Hello there axie pips!
How's it going?
Today we're up against something strong. One match we had was against a double bug line up, both with 'Cute Bunny' and 'Grub Surprise'. So, maybe you now have an idea of how tedious it is to do battle this kind of opponent. 'Fear' might be one of the most irritating status effect to have in the current meta. Frankly, I think it's worse than having stun or sleep because it deprives the victim a chance to hit it's enemies not just once, sometimes even twice if you have something like a chain of 'Cute Bunnies' coming from your opponent.
Aside from dealing with this annoying line up we're also going to discuss a classic battle against an ABP (Aqua-Beast-Plant). Seriously, although beasts relies majority on their critical to take down plant, what really makes them annoying for me is their energy manipulation cards like 'Piercing Sound' and 'Night Steal'. If you add the trouble of the frontline plant which often have 'Vegetal Bite' then that's really threatening especially for our energy management in the coming rounds.
Things are getting long for an intro so without further ado let's go!
Too Much Fear, Too Much Stun
This was a very strong opponent, especially for a line up like ours. The only consolation we had was bugs are pretty slow so we had the initiative to attack first most of the time. But notice their parts as they had these pretty annoying parts/skills that might be troublesome even for 'Double Aqua' teams.
First of all they had double fear coming from 'Cute Bunny' and 'Grub Surprise'. It was inevitable that we would miss some of our attacks because of the status effect 'Fear', worst was we would miss 2 times if they manage to chain CB. 'Grub Surprise' would most likely be effective as we would armor up most of the time, especially in mid to late game. Aside from having 'Double Fear' they also have 'Double Stun'. The only cards that would pretty useful against this 'Double Bug' line up would be the 'Acro' and 'Ill-omened' which would both come from our backline Freddy. The problem was they have 'Snail Shell' which would stun us when it's broken and 'Anesthetic Bait' which would stun opponents if the bugs were hit by aquatic or bird cards. In our case, 'Ill-omened' might be a little troublesome to execute because of this.
In the first round we decided to go all out with 'Carrot'+'Double Cactus'. Their plant was there to generate energy, especially against Aquas. It didn't have any high shield except for that watering can and most parts are for energy generation. They had 'Nimo'+'Serious'+'Disguise' which would be a powerhouse in terms of energy gain if executed properly so better kill it off early to deprive them of such advantage later on. What we didn't expect is for them to pass until round 5. They have full energy and started demolishing our line up. Although I must say that they did waste an energy there for passing too much. Anyways, they took down our plant in round 5 even with 'Pumpkin'. It was not that surprising but it still pained me of what to come, knowing that they have enough energy in their arsenal.
In round 6, we were expecting that our midline would be feared two times so we set up a high defense move with 'Double Bone Sail'+'Tiny Dino'. We made sure that 'Tiny Dino' would be the in the last position so that even when feared we can at least make a hit. We actually, miscalculated here because we forgot that it would be our turn first. But since they could also try to defend using 'Snail Shell' it might be helpful to place 'Tiny Dino' in the position. Also, because of the threat coming from 'Anesthetic Bait', we sandwiched a 'Luna Absorb' in between 2 'Ill-omened' to make sure it would negate the stun effect. They went for a CB chain and their mid defended with a 'Snail Shell', they still had an 'Anesthetic bait' which they did not use so instead of wasting a 'Luna Absorb' for negating stun we just gained an energy. The problem was our midline 'YB' was pretty much useless in the upcoming rounds because of the double fear so in the next round we just put on a 'Bone Sail' to draw an extra card for our backline.
In round 8, we again place a 'Luna Absorb' in between 2 'Ill-omened' because of that stun coming from 'Anesthetic Bait'. The problem with bugs is that even though they are slow they have high health, they can put alot of shield even with just two cards and they can inflict status effects even when defending. Thankfully, maybe due to low energy they neglected 'Snail Shell' which could be a turning point in this fight. We won by last stand but it almost came to a draw. Our last move should be 'Ill-omened'+'Luna Absorb'+'YSS'+'Ill-omened' in this case we could have prevented their last stand because the disparity between their health and 'Ill-omened' would be so great it would be impossible for them to enter last stand. It almost came to a draw thankfully we had some chunk of health and entered last stand, else it would have been a draw.
This ABP Wanted to R*pe My Energy Pool
We wanted to preserve as much energy as we could to demolish their plant in one swoop but they started this annoying barrage of energy destroys and energy steals while slowly chipping away the life of our frontline tank. We had no choice but to bide our time because if we didn't take down that plant in one-go it would just defend and heal in the following round. In three rounds they destroyed 1 energy and stole 2 from us. We played 'Double Pimpkin' which was a shame as the beast damage manage to bypass through our midline in the following round because of the lack of defense. We should have played only one in round 3.
Although our midline was in critical health because of that 'Ronin' combo earlier we managed to save enough energy and demolish their front line later on. We also played high defense in our mid knowing that they didn't have enough energy to kill us. We reflected 100% of the damage from 'Piercing Sound' which would secure the kill for the beast. In round 6 we were still had an option to defend our mid but that would be a gamble in case of an unforeseen critical from their aqua. We just played it safe and eliminated the beast with 2 'Ill-omened' and a 'YSS'.
Thankfully, we are even in energy count. It would have been problematic if they are ahead because two 'YSS' could not sustain two rounds of 4 card barrage even with heal. We just played typical 130 defense with an energy gain. 'Ill-omened' is very important because it eliminates those crits that might come in crucial moments. They played 2 cards in round 8 which is pretty useless. Together with the armor and heal the damage was pretty much negated. The problem with having an energy gain card like 'Luna Absorb' is that it becomes a nuisance when you want to go all out with 4 cards. In round 9 if we managed to draw something other than 'Luna Absorb' we could have won earlier. Thankfully, they only have 2 energy after and the shield can still absorb the impact. If that was a three card combo instead of two we could have lost the match.
And that's it for today. Thank you very much for visiting/
Hope you have a wonderful Sunday tomorrow.
CIAO~