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| Fuzzy Gruens logo created by Brice Hutchinson, a local player |
Anywho, I met up with my two local friends and teammates for Team Fuzzy Gruens, Nick and Charles, and we excitedly waited getting our choices for the Sealed Vault Tour. Once again I felt a lot of pressure, since I had managed to make it to Day 2 in both of my previous Sealed VTs, plus I wanted to make a good showing for Team Fuzzy Gruens, but mainly I was trying to pad my standing on the VT Leaderboard. I was #39 on the list and every VT I dropped several slots, and I knew that pretty soon I would really start to drop hard as I got further down. FFG had recently announced that the top 100 would receive Worlds invites, so I really wanted to help cement my chances.
As I usually do with Sealed events, there were a couple of things that I mainly look for when choosing a deck:
Amber Control - This has always been huge for me. If I don't have amber control, then my opponent can do whatever they want and I run the risk of just losing to any little burst of amber. And of course the best amber control is stealing, so keeping my eye out on Shadows is a big thing. Along these lines, I really like to look for the big amber control cards, ie the ones that can get my opponent's amber down from any amount, such as Doorstep to Heaven or Too Much to Protect (or a Legacy Effervescent Principle in the case of my Gencon Sealed deck, lol). But really, I feel like a deck NEEDS some kind of amber control, especially with there being so many good AoA combos.
Creature Count - This has become almost the most important thing for me in Sealed events. It wasn't always so, but in AoA I just found that a large creature count could win me a ton of games. Board wipes are hard to come by in AoA, and so a big board can frequently allow you to do what you want. You don't have to worry as much about action card burst amber as much as you did with CotA. But controlling the board and getting your amber that way is a very legitimate way to win in AoA.
Creature Control/Board Wipes - And piggybacking off my last point, if creature count is important, then creature control is just as important. I have found that most good sealed decks need a get-out-of-jail-free-card, which in AoA is usually a board wipe of some kind. Sometimes your opponent flops down 5+ creatures, and if you don't have a way of answering that, you can lose. And with this format needing to be 5-1 to make it Day 2 (and with it being single-game matches), you cannot afford to have that happen often.
Raw Amber/Big Amber generating combos - I still count the number of raw amber pips on my cards, since that can really help how quickly you get to keyforging, which is the name of the game. I also look for big combos that can really help me win such as Binate Rupture/Interdimensional Graft, Ganger Cheiftain/Drummernaut, Martian Generosity, etc.
Artifact Control - This has also become very important in my eyes. There are a lot of important artifacts in AoA that need to be addressed. Proclamation 346E in Sanctum, Grump Buggy in Brobnar, Redacted in Logos, Lash of Broken Dreams in Dis, etc. I have found that games are won and lost depending on if a player has these or doesn't. I also look for these artifacts in my decks as well.
So, with that in mind, let's look at my options:
Silverhand of Supermanor
Ok, I wish that I had DoK (Decks of Keyforge) available while looking at my decks, lol. But this pic at least shows a little better at what a deck can do. In my eyes in just looking through the deck, I looked at my parameters:
Amber Control - Not really seeing a lot. Cuttthroat Research is the only thing that allows me to affect my opponent's amber. Not great.
Creature Count - 20 is very decent. I typically want to see 16+. Anything less than that and I'm almost always pitching it, unless it has some insane card combos.
Creature Control/Board Wipes - No solid board wipes such as Coward's End, but it does have some good stuff with Lava Ball and First Blood in Brobnar, as well as a Poke for Duskwitch. And Mars has some Motherguns, Orbital Bombardment, and Destroy Them All!, so not too bad. Plus, those King of the Crags can really help against a mirror match.
Raw Amber/ Amber generation - I am counting 8 pips, which is awfully low. I am also not seeing a Drummernaut in Brobnar, to team up with Ganger Chieftain, and I'm not really seeing any other burst options.
Artifact Control - This has a Destroy Them All!, which I really like. This is a really good removal card.
Batzorig "Cannonade" Engikrieg
I see Shadows, so that already gets me excited!
Amber Control - I am seeing a lot of good stuff here. Doorstep to Heaven is one of those cards that let me get rid of any amount of amber, not matter how big. Isee an Aubade the Grim, Maruck the Marked, and a Bordan the Redeemed, all which are pretty solid amber control cards, and we haven't even gotten into Shadows yet! Technically Anahita the Trader as well, but with only 1 artifact that is not really going to realistically happen, and I've never seen it happen before so I basically ignore that (foreshadowing!). Shadows has a double Nerve Blast, which is an awesome card, and a Brend the Fanatic with 2 Life for a Life, which is awesome amber control as well as creature control! And there are a couple of other cards that can steal as well. Untamed doesn't have anything, which is a shame, but Glimmer can help me get stuff back if I need to.
Creature Count - 20 is another solid number
Creature Control/Board Wipes - I'm not seeing a lot here, unfortunately. I have the Life for a Lifes and Throwing Stars, Curiosity (which only pays off against Logos), and a Smite, along with a ocuple other little things. I don't have any real big board wipes, so it looks like I would have to depend on my creatures to destroy everything. That being said, this deck has some really solid options with that ridiculous Untamed board, 2x Abond the Armorsmith for protection.
Raw Amber/Amber generation - 11 is not awful. It's no 18, but it's competent enough to get by. I usually want to see at least 10. I'm also not really seeing any burst abilities besides Soldiers to Flowers, but I have to be careful with that since it can benefit my opponent as well.
Artifact Control - I have 2 Rustgnawers. Not the best removal but it is at least removal, and I have a lot of protection for them with the Abonds and Grovekeeper and especially Anga Panpaca.
Norberg of Nighthell Museum
Ok, despite not having Shadows, this House combination has a lot of potential.
Amber Control - Crap. A single Charette?! Seriously? Where is my Lash of Broken Dreams, where are my Nyzyk Resonators, where is my Shatterstorm? This does not bode well.
Creature Count - 16 is on the low end, but it is still manageable. I really wish I had more Brobnar creatures, though. I'd totally remove the Into the Frays for some creatures.
Creature Control/Board Wipe - Oh boy this has everything! Coward's End and Unlocked Gateway and even Carpet Phloxem provide the hard board clears (with Lifeward being an awesome combo to go along with them), and we have tons of little removal for Duskwitches and Sutterkin removal and such. That 4x Collector Worm has me really excited as well, especially because it looks like I don't really ever have a need to collect my archives. I have removal for days. Nothing is staying alive for long. This is looking real solid. I suppose that is why I only have 16 creatures.
Raw Amber/Amber generation - 14 raw amber is very decent. Not a lot else when it comes to amber generation though. I suppose Neffru could work with so many boardwipes, but I'd be afraid of helping my opponent too much, and with so little raw amber, I'd probably be too afraid to do it.
Artifact Control - Yeesh, not seeing any. That could be really rough. Some of those amber control artifacts could really mess me up like Lash of Broken Dreams and Proclamation 346e
Alrighty, here are my options, and I had 15 minutes to decide. I decided pretty early on that I did not want Silverhand. That lack of amber control really had me not liking it. And looking at it now I see that it has lots of creature control, but at the time I was more looking at big board wipes. In retrospect, I think this deck could have been as debatable as my other ones (and probably better than the one that was contending with the one I went with), but I don't regret my decision. My biggest debate was between the other 2. I really loved the creature control of Norberg along with the raw amber, but that lack of amber control really had me scared. On the other hand, I loved the amber control and amber generation of Batzorig, but the lack of a board wipe made me really scared. After going back and forth for several minutes, I ended up going with Batzorig. This deck is my only option with amber control, and I just think that if you want to go far, you have to have something, and the other decks just didn't have that.
After I picked my deck, I started to formulate my plan to win each game. I knew I had the amber control to keep my opponent's off key, so that was nice. My main plan as I was looking at my deck, was to help against the lack of board control. I knew that if my opponent were to get a large board, there was little I could do to get rid of it. So I would have to really dig for all my creatures and establish my own board, so I could dictate play that way. In terms of little reminders, I knew that I would be looking for Life for a Life to go with Brend the Fanatic. But other than that, I felt I was as ready as I was going to be. I did not feel super confident. I figured my lack of board control was going to get me some losses, and I especially thought that would be the case the further I got into the tournament, but I felt confident enough in thinking I'd go 3-3, which would be good enough for me. I resolved myself to my deck, and concentrated on getting my mindset to just enjoy the tournament and have fun (because I can get pretty competitive).
I felt pretty good going 4-0 so far, and knew that I just needed to win one more game to make it to day 2. But if I lost the remainder that would still be ok as I would have more wins than losses. My opponent in round 5 was Ben Wallace from Team SAS. Just the kind of person I did not want to run into, lol. I knew he was a very skilled player, and he had recently trounced my teammate by flooding the board with Brobnar while controlling amber with Shadows, so I knew I was in for a struggle. I actually resolved myself to a loss before starting, which I know I shouldn't do, but I was trying to be realistic. He was playing Brobnar, Logos, Shadows, which is an amazing House combination to get in AoA. I lost the roll to go first, and interestingly enough, I had gone second in every game so far. This, I think was really good for my deck, since I really need to establish a board early. Well I established a board early and Ben promptly wiped it with Coward's End. He then dropped a bunch of Brobnar creatures including Ganger Chieftain, and I got worried. I quickly dropped a bunch of Untamed creatures, and used Brend and Life for a Life to get rid of the Chieftain (before Drummernaut could get down), as well as getting him off a key. I wiped most of his board and was sitting pretty with a ton of amber.
I had I think 10 amber, and I was really afraid of Ben playing Too Much to Protect. He also had his own Brend the Fanatic out, and I didn't want to get decimated. So, thinking I was so clever, I actually killed his Brend, allowing him to steal 3 of my amber, and so hopefully helping me to avoid a huge TmtP play. Well, he then goes into Logos, plays Binate Rupture, increasing my amber to 14, then he plays a Helper Bot that allows him to play Too Much to Protect to steal 8 amber, lol. He plays some other stuff that gets his amber to more than 20 I think, but I'm still standing there dumbfounded. It was an amazing play. I forged my first key and my mind snaps back. I now have 3 turns to fix this or he is going to win. I already played my Brend the Fanatic, but I haven't played my Doorstep to Heaven yet. I know that is my only chance. Boy, that would have been amazing to play DtH right after he did his play, lol. He might have quit right there, lol. But alas, I did not. I began dumping whatever house had the majority of cards and tried to get to my DtH. I think I still managed to generate a decent amount of amber, as well as control the board with my Untamed, but I knew it would be for naught without DtH. He gained his first 2 keys easily before I finally hit it when I was almost out of cards. I breathed a sigh of relief. I believe I forged my 2nd key around this time. Now, I just had to figure out how to get my 3rd key.
In the final round there were 3 5-0s, and I got matched up with Alex Carroll from Archons of Atlanta, while I believe Nathan Starwalt got paired down. We were on stream, so you can watch the game here, but of course I would not personally recommend it, lol. Ugh, I never do well on stream. But anyway, at least the match didn't decide on if I would make day 2 or not. I mulliganed into a bad hand with a bad house split, and spent the first couple of turns catching up. Meanwhile, Alex did his thing and slowly gained amber. I think he got 7 amber before playing Martian Generosity, which gained him 14 cards. Yeesh. You can watch the stream, but I was in a lot of trouble. I actually managed to get to 9 amber with 1 key already. My opponent had a huge board, and he had just shuffled Martian Generosity back into his deck. I was afraid of amber control, and I was afraid of him taking me off a key or just outracing me. He had enough amber to forge his second. I had Nightforge in my hand. I decided to play it to forge my second key, and I was hoping for a miracle to get me to 6 amber before my opponent could reap out. I forged my second key and he ended up just easily racing me for the win. I did have some creatures on the board. If I had just played Nightforge and not forged, he would have forged his second and then gained some amber. If he did not threaten to forge a key then, I would have forged my second key and had at least 4 amber. If he did not kill my creatures, or even if he did, I might have been able to gain 2 amber to threaten my 3rd, and it's possible he would not have the answers to take me off. In retrospect me forging a key was definitely the wrong call, as it almost guaranteed me the loss. If I had just sat there and logically thought the game out I should have seen the conclusion. But alas, now I know better.
My friend's opponent was playing a Heart of the Forest deck (booo). My friend forged 2 keys before HotF was played. My friend had no artifact control, but he did have a dominant board with his opponent having no way to remove it, and my friend having lots of amber control in his deck. He felt confident that he could stall his opponent until time (and the time clock was visible). His opponent accused my friend of slow playing, and said that since he played HotF, my friend had no win condition since he had no artifact control, and therefore he automatically wins. He said it is illegal to play to time and that is not a win condition. Time eventually ran out and my friend won easily on tie breakers. The other guy complained for a while. We eventually just gave them the win because it was just a side event and we were hungry. But afterwards we thought about it more and were a little agitated. The next day we would go ask a judge how they would have ruled it and they said they would have ruled in our favor. The slow-playing would simply be timed to 1 minute turns, which my friend was perfectly fine and claimed he didn't even go that long. The judge said that time is definitely a win condition. Not only that, but the regular win condition of the game was still in effect, since the opponent could always accidentally generate too much amber and just get to 2 keys, allowing my friend to win (something the opponent said would never happen because he was too good, lol). So anyway, we probably should have won the match. The only reason I care more is because I hate Heart of the Forest. It is an awful card that never should have been printed. It leads to an awful game experience and stupid situations like this. What was my friend supposed to do? He had 2 keys, could generate an infinite amount of amber, and could stall his opponent until time. He had no other choice, his opponent forced him to do that. All because of a stupid card. Hopefully Worlds Collide and all the Dis purging just eliminates those dumb decks from competitive play.
So after my first round bye I find out that I am playing Asher Knopp, who I had actually played in the last round of the team event. He was a very nice player and we had an exciting game, especially since we had almost identical Archon decks. It was an interesting mirror match that I eventually won. Luckily, neither of us talked about the sealed event nor even realized who we were playing. So this was the top 8 match for day 2. I started out going really fast right away, and never really looked back. I dominated the board and kept him off of his keys for several turns. I must have taken him off a key 5 times I think? Everything really worked out for me. I got a huge board out and my opponent just couldn't do very much against me. He stalled me using the same Charette like 4 times in a row by using Exhume and Glimmer, but I was never too concerned about it. An Angwish came out but Life for a Life answered that. I eventually won 3 keys to none. I felt bad, as I did get some very good draws, and Asher had several key cards that were at the bottom of his deck, but I suppose a win's a win. He was very nice and gracious and I wish him well on future events.
I then moved on to the top 4 match...and saw that I had to face Alex Carroll again, lol. Oh bother. It was a best of 3 match, and not even adaptive. We were not on stream thank heavens. The games we had did not feel close. I think I lost 3-2 and 3-1 in keys, but they felt worse. He just waited out until he got Martian Generosity, and then dominated after that. He had enough creature control and a huge board presence to slow my deck down, and Bouncing Deathquark was huge in doing that. I managed to pull off some sweet Curiosity turns by one-sidedly sweeping his board, which felt cool, but I didn't really think I stood a chance. It was a very bad matchup. In retrospect, it is possible I could have won a game or two if Bouncing Deathquark and Martian Generosity were at the bottom of his deck, and if I started off strong with a large board and controlled it from there, but I think it is a long shot. He also had Redacted, which got him his first win I believe. And besides, I got 3 chances at doing this and failed every time, lol. Oh well. I lost in the top 4. Alex would go on to play a sort of mirror match in the finals against the eventual winner Nathan Starwalt from Tabletop Royale, who also had a Martian Generosity deck. I have not watched the stream yet but I heard it was very exciting and Nathan won 2-1.
So I ended up getting another top 4 finish, gaining another 255 shards, and catapulting me from #39 on the leaderboard, to #20. Hopefully that should keep me in a good position, because I'm not sure how many more Vault Tours I will make before the season is over. I think my deck overperformed. Looking at it now in the new SAS, it is rated at a 63, which is very average. I think it had just enough of everything that I needed to succeed. With a lot of luck in the games, and definitely some humble experience and skill, I was able to do well. I hope that continues, but who knows. This next set looks daunting. It looks awesome and I can't wait, but it looks difficult. I have not had a jump start to it like others have, so I'm not putting my expectations high for the new sealed play. I also feel like I finally was getting a handle on AoA, and now it is rotating out of sealed events, so that makes me sad. I shall have fond memories of sealed play with AoA, and I hope WC holds up to the high bar in my opinion.
The Richmond, VA Vault Tour was a really fun event, and the people at Yeti Gaming did a wonderful job. They were energetic, fun, joking around, and yet serious enough in their craft and pulled off a very smooth event with no issues that I'm aware of. It was a great experience and I highly recommend anyone in playing in a Vault Tour. Also, I know there were several people there whose this was their first Vault Tour, and I know at least one first-timer made it to day 2. So be inspired, anyone can do well! Thanks to all the competitors at the Vault Tour, it was so nice meeting you, and many of you meeting in person for the first time. I feel like my connections and friends in this game grow exponentially at each VT. I apologize if I forgot anything. Thanks for being such an awesome community, thanks for reading this far, and as always, happy gaming!
