1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:13,500 Hello and welcome back to Illumination, the Disney Lorcanah podcast. 2 00:00:13,500 --> 00:00:14,500 My name is Max. 3 00:00:14,500 --> 00:00:15,500 And I'm Sam. 4 00:00:15,500 --> 00:00:21,460 And we are back at you with another episode and we are talking over the deck that won 5 00:00:21,460 --> 00:00:25,600 DLC Las Vegas. 6 00:00:25,600 --> 00:00:26,600 Very cool stuff. 7 00:00:26,600 --> 00:00:27,600 Shout out to Zanside. 8 00:00:27,600 --> 00:00:28,600 I know we bring him up. 9 00:00:28,600 --> 00:00:34,480 Well, I bring him up quite a bit on the podcast, a great online contributor to the game, a 10 00:00:34,480 --> 00:00:38,960 wonderful ambassador to the game and now DLC winning player. 11 00:00:38,960 --> 00:00:43,980 And we want to look at the deck because it's kind of the new tech on the block, right? 12 00:00:43,980 --> 00:00:48,260 Were you surprised to see this deck in the, especially in the finals, putting a good number 13 00:00:48,260 --> 00:00:49,260 of people into the finals? 14 00:00:49,260 --> 00:00:53,760 I don't know that I was surprised to see it just because we did see a lot of green steel 15 00:00:53,760 --> 00:00:56,240 decks represented at Las Vegas. 16 00:00:56,240 --> 00:01:00,040 I think it's a good thing that we're seeing another deck come out and it doesn't have 17 00:01:00,040 --> 00:01:01,960 Bucky in it, which is nice to see. 18 00:01:01,960 --> 00:01:02,960 Yes. 19 00:01:02,960 --> 00:01:08,400 The deck does not have Bucky, but it is still around in a very similar form, kind of marrying 20 00:01:08,400 --> 00:01:14,560 the mid range Bucky style that we saw in the Ursula's Return set championships, along with 21 00:01:14,560 --> 00:01:20,920 some of the key synergy engine pieces that came from the Into the Inklands green steel 22 00:01:20,920 --> 00:01:26,920 deck married into what is this current iteration or current style of the deck. 23 00:01:26,920 --> 00:01:32,320 And we did see a few decks come in with this same game plan and a similar, but not exactly 24 00:01:32,320 --> 00:01:33,620 the same list. 25 00:01:33,620 --> 00:01:38,360 And all of them, well, not all of them, but a good number of them ended up actually placing 26 00:01:38,360 --> 00:01:44,320 into day two because it was a pretty unknown quantity, I think going into what's popular 27 00:01:44,320 --> 00:01:45,320 for the most part. 28 00:01:45,320 --> 00:01:46,320 Right. 29 00:01:46,320 --> 00:01:49,240 I think we've been seeing green steel kind of pop up a little bit here and there over 30 00:01:49,240 --> 00:01:52,760 the past few weeks, but I don't think that it was really polished. 31 00:01:52,760 --> 00:01:53,760 Right. 32 00:01:53,760 --> 00:01:58,760 We saw some lists coming out of the collectibles show that was a little bit more mid range 33 00:01:58,760 --> 00:02:03,360 without the discard package playing things like beast, relentless, more copies of Tinkerbell 34 00:02:03,360 --> 00:02:09,020 ways to answer the board, babooms and the like, while lacking the ability to really 35 00:02:09,020 --> 00:02:13,320 deal with a deck like the Ruby Sapphire decks. 36 00:02:13,320 --> 00:02:17,400 So not really being able to strip out the key resources made that a really tough match 37 00:02:17,400 --> 00:02:22,280 because the mid range decks do fall prey typically to the control style decks. 38 00:02:22,280 --> 00:02:27,240 And you'd really need that discard to be able to get through the late game threats of the 39 00:02:27,240 --> 00:02:29,040 Ruby Sapphire decks. 40 00:02:29,040 --> 00:02:33,040 So I am glad to say that I did call that out when I was play testing with some of these 41 00:02:33,040 --> 00:02:37,360 more mid range decks out of the collectible show and saying, I really wish I had my discard 42 00:02:37,360 --> 00:02:38,360 back in the deck. 43 00:02:38,360 --> 00:02:42,240 So it was cool to see that I wasn't too far off base from what a lot of players were in 44 00:02:42,240 --> 00:02:43,240 fact doing. 45 00:02:43,240 --> 00:02:46,840 I think given a little bit more time, I would have ended up probably testing at least some 46 00:02:46,840 --> 00:02:48,400 of that package in a deck. 47 00:02:48,400 --> 00:02:52,880 So I was pretty excited about that and pretty excited to see somebody that we think is a 48 00:02:52,880 --> 00:02:54,360 really good player of the game. 49 00:02:54,360 --> 00:02:57,380 And again, a great content creator for the game do well. 50 00:02:57,380 --> 00:02:59,400 We wanted to do a breakdown of this deck. 51 00:02:59,400 --> 00:03:06,000 We've done this a little bit before with the Ruby Amethyst style decks, and we wanted to 52 00:03:06,000 --> 00:03:10,020 do a similar thing, but a little bit more specific to this exact list since this is 53 00:03:10,020 --> 00:03:14,780 the list that took down the entire Vegas tournament. 54 00:03:14,780 --> 00:03:19,400 So pretty exciting and pretty new and a good chance to really zero in and get a very micro 55 00:03:19,400 --> 00:03:21,740 focused style of episode. 56 00:03:21,740 --> 00:03:24,080 So jumping into it, I do want to apologize off the bat. 57 00:03:24,080 --> 00:03:26,420 You may have already heard some ums or uhs from us. 58 00:03:26,420 --> 00:03:29,720 This episode is going to be a little bit less polished than usual. 59 00:03:29,720 --> 00:03:34,460 Sam and I are just getting back from vacation and we don't have a ton of time to get out 60 00:03:34,460 --> 00:03:37,000 a good polish on this in terms of content. 61 00:03:37,000 --> 00:03:40,840 We of course, we'll clean this all up from an audio fidelity perspective, but from an 62 00:03:40,840 --> 00:03:45,280 actual editing for content perspective, this one's going to be a little bit raw or than 63 00:03:45,280 --> 00:03:46,280 usual. 64 00:03:46,280 --> 00:03:50,560 So if you're new to the podcast, please excuse any little rough around the edge kind of bits 65 00:03:50,560 --> 00:03:52,400 of speech, maybe like this one. 66 00:03:52,400 --> 00:03:57,380 If you are here and you've returned, you know that we tend to turn out a little bit more 67 00:03:57,380 --> 00:04:00,280 in the way of polish, but we didn't want to skip the episode either just because we were 68 00:04:00,280 --> 00:04:04,380 on vacation and we were really pumped to talk about the Vegas tournament, which we did sneak 69 00:04:04,380 --> 00:04:10,440 in during vacation watching bits and pieces over the course of our travel and our vacation 70 00:04:10,440 --> 00:04:11,440 in earnest. 71 00:04:11,440 --> 00:04:15,320 So it was fun to watch that all unfold as we got to enjoy ourselves. 72 00:04:15,320 --> 00:04:19,720 So what is the game plan for this particular green steel deck? 73 00:04:19,720 --> 00:04:21,040 What's an ideal start look like? 74 00:04:21,040 --> 00:04:23,280 How does it proceed to the mid game and how does it win? 75 00:04:23,280 --> 00:04:25,320 Well, I mean, it's a Diablo deck, right? 76 00:04:25,320 --> 00:04:30,340 So we know the ideal start is probably going to involve shifting Diablo and we saw no shortage 77 00:04:30,340 --> 00:04:32,760 of that from the content in Vegas. 78 00:04:32,760 --> 00:04:37,460 We saw a lot of Diablo shifts and I do think it's a card you want to fairly aggressively 79 00:04:37,460 --> 00:04:42,240 mulligan for so that you can get that shift out in front early. 80 00:04:42,240 --> 00:04:47,880 An ideal start for this deck obviously being turn one Diablo, Maleficent Spy into turn 81 00:04:47,880 --> 00:04:54,760 two Diablo shift into a either Ursula to clear the way for Diablo shift and obviously the 82 00:04:54,760 --> 00:04:58,060 turn one Diablo giving you a lot of information on how you want to navigate. 83 00:04:58,060 --> 00:05:03,400 And then ideally you strip any removal that's a song with your Ursula or you play a morph 84 00:05:03,400 --> 00:05:06,260 and you set up another possible shift line. 85 00:05:06,260 --> 00:05:10,800 If they deal with Diablo, you could know the following turn on three, be able to shift 86 00:05:10,800 --> 00:05:17,400 something like a beast tragic here to continue to get some form of card draw online for the 87 00:05:17,400 --> 00:05:19,200 game plan to evolve in the mid game. 88 00:05:19,200 --> 00:05:21,560 It could be a little bit different than that. 89 00:05:21,560 --> 00:05:28,080 Obviously you're going to use this card advantage in tandem with the card with the card draw 90 00:05:28,080 --> 00:05:29,880 of something like a Prince John. 91 00:05:29,880 --> 00:05:34,240 And when you combine that with the synergy engines that the deck has using Prince John 92 00:05:34,240 --> 00:05:38,760 to draw every time you discard, you can end up with many more cards than your opponent 93 00:05:38,760 --> 00:05:41,160 can have left in their hand. 94 00:05:41,160 --> 00:05:45,960 And then you're going to leverage that advantage by questing with some of the more heavy hitters 95 00:05:45,960 --> 00:05:50,600 finishing out the cards in their hand using things like Ana and the beast tragic hero 96 00:05:50,600 --> 00:05:55,880 to quest for the wind, close things out and kind of keep things flowing because you have 97 00:05:55,880 --> 00:05:57,960 an answer at that point to everything. 98 00:05:57,960 --> 00:06:00,480 Because the cards in your hand are so robust. 99 00:06:00,480 --> 00:06:05,120 We saw several games conclude with the winning player holding probably like 33% of their 100 00:06:05,120 --> 00:06:08,800 deck in their hand because they were just so flush with options. 101 00:06:08,800 --> 00:06:13,240 But this deck does have more, I don't want to call it a weakness, but a more obvious 102 00:06:13,240 --> 00:06:17,800 difficulty for the game in that it is in that one ink per turn category, just like Ruby 103 00:06:17,800 --> 00:06:18,800 Amethyst. 104 00:06:18,800 --> 00:06:23,240 It is not accelerating its ink in any way whatsoever unless the opponent does it for 105 00:06:23,240 --> 00:06:26,980 you, I suppose, but it is not jumping up the ink count itself. 106 00:06:26,980 --> 00:06:32,480 So it does have some trouble at times deploying multiple cards per turn if it's not a song 107 00:06:32,480 --> 00:06:33,800 specifically. 108 00:06:33,800 --> 00:06:39,680 And we have seen some of the plays and I'll call out game one of the finals where Zansai 109 00:06:39,680 --> 00:06:44,200 was able to leverage a card like the Muses to very heavily out tempo his opponent. 110 00:06:44,200 --> 00:06:48,560 While his opponent had many, many cards in hand, his opponent just wasn't able to deploy 111 00:06:48,560 --> 00:06:53,480 them back down fast enough because the curve of this deck basically is all three drops. 112 00:06:53,480 --> 00:06:55,960 Like it's got Maleficent and Kovom one. 113 00:06:55,960 --> 00:07:01,440 It has Ursula and Sudden Chill and Morph on two. 114 00:07:01,440 --> 00:07:05,080 And then basically a million D things on three. 115 00:07:05,080 --> 00:07:06,920 It's got Muses on four. 116 00:07:06,920 --> 00:07:11,000 It's got Beast and like kind of technically if you want to counter to make the curve a 117 00:07:11,000 --> 00:07:13,800 little better, kicked Ana on five. 118 00:07:13,800 --> 00:07:16,120 And then we don't talk about Bruno on five. 119 00:07:16,120 --> 00:07:21,700 And then six is Tinkerbell and just a couple copies of that card in Zansai's list. 120 00:07:21,700 --> 00:07:25,840 So the curve is like heavy threes to the point where turn five. 121 00:07:25,840 --> 00:07:29,240 Sometimes you just can't deploy two things and you can't use your ink as efficiently 122 00:07:29,240 --> 00:07:31,280 as you necessarily would want to. 123 00:07:31,280 --> 00:07:35,760 And this deck can't always ink in the earlier turns, turns three, four and five. 124 00:07:35,760 --> 00:07:39,280 Sometimes you miss your ink drop, especially like four and five. 125 00:07:39,280 --> 00:07:43,200 You might miss the opportunity to ink every now and again using Diablo to give you a card 126 00:07:43,200 --> 00:07:45,100 to hope to ink the following turn. 127 00:07:45,100 --> 00:07:49,520 So it's not uncommon for this deck to top out around six cards or six cards in the ink 128 00:07:49,520 --> 00:07:50,520 well specifically. 129 00:07:50,520 --> 00:07:51,520 Right. 130 00:07:51,520 --> 00:07:52,520 Yeah. 131 00:07:52,520 --> 00:07:54,020 With shifting Diablo, you're getting rid of a card. 132 00:07:54,020 --> 00:07:56,000 So it definitely makes it more difficult. 133 00:07:56,000 --> 00:07:57,000 It does. 134 00:07:57,000 --> 00:07:58,000 Absolutely. 135 00:07:58,000 --> 00:08:01,440 Let's get into now we kind of know what it's doing and we're talking over the pieces. 136 00:08:01,440 --> 00:08:03,640 Why are the cards that are chosen in here? 137 00:08:03,640 --> 00:08:05,360 If there's such a big bump on three? 138 00:08:05,360 --> 00:08:07,460 Well, obviously there's a removal package, right? 139 00:08:07,460 --> 00:08:12,600 We're talking about the usual steel removal package, especially when paired with Ursula 140 00:08:12,600 --> 00:08:13,880 Deceiver of All. 141 00:08:13,880 --> 00:08:15,680 She's kind of the critical piece, right? 142 00:08:15,680 --> 00:08:20,200 You want to get her down so you can take a singular piece of removal and turn into a 143 00:08:20,200 --> 00:08:25,120 multi-piece removal spell in just like we've seen decks in the past. 144 00:08:25,120 --> 00:08:29,560 The key card here when you're talking about removal is Ursula singing predominantly Let 145 00:08:29,560 --> 00:08:35,120 the Stormrage on because Ursula can take Let the Stormrage on read, divide for damage as 146 00:08:35,120 --> 00:08:42,200 you choose amongst one or two target characters, draw two cards, which is crazy for exert one 147 00:08:42,200 --> 00:08:48,760 character like that's just a ridiculous amount of value in something like a mirror or a mid 148 00:08:48,760 --> 00:08:53,920 range to mid range style match up that kind of escalating advantage while putting your 149 00:08:53,920 --> 00:08:58,680 opponent behind can really, really cement the victory for the deck. 150 00:08:58,680 --> 00:09:04,080 And when we saw the muses out, so you sing with Ursula banish two characters and then 151 00:09:04,080 --> 00:09:05,080 bounce another character. 152 00:09:05,080 --> 00:09:06,080 Right. 153 00:09:06,080 --> 00:09:07,080 Pretty nuts. 154 00:09:07,080 --> 00:09:08,080 Yeah. 155 00:09:08,080 --> 00:09:09,800 You're doing so much for so little. 156 00:09:09,800 --> 00:09:13,920 And that's the real key of this deck is everything this deck tends to do. 157 00:09:13,920 --> 00:09:19,960 It puts the opponent down resources while it simultaneously pulls you up resources singing 158 00:09:19,960 --> 00:09:24,760 Let the Stormrage on while knocking out characters on on board. 159 00:09:24,760 --> 00:09:30,440 It is growing cards in hand at the same time and preventing them from having an on board 160 00:09:30,440 --> 00:09:33,120 answer to your Ursula. 161 00:09:33,120 --> 00:09:38,220 Extremely powerful synergy that's going on in the deck and that escalating value is mirrored 162 00:09:38,220 --> 00:09:39,440 across the list. 163 00:09:39,440 --> 00:09:45,160 We see it with the next part of this, which is kind of the draw engine slash discard package 164 00:09:45,160 --> 00:09:48,480 hypnotize Prince John's sudden chill. 165 00:09:48,480 --> 00:09:54,240 All of these things lose your opponent cards while they grow cards in your hand. 166 00:09:54,240 --> 00:09:58,600 So it's very, very strong and it has a lot of pieces that work with this. 167 00:09:58,600 --> 00:10:00,240 Anna helps feed into this. 168 00:10:00,240 --> 00:10:01,860 We have other cards. 169 00:10:01,860 --> 00:10:03,000 We've seen other lists. 170 00:10:03,000 --> 00:10:07,580 I've seen lists playing Lucifer and Bibbidi Bobbidi boo to try to take advantage of things 171 00:10:07,580 --> 00:10:08,580 like this. 172 00:10:08,580 --> 00:10:12,800 The fact that you can flush the opponent's hand out while growing the size of your hand 173 00:10:12,800 --> 00:10:17,760 has been a critical piece in the Amber Emerald style sing together decks. 174 00:10:17,760 --> 00:10:20,320 That's been the one of the key pieces to their success. 175 00:10:20,320 --> 00:10:21,320 No different here. 176 00:10:21,320 --> 00:10:25,280 And we saw it all the way back to set three with the green steel decks during the set 177 00:10:25,280 --> 00:10:29,400 championships initially and the success people were having on the back of the strength of 178 00:10:29,400 --> 00:10:31,120 that kind of a synergy engine. 179 00:10:31,120 --> 00:10:35,200 So again, you just pair that with the muses and you can just watch the fireworks start 180 00:10:35,200 --> 00:10:36,200 to happen. 181 00:10:36,200 --> 00:10:40,280 And then you have, of course, some of the strongest card draw singular card draw engines 182 00:10:40,280 --> 00:10:46,400 in the game with Diablo and beast tragic hero and having the ability to go shift Diablo 183 00:10:46,400 --> 00:10:50,060 on to play morph shift the beast on three. 184 00:10:50,060 --> 00:10:56,000 And now I'm drawing extra cards on everyone's turn is so very, very oppressive. 185 00:10:56,000 --> 00:11:00,160 Even if you're playing a piece of removal, where are you pointing it at the beast and 186 00:11:00,160 --> 00:11:01,160 charging it up? 187 00:11:01,160 --> 00:11:03,860 Or are you trying to just knock Diablo out of the sky? 188 00:11:03,860 --> 00:11:07,600 And then then you have to figure out a way to deal with the other one while turn three 189 00:11:07,600 --> 00:11:11,160 or turn four, you could play Prince John sing a sudden chill and knock a card out of your 190 00:11:11,160 --> 00:11:13,960 hand and draw a card and potentially even two. 191 00:11:13,960 --> 00:11:18,280 So that's really scary if they hypnotize and then use that angry beast to sing sudden 192 00:11:18,280 --> 00:11:19,280 chill. 193 00:11:19,280 --> 00:11:22,760 You probably have no cards left in hand and they're going up two cards there are going 194 00:11:22,760 --> 00:11:25,840 up three cards because you get the card from hypnotize the card from John and then the 195 00:11:25,840 --> 00:11:26,840 card from John. 196 00:11:26,840 --> 00:11:28,960 So very, very strong stuff. 197 00:11:28,960 --> 00:11:32,520 And then of course, we have the flex options that are in the deck, right? 198 00:11:32,520 --> 00:11:35,840 We discussed Ana already, but holy cow, is she good? 199 00:11:35,840 --> 00:11:38,840 She can pump up a character to deal with the location. 200 00:11:38,840 --> 00:11:41,520 She can destroy a character that has damage on it. 201 00:11:41,520 --> 00:11:44,560 We saw that answer Tamatoa over the course of the weekend. 202 00:11:44,560 --> 00:11:46,800 Let the storm rage on, play Ana. 203 00:11:46,800 --> 00:11:52,600 That's really good sequencing that green didn't have direct access to before. 204 00:11:52,600 --> 00:11:57,800 It's a card kind of with let the storm rage on and it's a card kind of with Ana's ability, 205 00:11:57,800 --> 00:12:00,760 but it's not a full card in either case really. 206 00:12:00,760 --> 00:12:04,520 So it's really awesome that you can leverage something like that for some of the tougher 207 00:12:04,520 --> 00:12:07,480 to remove pieces of the puzzle than what we've seen before. 208 00:12:07,480 --> 00:12:11,880 One thing I noticed while we were playing tonight a little bit is Ana gets around Pete. 209 00:12:11,880 --> 00:12:17,120 So like she can do certain things that, you know, pumping or making you discard and ignoring 210 00:12:17,120 --> 00:12:21,080 that Pete because I had played Pete against you and you were able to honor me back and 211 00:12:21,080 --> 00:12:23,840 it was kind of, so I think she's a really good flex option. 212 00:12:23,840 --> 00:12:27,520 She absolutely is being able to do what you need to do, especially when you can like pump 213 00:12:27,520 --> 00:12:31,560 with the Cove, pump with the Ana and then hit something that you shouldn't is crazy 214 00:12:31,560 --> 00:12:32,560 powerful. 215 00:12:32,560 --> 00:12:34,160 Discard the last card in your hand draw, a card off John. 216 00:12:34,160 --> 00:12:35,520 It's just so flexible. 217 00:12:35,520 --> 00:12:39,960 And then of course you have Tinkerbell that mops up an entire board almost on her own 218 00:12:39,960 --> 00:12:44,160 or comes down on a morph and surprises the heck out of everybody with that Tinkerbell 219 00:12:44,160 --> 00:12:47,760 coming down on four and being able to just take out multiple units. 220 00:12:47,760 --> 00:12:49,280 It's really impactful. 221 00:12:49,280 --> 00:12:52,320 And Tinkerbell of course being one of the better cards in the game because if you don't 222 00:12:52,320 --> 00:12:54,280 need her in that matchup, it's not very good. 223 00:12:54,280 --> 00:12:56,200 Yeah, ain't could tank. 224 00:12:56,200 --> 00:12:59,400 Really good stuff and that's kind of moving into the game plan. 225 00:12:59,400 --> 00:13:01,480 It's very obvious what we're trying to do here. 226 00:13:01,480 --> 00:13:02,480 This isn't very fancy. 227 00:13:02,480 --> 00:13:04,960 We've already talked over ideal lines in the early game. 228 00:13:04,960 --> 00:13:08,440 You want to establish one of these draw engines or one of these synergy engines, whether it's 229 00:13:08,440 --> 00:13:10,780 John beast or Diablo. 230 00:13:10,780 --> 00:13:15,560 And then from there you're using your plethora of cards to answer a variety of different 231 00:13:15,560 --> 00:13:20,960 things from the opponent and trying to preserve one of these engines as long as possible because 232 00:13:20,960 --> 00:13:24,120 it is going to be a card advantage engine that's going to end up winning you these 233 00:13:24,120 --> 00:13:28,760 games and then finally being able to quest with some of the heavier questers in the deck. 234 00:13:28,760 --> 00:13:34,400 Ana being able to use Tinkerbell, being able to use these two questers, sad beast amongst 235 00:13:34,400 --> 00:13:37,960 them, being able to quest with these characters and then close the gap. 236 00:13:37,960 --> 00:13:42,040 And I think one of the toughest issues this deck faces from a player standpoint, who's 237 00:13:42,040 --> 00:13:46,680 played a lot of green steel is the ability to close out the game can often be difficult, 238 00:13:46,680 --> 00:13:51,840 but the addition of cards like Ana really helped just her as a two, three for two on 239 00:13:51,840 --> 00:13:55,200 turn three in some matchups can be really good. 240 00:13:55,200 --> 00:13:56,840 Like there's nothing wrong with that card. 241 00:13:56,840 --> 00:14:00,640 If you're trying to race something like a Ruby Sapphire deck, just putting it down and 242 00:14:00,640 --> 00:14:04,600 just pedal to the metal, you've seen their hand, maybe you knocked out a song and you're 243 00:14:04,600 --> 00:14:08,760 just trying to quest as hard as you can to gain as much lore as you can so that you can 244 00:14:08,760 --> 00:14:10,400 squeak out the last few. 245 00:14:10,400 --> 00:14:13,120 Once they really start rolling is totally valid. 246 00:14:13,120 --> 00:14:16,320 Being able to honor to take a card out of their hand and then use her to start questing. 247 00:14:16,320 --> 00:14:19,760 You take the knock the last card out of their hand after a hypnotized sudden chill with 248 00:14:19,760 --> 00:14:20,760 John out. 249 00:14:20,760 --> 00:14:21,760 You're now flush with options. 250 00:14:21,760 --> 00:14:25,960 You play the Ana knock out the last card, her and John are questing like maniacs. 251 00:14:25,960 --> 00:14:29,560 You know, it's not unreasonable four to six lore per turn that those cards are sitting 252 00:14:29,560 --> 00:14:34,520 on board and the Ruby Sapphire decks really have trouble answering that kind of stuff 253 00:14:34,520 --> 00:14:37,760 because they just don't play a lot of rush characters anymore. 254 00:14:37,760 --> 00:14:40,200 And even if they did Queen of Hearts can't take out Ana. 255 00:14:40,200 --> 00:14:44,280 So I think that one of the biggest problems you have with this deck is kind of sometimes 256 00:14:44,280 --> 00:14:46,340 you have to mulligan a little bit more aggressively. 257 00:14:46,340 --> 00:14:48,960 It's definitely a higher risk, higher reward style deck. 258 00:14:48,960 --> 00:14:53,400 But the good news is you kind of have game, a game plan, I should say into just about 259 00:14:53,400 --> 00:14:54,680 any style of deck. 260 00:14:54,680 --> 00:14:57,680 If you're playing against a more controlling deck, you're obviously going to want to leverage 261 00:14:57,680 --> 00:14:59,600 the discard elements of your deck more. 262 00:14:59,600 --> 00:15:03,600 If you're playing against a more to the board style of deck, you're going to want to leverage 263 00:15:03,600 --> 00:15:07,640 that steel removal a little bit more, but it gives you a clear path of what to ink. 264 00:15:07,640 --> 00:15:10,800 I think this is one of the easier decks in the format to ink with. 265 00:15:10,800 --> 00:15:13,360 Not always, but it can be because it's fairly obvious, right? 266 00:15:13,360 --> 00:15:16,680 If I'm playing against Ruby Sapphire, I'm going to be inking my strengths of a raging 267 00:15:16,680 --> 00:15:18,280 fire because I why? 268 00:15:18,280 --> 00:15:19,280 Why do I need those? 269 00:15:19,280 --> 00:15:23,160 But if I'm playing against something like Ruby Amethyst, well, now I'm going to keep 270 00:15:23,160 --> 00:15:27,360 that steel removal because it is very, very important that I knock out key characters 271 00:15:27,360 --> 00:15:28,640 along the way. 272 00:15:28,640 --> 00:15:32,280 While on the other side of it, I want to make sure that I'm getting the critical pieces 273 00:15:32,280 --> 00:15:33,280 I need. 274 00:15:33,280 --> 00:15:35,720 Things you just, there are things you just don't want to ink unless you absolutely have 275 00:15:35,720 --> 00:15:36,720 to. 276 00:15:36,720 --> 00:15:40,360 Beasts, while in your opening hand can certainly be ink, you don't want to be inking them. 277 00:15:40,360 --> 00:15:43,600 Obviously this deck's critical mass of threes does come at a cost of a lot of the threes 278 00:15:43,600 --> 00:15:44,600 are uninkable. 279 00:15:44,600 --> 00:15:48,040 So sometimes hands can be a little awkward and sometimes you do have to ink something 280 00:15:48,040 --> 00:15:49,760 you really, really don't want to. 281 00:15:49,760 --> 00:15:54,320 Like I've definitely had to ink Sudden Chills and then play Prince John, which looks like 282 00:15:54,320 --> 00:15:59,520 really awkward, but it's like, I kind of need this and next turn I'm going to play a Hypnotize. 283 00:15:59,520 --> 00:16:01,920 So I need this here so that I can do that. 284 00:16:01,920 --> 00:16:07,040 Or you have to discard your discard song to be able to shift Diablo. 285 00:16:07,040 --> 00:16:11,120 I don't want to do that in certain matchups, but I do need the Diablo on board because 286 00:16:11,120 --> 00:16:15,760 critical thinking, I have a lot more discard cards in my deck, so I need to find them and 287 00:16:15,760 --> 00:16:19,160 being able to leverage that card advantage is very, very important. 288 00:16:19,160 --> 00:16:23,920 The deck is susceptible to going down to a low number of cards in hand, so it is a very 289 00:16:23,920 --> 00:16:27,840 tough mirror match depending on what the opponent does and what you do. 290 00:16:27,840 --> 00:16:31,600 It can be a very frustrating mirror when you're playing against discard based decks, whether 291 00:16:31,600 --> 00:16:35,320 it's the Amber Emerald version or the mirror version. 292 00:16:35,320 --> 00:16:36,720 So those things can be difficult. 293 00:16:36,720 --> 00:16:40,160 It also lacks the ability to close a game really efficiently. 294 00:16:40,160 --> 00:16:41,480 You don't get any free wins, right? 295 00:16:41,480 --> 00:16:45,020 We're not playing Goat, we're not playing Lucky Dime, we're not playing a lot of our 296 00:16:45,020 --> 00:16:47,700 location doesn't gain us any passive lore. 297 00:16:47,700 --> 00:16:48,700 So we got nothing. 298 00:16:48,700 --> 00:16:49,700 We got nothing. 299 00:16:49,700 --> 00:16:53,200 We got to turn a character sideways in quest if we want to win the game. 300 00:16:53,200 --> 00:16:56,900 So you have to be able to set up multiple turns ahead, so you have to start to think 301 00:16:56,900 --> 00:17:01,360 in like a chess-like strategy to be able to plan ahead in those ways. 302 00:17:01,360 --> 00:17:03,200 So those are kind of the weaknesses to the deck. 303 00:17:03,200 --> 00:17:06,120 Sam, is there any other weaknesses you wanted to call out or did we cover most of them at 304 00:17:06,120 --> 00:17:07,120 that point I think? 305 00:17:07,120 --> 00:17:08,320 I think we covered about everything. 306 00:17:08,320 --> 00:17:09,320 Awesome. 307 00:17:09,320 --> 00:17:10,400 Well, let's talk about flex slots then. 308 00:17:10,400 --> 00:17:11,960 I think this deck is playing 4 and more. 309 00:17:11,960 --> 00:17:16,120 If you may be able to shave on that number, Ana might come out depending on how the meta 310 00:17:16,120 --> 00:17:18,640 shifts like you might want just a Lucifer instead. 311 00:17:18,640 --> 00:17:24,120 If the meta ends up shifting heavier towards Ruby Sapphire or more controlling style slower 312 00:17:24,120 --> 00:17:25,120 decks like that. 313 00:17:25,120 --> 00:17:30,280 Tinkerbell similarly, if the game moves away from a lot of onboard presence, you can shave 314 00:17:30,280 --> 00:17:31,280 Tinkerbell. 315 00:17:31,280 --> 00:17:35,920 Obviously, Sam was going in with wanting answers to a variety of different deck types. 316 00:17:35,920 --> 00:17:40,680 So he made sure he really covered his bases and had some, it wasn't stone cold to anything, 317 00:17:40,680 --> 00:17:41,920 which has a lot of strength. 318 00:17:41,920 --> 00:17:45,720 In and of itself, I think the Cove's are a potential again, depending on how the meta 319 00:17:45,720 --> 00:17:48,560 looks, but Cove is so important in the Diablo mirrors. 320 00:17:48,560 --> 00:17:53,160 Being able to make your Diablo a 3-3 and beat their 2-2 up and keep yours is really, really 321 00:17:53,160 --> 00:17:54,160 important. 322 00:17:54,160 --> 00:17:58,120 And obviously you could potentially go up those Lucifers for control. 323 00:17:58,120 --> 00:18:04,800 I think you might want to possibly go into some un-Ur-Sol-able removal potentially. 324 00:18:04,800 --> 00:18:08,620 If the mirror becomes very big, you want to be able to answer that first Diablo. 325 00:18:08,620 --> 00:18:12,480 Diablo babooms or fire the cannons become a lot more attractive. 326 00:18:12,480 --> 00:18:16,240 If the mirror is going to really take over Diablo decks become the order of the day, 327 00:18:16,240 --> 00:18:19,560 you're going to want those unsnatchable answers, right? 328 00:18:19,560 --> 00:18:24,440 Like you want to be able to make sure that you can get your Diablo quests in and not 329 00:18:24,440 --> 00:18:27,960 get interrupted, not get knocked down in any way. 330 00:18:27,960 --> 00:18:31,640 So that's pretty much everything I think we wanted to call out in the kind of the deep 331 00:18:31,640 --> 00:18:33,120 dive into the deck. 332 00:18:33,120 --> 00:18:34,600 Let us know what you think about the deck. 333 00:18:34,600 --> 00:18:36,320 Let us know if you hate this deck. 334 00:18:36,320 --> 00:18:40,560 If you love this style of deck, of course you can find us on Facebook illumination podcast 335 00:18:40,560 --> 00:18:42,760 and you can find us wherever you just found us. 336 00:18:42,760 --> 00:18:46,240 If you're listening to this, you must have found us so you can continue finding us there, 337 00:18:46,240 --> 00:18:48,000 which is really important. 338 00:18:48,000 --> 00:18:50,480 So this deck is a really cool one. 339 00:18:50,480 --> 00:18:54,680 Again, congrats to Zan and the one drawback, I'd say the biggest drawback to this deck 340 00:18:54,680 --> 00:18:56,880 is you don't get free wins in order to win with this one. 341 00:18:56,880 --> 00:18:57,880 You gotta keep questing. 342 00:18:57,880 --> 00:19:11,880 Thanks for watching.