While I suspect that these protests will still be ongoing by the time this goes live on my blog and YouTube, I want to reiterate that this footage was recorded, and this post was written during the protests against police brutality following the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police office Derek Chauvin.
This is not an isolated incident, and such occurrences are well-known and feared by the American-American community, and other minority communities across both the US and the world.
As small a platform as I have, it is nonetheless a platform. To that end, I want to share some resources that might help you join in supporting our brothers and sisters struggling in the fight for justice. Do note that this list is far from comprehensive, but a good way to get started.
Research-based solutions to the systemic police violence: https://twitter.com/samswey/status/1180655701271732224
Resources to get educating and involved: https://blacklivesmatters.carrd.co/#
Places to donate:
- Black Lives Matter: https://secure.actblue.com/donate/ms_blm_homepage_2019
- Color of Change: https://colorofchange.org/
- Donation Split Among Various Support Groups: https://secure.actblue.com/donate/bail_funds_george_floyd
Once you’ve finished doing your part to show solidarity with those protesting a violate, fascist police state, we can proceed to lead a nation of pirates and sea monsters to victory against fascist police states by giving them the ol’ Bilgewater Welcome.
Both of the decks we’re playing today are heavily focused around using the new cards from Bilgewater, with support from the Shadow Isles and Freljord respectively, to entirely different yet effective ends.
As always, I take the deck ideas that I use in this show from Mobalytics. The decklists are as follows:
- Deep Monsters:
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- Tempo Sejuani:
- CEBQUAQGAUFRIFQ4EEWTCOR6AEAQCFQCAIAQEBYAAEAQEBQR
The game plan of the Sea Monsters deck is a simple one. Our goal is to go Deep as quickly as possible, which is triggered once we have 15 or fewer cards remaining in our deck. To that end, many of our cards use the new Toss mechanic, which is a form of self-mill where cards from the bottom of our deck get removed from the game, ignoring champions. A significant chunk of our forces, like Dreg Dredgers and Deadbloom Wanderer, and card advantage pieces like Salvage, have Toss as an ancillary effect, allow us to maintain our board while arriving at our win condition. Once we’re at the precipice, we can use Jettison to go over the edge.
But until then, our goal is also to keep our opponent’s board in check. For that reason, we have a ton of effects like Vile Feast, Withering Wail, and Grasp of the Undying to destroy their most valuable units before they become problems. We also use Atrocity as a finisher if we need extra reach.
Once we’ve finally gone Deep, then our victory is close at hand, because the Sea Monsters in our deck all gain significant stat boosts. In addition, our star champion Nautilus will provide us a mana discount on those creatures, freeing us up to flood the board with units that have incredible stats and abilities. We’ll also reclaim any powerful Sea Monsters we’ve tossed, throwing them back into the deck.
Our other headliner, Maokai, serves as an alternative win condition. When he levels up, after enough of units have been Tossed or killed, he destroys all but 4 non-champion cards in the enemy’s deck. In Runeterra, like Magic, players automatically lose the game when they draw from an empty deck, meaning that our opponent will then be put on a very short timer. With Thresh as our third Champion to summon the other two, we have a strong overall package that can out value most decks if we can buy enough time.
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The other deck in our arsenal once more makes use of Miss Fortune and her amazing ability to deal damage once she sees the we’ve declared an attack. Only this time, we’re not relying on Scouts to quick level her up. In fact, that single, reliable point of damage she does to the enemy Nexus is the most valuable thing she can provide, because our goal is to activate our various Plunder effects. If Miss Fortune can’t provide that effect, we have cards like Warning Shot or Make it Rain to accomplish that too. The latter can also be used early on to take care of the many value units that have a low cost and exactly one point of health.
Using Plunder, we can keep ourselves afloat by stealing cards from the enemy deck. Cards like Black Market Merchant, Yordle Grifter, and Pilfered Goods all allow us to make use of our opponent’s resources, which can otherwise make up for our own lack of card draw. Island Navigator also accomplishes a similar card advantage effect by creating a random 1-drop, but she also has Scout, which can be useful for piling on Miss Fortune attack triggers.
To close out the match, we have Sejuani which pairs well with all of our incidental damage and Miss Fortune triggers. Once she’s out, we should be able to consistently Frostbite our enemies and keep them from doing damage to us, quickly silencing their resistance. With it’s Plunder ability, Riptide Rex can also devastate an enemy board or deal that extra bit of damage we need to close out a match.
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One deck aims to control the board, and other aims to swing hard, fast, and consistently, but both express the true terror of the seas.
Remember the following:
- #BlackLivesMatter
- Wear a mask
- Wash your hands
- ACAB
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