How am I supposed to make basic progression?

losdamianos

my coalition was able to beat him using J2, Sorin, Koth (!), and Kiora

I demolished him with Dovin deploy gisela sphinx (not needed) combo plus bounce backs , imprison and suppresion bonds

you can either go full POWER with koth (pig olivia emrakul) or lock him down with one of the blue decks , dovin worked best for me thanks to white healers

you could cast defender on your first strike buffed creature as he doesnt have any kill/bounce spells

watman

losdamianos wrote:

my coalition was able to beat him using J2, Sorin, Koth (!), and Kiora

not sure why you put exclamation mark next to Koth - this is the PW I use for most of the 3.x nodes in the events - packs a punch, sustains his creatures with ulti, and has access to solid beatsticks and killspells, both!

watman wrote:

Akoum Firebird
Unlicensed Disintegration
Corrupted Graftstone
Volcanic Rambler
Embermaw Hellion
Avaricious Dragon
Wolf of Devil's Breach
Scour from Existence
Inner Struggle
Tamiyo's Journal

This is the deck I use - progression finished, I did not get the first secondary, obviously, but I couldn't really care less...

wereotter

I was stuck on him too till someone in my coalition suggested using Nahiri and a few specific cards I have. Made it a lot easier. The key cards here are Gisela and Haunted Cloak. Most his creatures are 12/12 at the largest so if you can get her out, pump her with Nahiri's first ability, and give her vigilance you should be set.

Creatures:
Gisela, the Broken Blade
Solemn Recriut
Descimator of the Provinces
Geier Reach Bandit

Supports:
Silverstrike
Hixus, Prison Warden
Oath of Ajani

Spells:
Haunted Cloak
Unlisenced Disintigration
Fumigate

SeditiousCanary

I beat 3.3 with Nahiri, using this build:

https://d3go.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=37&t=48617&start=20#p622754

It was a good set up for me. I dropped two copies of Hixus, Prison Warden, drew and played 4 more, Tez's fabricate stalemated the bottom of the board, and protected Hixus, Prison Warden for the first half of the game, and I was able to protect it after a "No More Moves" shuffle. Had Oath of Chandra in play, and dropped several other creatures and supports to trigger it. But other than Hixus, Prison Warden, the game saver was putting Uncaged Fury on a 20/20 Smuggler's Copter about 5 times in the game. I would have wanted more creatures, but it worked out even though Tez had Gonti's Aether Heart, and Dynavolt Tower in play.

hawkyh1

the cheap way to do it is to use sorin life gain with lone rider
and vigilance. kill or ignore skysovereign(always buff lone
rider to 6+) cast encircled fissure or die young(for energy
removal), when it's close to getting too much. his 1st ability
buffs 2/2(fabricate) and 1/1 on energy matches. lone rider
alone buffs 2/0 with sorins 3rd ability and lots more with
more support. berserker is useful for taking out the construct
early.(brawlers plate). eliminate the competition is useful to
wipe his creatures cheaply. this deck is a lot more difficult if
you want to stand any chance of getting the vehicle objective.
serene steward can buff lone rider by 3/3 per turn with sorins
2nd ability.(more if he tramples/blocks)

HH

Astralwind

We have a lot of talented players in the community. All these suggestions are great.

aenigmaeffect

I used a Sorin (lvl 36) lifegain deck with no mythics and only 2 rares (and those are likely replaceable):
(Sorin's in the vault now! Go get him!)

Creatures
Lone Rider
Serene Steward
War Oracle

Spells
Give No Ground
Grip of Desolation
Smite the Monstrous
Die Young

Support
Suppression Bonds
Campaign of Vengeance
Drownyard Temple

Basically, save loyalty until you can power out Sorin 3. When casting creatures, you want to make sure a life link is your first one (otherwise Serene Steward is somewhat useless). Use spells to kill only creatures that have abilities that can kill you (ie. Aethergeode Miner with her crazy energize, since energize is scary for 3.2/3.3). Big creatures by themselves are no issue as long as you can out life-gain it.

Die Young for energy removal and creature kill.

You can plop down a Suppression Bonds if you're expecting Sky Sovereign and it has no creatures (so that it doesn't damage all your creatures).

I use Give No Ground to force Lone Rider to the bottom, and to kill creatures (first strike!).

Obviously, need a tad of luck. I needed a couple of tries, but once it got going, wasn't too bad.

Eligius

I somehow managed to beat Tezz with my Saheeli deck, but I think this was mostly based on luck rather than skill because the deck isn't super coherent.

Creatures:
Padeem, Consul of Innovation
Pia Nalaar
Aethersphere Harvester
Cultivator's Caravan

Supports:
Thopter Spy Network
Insidious Will
Molten Nursery
Claustrophobia

Spells:
Demolish
Inner Struggle

I used claustrophobia to lock down his first creature (which was an amazingly buffed Whale, he cast 3 on consecutive turns), Demolish and Inner Struggle for removal, and Insidious will to delay some of his casts. The trick is of course to get both Thopter Spy Network and Molten Nursery out for an ever growing thopter token plus 8 damage per turn, Pia or Padeem will buff up your thopters, and the vehicles were just there for the secondary objective (although Aethersphere Harvester is pretty useful since you can use Tezz's energizing to give it lifelink and keep you alive longer). Playing blue, of course, gives you more incentive to go for the blue gems in order to thwart Tezz's insane mana gains.

snow_leopardd

You must have been rolling in 4 leaf clovers... I tried 3 times with this (minus give no ground) and didn't even come close.

aenigmaeffect wrote:

I used a Sorin (lvl 36) lifegain deck with no mythics and only 2 rares (and those are likely replaceable):
(Sorin's in the vault now! Go get him!)

Creatures
Lone Rider
Serene Steward
War Oracle

Spells
Give No Ground
Grip of Desolation
Smite the Monstrous
Die Young

Support
Suppression Bonds
Campaign of Vengeance
Drownyard Temple

Basically, save loyalty until you can power out Sorin 3. When casting creatures, you want to make sure a life link is your first one (otherwise Serene Steward is somewhat useless). Use spells to kill only creatures that have abilities that can kill you (ie. Aethergeode Miner with her crazy energize, since energize is scary for 3.2/3.3). Big creatures by themselves are no issue as long as you can out life-gain it.

Die Young for energy removal and creature kill.

You can plop down a Suppression Bonds if you're expecting Sky Sovereign and it has no creatures (so that it doesn't damage all your creatures).

I use Give No Ground to force Lone Rider to the bottom, and to kill creatures (first strike!).

Obviously, need a tad of luck. I needed a couple of tries, but once it got going, wasn't too bad.

hawkyh1

snow_leopardd wrote:

You must have been rolling in 4 leaf clovers... I tried 3 times with this (minus give no ground) and didn't even come close.

aenigmaeffect wrote:

I used a Sorin (lvl 36) lifegain deck with no mythics and only 2 rares (and those are likely replaceable):
(Sorin's in the vault now! Go get him!)

Creatures
Lone Rider
Serene Steward
War Oracle

Spells
Give No Ground
Grip of Desolation
Smite the Monstrous
Die Young

Support
Suppression Bonds
Campaign of Vengeance
Drownyard Temple

Basically, save loyalty until you can power out Sorin 3. When casting creatures, you want to make sure a life link is your first one (otherwise Serene Steward is somewhat useless). Use spells to kill only creatures that have abilities that can kill you (ie. Aethergeode Miner with her crazy energize, since energize is scary for 3.2/3.3). Big creatures by themselves are no issue as long as you can out life-gain it.

Die Young for energy removal and creature kill.

You can plop down a Suppression Bonds if you're expecting Sky Sovereign and it has no creatures (so that it doesn't damage all your creatures).

I use Give No Ground to force Lone Rider to the bottom, and to kill creatures (first strike!).

Obviously, need a tad of luck. I needed a couple of tries, but once it got going, wasn't too bad.

try including encircling fissure (a one turn lifeline for you to
heal up requiring only 5 mana) I don't use war oracle. she is
too slow to get out for a 1st creature and you are unlikely to
need the one extra lifelink. the technique should be buff lone
rider and only use him to defend. you may need some support
that provides vigilance as the 1st ability construct fabricates
the gem board quickly if you don't kill it. relying on suppression
bonds is difficult with it's single shield. you can't rely on give no
ground every turn/other turn that you need it to kill the
construct.

HH

Mana Burn

I went with the corniest, stalliest, lock downiest Dovin Baan deck imaginable. The game came to a grinding crawl and it was a miracle it didn't crash but I was victorious, at least. I only faced him once though since I was kinda busy throughout the weekend, so I also missed progression. After reading this thread, I think I should have gone with something totally different like energy removal and first strike + defender.

Mainloop25

hawkyh1 wrote:

snow_leopardd wrote:

You must have been rolling in 4 leaf clovers... I tried 3 times with this (minus give no ground) and didn't even come close.

aenigmaeffect wrote:

I used a Sorin (lvl 36) lifegain deck with no mythics and only 2 rares (and those are likely replaceable):
(Sorin's in the vault now! Go get him!)

Creatures
Lone Rider
Serene Steward
War Oracle

Spells
Give No Ground
Grip of Desolation
Smite the Monstrous
Die Young

Support
Suppression Bonds
Campaign of Vengeance
Drownyard Temple

Basically, save loyalty until you can power out Sorin 3. When casting creatures, you want to make sure a life link is your first one (otherwise Serene Steward is somewhat useless). Use spells to kill only creatures that have abilities that can kill you (ie. Aethergeode Miner with her crazy energize, since energize is scary for 3.2/3.3). Big creatures by themselves are no issue as long as you can out life-gain it.

Die Young for energy removal and creature kill.

You can plop down a Suppression Bonds if you're expecting Sky Sovereign and it has no creatures (so that it doesn't damage all your creatures).

I use Give No Ground to force Lone Rider to the bottom, and to kill creatures (first strike!).

Obviously, need a tad of luck. I needed a couple of tries, but once it got going, wasn't too bad.

try including encircling fissure (a one turn lifeline for you to
heal up requiring only 5 mana) I don't use war oracle. she is
too slow to get out for a 1st creature and you are unlikely to
need the one extra lifelink. the technique should be buff lone
rider and only use him to defend. you may need some support
that provides vigilance as the 1st ability construct fabricates
the gem board quickly if you don't kill it. relying on suppression
bonds is difficult with it's single shield. you can't rely on give no
ground every turn/other turn that you need it to kill the
construct.

HH

Nah Snow I ran something similar. Lone Rider is great, so cheap to cast, and as long as you have a slot open, multiple castings give you extra +4/4 on transform. If you want to, you can throw down a True Faith Censer/Always Watching to make him a blocker. Preferably once your Rider is 16 power or above. Along with your kill spells, hardly anything is going to bust through.

snow_leopardd

I actually used Always watching instead of Drownyard temple. I will give it another go when it unlocks.

Mainloop25 wrote:

hawkyh1 wrote:

snow_leopardd wrote:

You must have been rolling in 4 leaf clovers... I tried 3 times with this (minus give no ground) and didn't even come close.

aenigmaeffect wrote:

I used a Sorin (lvl 36) lifegain deck with no mythics and only 2 rares (and those are likely replaceable):
(Sorin's in the vault now! Go get him!)

Creatures
Lone Rider
Serene Steward
War Oracle

Spells
Give No Ground
Grip of Desolation
Smite the Monstrous
Die Young

Support
Suppression Bonds
Campaign of Vengeance
Drownyard Temple

Basically, save loyalty until you can power out Sorin 3. When casting creatures, you want to make sure a life link is your first one (otherwise Serene Steward is somewhat useless). Use spells to kill only creatures that have abilities that can kill you (ie. Aethergeode Miner with her crazy energize, since energize is scary for 3.2/3.3). Big creatures by themselves are no issue as long as you can out life-gain it.

Die Young for energy removal and creature kill.

You can plop down a Suppression Bonds if you're expecting Sky Sovereign and it has no creatures (so that it doesn't damage all your creatures).

I use Give No Ground to force Lone Rider to the bottom, and to kill creatures (first strike!).

Obviously, need a tad of luck. I needed a couple of tries, but once it got going, wasn't too bad.

try including encircling fissure (a one turn lifeline for you to
heal up requiring only 5 mana) I don't use war oracle. she is
too slow to get out for a 1st creature and you are unlikely to
need the one extra lifelink. the technique should be buff lone
rider and only use him to defend. you may need some support
that provides vigilance as the 1st ability construct fabricates
the gem board quickly if you don't kill it. relying on suppression
bonds is difficult with it's single shield. you can't rely on give no
ground every turn/other turn that you need it to kill the
construct.

HH

Nah Snow I ran something similar. Lone Rider is great, so cheap to cast, and as long as you have a slot open, multiple castings give you extra +4/4 on transform. If you want to, you can throw down a True Faith Censer/Always Watching to make him a blocker. Preferably once your Rider is 16 power or above. Along with your kill spells, hardly anything is going to bust through.

Ejmoose

It took me four battles (literally threw my phone on the third loss Tez stole with a flagship from me) before I got past. I agree that having an option to skip after a loss or two would be nice for all the nodes to allow all players to keep moving in a node if they can't get past a battle.

If it helps anyone I managed to finally beat him using this Koth build

Creatures
Jori En, Ruin Diver - Rare
Olivia, Mobilized for War - Mythic
Ulrich of the Krallenhorde - Mythic
Mina and Denn, Wildborn - Rare

Spells
Exquisite Firecraft - Rare
Uncaged Fury - Common
Demolish - Uncommon

Supports
Corrupted Grafstone - Rare
Fevered Visions - Rare
Cinder Glade - Rare

Basically I use the mana draw and card draw to play Ulrich and Olivia with lifelink. If I can I keep Ulrich in his Alpha form as to not kill Tex's creatures and hope he doesn't get the Flagship in play. If he has three others out then you trades blows through the massive lifelink you get. The Demolish is used to destroy the Dynavolt Towers and the Planar Bridges when needed.

The first few battles I couldn't draw Olivia and therefore couldn't take on the amount of creatures he could sustain playing onto the board especially those Flagships.

Hope this helps

PS I know this is another build that if you don't have a card (Olivia) it doesn't work so sorry ahead of time to those who don't...

aenigmaeffect

Mainloop25 wrote:

hawkyh1 wrote:

snow_leopardd wrote:

You must have been rolling in 4 leaf clovers... I tried 3 times with this (minus give no ground) and didn't even come close.

aenigmaeffect wrote:

I used a Sorin (lvl 36) lifegain deck with no mythics and only 2 rares (and those are likely replaceable):
(Sorin's in the vault now! Go get him!)

Creatures
Lone Rider
Serene Steward
War Oracle

Spells
Give No Ground
Grip of Desolation
Smite the Monstrous
Die Young

Support
Suppression Bonds
Campaign of Vengeance
Drownyard Temple

Basically, save loyalty until you can power out Sorin 3. When casting creatures, you want to make sure a life link is your first one (otherwise Serene Steward is somewhat useless). Use spells to kill only creatures that have abilities that can kill you (ie. Aethergeode Miner with her crazy energize, since energize is scary for 3.2/3.3). Big creatures by themselves are no issue as long as you can out life-gain it.

Die Young for energy removal and creature kill.

You can plop down a Suppression Bonds if you're expecting Sky Sovereign and it has no creatures (so that it doesn't damage all your creatures).

I use Give No Ground to force Lone Rider to the bottom, and to kill creatures (first strike!).

Obviously, need a tad of luck. I needed a couple of tries, but once it got going, wasn't too bad.

try including encircling fissure (a one turn lifeline for you to
heal up requiring only 5 mana) I don't use war oracle. she is
too slow to get out for a 1st creature and you are unlikely to
need the one extra lifelink. the technique should be buff lone
rider and only use him to defend. you may need some support
that provides vigilance as the 1st ability construct fabricates
the gem board quickly if you don't kill it. relying on suppression
bonds is difficult with it's single shield. you can't rely on give no
ground every turn/other turn that you need it to kill the
construct.

HH

Nah Snow I ran something similar. Lone Rider is great, so cheap to cast, and as long as you have a slot open, multiple castings give you extra +4/4 on transform. If you want to, you can throw down a True Faith Censer/Always Watching to make him a blocker. Preferably once your Rider is 16 power or above. Along with your kill spells, hardly anything is going to bust through.

It's very possible I've gotten some luck along the way (but don't we all?). I did just beat 3.3 again with that deck (2 for 2 for 3.3). Took about 15 minutes (not the fastest, but I've definitely had longer battles on previous Fateful Showdowns before I got Sorin).

Some tips I've found:
It's actually good if the AI steals LR or Serene separately, since it takes up a slot, and it can't power up.

I chose to run 2 life linkers (and I'd recommend that, and not just 1) for a few reasons:

in case RNG screws me with only a Serene Steward and no life linker. Yes, it's slower to get out, but better than having NO life gainers.

even when they're small, 2 can still get me enough life to take a hit and keep going at the beginning. LR + War Oracle = 9 life a turn without any help. You can last a few turns even if they're dishing out damage in the teens. And when they're big, I don't mind if AI hits me for 30+ damage. I'll gain it all back and more.

2x life linkers = 2x activation of Sorin 3 per turn, which is +8 damage the next turn (at my +2/0 level), without needing Sorin 2. These are life that you're going to get back the next time. If you have 2 life linkers, you can keep up with an ever growing construct for a while.

them getting bigger faster means fewer overall turns, thus fewer turns that may screw things up.

I don't want to rely on Sorin 2. You need to get mana filled to keep your cards running, without always having to focus on loyalty. I do my best to get Sorin 3 out, and can actively work to deny even more, with Sorin 2 as a side goal to speed things up.

case in point: On this last run, I only had War Oracle and Serene Steward out, and AI stole what would've been my first LR, and I never even got Campaign of Vengeance out.

Speaking of luck... I lost on 2.1 this morning, with a 7 creature Nahiri deck. So, yea, luck works both ways. (I was so pissed. Good thing refresh was only 2 hours at that point. I promptly went and kicked its ****).

Edited for clarity

Lagartha

With how long he's going to take to die, I'm pretty confident even just being able to get through all the battles in the first node will get you progression. ;P

Schlemoc

Having finally beaten tezz with koth, i can say it is an insane challenge. I lucked out with olivia on opening hand. I was steam rolled almost every other time. The closest was a dovin bounce deck with gisela

However, the mechanics to make this a viable competition are here. This is a challenge to push top players engagement. Offering a 2 loss bypass would be ideal. Not an immediate requirement for those who want to keep trying, but a way to proceed back. I could see that helping.

I also did notice that the first node was a lot lower in level. It was very surprising. Nice touch there, including the harder secondaries.

With some tweaks i can see this being viable, but an escape door would really help. The other idea is to drop ai intelligence for the first tier players,if possible.

orgazmo

I used my lifegain/kill Sorin deck with great success.

You need to kill or disable until you have healers with Sorins 3rd and then 2nd if you need it.

Kill:
To the Slaughter (R)
Grip of Desolation (U)
Unholy Hunger (R) or Die Young (U)

Creatures:
Lone Rider (U)
Serene Steward (U)
Gisela (M) or Olivia (M) or Heron's Grace Champion (R) or any life gainer
War Oracle (U)

Other:
Hixus, Prison Warden (M) or Captured by the Consulate (R) Supression Bonds (R) or Silverstrike (U)
Campaign of Vengeance (U)
Aether Hub (U)

Justyce

I use L2 with PA And oath you can block the non flyers all day as they don't have trample. Just use your kill spells on the flyers or if you zombie stack is bingo enough cast the spell that gives prevent damage and life link to take it out and heal at the same time

octal9

Revolt Against Consulate 3.3
Saheeli Rai, Level 60

Creatures (3):
Olivia, Mobilized for War
Startled Awake
Skysovereign, Consul Flagship

Spells (5):
Demolish
Engulf the Shore
Tightening Coils
Imprisoned in the Moon
Whir of Invention

Supports (2):
Harness the Storm
Pyromancer's Goggles


Details:
This is the deck I use for node 3.3 on Revolt Against the Consulate. Of particular note is Whir of Invention - I use this to get Pyro/HtS out (either is good). Once Pyro is out I prioritize hitting its activates.