So this is a report from the first event with Block 3 at Gnome Games. I am not totally sure why I am writing this, mostly for funsies and to get my thoughts on Block 3 out there since that's all I have been playing for the last two months. So here goes...
Saturday morning, 11:30AM...I finally get up after a late night of listening to Podhammer, and hanging out with my brother Lee. We both decide to go ahead and get some food, and start planning for the weekly event at Gnome. Lee has this super jank Air Hanzo deck with none of the awesome power cards, ie no Feline Spikes, Chester's, or the best card in the format, Olcadan's(more on this later
) I on the other hand after playing a few games with Kyoshiro decide to piece together my All Terry deck from when I first started playing block 3. With our decks in tow we head out to the Gnomer to wage war. We get there chill with Jeff our scout, and shoot the breeze for a bit. Jeff and I play one game, Order Seong Mi-na vs All Terry...and we don't get to finish because the tournament is about to start.
Round One...Steve Bird/Air Adon
Steve is one of the usuals who plays with us, I have not seen his Air Adon before so I know I need to play tight and not underestimate him. Game one I manage to get a pretty good set up and whittle down his 19 vitality with some hot Fight or Flight action. Game two goes pretty long as well with me having a pretty dominate board position, and Steve has just a ton of momentum. I Fight or Flight a Shin Shoryuken right into his dome, but due to me checking poorly to pass the seven difficulty(something I would do ALL day) I cannot get the kill this turn. His next turn...REALLY fast Jaguar Thousand right in my teeth...GAME THREE! I manage to get some sort of freak god draw and my first turn is BRT BRT Fight or Flight, Saikyo Ryu...two turns later, Adon is down for the count.
1-0
Round Two...Jeff Harpold/Order Seong Mi-na
Jeff is the local scout, and since our games take forever and create such a **** headache he decides to give me the game. I am pretty pumped as I was sure that I could handle every other deck at the event. It was super nice of Jeff to jus scoop, but being the scout he usually scoops to people with a winning record so as not to screw anyone out of a top spot. He is the coolest scout I have met, and a top notch player and friend, in short, Jeff +DoubleD=<3.
2-0
Round Three...Josh "Arch Nemesis" Janz/ Water Juni
Josh is a great guy, but I HATE playing him, other then a patch event and the odd tournament, every time I play Josh when its crunch time I get man handled. It sucks...but today I was feeling lucky. We shuffle up and get to game one, he goes first drops some foundations, passes. I play out a Olcadan's, BRT, and a Fight or Flight and pass turn, his next turn he goes Shadow Blade, Shadow Blade, Shadow Blade. My turn two I am at 10 with no board...I scoop and slam my fist into the table in frustration. This must have conjured up some sort of spirit to give me awesome draws the next two games. Both games go pretty well for me, and really the man of the match is Olcadan's Mentoring, I am able to just shut down his board and have my way with his deck, he has no answer for it, and even if he did my board was pretty sick. Olcadan's won me this match no play skill on my part, it was sad in a way because I all I had to do was draw really well ie first turn Olcadan's both games and that was it.
3-0
Round Four...Garrison Bunell/Order Huitzil
Unlike Josh for some reason I just have Garrison's number all the time, other then patch events I am undefeated against him in tournament play, and that streak is not stopping today! Order is a terrible match up for me with all their uber commit tech, and pretty good attack line up. However I had a slight advantage in being able to draw a ton more cards, and be able to push damage through a lot easier. This proves to be the key in the match up, I have plenty of time to set up and chip away at his health, you heard me, I played attacks on more then one turn! I KNOW RIGHT!! Finally the giant Aztec robot went down. It was tough, but again Olcadan's was huge. Again my ability to push through huge amounts of damage with Fight or Flighted Narutos, and Reppas was pretty brutal.
4-0
Josh and I end up splitting in the finals as I need to boogie, and I finally get my Street Fighter playmat...booya!
Random Musings:
All is INSANE...its got so many awesome cards that it just as such an advantage over most symbols, Order I think slightly edges it out with its commit effects, but All can push damage through like no one's business.
Block Three is hard. Nothing about today was easy, you can get killed at any time in this format, and I am starting to see 6 hs 25+vit characters be more and more appealing as you never know when you are taking double digit damage on a turn. This does have a lot to do with the fact that its incredibly easy to drop someone in one turn, and its a **** good strategy. However I found that playing attacks over multiple turns caused my opponents to play more conservative if they not have a kill in hand as going all out would just leave them more open to my attacks. I am not sure if this is good or bad.
Olcadan's is the best card in the format. No one will sway from this statement. I am not sure if its over the top good, or that just right super powerful good. It wins games, period. Its a lot better in control decks then aggro decks, but in a hybrid like mine its solid gold, if you want to go mono symbol you need it! It really has no hard answers, and really helps slow the game down. It can be a good thing making sure aggro does not get too out of hand, and it does give aggro actually answers to control. So I guess what I am saying is that you need to deal with it for now.
Block three is fun! Period, its a lot of fun. I almost lost to a JUNI WATER REVERSAL DECK. Its a blast and can only get better.
I am out for now, keep fighting.
Derrick