Last weekend I played in the PlayToEarn League #5 and finished 2nd. You can read about my experience in League #4 here: @meltysquid/playtoearn-league-4-postmortem. It was a 2-day tournament held over the weekend, hosted by playtoearn(.)net, and cast by 
The format for the PlayToEarn tournament was no restrictions for deck building. Round 1 and 2 were Best of 1s, Round 3 through 6 were Best of 3s, and the Finals were Best of 5, and you must win with different gods. The tournament seeding was random.
My two 2nd place tops put me at 3rd place in the PlayToEarn League Season Leaderboard and secures a spot for the final tournament.
Since there are no deck building restrictions, the decks were similar to what's played on the ladder: Tempo Magic, Aggro Nature, Heirloom Death, Aggro Light, Control Deception. I played meta decks which I am used to, Aggro Nature, Aggro Light, Control and Tempo Magic. The most recent balance patch toned down some cards but my decks function mostly the same after the patch.
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This Aggro nature deck is what I ran for the weekend. Standard flood the board and buff your creatures to overwhelm your opponent. The deck doesn't have a lot of card draw or generation so you end up out of cards in hand quickly thus you want to end games quickly. It also doesn't have any reach aside from Vicious Manticore or getting lucky with Celestial Stag so you need to keep your board stay alive to get in damage. If your opponent board wipes you, you're pretty much done for.
The deck has four parts, creatures, buffs, removal, and others. You have 12 beefy creatures to slam down and flood the board to use with your 7 buff cards. Your removal cards (Underbrush Boar, Staff of Roots, Lightning Strike) let you come back from behind and get rid of threats. The remaining cards (Chiron, Celestial Stag, Vicious Manticore, Pack Stalk, Finnian) fill in the weak spots. There are a few ratios to adjust, another Lighting Strike if there are a lot of big frontlines, Trial of the Hydra for more buffs or Grove Summon for card generation.
Against aggro decks, you fight for board control using your removal at the best time to swing the board in your favor, so you can play an opportune buff and seal the game for you. Against control decks, you buff your board and rush down their face before they can wipe your board.
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Pretty much a standard Aggro Light deck. Both Thaeric Extortionist and Light's Levy for the Nature matchup. Militant Theist can also neuter a 1/X or buff one of your guys. Master of Indulgences is tech against a big frontline. You don't have any outs aside from running your guys in.
Similar deck construction to Aggro Nature, you have sticky creatures, buffs, and removal.
Your win cons are getting a big board buffed by Prayer of the Desperate or getting a big Kadmos/Petros.
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I don't usually play control decks. This was a counter pick against aggressive deception decks. Not too confident on this list, something I cobbled together on the spot. A ton of removal and some threats at the top end. The deck is light at the top end since if you get to 7 mana you usually are winning and don't need a huge guy. You win by stalling and running your opponent out of threats then sticking a big beater to kill them.
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Fakemews' Tempo Magic list. I copied it to play in the finals. I got 2nd place again, maybe I copied too much Fakemews. I haven't played a lot with Aethersnap but the deck had good results.
I go second in the nature mirror. My opponent picks Selena's Mark as the god power, a strange choice considering they're playing Aggro Nature. Pack Stalk on turn 1 gives me the mana to dump my hand to take the lead on board. We fight back and forth for board control. They misplay and leave my Finnian alive. Then I draw Staff of Roots to clear the board and it is clean up from there.
Aggro Nature vs Control Magic. A quick match. I play guys, they remove some of them. My Underbrush Boar tramples their Rune Moth. They play Guild Enforcer to try and stop the aggression but I buff my board up and run over their Enforcer. Turn 7 they are down to 4hp and concede.
Aggro Nature vs Aggro Light. They go first but Underbrush Boar keeps them from getting too ahead. A timely Wildfire sets them back a lot. After that I get board control, they fight back but they can't beat my board.
In game 2, I play Aggro Light vs Aggro Nature, the opposite of the last game. Double Vanguard Axewoman clears their War's Wake and they are on the back foot from the start. I draw Thaeric Extortionist and Light's Levy to deal with their creatures. I have a board but my creatures are small. Kadmos comes down and gets taken out by Staff of Roots. Petros joins in after and also gets taken out by Staff of Roots. I have a full board and my opponent is almost out of cards. It's just cleanup duty from here.
I go first with Aggro Nature vs Control Magic. I have 4 guys on turn 2 but Lightning Talisman softens up my board. A Shaped Blast knocks it down to my Marsh Walker and his injured buddy. Then a Crystal Rain leaves me with a lone beetle. After, I'm pretty much out of cards and concede to the big frontline.
I forgot to start recording for game two, nature vs deception. I was able to stick some guys and buff them before my opponent could find outs and kill them.
My opponent lost with deception in the last game and looking them up they only play magic and deception so I need to swap my Light deck for something else. I cobble together a Control Magic list heavy on removal. I go first with a hand full of removal. We go back and forth, they play guys, and I remove them. They Cutthroat my Ekrileth, that's going to be a problem later. Stoneskin on Leyhoard, I could use Metamorphosis but I opt to remove the Guild Enforcer instead and save Metamorph for later. The late game is in my favor with my big guys and all of their small guys are no match for my AOE. They get whittled down over time as we trade guys and removal. Eventually, they get low enough that I can burn them out.
I play Aggro Nature going second against Control Light, not something you see often. My opponent has a decent start slowing me down with Divine Judgement and Eucos in Eclipse but in turn 3 I'm threatening a huge board. Then turn 4 I play Wildfire and they are against the wall. Another Eclipse isn't enough and they concede turn 6.
I stick with my aggro strategy and run Aggro Light. I'm going second against Heirloom Death. My opponent has some trouble dealing with my board. They have some removal but it's not enough for my endless conga line of guys. A MOI for their Pyramid Warden then I play Prayer on my 5 wide board. They play Return to Cave to desperately survive but I'm too far ahead on board. My beefy conga line tramples them.
I beat [NVS] Devoted in the YOTG #3 Finals which you can read about here @meltysquid/year-of-the-gods-3-tournament-postmortem, now he's back for revenge. Team Nevos is a competitive GU team on par with 8M, so this is going to be a tough match.
Devoted has a wide enough range to be playing anything, so I queue old reliable Aggro Nature and hope to curve out. I go first against Heirloom Death. My hand lets me curve out every turn while Devoted is holding back my wild assault. He's down to 10hp on turn 5 and plays Siren of the Grave but unfortunately doesn't have the burn cards to trigger it this turn. Back to me, I play Vicious Manticore and take out the last of his health.
Thinking he might play Heirloom again, I queue Light with Radiant Dawn. He plays Aggro Nature, not great for me, but I'm skilled as ever and go first again. Pyramid Warden turn 1 is always good to see. I misplay not killing the Hog with Pyramid Warden which comes back to bite me later. The 1 extra damage from the buffed Hog lets Staff of Roots clear my board. Thaeric Extortionist and Ritual Rod let me cling to the board but double Underbrush Boar clears my board again. It's a tense fight for the board, we're both running low on cards. Kadmos and Petros charge valiantly into the battle with Vanguard Axewoman against the wild beasts. I clear the Boar with my rod and a lone badger stands against my army. A Form of Power kills Petros and a buffed badger takes out Axewoman leaving Kadmos to fight the beast. Reinforcements come and Kadmos gains the strength to take down the mighty badger. The enemy is routed and victory is ours.
And the final boss is another Nevos player, [NVS] clecle, here to avenge Devoted. I beat clecle in the quarterfinals of P2E League 4, now he's back for revenge. Nevos has been practicing a lot and clecle has a range as wide as Devoted so I need to be on my toes.
Game 1 is the Aggro Nature mirror. I go first with a bit of an awkward hand. Pipped out Black Jaguar dies to his Underbrush Boar. My own Underbrush Boar can get value later so I god power for the badger. A Pack Stalk gives me the mana to clear to his board. We trade boards but Dagan gives me the edge to get ahead then a follow-up Wildfire seals the deal.
The servers died after game 1, they came back eventually. In the meanwhile, I adjusted my stream settings and test streamed some Skyweaver.
Aggro hasn't failed me yet so I run Aggro Light. I am rewarded for my faith and go first yet again against Aggro Nature. Another reactive hand, leading with a rod gives me a good setup for the next turn. War's Wake from clecle and I put the Injured Sprouts to rest with rod and Axewoman. Dagan comes down to finish off my Axewoman but the wolf isn't long for this world. It's looking good for me, being ahead on board lets me make favorable trades. clecle puts up a good fight but Sern puts me too far ahead on cards in hand on top of my board control that's lights out for him.
I'm up 2-0 only 1 more win to take home $500. I'm not sure what to run; I've seen two Aggro decks from clecle so far. Control Magic should be a decent pick against anything he plays. I go first for the fifth time in a row against [NVS] but clecle is playing Tempo Magic, not too pretty for me. Tempo has enough burn to blow me out and I don't have any early game pressure. An awkward opening has a tough time dealing with all of the warded threats. My hand is too slow as I get hammered by creatures. Turn 5 I'm down to 14hp and struggling to turn this around. I manage to get back board control but it's too late now and I get burned out.
Okay maybe Control Magic is too slow, how about Tempo Magic. Fakemews' Tempo Magic deck did well on the weekend so I net deck that. Unfortunately, I run into a terrible matchup, BWD with a metric ton of healing, Return to Cave, Just a Nibble, Demogorgon, and Helmna. The game goes long but I get milled and don't have enough burn to deal with all the healing.
It's 2-2 now, clecle has managed to turn this around and put my back to the wall. I decided to run Tempo Magic again, it was close-ish last time, maybe it can do it. clecle plays OTK Relic War. This is going to be a close match, I can hopefully kill him before it gets too late. I have an awkward opener and can't put on any pressure early. My creatures die to his blitz relics and creatures and my removal is dead in hand. It's getting dicey, I'm running low on cards and haven't gotten clecle that low. Demogorgons come down and I use up the rest of my spells to deal with them. I haven't drawn any card draw and stuck top decking. Apprentice and echo with Wyrmbreath puts clecle down to 4hp but he gets the Rune of Healing from the sanctum and goes up to 7hp.
I forgot about the delay and closed out my stream early, lol it was a long day, so the stream viewers couldn't see the last turn. He plays Blade of Styx takes out my Apprentice, plays Whetstone, and uses Slayer. I know I'm dead to Unrestrained Power next turn so it's do or die now. Nothing but a prayer left. My turn, Heart of the Cards, I top deck Dimension Door into Arcane Transcendent then I die to Unrestrained Power. clecle manages to reverse sweep me and avenge Devoted.
In the end, it was a fun tournament. I pretty much unga bunga my way to the finals with aggro decks. I was lucky going first a bunch of times. My small range of decks was my Achilles Heel in the finals again from the last PlayToEarn Tournament. I did not expect that kind of BWD or OTK Relic War to be played. Maybe having practiced a combo deck would be good but clecle's decks caught me by complete surprise. This is my third tournament top and as I have mentioned before secures me a spot in the PlayToEarn Final Tournament.
