Inspired by Paulo Vitor Damo da Rosa’s terrific mtg series:

https://www.channelfireball.com/articles/whats-the-play-5-scenarios/

as well as Eternal’s puzzles, I will present a few interesting decisions in some gauntlet games with various decks. A few I have pictures for, and some I do not as ipad’s screenshot capability can be tricky in-game. I will be as descriptive as possible for the ones without an accompanying picture. Before I begin, please note that a few of these are with test decks, not final versions (you might not need to craft four Scale Seeker for example). I will list several options and at the end of the article give the line that I think is best.



The first scenario (labeled scenario #1 at the end of the article) is against one of the toughest aggro decks in gauntlet, stonescar hellfire. This deck also includes Impending Doom, Bandit Queen as well as Annihilate and Deathstrike:



We have what I call a rapidly deteriorating board state. If the AI draws a Bandit Queen it’s more or less lights out for us. So what do we do here? If we had five power for Madness + Devour that would be cool but we don’t and in fact don’t need to, because of the AI’s primitive understanding of Madness.

To get out of this spot alive, we need to simplify this board. We want to force the AI to trade a unit, with the unit we madness. Playing Zuberi is not the greatest here because Groundbreaker and Champion have good attacks into our board. We will consider units to madness, and utilize our torch.

Do you madness an Oni Ronin, Rakano Outlaw, Groundbreaker, or the Champion of Chaos? Consider the options and see my solution at the end.

For scenario #2, we are testing out a skycrag dragons deck. The AI is either bluffing here, or has a fast spell that would make attacking with a 5/5 into a 5/6 profitable (hint: the AI doesn’t bluff)



We are at seven health, and have to block one or more units. What’s the play?

Scenario #3 does not have a picture. We are at ten health against an attacking Impending Doom, and will be dead next AI turn (it is currently the AI’s turn). The AI is at high health but an OTK may be possible on the crackback. Our board is two Scraptank, and five 1/1 grenadins, no power available. Our Scraptanks are 5/5 and 3/3. The AI has a Pyroknight, two Oni Ronin and two Bandit Queens on board, and only attacks with the Oni Ronins (3/1 warcry quickdraw). There are no fast spells for the AI, and the other units can block next turn. Our hand is a Power, Torch, Cull the Deck, a Stray into Shadow we pulled from the market in a prior turn, and another Scraptank. Whats the play? (We have exactly five power ready after playing the depleted power in hand)

The final scenario, #4 is against Covert Operations. It is our turn, we have two power ready, a Vara’s Favor and expensive units in hand (>= 4 cost), as well as one additional sigil in hand. Do you play the sigil and the Vara’s favor face to be power efficient, and not miss power drops, or hold the favor? The AI has two power ready and will likely make its third drop next turn. There are no units on board.

Solutions/my lines:

Scenario #1 – I want to get rid of Groundbreaker or Champion of Chaos. If I madness Groundbreaker and the AI blocks with Champion, this is awesome. However the AI likely values Champion higher than Groundbreaker and will probably let this attack through which is disasterous. Madnessing Champion doesn’t work because the warcry five health will not die from the two Oni Ronins potential block. This leaves madnessing Oni Ronin or Rakano Outlaw. The play here is madness Outlaw, the AI will take a free block with Champion. Let the damage happen so Outlaw dies, then finish Champion with a Torch. In the actual game, this let me stabilize and win from there a few turns later.

Scenario #2 – the AI is representing one particular card here:

This means that we are forced to block Carnosaur with at least one unit (six plus one = dead). If we block one each, we lose both our units and the game. The play here is double block the Carnosaur. The AI did not fire off the Strike here, but the result would have been going to one health vs. two health. One Dragon and the Carnosaur die. Yes, the AI punted by not A spacing here and missed letal (it had the strike). I won the game from there.

Scenario #3 – The play here is chump the Onis with two of the 1/1 grenadins (or all of them, either way works). Blocking one each makes our Scraptanks 9/9 and 7/7, with three 1/1 grenadins left. We start our turn and Stray into Shadow killing our three grenadins and all the AI would be blockers. Our Scraptanks get +6/+6 and are 15/15 and 13/13. We attack with both and celebrate our good play!

Scenario #4 – The correct play is to hold the Vara’s Favor. We do not get punished too much for missing the drop, but the reward is quite high when the AI plays a Direwood Beastcaller next turn (happens around 40-50%, use a hypergeometric calculator to get the exact probability. I believe this card is a four-of).

This play rewards knowledge of the AI lists. As an aside, I would like DWD to release these lists to us. It would give “part time” gauntlet players an equal footing when they play (make that gold quest less daunting) and it would take some of the guess work out of deckbuilding. It would answer in-game questions like, does the AI have Carnosaur, Ayan, Titan, Harsh Rule? The AI did have the Beastcaller, I favored it the next turn, and my torches were ready for other units, and an easy victory.

Thanks for reading! I will leave you with a fun moment with madness against the AI (different game than the above scenario). Nice Ringmaster AI!