Xantosch, the recent Blood Cup winner, details his deck choice, card choice, his rounds, and how he sees the metagame evolving.

Hi everybody!

I would like to share some thoughts about the Blood Cup, which I participated in the past weekend with much success as I went undefeated the whole tournament. I will comment about my deck choice, discuss briefly how the tournament went round for round, and give my humble opinion on the current/new metagame after Set 2 hit the table.

1. Deck choice

My Deck: “Lean Back” (this is a reference to the good ol’ Magic: The Gathering times where Blue/White Control gives you so much control that you just relax and deal with just every threat they have, hopefully!)

Shards: Diamond / Sapphire

Champion: Dimmid

4 Countermagic

4 Verdict of the Ancient Kings

This is the first line of defense/denial: just do not let the key actions/troops hit the ground. In my opinion, there is no way around of running the full set of four each in this deck.

4 Time Ripple

4 Buccaneer

This is the second line of defense: bounce/slow-down. This is so important, do not ever think about cutting these out. These cards just kick the opponent back a lot in their plan, it makes inspire troops worse, and gives you time to set up your defense.

4 Solitary Exile

The third line of defense. I really like this card; it is so flexible. Threats you could not counter/bounce any more can be handled just fine.

4 Angel of Dawn

4 Living Totem

3 Hopeheart Unicorn

This is your main army: Angel of Dawn is just huge in this deck; there is nothing better that can happen when this comes into play free, with resources open to counter, bounce, or whatever. A 4/4 flyer is something that for most decks is not easy to handle at all. Living Totems are not bad to draw early and they get better as you have more resources in play. Unicorns are solid early drops and help later on vs. Extinction, which was quite a popular card seen in tournament (find more on that on part three of this report).

4 Soul Marble

This is an MVP and your win condition; just the best card in this deck. The way you can play it (drop it early, use on end of opponent’s turn after checking if you have to counter anything) just fits perfectly in the deck’s theme. I used it about 4 out of 5 times as Soul Cavalry instead of Soul Armaments. Normally, you just do not have enough troops on board to justify the Armaments. More often than not, the Cavalry will be the first (and only?) creature on board, and you can start directly to regain life with your Champion’s Power, which is quit important against aggro decks. Another advantage for Cavalry: your opponents cannot get rid of it with spells like Time Ripple/Solitary Exile/Chaos Key and so on.

11 Diamond Shard

10 Sapphire Shard

4 Shard of Purpose

25 shards seems for me the right number. Soul Marble just wants that you drop a shard on every turn—and overall it lets you not get shard screwed too often.

Final thoughts: Every card in this deck has its reason and, in about 50% of the games I played during the tournament, I did not switch a single card from my reserves in. That may be because my reserves were not the best options (I just made the deck on the Friday before the tournament to be honest, and invested about 2 minutes in the reserves… 🙂 ). There is almost no “Damn! Why now?!” draw with it either, as you can use most (all?) of the cards early, mid, and late game (big advantage here, I do not see another deck in field that can say this. One last note about the reserves: Just make sure that you include 4 Cerulean Mirror Knights—the other cards are up to you. However, be aware that it is quite difficult to take out something from maindeck. 😉

2. The tournament (briefly round for round)

Round 1

Opponent: StarPhoenix

Champion: Poca, the Conflagrater

Deck: Mono-Ruby Aggro-Robot-Gore Feast with Forge of Cadoc x4

Result: 2:0

Game 1/2: He got some strong early drops with Turn 1 Construct Foreman on Hex Geode; but, well, Time Ripple/Buccaneer just kills this aggro dream completely, and that was exactly what happened. No problems, good match-up, as long as you get the bounce not too late of course.

Round 2

Opponent: Judgenaut

Champion: Zared Venomscorn

Deck: Sapphire/Blood/Wild Arborean Rootfather control

Result: 2:1

Game 1/2: We split the first two games. The game he won he had 2 8/8 flying/spellshielded 8/8 Rootfather on table (obviously I lost the counter war here!); Judgenaut held one back and the other attacked me. My only Angel, even with Soul Armaments, was not able to hold that flying King Kong off for a long time.

Game 3: Time was running out, as he seems to have a really bad internet connection (Judgenaut was seven minutes behind my play time in each game). My draw was really bad here, just too many shards. I had for some turns only shards in hand, where he was holding Rootfather for quite a while in hand, before finally drawing a card with its second ability. Puuuh, glad to see that guy go back to the deck instead of on table where I could not handle him. I manage to win in the last extra turn, bringing him to -1 life with a big Living Totem; after some minor success with my weird anti control plan I had in reserves (3x Agent of M.O.L.E / 4x Chronic Madness). First and only time I used it, better forget about my idea right now after reading it 🙂

Round 3

Opponent: Errantsquire

Champion: Running Deer

Deck: Ruby/Wild control (lots of removal, big burn spells, did not see much of the deck)

Result: 2:0

Game 1/2: AoD hitting table on turn 2, I think in both games. Well that’s most time a 13%

chance that this might happen in a game (sorry to make this visible Errantsquire), and even having the counterspells to protect it is just “gg”. I concentrated my Angel luck on this round, as I rarely got it on board early this way, but well, if it happens, just lean back and enjoy.

Round 4

Opponent: waux

Champion: Wyatt the Sapper

Deck: Diamond/Sapphire Control (quit different than mine, more creature based, no Soul Marble, no Buccaneer, Exiles only in Reserves)

Result: 2:0

Game 1/2: Even he had much more troops, Soul Marble is just a huge advantage here, as

he hardly can overrun me and overall Marble just wins here big time.

Round 5

Opponent: zebuli

Champion: Poca, the Conflagrater

Deck: Ruby/Sapphire Gore Feast of Kog’Tepetl (4x Time Ripple/3 xCountermagic maindeck)

Result: 2:1

Game 1/2/3: Very close games, as his version was quite difficult to handle for me with his higher control part. “Free” Angels were bounced back to my hand before I could even

think about attacking with it and Countermagic makes it always more difficult. If I

remember correctly, it was Soul Marble again which saved the day in the games.

Round 6

Opponent: Noise

Champion: Poca, the Conflagrater

Deck: Ruby/Sapphire Gore feast

Result: 2:0

Game 1: Maindeck Heat wave surprised me in a Gore feast deck and crushed my early

“double Living Totem drop aggro dream” completely. I managed to come back and win it nevertheless.

Game 2: Not much I remember, but I think he was screwed here; at least I was not

in danger of losing the game..

Round 7

Opponent: Shinshire (was at 5:1 and got paired up)

Champion: Poca, the Conflagrater

Deck: Ruby/Sapphire Gore feast “control” (Heat Wave/some Time Ripple and Verdicts)

Result: 2:0

Game 1/2: In one game he had a bad draw, and when it comes to the pure control vs. control elements battle, I just win. Third Gore Feast deck in a row I had, you are

really dependent upon drawing early Time Ripple/Buccaneer to be in a good situation. But with them, it’s surely not a bad matchup.

Round 8:

Opponent: Dameneon (was at 6:1 and got paired up)

Champion: Warmaster Fuzzuko

Deck: Wild/Sapphire control/bounce with Wrathwood Master Moss

Result: 1:1 (Intentional Draw)

I was for sure in Top8 before this round, and so I just accepted his draw proposal. He seems also to be a nice guy that deserved it btw 🙂

Quarterfinal

Opponent: Kindmime

Champion: Poca, the Conflagrater

Deck: Blood/Ruby Monsuun, Shogun of Winda’jin Darkspire Gore Feast

Result: 2:0

Game 1/2: Soul Marble or better Soul Cavalry just ruining his day. These games went smoother than I expected, even though he had quite the luck with the 50% Darkspire effects. He just could not kill me before I started to regain life with Dimmids Power and Cavalry. Soul Marble makes for sure the difference in this matchup. Nice guy though 🙂

Semifinal

Opponent: Homunculus

Champion: Gozzok

Deck: Diamond/Blood Lifegain/drain with Paladin of the Necropolis and lots of Darkspires

Result: 2:0

Game 1/2: I remember early Royal Den Mother in both games, which faced a prompt bounce on the bear pet. I think it was in second game, when just every threat he

played I countered, but it was at least in one game close. A Darkspire Tyrant wants to be attacked or at least to be killed, but what he does not like for sure is a Solitary Exile . I like this deck, I think we could squeeze even more out of it with some work.

Final

Opponent: Kroan

Champion: Poca, the Conflagrater

Deck: Ruby/Sapphire Gore Feast with Storm Cloud (quite popular in Gore Feast deck, I counted about 10 of them running this) Result: 2:1

Game 1: He played first, my hand was Shard of Purpose, Time Ripple, 3x Bucaneer, Living Totem and Unicorn. I got greedy and decided to keep this hand. Big mistake as I should not have taken this gamble. I probably was just too confident after the Quarter and Semi Final. Got the second shard delayed one turn (had to discard), and the third one never showed up. Fail…

Game 2: He mulliganed to 3 (!) cards, just getting no shards at all before this. Crazy, never seen this before. I started with a massive triple Cerulean Mirror Knight beatdown (sided in for Living Totems as usual vs. Gore Feast), supported with a Buccaneer. I did not get a good hand/draw here for sure, but had such huge card advantage after the mulligans it was just too much to make it here a real game.

Game 3: When he played a second ruby on turn 2 I already knew that he was in shard trouble again most likely. And he was indeed not finding the Sapphire for a few more

turns. That was already to late, as double Soul Marble with Shard Flood on my side

getting me two Soul Cavalry. Some bounce tricks later after he tried to block them to death it was over.

Woooohoo, after a really strong performance of this deck I ended up to become Champion

of the Blood Cup. Feels quite good I have to say. 🙂 Also the deck convinced me, losing

only 3 games (!) the whole weekend with it on the tournament, with 20 wins on opposite.

3. Current Meta Game

Last, but not least, I’d share some of my thoughts about the current Meta Game after the Set 2 release. I think that the “old” archetypes are still dominant, with Gore Feast making about 30% of the field in tournament. Maindecking more control (Countermagic/Verdict) as well as Heating Wave instead of/in addition to Burn seems the way to go, and man, Cerulean Mirror Knight were just EVERYWHERE. So many decks running them in Maindeck; it is incredible. So, in my opinion, bounce (Time Ripple/Buccaneer) is stronger than removal here. An interesting “combo” deck I see is with Goremaster and Crackling Bolt/Crackling Sprout/Crackling Vortex . Check out the deck of Cirouss, this has potential. I heard

one Goremaster of his dealt OVER 9000 damage (well ok, it was way over 100, but still).

Probably there is too much control cards that can ruin the day (Time Ripple/Murder/Exiles…), but we will see.

Soul Marble: About 12 Decks maindecking it (around 10%), but normally not a full set, rather 1-2. I see this could be a meta game defining card. At least I am a huge fan of it in control decks. Astonishingly, the version I run was not popular at all, rather it was used in Blood/Diamond or in a Trishard human style deck.

Darkspires: That is, for sure now after Set2 hit the ground, a viable deck choice. Mono Blood, with Ruby, or with Diamond, there are several possibilities. The over-hyped Monsuun is in my opinion not really a Maindeck card. Too much bounce that makes it more often than not “just” a 3/3 with rage 2 without any other benefit. That was my first thought after the tournament and I checked how many decks were running Extinction maindeck. One third of all decks played it maindec;, how crazy is this? I counted 51 out of 151 decks, and not counting the ones that run it only in reserves. Still, for me, Monsuun remains a situational card. But better be prepared for mass removal more than ever. Hopeheart Unicorn is on opposite side of the meta and not popular at the moment; I only found it in eight decks (not counting reserves). I think that will change a bit.

Overall I like the diversity of the decks that exists.

For me the current Tier 1 decks are:

Diamond/Sapphire Gore Feast

Ruby/Blood Darkspire (with or without Gorefeast)

Diamond/Sapphire Control (hehe I have to say that!)

Close to Tier1:

Diamond/Blood Control

Sapphire/Wild Control

Mono Sapphire Control (I fear and hate that deck)

So that was it from my side. I hope you enjoyed reading it 🙂 Thanks again for the organization of this tournament and the great streaming along the whole weekend. Amazing, what the HEX community can do with a lot of passion from a couple of

people involved. Thumbs up!

Greetings,

Xantosch

Hex name: Xantosch

Twitch name: Dashgoor