Our final turn was enough to make the difference - Lifebound scoring plus card value.
The turn:
The result:
Argh why did we draw five apprentices on our LAST TURN!?
I hate this game.
Great job Hive Mind! I honestly gave you very little shot at beating Anniebanannie!
Woooo hivemind rules! Bananankamela drools!
That definitely went better than expected, and got lucky with Dave drawing his five boss apprentices lmao. Great job Hive Mind!
Kl3mnop
1826
I am interested to go back through the thread of this game and deconstruct where the key moments were. I know from my Hivemind game I can point to a single turn where I had a very high chance to pull the cards that would have netted me (at least) one of the two available 7-rune heroes where I got the worst draw possible (in fact the only draw that would prevent me from grabbing the hero)…and the game went from being competitive - or, at least, having a chance to be competitive - to being a blowout.
I feel like in this game that Davanabanana made the mistake of shifting gears one too many times. Started with an emphasis on banish; shifted toward a rune strategy to acquire big heroes; shifted again toward a Construct strategy to empower in-hand Constructs+Alset (and may have had one turn with a priority on impressing ironcub14?)
Meanwhile I think Hivemind, despite inputs from all over the place, managed to keep a relatively tight focus on the path to winning.
Maybe I am recollecting wrongly, but that’s my sense.
If I have some time later I’ll go back and do some post-mortem. As valuable as the in-game discussion is I think I’ll learn more from seeing what factors influenced decisions along the way and how true those influences were to the outcome.
Dave’s round 5 draw looks like a big turning point to me, triggered by bad luck. He failed to draw 7 runes, couldn’t grab Cetra, and we banished Cetra on the next turn.
This is also where I would have blown it without the Hive Mind. My next play recommendation was to kill a Giant for points rather than the Burrower to banish Cetra. I would have squandered the opportunity provided by Dave’s bad luck, but cooler heads prevailed.
Kl3mnop
1828
Meh. I’d have called it good luck if he’d have managed to turn 7 runes on Turn 5 (pulling from a deck of 13 cards.) Or I’d have called it bad luck if he was pulling from a six card pile and pulled the only five card combination that could prevent him. Given that board and that score…I’d say he had plenty of options left to make a winning play.
Here’s a quick turn summary based on cards acquired:
Dave:
- Matron
- Stalker
- Templar
- Mystic
- Paladin
- Oziah + Deathdealer
- Gauntlets
- Vixen
- Alset
- Scripture
- Vixen
- Dhartha
- Templar
- Black Watch
Us
- Scryer
- Mystic
- Delver
- Disciples of Cetra + Oziah, Everbloom
- Scripture
- Deathbound
- Scryer
- Lab
- Everbloom
- Delver
- Deathbound
- Seer
- Deathdealer
- Delver
Okay, I know I’m beating a dead horse, but Dave lost the game on turn 2. He could have gotten the templar, but he chose the stalker instead. Although he eventually got the templar on turn 3, his draw for turn 4 was the following:
Apprentice, Matron, Apprentice, Militia, Stalker
If he got the templar instead of the stalker, his draw would have instead been Apprentice, Matron, Apprentice, Militia, and Templar. Because of the unite ability, the Matron would have given him 3 runes, the Templar 2, and two apprentices 2 for a net of 7, meaning he could have bought Cetra that turn. If he gets Cetra on turn 4 (so before he cycles a second time), I highly doubt we win the game.
I think we also got lucky with getting 2 scryers - that greatly helped our cause. If that second scryer doesn’t flip for us, or worse, if it flips for Dave, Dave probably wins the game. The HM deciding to get the scryer over Alset that turn was key and was an excellent suggestion, Kl3mnop.
I just wanted to comment on what Dave did on turn 13, by killing both the giant and Nihilist. This is probably going to be controversial, but I find the end to this game somewhat similar to the end of my match with Mithrophon, so here it goes. At the beginning of his turn there are 15 honor left in the pool, and he’ll be able to cycle by the end of his turn. He has 7 runes available in his hand, plus the killing power of the templar and deathdealer. I don’t know how Dave felt at this point in the game, but he probably felt that it was pretty tight (but that he was probably behind), and that since the HM had the advantage of going last, that he was in somewhat of a precarious spot. If I were him, I would have bought the templar and just killed the Nihilist, leaving all the other points on the board (so 15 honor). I think at this point he had 2 Nihilists, two templars, plus Dhartha, so he had a puncher’s chance of being able to chain Dhartha for at least one unite. Although killing the giant with the templar was the obvious play, running the honor pool was detrimental to his chances, given that the only real power we had was with our transformed scion, and we’d be draining the pool more quickly because of our lifebound. It might not have led him to victory, and could have also increased the margin by which he lost by, but I think the allure of getting a chained Dhartha is definitely worth the risk, especially in a game where killing the giant and gaining the 5 honor still had him losing by 4.
I would also argue that drawing 5 apprentices on his final draw was very detrimental to his chances hahahahaha!
Agree with what Micro said as well - in retrospect, not getting the Templar during round 2 was a massive mistake.
Kl3mnop
1832
I have to agree - and this is what I suppose I was looking for. An argument could be made for taking the Stalker over the Templar, all things being equal. But all things were NOT equal. The Matron offered a special unite capability that worked with the Templar (in addition to the Templar being a multi-faction all on its own - which should carry extra weight in the head-to-head comparison with Stalker) which made it a clearly better choice.
I am actually experiencing this in my current gameplay where I am putting too much emphasis/value on banishers without properly evaluating the board. Especially in RU (where the banish has been severely nerfed) I think it’s dangerous to put too much emphasis on those cards.
I’ll have to balance that with the last Unicorn game I played with Dave where I overbought cool Center heroes and bloated my deck. While I have pretty strict Rules of Engagement related to # Mystics or Heavies I’m willing to take on I needed to expand that idea to heroes in general; especially when there are limited banish opportunities.
I love this post game analysis!
No one has pointed out that we drew the Shadow Stalker in our first hand of every shuffled deck all but one time. You have to play the odds, and sometimes they screw you.
Five apprentices in our last hand. Another example that is well known!
Plus we got the Templar anyhow.
And we kept the Shadow card out of Hive Mind hands, where it would have never been drawn in the first hand of each shuffle because Ascension loves you!
Kl3mnop
1836
Is this an assertion that you were un§lucky?
Like Dave (I think), I find these exhibition games revive my interest in the game. Someone else needs to take a turn against the HM. And someone needs a turn as Queen. Probably a longer game timer, though. These are some recalcitrant drones.
Anniebanannie would play a best of 5 if the Hive Mind would like. I imagine that we are getting a little weary as a Hive Mind of thinking so hard about this?
Just need one more player for February Ascension league! Micro or S?
