After weeks of grinding, we finally made it back to Mythic! Its bittersweet because the rewards are far better, but I generally stop the mid-week grind to ensure that I keep my spot come weekend ranked.
This last week I developed a burning hatred for Control Light. It is demoralising to play against but I understand that each matchup has one or two archetypes that will cause them to get tilted.
The Deck
A minor change, adding in Hope Lost. The idea was to use it against Aggro Deception and any Ramp or Schoolteacher Magic but as I explain below, this was far from reality.
Statistics
How the tables have turned. 100% success against Nature this week, vs 0% last week. The Nature nerf really seems to have made a difference, or maybe I just got lucky. Other than Nature I really struggled this week especially with Aggro Deception and Control Light as can be expected. Hope Lost was a complete waste of time. The problem is that the Deception players can dump almost all their 1 health creatures as they get them, and it doesn't feel good using a 3 mana card to potentially only obliterate 1 or 2 cards and lose tempo at the same time. The couple of times I played it, a grand total of ZERO cards were obliterated. I actually ended up changing decks for the last few games (which did not turn my fortunes around either).
Week 4 Statistics
Archetype Results
| Archetype | Matches | Win Rate | Going 1st | Going 2nd |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Heirloom Death | 2 | 50% | 50% | - |
| Zombie Death | 3 | 0% | 0% | 0% |
| Aggro Deception | 2 | 0% | 0% | - |
| Midrange Light | 1 | 0% | - | 0% |
| Control Light | 2 | 0% | - | 0% |
| Control Magic | 1 | 100% | 100% | - |
| Card Draw Magic | 1 | 0% | 0% | - |
| Aggro Nature | 2 | 100% | 100% | 100% |
| Midrange Nature | 1 | 100% | - | 100% |
| Aggro War | 2 | 50% | 50% | - |
| Midrange War | 1 | 0% | 0% | - |
In a reversal of Week 3, we went first 66% of the time! However we were unable to convert this into winning numbers.
Starting Position Results
| Going 1st | Going 2nd | |
|---|---|---|
| Count | 12 | 6 |
| Wins | 4 | 2 |
| Win Rate | 33% | 33% |
Running Statistics
Most of the matchups that are starting to accumulate a number of games are approaching a 50% overall win rate. This is encouraging and probably where you want the game to be. The exception looks like it will be Light, Deception and Zombie Death for this Heirloom archetype, which lacks immediate AOE removal and struggles against anything that can heal.
Archetype Results
| Archetype | Matches | Win Rate | Going 1st | Going 2nd |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Heirloom Death | 4 | 50% | 50% | - |
| Zombie Death | 8 | 25% | 0% | 40% |
| Control Death | 1 | 100% | 100% | - |
| Aggro Deception | 2 | 0% | 0% | - |
| Order Deception | 1 | 0% | 0% | - |
| Aggro Light | 4 | 50% | 50% | 50% |
| Midrange Light | 3 | 33% | - | 33% |
| Control Light | 2 | 0% | - | 0% |
| Aggro Magic | 1 | 100% | 100% | - |
| Control Magic | 1 | 100% | 100% | - |
| Card Draw Magic | 1 | 0% | 0% | - |
| Aggro Nature | 7 | 57% | 75% | 33% |
| Midrange Nature | 2 | 50% | - | 50% |
| Regen Nature | 1 | 0% | - | 0% |
| Control Nature | 3 | 67% | - | 67% |
| Aggro War | 11 | 55% | 71% | 25% |
| Midrange War | 2 | 50% | 0% | 100% |
Starting Position Results
| Going 1st | Going 2nd | |
|---|---|---|
| Ratio | 52% | 48% |
| Win Rate | 50% | 38% |
Rewards
We high rolled an Asterius this week off a rare pack. Other than that the rewards were a little underwhelming. We did manage to get some shine though.
Looking Forward
In preparation for daily play and earn, I have started to forge some of the Death staples like Blight Bomb, Fleshbind, Vrock and Raving Necromancer. This next week looks like it will be tough for Heirloom again as I expect a lot more Aggro Deception (less than 30% win rate on gudecks). Another scary deck is one that I have seen Hpain playing. A Dralamar deck which goes off on either turn 5.5 or 6 fairly consistently. It does however require two copies of Clone which are just under $100 each.
I keep trying to think of ways to deal with Deception, and I may just test out Eva, Baroness of the Dead to see how that goes.
If you have any interesting thoughts on where the meta may end up, and counters to it for Death, let me know in the comments.
That wraps it up for this week, I look forward to running into you out there on the cliff face!
In Previous Episodes...
If you missed the previous installment of this series it can be found here: