A Book Report
Patrick Ogrentz (AzureSpirit) offers some notes from his experience in the Online Games n’ Geek GP in April ahead of the next U.S. Grand Prix in Minnesota on May 23. He placed undefeated after Swiss rounds and placed in the top 8 in the finals day 2. Ogrentz is also a certified judge for the Force of Will TCG and has judged at worlds and various other competitive events.
“Hello I would like to lock you in the Library of Alexandria with the Fey”
The main goal of the deck is to dig for Mysteries of Milest while staving off any immediate threats, but there are multiple ways to end the game from many different angles.
Lethal Routes in order of Priority
Burn Baby Burn!!!
At any time, perform Judgment with Light Book for 2 will (recover any Awakened Magic Stone Earth that have been rested by their own effect when you perform Judgment of your Light Ruler). After that grab Nyarlathotep, the Realized Truth from your side board when Light Book enters the field. Cast double Mysteries of Milest for 4000 damage. Nyarlathotep, the Realized Truth unseals your fire cards while she is in the field. this line is vulnerable to the use of Lunar Protective Lifeform, Lumia, Princess of Rebirth // Wings of Light and Darkness, other forms of life gain or damage prevention. It’s best to cast on opponent’s turn to play around these different tools.
Infinite Perens
You are able to flip your J/Ruler and perform Judgment for “free” (aka paying 0 for the Books’ X cost) every turn, which allows you to reanimate any copies of Peren, Fairy of Living Fire in grave. Cycling between your Books with your sub-ruler, The Library of Neverending Stories, allows you to discard any copies of Peren into the grave to reanimated later. This can also happen after a successful resolution of Dark Alice, Rabbit Princess or Chubby Five-Tailed Fox. Peren is not only a FLYING blocker, but if your opponent plays it safe, you can sacrifice them to burn your opponent, and then reanimate them at the end of your opponent’s turn to be able to swing + sac on your turn. It’s a great aggressive line of play!
Of course, this is weak to Giotto Sansta // Gill Lapis decks, Accursed Ice Shards, and Hi-Speed Uppercut. If your opponent is telegraphing an Uppercut, you can’t sac Peren on your turn unless you hold up Judgment to get all of your Perens back in response to the cast of Uppercut (remember: you can perform Judgment at Quickest speed thanks to the The Library of Neverending Stories sub-ruler).
I’m gonna punch you REALLY HARD
Because of the cycling effect of The Library of Neverending Stories, Crimson Moon's Fairy Tale, Grimm’s Contract Regalia from Masterpiece 01, is a helpful tool in helping to gain additional life that will insulate us from losing to aggro strategies or burn. When gaining life through Crimson Moon’s FairyTale and on Dark Book, we can perform Judgment with Dark Book for 3 will, we grab Melgis, King of Black Flame from our side board and use his activate ability to pay a lot of life for a lot of damage.
Charlotte // Glorius decks and Zero are strong against this win condition. Charlotte can discard a card to rest/bounce/interact with Melgis before he attacks. Zero can remove Swiftness on either side and can destroy Melgis in response to one his activate abilities with her sub-ruler: Crystal Apple will see that Melgis has more symbol skills than he originally had (since he gains First Strike) and destroy him for 1 darkness will.
Library’s Closing
Another tool for Book of Light and Book of Dark is the card Ten Oaths of the Protopaterpolis’ War which counts as a Will of Hope and Will of Dark for the enter effects of both rulers. This means you can grab it off of any of your rulers when they perform judgment for 2 will. On the bottom of the card is the named ability <Bookworm> which allows you to pay 1 light and 1 dark will to animate all of your Book additions and make them 1000/1000 resonators for the turn. The catch is that you need to control 6 Books between you Ruler(s), SubRuler, and on-field entities. At the start of the game, you have your starting ruler, sub-ruler, and Grimorie from your deck. From there, you have to find 3 more Book entities, which is not very hard at all. Epic of the Dragon Lord (in the side) and Fate’s Reunited (in the main) are both run as a part of the list so this win condition is very consistent.
However, this the win condition you’ll like need the least: the game is usually over by one of the other previously mentioned options and is weak to many different entity removals, especially Spirits of the Crimson Moon since it can be cast for free if you remove a light card from the game before you get to 6 books. This win condition is your last resort when all other condition have failed you.
Supplementary Options of Choice
Fates Reunited - such a versatile card as long as I’ve played against the deck before, it’s one of those cards that rewards testing and intimate game knowledge.
Tinker Bell - just an auto-include, you’re insane if you don’t play Tink in this 2-cost toolbox machine of a deck.
Fossil Girl - chose this over Laurite because I found that the deck was weak against Girl Staring At and I could play it 100% of the time thanks to being able to pay red for it. An added benefit is against Gill Lapis, the deck has to pay 2 to copy Fossil Girl if it’s in my RFG rather than 1 for a Laurite or another ability cancel. 1 will goes a long way.
Light Lightning - most niche removal spell for the not-niche matchups. Deals with all the “Muse” resonators (such as Spirit of the Mirage Ruins and Alabaster Spellweaver Shaman), deals with anything that gains keywords, and it combos with Fates Reunited when I want to destroy anything that has lost Barrier, most often my J/Ruler is doing the destroying!
D-Alice + Chubby - You’re telling me I can play 8 copies of Dark Alice and 4 of them allow me to boardwipe with a Tink afterward?!? SIGN ME UP.
Cage of Mother Goose - this card has been errata’d to [Mastery] Fairy Tale in the ABC decks, which allows you to rest the Crimson Moon’s FairyTale, as well as your Ruler if you’re panicking, and Dark Alice to make it’s cost free. It also gets around the [Barrier] Chant of cards like non-Solo Therapist, Alabaster Spellweaver Shaman, and deals with Broken Mask of the Crusader as a 2-card combo.
Judgment of Solari - copies 5 + 6 of Mysteries of Milest if needed and additional copies of a Tinker Bell-like effect. It also functions as an out to Mask for 3 will.
Liberation of the Light - In this version, Book of Light is the more important flip. It allows you to generate will for the Judgment of a Light ruler. You can use it as removal for free if you have spent Tinker Bell’s that are removed from he game by its effect removing itself, as well as possibly have a Cage of Mother Goose remove itself to fuel it’s pseudo-Solarisation cost and thus making it unchaseable. The swapping of rulers with The Library of Neverending Fairy Tales allows for the astral condition to be removed from your Book of Light, allowing you to continue performing judgment despite it being destroyed.
Light Liberation also enables you to do an FTK with Nyarly going first since you discard it off the swap and judge for 2 will. After which, 2 copies of Mysteries of Milest later…
Lancelot, Space-Time Knight - This is the MOST niche card in this deck. However, it allows me to still deal
with Alabaster, Therapist, Ashwyn, and other problem cards as long as I have a J-Ruler. Discarding it for its own effect puts a target resonator on the bottom of their owner’s deck! Another combo: flip your Book and in response to enter, pitch Lance to spin an opposing Alabaster et al., proceed to grab whatever you need from your side board without consequence!
Will of Hope / Will of Darkness Choices
Epic of the Dragon Lord - I like having cards in my hand, not in yours.
Zero, the King’s Blade - see above
Ten Oaths of the Protopaterpolis’ War x2- having the second allows me to be less careful with the first
Nyarlathotep, the Realized Truth x2 - see above
Arla, Demonic Flying Ace - We gain a TON of life, might as well use it
Melgis, King of Black Flame - see above
GP Match Log Notes
Round 1 vs Yoyo (Gill/Giotto) 2-1 won die roll VoD
No Graveyard, Peren dead card, Liberation Dead card, Contract awkward
Game1 normal Turn3 Double Milest Line nothing too extraordinary, should’ve
noticed he discarded Jester and called it w/ Fates. Played around Lifeform just in
case he was maining it.
Game 2 he had double Crimson Spirits, was a “make him have it” kind of game.
Game 3 TRIPLE MILEST BABYYYYYYYY
Round 2 vs Anh Nhuyen (Sol/Mars) 2-0 won die roll VoD
Was unsure what this matchup entailed actually, hadn’t tested into it as it was
assumed to be “Uranus FTK”
Fates Reunited carried my advantage pretty well actually, calling Uranus and
Pluto to stop the <Lost Luminaries>
GAIN LIFE TO THE MOOOOOOOOOOOOON
Game2 had to deal with MANY Mirage spirits in different ways.
Round 3 vs John (Gil/Giotto) 2-0 won die roll RS Stream PoV VoD
Played out of my MIND bro
More dead cards cause Giotto
G1: Should’ve noticed he discarded Lumia to EDL, and not do double Milest,
almost lost if not for top decking another one later.
G2: would’ve been entirely different if he uppercut’d before allowing me to play
Lumia’s Rage.
Calamity Shield jumpscare
Round 4 vs J. Lindley (Mask Sisters) 2-0 lost die roll VoD
HELP
He didn’t see Falchion either game let’s GOOOOOOOOOO
One of the main testing partners so I had absolutely 0 elements of surprise and
knows what to call on Fates Reunited
HELP MEEEEEE
That’s a 4k/4k Charlotte
Gaslighted me saying Cage only rests J/Res for cost
Sat on Alabaster for 3 turns
I won
Round 5 vs Alex (Pricia) 2-1 lost die roll VoD
Hard mulligan for Crimson Tale weeeeeeeee
G1; I got FTK’d
G2; Kill on 2
G3; Hit my favorite interaction in the deck;
■ Hit Earth stone
■ Swap to Light, Discard Crimson Tale
■ J for 2 w/ Energize, Recover Earth
■ While J is still on chase, DAlice
■ Discard 2 Perens, gain 1k life
■ Judgement Resolves, triggering Perens.
He was then not allowed to play the game.
Top 8 vs Misha (Mask Sisters) 1-2 Chose second (no vod)
G1 he tapped out to play Ray Aznable on 3 and I was able to destroy Mask and
stabilize to win
G2 he was able to get enough cancels and pressure before I was able to out
mask, stalled grabbing Nyar for 3 turns before he finally killed me while I had
double milest and triple tink in hand.
G3 he opened Shards + Hydria, the absolute worst possible thing that could’ve
happened, and stopped the combos I had trying to out mask.Post-GP Thoughts
Final Thoughts
I knew I had an even to good matchup into any of the rogue decks that were being thrown around, with the original version of the deck only having losing matchups into GnG and Mask, in testing we found that it was too hard to deal with both so I decided to shore up the main deck for the Mask matchup as a non-Falchion opener will take forever to kill me but GnG can kill me super fast to go into the sideboard. I wasn’t onboard with the EDL book because I felt like I wanted to get Arla or Melgis more, but it got so much value in the early game ripping cards out of hands Peren is honestly just absolutely insane into any matchup that’s not GnG. Supplementing damage so I only need to resolve a single Milest. The Uppercuts in the sideboard probably come out, I never needed to / wanted to cast them, but I didn’t know what else to do with the slots at the time. I might just put the Fire Pit / Shiva / Rogue Package in the side board.