For the second pod in a row, we had a group of decks that did not have a deck go undefeated. These match-ups were also lopsided, which seems like a weird result. This can probably be explained by the Paper-Rock-Scissors phenomena: One deck is well suited to beat another, but does not have a good chance at beating a third deck. With the help of a bot designed by SkyJedi, we started comparing the ABCE scores of decks with each other to see if there is a correlation. Our results seem to jive with the rest of the community: a decent metric, but not deterministic. 

Watch Highlight: Keyforge Tournament of Champions Pod 8! from tabletoproyale on www.twitch.tv

Here are our decklists:
Fletcher, Crabdam Rogue
Mirvaperse, the Friar of the Terminal
Armfemur of the Miner’s Stadium
Long Legged “Tyrant” Floyd

Game Results

Game 1 – Fletcher vs Mirv

One Sentence Summary: Mirvaperse jumped ahead to an early lead and then kept tossing bombs.

Card of the Match: Screechbomb
This card is difficult to play around because of the Omni action. This also helps force the opponent to play into Lomir Flamefist. They see the Screechbomb in play, overextend to get past it, and then Lomir comes down.

Notable Event: Cooperative Hunting and Save the Pack killed a Mugwump before he got to do anything too crazy. This swung the board in favor of Mirvaperse and Fletcher couldn’t recover.

Winner: Mirvaperse
3 Keys to 1

Game 2 – Armfemur vs Tyrant

OSS: Armfemur had more Ancient Bears than Tyrant had Ammonia Clouds.

COTM: Bear Flute
This game displayed how good guaranteed creatures are versus a deck that is heavy in board wipes.

NE: This most important play of the game was playing the Bear Flute on turn one. The Ancient Bears then mauled everything to death.

Winner: Armfemur
3 Keys to 0

Game 3 – Fletcher vs Armfemur

OSS: Fletcher found a way to win despite Armfemur having 2 keys and 8 aember. 

COTM: Anomaly Exploiter
After reviewing this game, this is the card that won the game, since it was able to pick off a lot of creatures that were not close to dead. This eventually allowed Fletcher to retake the board.

NE: Fletcher stopped Armfemur from winning multiple turns in a row with a combination of Pile of Skulls and Old Bruno. 

Winner: Fletcher
3 Keys to 2

Game 4 – Mirv vs Tyrant

OSS: Mirvaperse struggled to kill all of the threats that Tyrant presented. 

COTM: Grey Monk
This creature provides an insane amount of value, and better yet, survives Ammonia Clouds. Grey Monk likes to have some friends with taunt.

NE: Grey Monk allowed Tyrant’s creatures to survive a Phoenix Heart explosion. On the following turn, almost all of Tyrant’s creatures were healed back up.

Winner: Tyrant
3 Keys to 1

Game 5 – Fletcher vs Tyrant

OSS: The Tryant crushed Fletcher under the weight of a thousand minions.

COTM: Champion Anaphiel
This card started the avalanche of creatures that showed up this game. Anaphiel is one of the hardest creatures to remove with just combat, and almost always trades at 2-for-1 with opponents creatures. Combine him with Protectrix, Grey Monk and Hallowed Blasters and he goes from good to oppressive.

NE: Fletcher got a lot of aember from the cards it played, and so it was able to keep up for a while despite not having more than 1 creature on the board for multiple turns. 

Winner: Tyrant
3 Keys to 2

Game 6 – Mirv vs Armfemur

OSS: Mirv bombed another opponent. 

COTM: Snufflegator
We chose him as an emote and mascot because of the goofy name and because he looked cool. But this game demonstrated that Snuffy can bring the pain when given a chance. Even if he never does anything else on stream, he will always have this highlight.

NE: A brutal turn from Mirv dropped Lomir Flamefist and three Screechbombs.

Winner: Mirvaperse
3 Keys to 1

Final Results

Mirvaperse, the Friar of the Terminal – *Advancing*
2 Wins – 1 Loss
The first thing that should be said about this deck is that it has a lot of aember destruction in it. In one game, it destroyed over 11 aember, which essentially forces the opponent to forge 5 keys. The Logos in this deck does an excellent job of keeping the machine running, and provides for some interesting plays. In one game, Titan Mechanic was used to discount the opponent’s key so that Interdimensional graft would steal extra Aember. The Untamed portion of this deck is unobtrusive, and can set up situations where it can burst a lot of aember. The Save the Pack combos well with the Cooperative Huntings, and Witch of the Eye is always welcome. As for Brobnar, the Headhunters provide a nice aember bonus, and the Ganger Chieftains do a lot of work. Overall, a solid mid-tier deck that seems to get better after playing it a few times.

Long Legged “Tyrant” Floyd – *Advancing*
There is a lot of healing in this deck, which is a good thing since this deck does a lot of damage to it’s own creatures. This deck slaughters creatures wholesale. The Dis present exists in a Highlander fashion, so the demonic performance from game to game will vary. Champion Anaphiel was key to protecting problematic creatures, and this deck has problematic creatures all over the place. Biomatrix Backup performs well in this deck since you are apt to destroy your own creatures during your turn. After getting a few reps with this deck, the synergies start to pop out. This is a solid deck when it isn’t covered in bears. 

Fletcher, Crabdam Rogue – *Eliminated*
This great name is unfortunately banished from the tournament. Fletcher is pretty good at stealing things, just not wins. The Brobnar in this deck is very mediocre. It is very good if Mugwump and Pile of Skulls are on the table, but under-performs otherwise. The Logos portion of this deck has one tiny creature, and Replicator has no synergy in the deck. Transpositional Sandals may be worse than Biomatrix Backup, which is saying something. Nexus depends on the opponent having good artifacts, and its possible this deck could have performed better in other pods. This deck finished about where it deserved.

Armfemur of the Miner’s Stadium – *Eliminated*
1 Win – 2 Losses
This deck wants board control but has a hard time keeping it. This deck did a good job of capturing aember, but again, board control is important to make sure that you hold onto aember that you have captured. The Shadows side looks good on paper, but has a small board footprint. The Sanctum portion is really disappointing, since it is light on creatures. The Untamed portion performed fairly well, and the Bear Flute carried this deck to it’s only victory. If this deck falls behind, it has difficulty catching up.  

Known Errors: Chains. Again. These are really easy to forget, judging how we’ve played almost fifty games on camera and are still managing to forget them.
Phoenix Heart returns the creature to the hand. There was a turn where Justin forgot to return a Ganger Chieftain to his hand that might have affected the game.
Vaultkeeper keeps your aember from being stolen. This mattered one time, and was forgotten.

Meta Info: Another split night, Justin and Nathan are tied at 24 games each. This was a bad night for going first however, and going second has picked up a lead: 26 wins for going second vs 22 for going first.