What's The Play - Volume 1 - Play 1

Personofsecrets · November 5

Context: The opponent is a regular player who often abuses early game power/prestige generating tempo in order to make for relatively quick and relatively non-interactive games.

During their first turn, because the designers have made the morph system the way that it is, the opponent was gifted a Vestements of the Druid King. They also tried to control the tavern by use of the Druid King Patron. During their second turn, they continued gaining advantages by purchase of a Snakeskin Freebooter, a good card for causing more inevitibility. For their third turn, they chose to use an Augur's Council for some quick power generation (they also had mainland inquiries that turn), made a Writ of Coin, and setup a turn where they will have 6 gold. Part of their 6 gold turn will inolve the Freebooter and Vestements. Lastly, for their fourth turn, they decided to combine Vestements with Sage Council for some quick power generation. They also purchased a Scrying Globe which is good for their position.

For my first turn, I reactively purchased Dreaming Cave. This was a reactive play and had to be done given the opponents Vestements and high liklihood of generating 6 gold on their third turn. On my second turn, I purchased Firesong Haruspex. This isn't the worst card, but this was another reactive play since the opponent can't be allowed to build an Agent stack so earlier and it's also not a bad idea to deny them further Druid King cards since they often have synergy with eachother and can have some extreme outcomes including a Agent stack with Forest Wraith or the creation of a Chimera. On my third turn, I was fortunate to be able to use Whispers of the Grove and trigger it's combo 3 on the same turn. A Psijic Apprentice was available to buy in the tavern and that would be a game ender if the opponent purchased it, so I removed it from the game. Nothing interesting was revealed, but a Sea Raider's Glory was present and also purchased as to prevent the opponents eminent Snakeskin Freebooter from creating a free Summerset Sacking via it's combo two and also to prevent some extreme combos that could happen if another Sorcerer King Contract were to be revealed. A Time Mastery entered the Tavern and also had to be purchased as a preventative measure against the opponents Vestements. Time Mastery can be somewhat awkward, but at least has some synergy withe Dreaming Cave.

What you see below in picture 1 is the visualization of the opponens cards - note that Snakeskin Freebooter is in play. Picture 2 shows my cards - note the Dreaming Cave in hand. Picture 3 shows my available options. The opponent will mostly likely have a hand that generates 6 gold on their next turn and can achieve combo 2 with their Snakeskin Freebooter. They most likely won't draw Vestements.

Review picture 3 and tell me what is the play.

Picture 1

Picture 2

Picture 3

sayswhoto · November 5

First I want to say, anyone that's scratched the surface of the top of the NA PC ladder will know who this person is. I actually think he's quite a skilled player and never had any problems with him. Although. I know people consider Orgnum toxic. And dare I say, I actually learned the Orgnum playstyle by playing against this person.

From looking at what's available in the tavern, it looks like you're currently being forced to commit to a Psijic/Druid strategy that would have a future win condition that could include the following:

Fenwitch/Ritecaller + cycle into massive amounts of gold.
Pick up your own Vestments and cycle into lot of power.
"Infinite" cycle your deck with Psijic, plus draws with Dreaming Cove.

Second strategy consideration is that it seems you need to accelerate your deck since your opponent has the Freebooter which gives him potential for larger amount of cards and eventual Orgnum spam. And he already picked up Vestments so he's just a few Psijic cards away from runaway power generation.

With those considerations, I would say the turn would be:

Black Sacrament to eliminate the Freebooter.
Play Dreaming Cove and the rest of the cards. Also gain 2 power.
You are guaranteed at least three gold. Buy the second Time Mastery.
Use the Druid patron power to clear any unwanted cards. I would use the patron power anyway to move yourself away from a patron loss and set yourself up for easier Chimeras.

Note: I couldn't tell if there was a pattern of Druid->Psijic->Druid showing up from your text description. That would also be something to consider if the RNG seeding is acting odd again. I feel like this could also be a trick question with something like "lost ToT on the first few turns again due to imbalanced cards!".

Edit: I can't count cards so needed to do some revisions.

Personofsecrets · November 5

sayswhoto wrote: »

Fenwitch/Ritecaller + cycle into massive amounts of gold.

Pick up your own Vestments and cycle into lot of power.

"Infinite" cycle your deck with Psijic, plus draws with Dreaming Cove.

Black Sacrament to eliminate the Freebooter.

Play Dreaming Cove and the rest of the cards. Also gain 2 power.

You are guaranteed at least three gold. Buy the second Time Mastery.

Use the Druid patron power to clear any unwanted cards. I would use the patron power anyway to move yourself away from a patron loss and set yourself up for easier Chimeras.

You are right on the cusp of the play that I made. Take a look at your two lists. What plan in list 1 is possible if you change your play ordering in list 2?

sayswhoto · November 6

I would say then:

Draw first with Dreaming Cove.
Depending on what you get it will be between 5-6 gold.
Clear the Lessons of Ayem and Time Mastery with Druid patron power. 2 power from combo on Dreaming Cove.
There's a chance for a Vestment, Dreaming Cove, Ritecaller/Fenwitch, or any other good card to appear.
If any remaining gold, buy the Black Sacrament and eliminate the Freebooter.

Personofsecrets · November 6

sayswhoto wrote: »

I would say then:
Draw first with Dreaming Cove.

Depending on what you get it will be between 5-6 gold.

Clear the Lessons of Ayem and Time Mastery with Druid patron power. 2 power from combo on Dreaming Cove.

There's a chance for a Vestment, Dreaming Cove, Ritecaller/Fenwitch, or any other good card to appear.

If any remaining gold, buy the Black Sacrament and eliminate the Freebooter.

Sounds good. A piece of context missing is that there is no chance to draw the Time Mastery already purchased since it's in the cooldown pile.

I settled on purchasing the Time Mastery in play as my opening move. The reason for doing so is to try to have maybe one more reasonable turn if I miss on the current turn. If I don't by the Time Mastery first, then there is a high liklihood that my next hand will have just one Time Mastery and I'll miss combo 2, thus I'll be limited to 4 gold and that turn and won't be able to do much.

Hypothetically speaking, if I don't do that, then there are chances of buying Cephora's / Psijic's Insight should they show up after using the Druid King Patron. Maybe, because those cards are so good, having a chance at those would have been worth thinking about. At least though, by using the Druid King Patron after purchasing Time Mastery, I could send a revealed power card such as the Insights away.

After purchasing Time Mastery, another Auger's Council was revealed. I used the Druid King Patron at that point to remove the Lessons of Ayem and the Augur away (Lessons can be good with Vestments). The second Vestments was revealed (face when not Runes of the Draoife) and I would have gone on to have a nasty crushing game if it wasn't for a couple of things...

The opponent didled around on their next turn and revealed a Psijic Relic Master. I would have been in the free and clear to buy this card, but I only drew 4 gold. A single card was left on top of my deck and it was one of the Time Mastery.

That isn't the worst thing to happen in the world since I could now use the one Time Mastery in hand to try and stack my Time Mastery on top of the deck with my Dreaming Cave and Vestments. Indeed, I was able to stack them together for the next turn and was quite lucky.

After that, fortune took a turn for the worse as my next Vestments opportunity was a complete miss! The opponent also got quite fortunate with a couple of turns. That said, there were a couple of bad turns for both of us at the end of the game and I won 41 to 40.

I'll post the video for the game and have some more to say about it tomorrow. I'm sure that most could already guess the gist of things though; a single card dominated the game, the clown fiesta that is the morph system, the game being extremly close despite a number of inaccuracies by the opponent, and the 1st / 2nd player balance could all be spoken about.

sayswhoto · November 7

Makes sense and agree that trying to get a Vestments is probably one of the few options left.

I would also add that there were a lot of Psijic and Druid cards showing up really early. Might just be chance, but knowing that there are possible RNG issues with ToT, I would almost think it somehow got biased. 2 vestments, 2 Relic Masters, 2 Psijic contracts, and 2 Time Masteries.