Weekend Ranked Rundown: My Worst Weekend So Far! (10/25)

in Gods On Chain2 years ago

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Recently, I've been a bit busier with real-life commitments and found myself to be dedicating less time to Gods Unchained. The current state of the game also led me to be rather frustrated, first with Dralamar (which is thankfully "fixed", although I fear its comeback at a later time), and now with Light's overwhelming presence if it goes first. The combination of these two factors led me to decide to play with a new deck archetype just for a change of pace - but oh boy was it not fun getting pummelled by the other decks on the ladder!

Giveaway Results

Every week, I give away a few units of Hive SBI which help to upvote your Hive posts for visibility and rewards for as long as they run - you don't have to do anything on your part. I explained the mechanics of how this giveaway works in another Weekend Ranked Rundown post, but in short, the more active you are in the GU Hive community, the more chances you have to win. You can check your HBI status here.

This week's winners:

@squirrelacus and @mbaggio - Leave a comment to accept the prize/give it to someone else or it will be forfeited once I post the next giveaway's results. Once you've accepted the prize once, you don't have to leave a comment anymore; future prizes will automatically be sent to you. Congrats, and thanks for being part of the GU community!

Deck Overview

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Deck Link: GUDecks

This was a rather badly-optimized Hidden Rush Deception deck - in hindsight, I should have stuck to an earlier netdeck-ed version rather than making a few of my own changes, but hindsight is always 20/20. This was my first time playing Deception during the Weekend Ranked, and although I had tried it out in a good number of matches before the weekend started, it proved to be worthless in the face of bad matchups (which surprisingly, there are many).

When the deck works well, it can finish opponents off quickly. Dark Knives on Shadow of Lethenon can win games on its own, although it isn't too likely. I think the problem with this abomination of a Hidden Rush deck is that it's not aggressive enough, having to become the "control" deck when fighting head-to-head with another aggro deck.

Some of my thoughts on my (bad) choices:

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After fiddling around with an initial version of the Hidden Rush Deception deck, I decided to put in 2x Surprise Delivery with the following reasoning - the 6 damage that it does is almost unstoppable, and could also potentially stop Light opponents from flooding the board even more. I didn't think of how bad it was when you weren't close to dealing lethal to the opponent. And against Light opponents, there was a higher chance that they flooded the board even before I got to play Surprise Delivery, rendering this card to be even more useless.

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Maybe it shouldn't come as a surprise that Assasin's Aim doesn't work with Shadow of Lethenon, Switch Duelist, and Armor Lurker. I had removed this in an earlier version of the deck but decided to put it back in because... it's 3 damage and gave hidden. It usually felt like a dead card.

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Handsome Duelist looks good on paper, but it feels pretty bad to play in practice. At 5 mana, it can't be played alongside anything else most of the time, and its paltry 3 health makes it vulnerable to the likes of Canopy Barrage, Shaped Blast, or just a simple Guild Enforcer standing in its way.

Performance and Matchmaking Breakdown

Starting Rank: Mythic
Wins: 10/25
Reward Packs: 2x Core Rare, 2x Core Epic, 3x DO Rare, 1x DO Epic
Theoretical pack value based on current pack prices: $14.46

Opponent GodDeck ArchetypeScore (Wins / Total Games)
NatureAmazon Nature0 / 1
Midrange Nature1 / 1
Regen Nature0 / 1
WarAggro War2 / 3
MagicControl Magic1 / 1
DeathZombie Death0 / 3
DeceptionHidden Rush Deception0 / 1
LightMidrange Light3 / 5
Aggro Light0 / 2
Control Light1 / 1
Total8 / 19

I actually only played 19 games with this deck and got the remaining 2/6 wins with other decks. The performance is... not great. Light decks are really oppressive because they can deal more damage than this deck can, forcing this deck to become the control deck rather than the aggressive deck, especially if they go first. There's also not very much that this deck can do against them since Umber Arrow is unlikely to do a 2-for-1 given how Light creatures tend to have high health.

The other really bad matchup is Zombie Death. Well, I should have seen this coming from a mile away but I didn't. Since this deck doesn't try to control the board, trying to use the Hidden mechanic to win quickly and decisively, Zombies' leech basically stops this plan in its tracks. There's just no way to do enough damage to secure the win before the Zombies kill me instead.

Frustrating performance for sure, but I guess this is one way of knowing how good (or in this case, bad) a deck is.

Historical Performance

It kinda sucks losing more than half my matches, but this is also a learning experience. As much as I don't want to always be a meta slave, there are just certain times where some decks perform poorly and I have to accept that if I choose to play such a deck. I know I'm still pretty bad at piloting Deception decks in general, but I hope that I'll be able to pilot them better after some practice. For next week though, I'll be switching to a more meta deck since I don't really have that much time to experiment with more avant grade decks.

Past 10 Weekend Ranked posts and performance in order of recency:

Time PeriodDeckScore (Wins / Total Games)Starting Rank
Apr 2022 W1Hidden Rush Deception/Mixed10 / 25Mythic
Mar 2022 W4Aggro Nature15 / 25Mythic
Mar 2022 W3Aether Magic16 / 25Mythic
Mar 2022 W2Card Draw Magic22 / 25Mythic
Mar 2022 W1Control Nature19 / 25Mythic
Feb 2022 W4Control Nature19 / 25Mythic
Feb 2022 W3Tempo Magic18 / 25Mythic
Feb 2022 W2Tempo Magic19 / 25Mythic
Feb 2022 W1Tempo Magic18 / 25Mythic
Jan 2022 W5Tempo Magic19 / 25Mythic

Concluding Thoughts

Although I didn't perform well this weekend, I'm not discouraged - this wasn't the first time that I've obtained bad results, and I'll work towards a more consistent and better-performing deck in the future. After all, I do like my packs!


Post Header image source: Gods Unchained Media Kit

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Sorry to see you had such a frustrating weekend, but glad you aren't discouraged. I agree with you on Assassin's Aim and Handsome Devil, but I've really enjoyed Surprise Delivery.

If you've already lost to light (i.e. their board is full), Surprise Delivery won't save you. That's true enough; however, it can and often does clog up their board. I do think it's important to run Rapture Dance to compliment the barrels though. Even without the barrels, this meta is screaming for 2x rapture dance. The dominant aggro light lists aren't running Serene Blade or too much ward.

Lastly, if you have it, I'd recommend dropping Fae in favor of the Hollow. Fae shines in an order-focused deck. Without other cards losing order consistently, it's pretty bad. 5 mana deal 3 damage. If it isn't killed, you then "get" to pay 4 mana to deal three and have a 3/4 creature.

I think I was too fixated on ending the game early that I didn't think that Rapture Dance would be good enough to include, but I do think you have a good point there. Not quite enough if you lose board control early, but probably essential especially if the deck leans more towards a more midrange style rather than just going face each turn.

Haha, I'm not too sure why I kept Fae in; objectively it's not as good as other options, but I've ended a few games due to its instant 3 damage more than once so it did leave a stronger impression on me. Thanks for the input, appreciate it!

Thanks again for the prize!

I was thinking of doing a Hidden Rush deck because I didn't want to depend on the RNG of Order Deception, and I think that you really need Frumentarii Instigator to refuel your hand as you can play a lot of cards quickly. Assassin's Aim on a JinxBlade Duelist got me a couple of times before, but yea two of them might be too much if you have low health creatures. I'm now at Deception for my Gauntlet next weekend but unfortunately the really good Hidden Rush cards like Shade Walker and the hidden cat isn't quite budget :(

My first thought of Frumentarii Instigator was that it would be too slow to run in such a deck, but I guess I wouldn't know if I didn't actually give it a chance. Maybe I might try it out a bit later, but I'm not really feeling Deception for the next week haha.

TBH the hidden cat isn't all that, it's pretty bad against Selena's Mark and has less damage throughput than other 1-drops sometimes I feel.

I'm gonna try an Aggro Guild deck I think and hopefully it does cool things haha, keep an eye out for a post after the weekend!

It's interesting seeing other people's take on hidden rush deception. Another thing is if you don't run enough creatures you brick on your spells.

Yeah, that definitely happened to me before. Deception really is a tough one to grasp.

Heck yea I will take the prize. WIth my PC being down I have trying to still be active some how. Kinda hard as the phone apps and such are not the most user friendly. And now way I am going to try and do markdown for a post from my phone lmao. Appreciate you running the contest bud. Glad to see you are still pushing out great content in this community.

Haha phoneposting is definitely not an easy thing to do. Thanks! I try to do what little I can since the community has given me so much. Sent it over, should reflect in your wallet in a few hours :)

I always can't seem to be able to run a deception deck properly, the one time I tried it in weekend rank got clapped 3 first games so had to switch immediately. I don't know if it's us because we are not very used to deception or the deck are missing some key factors although they seem very similar to many deception decks that got decent amount of wins. Sorry for this weekend rank though you'll get em next one!

I think it's just a combination of unoptimized decks, unfamiliarity with the deck we're playing, plus Deception not being meta that contributes to the low win rates. The expensive cards do help, but I think knowing what to mulligan for in each match-up is also pretty important in boosting winrates. Next weekend I'm definitely gonna play something different 😂

I personally try to learn how to get control of the board with Aggro Deception and, then, when the right time comes (better early), hit hard with a (buffed or just strong) hidden creature / creatures. This is why I don't use too many strength buffs. Barrels don't help to control the board too so when they come in a wrong time...

Have to agree with you there. I think the deck performed better with just 2x Dark Knives and without the Assassin's Aim. Still, I think this archetype just doesn't do that well in the current meta and this compounded with my questionable deckbuilding resulted in a less-than-stellar result.

Still, I think this archetype just doesn't do that well in the current meta

Agree. I think generally Deception has too low health while the idea of strength and health has inflated during last months. Today, I think every domain has many ways to kill hidden creature - tons of spells, overkills, removals, some non-legendary creatures buff +1 or +1/+1 every turn.

Maybe I am subjective.

Thanks @kephler! I'm very grateful for the prize and I gladly accept it!

Indeed Hidden Rush is kind of hit or miss for me when I play it. I like to throw in some control cards to help in some situations. Else I feel there're matches that you can't do much if you don't start the game with a crazy hand.

Yup, I'm feeling the exact same way as you. When you draw well it works very well, and when it doesn't it just falls flat on its face. I feel like the current meta just isn't right for Hidden Rush to shine just yet.

The prize isn't much, but I've sent it over! It should update in your PeakD wallet > Others section in a few hours.