[1.32] Mono-Aether, Optimized for AI4.

[Higurashi]

It's time to update the MA we recommend to newbies. I'll be explaining the important parts of this deck and the reasons behind them. When calculating QI, I will only be counting Lobo once and I will not be adding 2 uses of Lobo's ability because most of the time you're using Lobo after you have quanta generation that doesn't impact whether you'll be playing another Dim or Dragon after/a turn after.

Needless to say, I need someone else to test this more.

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Deck import code : [Select]

61o 61o 61o 61o 61o 61o 61o 61o 61s 61t 61t 61t 61t 61t 61t 61u 61u 61v 61v 61v 61v 61v 61v 63a 63a 63a 63a 63a 63a 63a 8pu

QI: 7.2
Won: 59
Lost: 9
TTW: 13.72
Winrate: 84.75%

Spoiler for Play advice (very important if you're inexperienced with MA):

If you have to choose between playing an Immortal or wait a turn to play a Phase Dragon, you usually play the Immortal because the damage turns out the same unless you draw Lobo, in which case the Immortal play wins. If your quanta is slow and you run into Damage Reduction shields, wait for the Dragon but do play Lobo.

Most of the Elements don't have a response to Dims, and those that do tend to only draw a few copies because HB decks are bad. As a result, you can start chaining Dims at 16 cards left in most games, which is the turn you want it to start at the earliest. Exceptions to this rule means you'll want to be at 60+ HP before you begin the chain. If you have lots of Dims, you can, of course, start the chain earlier. Exceptions and potential play-arounds listed below:

Any Darkness or Fire HB. Play Lobo early to try and bait a Steal/Deflag. AI will steal/destroy Dims over Lobo if both are in play. Remember that Drain Life and especially Fire Bolt can burst you.
Any Entropy HB. Play-around is to continuously Lobo the Butterfly Effect-target every turn. Reason being Lobo causes summoning sickness to a creature, which will disallow instant BE+BE use on your Dim in one turn. If there are several BE targets, AI will first choose the one with the highest HP and secondly the one which is positioned earlier in the play field order. -Always- Lobo Fallen Elf/Druid ASAP and, if you have excess quanta, continuously Lobo the Mutation targets AI will target first (weak/cheap creatures).
Any Gravity HB. The main threat here is Titan, and secondary ones are Catapults, Chargers/Momentum and very rarely Chimera. With Titan you have a predictable amount of incoming damage and as such you can usually win by doing simple math before starting the Dim chain. Lobo Fire Eaters early because they may grow and get Momentum'd. Same goes for any creature that has been Accelerated. Lobo Armagios and Pharaohs early, of course (Scarabs with high HP get Catapulted).
Earth only becomes an exception if they draw 2 Quantum Pillars/Towers or more. Reason being they have a decent chance to draw Pulverizer, which is big trouble. Consider playing one Pillar and one Pend early to bait out Earthquake, but keep in mind you can only be sure once the HB has had 6 in a turn and not played something that brought it under that since AI requires 200% of the quanta cost to have a 100% chance of playing something (it still isn't 100% due to a randomness feature, but still).

Weaker Half-Bloods:
You may think Air, Death and Water are also exceptions, but the truth is that Unstable Gas, Poison/Arsenic and Ice Bolt do not do enough damage to warrant starting a chain at 60+ HP. That said, if you can start it earlier without running out of Dims, by all means do so. The magic HP number against these three Elements is more like 50+, and Air is the most threatening. Remember that Sky Blitz can burst you.
Time can get funky stuff out of Fate Eggs, but the solution is, of course, very simple. Turn them into scrambled eggs with Lobo before they hatch.
Aether will sometimes draw Psion, but it'll rarely do more than 4/5 damage before you Lobo it. In the vast majority of games the HB will not get to Fractal Psion, but if it does and gets a lot of copies, you'll have to start chaining earlier. Remember that Parallel Universe can burst you, as can Fractal if they get lucky with a good duo creature. Mindgate is huge trouble, but nothing you can do anything about.
Always Lobo any potential creature generators when playing against Life. It draws Bonds pretty often. Mitosis, Firefly Queen and Pharaoh are the most common ones here.
Lobo Scorpions ASAP if there's a duo to buff them or if they're Forest Scorpions. If you get poisoned, do basic math to calculate how many turns until you die.
Against Thorn Carapace and Fire Shield, you may be forced to save your Dragons and burst-play them if they also have healing on the board.
Similarly, you can burst past Miracle by playing one Dragon early and saving the rest until the AI is at no less than about 42 HP (I usually wait till 50 HP).

Quanta and offence: 7.2 QI turns out to be fairly fast; it's a compromise between 16 quanta/6 dragons and less quanta/more Immortals. The reason for a balance is that once you have your quanta rolling, you'll be drawing Phase Dragons when you can afford them. In other words, it's a build that focuses on the mid-game. More Immortals means you'll draw more of those mid-game and they have a much smaller impact. Higher total offence and hitting harder earlier results in much more damage done during the set amount of turns a game lasts. As a result, this MA is significantly faster than the old Immortal-heavy version. 16 quanta is also a viable variant; I opted for 15 and 1 Immortal so that I can beat Gravity Shield and just for having more creatures in the deck (don't want to go too many turns without drawing any offence).

Lobotomizers: Lobos are very important for MA. There's no way to get around that. Pick a Lobo for your first rare at 500 score and farm the second one from Bronze with this deck +1 Pendulum. These are the main reason for this deck's higher winrate, and they also help with the speed. The more minor reason this is faster and wins more is mentioned above.

Spoiler for Stats:

Code: [Select]

14
13
11
12
14
12
12
17
11
12
11
20
14
20
12
L
13
14
19
L
10
L
14
16
L
16
12
15
15
12
14
12
L
L
16
12
13
12
18
11
14
15
11
17
13
13
17
L
14
12
L
12
13
11
16
L
12
11
16

Won: 50
Lost: 9
TTW: 13.72
Winrate: 84.75%


Side-note: I would expect this to be the best SoW-less MA for farming Bronze and Silver as well.


Shard of Wisdom version below.

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Deck import code : [Select]

61o 61o 61o 61o 61o 61o 61o 61t 61t 61t 61t 61t 61t 61u 61u 61v 61v 61v 61v 61v 62m 62m 62m 62m 63a 63a 63a 63a 63a 63a 8pu

QI = 7.7
TTW = 12.58
Won: 50
Lost: 8
Winrate: 86.20%

Lobos: Still need 'em. Can't do full speed when unupped. If you somehow have 4 SoW's and no Lobos, this MA handles the lack of them a lot better than the normal MA.

Play advice besides normal MA advice: Against Life and Light HB's, only play SoW's late game and stack 'em on one Dragon. This way you can still win even if a reflective shield comes up. The high QI works because most games your first Dragon will do the vast majority of your damage with SoW's stacked on it. The deck could pack only 2 Dragons if it always drew them, but alas. It's almost always better to SoW each individual Dragon once since shields tend to come up in most games, but you rarely get enough quanta to do this and that's fine. 2 SoW's equal playing another Dragon, but for 6 quanta instead of 13. It's insane.

Spoiler for Stats:

Code: [Select]

11
13
13
13
13
11
11
11
15
10
15
10
10
L
15
13
L
11
10
13
11
L
12
12
19
12
13
13
10
13
12
L
13
L
12
12
13
15
12
19
16
12
11
L
13
13
11
12
11
10
L
13
14
11
L
14
10
17


[bluefoot33]

I'm testing this deck out with +1 immortal, +2 shard of wisdom, -1 phase dragon, and -1 dimensional shield. Was running into gravity shield issues with the dragons and like the way immortals curve out early into shard of wisdom.

[Higurashi]

A SoW Immortal-heavy build is most likely better for Bronze and Silver since they don't tend to have much healing or DR-shields at all. For HB's, I did a lot of testing and farming when they had 200 HP, and Dragons offered both a higher winrate and a lower TTW. With 150 HP, a mix is most likely the most optimal, so you're on the right track. The same holds true once upped.