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lolok.

Have fun playing Shauna without Powerdrain and lose to flashbulb.

If you run Shauna you run Powerdrain. If you run Shauna, you win games.

You run your typical evil deck, and typical good eats you alive.

2469020:

lolok.

Have fun playing Shauna without Powerdrain and lose to flashbulb.

If you run Shauna you run Powerdrain. If you run Shauna, you win games.

You run your typical evil deck, and typical good eats you alive.

While I can see where you are coming from, I agree with the other poster that Powerdrain just isn't that good. If you can block a Flashbulb, it doesn't really help you win, more that it helps you just not get hosed - unfortunately, it just seems too narrow to me.  I just don't find it that useful outside of catching bulbs... and if that becomes too useful, they just switch to Ambushes anyway (in which case ambush basically reads "KO a minor hero, don't get your board crunched by S&W).

Not to mention that personally, I *am* concerned about Touchram/Ambush.  Mostly, I'm worried about being forced to eat my board position and then lose my major hero drop to a Dante free action, or, even worse, get slitherfanged for a 2nd eliminate. I realise that Dante/Touchram is still a 2 for 2, but importantly, the good player still has their board intact, and I lose a major drop. Yuck.

On the other hand, you're totally right about holding zone 3 with S&W. The threat is just so potent that it often just locks up the whole other end of the board.  

As to the last line... unfortunately, it does seem to me that evil is seriously outclassed. 

I find that they answer even guys like Breaker and Anubian simply too easily, and unpack just so much faster than we can. Personally, I'm running a very standard evil build - dominator/rassimov/anubian with breaker/darkwave/S&W to round it out as majors, redcaps/pharoahs/impet/bales as primary minors, and straightforward actions (flashbulbs, ace in the hole, darkvoid, etc).

Has anyone had more success against Good with some different builds?

2964358:

Has anyone had more success against Good with some different builds?

I'm unsure whether it'll be posted on the UDE site/Gametown, but the deck I won the Australian Nationals with completely destroys Good.

Love to see a list if you are willing to post it... also, congrats :).

 

Out of interest, what sort of decks did you face at the nationals? 

2964358:

Out of interest, what sort of decks did you face at the nationals? 

Bold Explorers, Evil Combo, Evil Combo featuring Sand Snakes, Good Beatdown (fat Good Heroes such as King Basilisk and Sabriel) etc. There were other decks around, such as Evil Beatdown and Evil Beatdown with Sand Snakes, but I didn't play them. Maybe because they were all running S&W.

'Not to mention that personally, I *am* concerned about Touchram/Ambush.  Mostly, I'm worried about being forced to eat my board position and then lose my major hero drop to a Dante free action, or, even worse, get slitherfanged for a 2nd eliminate. I realise that Dante/Touchram is still a 2 for 2, but importantly, the good player still has their board intact, and I lose a major drop. Yuck.'

I'm not. Negative one yourself all day long with Touchram/Ambush.

I will win in the long run. Dante's Free Action is a 1-1. Big play. You get a huge major my minors can't trade 1-1 for. Oh wait, it's actually an incredibly vulnerable major.

Also where do you get your numbers from. Dante/Touchram is not a 2-2 at all. You lose touchram + 1x card from dante. I lose 1 hero. Wish you would clarify. I also have no clue what you mean by slitherfang for a 2nd eliminate.

'While I can see where you are coming from, I agree with the other poster that Powerdrain just isn't that good. If you can block a Flashbulb, it doesn't really help you win, more that it helps you just not get hosed - unfortunately, it just seems too narrow to me.  I just don't find it that useful outside of catching bulbs... and if that becomes too useful, they just switch to Ambushes anyway (in which case ambush basically reads "KO a minor hero, don't get your board crunched by S&W).'

Really? In the evil mirror I powerdrain your flash and you're down to 3 remaining resources against my huge Shauna and Wind. If I start first next round you're in huge trouble. Powerdrain also ensures you don't lose to janky decks like Expendable Help combo, unless your opponent decides to cheat you and play powerdrain on your powerdrain. Incidentally, it also cancels everfight/research/break etc. Powerdrain only sucks in missions where the 'dead' factor will kill you if you play a deck with few actions (such as regs mission).

'I'm unsure whether it'll be posted on the UDE site/Gametown, but the deck I won the Australian Nationals with completely destroys Good.'

Rofl. How do you beat good without powerdrain/shauna. I will Sabriel abuse you all day everyday while you take -1s everywhere. Oh. Wait;

1st- Benjamin DiStefano
Major Heroes
2 Grier, Organisation Commander
3 Rassimov, Global Ambition
1 Brahe, Lumbering Hulk
1 The Professor, Leader of the Organisation
3 Brahe, Brainless brute
Minor
3 Bales, Smooth Operator
3 Suit, Ms Thorpe, Venice Agent
1 Crashion, Blind Hound
3 Invisible Knight
2 Impet, Cherits Shadow Rival
1 Ferric Warbringer
1 Scarabese
Actions
3 Darkstudy
2 Slipstream
1 Darkwave
3 Skingrip
3 Flashbulb
3 Ferocity
1 Darkvoid

2nd – Keith Lim
Major Heroes
3 Red Searcher, RT
1 Hydramaskar, CC
Minor
3 Ferric Warbringer, SW
3 Invisible Knight, FAA
2 Derenzar, UT
2 Akmen-Meo, SG
3 Crashion, BH
Actions
2 Sneaky Retreat
1 Designated Hitter
3 Expendable Help
2 Get Back to Work
3 Ferocity
3 Flashbulb
3 Dredge Memories
3 Dark Study
1 Absorb Strength
1 Outsourcing




Semi Finalist - Marc Losper
Major Heroes
3 Omeed, Sand Snake
Minor Heroes
3 Crashion
3 Derenzar
3 Heirospector, Sand Snake
3 Suit, Agent in Action
3 Thornment, Sand Snake
3 Ferric Warbringer
3 Akmen-Meo
3 Invisible Knight
1 Metzi
Actions
3 Get Back to Work
3 Powerdrain
3 Expendable help
3 Dredge Memories

Semi Finalist - Geoffrey Marshall
Major Heroes
2 Sabriel, ST
3 Lok Lambert, BE
3 Caliban, DT
3 Dante Vale, PI
3 Dante Vale, BE
1 Freelancer, KT
Minor Heroes
3 Lok Lambert, CN
3 Cavalier, BE
Kipperin, BE
Freelancer, BE
2 LeBlanche
Actions
3 Fortune Favors the Bold
2 Bring in the Big Guns
1 Switch Soul
3 Hyperstride
3 Warrior Stance

Quarterfinalist - Troy Armstrong
Major Heroes
3 Caliban
3 King Basilisk
3 Sabriel
Minor
3 Baselaird
3 Dierdre
3 Freelancer, BE
3 Cavalier, BE
3 Scolopen
Action
3 Touchram
3 Boltflare
3 Everfight
2 Shadowpoint
2 Fortune Favors the Bold
2 Honorguard
1 Bubblelift

QuarterFinalist - Benjamin Law
Major Heroes
3 Sabriel, ST
3 Santiago, SG
2 Santiago, OTJ
2 King Basilisk, ZHH
3 Freelancer, KT
1 Metagolem, IoH
Minor
3 Lok Lambert, CN
3 Freelancer, BE
2 Mason
3 Baselaird
3 Enfluxion
2 Cherit, HT
1 Venadek, NT
Actions
3 Touchram
2 Quick Getaway
2 Shadowpoint
1 Slamcannon
1 Boltflare

QuarterFinalist - David Clarke
Major Heroes
3 Freelancer, KT
3 Santiago, SG
3 Fenris, MT
3 Sabriel, ST
1 King Basilisk, ZHH
Minor
3 Lok Lambert, CN
3 Freelancer, BE
3 Venadek, NT
3 Baselaird, LT
3 Dendras, LT
1 Cherit, HT
Actions
3 Touchram
3 Shadowpoint
2 Hyperstride
2 Quick Getaway
1 Boltflare

QuarterFinalist - Aaron Munro
Major
1 Zhalia Moon, FF
1 Zhalia Moon, MA
1 Caliban
1 Shinobi
2 King Basilisk
1 Albion
1 Gybolg
2 Kilthane
1 Dante Vale, BE
1 Fenris, MT
Minor
2 Daktari
1 Icarus
1 Tolivane
2 Honor Guard
1 Tersly
2 Hoplite
2 Baselaird
2 Freelancer, BE
2 Enfluxion
1 Cherit, HT
1 Lok Lambert, CN
1 Kipperin, BE
1 Kipperin, FIIN
3 Fire Kappa
1 Gareon, UF
Actions
1 Request for Aid
1 Shadowpoint
2 SPidertouch
2 Everfight
2 Hyperstride
1 Rapid Charge
1 Sentinel Stance
1 Amulet of Behemoth
Legendary Heroes
1 Behemoth

ROFL. That's so sick. You beat every good deck with -that- deck? Wow. Although it doesn't surprise me, given the extremely poor quality of all the Good decks in t8. None of these good players seem to understand the game very much.

 I would've said Troy's deck was pretty standard/good, but Fortune Favours the Bold is a terrifyingly poor choice with 6 targets. Honorguard is a poor choice. If you don't own bubblelift, you STILL don't replace it with honorguard -- card's bad. I'm glad he at least understood the importance of Everfight/Sabriel though and it's probably what carried him as far as he did. Benjamin Law's deck is interesting and is possibly one of the better built decks with a clear strategy. I like it when people know what they're trying to do, although Enfluxion seems bad over Dierdre etc (cost related issues perhaps). David Clarke's deck is odd and could have benefited with the use of Everfight and such. Aaron's deck is by far the worst for obvious reasons.

Geoffrey's t4 deck seems pretty bad tbh, I wonder if he cheated with Warrior Stance throughout the day, although the major swarm idea is decent.

Truthfully though, I have to say all of those decks looked pretty bad and would be 'decent' at best.

As for the evil decks it's interesting that you all managed to get Darkstudy. The card is ridiculous and gave all 3 of you a clear advantage over everyone else. Your deck would have easily lost to a standard everfight control deck but "Standard" would've been the 'best' good deck in this tournament from what I can tell. The fact that you don't run powerdrain severely disadvantages you in that matchup, but you were fortunate enough that no one really tried that strategy.

Also, the other 2 'expendable.evildek' obviously would have topped there. They played people who neglected to run any breakspell/powerdrain with the exception of ironically, one of the expendable.evildeks. And I think Mark Losper made an illegal move by powerdraining a powerdrain. It may have been someone else but I did hear such a story. In any case the lack of cancel cards seems like a horrible decision if I ever saw one, especially if people predicted the presence of such decks.

I'm not really trying to take away your win, congratulations for that; but this was a really easy tournament from what I could tell, so I hardly like your attitude when you say 'but the deck I won the Australian Nationals with completely destroys Good. ' and say ignorant things like 'There were other decks around, such as Evil Beatdown and Evil Beatdown with Sand Snakes, but I didn't play them. Maybe because they were all running S&W.' when the decks and presumably players who you played were not up to scratch and you had a clear advantage in your availability of Darkstudy. I guess you could argue that you were the best player there, but that's not saying much at all, sorry to say.

So don't use such poor arguments like 'Because I won with ....... Therefore I must be correct.' next time. It just makes you seem arrogant when you won in a tournament with players who obviously weren't very good. You can't use the 'it works in practice' argument because in a tournament like that, almost everything 'works in practice'.

Oh and  I forgot to actually comment on your deck..... I'm still confused on how it beats any 'good' good deck when every single thing gets killed by Sabriel and you have no real way to stop them from gaining limitless advantage with everfight.

2469020:

'Not to mention that personally, I *am* concerned about Touchram/Ambush.  Mostly, I'm worried about being forced to eat my board position and then lose my major hero drop to a Dante free action, or, even worse, get slitherfanged for a 2nd eliminate. I realise that Dante/Touchram is still a 2 for 2, but importantly, the good player still has their board intact, and I lose a major drop. Yuck.'

I'm not. Negative one yourself all day long with Touchram/Ambush.

I will win in the long run. Dante's Free Action is a 1-1. Big play. You get a huge major my minors can't trade 1-1 for. Oh wait, it's actually an incredibly vulnerable major.

Also where do you get your numbers from. Dante/Touchram is not a 2-2 at all. You lose touchram + 1x card from dante. I lose 1 hero. Wish you would clarify. I also have no clue what you mean by slitherfang for a 2nd eliminate.

'While I can see where you are coming from, I agree with the other poster that Powerdrain just isn't that good. If you can block a Flashbulb, it doesn't really help you win, more that it helps you just not get hosed - unfortunately, it just seems too narrow to me.  I just don't find it that useful outside of catching bulbs... and if that becomes too useful, they just switch to Ambushes anyway (in which case ambush basically reads "KO a minor hero, don't get your board crunched by S&W).'

Really? In the evil mirror I powerdrain your flash and you're down to 3 remaining resources against my huge Shauna and Wind. If I start first next round you're in huge trouble. Powerdrain also ensures you don't lose to janky decks like Expendable Help combo, unless your opponent decides to cheat you and play powerdrain on your powerdrain. Incidentally, it also cancels everfight/research/break etc. Powerdrain only sucks in missions where the 'dead' factor will kill you if you play a deck with few actions (such as regs mission).

Not sure this will turn out, given that you didn't use the quote tags, but hopefully my responses are clear enough...

To the first bit, I'm working on the assumption that touchram will effectively trade for S&W - i.e., the Dante kill doesn't happen until after the drawback procs (hence, two for two, or one for one, if you eliminate your own shauna).  That is hands down the most devastating time for it - maybe you can play around it, but in my experience it seems to me to be effectively a game-ending move (worst case you lose a major, a minor and they lose two cards but hold the zone three).  I lost three games last night to touchram, so maybe I'm bitter heh.

As to the bit about powerdrain - I see where you're coming from more after looking over those decks.  Yeah, in a meta with lots of expendable help decks running around, there's definitely an increased value in Powerdrain. I'll have to pick up another.  I'll have to give it a go.

Also, thanks for posting the decklists... and damn, where are all you other aussies getting the Darkstudies, Brahe's and Shaunas?

But you know I won't always draw Shauna and Wind, so touchram in general will -1 you unless you get a great trade with it. Also I think Scarabese has a lot of value in this game as it allows you to make perfect plays etc. To be honest though, a 2-2 isn't too bad, and realistically early game, what I think will happen is I will ideally open with Flashbulb to stun your major, then charge my huge shauna forward, or better yet slipstream it perhaps. Then I move my guy forward for a huge push/swing in game position. Even if you Touchram me I force a large amount of pressure onto your zone 5, and it basically forces you to keep an answer to Shauna in Zone 5. And also, a 3/3 will trade with Dante effectively nullifying the major hero advantage and such.

There's actually a lot of theory that you have to go over with some Huntik cards, and I'm not sure one post can really analyse it all to be perfectly honest.

And Powerdrain is really good even outside of all the expendable help decks. Like you might think draining a flashbulb isn't so bad, but it's really quite a huge play in my opinion and it helps your matchup against good good decks as well (Perhaps Everfight/Research or w/e). Also, it's really pretty good against stuff like Darkstudy/Dredge as well.

And to be honest, I have no idea how everyone has darkstudy. It's not even on ebay yet =/

Shaunas and Brahes/Bubblelifts are not too difficult to get though. Shaunas can be traded for locally and such whereas Brahe/Bubblelifts were able to be obtained on ebay.

Congratulations Aussie Top 8. I wish I could have stuck around and seen it all play out.

2469020:

"So don't use such poor arguments like 'Because I won with ....... Therefore I must be correct.' next time. It just makes you seem arrogant when you won in a tournament with players who obviously weren't very good."

In pointing out what you called 'arrogance', you kinda insulted every other player in the tournament. I'm not taking offense, I just find it ironic.

In relation to the thread, I'm looking to try running 2 S&W, 2 Ymirs and 3 minions. I doubt it would be terribly effective, but if  get alucky draw it would be fun to get shauna and Ymir out there at the same time. I could bring i an ice creature at the beggining of each turn, and then feed it to Shauna :)

yes - Darkstudy where did u get>

I didn't use an argument based on arrogance. He did.

Also regardless of that I justified my idea as to why most of those decks were bad. If you insist they're good, then you believe that and net/keep running those decks. If something's bad then it's bad. I don't think I have to be 'kind' and say they're good when they aren't. If that's being arrogant, so be it.

Also, I didn't even insult the Expendable Help decks because those were clearly the best decks. I made the (correct) observation that the lack of preparation from other players lead to their apparent success (eg lack of breakspell/powerdrain with the exception of one deck). I am aware Skingrip is a tech to the deck. And yeah, I know I said most of those decks were 'decent at best', and the expendable help decks were these decks. I guess now that I think about it, I will say they were a good concept and were the best decks at that tournament, although their success was directly proportional to the skill level of everyone else there. For clarity, they were good decks upon revision.

'As for the evil decks it's interesting that you all managed to get Darkstudy. The card is ridiculous and gave all 3 of you a clear advantage over everyone else. Your deck would have easily lost to a standard everfight control deck but "Standard" would've been the 'best' good deck in this tournament from what I can tell. The fact that you don't run powerdrain severely disadvantages you in that matchup, but you were fortunate enough that no one really tried that strategy.

Also, the other 2 'expendable.evildek' obviously would have topped there. They played people who neglected to run any breakspell/powerdrain with the exception of ironically, one of the expendable.evildeks. And I think Mark Losper made an illegal move by powerdraining a powerdrain. It may have been someone else but I did hear such a story. In any case the lack of cancel cards seems like a horrible decision if I ever saw one, especially if people predicted the presence of such decks.
'

Realistically, Darkstudy did give them all a large advantage (although every evil player may have had access to this card as I am unaware of the circumstances) and the Winner's deck probably would've lost to standard everfight. Also, there is no denying that the lack of cancel cards allowed expendable.dek to be able to dominate so badly. I did in fact hear a story of an expendable deck cancelling drain with drain and given the supposed lack of players playing this deck, it may have been Losper. That's not me hating, it's me reporting what I heard. It might not even be him.'

I didn't really say anything else apart from most decks being bad/decent at best, and I've corrected that. The expendable decks were the best there, but I think the Winner's deck was sub-par despite the fact that it obviously worked and won the tournament.

Edit : Come to think of it, my original evil deck idea was incredibly similar to your deck right down to the 1x Professor, 2x Grier, 3x Rassimov and corresponding actions. The only real differences was the obvious lack of DarkStudy (which affected various other cards in your deck I noticed) and Shauna + Powerdrain. Otherwise the decks were pretty similar. I guess Huntik deckbuilding is rather linear atm :p

"ROFL. That's so sick. You beat every good deck with -that- deck?"

Yeah. You know why? Because it's good. Perhaps you would understand why if you actually knew why I chose to run what I did. If you want me to, I can give you a detailed explanation of why each and every card in that deck was in there, and why it was set to that amount.

"Wow. Although it doesn't surprise me, given the extremely poor quality of all the Good decks in t8. "

Granted, there weren't as many quality players there as you would expect. 

" In any case the lack of cancel cards seems like a horrible decision if I ever saw one, especially if people predicted the presence of such decks."

I play Skingrip over Powerdrain. Major reduction in inconsistency. Amongst my own personal experiences of Powerdrain being a dead card, my favourite one is currently what happened during one of the Semi Final games against Marc Losper. I drew (off a Ferocity) and played Scarabese a couple of rounds in and the two cards he revealed in his hand were both Powerdrain.


"So don't use such poor arguments like 'Because I won with ....... Therefore I must be correct.' next time."

I didn't use it this time. All I said was that the deck destroys good. You're using a straw man argument and putting words in my mouth.

"I'm still confused on how it beats any 'good' good deck when every single thing gets killed by Sabriel and you have no real way to stop them from gaining limitless advantage with everfight."

Skingrip removes it from their hand before they play it. Darkwave kills Sabriel cleanly. Flashbulb stuns her while I find a way to remove her. The Lich with Ferocity gets rid of a counter.

"The expendable decks were the best there, but I think the Winner's deck was sub-par despite the fact that it obviously worked and won the tournament."

This is to me, proof that you are a rather bad player. If my deck is 'sub par', because I refuse to run two strong but horribly inconsistent cards, then you really need to have a look at what my deck does and the idea behind it, furthermore, I'd like to know why exactly you thought it was sub-par. I'll admit though, Sabriel is annoying.

As a couple of side notes:

-I retract my previous statement about 'completely destroying good'. Obviously it's not going to do that against a perfect Everfight + Sabriel hand.

-This build was specfically set up for the Nationals Mission. Cards like Dark Pharaoh didn't make it in simply because they had a significant drawback, such as not being able to start a combat. Dark Pharaoh also didn't work well with  

-This build produced perfect ratio hands almost every time. Perhaps that's not that rare, but I'm throwing it out there anyway.

-If I were to replace the Professor and the other Brahe with Shauna and take out certain actions for Powerdrain, what would you say then? Furthermore, have you got an evil decklist I can have a look at that you would consider to be great?

Significant Edit: In future Missions, I will see if Shauna is applicable. I should have mentioned this earlier, but one of the contributing reasons that I didn't run Shauna is because of the Lich.

Actually, I should really retract a couple of my statements. I think I was too hasty to react in some ways. If you have time though, I would actually be happy to see a detailed explanation of every card you ran although it'd be a waste of time on your side since I can probably analyze the cards by myself anyway.

'I play Skingrip over Powerdrain. Major reduction in inconsistency. Amongst my own personal experiences of Powerdrain being a dead card, my favourite one is currently what happened during one of the Semi Final games against Marc Losper. I drew (off a Ferocity) and played Scarabese a couple of rounds in and the two cards he revealed in his hand were both Powerdrain.'

I realised Skingrip is actually a really good card in this mission and accomplished many of the same goals as Powerdrain. I don't advocate the use of 3 Powerdrain btw, because in that case the card really does lead to some poor situations against particular decks. Skingrip seems a suitable alternative for this mission specifically though. In fact, it's probably better than Powerdrain now that I think about it.

'I didn't use it this time. All I said was that the deck destroys good. You're using a straw man argument and putting words in my mouth.'

I thought there was a connection, but it appears that there wasn't. My apologies there.

'Skingrip removes it from their hand before they play it. Darkwave kills Sabriel cleanly. Flashbulb stuns her while I find a way to remove her. The Lich with Ferocity gets rid of a counter.'

Not sure DarkWave is the best card there because of the tendancy for people to run 3/3s in this mission. You'll just 1-1 it and hope your opponent doesn't have everfight there (although you didn't have to worry about this seemingly). Also the Lich with Ferocity gives you the ability to gain +1s everywhere regardless of whether it's Sabriel or not. Generally if that major is anything but a Caliban/Shauna/Possible Anubian, Lich + Minor will KO it anyway for a major count advantage.

  But then again in this mission, the number of majors you control means less than in other missions early game since Lich allows minors to beat Majors for no real loss in advantage. Lich + Ferocity also kills minors for an easy +1 as well. To a degree, I think it's one of the best plays evil has to gain some early r1/2 advantage.

'This is to me, proof that you are a rather bad player. If my deck is 'sub par', because I refuse to run two strong but horribly inconsistent cards, then you really need to have a look at what my deck does and the idea behind it, furthermore, I'd like to know why exactly you thought it was sub-par. I'll admit though, Sabriel is annoying.'

The reasoning behind my statements are very much related to the standard Everfight style deck which I expected a tournament of this level to have. These were not present, although I was expecting at least somebody to try and take an everfight strategy to nationals with Sabriel, effectively using one of the best comboes in the game. I guess you made a good metagame read in this respect. I also agree that it's not possible to open with an ideal Sabriel + Everfight hand every game. However the combo is still rather powerful and the percentage of playing it is not necessarily low.

To be honest, since you seem like a far better guy than what I had incorrectly assumed in the first place I'm going to retract most of my statements. I said a few things which I hadn't really thought through, and your deck does not seem as mediocre as I had assumed. Looking back on it I can see why the deck worked as it did, and I think had I run pure evil I would've run something with similar structure. In fact the deck I was planning to bring to nationals originally ran that 1x Professor as well, although last minute I decided to create a Tao based build of evil. Since I later discovered I wasn't going, I didn't really check over my deck and fix it as much as I usually do because I figured I wasn't going and wouldn't have any real reason to.

I think I misinterpreted the way you said things and I had not realised that you were running some of the card choices you did. Later on when I posted the decklists I did not really put in the effort as to seeing where your deck was good, just where it was bad. That's what I should not have done. I actually really liked the Skingrip in there, and it makes perfect sense to me now that I come back and think about it.

I disagreed with your assessment of Shauna and Wind/Powerdrain by your simple claims of inconsistency, but upon review SkinGrip is a very suitable replacement for Powerdrain (Before I saw your decklist I did not consider that you ran this as a replacement). I still think Shauna could see success in your deck though. One would assume that you could probably replace Brahe with Shauna, probably Professor too. As for Powerdrain the only card in your deck I would consider replacing for it is Skingrip, and thinking back on it, Skingrip is really good so there is no need to replace it for powerdrain at all aside from the early game advantage it gets > skingrip in some situations + keeping opponent's hero exhausted. Also, I don't think running 3 Powerdrain is the best idea in any case to be perfectly honest.

Darkwave was a tough choice, but at 1, I believe it was fine, given certain factors.

Darkwave, to be really honest, was the only possibly way I could deal with a Sabriel (ignoring Everfight), however, I prefer having a Hero on the table (note the amount of Exhaust actions in the deck, although I don't want to have to Exhaust a Major, if it came to it, I had the option to). I had it just at one for this reason, and believed that with the Crashion + Darkstudy (as well as Ferric randomly milling cards), I would draw into it if needed, or if were not useful, pitch it with those same cards, or feed it to the Lich.

Darkwave also trades with most played Major Heroes, such as Dante Vale and the like, and gets around Heroes with Shroud. It also can't be cancelled, so there's no problems with Powerdrain or Breakspell.

Finally, the card has a high CA potential rating in my opinion. It can get Sabriel as well as that Kipperin in the same go, and against Evil Combo, I consider it to be one of the best, if not the best killer of the deck. In fact, during both games of the final match, I used the Darkwave to kill 3 or 4 guys both times.

With regards to the 1 off Professor, he's effectively 'main deck side deck tech'. He's there in case I draw him and Slipstream, as well if I have a problem in Zone 3 that needs to be stunned (Caliban, Sabriel etc). He's also a 4/5 with a relatively ok CA potential rating (two minors in one zone with no one else). If he's not needed, he gets pitched with some form of discard or is put to the bottom with the Lich or through mulligan. I do have to say that his spot was one of few who I wasn't sure about, and he could just as easily been Dominator or Anubian or Shauna.

In the end though, I went with the Professor just because he's more useful - in the matchup against combo, Slipstreaming the Professor (at the right time) into Zone 4 or 5 depending on the situation causes large problems for Combo, since they either have to blow an Expendable Help, and watch the Professor retreat out of range, or risk having him wipe my opponent's board.

Edit: Just saw your edit.

Maximum:

Come to think of it, my original evil deck idea was incredibly similar to your deck right down to the 1x Professor, 2x Grier, 3x Rassimov and corresponding actions. The only real differences was the obvious lack of DarkStudy (which affected various other cards in your deck I noticed) and Shauna + Powerdrain. Otherwise the decks were pretty similar. I guess Huntik deckbuilding is rather linear atm :p"

Most of the competitive Huntik cards are obvious, so I'm not surprised with that. I'm interested to know why you also had the Professor at 1 and Grier at 2 though. With regards to Darkstudy, it is the SINGLE most powerful card in Huntik at the moment, if just because there are none others like it.

I think that merely the fact that you have access to darkstudy changed the way your deck could be created and run. It's obviously a brilliant card given that it makes your hand better every time. It lets you draw into outs against other decks and stabilizes your draws (eg drawing a major each round or whatever else). Given that, cards like DarkWave which are decent become far better because of the incredible tech potential it has against evil combo.

Given the nature of the mission, I don't think hitting a kipperin should have been a common play with Darkwave. Simply the Lich makes Kipperin an incredibly difficult card to play, but because Bold Explorers don't have a large card pool, the playing of Kipperin could be justified, but only in a dedicated Bold Explorer deck. I think the only other 2 cards you might actually be able to hit with Darkwave is perhaps Baselaird and Scolopen, the latter being less advantageous than you'd hope. The only problem is if they have everfight to bring Sabriel back OR if they drop Caliban or King Basalisk.  Dropping Everfight and taking Sabriel back could lead to an uphill battle on your deck's part, even moreso if there was some kind of Breakspell involved (although we are heading into the boundary of what is improbable)

Then again, the deck you play is far more consistent than usual since it runs Crashion and DarkStudy (with invisible knight to reuse crashion, unexhaust minors and it can also save you from an expendable loop if it's not the lich that's causing it) so Darkwave is a justified inclusion specifically against Expendable.dek, which seemed to have been the biggest threat (if only because both top 4'd) and because of the ability to pitch away dead cards.

In my opinion, good decks should have been running breakspells to stop flashbulb/combo decks which could have lead to complications in how you could play your decks.. If they drop Breakspell on your flashbulbing of Caliban or just charge Basalisk forward they might be able to do cause some complications to both your deck and the combo deck. There's obviously some huge stuff they could do with Sabriel if they could shut down your flashbulb on her and such.

In any case a lot of my theory is thrown out the window to be perfectly honest simply because of that one card. I did not account for Darkstudy at all, because I would have assumed no one would own it for weeks to come. I mean, it's not even on ebay yet, let alone in Australia where the seeker league is just going past Baselaird and Suit in Action. I was originally considering building a deck with Darkstudy and then thought to myself; how am I going to get Darkstudy when it comes out that week in America =/

If I were able to somehow get Darkstudy like you guys somehow did, I think my deck would've looked pretty different than what I was planning. I was actually running cards like Strikemode in my deck which gave my lich more power than otherwise possible. Because of the nature of this mission, strikemode becomes a very powerful 1-1 that can possibly trade with Caliban etc. I don't usually like Strikemode, but in this mission I liked it quite a bit due to the wide range of options it provided. To be honest, I can't say what would've happened had I been able to run DarkStudy at that tournament. Was that card readily available, or was it just the three of you guys that owned it?

As for the Professor call he was in my eyes a very good card that had a variety of uses (as you have listed). It was something I was considering running over Grier, which I ran on the basis that it boosted 3/3s to 4/4s, giving them the ability to harass the lich without fear of ferocity and to possibly trump 5/4s. Lich + 4/4 booster will beat every hero with the exception of Shauna as well, so I essentially get a mini major when I play Grier. It basically improves field presence by a lot and given correct play allows more harrasment over minors lest I trade over them for +1s. There were other options that I was considering though like Anubian and such (as an additional out to Sabriel), although I didn't end up working out my final deck like I usually would. If I were to have gone, I would've developed the deck further before the tournament. I would also have made a few calls based on what I saw of the metagame  prior to the tournament.