News: Marth Decks Dominate Tournament Results, Tops Akihabara Tourney

Chrom didn't make the cut in Super Smash Bros., and he's not making it in Cipher.

Ten new tournaments took place between June 2nd and July 6th. Of the eighteen tournaments that have been reported on since the game's launch last month, twelve of them have been won by Marth decks. Accordingly, red is also the most consistent top in the game. The second most played deck of the Warblade of Heroes format is Inigo Harem, which has easily surpassed Chrom as the primary deck of choice for blue. Marth decks cumulatively account for more than two thirds of tops, while Inigo makes up 17% of the top decks. The rest is spread between rogue decks that have only topped once. An index of the most recent tournaments is provided below.

Marth Tops Cardbox, Masters Square, Card Brunch Motomiya Tournaments

Inigo Harem Tops Game Plaza and Nerima Tournaments

Multicolor Tiki Wins Kamata Tournament, Marth Tops Yellow Submarine Tourney

What should be kept in mind with these results is that more than a hundred shop tournaments took place in June, and a hundred more will have finished by the end of this week. Only about 8% of all tournaments that happen are reported, and so we are generalizing from a very small sample of data that may be skewed by the low number of reporting card shops. Provided that it is accurate, the first two weeks of tournament play should not see this kind of gulf emerge between Sword of Light and Mark of Naga decks. An ideally diverse format would be split 50-50 between the two colors.

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On July 8th, Card Kingdom Akihabara held a 16-person double elimination tournament, which became the second consecutive top for Lyndis, winner of the previous Akihabara shop tournament. Lyndis' deck underwent several major revisions between tournaments, most notably removing her cost 2 Tikis in favor of running cost 1 Nowi to accelerate her bond zone instead, as well as cutting Sumia to make room for the Tharja line. Tharja has been an unpopular choice in both pure blue and multicolor decks, requiring heavy reversal costs and restrictive handsize conditions in order to force the opponent to discard and gain attack bonuses.

With particular regard to "Mage of Dark Obsessions, Tharja," the costs and difficulty of setup can be worth the investment. If Tharja's cost 3 print was class changed from either her cost 1 or cost 2 variants, her reverse 3 skill forces the opponent to discard 3 cards, which effectively counters most forms of acceleration due to the low availability of true card advantage in the game. Without cards in hand the opponent can't place bonds, deploy units, discard for evasion, or discard for critical hits; at best they must choose two of those options to be available to them, and sacrifice the rest.

King TCG held its second shop tournament over July 2nd, and uploaded the results of the tournament to YouTube on the 4th. While the previous tournament was won by a conventional Marth deck, in this tournament finals Ogma made a surprise appearance as the champion's main character of choice.  The majority of players stick to Marth because of his ability to move an opponent's unit, controllign their field and exposing them to attacks. It's this very quality that has reinforced the use of units with Flying, as their shared support skill allows one to move units without setting them to the actioned state, allowing them to move and attack in the same turn.

By playing Ogma instead, the tournament winner gave up these qualities for a better offensive game. Basic Ogma becomes a 60 attacker as long as there are two other cost 2 or less allies in play. In his promoted state as "Steel Swordsman, Ogma" he both gains +10 attack every time a cost 2 or less ally is deployed and gives +10 attack to the deployed unit, preventing the opponent's defensive checks from blocking their attacks. Steel Swordsman can also become a range 1~2 attacker by reversing one bond, which gives him comparative levels of field control to "Lodestar, Marth" since the opponent can't move their units out of Ogma's range. This also gives him the freedom to move to the rearguard area and attack from there, where the opponent can't reach him.

The Chrom player in the finals ultimately lost the game as a result of mismanaging their bonds, being unable to play the cards they had in hand due to a combination of not having the right colors face-up at key times, and not having enough to pay the costs. They were also unable to ever take the lead in orbs due to their preoccupation with attacking allied units rather than Ogma himself, whose power skill benefited from needing to deploy replacements.

Card Kingdom (Akihabara branch) shop tournament
First place: Lyndis/リンディス
Cost 5: 4
x2 Hero to His Country, Marth
x2 Manakete Princess, Tiki
Cost 4: 10
x4 Lodestar, Marth
x3 Angelic Advocate of Affection, Caeda
x3 Mage of Dark Obsessions, Tharja
Cost 3: 7
x3 Wellspring of Youth, Nowi
x4 Pegasus Knight Paragon, Cordelia
Cost 2: 7
x3 Princess of Altea, Elice
x2 Bewitching Plegian Shaman, Tharja
x2 New Exalt, Chrom
Cost 1: 22
x1 Crown-prince of Altea, Marth (Main character)
x2 Ascetic Saint, Lena
x4 Crown-princess of Talys, Caeda
x4 Practitioner of Dark Arts, Tharja
x4 Young Prodigy, Cordelia
x4 Tomboyish Manakete, Nowi
x3 Liberation Army Archer, Gordin