OHS Season 53 - Delta Coalition Wars - congrats vegie!

[vegietarian18]

I beat Ryguy tonight to win the Season 53 title.

We played each other in Round 4, without a ton at stake, but my Romans won that game. I knew this one would be tough because of the lava dunk threat from Shurrak on this board.

In Round 1, Ryguy deployed the Tarn to build a wall, and then went OM2 and 3 on Harqs. Meanwhile, I moved out 11 of 12 Romans from my startzone, and didn't get too close to the Harqs at all. At the end of Round 1, I was threatening a slow-paced game where I picked at the edges with MBS as Romans slowly advanced as a horde. So in Round 2, Ryguy went OM1 Raelin OM2 Tarn. Raelin stepped up only a little bit, so I surged forward. The Tarn stepped on to lava height to throw some attacks of 4 at Romans and the Azurite. I rushed at the Harqs with my Romans and the Azurite, trying to put pressure on them before they got fully set up with Wait Then Fire. Azurite caught a couple Harqs out of Raelin's aura after some aggressive LEAs, but I felt fine taking LEAs with him because I really didn't want to see him lava dunked by Shurrak. A couple of the Tarn that stepped on to lava height burnt to end Round 2.

Round 3 initiative was huge, and I won it. With that tempo and with the first turn advantage I cleared out a good clip of Harqs so that on Ryguy's OM3 he only got a single attack of two from the last Rifleman. I still had 5 Romans and MBS left at this point, facing down a full-life Shurrak and full-life Raelin. I was up but this was a bit of an awkward situation for me. Some of my Romans were stuck in the front near Raelin, some were way in the back. I think ideally I would have used MBS's range to pull Shurrak out of Raelin's aura, but I didn't really have a spot on the board where I liked doing that. The result was that Shurrak gradually pounded through one Roman a turn, not taking much damage at all. I did get Raelin, but it took three of my five Romans to do it. Shurrak took down the remaining two Romans and stole an OM3 from me, although I did finally muster a wound on to him.

I won Round 5 initiative to launch an MBS shot 4v4 on Shurrak that landed 3 wounds. That put me in control. Shurrak slayed MBS the next turn, but I had my OM3 on Akumaken to retreat her into a corner out of lava dunk threat range. Akumaken was a champ, blocking three consecutive 5v4s and getting the final two wounds on Shurrak without event. Ryguy conceded with one Tarn remaining into full-life Akumaken.

This is my fourth OHS season title, and all of them have been undefeated 7-0 runs. The last two have been wins over Ryguy on Forest Fire. This was sort of a strange undefeated run for me. Every one of my games was close, and I needed some scrappy play to win every one. I'm not convinced this was the best army for the format, but it was simple and strong, and MBS + Azurite is a very versatile combination.

[ryguy266]

Well played by vegie. Hoping to have the battle report in video form out in a few days. Like he said, the round 3 init and some lucky strikes on Shurrak in the last two rounds swung things in the end. This is my 3rd OHS finals in 8 seasons, a feat which is only rivaled closely by vegie reaching 3 finals in about the same amount of time. Unfortunately for me, I’ve never been able to clutch one. I’m hoping the consistency pays off some day.
I’m not disappointed that vegie won, but I am disappointed that Romans won. It was the “easy” pick for this season, the army you picked if you wanted to make playoffs (nothing against the Romans players…it was just a very bland format for them). I felt I had a very creative but still strong build for the format, and I felt that both of my games against vegie could have swung my way, unlike the rest where I was pretty much in the driver’s seat the whole time. Wanted to make a statement with the unorthodox build, but couldn’t quite clutch it. Congrats to vegie! Your Romans play was still very strong, and from what I saw of your other games you deserved the good run.

[Foudzing]

Congratz Vegie and congratz for the good run Ryguy! You'll get the trophy soon enough haha.