Notes & Combos

D5 -> D4 -> D5 -> D4 -> D5 -> D1 -> D3 -> M5

It took 126 games to go from D5 -> M5... Taking a look over some previous climbs from D5 -> M5, at least in the last 1 1/2 years.. this has been my worst one yet. The next one in line took 94 games (January 2024), with a couple in the 80s, and one in the 70s.

Other than decks getting more powerful and having crazy starters, I'm not sure if this season so far has just been poor luck overall, if my build isn't up to snuff (it's the same build as the prior 2 months and both cleared M1 with less games than I did in this part of the climb), if I didn't play well enough (I did throw at least a few games), or what.

It might be a bit of bias, but it did feel like I didn't open a name in my first 5 cards quite often. Looking over my stats: I did not open a name (not including Holeutea) in my first 5 cards in 23 games (18%~) and in 16 of those games I went first. I did open Holueta in 9 of those games. It's not to say that you can't win without opening a name to go into Sera to start, but it definitely makes the grind/follow-up harder to keep up with.

Either way though, I didn't change anything throughout. When things worked, they worked. When they didn't, they didn't. Honestly not sure what I'd want to change out to make things better. I did think about Droll/another Ogre/swapping some Maxx C for something else/removing the Judgments/Iron Thunder/dropping a card to make it 40, but never committed. Mainly thought about removing the Judgments since I wasn't seeing Tenpai.. but in the latter half of the climb, they kept showing up, so I kept them in.

I'm just hoping things go better in the climb for Master/the DC (if I stay with the same build)