B1: soulnet 4 - Rabid 2
Game 1Hamlet, Chancellor, Doctor, Conspirator, Mining Village, Moneylender, Quarry, Bandit Camp, Jester, NoblesWe both open 4/3 (in that order) and go for the same basic thing: Doctor for trashing, Hamlets for +Buy, Quarry for discount and then Conspirators. In an afterthought, Conspirators are probably a mistake and Nobles + Quarry is better for building. Anyhow, it starts really slow and I have a dreadful trashing start: my overpay trashes a Copper while his trashes an Estate, allowing him to buy Quarry on T2, while I am stuck with a Hamlet. Then, the first Doctor play of each also goes much better for him. Thinking I am way behind, I go hard on Hamlets because this HAS to finish in piles, and then having the +Buys is important. We split the Hamlets evenly, but he gets more Nobles and Conspirators. However, I trashed more. I think I am almost dead here, so I keep watching the piles and add a second Quarry hoping to finish up Nobles. We both start making lots of mistakes and misclicks with Hamlet, and I end up getting a win out of nowhere thanks to a decent draw, while he seems to stall for a turn or two.
Game 2Beggar, Courtyard, Native Village, Black Market, Great Hall, Fortress, Young Witch, Horn of Plenty, Inn, Junk Dealer, HoardLovely HoP engine, we both go for it. I open 5/2 with Junk Dealer / Courtyard, which I think has to give me a huge edge against his double Black Market. However, he gets all the goodies out of the BM, especially Butcher (there is Fortress) and I misbuild heavily, going into HoP too soon instead of getting some villages and draw first. I think the HoP is important, but its not, and when I am more or less in position of megaturning it is too late.
Game 3Doctor, Lookout, Steward, Herald, Tournament, Worker's Village, Ghost Ship, Market, Tribute, PossessionHorrifying engine. This is the only game I felt I won because I played better. I get only one Tournament while he gets plenty, and I get money to spike the Province first. Despite succeeding, I don't stop him that much and he connects first, and makes what I believe is the defining mistake of this game: he gets Princess. I mean, Princess is really nice in an engine with lots of +Buy, but you really want the Steed here, because the engines are still weak and you want help to connect again. Also, there is Possession, so whatever you do that does not help you get or play Possession, can easily help the opponent more than you. After that, I get Steed and Followers and keep building towards multiple Possession. I end up with a better engine, although unreliable, and I am Possessing more or less half the turns. He tries to rush piles and VP but there is not much he can do at that point.
Game 4Fishing Village, Wishing Well, Island, JackOfAllTrades, Rats, Trader, Counterfeit, Mountebank, Treasury, WitchThis was a bit of a luck-fest on my part. I think I played it well, but I don't know if he played as well or slightly better and was just unlucky or there is some mistakes there. I was not paying that much attention because everything I wanted to do was pretty straightforward. The engine is trouble here because, well, only Jack and WW for draw and they are both bad draw against Mountebank. Also, trashing Coppers is expensive and slow (Counterfeit), so you want some kind of hybrid. However, there are Colonies, so Jack+support is not the best, and even Jack cannot ignore Mountebank. So, we both basically go for everything: FV + Jack + Mountebank + Counterfeit + some money (mostly Platinums). Counterfeits here are really nice because of the +buy for the cheap components and the steady flux of Coppers and Silvers flooding decks that want to buy Colonies.
In the proper action, I get $5 on the first shuffle and he doesn't, and that goes a long way. Also, I felt that I kept hitting with MB even though he had a lot more Curses, so there was probably really bad bane luck there on his part. This allows me to get lots of Counterfeits fast and trash more, which in turn snowballs into more MB play and more Curse-baning. After a couple of Platinums, FVs and Curses are almost gone, and there are few MB left, so I go into Provinces for the VP. My deck is in better shape for greening, so I cruise to victory.
This was a really hard match to pay attention, so I am sure there are plenty of mistakes on both parts. For me, I mostly stayed focus on the big picture and bought things on intuition when I had more money than I needed.
Game 5Haven, Develop, Oracle, Wishing Well, Fortress, JackOfAllTrades, Mining Village, Throne Room, Apprentice, BazaarI see no +Buy and think the engine is going to be weak against Jack. Boy, was I wrong. Two TfB cards (Develop and Apprentice) + Fortress is a gain-fest, and Rabid builds the engine that completely obliterates me. Nothing to see here. Seems like a lovely board to play a mirror, though, plenty of difficult decisions and pile-watching needed.
Game 6Hermit, Loan, Menagerie, Oasis, Familiar, Moneylender, Rabble, Torturer, Adventurer, FairgroundsNo village, so we both go for Menagerie engine with some Oasis aid, trashing with Hermit (also gaining) and Moneylender. I want my deck to have Platinum+Gold+Silver+Copper = Colony without any other Treasure to take care only of Colony repeated. That worked out great. However, this game is pretty boring because I have insane good luck and Rabid has insane bad luck. Again, not much to see in this one. It was a bad closing of a pretty exciting match, although all the interest and hard mirrors were at the beginning.
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Topic: Season 4 - game reports A & B (Read 7732 times)