Rachel's Road to Atlanta! Day 8/9!
This past weekend there was a larger Pixleborn Tournament, and that was the only big one so that is where we got our lists from for this week. Pixleborn is an interesting thing to talk about when it comes to tournaments since it almost feels like its own thing. It’s great to have a platform to playtest with and to do it quickly, but online tournaments, especially ones on platforms where the cards are readily available, you don’t have to pay for them, and you can’t miss your triggers makes for a different play experience from playing in person, and thus different decks tend to make it to the top. In person Bounce still seems to be dominating, but on Pixleborn there are more varied decks. It’s important to take this into consideration when picking a deck and testing as what you see online might not be what you see in person.
That being said, Josh made fun of SteelSong for a while. He told me to just Let it Go and to move on. I got sad, I did, and then I thought like any good breakup we parted ways. But just as in love, SteelSong is like one of those exs that just keeps coming back, but this time it came back looking better than me and doing better than me!
So, we had to figure out how to get ahead of SteelSong!
The first SteelSong List we found was the one on Pixelborn. Brennan DeCandio came in first out of 200+ people, and that made Josh want to throw the deck together to see how it played. He told me that we were just testing it because it came first. He told me not to worry, our deck was better. He told me that I’d win consistently.
Boy was he wrong!
We played like 4 games on stream, and they felt BAD. So, we turned off the cameras and decided to brute force our way through the match. We switched decks, and by my metaphor above I got back together with my ex for the day. Josh agreed the match felt bad, and after 10 games he was certain he knew what the problem was.
We needed early game removal and we needed it bad. If the singers were not exerting early game, our fighter characters couldn’t challenge them and very quickly Singers would go wide and get out of hand.
After 10 games I think Josh won like 2.
Jafar had met it’s match.
But don’t you worry, we don’t give up that easy, so we took a break, headed home, and went back to the drawing board. I went for a run to get rid of my frustration at the way the matches went and Josh flipped through every possible card in Amethyst and Steel to look for an answer.
Josh was NOT going to let Singers win!
So, we took out some cards and added some in. In general, we think the changes will make for a better match against Singers, and we think that they will be good against Bounce as well. There are still some things we are going back and forth on, but we think we might have fixed it!
Well, to give him the credit, Josh might have fixed it ;)
On top of that we found an updated list from the player who’s list we were using for Singers. It had many of the changes I wanted to make to the deck, so we edited both decks and decided to try it all again!
So, without further ado, here is Jafar, Version 2.2 (heavy removal).
You will notice we have done some controversial things, the major one being we took out Friends on the Otherside. We both agreed that there was better card draw in the deck, and we were inking it more than we were playing it. It might be nice to get it as the last few points off if Jafar, but it seemed like it was not needed to win, or even to draw answers.
Thoughts
So here is the breakdown after the edits. We are still doing 5 Bo2 matches, so 10 games in total. Most were ‘closed hand’, but we still open up our hands when we are trying to figure out the best lines of play, and the best decision at critial desicion points.
I also have to remember my triggers. I really have to get into that annoying habit of saying:
“Untap, Upkeep, Draw” er… I mean, “Ready, Set, Draw?” and also saying Trigger after EVERY SINGLE PLAY! I just get so excited and then play too fast…
Anyways, here’s the results:
Match 1: I won the first game and lost the second on camera, but it was because of a decision I made that Josh told me to do and my gut told me to do something different. I had almost enough to win, and Josh had a number of things out there, and one was a Stitch New Dog. I wanted to banish the Stitch, he told me just to quest. The next turn he Shifted Stitch, and sang a song that took out my winning cards. So, my gut should have won me the game. We are counting this as a win and the lesson I am learning is that both decks can win the late game, and so I should make sure the smaller characters that can shift are off the table to try to guarantee me the win.
Match 2: I won the first, and lost the second. The first game I was able to break his tempo and he was not able to recover. This was all thanks to the changes we made, namely the Fire the Cannons and B-Booms which took out the early singers and early Robin Hood, which meant Josh inked the bigger Robin Hood and was always behind. Game 2 was similar, but reversed. Josh was able to establish his board state first and I was unable to recover. So, both decks seem to have a very similar plan and way of winning, and which ever one can break the tempo first is the winner. It makes me think that the important part is keeping early game removal in the opening hand, or mulligan hard for it.
Match 3: I lost the first game, won the second. The first game I saw so little card draw (or maybe none, I remember being empty handed and top decking for a while), and though I think I am the better top deck, Josh was not top decking! Second game was great, and though every game I win is going to the late game, this game I had two Cinderella Stouthearted, and two of her was sweet! Cinderella does a lot of work in this deck, and she is hard to get rid of.
Match 4: Similar to above, I won the first and lost the second. The game I won it felt like I just got there because of Cinderella, and game two felt like I lost became I got overwhelmed. Josh had so many characters out and I was just not able to handle it.
Match 5: I want to rewatch this match because I am not sure what got me there. I won both games here, and it feels like it was because of similar reasons as the others. Cinderella is a force to be reckoned with, and even the stream was noticing that. So many games against Singers came down to who had a Cinderella, and if the other person had an injured Beast Tragic Hero that could take her out. I think it is important to note in this match the Beast is not just there for card draw - he is a Cindy killer!
Game 2 was a Jafar combo win. It is interesting to see that the combo win was only one or two games out of the 10.
So, ending thought (for now), Singers is a rough match, but the changes we made gave Jafar a better than average chance here. The early game removal is important, and Cinderella is a game changer here. The Beast should be used almost more as a way to deal with Cinderella than a card draw engine.
Jafar is still awesome here, but the deck does not live and die based on him and A Whole New World.
Match Results: I won 7/10 games, which, based on the Bo2 game rules, would put me at 9 points, much better than it was looking a day ago!
I’ll post an image for the Singer’s deck next!
We are streaming these testing games on Twitch when we do them, and I’m sure they will go on YouTube if you are interested in checking them out! They are less tournament style, and more lets go through all the thought process and possibilities and figure out how to play the decks the best. I’m finding it very helpful talking through everything, and if you’re interested in learning how to be a better deck pilot there might be some helpful tips in these videos for you too!
Anyways, that’s it for now!