Post by: Kowlickkid on September 28, 2016, 11:15:27 pm
Post by: Aves on September 29, 2016, 12:12:45 am
The problem with mitosis+bond is that by the time your bonds do anything significant, you've either already gotten full board control or you're dead. Therefore, I'd drop the bonds. This cuts you down to 33 cards.
After that, you probably have a little too much :life generation, so I'd cut down a few emerald pillars. This leaves you with a nice and slick draw-optimized 30 card deck. At that point, you need to analyze whether or not you have enough :time to power those hourglasses, or if it wouldn't be faster simply to put in time pillars in their place. The Quanta Index (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/elements-articles/using-quanta-index-to-determine-the-optimal-number-of-pillars-in-a-deck/) is a good way of figuring that out. Here's a slightly outdated tool (http://elements.alanbeam.net/qi.php?deckCode=#) that can help you do that quickly. This also applies to the other cards you're using, and helps to determine in what quantities you want them.
6 Scarabs and 4 Mitosis is the core, 'basic premise' of your deck. Add other cards (quanta production, synergising support cards, etc) to base around that! Whilst you do so, always make sure that your total deck size is at around 30 and that your quanta is roughly balanced.
Post by: Kowlickkid on September 29, 2016, 01:46:26 am
-Chimera: Expensive, would probably show up at the wrong time, and also would still only be the accumulation of my scarabs' power, but it would bypass shields and have the benefit of a ton of health to work with. I'm thinking this wouldn't be my first choice.
-Catapult: Cheap-ish, with a decent damage output that can easily be replenished by mitosis-ing scarabs. In fact, as I just looked the card up, I saw an old deck called Scarab Cannon. Possible, but it still doesn't improve my chances of survival to get my scarabs up to that point.
-Empathic Bond: Yeah, I just got rid of it, and it's probably a bad idea, but I can't quite shake the thought that it'd be good against a tank. Perhaps one or two instead of 4.
-Adrenaline: While it shares an element, I also feel like it would just clutter, and would furthermore get less effective as the scarabs devour. Thinking a definite no-go here, but perhaps someone knows better.
-Reverse Time: Not the most effective CC card out there, and it would take away stuff from scarab funds, but it would allow me to return the most damaging creatures to fight another day. Unless, of course, the enemy has great quanta production(which I have the worst luck with -_- ).
There may be others. I already took the liberty of adding Eternity in there, just in case of deckout, and maybe Procrastination would do something if played right. Sundial is useless, given my lack of light quanta, and not much else seems to apply(within these elements, of course). So, while I test some of these out, does anyone have any ideas?
Post by: Kowlickkid on September 29, 2016, 02:29:21 am
Post by: Aves on September 29, 2016, 02:46:21 am
Catapult is good if you can get out lots of scarabs fast, but as you say it only matters after you've got things set up, the same problem as bond.
Adrenaline is quick, extra damage. A 2 ATK scarab will attack 4 times for a total of 8. A 3 ATK scarab will attack 4 times for 12. After that you get diminishing returns until 7 and 8 ATK. One thing to note is that you don't have to use the adrenalined scarab to devour things-- when you're set up, you should have plenty of scarabs that can devour without adrenaline.
From Gravity, Momentum and Acceleration are useful to consider, though they fall in the same niche as adrenaline-- cheap damage spikes.
There's not too much you can do about the slow speed without rares and upgrades, however-- once you're at your optimized 30 card, quanta balanced state, that's pretty much as fast as you'll be able to get, with those particular cards. Scarab+Mitosis is essentially simulating a Pharaoh in the first place, and then Shard of Readiness makes ability costs 0.
Post by: andretimpa on September 29, 2016, 02:58:05 am
Post by: Monox D. I-Fly on September 29, 2016, 03:07:51 am
The main thing I can think is that this deck is crying for a Shard of Readiness. It would reduce the quanta you spend pumping new scarabs and allow you to ditch the gravity part while still using devour. So if you have them I really recomend you try it (one or two :time dragons for the late game would also be useful).
Looks like he's still new that he doesn't have any rare card yet. Otherwise, he would have put a Pharaoh there.
Post by: Kowlickkid on September 29, 2016, 12:37:44 pm