Duel of Champions: an Academy win at last!
Ever since the inaugural Haven win at the Swiss tournament, I've been aiming for my first Academy win.
Usually, my go-to deck for Academy is Akane's spell recursion build, with spells like Geyser, Lightning Bolt, Father Sky's Wrath, Frozen Wave and Ice Meteor. I love this build because, as Ban would tease me :), it allows me to boom-boom a lot :).
However, under the current meta, it seems the top Academy deck is Nahla time-lock (ranked among the top 5 by a great player, jkkk89), followed by Myranda's spirit deck plus Free Mage Altar building (ranked just outside top 10).
I'm not confident in using Nahla deck because it requires regular skillful use of the event Night of the Rising Moon. I rarely knows what cards to discard. Even if I know, it still requires great skills to stall, clear and finally conquer the board. Just watch this replay.
So I'm left with Myranda. I practised playing with this deck while waiting for the format of the tournament to rotate back to Standard. I had 4 wins and 2 losses before I joined the tournament. Lost badly lol. I won only the 3rd duel. My console myself with the fact that both my losses were to the overpowering Kal-Azaar's 4/6/0 control deck.
I practised 4 more times (winning 3 of them) before joining tournament again. This time, there was no Kal-Azaar. Phew! Had quite an easy 1st round duel against a Seria deck (player was probably quite new and so didn't have more rare cards and no epic cards).
2nd round was against a Dhamiria's Fire Elemental deck. That could be very tricky as demonstrated by his previous duel (which I spectated) where he won despite being down to 1 hp at one point while his opponent still at full health. Naturally, he had to stall for enough time. Luckily, I drew the Free Mage Altar on my 4th turn and I won on turn 5 :)
Against Deleb in the final round, I was praying for bad card draw for him hahaha. Deleb can be fast and furious, inflicting both direct and indirect damage. Once again I was lucky: I drew the building on my first turn and a few turns later, I had another one! By the way, although it's a key card, you still need skills to play. Don't think it's a no-brainer deck, ok? :)
So yes, I danced a jig after I won hehehe. With that I unlocked a few achievements: win Swiss tournament with Academy and win at least once with each faction. Current tally is now 12 wins:
I'm glad I won the last 2 tournaments before the next expansion, rumoured to be released on April 6th. Meta would definitely change after that and so I will need to learn new things then.
Usually, my go-to deck for Academy is Akane's spell recursion build, with spells like Geyser, Lightning Bolt, Father Sky's Wrath, Frozen Wave and Ice Meteor. I love this build because, as Ban would tease me :), it allows me to boom-boom a lot :).
However, under the current meta, it seems the top Academy deck is Nahla time-lock (ranked among the top 5 by a great player, jkkk89), followed by Myranda's spirit deck plus Free Mage Altar building (ranked just outside top 10).
I'm not confident in using Nahla deck because it requires regular skillful use of the event Night of the Rising Moon. I rarely knows what cards to discard. Even if I know, it still requires great skills to stall, clear and finally conquer the board. Just watch this replay.
So I'm left with Myranda. I practised playing with this deck while waiting for the format of the tournament to rotate back to Standard. I had 4 wins and 2 losses before I joined the tournament. Lost badly lol. I won only the 3rd duel. My console myself with the fact that both my losses were to the overpowering Kal-Azaar's 4/6/0 control deck.
I practised 4 more times (winning 3 of them) before joining tournament again. This time, there was no Kal-Azaar. Phew! Had quite an easy 1st round duel against a Seria deck (player was probably quite new and so didn't have more rare cards and no epic cards).
2nd round was against a Dhamiria's Fire Elemental deck. That could be very tricky as demonstrated by his previous duel (which I spectated) where he won despite being down to 1 hp at one point while his opponent still at full health. Naturally, he had to stall for enough time. Luckily, I drew the Free Mage Altar on my 4th turn and I won on turn 5 :)
Against Deleb in the final round, I was praying for bad card draw for him hahaha. Deleb can be fast and furious, inflicting both direct and indirect damage. Once again I was lucky: I drew the building on my first turn and a few turns later, I had another one! By the way, although it's a key card, you still need skills to play. Don't think it's a no-brainer deck, ok? :)
So yes, I danced a jig after I won hehehe. With that I unlocked a few achievements: win Swiss tournament with Academy and win at least once with each faction. Current tally is now 12 wins:
Necro (2) - Ariana on standard and BS2 format each
Inferno (2) - Deleb probably on Inferno-only format, Kal-Azaar on "minimum 30 spells" format
Stronghold (5) - 3 Kat on standard and 2 Kat on BS2 format
Sanctuary (1) - Yukiko on standard format
Haven (1) - Cassandra on standard format
Academy (1) - Myranda on standard format
Academy (1) - Myranda on standard format
I'm glad I won the last 2 tournaments before the next expansion, rumoured to be released on April 6th. Meta would definitely change after that and so I will need to learn new things then.
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