Romp, and pitched so that he could deliberately discard Massacre as the only card left in hand.

This meant Oldhim was intimidated twice, once from Massacre being discarded and a second time from Rhinar's hero ability. A good turn! Alas, I was still able to block 6.

On William's second turn (turn 3), William pulled a Bloodrush Bellow, threatening 10 damage with two claw attacks. This was an interesting turn because I have an Awakening in hand, with an Earth card to fuse. Rhinar and Oldhim were both on 18 health, so I wanted to take 5 damage to play Awakening and fetch Pulverize.

What's awkward was that when I looked at how many cards William had in hand, I know if I had blocked with my Stalagmite, as I do with Bloodrush turns, it would effectively prevent Rhinar from dealing enough damage because they can't perform a second attack with the Frostbite. But, I needed to keep three cards in hand to be able to perform Awakening fused, so I couldn't block that much from hand either. I also wasn't able to block with my other equipments.

In the end, I decided to take a risk. I took 8 damage, blocking with one card from hand only. I then played Awakening and swung back with Pulverize on my turn.

The reward was big, as Rhinar did take 4 damage from Pulverize and the attack disabled their next turn. I was then also able to come in with a Mangle and took out their Scabskin Leathers as well.

I then drew into my Pummels and was able to close out the game. It was a well fought battle on both sides, both of us had a lot of fun and was able to pull off some really good turns. I hope William continues to enjoy playing Flesh and Blood and hopefully we'll see each other at more events!

Round 5

Before the round started, I was told that I'm currently standing in 8th place. 8th! I was a bit taken aback, to be honest. So long as I do not lose my next match, and therefore my ranking, I really will be making top 8!

For my fifth round, I am to face a notoriously good player, and a person of character: Shahmir Samee, piloting Iyslander.

Shahmir is undoubtedly one of my teachers in my earlier FaB days. Sitting across Shahmir at a tournament alone is testament of how far I've come, so I'm fairly proud of this achievement. Nevertheless, Shahmir will be a tough opponent, a fitting boss. Will the student finally best the master?

Iyslander is a hero I have not had much practise against either. Shahmir's Iyslander deck was also the finalist at last week's Rule Zero Skirmish, so I wish I had been able to observe that match 😂.

I went with my instincts and used the same setup as I did with Kano, expecting a decent amount of arcane damage. With Frostbites created from Iyslander's ability, I expected that I will not be able to swing back as often, and instead will fatigue Iyslander.

My turn 1 hand was two Channel Lake Frigid. I activated Heart of Ice, pitching 1 Channel and was planning to lay down the second Channel. But, activating Heart gave Iyslander a window to play Pry.

I could have potentially lost my second Channel, had Shahmir not decided pick Pummel to go to the bottom of my deck instead. That Pry may not have disrupted my original plan, but it certainly took away my option of presenting damage. What I should have done was just play the Channel first instead, if that was my intention.

On Shahmir's turn, instead of presenting me with Frostbites, Iyslander presented pure damage in the form of Enlightened Strike, Command and Conquer and even Nourishing Emptiness. These were not plays I had been expecting, and once again I did not pivot my strategy. After blocking some of these attacks, I continued with my old plan and just played Winter's Wail whilst conserving resource in hand to pitch for arcane barrier, which ended up wasted as not much arcane damage was thrown around yet.

On a second CnC turn from Shahmir, I had an Awakening in hand along with 3 blue pitches, one being an Earth card to fuse. I thought that taking damage to play Awakening meant I could threaten with lethal with Pulverize, unless Shahmir could kill me off with arcane. Having 6 resources left in hand after Awakening to pay for arcane barrier, I felt like it was a risk worth taking.

However, I miscalculated how much damage Iyslander could do. Taking the CnC brought me down to 8 health. Even though I put the Pulverize on the table, cracking Metacarpus Node, Storm Sriders and having Forked Lightning and Aether Wildfire meant Iyslander could come in for 14 arcane damage. Only having 6 resources left in hand, I could only block 6 arcane damage, Iyslander took Oldhim out cleanly.

The difference in knowledge of the cards and the amount of practise was clear. Whilst I have lost this match, I have learnt yet a bit more about the Wizard card pool and what to watch out for. Shahmir, ever the teacher, gave me even more tips on how I could have maneuvered the game better. Two things I could have done was

1. Push through more damage, especially in the earlier turns. Unlike Kano, Iyslander was not one to present a ridiculous amount of arcane damage straight out the door, so there was less need to conserve resources. In fact, I could have played Snapdragon with E-strike instead of having AB 4.5
2. Know when to activate Heart of Ice. Activating it first thing on my first turn gave Shahmir a window to Pry. I will need a lot of practise to know when is the best time to activate this equipment.

Thank you as always for the lessons. Till we face again on the battlefield, well played Shahmir!

Results and Lessons

When the results of the swiss rounds were announced, it was bitter sweet that I came in at 9th place. A little bit of a shame that I just missed the mark. But! I must say that I have performed quite well. It was a 31-person Skirmish, probably one of the bigger Skirmishes for me this season, and yet I still managed to come close to the top players. A far cry from my performance last season.

What's even better was that I took out some lessons from these battles. Which meant that I could only improve and play even better in the next Skirmish. I still need some Oldhim mirror practise, as well as more practise into Iyslander. I still have yet to play against Viserai, and I know that it's a matchup I need to watch out for.

Congratulations to the top 8! I believe top 8 hero breakdown was

• 4 Viserais
• 2 Oldhims
• 1 Dash
• 1 Iyslander

And, congratulations to Jamie Faulkner again for winning another event with Viserai! It was an extremely fun day with many well fought battles!

P.S. The most exciting moment of the day was when the store used the duck race to decide who won the raffled playmat. I motion for every LGS to use this same method to raffle anything in the future.