Notes & Combos

This season was one of those strange ones where I finished Master faster (while not deranking) than I did in Diamond. (40 games for Master vs 53 for Diamond) Coin flips did start to go my way in Master compared to how things went in Diamond, so that definitely helped out.

Deck wise:

• Torrential and the counter traps were really strong. They helped to clear various boards that were not Snake-Eye/Fiendsmith/slop decks while going second.
• Retaliating worked out well enough. I honestly didn't draw it enough to say much about it, however, it did help when I saw it.
• Shifter is Shifter. I either opened it going first or I think the one time I opened it going second, my opponent had Called By. It did net me a free game though (when I went first).
• Overroot is still solid. It's good when your opponent tributes a monster for Deception or when they activate Hallowed. The biggest pain points were when I opened 2 or when my opponent opened Engraver -> Tract -> Lurrie while I also have Torrential set. You need to Overroot Lurrie to stop the Fiendsmith combo, but the moment you Torrential, you enable Engraver to come back.
• I had been going for Floodgate in prior formats, however, I've been picking up Nightmare again as my search target. There's just too many cards you need to negate. I do sometimes go for Floodgate still depending on my board since Unicorn is everywhere, so that's not a bad hit. Depends on what cards I currently have.
• The Zoo cards/Aussa I don't believe were used at all. Not even sure if I used ZEUS during this climb.
• Super Poly is a menace to be hit by (nothing new, but it seems to be more prevalent now). You can try to play around it, but the moment you get 2 Traptrix names out....

If I saw more Snake-Eye slops, I'm sure I would have had more issues while climbing.