Dear Rulers,
We would like to report the results of the GP held on 15th and 16th April 2023. We have received comments from some of the top players, although not all have provided strategic insight. We are grateful to the 3 players who shared their thoughts with us. Thank you for sending them in.
As the GP is still ongoing, this report may have an impact on the metagame. We encourage even those who did not play in the tournament to take a look.
■ 1nd Place（Name：Jeremy Lindley）
What was the Decisive factor in choosing your Ruler for this event?
I chose Eins due to the versatility of his start of turn trigger and his Homeland (Solaris) ability. A secondary factor was that control decks are heavily prevalent in the current meta so I figured most players wouldn't have strong sideboard cards to deal with an aggro Eins build.
What was advantages of your deck in the competitive environment?
This deck has quite a few advantages in the current competitive environment. Ein's Homeland (Solaris) ability can be pretty tough for control decks to deal with due to Damascus moon and can shut down Order decks completely due to Outer Space. This deck has three separate win conditions that all require different counters from my opponent. This deck can win purely by burning my opponents life with Metal Lifeform: Dragon, Sealed One-Eye Dragon, and Dragon of Solari. It can win using the various board buffs Eins gives to gears combined with Gearsification Facility allowing non gear resonators to become gears. Lastly it can win by creating wide boards that are buffed using Sprinting Steward. Because there are varied win conditions if my opponent sides into cards that shut down one strategy another can take it's place. By combining the different win conditions of the deck together it allows you to put your opponent under significant pressure as early as turn one as their life points quickly dwindle to low amounts. There is also the advantage that not many players expected Eins so many of his counters like Intimidation and Decay of Machines were left out of decks.
Another advantage of the deck is that it can easily play on either players turn and has quite a few ways to spend mana that don't involve casting spells. This allows the deck to easily play around Angelic Battle Barrier and Light Moon Child which many decks rely on for defense.
■ 4th Place（Name：Marcus Neal）
What was the Decisive factor in choosing your Ruler for this event?
The deciding factor for me choosing Aristella, Twin Prince is because I believed that it was the best Ruler walking into the event. The other decks I was thinking of playing were Hyde and Falchion but I played Falchion last time and I thought that Hyde was not positioned well since it won the last GP.
What was advantages of your deck in the competitive environment?
The advantages of the deck I played was i was playing 6 cards that helped me get ahead on Will which let me play Dexia's Advice and Flight of the Holy Sword 1 turn earlier that people were expecting so it put me ahead by 1 turn a lot of the time and put me in the proactive spot instead of reacting to my opponent's plays. I wanted to be the aggressor in a lot of my matches to set the pace of the game instead of reacting to the pace of the game.
■ 7th Place（Name：Derrick Mugwaneza）
What was the Decisive factor in choosing your Ruler for this event?
March GP 2023 - Hyde: I really liked Sherry (Scheherazade, of the Catastrophic Nights) and how that deck played. It did very powerful things, and was the top deck for quite a while, so I thought to myself that I could use that concept to do a similar thing with Hyde.
April GP 2023 - Ki Lua: After my GP win with Hyde, I was thinking that Hyde might become a very popular deck, and instead of playing a lot of mirror matches, I decided I wanted to try and beat it. With that in mind I went for a strategy that could punish my opponent for having a lot of cards in hand, fight toe to toe with cancel spells, and have the ability to make it so they can't contract (Divine lightning).
What was advantages of your deck in the competitive environment?
Hyde - I wrote an article that goes into very deep detail on FoW Library called "I Can't Believe it's not Sherry", but to give a simple answer:
1) The deck lets you (effectively) increase your hand size so you aren't forced to clean up when you don't need to play anything for multiple turns in a row.
2) The deck can draw a TON of cards, which is good to win the value game over your opponent.
3) Being able to play on your opponent's turn is very powerful as you get to force your opponent to use resources on their turn, and you get to start your turn with all of your resources recovered, while some of theirs are still expended.
Ki Lua - Since I didn't face any Hyde, my gameplan wasn't as effective as I had hoped, but in my matches, I found there were definitely some things that were powerful:
1) A lot of activate abilities - Since laurite is the only efficient answer to activate abilities from the beginning of the game, you go in knowing your opponent has very few answers to your plays. Witch with a pointy hat is OK, but not really usable until you have 4 stones, and by that point, you've probably been hit with a bunch of other abilities.
2) This deck can also draw a lot of cards. With the possibility for 8 copies of draw 1, remove a counter and draw another due to Ki Lua ability, you have good refuel, and the potential to dig deep into your deck to find the cards you might need.
3) Being able to pay 0 will for my contract spell. This made it so I had plenty of will to fight through interaction my opponent could of had
