I arrived an hour and a half early, and another player arrived fairly early as well. We played a Best of 3 casual game while waiting for the others to arrive so that the structured event could begin.
Casual Game: Mono Water Pirates vs. Crystals
I took the first game pretty handily, thanks to a fast, aggressive start and their inability to find answers to my board in time.
The second game, I had a similarly fast start, but they had a much better board of their own and were able to answer my board with a wipe, after which I just couldn't rebuild.
The third game was a similar affair to the second, where it was a close game until very suddenly it wasn't. A mistake on my end - which they offered to let me roll back, but I declined - was not removing their Y'shtola, which then let them wipe my board and keep it clear thereafter, cinching them the victory.
Playing these three games, I concluded that while I like the Vikings/Pirates deck, it feels in a lot of ways like it's just a worse version of my Scions deck.
After our third game, we played a still-casual "for realsies" game, with me pulling out my Mono Lightning Scions deck due to the above-mentioned conclusion.
Casual Game: Mono Lightning Scions vs. Crystals
A fast-paced, aggressive start put me in a super advantageous position, from which they simply weren't able to recover.
A board wipe from Y'shtola was the point where they scooped, as their only hope - by their own words - was removing my Alisaie and hoping to be able to block enough damage to survive my turn, which my board wipe prevented.
After this casual game, the four of us who showed up finally started our "actual" event, and I wound up paired against the same opponent for my first round.
I stuck with my Mono Lightning Scions list for the rest of the night.
Game 1 vs. Crystals - Loss
This game played out pretty differently to the casual game we had just finished, and likewise the result was different. This time, they had the resources to circumvent my board wipe, and were able to slip enough damage by my blockers thanks to a few effects making several of their attackers unblockable, and even when I took out a few of their Forwards, it wasn't enough.
There were a few ways I could have taken my last turn, but their Sol made it nigh-impossible for me to remove enough of their field to survive, and when they top-decked not one but two copies of a Zidane that I couldn't have blocked, that was the end of the game.
Not drawing an Estinien slowed me down quite a bit, and I wasn't able to pull enough removal options to keep their board in check.
Game 2 vs. Knights - Loss
An early Lasswell slowed me down, and a second Lasswell replacing the first one after I removed it continued to keep me locked down so that I couldn't play the aggressive game I otherwise would have had.
I did eventually reach a point where I felt like I had managed to stabilize, removing most of their board, but I was already at 5 damage when I managed it. A 7-drop Ramza on their final turn brought back Curilla, whom I had destroyed with an EX Burst Odin, which refilled their board. One of the Knights they hit was a 1-drop Agrias who bounced my Y'shtola, leaving me with only one blocker. Ramza broke my Ramuh, dealt me one damage, and left me with no blockers after which they swung in for the final point of damage.
Those early Lasswells locking me down were utterly killer, keeping me from playing the aggressive game that Scions want to be playing. Likewise, if I could have foreseen the possibility of Ramza leading them into such an explosive final turn, I would have left one more blocker available, rather than taking an extra point of damage on what had been my final turn.
But, of course, I had not foreseen that, due in part to unfamiliarity with how Knights as a deck work.
Game 3 vs. "Mono" Earth - Loss
We both spent the first few turns building board positions with backups.
When I finally started getting Forwards and tested the waters with a little bit of aggression, I dealt a couple of points of damage, but the game kept going back and forth despite that. Both of us played a significant amount of removal to keep each other's boards in check.
In the end, they got their board stabilized and finally took down enough of my board that they ultimately took it. Hitting no EX Bursts on my damage didn't help me, but simply put I don't think there was anything I really could have done differently with what resources I had available.
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