The Last Tall Dorinthea Skirmish Report: Reaper Game Store

I decided to do one more Skirmish report for the blog — this time for the huge Reaper Game Store event. I believe this was either the last or among the last Skirmish events held. This event was seven rounds of Swiss cut to top eight. I used a variation of my Dorinthea deck, this time with a bit more pitch than I’d been running for a bit thanks to the threat posed by Kano. Let’s see how it did for me!

Round One: Ira

I was playing against experienced Ira player Laurel in the first round — I had played her once before towards the start of the Skirmish season. At that time she had not been using a Mask of Momentum, but she had it for this game. This round started well for me — I won the roll, chose to go second, and then broke my opponent’s Zephyr Needle in her second turn thanks to a Springboard Somersault! After that I had a major advantage in terms of how much pressure I could inflict and maintained aggression throughout the game, ultimately closing things out with back to back Ironsong Determination turns.

Victory! (1-0)

Round Two: Kano

This time I found myself playing against Dominic, one of the most experienced players in Canada according to the LSS experience system and #6 on worldwide 90-day XP as well! Once again I won the roll and chose to go second. My opponent found lots of opt effects this game but not a ton of damage, and I saw the blues I needed to keep my defense up (including one of the blue Overpowers that I had swapped in to help this matchup!). Ultimately I was able to get a counter and some tempo with an early Steelblade Supremacy. I was coming in for a lethal four damage while on fifteen, and my opponent used Kano repeatedly, finding a Forked Lightning but not enough damage boosts to try and kill me at instant speed. Dominic opted to put up a heavy defense, blocking ten with three cards and his Tunic, but I played a Glint the Quicksilver followed by a Twinning Blade to get a second swing for lethal against a now-depleted hand.

Victory! (2-0)

Round Three: Dorinthea

This match hinged on an interesting play. Early in the game I put a Twinning Blade in arsenal — not great but sometimes valuable. Later, I got a Steelblade Supremacy turn that my opponent let in, giving me a counter and some cards. One of the cards in hand was a Springboard Somersault, and I decided that I would use my Twinning Blade despite not having another go again source to load the Springboard into arsenal. This proved to be crucial, as next turn my opponent came in with Supremacy + Determination, I blocked it out with a card plus armor, and he played Glint and then Razor to get go again and come in over my block, so Somersault saved my bacon! I hit him more on my next turn, then he came in with another Supremacy + Dominate turn. This time I could afford to just eat it though and then come in for lethal on my next turn thanks to a red Overpower.

Victory! (3-0)

Round Four: Dorinthea

Mirror match against Rob from Tolarian Dropouts! This match was streamed so I’m not going to commentate it as much, but I got into an advantaged position. Rob put up a tenacious defense though, stopping me from ending the game and inflicting some damage as well. Towards the end we were both at two life but i was behind on tempo, with Rob’s game plan being to play two copies of Shunt to kill me — ultimately, I broke through via Rout the turn before he would have drawn the second Shunt, winning the game on one life!

Victory! (4-0)

Round Five: Rhinar

This match was also streamed! In a war of two aggro decks, Warrior’s armor and Dawnblade counters can be very effective, and in this game that was certainly the case. We traded some hits at first (including one Bloodrush Bellow), but eventually he took a slow turn, letting me get a counter and then just playing a Sigil from a two card hand. I believed this likely meant his other card was also going to be a Bloodrush Bellow, as few other things would be worth saving like that. Luckily for me I got a huge pressure hand of my own, playing Supremacy + Determination + red Valor, using Courage of Bladehold, and attacking twice for the win.

Victory! (5-0)

Round Six: Dorinthea

This time I found myself at a disadvantage early on in the game, but managed to defend heavily and find a window to come back on offense. I was able to play out an Energy Potion after blocking nine on one of the turns where I had to go defensive. Lather, the Potion came in clutch to enable a red Overpower that let me keep a Dawnblade counter and swing again to force another card out of my opponent’s hand. A little while later I was able to close things out with another red Overpower to finish the game.

Victory! (6-0)

Round Seven: Kano

This was a really interesting game despite it being quite a fast one as well. Uhfortunately, the complexity of Kano makes it difficult to explain exactly what all happened, but I felt both our decks were drawing well and there were interesting decisions being made on both sides. Ultimately my opponent managed to get me, hitting for exactly lethal just before my Dawnblade would have gotten him. If my last card in hand had been a blue rather than a yellow I would have prevailed, but I didn’t feel it was especially unlucky for me not to have it given that I had seen a fair share of blues earlier.

Defeat! (6-1, made top cut as 2nd seed)

With a 6-1 record I made the top cut, though not as the top seed — hopefully someone else would knock out the top-seeded Kano again, as I feel the Dorinthea vs. Kano matchup is much more favorable when I get to go second!

Top Eight: Rhinar

I found myself against the same Brute player I’d played in Swiss, but this time he was playing much more defensively rather than trying to push damage.

Unfortunately, this game was somewhat marred by an unusual incident — in the early or midgame, my opponent blocked a Warrior’s Valor play with three cards, including a card that I believed to be a Bloodrush Bellow, and I thought he said “Bloodrush” as one of the cards that he’d blocked with. I wasn’t 100%, but I looked at the cards and one of them sure looked like Bloodrush. The two copies of Bloodrush Bellow in these claw decks are crucial, and given my opponent’s heavy defensive play and the fact that I thought he’d lost one of his two combo opportunities, I decided to avoid trying to push damage as hard as possible and instead go for a fatigue-based strategy, in some cases intentionally not attacking as hard as I could in order to save some aggressive options for later. Several turns later, though — in fact, right after one of the turns where I’d decided to conserve offensive options in order to save for the lategame fatigue plan — my opponent used his Barkbone Strapping, got two resources, and played two Bloodrush Bellows on the same turn!

I called a judge, but ultimately there was little that could be done — the card that I had thought was the first Bloodrush was actually a copy of Massacre, which has similar art (both show a Brute standing in the center of the frame with something gory in each hand) esp. when seen via webcam and potentially obscured by another card or two. Sadly, I did not record the game so I can’t go back and “review the tape” to find out what happened there. I thought I’d heard him say that he blocked with Bloodrush, but I give the opponent the benefit of the doubt here — he was playing very precisely in other ways and I don’t think he would intentionally misrepresent the game state. It’s very possible he said “block with Barraging” or “block with Beatdown” or something — both “Barraging” and “Beatdown” start with a “B” and sounds a bit like like “Bloodrush”, so maybe he said one of those and I misheard him and then got the wrong impression from seeing part of the Massacre art? I should have asked him to confirm rather than just assuming.

In the end, the double Bloodrush turn knocked me out of the event — an unfortunate way to go, but that’s how it is sometimes. Despite the rough ending, I was happy to make top eight in a 100+ person field.

Defeat! (6-2, somewhere in 5th-8th place depending on how they do the tiebreak there)

Ultimately, I’ve really enjoyed the Skirmish season and my games with Tall Dorinthea. I managed to pick up three Skirmish wins, I made top eight in every Skirmish where I played every round, and I scored three Discord Gauntlet wins with a similar build as well! With the Skirmish season over and Monarch on the horizon, a switch towards more Limited and Classic Constructed play seems imminent and should be a fun change of pace after lots of Blitz. Stay tuned for more on that front as the game and community develops!