4Game

Hey guys, I wanted to share my experience pulling some factions out of the gutter and into a top 500 finish to the October season.

profile

I consider myself an average player in pro rank. I consistently finish in the top 500 but never cracked the top 200. I enjoy competing in community tournaments and have won 1. Last season (September) I finished around 300. I think my best performing faction was sy brute bounty. I am not a good deck builder at all. I netdeck tournament decks and streamer decks.

At the start of the current patch I struggled. When the balance council changes went into effect most of my factions were between 2350-2410. I had a horrible winrate and probably my worst start to any season. But I was determined to make top 500. It’s just a goal for me every season.

Faction by faction this is what I’ve done in the past 5 days.

MO: Abandoned the faction for the remainder of the season.

I attempted to learn AQ Idr deck to play in tournaments. I tanked the deck all the way to an unsalvageable 2290 mmr (ouch)

This hurt my chances of climbing because MO is one of the stronger factions currently.

SK: 2400-2458
The day of the balance council changes I watched Truzky’s epic -30 prov pirates stream and then I quickly climbed GN pirates to 2458 going 10-3. I figured it wouldn’t be a challenge to climb SK further and left it on peak for a late season push. Still needing to decide on a 4th faction and pull everything else out of the 2300’s.

Deck

No surprises here. This is exactly Danirai’s deck from the recent polish championships.

Match History

ST: 2390-2434

St I was initially doing very well with schirru dwarves deck due to good luck with coin and matchups. I played this deck to a peak of 2434. Then all the flaws of the deck suddenly started exposing themselves and after losing due to drawing bricks multiple games in a row I switched to harmony. My current MMR with ST is 2398 and I think it’s currently too far off peak to worry about for the rest of the patch (only 3 days left)

schirru

Notably: bearification swapped for offering (net decked from Pepe smile)

Harmony
(Bird version rather than pajas Brehen version)

Match history

NR: 2390-2458
Post balance council I switched from Erland to knights. The extra available provision due to AA but intrigued me. And knights have always been strong in the right meta. With (sadly) the raping of NG the north seemed ready for a huge season. I began with a vandergrift + Wilhelm list but had much more success with Regis version. A sky high winrate in the last few days and feels like if I had a few more days this could reach 2500 without a challenge. Faction currently sits on peak. Ready for final push.

Deck

As mentioned Regis necromancy version

Match history

SY: I really tried hard to make sy work because NG seemed hopeless. I tried GN bounty. Felt weak to me. Tried off the books and abandoned the faction after I tanked to 2340. With MO and SY in really bad places NG was now my only hope.

NG: 2340-2454

I tried playing nerfed baccala soldiers (nope).
I tried learning nekker false Ciri deck ( I don’t recommend it for ladder)
I tried learning assimilate (always been more of a renfri NG player, never played assimilate because I just never took the time to learn the deck.)

I started tinkering with aristocrats. Because I know the deck well, and been successful with it in the past. Unfortunately the deck had lost 2 provisions. So something had to be cut. I decided I would cut coup and replace it with a blightmaker. This left me a 5p slot open and when I finally added the underrated impera inforcers into this slot the deck suddenly could not lose. Opponents underestimated the points and utility of this card. Also they lacked the control tools to remove all of the boost engines along with a 4power 1 armor conditional engine. The impera enforcers are proactive and make emhyrs order more powerful. Interestingly enough I think only 1 opponent has removed my ard feainn ( a shupe deck)

Deck

Notably- no arablest ( swapped for a Thanned turncoat) for as much spying synergy as possible. I really dislike units that are non synergistic with ard feainn and limited them as much as possible.

Match history

As of typing I’m 500. 3 factions on peak. It was a rough start to the season but in the past 4 days a 75% winrate brought me back to my usual position on ladder.