Third Changes

It's week three, and I've had some changes lined up. I'll just jump right in:
-Ashes of the Fallen
-Glimpse of Nature
-Krosan Reclamation

+Court Hussar
+Ethersworn Adjuticator
+Memory's Journey

These are all straightforward trade-outs, but here's the reasoning.

Ashes of the Fallen was only present to allow Haakon to play non-knights. That typically meant that I was either a) trying to replay dragons from the grave that I'd ditched with Scion, or b) I've been playing piecemeal catch-up all game long and had stumbled upon Ashes. Neither of those situations is particularly appealing, one because it's a win-more and the other because it's typically a gasp before death. It's hard to get really aggressive with Haakon; I've got three discard outlets, but all are high-priority targets, and he's mana-intensive.

My solution? Just play a dude that I'd want to play with Haakon. Ethersworn Adjuticator is like Avatar of Woe in a lot of ways, and I think it'll work out OK. (Much nicer, of course, when I've got Anger.) The trick here is that I've got to be a little narrower in my strategies: I'm only going to go for Haakon when I've got Survival, and I'm not going to go for Survival when I can go for other plans.

Second, Glimpse of Nature's a fun card, but it's a lot worse without Aluren. After I cut Aluren, I'd typically engineer a one-shot turn to pay G to draw two with it; that price is good, but I shouldn't be setting up a turn for a 2-mana discount off Divination. Court Hussar is a dork -- a knight dork, in fact -- he doesn't require setup, he gives me more selection, he plays defense and Haakon brings him back. All winners. (As an aside, I'm pretty sure I'm the only deck on the Internet that plays two Vedalken Knights.)

Finally, Memory's Journey is a perfect example of a card that's not strictly better than what it's replaceing (Krosan Reclamation), but it kinda is. If it cost 1G, it would be strictly better; that 1U v. 1G makes it a different animal (especially in this deck, where a spare green on turn 8 is a touch more likely than a spare blue). In any case, the card's better in every numerical way, and it's a replacement I've been meaning to do for a while.

I'm still gunning for Goryo's Vengeance -- it's really trying my patience. I'm never in a position to cast it, but I would have cast Necromancy in more than a few of the situations I had GV in my grip. Tutoring for Vengeance in order to cast it so I can cut it is against the spirit of the rules, but I'm damned close to doing just that.