This Space
For Rent

What’s Wrong With Altmile/Thing Saver
(Mostly Swordmy) 

Saikyo would rather just run a reasonably pure Seekers deck.

There’s been a glut recently of people incorporating ideas that probably sounded better on paper regarding Royal Paladins.

Having looked through the Pojo Forums and taking it up with some people I trusted to be sensible (not anyone FROM Pojo, in case you’re wondering), I have come to the conclusion that the only reason people incorporate the most random shit in Royal Paladins is simply because they can.

Altmile/Thing Saver craze is sweeping the nation. Those of us who thought about it carefully however have basically filed it under the Thing/Abyss file; it’s a good-sounding idea that’s merely average on paper. It’s only doing well incidentally because it is literally fucking everywhere. Of course it’s got a better chance of reaching a top-spot.

I imagine the first person to build such a deck didn’t really take into context what has to be given up in order to try and hybridise these two ideas together. Altmile as far as a fail-con to Thing Saver goes is rather lacking. Fair enough, power is not unwelcome. But rather notably, Altmile is not a Seeker and thus anything good that needs a Seeker Vanguard to function (or needs something in Legion) will sit on its ass doing nothing. No popping with Blaster Blade Seeker. No Gildas. Just boring-ass vanilla. Instead, it relies on Stride to get anything important done and locks itself into one pattern.

Talking of Gildas, I don’t see the attraction to Swordmy replacing your stuff either. Actually that’s a lie; I do understand and think it’s fucking stupid. Swordmy is supposed to summon a new rear-guard easy in Early Game or sometime after, but to be honest it sort of falls a bit flat. I understand sort of how it works; Knight of Twin Sword chain to replace an entire column to make another attack, but I don’t approve of losing good cards for a card that’s less amazing. At least compared to whatever else you could run instead.

Swordmy is Especial Counterblast restricted. So unless you damage check a Jewel Knight Trigger or your 7 (I assume so) other Jewel Knights Swordmy would be unusable Early Game. Running a card which then in turn requires losing a valuable G1 slot for a vanilla booster just makes the deck more rigid in design. I could dissect every argument for Swordmy on request. Here: rush? Well if that’s what you want, pure Seekers has Cynric who can then Swiss-Army as a booster later. Toolboxing? You have Bravogal Seeker and Gildas. Not to mention a retire option that I’m all for milking to its fullest like an over-stuffed cow. Splashability? What does that matter if an archetype-restricted card can do the job better?

Shellie ruins it for me. If there was a Jewel Knight booster that served a purpose besides being a booster this may have merit, but for now it’s just dragging all the good stuff down to support what is not a very interesting card.

I think this craze over this deck is simply down to a bunch of people realising they didn’t HAVE to run pure Seekers to function…and deliberately went out of their way to not do so not realising that sticking to what they know is probably the wiser option. This is annoying because I cannot name a reason not to run pure Seekers and still include the G-Units as options as well.

Alfred/Thing Saver has no debilitating fail-con unlike Altmile/Thing Saver. Alfred/Thing Saver isn’t dependant on taking one path to succeed and most importantly neither path encroaches on the other, unlike Altmile/Thing Saver. Alfred/Thing Saver does not necessitate vanilla-ising some of the deck to support crap, unlike Altmile/Thing Saver. It’s just a result of people trying too hard to be clever and no-one thought to call them out until now.

On top of this, I can’t really think of any trick an Altmile/Thing Saver deck can pull that an Alfred/Thing Saver deck could not also do with similar cards or perhaps in some cases with more meaningful results. Proudroar Lion to Knight of Fragment; Proudroar wins for not being Gen Break 1 restricted. Gildas to Swordmy; Gildas plays nicer with Thing Saver if the field’s bad and doesn’t need a bland Grade 1 to not suck. Blaster Blade Seeker to Knight of Twin Sword (I know they work differently, but I’d rather fuck up something problematic than call a board): Blaster Blade Seeker wins because of a better quality +1 and also not being Gen Break 1 either.

I guess you could call this article more of a follow-up to my article on trying to do everything badly, but the point I’m trying to make here is that you shouldn’t follow the crowd. Ideas should be examined based on merit, not the person putting it forward. But who the fuck am I kidding. I guess I should just take this as a few more cardfighters I can hunt for sport.

Sing the praises of Starlight Violinist instead to me instead at saikyocardfighter@outlook.com