Underground River

[ratcharmer]

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596 596 596 596 596 596 5aa 5aa 5aa 5i9 5ia 77e 77e 77e 77e 77e 77e 78q 78q 7gk 7gk 7gp 7gq 7gr 7gs 7gs 7hi 7hi 7hi 7hi 8pp

So here's my deck as it stands at the moment. I've heard mention of the Warden/SoPa synergy a couple times but I haven't seen anyone actually post a deck yet, and this one is performing well enough that it could almost make the "recommended decks" section with a little tweaking.

Testing so Far:
(Please keep in mind I've been upgrading the deck as I test it, so much of the testing was done with fewer upgraded cards)

Vs Platnum:
I have a very small sample size here, but the early results are promising. I've won 2/5 games in platnum, with 1 win being an EM and 1 loss being due to human error.

Vs AI4:
Pretty high win rate and a modest rate of EMs. Found Bronze was more efficient.

Vs Bronze:
Extreme win rate (~98%) with a surprising amount of EMs (25-40%).


Playstyle:
The basic play is pretty obvious: spam lots of little creatures and get SoPa out as early as possible. Have Wardens dogpile anything that moves.

Getting the deck to EM is a little trickier. Generally this involves recognizing when you have the board pretty much locked down and then "playing with your food" until you can EM. It's not a fast deck.

[dragonsdemesne]

I ran something virtually identical in BL, with the only changes being that I used 2 more squids instead of the two shields you've got, and I had one more card, because I know it was a 31 card deck (probably a 3rd trident)  It tended to do quite well against a wide range of decks; the biggest problem was wings.

I've never tried the deck vs AI, but your stats are unsurprising to me, with the exception that I would not have expected many EMs at all.

(I called my deck 'the real Neptune', because I thought it was a better use of trident than the false god Neptune :p)

[ratcharmer]

The EM rate caught me off guard as well--I was just sort of messing around then  I realized I could often EM if I waited a few turns after I was ready for the kill.

I like the shields since cc-creatures don't help vs the first time things attack, weapons and untargetable critters.

Wings & Gravity shield seem to be the biggest threats

[rob77dp]

[small-ish necro? -- hopefully this is an excusable case relating to tasks I am tackling for Phase 1 of 10th Trials of Death]

I do concur with dragonsdemense regarding the deck size - it is conceivable you lock-down your opponent's damage but end up unable to deal a killing blow. Adding one card is not a large hit to the reliability of the deck but it means you win 100% of the time in stalemates against the way more common 30-card decks.

Regarding the EM's, I might suggest not "playing with your food" any more than a few turns to achieve that EM. This is especially true in Bronze and AI4 where the per-game reward that gets doubled is not usually worth having to go 5+ more turns of just "holding off on your killshot". Pursuant to that, unless you expect to hit a lot of Poison from an opponent you could drop the Purifies which is double bonus so you can add another Trident (cripples chance opponent fields a CHAIN of Dimensional Shields) and not be tempted to wait long periods of turns to EM lower-level opponents.

If you are not in possession of two more Squid to field (1 in place of the 2nd removed Purify and 1 to increase deck size from 30 to 31 total cards) then I would suggest removing the loner Octopus and replacing with a third shield.


For more than just tweaks and nips of change, here is another idea:

Replace the Shields and Purifies with 4x Elite Antlion (not sure if you own these... but in case you do --) and sub out the Octopus with another Trident (or Poseidon). Add 1x Stone Pillar (or Tower if you have it) and replace an Earth Pendulum unupgraded with 1x Stone Pillar (or Tower if you have it).

This would result in the following deck (cool fact - summon the Antlion and get it burrowed ASAP... while burrowed it gains +2|+2 which double again when you unburrow!)

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58o 58o 596 596 596 596 596 596 5aa 5aa 779 779 779 779 77e 77e 77e 77e 77e 77e 78q 78q 7gk 7gk 7gs 7gs 7gs 7hi 7hi 7hi 7hi 8pp

which could result in some match conclusions like:

Spoiler for images I took while testing the ideas:

Against AI3:

Against Bronze:

Against Gold:

Honesty time - I played several more than 3 matches to get these screenshots... not because I was rightfully losing but due to forgetting to snap the screenshot or not turning off SoP or mis-double-clicking a Warden. >.<

[One final suggestion is to consider perhaps a +1 Stone Skin if you find yourself constantly having plenty of CC early game but needing a heal late game from a difficult Poisoning opponent... I know I had the Purifies removed but hey, I can slightly contradict in a constructively critical review right? ]

[Monox D. I-Fly]

Reading the deck's title, I thought it was about burrowed creatures in flooded areas.