Stone Burner Open | Quarter Final L

[@VitasTamkevicius]

@BShadow, thanks for the commentary! Was really entertaining and attractive. 👍😉

[@michaelwolfe9167]

Thanks for commentating this match, shadow. I played Staban this game, and thank you for the fair critique of my play. In retrospect, emphasizing getting to shipping is really a good way to go for Staban (which is something I focused heavily on when I first started playing him, but started to move away from (maybe too far away from!) as I got more experience). That immediate contract for the early money with Priority Contracts on the row seemed like a reasonable path to take, one which would make the other players really have to change their game plans in order to block me, so it does feel like it was a plausible gambit, but you're definitely right that the second bump in spacing is just objectively more important for Staban than the second bump with emperor is. Getting Truthtrance round 1 was a good start, but as you pointed out in your sum-up of the match, it really just meant that all I had done was gotten back to parity with the other players' starting decks. And beyond that, my deck just wasn't very good. I had some reasonable persuasion reveals, but no decent cards got to me (and not just power cards like stilgar or overthrow, but even run-of-the-mill decent cards like spacing guild's favor didn't make it to me until I picked up branching path on like round 5!) Part of what I wanted to look at on rewatching the match was to see if there were any opportunities that I missed to do an early reveal for a strong card, and it came as something of a relief to see that I didn't miss out on anything like that. I had set myself up to get 8 persuasion when overthrow was on the row, and could well have gotten there by going espionage or fremkit with my truthtrance, but muadib early revealed for it before I even had 8 in hand. Public spectacle hit the table after one player bought and didn't even make it past the next player. The biggest miss that I see in hindsight is that I did have 8 persuasion on the turn that I picked up priority contracts, and I should have also bought embedded agent. I probably would have seen it twice, which could easily have gotten me a trip to shipping and earlier hooks -- being so starved for faction bumps it would have been helpful in opening up more of the board. You're definitely right that I massively overpaid for protect the sietches; my problem was that margot was sitting behind me with 3 water, so I had to bid against her current combat strength of 10, plus a trip by her to deep desert for 2 worms. I guess it would have been pretty profligate for her to spend 3 water to get 2 bumps with the fremen when she already had the alliance, but losing the combat when I had the match and needed the bump pretty desperately would have been terrible. There's an argument that 2nd place on sietches for 3 troops is good value, but without access to shipping and only 1 faction access card, my opportunities to spend the 3 spice you get for 2nd productively were super limited. Anyway, a fun and memorable tournament. Good luck to Heretic the rest of the way, and I'll look forward to a rematch in the next one.

[@scmccarthy]

My opinion: Hagga Basin R2A2 was gurney's selfishly best move, you just got lucky he went to Spice Refinery instead. Shouldn't have worked. Instead I believe you should have gone Hagga-HC, to be able to buy more strong cards. R3 I think spying on BG is worse than spying on either Hagga or a green space for the money. Also, I think you should consider buying a second faction card over Priority Contracts - even though it's a clear VP - just because you're still so low on them. There weren't great options anymore, just SG Favor, but I'd probably still take it? You need faction access. R4. buying yet another non-faction card looks bad, but I guess it's still better than nothing. I think the arrakeen play earlier in the round was a mistake - better to use a lower-persuasion card and take another contract.

[@BlackShadow993]

Sometimes I get accused of being a bit harsh but Staban is deliberately not easy to play so.

[@Emanon...]

Thank you! Your dedication to the community is above and beyond!

[@BlackShadow993]

We try.

[@reversereverse7349]

Sniping Overthrow was critical.

[@Johnny144D]

Great commentary, thanks for the upload!

[@muCephei_]

Gurney should have stopped Muad'dib on round 4. He had enough troops to do it. Everybody's just playing their own game haha

[@BlackShadow993]

I totally agree and it led to somewhat predictable consequences.

[@faismasterx]

Remember kids, greed is bad.