This comment was posted to reddit on Jul 02, 2017 at 4:14 am and was deleted within 10 hour(s) and 8 minutes.
General Questions Thread 7/1/17
Disclaimer: I am not complaining about any particular matchup that I do not have key cards for. I am just theory-strategizing for the future.
How do meta decks deal with the opening Neutral package?
T1: Let's say this is always Goblin. If you have your own Goblin, do you smack face or smack the Goblin bringing both to 1/1? (If this is Merman and you still have Goblin, pretty easy decision to smack and kill the Merman).
T2: This is Unica, Lyrial or Feria. Am I right that the order of threat of these followers in increasing order is Unica < Lyrial < Feria? The way I see it is that Unica's ability is only effective against an Aggro race (other archetypes will try to manage the board first), while Lyrial can ping away a 1 defence follower in addition to her attack if she evolves, while Feria becomes a mini-Alice if allowed to evolve for massive burst.
T3: If this is Goblin Leader, but either you failed to get a 2-drop or the opponent traded it away, what's the best course of action to stop this from snowballing? If this is Grimnir and Feria + Goblin are hiding behind him, what is the best course of action to stop Alice from subsequently giving too much burst/value (especially if Feria can evo as well)?
T4: Alice. Not much to stop this. And if the opponent went second and still has their Feria to evolve, you effectively die on the spot.
T5: In Sword, this is Card Knights. Best way to deal with all of them? You could just ram a big follower or evo into the ward and the storm is just a stat stick after its attack, but the bane's 3 defence makes trading attempts incredibly difficult (you need at least 3 attack to kill him, but most things with such attack are much more valuable than a 1/3 bane). And if you don't deal with them all (or at least 2 of them), another Alice comes down T6...
T5 again: In Blood, if they haven't been pressured enough, this is Baphomet. Next turn is Spawn. Goodbye. Given that the Neutral package pressures you too much to pressure them in most cases and BKB removes pressure from them even more, is running the Neutral package yourself the only way to pressure them sufficiently?