May SBBMonthly Tournament Report by Ikarus
Ikarus details his journey to 2nd place!
Hi everyone! My name is Lars Quilitzsch, I stream Storybook Brawl on Twitch and go by the name Ikarus in game. I took 2nd place in the recent May tournament.
My general approach is to value consistency over inconsistent characters. For me, the heroes that provide a good early game are the best and I always try to snowball an early great start into a win. Usually a go-to for a great start can be Prized Pig – securing additional gold for more treasures and to get further ahead is great, but you need to recognize when it’s not the time for the Pig. A lot of tier 3 treasures can be really great to secure a strong start, or to get Treasure Map into Dracula’s Saber or Monkey Paw for an extreme power spike. I usually try to be as open as possible to different compositions, and decide to go into completely different directions depending on the shops. Seeing some treasures on your opponent can also be a factor into what direction you want to go. Especially Dracula’s Saber, it's one of the strongest right now and destroys not-fully-online Animal token or Pumpkin builds.
The tournament meta is a bit different than the ladder in general. It is usually way more aggressive, with a lot of early-game highrolls. That being said, it actually leads to on-average weaker lategames overall, since a lot of the highrolls are more often disrupted by Medusa or spells. On ladder, a highroll – especially slay – can really feast on weak boards, so securing your HP early becomes more important. The tournament points system rewards 4th with 6 points over a 5th with 4 points, so getting top 4 should be the aim in every game – obviously 1st is great but to play 1st or 8th heroes doesn’t feel too great.
In the tournament I value strong starts even more, because when you lose too much HP early there is always a chance to run into a highroll to just get knocked out, despite being strong in the current phase of the game. In the early game I often end up picking up Wizard's Familiar and Spell Weaver for a growing strong board and to have the option open for HatBall. The strongest easy-to-achieve lategame is still Trees, and the scam Pumpkin comp is usually my go-for if I get no other direction. Oni Tyrant can provide a lot of extra stats on level 5! In general if you are not strong, picking up a Medusa for position 1 (top left) or 5 (bottom left) can really help a lot no matter what you are.
Day One
Game 1: Xelhua - 6th
It looked actually not that bad - I was really healthy, and then on 4.1 I hit into this guy with upgraded Copycat in front of upgraded Wombat... and took 23 dmg, which was ridiculous! Then I was basically in one-shot range and didn't find enough tempo. In the end, I lost a 50/50 fight and got 6th.
Game 2: Gwen - 2nd
No early Knighthood targets. I played Evil with double Queen, didn't find triples and no Mixawizzle. The Queens carried me through the midgame. At the end of level 5, I tripled Sporko for Ring of Rage – my only treasure this game. I got to 6, and luckily found a Bearstein to Knighthood.
Game 3: Hoard Dragon - 1st
Well, this was a really strong highroll. Early Cinderella + Frog with For Glory, triggering turn 2 -> getting double Mouse and some Dwarves, triggering Cinderella into Pants and taking a Doubly. Taking a Spellweaver buffed for the back and getting a Saber from Mice. In the end, transitioned to Mages with another Spellweaver + Familiar, and then got the tier-7 Prism with one Aon. An Evil Twin tripled the Familiar, which gave me Ball -> GG
Game 4: Xelhua - 7th
All the bad heroes and Xelhua in selection - got a pretty lowroll start... could've gone better but didn't get experience / early tempo characters... so not a lot to do there, to be honest. I tripled a Lightning Dragon (which I don't like) for the treasure to get Deck, and obviously run into Angry and it just buffs his board. Overall, I was unlikely to win there anyways.
Game 5: Skip - 3rd
So after 5 games I found no good early game champ this tourney, and this one was also one of these. I didn't get a good start, with double Shadow Assassin and later Chupacabra – I definitely needed the first Slay, which I got in this game. I was really weak but the lobby was, too. Then on 5 I got an additional experience and couldn't find a 6-drop in 3 turns after getting to 6. Honestly, I was lucky to get 3rd in the end in a completely treasureless game.
Game 6: Fates - 3rd
Well not a good Fated character - I decided to go with Baby Dragon above Billy Gruff and Mad Mim. I got a Wish through and got to level 6 early, and decided to pick up Lordy and go Dwarves. I could've gotten 2nd or even 1st - in the end, with some really unlucky fights and no other Lordy or Echo in shop, I got 3rd.
Game 7: Wonder Waddle - 3rd
My first good starting champ - I got 3rd in an insane highroll lobby. Fates had turn-2 upgraded Mouse and Gloves, and there were a lot of highrolls on the way. But yeah, Waddle is Waddle, so I was doing fine there (shoutout to MX, who died in this lobby on 3.2). I knew that I needed 3rd to advance to the next day, so I decided to pick up all the tempo with Map into a tier 5 treasure – Dracula's Saber. Interestingly, I won with my two 'dusas + Appletree a fight vs a 5-Goodboy board, but couldn't find Pumpkin.
Summary
So overall 44 points + 1 Pro bonus point to get exactly 45 and qualify for Day Two 🙂
To sum up Day One, while the hero choices don't look too bad, I always want to go with high early-game tempo heroes. Xelhua is definitely not bad overall, since it is nearly guaranteed get 1st in a low-tempo lobby, but it also can go wrong like it did here for me today. There were no real choices in the hero select for me today, since the other 3 options were always ones I rate way lower. So, I was really happy to advance despite that.
Day Two
Game 1: Bye
Game 2: Cursed King - 3rd
I had an OK start, but ran into Egg to take extra damage. I tripled Stag and couldn't use one of the 3-cost treasures -.- so, I ended up skipping there. I then took Daggers and lost it directly afterwards in an 85%-win/5%-draw fight, which definitely hurt me.
I still stabilized with the tier 4 treasure Deck of Many Things, and supported some Soltaks with Heartwood behind them. I was decently strong. In the end I lost a coinflip scenario vs 1st place to get 3rd. Otherwise, I would have taken 2nd for sure, and most likely 1st, since I didn't need a lot to be completely online in Trees and would've had a ghost fight next round.
This was one of the games were I lost too many favoured fights.
Game 3: Sharebear - 3rd
Decent start. On 3.1 I kissed Cinderella into an upgraded Wight. I thought I could go Dwarves with Fairy Tail already - but I didn't find any more Dwarves. I went Evil with Sporko, kissed a 5 into a 6 to have a "useless" Burning Tree for a few rounds. Then I picked up a few Trees and in the end lost to Xelhua, who had a good early game and just the typical Tree lategame. It could've been 2nd, but overall fine.
Game 4: Fallen Angel - 3rd
Honestly, a really bad start. I couldn't find any Good characters until 3.2, and lost some HP because of that. With an upgraded Feasting and Lance, I moved into slay. It could've been nice but I couldn't beat the big Tree boards.
Game 5: Merlin - 3rd
What a start! Woggle free roll and slaying into Ogre Princess. This was definitely a great start. I wanted to go into Mages and was healthy in the midgame – 38 HP when the first two opponents died. Got an upgraded Book, but sadly never found Ball. In the end I was not the strongest. In my opinion, this game should've been a 2nd place, but I lost to 4th-place's ghost - scam - with insane fight RNG killing basically everything perfectly. I had 85% to win there, so that was a bit sad.
Game 6: Apocalypse - 1st
Yeah, when I pick Apocalypse the hero selection is for sure not the best. Obviously, I get my only 1st of the day with the lowest-rated hero on my tier list. Had turn 1 Cinderella, turn 2 random spell into Roll the Dice, to get an early treasure and an additional character on board. Took XP at 3.0, at 3.1, and at 3.2 I then found Wish, but I decided to not take it. I was a bit funny that I then actually won that fight vs Skip.
I was not that confident in my position. I was at 12 HP when I locked the XP spell at 5.1. I'm glad that I didn't lose there, because that was definitely still possible. The End got me up to 17 HP, I got my tier-6 characters and thought I could get into Trees, but just didn't find them.
The mix of characters was overall bad for Apocalypse. I got Ambrosia from Nian, which I Kissed into an upgraded Goodboy. So I had 1 upgraded Goodboy, 1 unupgraded Goodboy, and I guess 1 Robin I picked up, but no other Good characters and no treasures to buff them. I played Pumpkin in the Ambrosia spot - I picked another Pumpkin, and in the end after 4 turns I was able to pick Burning Tree to swap into Trees with Ashwood in the Ambrosia spot for win.
I needed first or second in the last game to get into top 8 – I'm glad that worked out.
Summary
A lot of good hero choices (this time I actually had choices). Also, some not-too-highrolly lobbies, which I often lost to healthy Xelhuas in the end.
Top 8
Game 1: Waddle 2nd
I had a good Waddle start and tried to force HatBall. It actually took quite a long time to find the Ball. In the end I got it - I tried to go for Fork, but never found that with I think three tier-4s. I was relatively healthy and then lost to the other player with Fork-Ball, an Aon already on board, and an upgraded Scion of the Storm (which was Mixawizzled - sometimes the temporary power gain from Mixa is just too much). I was basically a favourite in every fight from there on. Top 3 were 2x HatBall and a scam board. I had some bad fights there, but since I was relatively healthy beforehand I managed to get 2nd. I'm favoured vs the last scam board on average, but he got optimal attacks and took me down.
Game 2: Loki - 3rd
Yeah... me and Loki - obviously not the best heroes in the options here.I got a Roll the Dice round 2 for some tempo early. I used a lot of Polywoggles early, got a Hippocampus from it in the 3.0 fight and decided to go Animals. It's not optimal with Loki, since you want to Croc the Hippo later, but I was fine with that. I got an early Sting and a Ring of Rage and then an upgraded Sporko with Horn. I got 1 XP spell from Loki, which is not great, but luckily found the Bearstein on 6 with like one Pigs and one Baby Bear. I never found any Flies, and when I was locked for Echowood, Loki Masqueraded it to give me the 3rd Bearstein instead. I couldn't win vs Grailed Trees in the end.
Game 3: Sharebear - 2nd
I had the options to pick Sharebear or Hoard Dragon, and decided to go for Sharebear. I didn't have the best start, and definitely lost too much HP early. I got a Sting, which I used for Mummy and decided to go into scam from there. I looked for Mages early but didn't get the treasures for that, I picked up 1 Apple Tree, Medusa, and Cupid and went into scam. I found finally one Pumpkin.
To be honest, my scam board was definitely not the strongest, but I had some good fights and won some close fights. Dracula's Saber did a really great job for me. In the end, I took 2nd and was way weaker than the other scam board - but yeah, in scam vs scam, a lot can happen. The attack into the Cupid in the final fight was brutal!
Summary
With 2nd, 3rd, 2nd, I took 2nd place in the top 8.
2nd place overall is definitely great for me, securing a spot in the Summer Championship! I'm still a little bit on the fence if I should’ve taken Hoard Dragon in the final game over Sharebear, to get a better shot at first place.
I played Scam, Slay, Trees, Animals Tokens, Dwarfs, Mages – so no good boy game but a healthy mix of compositions for sure. In the beginning I said that the strongest late game are still Trees, and despite that I only ended up once in a Tree comp (and that was also only 4 Trees with Doombreath and double Pumpkin) – there were a couple of games that I was open for Trees and just didn’t find them. A lot of games ended before getting to a complete comp.
Scoreline:
- Day 1: 6-2-1-7-3-3-3
- Day 2: B-3-3-3-3-1
- Top 8: 2-3-2
This was the first time it was close for me on Day One, but I really played for my outs there to secure the 45 points instead of trying to win the last lobby. Xelhua is overall one of the strongest heroes and one of the heroes I lost to most in my tournament games, but can also really struggle to have a good start and handle early highrolls in these tournament games. Seven 3rds in a row is a lot, with a lot of games were I managed to get to 3rd despite having a bad start and facing a few highrolls, and some which could’ve went a lot better and ended up 3rd. Obviously getting nothing worse than 3rd on Day Two is really a great outcome!! Great hero choices on Day Two, and being open to play anything is usually something that helps a lot.
It's great being part of this community and I still love this game. Thank you all for reading this and all the support.
- Ikarus