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Ace of Souls

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How to build a good Arena deck https://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php?topic=28818.msg368107#msg368107
« on: July 19, 2011, 01:12:20 am »
Touch-up by Chapuz.



How to build a good Arena Deck
   
So you've decided to make an Arena deck.  You saw all those posts on the forum with people winning lots of free electrum and you decided that you want to try too!  But your deck only gets a few plays a day, and then drops out of the top 500, never to be played again.  What do you do?!

   First off, good deck builders realize that Arena decks are not the same as standard decks.  It takes clever knowledge of what card the oracle gives you, as well as knowing what sort of decks are good in combination with it, with a pinch of what part of the metagame can control it.  It doesn't take a mastery of deck building to have a rough idea what sort of things to do in order to take steps that make a deck more stable.

   A perfect deck does not exist.  There are good decks, popular decks, effective decks, but always a counter deck.  No deck is so good that everything can beat it.  But, when you have an advantage such as double draw, higher starting health, or a better mark than your opponent, you can certainly put that to your own advantage, so that you may increase the overall odds that your deck wins.  So, for the first few tips, we'll explore the 4 primary advantages you have over the challenger decks:

Stamina
   Stamina is one of the most undervalued abilities that you can stuff into your deck.  An unastute deck builder looks briefly at the skill point cost for an additional 5 HP and quickly rationalizes that since all of the other 3 skills cost more, they must be more important.  But, this is not always the case.  Say, for instance you want to make a deck that focuses on late-game lockdowns with strong protected permanents.  If you do this, you typically need to survive beyond initial rushes.  5 upgraded cards are not going to do as much as 20 more HPs to stop the opponent from rushing you before you can set up your control.  One extra quanta per turn isn't going to be as effective as 50 more health points to swallow up before your contain starts to hurt their damage output.  Depending on the deck, an extra draw per turn can outweigh 100 more HPs, but it really depends on the deck.  So, stamina can certainly be more important than most people think.  It definitely isn't just a skill to throw only your leftover points into.  Carefully think about whether those 5 cards you're planning to upgrade are really more important than 20 more health.
   Protip:  you can edit your deck and its stat points at any time.  If you find it's health is too low to be effective, why not try dropping some other abilities and put that into the stamina.  A lower starting HP than your opponent isn't a good enough reason to double draw in very many decks.

Wisdom
   The most important thing you should ever consider before putting stat points in any of these last three abilities is the question, "Do I need this?"  There are few decks where more upgraded cards will actually hurt the deck owner.  But, there are certainly cases where the 4 skill points you used to put them into the deck could be better served somewhere else.  If you plan to use wisdom, make sure you have a good reason to.
   The next most important thing to consider about wisdom before putting any stat points into it is what cards you plan on using with your quota.  Is it worth spending 4 skill points on those two upgraded weapons you have and no other cards in your deck.  Are 2 more base damage per turn really worth more than a free shard of divinity at the start of the game?  Is it really necessary to reduce the cost of that one card by one quantum, or when you test out your deck, was the AI ever really slowed down by a quanta deficiency?  These are very important questions to ask before adding wisdom to the deck.  Know what upgraded cards you plan on using before you even distribute your stat points and you're less likely to accidentally waste them.

Intellect
   These last two abilities are the ones that I find require the most thought.  I find it helpful to think carefully about your deck before putting in stat points.  A lot of times, you can ignore mark completely and just add more pillars (with double draw to get them faster) for a cleaner feel.  But other times, EQ decks are too big of a problem to allow the vulnerability you avoid by having triple mark.  It's up to your own judgment in the testing phase on which idea is better.  Also, be wary of adding this ability over HP if there’s a choice.
   Protip:  depending on the deck, there are helpful cards from other elements that might help your deck out a lot.  Unlike the decks we use, 3x mark can allow these other cards to be more easily inserted to your deck.  Just be sure your pillar count is high enough after the mark swap.  ;)
   Protip:  when testing your deck, carefully observe how the quanta balance looks.  If you have more quanta than you expected, try to cut down on intellect and put the stat points elsewhere if possible.

Dexterity
   Oh boy, this is an interesting debate.  A lot of people swear by dexterity.  It certainly gives a more random first hand.  But all subsequent draws give you 2x the cards, so it's more forgiving later into the game.  But, perhaps the biggest advantage it gives is that your deck is 2x as large as it would otherwise be.  This is incredible for control cards, creatures with strong abilities, or just any general card that you're glad has a limit of 6 when playing against another player.
   It is very rare that dexterity harms your deck.  It hurts deckout decks (2x draw counters the eternity's reverse time ability) and more than likely some other decks that I can't think of at the time of the post.  (but I'm sure you'll tell me :p )
   Protip: 2x draw means that you can draw a card that prevents the opponent from doing something AND play another card of your own.  Cards like silence, nightmare, cloak, and most control cards are very effective when used in conjunction with double draw.
   Protip: a lot of strategies that require multiple cards to work are much more efficient with double draw.  Protect artifacts can be drawn the same turn as your artifacts.  Quint follows the same logic.  You can draw momentum and dune scorps on the same turn (or other buffs and creatures).  Do note, however, that the AI doesn't do a lot of the combos you can think of.  PLEASE TEST your deck to see if it plays the way you expect it to.

Now that we've gone into detail about the abilities your deck has, there are a few other things to focus on.  I've mentioned testing decks a lot.  But what does this mean?  When I test my deck, these are the things I focus on:

Decks
   Look up the most common decks people use against the arena. Test out each of these decks against your deck and you can easily improve your win percentage versus the majority of players.

Abilities
   Is your mark helping enough?  How low can you get the deck's health and would more health be more helpful in later days?  How often do you see the deck keeping dead cards in its hand?  Are some of these cards useless or is it just quantum trouble?  Does it need more upped cards or are those cards redundant?  Think about what abilities you thought would be helpful and find out if they're really helping.

Cards
   Is the AI using the cards in the way you expected?  Does it take too long to play the cards you wanted the AI to play?  Does it prioritize the cards you would rather it didn't use at all?  Would another card make your life hell playing against it? (rage quitters farm too :p)  Would a different upped card work better?

Protips
    - does your deck just suck? Steal a FG's deck and modify it to be more devious.  Pick and modify a forum deck instead of one of your own.  There's no shame in just starting from scratch either.
    - When planning your deck, write down a few things you want to look at for testing so you don't forget.
« Last Edit: January 10, 2014, 04:35:12 am by Higurashi »

Offline Essence

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Re: How to build a good Arena deck https://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php?topic=28818.msg368111#msg368111
« Reply #1 on: July 19, 2011, 01:18:34 am »
Quote
5 upgraded cards (4 of yours, 1 of the oracle's)
The Oracle's upgraded cards don't count against your limit. :)


Quote
  Also, a deck higher in the top 500 gets more plays than its lower rated brethren
Zanz has denied this outright; he claims plays are 100% random.


Other than that, brilliant article.  This should go in the Wiki.  +Rep and well done. :)
If something happens and you think it deserves my attention, feel free to PM me. Other than that, I'm probably here if you want to shoot the breeze.

Ace of Souls

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Re: How to build a good Arena deck https://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php?topic=28818.msg368112#msg368112
« Reply #2 on: July 19, 2011, 01:21:58 am »
Quote
5 upgraded cards (4 of yours, 1 of the oracle's)
The Oracle's upgraded cards don't count against your limit. :)


Quote
  Also, a deck higher in the top 500 gets more plays than its lower rated brethren
Zanz has denied this outright; he claims plays are 100% random.
Fixed and fixed.  Though I could swear I only got to use 5 total upped cards in my more recent deck.  :p

parasite99

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Re: How to build a good Arena deck https://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php?topic=28818.msg368115#msg368115
« Reply #3 on: July 19, 2011, 01:25:04 am »
Good job and great article :)

wavedash

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Re: How to build a good Arena deck https://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php?topic=28818.msg368184#msg368184
« Reply #4 on: July 19, 2011, 05:06:56 am »
Brilliant post, nearly flawless bar a couple minor grammar errors here and there.

Ace of Souls

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Re: How to build a good Arena deck https://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php?topic=28818.msg368240#msg368240
« Reply #5 on: July 19, 2011, 09:57:02 am »
Thanks.  As far as the errors in my grammar, that's what you get for writing it in notepad I guess.   ;D

suxerz

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Re: How to build a good Arena deck https://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php?topic=28818.msg368304#msg368304
« Reply #6 on: July 19, 2011, 02:07:14 pm »
Quote
5 upgraded cards (4 of yours, 1 of the oracle's)
The Oracle's upgraded cards don't count against your limit. :)
...
Erm.. I might misread the context of this, but I believe Ace of Souls was right. To clarify; if I spent only 4 skill points in Wisdom (5 upgraded cards) like this , I can only use 4 more upgraded cards from my inventory as shown here .


About the article itself, it's pretty good. I like the somewhat casual style of your writing. Definitely good for a wiki article. One suggestion - rather than just wall of text, how about using bullet points followed by concise descriptions in some places?

Anyways, kudos for your effort.  ;)

Terrilocks

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Re: How to build a good Arena deck https://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php?topic=28818.msg368342#msg368342
« Reply #7 on: July 19, 2011, 04:17:13 pm »
AS the others have said: Good work!

Here are my 2 cents...

Firstly go check out the Quanta Index (on the Wiki page). I use that to work out how many pillars I should have and it really is a great help.

Secondly. my strategy is try to keep my deck balanced.

10 creatures, 10 spell cards, remainder Towers/pillars as a general rule, although maybe more or less depending on the Quanta index. (If a deck needs 20 towers that's obviously a problem!)

Spell cards are by far the most difficult to balance out given there are so many good choices - do I want earthquakes and explosions to shut down permanents completely and then try to deal with creatues some other way or should I use eathquakes and blackholes to try and shut them down from the start and hope they dont get anything out early on.

Versatility is the most important. With such self-imposing limits, cards that compliment each other are vital and you're ideally aiming for cards that work with more than one other card. E.g. Steals, Explosions and Earthquakes are just overkill, whereas GotP, Nightmare and Rewind all empower each other. It's not just spells that compliment each other too remember; creatures with certain abilities are also useful.

Offline Essence

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Re: How to build a good Arena deck https://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php?topic=28818.msg369452#msg369452
« Reply #8 on: July 21, 2011, 09:54:08 pm »
Quote
5 upgraded cards (4 of yours, 1 of the oracle's)
The Oracle's upgraded cards don't count against your limit. :)
...
Erm.. I might misread the context of this, but I believe Ace of Souls was right.

Yep, I was wrong.  The rules were different in Beta and I never noticed that they had been changed.

Sorry, my bad! :)
If something happens and you think it deserves my attention, feel free to PM me. Other than that, I'm probably here if you want to shoot the breeze.

Ace of Souls

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Re: How to build a good Arena deck https://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php?topic=28818.msg369494#msg369494
« Reply #9 on: July 21, 2011, 10:56:04 pm »
Quote
5 upgraded cards (4 of yours, 1 of the oracle's)
The Oracle's upgraded cards don't count against your limit. :)
...
Erm.. I might misread the context of this, but I believe Ace of Souls was right.

Yep, I was wrong.  The rules were different in Beta and I never noticed that they had been changed.

Sorry, my bad! :)
re-fixed!  :D

Offline d1puffpuff

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Re: How to build a good Arena deck https://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php?topic=28818.msg483492#msg483492
« Reply #10 on: April 19, 2012, 07:38:22 am »
bump.  :D Hope to see more good decks!

Offline Aroodwen

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Re: How to build a good Arena deck https://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php?topic=28818.msg514099#msg514099
« Reply #11 on: June 23, 2012, 07:09:54 am »
Thankyou this helped me a lot my arena decks have much improved.

 

blarg: