Notes & Combos

• i know the birch slot looks a bit out of place but at least read my notes below

• if u open poplar it is not uncommon for you to go thru poplar twice in that turn but also go thru 2 flamberges off the standard lines as well (place oak off temple). what happens is that ur grind is absolutely killed unless u run sunlight/can keep the princess out and alive, because oss in graveyard can only cycle 1 of those pieces. not having a poplar in deck is pretty terrible, but ideally you also need the flamberge in deck as well. Birch/3rd poplar somewhat solves this because you dont have that resource loop issue (SE ash will always have a target) but birch in particular also solves a redundancy issue (ash access+bonfire but the ash poplar resolves and the bonfire becomes a dead card). also supposedly helps u play thru nib better but i think the normal nib fallback is typically fine, otherwise it also helps to have the extra name in crazy grind games and where u also just need the extra body

• PS: doing my research on topping YCS, WCQs and Regionals in the tcg there were a lot more Birch players than I expected, so at least it doesnt look like an abnormality (examples: kamal crooks' team and PRRJ's team at the vegas 3v3 ycs)