Artificery SC Writeup [Rainbow FN, 3rd, 88 players]

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ArchitectGaming 2466

This writeup contains my thoughts and strategy going into (and after) the 88 player Artificery online Store Championship event, held on TableTop Simulator on 8/12. I placed 3rd-4th with FN/eBala/Nightsister, fighting through probably the largest and most competitive group of players to date. Many participants were daily TTS grinders and tuners and some were using this event as a field test for GenCon. I built my version of Rainbow FN specifically to fight an expected meta for this event, and after 8 rounds of Swiss, a Top 16 match win and a Top 8 match win, I eventually fell in the semifinals. Let’s jump in.

Context

The pre-event meta consisted largely of Vader/Guard, Rainbow FN, and three character Phasma, and I knew I would have to prepare with these decks as my primary enemies. Vader/Guard hits hard, is very consistent, and is capable of strong burst thanks to The Price of Failure and No Mercy. Phasma decks are great at spreading damage while dealing consistent damage themselves, and they have a lot of health to burn through. Rainbow FN is, at this point, almost unanimously recognized as the best deck, and I knew it would both be widely played and have a target on its head. I spent a lot of time testing Qui Gon/Rey, which you can read about here, but I quickly learned that it was just playing too fair. Boundless Ambition, No Mercy, FN, Poe, and "Fair" Trade are the best things you can be doing, and Qui Gon/Rey doesn’t have access to any of that. With perfect play and a lot of luck I knew the deck could perform, but I was doing myself a disservice by not playing the best deck in the format.

With Rainbow FN and Phasma as top options heading in to the event, I was worried about a Poe/Maz resurgence, and my Qui Gon/Rey article generated a lot of interest which translated into multiple rounds against players trying it out on TTS. Those two archetypes rounded out my expected meta, which went as follows: Rainbow FN, Vader/Guard, Poe/Maz, Phasma, Qui/Rey, in that order.

The Deck

Rainbow FN has gone through many iterations, and the core is strong enough that roughly five cards can be tweaked to bias towards specific archetypes. In the past, players have sleeved up Backup Muscle, "Fair" Trade, Award Ceremony, even The Price of Failure, and have played everything from 13 upgrades all the way up to 16. I knew my primary goal would be maximizing outgoing damage and minimizing incoming in the first two rounds, as everyone else would be streamlining their decks with Rainbow FN in mind. Poe/Maz specifically can be a difficult matchup, but it depends entirely on whether Rainbow can kill Poe in the second round. So, speed and consistenty were my primary goals, not necessarily at the detriment of (but definitely more prominent than) power or longevity.

Here are a list of cards I did (and didn’t) play, with some insight as to why they did, or didn’t, make the cut.

No: Backup Muscle – I love the card, and it is incredibly powerful and great for sneaking through damage to reactivate Bala mid-round. That being said, Backup Muscle is only good in a specific window. Normally we would want Backup Muscle in our first round, as games tend to only go four or five rounds and we want to start dealing damage quickly. This is at odds with our main strategy, however, which revolves around generating as many resources as possible to load upgrades onto FN. Backup Muscle in the first round means we need to generate at least two resources to get a three cost upgrade onto FN, and that isn’t even accounting for opposing disrupts or resource costs on our dice. This leaves a narrow window (second or third round) where we are looking for Backup Muscle, otherwise it comes too late to make an impact. Finally, our deck revolves around burst damage to kill that first character as quickly as possible, so three damage spread over three turns isn’t the best at furthering that gameplan.

Yes: Vibroknife – Many Rainbow FN players have cut Vibroknife from their lists, focusing instead on maximizing ranged damage symbols to take advantage of Bala and F-11D Rifle’s modified sides. Vibroknife is at odds with ranged damage, yes, but the rewards for playing it are too great. First, two extra ‘two cost’ upgrades to go along with F-11D Rifle and Holdout Blaster smooth out our draws, ensuring we can get some value on the way to playing that ‘three’. Second, four copies of two cost ambush upgrades let us get a die out onto an empty board for He Doesn't Like You and mitigate an opposing die in one action. This is one of our most powerful plays (as our opponent will normally be claiming and going first in the round) and should be maximized if possible.

No: VibroknucklersVibroknuklers is an excellent upgrade for sure, but we aren’t maximizing it in this list. Funkar decks absolutely want it, as in theory they should have resources to spare to power up its faces. For Rainbow, in most cases one resource isn’t ‘worth it’ to squeeze out an extra damage or discard from our resolve. Sure, there are situations where we are flooded and have monies to spare, but in those cases, we can just spend an extra resource or two and play a third upgrade on FN, getting even more value than what that bonus on Knucklers would have provided. We aren’t at a loss for power, as we are still playing Z6 Riot Control Baton, Lightsaber, Rocket Launcher and other three cost upgrades. Again, conisistency and speed over power. If we aren’t spending the resource to pump Knucklers, Vibroknife is cheaper and arguably better.

Yes: Bait and Switch – Getting back to consistency and speed, Bait and Switch sacrifices long-term gains (using the resource to pay costs of events and upgrades) for short-term advantages (quick damage). We know what Bait and Switch does for us at this point, essentially turning the resource side on all of our dice into its best side for free. This means Lightsaber has four sides that do two or more damage. As does Z6 Riot Control Baton. As does Flame Thrower. As does IQA-11 Blaster Rifle. Even turning a lowly Nightsister resource side to 2 base melee to resolve four damage with a stranded Bala-Tik +2 can turn the course of the game. Bait and Switch pushes the consistency of our three cost upgrades closer to Rocket Launcher levels, where 66% of our rolls translate into a big hit. With Bait and Switch in our list, we can take full advantage of cutting Vibroknucklers (as it doesn’t have a resource side) and play more copies of Flame Thrower and IQA-11 Blaster Rifle. With Bait and Switch in hand, potential damage outputs of 2,3,4,4 and 2,2,3,3 help us deal large amounts of damage quickly.

No: Award Ceremony – I like the card, and I understand its power, but its just a worse Boundless Ambition, and I don’t think we need more than two of that effect. It is strong, without a doubt, but space is tight and we are trying to pack in upgrades, mitigation and resource generation into a crowded room. A third, potentially fourth Boundless Ambition would be nice, but its low on my priority list.

Yes: Seven mitigation events – Mitigation is key, and saving as much damage as possible in the early rounds wins games. Players are wise to this now, which is why you see almost every archetype choosing shields at the start of the game. Denying your opponent two shields while gaining them yourself is essentially a four point life swing. He Doesn't Like You and Flank are the uncuttables, and I’m playing Electroshock and Doubt for now. Doubt doesn’t seem to get the respect it deserves, but I consider it the best mitigation event in the game in the abstract. He Doesn't Like You is better if you have blanks to remove, Deflect is better against a ranged deck, Guard is better when you have melee in the pool, yes, but all of these involve constraints. Doubt can be used strategically to remove Vibroknife from the pool to negate its ability, on Lightsaber when they have no resources to knock them down to 1/6 chances to hit damage, and on base damage dice to strand their modifiers. Above all, its free, which lets us soak some damage without stunting our development. The card has weaknesses, primarily against ‘main’ characters like Darth Vader and Poe, but in theory we are confident in those matchups anyways.

Tournament Report

I played 8 Rounds of Swiss, a Best of Three Top 16 match, a Best of Three Top 8 match, and a Best of Three Top 4 match, so forgive me for not having a round by round breakdown. I played Rainbow and Vader/Guard multiple times, and I also played against Poe/Maz, Luke/Rey, Han/Snap, Emo Kids, and 4Wide (twice). I finished the Swiss 6-2, losing to Vader/Guard and 4 Wide once, but I also beat both once in the Swiss so I consider those matchups a push. 4 Wide is a tough matchup, and requires killing Tie Pilot on the first round or immediately at the start of the second to win. Bala-Tik has a field day in this matchup, and makes me wish I had room for a DH-17, but luckily 4 Wide isn’t too popular. I don’t consider it a great choice for this meta with Poe/Maz being so enticing to play, but that doesn’t stop people from playing it. Still, I beat it in the last round to make top cut, so I got my revenge for losing to it earlier.

My other loss in the Swiss, against Vader/Guard, came about as they normally do, as a result of some less than average dice on my side and above average on his. Vader/Guard is a great deck and can push consistent damage, but beating it is relatively formulaic assuming things go according to plan. Target Guard first so they can’t split my damage, mitigate a Vader die whenever possible, and push as much damage as possible. If we can control a Vader die on two out of three turns, they can’t hope to match our output. Watch out for No Mercy and Abandon All Hope, but beyond those cards the matchup is fairly comfortable. Make sure to kill Guard with a surprise Rocket Launcher so they can’t The Price of Failure in response to lethal damage in the pool!

I don’t remember the top cut too well as it was past midnight at that point, but you can watch my Top 16 and Top 4 match here. My tournament ended with a frustrating loss against Vader/Guard, I played against an excellent opponent with an excellent list, but I picked the worst time possible to roll below average and his rolls were solid. Force Speed, Holocron and Vibroknife on Vader makes for consistent, fast damage early, specifically the game where he was able to kill Bala-Tik on the first round. That I was still close to winning that game should show how the matchup goes, but it wasn’t to be. After he killed Bala-Tik I was forced to go after his Vader, I’m basically priced into targeting his main character as I can’t devote time to taking down his support when I’m already that far behind. This played directly into his The Price of Failure, which was unavoidable. Still, Bait and Switch almost got me there, which would have made for an insane comeback.

Conclusion

The Vader/Guard that beat me ended up winning the whole event, taking down HonestlySarcastic playing his own version of Rainbow, which I’m sure he’ll be talking about shortly. I’m not interested in debating which version is better, I tuned mine to fit my playstyle and it served me well, as did his. While it would have been amazing to win that semifinal and have an all-Rainbow final, it wasn’t meant to be. Moving forward, I suggest trying to find room for an Isolation, though I don’t think much needs to change. With some more testing I’m confident I could have had that edge to push me into the finals.

Let me know what you think about the writeup, and if you watch the matches, feel free to comment below and I’ll respond to everything.

Thanks for reading!

Trevor Holmes

ArchitectGaming on Discord

Trevorholmes91 on TTS

3 comentários

Magister Mundi Sum 55

Well done man. I made a big mistake in going for Nightsister over Bala turn one and it was a definite tactical error for my 4 wide. I am ecstatic you got 3rd. Congratulations!

rzenni 229

What do you mean by 4wide? Endless swag type decks?

ArchitectGaming 2466

@rzenni yes, 4wide is endless swag