Kythera Mechanism: The ability to control my Haunt’s location and keep my opponent’s Haunts stuck in the void or dying in a Bottomless Pit in the mirror match was too good of an idea to pass up. If it ever mattered, I'd be able to determine my opponent’s lightning bolts if I had to choose between one of my minions and my AoA.

No Lightning Bolts for me? Yea... I was conflicted about that. Looking back, bye-bye Land Deeds, hello Lightning Bolts!

Sling Pixies: The MVP. Airborne + Ranged is a nasty combo. No wonder the design team only granted the Pixies with 1 power. As a fan of beefy minions, I never understood the significance of those little, early game pings until I played AoA. The goal is to create enough of a disparity in life total that your opponent feels like they're on their back foot by Turn 4 or 5; and while they continue to try and stabilize, you're still dropping minions, or Devil's Eggs and Madd. Bells to make their life even more miserable. Pixies can just hang out and ping the enemy with an undefendable strike every turn; it's Airborne makes it invulnerable to ground minions (without the help of additional spells); and with 3 Trinkets in the deck, it has the potential to deal up to 4 damage in one Ranged strike.

Against Roots, Pixies are FANTASTIC blockers against the opponent’s Amazon Warriors post-Root detonation. Post-Roots, the opponent's got 5-mana and casts Warriors. On our turn, we’ve got 1-mana, drop Pixies and block for days until we stabilize.

Splashing for Fire:

Smokestacks was already in the Atlas to turn off Roots or a Cloud City in the mirror match. My question became, how much more fire affinity can I add to the Atlas without detracting from my Air affinity while also providing enough Fire sites to run single-fire-threshold spells? The deck was already running Lighthouse, so swap those out for Ruins; that's 4 fire resources. Colour out of Space seemed so obvious for multiple reasons: 1. It provides Air and Fire, 2. It offers the same defensive capability as the Lighthouses (water sites) to ward off Root Spider, 3. AoA decks cap at 4 or 5 sites, so the chances of keeping Colour next to a void is pretty high; and in the extreme case I draw Colour and Smokestacks, Smokey just turns off Colour's limiting factor. Oh, and AoA can still treat it as an Air site to push things.

But what to remove? Every other site seemed so integral. As big of a fan boy as I am for Free City, one of the 3 copies had to go. Yes, they offer insane protection and can force your opponent to stall out while trying to figure out how to storm the castle. BUT, in a mirror match, Free City is lackluster being unable to attack enemy Airborne minions, AND it doesn't offer elemental affinity, so one copy had to go.

What fire spells are worth making the cut?

THIS was a tough question, but the end result (for better or worse) was a pair of Scarabs and a pair of Kobolds.

Sacred Scarabs: In my experience, fetching Scarabs with a Falconer feels like a total win until your opponent 2-for-1's you and removes both minions (it's happened more times than I care to admit). But in those situations, I wasn't piloting AoA. Simplest explanation: make sure AoA is on an Air site > cast Falconer on same site as AoA > fetch Scarab > use AoA to fly Scarabs to a nearby site where they won't grenade the home team for 3. Then your opponent has a much more difficult decision to make. If they stay on board until your next turn, ideally strap them with a Trinket or two, swing in, explode, and deal a total of 5 or 6 damage with Trinket(s) returning to your hand.

Quarrelsome Kobolds: Aggression. Aggression. Aggression. Cast them and push them as close to enemy unit as possible with AoA, then end the turn with a free, undefendable strike for 2 damage. Or is it 3 damage? Or 4, or 5? Because we're crazy enough to run 3 Trinkets. AoA loves its Gyre Hippos. Those Charging winged beasts feel so good to drop on turn 3 after a Dark Tower (my personal favorite Tower). From my pov, Kobolds are a 3-mana, 2-power minion with faux-Charge. If your opponent has played their sites aggressively enough to meet you in the middle of the board, ideally you've flown AoA to your forward most site on a previous turn > cast Kobolds on the same site as AoA > fly them straight ahead to bonk the enemy Avatar EOT who is probably still hanging out on their initial square.

Fire's Honorable Mentions: Blaze, Petrosian Cavalry, Pit Vipers, Wils-o-the-Wisp, Clamor of Harpies, Firebolts, Infiltrate and Poison Nova.

What did I learn after going 4-0 and then losing in the 5th and 6th round?

• Land Deed wasn't worth it. I didn't get enough playtesting in to determine if I really wanted a pair of Land Deeds in there. However, in playtesting, I managed to get Madd Bells out by Turn 3 on the wings of a Bat and it caused such massive setbacks for my opponent it made me ask, "how can I make THAT more consistent?" Land Deed was the answer. In hindsight, I wish I could go back in time, slap me on the wrist and say "NO. Either you put the Bolts back in there or the Flanking Maneuver, but you are taking those Deeds out. Hell, put in a 4th Grapple Shot!"
• In order to learn from my losses, it helps to remember the sequences that led to the loss. My Round 5 match against Zalem was brutal. By T3 he’d played (in this order): Free City, G Hollows, and Mirror Realm to copy Free City. The game was basically over; G Hollows locks out nearly 50% of my minions (Haunt, Phase Ass, Gyre Hippo and Dap Vamp); and Free City prevents me from attacking with 80% of my minions! For better or worse, I’m wired to never give up, so the game continued. I tried my best to attack his Hollows with my Bats and his Free Cities with my Haunts, until he dropped 2 Root Spiders by T4 and T5 under is Hollows. My only options at that point were to draw into a Smokestacks to shut down his FC and GH or put a Sling Pixies on his Free City and ping his Seer for 2 with Trinket. He Infiltrated my Bat on his third Hollow (the only one without a burrowed Root Spider) and used it to kill my Cloud Spirit attempting to enter the Hollows and join the meager assault. The most disheartening series of turns was when he cast a Scarecrow into the hands of Root Spider which prevented my burrowed Bat from entering and killing the Spider. The next turn he dropped 1 Angel’s Egg to the spider, and the turn after, a 2nd Angel’s Egg. In a matter of turns he'd completely inverted the life total. The entire game I never saw my Devil’s Eggs, Madd Bells or Boulders. All would’ve helped in their own way.
• AoA benefits from splashing an element. Is Fire the best element to splash? I've been asking that since playtesting for GenCon. How I'd love to run Windmills for Earth, push my opponent's minions onto Air sites above my burrowed Root Spider, or Common Sense for a Grapple Shot or Bolt. Put the Lighthouses back in for Water and use Shrink help my small minions take out larger threats. But that's just one element (no pun intended) of the beauty of this game. There are so many options for creative answers. If I could go back, I would've put in 2 Pit Vipers, maybe 3, to handle enemy Root Spiders.
• My Round 6 loss against Chris (I forget his last name) was pretty straightforward. He piloted AoE and ran me over with Earthquake and big minions. What can you say? Earth is good. Again, Pit Vipers would've been ideal, surviving Earthquake, and easily trading with any minion he put down. I don't recall drawing into my FC or BP which would've kept those ground minions at bay. Ultimately, I think I played my hand and the game in front of me the best I could. As the saying goes, you win some, you lose some.
• Cheers!