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Kithmera Choke: 1st Place Worlds 2015


  • VonWibble, ellonellanfair, SammyBoyFTW and 13 others like this


21 Comments

Kith decks are truly an art forum. They all have the same big units. Buy when it comes to tech like superiority, every card slot matters. Your choices are absolutely great. We'll played sir.
    • GKZhukov and TheHiveTyrant like this

I made similar plays with klaivex vs Seth in the swiss resulting in a bloody Ragnar and he played around it when we met up again in the top 8, may have had some influence on his retreating.

 

Thank you as well for the kind words in the summary of our game, i was playing pretty aggressively and if the game went beyond that planet i'm pretty sure i would have lost to your command advantage at that point. Hope to see you next year

    • GKZhukov likes this

I always have avoided running 3x Syren and 3x Archon's Palace for fear of overdrawing/having too many in my opening hand. Did you find this to be a problem?

    • FedericoFasullo likes this
Great play and great result. Congrats again! How much use did you have for Foretell? I used to include it in several decks but have not played it lately.
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FedericoFasullo
Nov 11 2015 09:29 AM

I always have avoided running 3x Syren and 3x Archon's Palace for fear of overdrawing/having too many in my opening hand. Did you find this to be a problem?

 

Seconded.

Great play and great result. Congrats again!

How much use did you have for Foretell? I used to include it in several decks but have not played it lately.


Cheers, it was pretty important in the final. I think I maybe used it in one other game for its effect and once to cancel something fairly irrelevant (i.e. as a cantrip). I think the fact that it also draws through your deck means it's always worth slots, it's just a question of whether there is enough space in the deck or not, and in the end I favoured Superiority over fitting in more of it, but I think both are good shouts.

In the end it's probably one of those 'it's better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it' things.

I always have avoided running 3x Syren and 3x Archon's Palace for fear of overdrawing/having too many in my opening hand. Did you find this to be a problem?

For me Palace 3x is pretty much the first thing that goes in the deck, even more so than Terror/Klaivex. An early Palace hurts your opponent so much that the dead draw feels minor in comparison. I'd happily start the game with 2 Palaces in hand and 5 average cards.

Syren is a bit tougher, and she also requires careful play (she's a pretty easy Warlord snipe target if unsupported, and can be worked around with various effects such as Maxos, Mobility). Again, however, her potential to lock out a key planet and gain you a command advantage is just too good to miss out on. If she gets you a card you wouldn't have otherwise got and that card turns out to be a duplicate of herself, so be it, she's still doing a fantastic job at locking that planet. Furthermore she tends to die (or you win) since she's at these important planets and your opponent wants to remove the lock. Then you stick one down at the next key planet. Sometimes I might even let her die if it's a 1st planet so I can get the lock at the next key planet without having a round of her stuck at HQ.

Part of the reasoning is that both cards give you command advantage anyway and thus make it more likely that you are outdrawing your opponent (though sometimes it is better to turn that advantage into out-resourcing your opponent and you may actually be behind in draw). If you are outdrawing your opponent then the odd dead card hurts a lot less as it's all relative.

Hope that helps a little regarding my thought process. Feel free to disagree with any/all of it.

Edit: another way of looking at it is which one you treat as the "spare". If you look at it as the 2nd/3rd you're thinking "I could have had something else". If you look at it as the 1st one being something else instead, then maybe you never got that early command advantage so you never drew the 2nd one anyway.
    • Koz, Gosgosh and Eu8L1ch like this

Could someone comment a bit on the reasoning behind why the Syren was dropped first turn on the 5th planet in the finals? Didn't seem like a standard move to me. Was it just for the command?

I'm not sure how straight I was thinking for the first few minutes, but I think I knew that planet would be important as there wasn't an early win out. Syren is vulnerable to sniping, and in that sense Carnath is a tempting planet for Seth to go to, but Atrox would probably be just as tempting. They were the 1-1 planets, win condition planets and strong ability planets.

I think I had the Klaivex if snipe did occur (though round one I wouldn't have the resources) and I felt at this point Seth wouldn't want to go there. I figured by the late game going there would also mean the HQ train got stuck which would have been an acceptable trade off (though as it happened Plannum came out so that wouldn't have been so true) or it'd get reinforced by me by then. Did I also have the foretell at that point? If Ragnar soloed her she'd probably live too, which wouldn't have been so bad.

I also knew I was going to play the Khymermasters somewhere and that would also be a tempting place for Seth to go. So it was basically choose to double down with Syren & Masters, which would have been weaker command-wise, or accept that Seth would likely run at one of the two, with the masters at Atrox being the more likely choice.

Great play and great result. Congrats again! How much use did you have for Foretell? I used to include it in several decks but have not played it lately.

 

One key strength of Foretell in Kith is cancelling Tarrus or Carnath->Tarrus as these are very popular targets for warlord commits when facing her. You can see Seth use it to get ahead in the quarterfinals against Dustin. Holding Foretell gives you a huge advantage in that you can ignore Tarrus/Carnath during commit and have your opponent blown out by the loss of three cards (or three resources) they would've gained otherwise.

 

 

I know there was a bit of talk about the Ragnar retreat move in this match, but he would have got bloodied had he stayed (I am very open to dropping a Klaivex without a target to achieve a bloody/planet win), which might or might not have been a better trade off for him, but it would have meant I had much more freedom on commitments towards a long game without having to simultaneously play the dodging game (which is part of what pushed me towards trying to close it out earlier), so I think I would have been fine with that too, and I imagine he retreated for the same reason, expecting the Klaivex to come in.

 

Actually, if you calculate the lines, there are ways for Ragnar to survive the battle hale and do more damage before retreating. It would cost him his DPA and another shield though. Winning the battle became impossible by bloodying Kith. Had Seth not gone for the bloody and swung at the Destructor instead, he would be the victor, but Ragnar would take a lot of damage and only the Librarian would remain at the planet. His hand would also be depleted going into the next turn. I'd say that the Foretell was the correct line for you.

 

 

I certainly dropped the ball right at the start when I forgot letting the Masters die meant I lost the hammer, although, had I spotted that, I may still have made the same decision, hard to say.

 

I'd consider it a blunder as you initially assess, but you were fortunate that Seth couldn't capitalise on it. Giving him fewer cards to work with would only make that battle (and future battles) more difficult to win and this sort of effect tends to snowball across multiple turns in Conquest.

I played against this deck in round 2 at worlds. Very well piloted and it was a great (and very close!) game. I wish I didn't know that you didn't have any shields on planet 3 though. Now that's going to haunt my dreams!

I played against this deck in round 2 at worlds. Very well piloted and it was a great (and very close!) game. I wish I didn't know that you didn't have any shields on planet 3 though. Now that's going to haunt my dreams!


Sorry! The odds of that were super low, 95% of the time your decision would have been for the best.
    • Solarus likes this
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BunnyNinja14
Nov 17 2015 10:18 PM
I really do enjoy this deck. It is a great build and was fun watching you play it. I am not surprised by the amount of shields as they are a big factor to the game. Amazing job at worlds!
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FightingWalloon
Dec 09 2015 04:03 AM
You run mostly 3 copies of everything. I see lots of decks that use a fair number of 2 copy card, which I assume is to either avoid dead draws or give more options in the deck.

Could you share your thinking about such things?

3x Palace, 3x Syren are the interesting ones, right? Got to admit I'm 3 and 2 on those 2, but I can definitely see the thinking. 

 

Can you comment?

 

Edit - Actually, I see you commented on Syren already in your explanation. And I get 3 x Palace. I flirted with 2x for a while, but I've totally been won over to 3x.

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FightingWalloon
Dec 10 2015 02:11 AM
I've seen lots of people go 2x on lots of cards that aren't unique, too. I see lots of decks with a bunch of 2x army units, for instance.

I also hear players say that if a card is worth taking, they always take 3x unless they are running up against the 50-card limit.

I'm just interested in reading more thoughts about that from experienced players.

I think it comes down in part to the strength of a card compared to the alternatives, and also in how impactful it is on the overall strategy of the deck. Choke in particular is an archetype that works in an almost exponential way - the difference between your opponent getting 4 cards instead of 5 is small, the difference between your opponent getting 0 cards instead of 1 is much bigger.

 

Kith works best when all her pieces fit together doing a job and both Palace and Syren add so much value to everything else you do, when they are out, that I think it's worth the dead draw.

 

They are also cards that by their nature tend to reduce the opponent's options, so if you lose a single card (and therefore option) yourself, the advantage is still yours. On the other hand drawing something instead of a Syren could be the difference between an easy victory and an uphill battle.

 

A lot of the time when decks run 2x an army unit it is expensive ones where 3x might hurt the curve. There are also units that are nice to see 1-of, but seeing 2-3 doesn't add much more to the table. 2x is risky if it's a unit that does something nothing else in your deck does, however, because you might not get it when it really matters. It's that old adage of "better to have X and not need it than need X and not have it," extend that a step further - better to have 2X but only need 1, than to have none at all when the game depends on it.

 

Another consideration is opening hands - how much would I like to see this on turn one? How bad would it be if I saw 2 of this on turn one? In the case of both Palace and Syren I'm okay with 2 in my opening and I'm really happy to see 1. Later in the game if I'm drawing heavily (as Kith is wont to do at times) then I end up with a few cards I won't have the resources to play, a duplicate Syren/Palace is no worse than 1 of my units that I'm never realistically going to fork out the resources for.

 

Finally Syren can be played in an aggressive manner whereby your opponent pretty much has to kill her to stay in the game. At that point you play your 2nd/3rd one.

    • N3dstark and FightingWalloon like this

Hallo guys, I was wondering wether there are any new cards in the Planetfall Cycle to improve this deck?

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Ultramarine
Apr 04 2016 03:59 AM

I love playing Kith, however I am still noob when it comes to deciding which to choke first, cards or resources, especially when it comes to using Palace.  Can you share your thoughts on it?  Is it Warlord dependent?

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FightingWalloon
Apr 04 2016 11:42 AM

I love playing Kith, however I am still noob when it comes to deciding which to choke first, cards or resources, especially when it comes to using Palace.  Can you share your thoughts on it?  Is it Warlord dependent?

 

Might be a good question to ask in the Packmaster Kith thread.

I love playing Kith, however I am still noob when it comes to deciding which to choke first, cards or resources, especially when it comes to using Palace. Can you share your thoughts on it? Is it Warlord dependent?


There are broadly 3 considerations.

1) Matchup - some Warlords feed off cards, others like their resources. Obviously even within warlords there are different builds, so sometimes you have to adapt or change your choke focus part way through the game. Some factions also have a way to mitigate one type of choke - for example it's generally easier to card choke Cato (though resource choke is still possible on rare occasions). If the opponent gets an early Ammo Depot, resource choke may be more effective (though again, not always).

2) Planet Flop - This is one people often miss. If 4 planets have cards on them, but only 2 have resources, and if the 0/2 resource planet is planet 1 (ie about to disappear after Turn 1) then Resource choke is probably the stronger option (also you'll be able to do more because you will inevitably pick up some cards from the abundance anyway, so if you don't win the R planets you'll actually end up the one being choked).

3) Your own hand - it is sometimes better suited to one choke than the other. It also sometimes needs R or C itself more in the early game, so might find it easier to choke the thing it also wants to be gaining.

Broadly speaking Card choke is still more effective if both options are equally viable, but in the modern environment that equality is much less common.