Very sad event. Meet only a few original decks(DM decks with Yami/Arkana) else just specific decks(Pegasus Relinquish) or only Meta decks(SSA/FH/Amazoness/MH). With loaner decks this could have been fun out of meta BS.
Yeah that's really nice. Especially with my Tea so I can run into def monster as I want w/o fear(okay only with very few effect monster/cards played during so). Yeah not everything is a beauty, but still they could draw them worse. (^.^)
The thing with Spellbooks is that the duels either end quickly (Turn 2 or 3) or end in the following century (usually against stall). I do feel Grass variants take a lot longer than Silent Spellbook though.
There are 2 ways to counter Aliens: Stop their A-Counters or overwhelm their resources (every deck's weakness). If you can't stop their A-Counters, aim for card advantage and play accordingly. If you can't make +s like Spellbook, Amazoness, Heroes, Fur Hire, etc, then your matchup against Aliens gets harder...so, that could be the reason you have a hard time against Aliens.