18/05/2023 Daimonji (CC) 3-0

 

Third week of May, third armoury of May, third time at Daimonji, second time getting 3-0~~

This week, I went with <Uzuri, Switchblade> to try out the new mid-range version built by Taotao Chu, which plays very different compared to the red heavy version I played in April. Game plan changed quite a bit in that we are no longer trying to kill fast with damage and <Uzuri, Switchblade> attack reaction, but instead, we are trying to gain incremental advantage through efficient blocks and threatening on-hits and grind opponent out. The combination of “Contract” cards and “Stealth” cards makes it hard to block for our opponent while gaining us chip damage as well as recursive blocking potential with <Mask of Perdition> and <Blacktek Whisperers>.

My list is 1 card different compared to Chu’s because I couldn’t find a third copy of <Nourishing Emptiness>, so instead I played 2 red <Death Touch>. I fully understand Chu’s reasoning for having 3 <Nourishing Emptiness> and I agree with him that 3 copies makes it a lot easier to draw it in the starting hand and having the potential of getting a 5 card hand, but switching it for a red <Death Touch> has its merit in that we can threaten 1 card for 6 with <Fyendal’s Spring Tunic> charged up.

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Round 1 Riptide, Lurker of the Deep

Equipment used: <Mask of Perdition>, <Fyendal’s Spring Tunic>, <Flick Knives>, <Blacktek Whisperers>

Weapon used: <Spider’s Bite>, <Nerve Scalpel>

Knowing opponent does not have a weapon to attack with, I decided to go the full fatigue route and boarded in every card from my sideboard, noticeably the 3 <Remembrance>, and this strategy proved to be correct.

A natural advantage <Uzuri, Switchblade> has over <Riptide, Lurker of the Deep> is that we seldomly trigger their traps so most of their damage would be coming from their arrows which we can easily block out because they don’t have the <Azalea, Ace in the Hole> ability to grant “Dominate”. We don’t really need to worry about decking out because they have limited number of arrows and attack actions even with the help of <Quiver of Abyssal Depths>.

Main theme that set the tone of the game was me blocking his arrows efficiently and on the swing back threaten either <Silver> generation or some form of disruption like <Leave no Witness>, <Surgical Extraction> or <Command and Conquer>. Most of the time, playing out attack actions with on-hit is good enough of a disruption, we don’t really rely on <Uzuri, Switchblade>’s ability too much because, one, we do not run too many cards with “Stealth” and two, swinging dagger followed by an attack action is most of the time better than switching with a “Stealth” card because <Riptide, Lurker of the Deep> can most often block with traps.

So the game ended with me fatiguing my opponent out.

One fun thing that happened was I <Command and Conquer>-ed my opponent 6 times in total, lol :P

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Round 2 Katsu, the Wanderer

Equipment used: <Mask of Perdition>, <Fyendal’s Spring Tunic>, <Flick Knives>, <Blacktek Whisperers>

Weapon used: <Spider’s Bite>, <Nerve Scalpel>

I boarded in my <Inertia Trap> and 3 copies of <Oasis Respite>.

Game started with opponent going first and chipping 1 damage in T0 despite me getting 1 life from <Oasis Respite>. On the swing back opponent blocked the swing from my <Nerve Scalpel> and took the 1 damage from my <Spider’s Bite> and then proceed to block out my attack action with on hit.

The game continued like this where we are both chipping damage with our weapons but of course <Katsu, the Wanderer> was able to present more damage because his weapons are much more efficient than mine, but we were at parity because I was more willing to block.

The first and only big turn of my opponent had came when he decided to take the dagger hit and <Annihilate the Armed> from me banishing 2 cards off the top of his deck with my <Mask of Perdition> ability. He returned with double <Art of War> while pitching a third <Art of War> and presenting upwards of 20 damage so I had to sacrifice my <Flick Knives> to prevent his <Mask of Momentum> draw and still taking 12ish damage. But it was also at that point I know I could fatigue him because most of the <Bonds of Ancestry> were used and he used all 3 of his <Sink Below> as well as the two <Art of War> mentioned above, so I knew he had no more big turns coming any time soon.

I manage to pivot by taking a non-threatening <Enlightened Strike> for 7 and swung back with <Isolate> into <Shake Down> banishing a red <Descendant Gustwave>, which effectively stopped his whole turn other than swing his <Harmonized Kodachi> twice, from there on, I was “Kodachi Locking” him because all my 0 for 4 were having on hit that he could not take or either my <Mask of Perdition> or <Blacktek Whisperer> would come back to block once more, the game ended with me having 5 life and opponent run out of cards.

In my opinion, the game plan against <Katsu, the Wanderer> should be to keep parity with him and watch out for the number of <Bonds of Ancestry> that he used because that is the key card allowing them to really go off. “Defence Reaction” like <Sink Below> and <Fate Foreseen> is really good in stopping <Bonds of Ancestry> combined with <Oasis Respite> we have a decent chance of stopping most of their <Bonds of Ancestry> turns.

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One thing I learnt was, <Amnesia> erases names from cards, but when a card is referring to itself in the textbook, the text would still be valid. At first, I thought hitting opponent with <Amnesia> would cause his <Harmonized Kodachi> to lose “Go Again”, but it’s always good to learn more about the game.

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Round 3 Bravo, Showstopper

Equipment used: <Mask of Perdition>, <Fyendal’s Spring Tunic>, <Flick Knives>, <Blacktek Whisperers>

Weapon used: <Spider’s Bite>, <Nerve Scalpel>

I haven’t actually played against <Bravo, Showstopper> with this mid range version of <Uzuri, Switchblade> but should I be able to withstand his big dominated hits like <Crippling Crush>, <Spinal Crush> and <Tear Asunder>, I can drag him into the late game where my attack actions are getting back into my deck with <Remembrance> while his deck dilutes down to a lot of blue cards, which I can pull out by just doing dagger swings.

So I boarded in everything except 1 <Remembrance> because I really do not want to see 2 of those at the same time in my hand since I may just die there and then.

I approached the game in such a way that I make sure I have a “Defence Reaction” or <Oasis Respite> in my arsenal to hedge against his big “Dominated” attacks and just chip in damage with my daggers which most likely he is not blocking.

I was able to block most of his big attacks in the early game and even defended his <Spinal Crush> into red <Pummel> with a 3 card block plus <Sink Below> from arsenal, and another big block was my arsenal-ed <Unmovable> against his <Tear Asunder> with <Anothos>. But opponent still got me with a “Dominated” <Crippling Crush> which took 11 life off of me along with <Plague Hive> from the random discard, reducing my late game threat by a hell lot.

In the mid game, we traded swings where I would block his <Anothos> with 1 or 2 cards and swing back with both daggers and a 0 for 4 or 1 for 5 with on hit. Opponent respected my <Plunder the Poor> a little too much and gave me some advantage there.

The pivotal turn came when I had to block with 2 cards and had <Leave no Witness>, red <Shred> as well as <Spreading Plague> in hand and my <Fyendal’s Spring Tunic> was ready. So I lead with <Leave no Witness> to which opponent blocked with 1 card and his <Ironrot Leggings>, I played <Shred> targeting his card from hand and he reacted with blue <Unmovable>, now that there are 3 cards defending, I played <Spreading Plague> with my <Fyendal’s Spring Tunic> resource and gave opponent 3 “Bloodrot Pox” tokens which slowed his game down to a stop.

I checked my opponent’s graveyard to make sure he was out of <Crippling Crush>, <Spinal Crush> and <Tear Asunder> and once that’s confirmed, I went into “Kodachi Lock” mode, by presenting 2 dagger swings and one attack which will force 3 cards from opponent. A timely <Codex of Frailty> which I pitched early helped me clear opponent’s hand and stranding a <Command and Conquer> in his arsenal because at that point, there’s no point in getting back any attacks costing more than 3.

On the theoretical last turn, I had 2 blue, <Isolate> and <Death Touch> in hand, but I was too tunnel visioned into “Kodachi Locking” and neglected the fact that I had lethal by simply playing <Isolate> into <Death Touch> (got some mocking from spectating players, to which I was rather ashamed about because with the warrior background, I should be familiar with attach reactions like this. Well, being stupid at times is unavoidable even when you are very familiar with your deck :P), but eventually I was able to fully fatigue opponent with daggers.

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<Uzuri, Switchblade> feels like the first meta deck I played in a long while since CRU days. Having a game plan against most decks in the meta definitely feels good. I’ll continue with <Uzuri, Switchblade> for the next couple of weeks before the “Calling Singapore” to see if I should really bring her to answer the call.

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Due to my domestic boss not granting anymore weekend off pass until the “Calling Singapore”, I’ll not be attending anymore RTNs this season. Hopefully I can get my hands on CF <Uzuri, Switchblade> and CF <Jubeel, Spellbane> by the end of RTN season. Also, I hope I can maintain or improve my 90 days EXP standing in Singapore so that I get qualified into the “Nationals 2023”

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One last, wish all my friends playing in the RTN games the best of lucks and high roll every match up~~~