Nationals: Let’s play Prism

Hello community!

I hope you’ve all enjoyed reading Didier’s Tournament Report about Nationals.
If you haven’t checked it out, make sure to do so: • Part 1 (Blitzed) • Part 2 (FabFive)
Or feel free to stay here to enjoy my Nationals article! 😀

Unlike some players, I was not prepared for this day of Classic Constructed! I hadn’t played a match of CC since the release of Tales of Aria, nor had I touched my Prism deck during this time at all. The truth is I was too busy with Flesh and Blood in other ways:
– Playing my homebrew Briar deck in blitz matches
– Drafting a couple of times at our local game store De Dobbelsteen
– Introducing new players to my favourite game FAB
– Making quality stickers for the chat-groups
– Getting better at altering cards

As I was enjoying my homebrew Briar build in blitz, I was low-key considering building a CC-version of it for Nationals. But then the UK and US nationals happened, and with Briar suddenly being the most popular Hero I didn’t want to be “just another Briar” and went for Prism instead. As I was going for the good times, the community the laughs, hopefully Top 24, and not going to lie: the Free Draft. Looking back at the results, this was a decision I don’t regret at all. Moreover, I was so happy to see the distribution of heroes at our Nationals, even though Briar was still at 25%, many of our Dutch players have been sticking to their guns: Baalhuis Brute and Don Bravo just to name two.

Why I love Prism?
Although primarily the deckbuilding is not the most exciting for Prism, (compared to the wide variety of possibilities that some heroes offer, I’m looking at you Briar), you basically get to bring TWO different decks to the tournament. While sideboarding you can go for an Aggressive Angels strategy or for an Aura-focussed Control build. In some cases you can even go for a hybrid! That being said I really hope that the Everfest expansion brings some nice (non-Light) Illusionist goodies.

Round 1 vs Briar
I played the full aggressive angels package, and put in all three Merciful Retributions for the late game and my one-off Parable of Humility to create nice blocks and awkward choices for Briar.

This match was amazing! This town was too small for the two of us, and Kevin and I ended the game in some sort of Western Shoot-off. We took the steps. The shots were fired. But nobody was sure who had died yet. One moment Kevin was at 3 health and I was at 4 health, the next moment one of us would be dead. A tumbleweed passes.

What happened in that final turn? He played Electrify into Captains Call for +2 and followed up with an Entwine Lightning for a total of 6 damage.

I decided it was time to make a finishing move with Merciful Retribution after I saw him play the blue Captain’s call, knowing the other cards in his hand were very likely to be red. However I did not realize he’d still have three cards on hand after playing all these cards, but back to that later. I decided to block with all the equipment I had left as I needed all my resources to play Merciful Retribution and make a third Spectral Shield for this plan to work.

6 Damage (Entwine Lightning) minus 2 (Equipment) was still dealing 4 damage. 3 of which was blocked by Spectral shields, which would explode and deal one Arcane damage each. Enough to KO Kevin, whose health was at 3. However, with my health being 4, I would take 1 damage and the trigger of Electrify would deal an additional 3 damage, also KO-ing me.

All the cards were played, and two judges were called as everyone needed to see this FABulous game-state. The rules state that both the shields’ replacement effect and the on hit trigger are added to the chain link simultaneously (20.8.1), and so the active player can choose in which order, which caused Kevin to be the victor. In the end it didn’t even matter as Kevin pointed towards his Skullcap and revealing three red cards from his hand to prevent one of the Arcane damage.

I was off to a good start of the day. Even though I lost my first game, I loved how close it was, and I love seeing that Prism could still stand her ground in the current meta. I also liked all the smiles and compliments on the plays. My goal was top 24, and I would step up from here on! 0-1

Round 2 vs Lexi
Versus Dick, another member of the TCG-collectibles crew. I anticipated to see plenty of Lexies this day. Because in my mind Lexi does well against Briar, freezing her in place and leaving her unable to pay for all the Frostbites. And because more people would anticipate on this meta change, more Guardians would show up, as they’d do well against Lexi, easily paying for the Frosties with a single blue card. And I could come through with Prism, being able to deal with Guardians, Lexies and Briars.. Or at least have very fun matches!

I had no experience playing against Lexi in CC, but I knew from my blitz matches that she can be dangerous. I went over a couple of scenarios in my head and decided to go for a hybrid build, boarding in Genesis among some other auras.

Apparently Dick didn’t draw very good hands, I blocked some important arrows, and leaving the Endless Arrow returning to hand a few turns in a row, but eventually I managed to create quite an army of Spectral Kodachis on top of the heralds. The coolest play of the match was using a Frostbite Token in my advantage: While having only one card on hand and no cards in soul, I could still pitch a yellow for the first Kodachi attack to give them all Go Again. 1-1

Round 3 vs Chane
I chose for a full Angels set-up, without tomes, having more cards that would be able to block. However I also put in some Merciful Retributions for the late game. I’m not sure how the match started, but I remember that I couldn’t put enough pressure on Yael’s Chane and the game continued for way too long: Shifting the tide in her favour and eventually she could take over completely. I only put one Herald of Judgment in my deck for this tournament, because I was certain I wouldn’t see more than one Chane, and this angel was easily blocked on turn 4 or 5. The match lasted long enough to see the 6- and 7-Soul shackles turns, but I was lucky enough that she flipped zero cards playable from Banish on turn six, which allowed me to keep cards on hand to counter-attack with. In the heat of the moment, a wrong card was used to block my Herald, still defending the full 6 power but leaving Chane without a Non-attack card on hand, resulting in some Blood Debt cards that were unplayable. The combat chain was just one attack (or actually even one damage) short of defeating me, as I had those ‘brilliantly chosen’ Merciful retributions on hand (which do not block and were showing a little too early). I still feel bad for winning this game, because honestly I should have lost it. 2-1

Round 4 vs Briar
Really a fun match! Kurt’s deck was a hybrid Earth and Lightning style Briar, and it reminded me of what I would have build if I had chosen for Briar as well. So I was in my comfort zone. Parable of Humility and Spectral shields were able to stop mean on-hit effects a few times, which shifted the game in my advantage. On top of that: Briars do not have many cards that break Phantasm. 3-1

Round 5 vs Dash
Not going to lie, Dash scares me. Not as much as Boltyn, but Dash has scarred me ever since my matches versus Jimmy and Mister Black. Dash can and will play around 9 cards that break my Phantasm, which is the sweet spot to constantly make them unreliable. I had to go for the full aura build, even though the pistols can easily take down one per turn. This Dash, Wouter, had only played against Prism once: Two rounds before me versus an aggressive angels strategy. I was happy to show him Prism’s different face. Library came at the worst possible time but I was glad to put it in my Soul with Genesis to draw another card, which luckily was yellow for Go Again! 4-1

Up to the point where I was playing against Dash, I didn’t feel like I was doing overwhelmingly good. Starting the day with a loss, and thinking about how lucky I was to get a win out of some games, in my mind I was still fighting for that top 24 spot. In my defense, not sleeping for more than 4 hours on the night before, also might have clouded my perception somewhat. However, after the win against Dash I realized I was 4-1, which was really good!

Tales of Aria Draft
Finally it was time for that free DRAFT I was looking forward to!! My only practice-time was focused on the draft and playing in a limited format in general. Which turned out to be a crucial asset. This was my first time drafting at a higher competitive level and I was not used to the whole “Count your cards – Pass – Look at cards – 25 seconds – and Pick” way, but lucky I had seen it in a video. It was quite stress-full at first, but I liked it; knowing that every drafter would have the same restrictions.

I decided to start with Earth cards only, because my first pack had a pretty good Earth card in it (Earthlore Surge red if I’m not mistaken). I was sure that Briar would be picked by at least 3 players, so I was thinking about Oldhim. I also picked a yellow Electrify early (or some other Lightning card) as I didn’t see any real good Oldhim cards in that pack. But after 4 or 5 picks the packs told me that Briar might be very much open: I saw a red Bramble Spark! I decided to go for it, and this really paid off as more good Briar cards were being passed. I was so happy that I could play both Prism and Briar this tournament! And to top it off, I was allowed to play my altered Briar!

It’s amazing to see in how many different ways someone can build Briar, because I managed to draft a good deck even though it turned out that I was sitting in between two Briar-players: Directly next to one, and on my other side there was one person in between me and the third Runeblade player! Still it was good that I went for it, because our table already had four Oldhim players. All of this was leaving James happy to play Lexi with a monopoly on her cards. I remember opening Voltaire Strike Twice from a pack, triple checking if it wasn’t Foil, before passing it. And I heard someone mentioning that I passed a Winter’s Wail in the third booster, but I hadn’t registered seeing it at all due to the limited time and the focus on my own deck. The real winner was the Briar on my right though, who opened the Legendary Spellbound Creepers!

I got to play against Oldhim three times in a row: Sheila, Maykel and Erik Baalhuis! So I kept my deck at 34 cards for the entire draft-tournament, to battle their possible fatigue plan. I could have gone for two more cards, but these would have made my deck less consistent (blue Stir the wildwood and blue Rites of Replenishment). Sadly without seeing any Briar or Lexi, the Runaway boots were useless for the entire tournament (much like my Library of Solana or Arc Light Sentinels by the way). I remember all three games being super fun and full with friendly chat and laughs. Specially the match versus Maykel, when I realized he looks like a character from a series I’m watching. We laughed so hard!

While playing limited I had too much fun to realize that I was well on my way to top 8, and this didn’t sink in until I defeated Erik, who ended 5-3. I felt a bit guilty afterwards, because he was one of the players I was rooting for at the start of the tournament. Luckily he still made it into top 8 with his signature hero Rhinar! And for me, I ended day one with a 7-1 score and was second seed in top 8, only below the Undefeated Jimmy!

Top 8 was looking awesome! Two Lexi players: Man Hiem and Ian. Two Briar players: Philip and Jimmy. One Bravo: Don. One Katsu: Didier. One Rhinar: Erik. And myself on Prism. Got to love the meta when there are SIX different heroes going to day two!

Top 8 match vs Katsu
Because I was the higher seed, it was for me to decide if I’d go first or would let him go first. I had been thinking about it for a long time, and decided to let him go first, so I could block out his first wave of attacks, and letting him gamble if I would play auras or not in case he’d want to arsenal after small attacks only. The thought was that if he’d go first, I would get initiative on attacking: Either leaving him without cards to use or being the first one to drop health every time in a damage-exchange game. This worked for a little while. Until I had a turn with an interesting hand: I often put Merciful Retributions in my deck for late-game shenanigans, but there was a turn where I could play it after Soul Shield went into my soul by pitching a blue card for 4 resources (Vestige of Sol). Alternatively, I could have pitched it, and attacked with the Blue herald on my turn. But I went for the early-mid-game aura, although I was able to have a Kodachi of my own for a couple of turns, it was the wrong play. I started losing momentum, where I needed to block high-priority attacks over and over, as Didier was able to play red Plunder run from arsenal three times over the course of the game! One turn I managed to have a come-back: Herald for 7, fully blocked, another Herald for 7, fully blocked, yellow Snatch taking his last card. He passed his turn. I finally had regained momentum. Or so I thought.

My next hand I’ll never forget: Library. Parable of Humility. Blue 2-cost Herald. Red Sink Below. I really needed to push as much damage as I could. But if I were to play the Herald, by pitching the yellow card, it would leave me with Library and Sink Below, at a moment where Katsu had been pushing through for damage for several turns. I was too low on health: 13 if I remember correctly. There would not be another time to play Library, it would either lock my arsenal for the rest of the game, or basically have an Intellect Penalty before locking it into my arsenal. I decided to create a Spectral shield, attack with it, play Library and pass with the Sink Below in arsenal. The best play in a bad situation. It did not take much longer before Ninja Master Didier took the win and my Nationals journey came to an end. A very valuable and insightful game, which made me want to play Ninja even more! I had finally fixed my Mask of Momentum a few days before the Nationals, so I’ll be playing that really soon.

It was such an amazing event! I am very happy that I managed to bring Prism into our National top 8, and that our meta is looking so diverse. I really love this community and how amazing all of you are! Keep on being awesome! And don’t forget to sign up for our Secret Santa today (November 24th) if you’re feeling creative and want to give back to the community (ask for specifics in the chat-group!)

Thanks for reading, and see you later!