Spear Vs Shield: Shield wins! - Rant about my last game.

[rrc]

After achieving Francesca Mastery, I started playing for Foltest Mastery as he was my second leader with most wins. I created a deck with two Shields, Tridam, Foltest Usual Suspects (GoD, Seltkirk, Dragons, Eyck) and NR auto-include cards (Ves, Botchling, Reinforced Trebutchet) with Lacrete and fillers. The main reason I added Shields is to handle Blood Thirst units and to try to deny Marauder (and of course for Tridam too).

In my last game I faced Arnjolf. I started with Arbalist + Tactical Advantage. Opponent played Spear. I played Botching followed by Marauder. Botchling becomes Lubberkin and I played Medic. The opponent passed as Blood Thirst couldn't be achieved in that setup. I dry pass R2 and in R3, I had two of my shields in hand.

Opponent started with Spear and I with Shield. Skald and then Reinforced Trebutchet (and now boosted). Patricide was played and my Trebutchet was killed. Now the game got interesting. I deployed my other Shield and boosted a Siren. Now, the opponent tried to keep three blood thirst units but couldn't. After 3 more turns, there was no damaged enemies for the opponent. For the three turns the opponent played the Boost by 5 guy and then captain and that was all. The opponent had to play Wild Boar of Sea for 4 points. Use Champion Hov to do 5 damage.

Such a great feeling. To see Blood Thirst deck panicking and losing. So, I was wondering if everyone could consider adding Shields to their decks. Of course Crach would have handled the situation much better, but two shields (a very lucky hand I agree) in a long R3 totally kills Blood Thirst. Probably the only counter to BT deck?

 

[DRK3]

That's why when i see a NR deck that seems to be boost-based and im using my Arnjolf deck, i try to use my BT units R1 if their conditions are met, and if not i mulligan them R3 for more versatile units that dont brick vs boosts.

But NR boost is definitely not the only counter to Arnjolf BT, Consume decks, Arachas decks and pretty much all decks with shields, like you said. Oh, and SC Boost decks, specially FIlavandrel's where their units already start boosted and require 2 or more pings to be damaged.

 

[M3e0w]

Artifacts are ok now I suppose, far from OP anyway, they can get 9points for 7 provisions at most.

Nonetheless I don't GG anyone using shield or spear xD. Just think that the they are always annoying to play against and it's even more annoying if you have them and they get removed.

Plus I can't help but think that any game where artifacts are involved is 5-10% longer on average xD...

 

[4RM3D]

Spear Vs Shield: Shield wins!

That's not how it works. When the Unstoppable Force hits the Immovable Object, the laws of the universe will cease to exist and life as we know it will end. Please, don't go destroying the fabric of reality.

 

[Restlessdingo32]

Not a fan of artifacts, personally. Shields and Spears are great long round cards but provide no tempo whatsoever and get wrecked by artifact removal. So they're a liability in both regards. Virtually every deck I've been running lately doesn't include artifacts. Not that I ever ran them often to begin with. Granted, I've been playing Gerni lately so... yeah...

In terms of Arnjolf.... Like many decks floating around right now it's weak to R2 bleeds. Force the leader out and much of the bloodthirst potential goes with it. Crach is simply better, IMO. More provisions, more reliable bloodthirst, greater consistency.

I still think spears and shields should be reworked slightly to prevent the ability to carry over pings. They're good enough in long rounds without having the ability to play two pings on one turn. I believe I threw out the Elven Swordmaster treatment in one of the MS QQ threads somewhere as one possibility to achieve it. So, a two turn CD with playing a unit reducing it by one turn instead of yielding a ping.

Of course, at this point I've gone back to my original thoughts on the matter. This game would be better off without artifacts entirely.