Round 1: Snow Angel over Potion Master, Horseman, and Krampus. Start with Lonely prince. I lose the first 3 fights as I can’t find a 2-cost princess, but on 3.0 I get a free Brave Princess, and buy a Peep from the shop. I pick up a couple of Spell Weavers and my princess finishes, giving me Sting. On L4, I get a free Godmother, with a second in the shop, and my board of Sting, 2x Peep, Good Spellweaver, 2x Godmother carries me easily through level 4 and 5 (while I triple Spell Weaver for a Ring of Thunder and Peep for a Crystal Ball). At level 5 I grab a Lance, and have a golden poly slay into Echowood (which I never use), a Maskerade Ball give me a Good Boy to proc Lance, and I kiss Lance into a gold Good Boy on 5.2. Then I get a free Princess Pea at Level 6, and close out the game vs FireOak’s Dwarves and a Horde Dragon also on Good Boy - at one point using Herc in my slot 4 flex spot to get a Phoenix Feather.
Round 2:Snow Angel over Cursed King, Peter Pants, and Jack’s Giant. Start with Lonely Prince again, this time over 2x Cutpurse, so less of a choice than the previous game, where I passed on a Dragon and Crafty. Prince 2, roll, and fortunately lock a Cinderella to stabilize on 2.2 this time. I Mixawhiz my free Sleeping Princess, and take one look for a Kiss, but just find a pair. Cindy gives me Bounty Board, and I start building into Slay, maybe? That plan works out as I get Mermaids into Lance, and some Babbas. Brave Princess eventually gets me a Treasure Map, where I take World Tree (with a Court Wizard in hand and a free Baby Bear on board) over Sword and Table. I get a free Bearstein on 6.0, but some unfortunate fight RNG involving my slot 1 getting killed right off, and a Wombat summoning a Medusa, knocks me out before I can finish making my comp (having locked a Good Boy, and landed an Echowood in my hand). This is a result of having my weak 2x Riverwish back row die to the opponents back row repeatedly, and taking 5-7 damage a round through level 4 & 5.
Round 3: Wonder Waddle over Catter, Pants, Horde Dragon. Nothing to complain about with hero selection today. I also get to start with Blind Mouse (and decline to lock Shrink Spell + medium stuff). Turn 2 is buy Chicken, free roll, sell for 2nd mouse, taking Fools Gold over Forking Rod. Noice. I still manage to lose a bunch at level 3, since the shops are just OK. After a brief dalliance with Bad Moon, I find a Crystal Ball (replacing Fools Gold) and two Spell Weavers and I move over into Aeon Ball. Map + Mice gets me Spear (over Wand of Wierding and Singing Sword) and that spear is enough to carry me until I hit the slaying Princess Pea and can’t quite get through enough to not die, despite my own Pea (as one of the supports gets sniped by a Lightning Dragon).
Round 4: Merlin, Bear, Pants, Skip. Actually a tough call. I actually spend too long thinking about it and get defaulted into Pants, the worst one. I start with an inverted Mim/Ogre Princess placement, and hope for the best. Despite never hitting Crystal Ball until the 8th treasure (on the final fight, with it held over since I was out of gold) I manage to parlay multiple Kisses & a gold Poly into a strong enough board to take 3rd, using a supported Soltek, and then a Juliet, with a Romeo, eventually kissing the soltek up to an Ashwood, and then an Oni King supporting some Ogres and Mummies.
Round 5: My luck runs out, and I get to pick one of Krampus, Galahad, Miri, Muerte. That is literally all D-tier or worse options. I go for the 45 health and cross my fingers. Turn 1 is Cinderella Free Roll, into lock for Roll the Dice (which gets me a Frog), and a roll to again lock for Mim+Cat, so at least I have a solid start with a L2 treasure on the way. Cat in front of mim gets me a bunch of ties against other cat/mim players, and I grab a speculative Romeo to flip the prince and head into L4. I never do get a Juliet, but a couple of Sporkos and a Friendly Spirit carry me through to get a gold poly slay on 5.1, which gives me a gold Pumpkin. At which point, I basically abandon having a hero power. Unfortunately, my Medusa/Sporko board doesn’t produce high enough quality Pumpkin fodder, and I die to the 4th place Ghost, for exacties again. Luckily, I still get 2nd, as Apoc was knocked from 12 to neg 3 - thanks +5 hp!
Round 6: In another abundance of choice, I can take Fates, Piper, or Fallen Angel (not Horseman). After some consideration, I go with Piper. My opening is locking a 3/3 chicken after rolling the dice and getting Cinderella. I then immediately burn the chicken to get +2 units with a Shink Spell, including a 3/3 Mouse. Follow up with a Fruit to get the discounted Unicorn, and it looks like I’m cosplaying Loki going into Level 3. I end up getting an early gold poly, which slays into Aurther, so he + Cindy carry me for a while while I continue finding Arthurs and other nice 4s. Once I’ve found 3 more Aurthers (at 4.2) I add a Sky Castle and continue to get more Royals. And by Royals I mean another 3 Aurthers. Fully exploiting the lack of pool limits, I’m quickly up to 3 golden Aurthers and continuing to deal chunks of damage and scale up. I have some trouble finding a Good Boy on 6, but I do poly into a gold Boom Hilda to go with my gold Sporko, and I have Gloves of Thieving, but in the end I can’t get past Princess Pea Slay in 3 tries. My 100/100 Arthurs just aren’t big enough.
Round 7: All I need is 7th place. Again. So, when offered Merlin, Grandmother, Horseman, Shadow, I go ahead and take the best early game hero. Which is Grandmother. Turn 1 I trade egg/attempted for glory with Spinzaku on Cursed King. 2.2 gives me Shureshot/Prince to get back on target. From there I continue to buy stats, kissing a slightly buff Water Wraith into a Friendly Spirit and picking up a Spellweaver and a Gingerbread Party and two Romeos, all for the future. I continue building up slowly, and buying combat spells to help stay alive long enough for someone to die off, with an eye to maybe taking a high slot, if things go well. I don’t find Juliet, but my board develops into Friendly Spirits in front of Supports, with a Quiver. As I reach Level 6, with 3 players out (including Spinzaku going out 8th when all they needed was a 7th to make Day 2 - ouch!), I pick up a Doombreath and lock a Good Boy, with a gold Spirit and a random Wombats providing power for now. I move into full Good Boy comp, but I leave the Doombreath/Sporko in 1 and 5 because everyone else seems to be going for a supports build too. As we hit top 3, I cut that and lean into Good Boys, Kidnapping an extra one from the Ghost, and eventually fall to a kissed familiar turning into a lightning dragon and wrecking me.
Day 2:
Round 1: All Ms: Merlin, Mask, Miri, Master (of Potions). I go with Mask over Potion Master.I have a nice start with Dragon into Wish for RTD getting me a Mouse, plus a Shureshot. Sadly there is a Skip in the lobby, who I play round 2, so on 3.0 I get a re-buy for heroes of: Potion Master, Grandmother, something dumb, and Morgan, which I take. I also get double poly slay into Book and Mermaid. I take a bunch of damage from Donkey players, and end up getting a Coin of Charon from Morgan on 4.0, The End brings me back to 22, but I lose the next fight as well, falling to 8 and then taking sky castle to go with my Mermaid and Bad Moon. That also leads me to taking Sad Drac over Pan’s Shadow, since I just need to get something going before I die. It doesn’t work, and I fall to 2. Fortunately, I get Skips Ghost, and my Mermaid pair gets me Horn, so now I just need to find some Babbas to go with my Feasting Dragons… Skip has a lightning dragon, and I die to his ghost.
Round 2: Fates, Midas, Pants, Loki. I should just take Loki, right? Better than Fates, barely. Not getting that extra unit in the early shops really cut down on the early medium-roll options for Fates. Loki, on the other hand, gives Shrink Spell into Poly + Mim + lock Egg. I run into a Unicorn, but then slay into Princess Wight, and consecutive Forbidden Fruit have me at the lowest life total, but with a full board on 2.2. I continue with the Dwarves, getting some extra gold off a pig and slowly improving my stats going into L4. Loki giveth, but Loki also Free Rolls away my 2nd and 3rd Doubly, and I start falling behind in stats. I combine Noble Steed and Princess to get Fools Gold, and follow up with a Ring of Meteors. When I hit 5 I get 2 tweedles to go with my two sporkos, but no Angrys yet. And then Potion Master kills me, because upgraded Herc + a quality board is way too much for a couple poor Tweedles. Skip got 8th again, though. Food for thought.
Round 3: Bot game. I take Fallen Angel over a spell hero (Merlin, PM, Sphinx). I start with Unicorn, lock for Sugar and Spice over Gruff or Bossy. Then instead of taking 2x crafty or some 1/1s, I go ahead and S&S again, and roll, ending up with a Gruff over 2x Lonely Prince. My shops continue to have a lot of neutrals, and even at 3.1 I still only have 2 good and 2 evil. And no summoners. I Poly into a Soltek, that eventually kisses into an Appletree. Cindy gives me Cookbook, and I triple a Frindly Spirit for a Ring of Rage, so I’m doing “OK”. My stags give me Crystal Ball instead of Treasure Map, and I go into 6 at +2 xp, hoping to find some direction or a Good Boy. The direction I find is Ashwood, but also a Princess Pea off For Glory, and I continue building in both directions as we hit the top 4. Unfortunately I don’t find enough of either direction, and end up muddling along until Mimic/Mirror/Good Boy ends the run.
Round 4:dropped for family obligations. My streak of always making Day 2 when I have time to play, and not being able to finish continues.
