So I thought I might do another one of these.
Yesterday, I played my Johktari against Bolverk's Paladin. My book tries to get superior econ with Lair, Shard, harmonize flower and Enchanter's Ring and then attempts to counter whatever the opponent has been doing. It has two Wolverines, two Direwolves, four rats, two Thunderift Falcons and one Owl.
My opening is rather simple: Corner Lair (C4) with shard, then Harmonize Lair and a flower. T3 has 7 mana on lair, 10 mana on mage. In this match, I got a Wolverine out of the Lair and used Enchanter's ring and Hawkeye onto myself.
Bolverk started with forge(B1), Hand of Bim Shallah(A1), Malakai's Basilica(A2) and a Ballista(B3) in range to attack the lair. His forge started with Champion's Gloves into the Light +1 ring. He quickly advanced into Ballista zone and guarded there in T3. I myself went to A4 so that I could threaten Ballista or Malakai's if I used bow, while maybe diverting attention from the lair without leaving it unprotected.
T4 he made a mistake, as he admitted after the game. He summoned Ehren, forgetting that this would void his guard. He also used HoB to place armor onto his mage and not to begin healing Ehren. I had prepared Joined Strength and reclamation. His Ballista dealt 5 damage to lair. I then enchanted the Wolverine and sprinted into the ballista zone to attack Ehren with a wounded prey marker, bringing him to 9 damage. Wolverine also doublemoved into the zone. Bolverk dropped his second action, which I guess was supposed to be some healing for the doomed Ehren.
Turn 4 he placed the challenge marker onto my wolverine, as well as the Malakai's Basilica marker. I summoned a Direwolf from the lair, he equipped himself with the lightsaber. My Mage killed Ehren with a spray of barbs and then guarded for the Wolverine. The Pally used a dazzle to deal 1 damage to the wolverine which I transferred with joined strength but still gave him a rage marker. The wolverine now attacked with 3 dice and inflicted a bleed. The Pally then dropped pillar and rolled 4 normal and 4 crit damage, dealing 5 do the wolverine.
Upkeep Pillar dealt one more damage to the wolverine. I summoned another Direwolf, he got breastplate out. A Luminous blast brought the wolverine to 10 dmg and a second rage marker. The Ballista brought my Lair to 10 damage. A Corrosive orchid robbed the Paladin of his gloves, the sword crumbled away. He moved out of the zone to kill the lair with a fire attackspell, my wolverine moved towards his temples. The Pally was now no longer in range of his forge.
The game, at this point, had beed decided. His last ballista shot went into the Wolverine, bringing it to 12 dmg. I kept disarming him and threw him to my wolves. A Luminous blast hit me for 10 damage and he brought me to 22 damage in total. In the last turn, I prepared a heal for 9 mana and a sprayed barbs to see what he would do with his QC. He used a teleport to get out of a stranglevine and out of reach away from two Direwolves, then I killed him with the barbs.
It had been a good match.
My take on the match:
It's a fairly basic strategy to generate better economy and then defend against any threat your opponent tries to inflict upon you, while generating more and more threat from said econ. The match simply came down to how Bolverk would deal with it. His book being new, he tried to combine some buildup with the temples, some action generation through forge and some threat with the ballista. The mistake with Ehren cost him dearly, and he just didn't find a way to recover.
Things of note:
Spray of barbs is dumb. Nature never had an attackspell and I'm not yet convinced that this needed to change. Such a good attack.
Ballista sucks. Yeah ok, not really. Ballista doesn't really threaten me though, if it has to kill the lair on its own. That's four turns where I basically don't need to fear it or handle it in any way, because a 5 dmg or a 11 dmg lair still do their job just as well as a full hp one.
Removal can be a dick. Using Champion's gauntlets just to protect that sword kinda tells me you don't have too many of those. Meanwhile I'm bringing four dissolves, two crumbles and three corrosive orchids.
He was somewhat unlucky with attacks onto the wolverine, but even if it had died to that last attack, the only damage it dealt afterwards was to kill the basilica and then position itself threateningly. Every action used onto it was a small victory for me. I actually think he had a real chance to win, even after Ehrens death, if he attacked my mage with melee and then used two pillar attacks onto me instead of the big badger.
Then again, hindsight ist 20/20 and the whole game would have had different priorities from then on.
GG
WP (except for the Ehren turn
)
