I'm excited to share with you my recent win at the Agoradex #3 Tournament on Community Gaming. I managed to come in first place, taking home a share of the $200 prize pool. In my post, you can check out some gameplay from my matches and get a closer look at the decks I used. I also talk about my strategy and what helped me win the tournament.
Here's the gameplay video from my matches. Unfortunately, I forgot to record the game for Round 5 against mepo2000.
Tournament Format
The AgoraDex tournament was a 1-day event with a $200 prize pool. The tournament was Best of 1 until the finals, with no restrictions except for Mythic cards like Citadel of the Gods.
The finals were Best of 3 with a King of the Hill format, where the winner had to play the same deck and god, and the loser had to change deck and god. So if you won with Magic against War, you had to play the same Magic deck again, and your opponent couldn't play War.
Decks
I played a few different decks for the tournament: Hidden Rush Deception (HRD), Schoolteachers Magic, and Dralamar Magic. I'm experienced with HRD and the magic combo decks counter control decks.
Hidden Rush Deception
This is the HRD deck I copied from Clutch. I only played this during Weekend Ranked and daily Play2Earn. It's a fast aggro deck that is hard for the opponent to interact with for some decks. You can use your hidden creatures and buffs to rush your opponent down, or you can use favorable trades and removal to get ahead on the board. Nature is a hard counter to the deck, but it isn't great in the meta, so I didn't expect to face it during the tournament.
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Schoolteachers Magic
This is the standard Schoolteacher combo magic deck by jazus. Games end quickly either way with this deck. It's another hard-to-interact-with deck. You win by assembling 4 Schoolteachers with a token guy and a burn spell to deal 30 damage in 1 turn or through a similar line. There are a few ways for the opponent to delay the combo, such as giving you no way to clear your Warp Engineer or clogging your board with barrels, getting ward or protected on the god, or through hand disruption.
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Dralamar Magic
I copied hpain's Dralamar deck and swapped out Demogorgons for Vow of Champions. Dralamar is a control-oriented combo deck. You use the plethora of removal spells in Magic to delay the opponent as you gather the pieces to play Dralamar and draw through your deck until you can play Aetherbug and loop two Magic Inks together to kill your opponent. This deck can win against aggro by running them out of threats, and control decks usually aren't fast enough to kill you before you can combo.
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Rounds
R1 - Permadeath - 0:00
I didn't look up my opponent in the first game and queued my usual HRD. Lo and behold, they are playing Amazon Nature. Oh boy, this is going to be rough. I go first, at least, so I can prevent them from getting board control early. It's a close game as we jockey for board. I'm getting dangerously low at 4hp, but Nature doesn't have a lot of reach outside of Vicious Manticore, so I probably can't die immediately. They run low on cards and can't stick a board to kill me. Out of cards, they surrender.
R2 - HallYall - 12:33
I felt like he might play a control deck, so I played teachers. He is playing Coronet Light. A strange choice, as it's not a conventional deck nor does it perform well. The deck can't do anything to stop my combo. I clear my own Warp Engineer for board space. Him giving his god protected with Prayer of the Desperate delays me a few turns as I try to find another burn spell, but he has no pressure. I gather all the pieces and OTK him.
R3 - gNova4 - 20:50
My opponent is on Aggro Light. I queue as HRD, which has a good win rate against it. I go first, but my hand isn't great. They manage to go wide on board, but Umber, Shiv, and GP let me clear most of it. They're putting up a good fight, but they're running low on cards. A few trades give me board control, and they are shut out of the game.
R4 - Lexotan - 32:56
I scouted them on gudecks and put them to be likely on Control War. Dralamar can handle it well. Teachers might have been better in hindsight. Control War doesn't have the cards to rush me down, but they put up a good fight against my removal. I'm on a clock against Slayer, and I get low on health, but I manage to find the combo and win.
R5 Semifinals - mepo2000
I forgot to record this match. Mepo has such a wide range that it's hard to know what to expect. Dralamar would do well against Control and is decent against aggro, so I queued it. Mepo is playing HRD, which I didn't expect. Mepo puts on a lot of pressure with his creatures (not having Demogorgons hurt here), but I slow him down enough with removal that I can stabilize and find Dralamar for the win.
R6 Finals - Clutch - 41:34
As it is KOTH, the winner of the first game has an advantage since if they lose the second game, the opponent is forced to play the same deck and the winner can counter the deck they lost to.
No clue what to play against Clutch so I yolo teachers. He opens with Aggro War, probably one of my worst matches. I go second, it doesn't look great. The deck combos on turn 5 most of the time but I won't likely live that long. My hand can get there if all goes well. And Clutch chokes the game playing imp and attacking with it. The self-damage from imp sped up my clock by a turn since I didn't need a burn spell to go face anymore so I can win on turn 4.
Clutch can't play war against me which is good and I'm stuck playing teachers but I can counter whatever he plays in the 3rd match if it comes to it. He plays Control Light. Odd pick against teachers. The only thing I need to worry about is Odessa so I need to find Surpassing Blast and another spell to remove her then I can combo the following turn. He has a slow start giving me time to find my combo pieces without needing to play Lost in the Depths and obliterate the removal I need for Odessa. He does have the Odessa, which buys him a turn, but it isn't enough before I can combo him the following turn.