LKP's Axie Log #25: Son of Jihoz! + Surviving the Sound Torture

Hello there everyone!

I hope you guys have a great weekend. We're still currently playing between late 1500 and late 1600 for quite a while now. Teams are certainly getting better and I think one particular reason why our team is testing almost everyday to reach 1700 is the change in meta. This is only based on my personal experience but we are encountering fewer AAP teams now compared to the previous weeks. BBP's and Termi teams are becoming more prevalent in our current bracket. I find AAP's easier to deal with because they are rather much straightforward compared to other teams that have lots of debuffs that can really caught us off guard in some particular scenarios.

Anyways, todays posts will highlight two of our battles earlier today. One against a Bird-Beast-Plant (BBP team) like we mentioned a while ago and the other one was against an Reptile-Beast-Plant (RBP/termi team) which I think is the most popular now in my current bracket. Both beasts in these fight have 'Piercing Sound' as their mouth skill so they really did have a potential to gain advantage over energy control. Let's see how we dealt with them in the following review.

That 'Son of Jihoz' Moment

Now that title might be a little too catchy. The expression 'Son of Jihoz' has become popular especially to streamers when they have this very timely critical hit. When they are usually bound to lose and that lucky crit arrives they usually shout the expression 'Son of Jihoz', which basically implies (although in a sarcastic manner/ meant as a joke) that they got that timely crit because their team or themselves are close or have backings of the devs, in this case implying that they are his/her sons/daughters. Anyway, it is meant as a joke but it certainly raises the entertinment value of the streams. In this battle we experienced that 'Son of Jihoz' moment. Let's see how it goes.

Their team consists of your regular healing plant with 'Watering Can' as back and 'Cattail' as tail. We somehow have very minimal advantage over these two cards. Due to our team composition they would certainly not gain energy from the watering and have low chance of triggering the draw card effect of the 'Cattail' becaus ewe only have one beast card. Another advantage of us here would be the speed of their beasts is only 40 compared to our reptile which has a speed of 41. This would mean that if we are not slowed during the process we could deal damage first from the mid. Anyways, their terminator is a 42 speed one so this would be very tricky since we have to make sure our backline plant would have 'Acro' buff prepared in the 1 v 1 later on.

_{Timely Double Pumpkin}
They made a pass on round 1 but we went all out. We have the right cards for our plant and passing would be a little too risky because they have lots of energy control , particularly that 'Serious' of the plant and the 'Piercing Sound' of the beast. Although 'Carrots' effect was not triggered we managed to cut their plants hp in half and stole one of their energy. We did have a great draw in the second round. They got 4 energy so they had the option to either defend their plant or attack to take down our plant first. We wanted to really play safe so we chose to go high defense with 2x 'Pumpkin'+'Serious'. Our line of thinking with this decision was that, if they passed we would draw 2 cards and gain an energy but if they went all out we would still be able to defend our plant. They had a very lucky crit with 'Piercing Sound'. We had full health and a shield of 275 but they managed to bring it down to 250. If we even left 'Serious' out we would be dead because the shield would only be 245. Our plant was taken down by their backline termi but the good news is that they didn't have enough energy for the next round. We had the option to pass but that would be troublesome because of the speed advantage of their reptile, also the stun form 'Chomp' might render one of our moves useless. We went rambo on round 4 and demolish their tank while gaining two energy in the process. We were short in cards but thankfully we till got two 'Ravens' to neglect any potential crit coming from the beast.

_{Son of Jihoz!!!}
We split the cards the following round. Double 'Raven' + 'Acro' followed by one card from our mid reptile would likely kill their beast but the problem was that we would be short in cards in the final battle. So we chose to split the cards even though it would be risky to let the beasts live for another round. Both teams passed in round 6 as we were both in the process of gaining energy. We were actually in a disadvantage now as we would need two 'Acro' for a measly 50% chance to gain speed advantage but we would likely fail because their reptile had it in the first place. They would only need 1 'Lagging' to nullify one 'Acro'. That's like burning a zero cost card in exchange for ours which costs an energy. One thing you need to understand about termi is that most of the time during the first 1 v1 they tend to put either a 115 shield or a 145 shield. Since, we just both gained energy it was most likely they would choose the first option. What we did was combo them with 4 cards putting 'Luna Absorb' in the second to nullify the stun and make sure that the damage from our two cards would be received. And we had a very timely crit from 'YSS', so what are you waiting for, all together now 'Son of Jihoz!!!'. Even with the crit we were not very far from losing but they became quite agitated and play double 'Thorny Caterpillar' instead of playing one 'Lagging'. With 2 health and an advantage over speed we won the game against a 42 speed termi due to their over aggressiveness in the latter rounds.

Surviving the Piercing Sound+Soothing Song Torture

For this one we're up against your typical BBP. We have to look at that 'Soothing Song' bird because that would be quite troublesome when they formed their 4 card ignore armor combo. Like always, since we noticed that the beast have 'Piercing Sound' it would be quite wasteful to pass. It would be better if we have some mid-high defense card in our plant but we got no choice. We played some damage card from our back including a 'Cactus' from our front. Their beast also went all out the first round and thankfully we managed to barely see the second round.
_{Finish him}
It was a fast exchange on both sides as they took the plant with Soothing Song in round 2 and it did enter last stand. We had the choice to pass next round but didn't since we wanted to open up their midline as soon as possible. It took a toll in our card pool but we did open up their mid in round 3. Also we successfully casted 'ill-omened' on their beasts depriving them of critical strikes for the next round. They went all out with their bird in round 4 but we defended it quite nicely with a catapult. HP was reduced by 400 health but we reflected 240 damage to their bird. Well, it could have been better if we had 2 catapults to kill it by reflect, what a shame. The last 'Ill-omened' sealed the deal with their beast leading us to a 2 v 1 situation.
_{You're no Son of Jihoz}
We had little advantage because of attribute and the number of axies, but them having full set of cards in the later round negated that. Also, they might be slower than pure birds but that was still a 58 speed bird. We're hoping that they would save 'Soothing Song' later so we played 'Bone sail' and 'Catapult'. It looked like they were playing it safe and used SS+Fan just to be sure they took down our reptile. We had a small consolation because we manage to reflect around 40 damage. The final round was a battle of luck. If they crit even just once they would win but if they didn't then that would be the opposite. They played the 4 card penetration combo ignoring all our armor but thankfully they're not that lucky. A combo of 'Acro'+'YSS'+'Raven' finished the match between us and this BBP team.

And that's all for todays rundown.
Thanks you very much for stopping by,
See you soon.

Ciao~