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It's been a little over a month and a set release since
Worlds, but UFS has already changed quite a bit. The South Arena Showdown was
quite a pleasant taste of things to come in the future, and of what to expect
in current metagames up until the rotation. Now that it's over, I feel quite
satisfied with the trip and the event as a whole. I managed to pilot Victor 3
to a top finish both days, thanks to a solid month of practice and training.
Forgive me if the article is a bit rough, I somehow managed
to loose the write-up I made in the hotel and had to write the whole thing over
from memory.
Victor 3
I primarily wanted to play Death in the SAS because I felt
it was the best counter for Evil, as it has more control pieces available to it.
I desperately wanted a 7 handsize Death character, but when I started playing
Victor, it was primarily as a Mill deck. I wasn't even going to try to kill
people through attacks, because I didn't feel like Death's attack lineup was
strong enough. When set 10 came out, however, Defender gave me the means I
needed to kill an opponent in a single turn when I had out-controlled my
opponent, and so I decided to give a Tri-symbol deck a shot.
Victor 3 by Ceejaybee
4 Moonsault Slayer
4 Widow Maker
8 Attacks
4 Lord of the Makai
4 Inhuman Perception
4 Pieces of Eight
4 Oral Dead
4 Maternal Instincts
3 Control the Present
3 Military Rank
3 Cursed Blood
2 Instant Success
31 Foundations
3 Tag Along
3 Revitalize
3 Broken Leg
9 Actions
4 Reanimated
4 Defender
4 Addes Syndicate
3 Olcadan's Mentoring
15 Assets
Sideboard
4 Bringing the Master to His Knees
4 The Red Lotus of the Sun
8 Cards Sideboard
The deck is almost 100% about Reanimated. The Victor only
asset is the only thing that kept me from looking for a character with a larger
handsize. The reason is this: a single Reanimated effectively doubles the
potency of my staging area. From a control standpoint, the advantage is huge.
Take an interaction with Pieces of Eight for example:
My opponent enhances an attack with Defender, I respond with
Pieces of Eight to negate it. During my enhance window, I pick up the committed
Pieces of Eight with Reanimated, and drop the same Pieces into my staging area
ready. I do this for every attack, ever.
The advantage is enormous. On offense, I can draw into
Defender or Lord of the Makai, play an attack, and use Reanimated to drop it
into my staging area and combo out for the win.
I remember there was a play where I only had one Widow
Maker, so I played out a Maternal Instincts and a Military Rank to activate a
Military Rank in my staging area and grab a second Widow Maker. I throw the
first Widow Maker out, enhanced with Defender, then with Reanimated to pick up
Defender and drop it back down, then Defender again. The Widow hit, and I
cleared my card pool and combo'd out. Thanks to Reanimated I don't need to run
Realm of the Makai to keep my checks consistent, because Reanimated keeps my
staging area ready. It's that awesome.
Victor himself is no slouch, however, and his enhance can
come in pretty handy. I was getting puzzled expressions all weekend as I played
out Broken Leg asset side into my card pool and passed the turn. I can keep my
hand clutter-free, using Victor's enhance to pick up Broken Leg exactly when I
need it. I can even be sneaky and drop an Olcadan's Mentoring in its place with
Reanimated if the situation requires. The deck was a total blast to play.
I doubled up on all the negation, opting to go with general
control of E's, F's, and R's over more specific forms of control like Martial
Arts Champion and Roam the World. At first I felt pretty naked, but the deck
was definitely very streamlined and ran much better than when it had close to
75 cards in it. I swear, I don't know how those Cape Coral guys do it. 65 borders on
unplayable for me. Anyways, I ended up winning just about every Addes war
thanks to Inhuman Perception and Reanimated helping me reset my Addes with
every attack. The deck's major weaknesses are Order matchups in general as well
as Infiltrating, or anything that can destroy my assets. Fortunately, my
sideboard goes a long way to cover those weaknesses, and I was able to do quite
well.
Day 1: Singles
We show up on time, to find a quiet group of six in the
building to greet us. I've never seen this group before so they definitely were
not part of the Cape Coral
crew, which as usual, is fashionably late. So I sit down and register my deck
as more and more people steadily trickle in, most of them new faces. I have to
give a nod out to Boogerman from the forums, as he was definitely one of the
coolest guys I met all weekend and the only guy I played twice. He traveled all
the way out from Georgia
to some play some UFS with us Floridians. Hopefully we'll meet up again.
Pretztrigger was also a very fun guy, as he related to us several humorous
encounters he's had with one of our rules moderators, Tagrineth.
Round 1 vs Evil/Water
Starter Mai
Mai's plan was definitely to stick a Water infinite with
Ibis Minuet and Mai's enhance, but I manage to stick Reanimated + Pieces of
Eight both games and handily negate every Mai enhance ever played. Looping
Broken Leg keeps me at full health, and I manage to get past round 1 very
handily with Moonsault Slayer + Defender.
2-0
Round 2 vs Void Promo
Ukyo (Boogerman)
We exchange a few words about our playgroups and our
hometowns before we start playing. I'm not very comfortable handling turn two
killers like Ukyo, as I prefer the time to set up. I mulliganed into an early
Pieces game 1, but I don't see Reanimated for a couple more turns, which allows
my opponent to get very close to killing me with Genkotsu Stamp, but a
Revitalize and Reanimated's eventual reappearance help me spring back with a
vengeance. Games 2 and 3 I lay down Reanimated and Pieces early and lock him
out for the rest of the match.
2-0
Round 3 vs Evil/Earth
Jivatma
This deck was actually very fearsome and there should have
been almost no way for me to overcome it. For one, it ran the bane of my
negation-infested deck's existence, The Curse Broken, and also Revenant's
Calling to handle my Defender combo. He even had Grim Strides to deal with my
assets. My opponent deals me a fairly swift loss game 1, thanks to Jivatma
discard with Ways of Punishment and Tsurane Kiri + Absurd Strength. I side in
my Bringing the Masters, which help me keep him in perpetual enhance lock,
thanks to Military Rank until I combo out and kill him, using Reanimated to
reset my Addes every time he tries to Revenant's Calling my assets. He'd never
seen a Defender loop done with a single Moonsault Slayer before, so he asks me
to play it out, and I do until he decides to scoop. The real kicker comes in
game three, when I throw out an early Moonsault Slayer to try and strip a
Tsurane Kiri. I had a Defender on the board, as well as some momentum, but I
was in no position to combo out.
"You probably have it." He says.
"I do. You want me to play it out again?"
"No."
He scoops.
Jedi Mind Trick for the win.
2-1
Round 4 vs Chaos
Promo Talim
I really hate my chances against turn two killers,
especially when Talim is across the table. My opponent this round happened to
be another Team Southtown member, Harold Ellis. There's really not much to say,
I didn't really stand much of a chance game one. For game two, I side into
Bringing the Master in the hopes of keeping him in perpetual enhance lock, but
I never see the necessary second copy and Harold kills me in the window in
between activations.
0-2
Round 5 vs Order
Donovan 3
The loss to Talim was particularly hard on me, because
another Victor player was also lurking around the top tables. With him at 10
points and me at 9, I was sure to get diversified if we both won, which left me
feeling pretty grim about the way things needed to go down. I absolutely had to
win, that was a given, but the other Victor player had to lose or draw.
Fortunately for me, the other Victor ran right into the eventual tournament
champion Vikram Sareem for his last swiss round and was sent home packing in
fairly short order.
As for me, I was staring down at the new Donovan powerhouse
who happened to have a very strong chance to kill me on second turn.
Fortunately, Victor's enhance counters Donovan's enhance pretty handily, and a
single Addes or Inhuman Perception shuts off his Response, so I had everything
I needed in theory. Game 1 turns out to be a complete nightmare, however as he
kills me turn 2 with very little effort. I side in my Bringing the Masters and
they work beautifully to keep him off enhances until I'm ready to win. Game 3,
an early Pieces + Reanimated + Addes keeps him locked up, but I can't find my
Defender anywhere. I manage to Rank one up off a Widow Maker and Reanimate it
onto the board.
"Aw, you have it don't you?"
Not really, but I said, "yes."
He scoops.
The force is strong in me today.
2-1
So I finish up the day pretty strong with a 4-1 finish. It's
enough to land me squarely in 4th seed for the top 8.
Top 8 Round 1 vs
Order Alba
My opponent is fellow Southtown crewmember Alex Costa, which
means I know exactly what I'm getting into: Order tapout control with
Forethought, BRT, Curse Broken and some Arrogance, just to spice things up, by
which I mean snowballs have better chances in hell than I do. Our first game
outlasts everyone else, and our match probably could have gone on for another
two hours, but I scoop because everyone's waiting on us, and I honestly didn't
see myself coming out on top. It didn't really do any good, though, as Alex's
next match was practically an Order mirror, and the match took nearly 3 hours
to complete. After that, the finals was won in relatively short order by Vikram
Sareem and his Evil/Order Athena.
Impressions
A walk around the room revealed that Defender combos were
all over the place. Order decks turned out in force to take advantage of their
new win condition, but the lumbering nature of the decks led to a pretty
substantial number of games being decided by time, and quite a few draws. I
learned quite a few ways to stop Defender combos in mid stride with timely
Broken Legs and Revenant's Calling/ Amy's Assistance but that asset is still
the stone nuts and will remain a daunting threat as the block 3 season rolls
in. Forethought has almost universally been adopted by Order decks, and pairs
up with Experienced Combatant to bring games crashing to a snail's pace. I've
decided that in the future I will time my practice sessions at 40 minutes, just
make sure my games aren't decided on time.
Lynette's Shop might as well be a $4 Addes Syndicate,
because that's mostly what it comes down as. I highly recommend picking up a
set of these, as they can get you out of some pretty nasty situations. If
nothing else, Lynette's is potentially one of the greatest sideboard cards in
the game.
Many people don't run Oral Dead maindeck anymore. The only
plausible excuse I can accept is that those people are running The Red Lotus of
the Sun in the main, which is perfectly acceptable, but OD is a very handy way
to shut off Olcadan's Mentoring. I usually complement it with an Instant
Success or two to shut down Owlface permanently.
Maternal Instincts was not as prevalent as I expected it to
be, in fact, mine was the only deck in the top 8 running any at all. One
activation usually sets me up for a game, and it's a handy out against
discard-oriented decks, but it hasn't really caught on as well as Forethought
has, which is very interesting.
Deck Spotlight: Evil/Order
Athena by Vikram Sareem
I've never featured a deck by Vikram Sareem, so I figured
his championship-winning deck would be a good place to start. I think it's
quite obvious that Vik has remained a step ahead of me in terms of deck tech
and playskill and my prolonged hiatus has done nothing to help me there. This
deck list is actually a very helpful benchmark by which to gauge your prowess
as a deck designer and a player.
Evil/ Order Athena 3
4 Chain Throw
3 Tsurane Kiri
3 Ichi no Tachi
10 Attacks
4 Absurd Strength
3 Infiltrating
3 Tag Along
3 Rejection
13 Actions
4 Addes Syndicate
4 Olcadan's Mentoring
8 Assets
4 Megalomania
4 Manifest Destiny
4 Military Rank
4 Blood Runs True
4 The Red Lotus of the Sun
3 Experienced Combatant
3 Chester's
Backing
3 Pieces of Eight
3 Revenant's Calling
3 Cutting Edge
3 Unrequited Love
3 Evil Plans
41 Foundations
Sideboard
3 Pull of the Tides
1 Tag Along
1 Rejection
1 Kung-Fu Training
8 cards sideboard
Evil and Order just seem like such a natural combination.
They compliment each other so well, and this deck highlights that synergy.
Unfortunately, the deck has the ghastly Cape
Coral mark of 70+ cards maindeck, but it's easy to
forgive that as this deck has the draw power built into the character to
overcome deck stall-outs and irrelevant draws. Every card is top-tier through
and through, but the most brilliant aspect has to be the dual nature of Ichi no
Tachi as static multiple hate, and clean up after a pumped-up Tsurane Kiri.
Ideally Ichi no Tachi should be coming across the table for 8+ damage. The deck
is actually really clean and deceptively simplistic. Never underestimate the
dramatic power of Military Rank + Rejection. It's simple, but powerful. I
believe the term for something like that is "effective," and that's just what
this deck is. No complicated Reanimated combos, no convoluted Order tapouts,
just Tsurane Kiri + BRT for your life total. If things get dicey, Infiltrate.
The sideboard also has a very appreciable elegance, with the ability to
strengthen key control pieces when the situation demands it. Pull of the Tides
seems like a bit of a moot point with Revenant's Calling maindeck, but keep in
mind that pure Order decks running Defender combos can't do anything about it.
Conclusion
I'm debating whether or not I should post a write-up of the
teams event, but the truth is that it was a bit small for my taste, and four
rounds of swiss hardly whetted my appetite for the day. On the plus side, the
event was a total blast and it was great seeing all the people who traveled
from out of state into bowels of Florida
for some friendly competition. I hope you guys all had a lot of fun. From now
on I will turn my attention exclusively on block 3 tech. See you at the Gulf
Coast Championship!
-ceejay
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