Howdy folks, Justin here. If you have questions about Legends, Elder Scrolls Lore, cats, pickles, Siberia, or anything else at all, I’m here to give you an answer. Not necessarily THE answer, but it will be an answer. No-Prizes for anyone who offers a question that can’t be answered. Not responsible for emotional or financial damage associated with the answers given.

Dear Justin,

Yesterday, I was playing on the ladder, winning some, losing some, but not really moving up or down. After doing this for a bit, I lost like 6 in a row and wound up in the Serpent. I think my deck (Aggro Archer) is pretty good, and the decks I lost to were all sorts of different things. Help!

-Serpent-Stuck Sap

Dear Serpent-Stuck,

That sounds familiar – I know I’ve been there, for sure. The Serpent isn’t such a bad place to be though, is it? It’s a great opportunity to play Skeever decks, or Altar decks, or anything you’ve thought about brewing!

Beyond looking at it like that, though, is a concept I’ve spent some time thinking about – strategic fatigue. Sure, it’s possible through the normal ebb and flow of games to lose six games in a row through no fault of your own. When I personally lose 6 games in a row, however, I start to function at a lower mental level than I usually start at. The defeats begin to affect my ability to process the multiple data points in each game, my confidence having been pummeled so. Strategic fatigue sets in, and each loss after a point increases the chances that I’m going to lose more.

When this happens, I like to change it up a bit. I’ll play some Solo Arena, or maybe work on a title/achievement in casual. With Dark Brotherhood out, there’s some cool titles I can work on there. I may even take a break from Legends and play Civilization or Eternal. I’ll go for a walk, or watch YouTube videos. Anything to hit the reset button on my brain. When I come back, I’ll be good as new – and I’ll have nowhere on the ladder to go but up!

Dear Justin,

I keep struggling to win even a single game with my latest deck. It’s a mono-neutral deck featuring all of the Dwemer. Because of trauma I endured playing Skyrim, it features no Mudcrabs. I seem to do okay when my opponent doesn’t play anything for the first six turns, but otherwise, I lose every match I play. What should I do?

-Frustrated

Dear Switzerland,

I too feel the draw of an all Neutral deck, so I’m with you to a point. Of course, expecting to win a single game with the all neutral deck is a bit much though, isn’t it? Obviously memes can be great, and decks can be great, but rarely are meme decks great. Unfortunately, there’s little reason toplay only a single color right now – much less no colors at all. As the card pool increases, that may (and hopefully, will) change, but that’s where we’re at right now. You might try adding in a handful of cards that support your theme – each color can offer a few incredibly powerful cards that compliment a Dwemer (I presume) strategy, the most historically successful of which have been Crusader & Mage lists that include strong removal cards.

Dear Justin,

I have decided to leave my family and move to the mountains to raise wild Skeevers as minions. After my army is fully trained, I will descend upon mankind in a flurry of tails and whiskers to exact my revenge for my thus-far unfulfilled life. What color should I pair with red in order to maximize my destruction?

-Tired of the emotes

Dear Uniratter,

So on the one hand, I’m a mandated reporter, and while my obligations don’t specifically include threats to overrun the human race with a Skeever legion, I am a bit concerned with your misanthropy. On the other hand, Skeever are great and Skeever Infestation is my favorite card from the new expansion that I haven’t played much with.

There’s no doubt that this card is a lot of fun – whether or not it’s competitive I think remains to be seen. In the first few days of the the Dark Brotherhood era, as people were refining their Unstoppable Rage Warrior lists, there seemed to be two schools of thought – one included several of the ping and token elements of decks like Yakiniku’s Doomcrag Warrior list, and the other used purple ramp cards to be able to quickly hit the 13 magicka necessary to play Night Shadow & Unstoppable Rage in the same turn. At this point, it looks like the ramp package is the more popular variety, so I’m not sure that the Skeever running tokens Warrior is the way to go for world domination. Recently, an Archer list by p1793a showed up on reddit and people seem to enjoy the direction it points, and I do think that Archer may be a solid choice to go.

Personally, I’m most excited by the idea of an Action Battlemage list, running lots of token generators (including Skeever Infestation) and probably incorporating elements of the Merric lists, but with perhaps a more aggressive bent.

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