Author

dragonsdemesne · « **on:** November 09, 2013, 01:08:11 am »

In the interests of helping out newer players, and in a similar format to my arena thread, I'm going to try and design unupped rareless counters for each of the false gods as I spin them from the oracle, in order to help newer players defeat them and hopefully win a few upped cards to get them going earlier. Basically, each day when I play against the FG, I'll design a deck, and then try it out, and if it wins, or seems to have potential, I'll post it, and each time I get that false god, I'll either try the same counter again (if it works or looks like it should work most of the time) or try another one if it fails, and I'll post a few play tips or things I'm working on in my quest to find a solid counter deck to each. Anyway, it's going to look fairly sparse to start with, but it'll only get better with time. I will keep them 100% unupped and rareless, so that any player who has played more than a few days should be able to construct the deck. If the new player has a few upped cards, they can certainly substitute them in to improve it, as they are able.

edit: I'll be doing this without the oracle pet as well, because it's a random factor that cannot be controlled, and sometimes you don't get any pet at all. If you want to use your pet, feel free, and in fact, I would actually encourage it to increase your win rate, but I won't do it, just so nobody can say it was the pet and not the deck that won.

dragonsdemesne · « **Reply #1 on:** November 09, 2013, 01:08:30 am »

RESOURCES

Teffy's complete false god list with all of their decks:
http://elementscommunity.org/forum/false-gods/here-are-the-decks-of-the-actual-false-gods/

False God Strategy subforum:
http://elementscommunity.org/forum/strategy/

My upped FG counters:
http://elementscommunity.org/forum/false-gods/my-upped-fg-counters

dragonsdemesne · « **Reply #2 on:** November 09, 2013, 01:08:37 am »

AKEBONO (*countered*) (Nymph's tears liquid antimatter) 11-1

Spoiler for Hidden:

CHAOS LORD (fractal hope) 0-1, NT/gravity (0-1), dim/BH rainbow 0-1, lucidejahope/blessed dune 2-2, lucidejahope/blessed dune with deflag, 1-0

Spoiler for Hidden:

DARK MATTER 0-1 (monoaether), (rainbow control) 0-3, light/aether 0-1

Spoiler for Hidden:

Game 1: LOSS. I went with a slightly modded monoaether deck, for a few reasons. 6x lightning is invaluable against nymphs and chargers; nymphs will ruin your quanta, while chargers will bypass dimshields. Parallel universe is cheaper than phase dragon, but can get you a 7 or even 8 attack creature from his field, and unless he blesses an otyugh (and with only one blessing this is unlikely) he still won't eat them. Unfortunately, he -will- gravity pull anything you PU, and he Gpulled both of the blessed chargers I got with parallel universe. (which, incidentally, meant I had to wait until I got two lightning to kill it, which took way too long) I also suffered from an early Titan. I might try the deck again later with phase dragons and/or immortals instead of parallel universes, to prevent Gpulls killing them, but I don't think it's going to work very often.

Spoiler for Hidden:

Game 2: LOSS. I think this could have done a lot better, but I got screwed because of my quantum pillars. I had a gravity shield and 2 sundials in hand, but my pillars produced 1 time quanta and 2 gravity all game. I'd definitely try it again, possibly with small modifications. I think the basic idea is sound, just possibly too slow.

Game 3: LOSS. The black hole chain never let up. I couldn't even get out a sundial, much less a sanctuary.

Game 4: LOSS. Gave this one more try. Two black holes hit me, then I managed a sanctuary a few turns later, but by then a blessed charger and an archangel were killing me. I had a lightning, but it wasn't enough to kill the blessed charger, and I never got 5 gravity quanta for the shield to block the archangel and the armagio that were also hitting me. He got a momentum near the end for the angel, anyway. I will not try this deck again. It just needs to do too much too fast, and it can't possibly get everything it needs in time. All the counters are there, but the time and quanta needed to set it up isn't. Of the 3 losses with this deck, this was the first that actually had an average RNG, and it still wasn't enough.

Spoiler for Hidden:

Game 5: LOSS. Had a 6 pillar 1 fractal draw. DM had a 6 tower draw too. Ended up dying to archangels before I could fractal, and that was with DM getting only 1 charger all game.

ideas to try:
-sanc/dimshield/lightning/fractal (modded from some ideas in the Dark Matter thread, fractal his archangel)
ideas NOT to try:
-quint/mindflayer dim/phase dragon: tried this, even with lobo he spams momentum creatures too fast, and puts momentum on creatures after you lobo them, plus he's still got titan, and quanta demands on the deck are ugly

DECAY (CCYB mod) 6-2

Spoiler for Hidden:

Hover over cards for details, click for permalink

Deck import code : [Select]

4sa 4sa 4sa 4sa 4sa 4sa 4sa 4sa 4sa 4sa 4sa 4sa 4sa 4sa 4sa 4sa 4sa 592 592 5c4 5c4 5f6 5f6 5ii 5ii 5ii 5lm 5lm 5lm 5lm 5lm 5lm 5rl 5rl 5rl 621 621 621 8pq

Game 1: WIN. I took some inspiration from majofa's thread on this one, but I modified it somewhat, and I feel it's better in this version; mine is also rareless, as his version had pulverizer. I got an early sanc with EA and lots of pillars, but I never got a shield and my hourglasses were stolen, so I was taking a bunch of damage, despite the sancs I had gotten. I ended up with a quinted steam machine with 30-odd attack that went the distance, though. (never got a deflag for the dusk, either)

Game 2: LOSS. 2 pillar start vs perfect decay draw; he got a couple quick pests and eclipse, and then stole one of my pillars. I couldn't even get a sanc out (which I had in my opening hand) until I was down to about 50hp. I couldn't get an emerald shield out ever (which was also in my opening hand). Same for my deflag. I drew everything I needed, except pillars :p Given the number of them in the deck, though, I think that was an anomaly, and I'd probably use this deck again.

Game 3: WIN. Got a PAed sanc out early, and never looked back, though I had extra sancs so I didn't even need the PA. Extremely easy win. I deflagged Eclipse when it showed up, and sanc healed the lobo damage while my quinted steam machine did the heavy hitting.

Game 4: WIN. Lots of early pillars and an early sanc. Also, all three steam machines in the top ten cards, but no quints. I throw one steamie out there and it immediately dies. (this was a mistake;I really have no idea why I did this) I draw like crazy with the hourglasses, but the first quint I found was 8 cards from the bottom, after which I immediately stop using my hourglasses. The next quint was at 6 cards from the bottom. I grow the steamies like mad, and manage a kill with exactly zero cards left in my deck.

Game 5: WIN. This barely counts, though. Decay did not find his first pest until I had 14 cards left in my deck. By then, I had five sancs and an emerald shield. However, what I didn't get until that same turn was my first steam machine. The first one came at 14 cards left in my deck, the second one came at 6 cards left. The third one was drawn on the turn I won.

Game 6: LOSS. 1 pillar start spelled trouble right away. No emerald shield until very late was also bad; I took too much damage to recover.
Game 7: WIN. Easy game. Had 4 pillars, EA, sanc, steamie, and quint in my first hand.
Game 8: WIN. Easy game, everything went smoothly.

DESTINY (monoaether) 11-3

Spoiler for Hidden:

Hover over cards for details, click for permalink

Deck import code : [Select]

61o 61o 61o 61o 61o 61o 61o 61o 61o 61o 61o 61o 61o 61o 61o 61o 61o 61o 61t 61t 61t 61t 61t 61t 61v 61v 61v 61v 61v 61v 8pu

Monoaether seemed a good choice due to Destiny's lack of PC, as well as all of the CC being useless. Looking at majofa's strategy thread, he did exactly the same thing.

Game 1) WIN due to a lucky topdeck of dimshield the turn I would have died otherwise. However, Destiny also had amazing hatch luck with fate eggs, getting a phase dragon and two seraphs, so I had to start the dim chain very early. Definitely has potential, though.

Game 2) WIN This game took 24 turns, because four of the phase dragons were undrawn in the last six cards. However, the fate egg hatches weren't quite so ridiculous (gold/life nymph, gargoyle) so I could wait longer before playing dims, and I had lots of dims. I only needed 4, and had the other two in hand; with six cards left in deck, I could've chained until I decked out if needed. (and I almost did, with 4/6 dragons in the last two cards) Basically, it looks like monoaether can only lose if you bottomdeck all your dims or you bottomdeck 5/6 dragons, since two dragons was just barely enough. You could lose to a destroy/steal mutate, but Destiny doesn't ever seem to mutate anything. Maybe if he got really bad fate egg hatches, he'd mutate them.

Game 3) WIN. Quite easy victory. Lots of early dimshields, had to wait a bit to get my first dragon, and then plow through two hatched armagios, but they only served to delay the inevitable. A very late game hatch into elite charger would have been deadly had it been a couple turns earlier, but I had 31hp and enough damage out to win before it killed me. Fortunately I had started the dimshield chain at 31hp, despite being able to survive one more turn without it (assuming no lucky mutate/topdeck shenanigans) simply because I had several dims in hand already, and enough in the deck to chain them until I decked out, assuming I drew them. Had I not done so, that charger hatch would have killed me just before I won.

Game 4: WIN. Only a 2 pillar start, but pretty easy win anyway. I suspect I can probably call this a hard counter, though it will lose occasionally to fate egg hatches such as elite charger.

Game 5: WIN. Easy win.
Game 6: WIN. Another easy win. After drawing the second dimshield, I knew I'd won, barring a destroy/steal mutant.
Game 7: WIN. Straightforward game, easy win.
Game 8: WIN. Easy win again.
Game 9: LOSS. I had a decent hand and draws. Unfortunately, Destiny got some extremely good RNG. A turn 2 fate egg hatch into dune scorpion with chaos power and slapping a neuro on me was painfully unexpected. A later fate egg hatched into physalia. Thus, despite having an unbroken dimshield chain and keeping unneeded pillars in hand, I was 1 turn away from winning due to the poison buildup. If I had somehow known a dune hatch would occur, I could have, in hindsight, won by starting the dimshield chain beforehand, but at 100hp and facing nothing but an unhatched egg, I didn't see the need. If that was a play mistake, so be it, but I doubt most people would have played dimshield that turn, in order to save the dims for later when more damage was on the table and thus make better use of them.
Game 10: WIN. Easy game.
Game 11: WIN. Easy game.
Game 12: LOSS. Only had 1 dimshield all game. Was still 1 turn away from a win.
Game 13: LOSS. 1 dimshield all game, I was facing two dragons and a golden nymph on turn 3 from fate eggs.
Game 14: WIN. Easy game.

DIVINE GLORY (*countered*) 10-1 (permanentless deja vu/photon lucihope)

Spoiler for Hidden:

Once you get a hope shield of 8, you've pretty much guaranteed your win... unless you deckout. This can happen either due to bad luck with dragon draws (so that he will miracle before you're ready) or because you screw up. To give you an idea of how your last turn will ideally look like, this is the screenshot I had at the end. As you can see, I kept all my dragons in hand until I was ready to make the kill, to avoid a miracle, and if you look at my deck size, you can see that would have ruined me. (a human would've miracled early just to avoid this exact situation, but don't feel bad about abusing AI flaws to win vs FGs :p) I was close to having a loss due to bad draw, as you can see I bottomdecked a lot of the dragons (2 of them are still in the last 4 cards) but it worked out in the end. Also, don't forget to spam any luciferins you have at the end just for the extra few coins; with luck, you might even get an EM this way, although I doubt it, unless one side or the other had exceptionally good/bad RNG, but it is possible. Also note that DG will have a hand clogged with explosions, because you have no legal targets for them. Don't add any permanents to this deck for that reason, unless it's a morning star/glory in place of a dragon. Light nymphs can give you an increased chance of EM if you have them, in place of a dragon, but be careful that your lowered damage output doesn't mess you up when you have to make the pre-miracle kill.

Spoiler for Hidden:

Note that you can very easily win with adrenastaves + silence off the mark, as long as you've got a bunch of unupped druid staffs and upgraded animate weapons, and RoL/hope will completely wreck him as well, a deck many new players have started with. Upgraded adrenastaves (except the staff) has gone 15-2 for me, and the unupped version should be only a turn or two slower, due to having to wait an extra turn or two for the quanta. If you have either of those decks, I recommend those, but as I assume you have 0 ups/rares, go with the above deck otherwise, unless I find something better.

DREAM CATCHER 1-4 (rainbow black hole/blessed dunes), 4-6 (60 card rainbow black hole/dunes)

Spoiler for Hidden:

ELIDNIS 0-1 (rainbow dimshield stall) 7-3 (improved rainbow dimshield stall)

Spoiler for Hidden:

Game 1: Loss. I took one of majofa's ideas but I modded it somewhat. I added +3 gravity shield, +3 quantum pillar, and +2 earthquake. Gravity shield should be obvious; it's almost like having more dimshields, because they block everything except pufferfish, ulitharid, and baby spectres. The earthquakes were for the early game; if you can disrupt either his aether or his water quanta, he's slowed down quite a bit. I ran into a threefold problem, however. 1) I started with only two pillars. 2) I didn't get an early earthquake. Neither of these proved fatal, however; my undoing was caused by 3) forgetting to play a gravity shield because I didn't notice dimshield was at 0 turns remaining. I probably would have won if I'd been paying attention. I think that taking out the earthquakes is probably a good plan; sundials might do well in their place. Also, I might go with -1 hourglass, but that could be simply because my hand was clogged due to only having 2 pillars in the top 16 cards, and all the hourglasses. I'll be using a similar deck again next time.

Spoiler for Hidden:

Game 2: WIN. I took out the earthquakes and one of the hourglasses, and added another purify and two sundials. I won fairly easily, despite never getting an hourglass all game, and never getting a gravity shield until the turn I won. I got an early quinted BE steam machine out, and started by destroying water towers, rather than the bonds/staff that were in play, trying to slow down water production. By the time the damage from his creatures started getting serious, I had a sundial and a couple dimshields, and I drew a couple more dimshields, and won with 1 still in hand. I got both the other steamies and quinted the first one right away, and the second one when I could; due to the early destroyed water towers, and the fact that any leftover water quanta went to the spectre growth, Elidnis was unable to play congeal and never managed to get an ulitharid out all game. (although had Elidnis drawn one in the first few turns, he could have played it, and he did in fact freeze my first steam machine, but I BE+quinted it right after :p I'm fairly satisfied with how the game played out, and while a better counter might be possible, this one should have a half-decent win rate at least, possibly even enough to be classed as a 'counter', although I don't think it's going to be quite THAT good, at least in this version. You can definitely win games with it, though)

Game 3: WIN. This game was epic. Both my butterfly effects were in the last 5 cards, so even though I had a huge quinted steam machine early, it wasn't actually getting past the bonds until very late. The 5th and 4th last cards were BEs, and any later on either one of those and I'd have lost. I managed to topdeck a dimshield the turn I would have lost, and when Elidnis topdecked a heal, I ended up winning by exact damage with 0 cards left in my deck. Fortunately, I had realized when I had about 9-10 cards left in deck that I was drawing too much with hourglasses, so I stopped using them. As it turned out, I stopped on EXACTLY the right turn. Any sooner, and I wouldn't have picked up the dimshield in time. Any later, and I'd have decked out.

Game 4: WIN. Easy win. Lots of sundials and dims to stall, and I got the steamies, BE, and quints fairly quickly. Oddly, Elidnis played ZERO feral bonds all game... (but BE steamie would have wrecked them anyway) I have absolutely NO idea what was clogging his hand, unless it was all the aether cards and congeals, because he had tons of quanta. Got an EM thanks to purifies.

Game 5: LOSS. 0 sundials, 0 hourglasses, and 1 dimshield drawn in the top half of the deck. I had three gravity shields, but elidnis had several creatures to get around those. I did have most of the pillars drawn, though :p

Game 6: LOSS. My stall elements were perfect, but all the quints were bottomdecked, so it took too long to get my steamies going. I needed one more turn to kill Elidnis, but it was not to be, and I couldn't have played it any better. The only possibility would have been to risk committing a steam machine early and hope that it wouldn't be loboed by a topdecked ulitharid or just congealed forever.

Game 7: WIN. Took awhile for quantum pillars to make aether for the first dimshield, but once they did, I never took another point of damage for the rest of the game. Stopped drawing with hourglasses once I had everything I needed; you have to be careful not to deck yourself out with this deck.

Game 8: WIN. Pretty much the ideal game for this deck; no problems at all. Straightforward win.
Game 9: WIN. Due to late steam machines, my damage was slow, and I had to be very careful with my hourglasses. I ended up winning with 0 cards left in deck due to careful timing.
Game 10: LOSS. Got 2 dims and no gravity shields or sundials in the top half of the deck, so eventually I just died.
Game 11: WIN. Won with exactly zero cards left in deck.

ETERNAL PHOENIX (thunderstorm vulture) 6-3

Spoiler for Hidden:

Game 1: WIN. I just decided to run my upped counter totally unupped. I won, despite the fact I had only a 2 pillar draw, no thunderstorms for the first several turns, and made an extremely large play mistake on one turn, though eternal phoenix did take awhile to get a fractal. (I had 3x thunderstorms in hand by then and tried to triple thunderstorm some ash to get my vultures even bigger, but I didn't actually count my air quanta first... so I wasted a thunderstorm)

Game 2: LOSS. 1 pillar draw, no thunderstorms to start. Topdecked a pillar, which helped, and EP had no early fractal, but with only two thunderstorm in 20 cards, even his dreadful draw wasn't enough to help me win with mine. Four bone walls stalled for awhile, but it wasn't enough. I was actually 1 turn from the win in the end; a thunderstorm at any time was all I needed.

Game 3: WIN. Despite a slight misplay (played thunderstorm before bone yard for some asinine reason) I still won quite easily. My mistake just added +1 TTW to the final result.

Game 4: WIN. I had a slightly weak draw (no bone walls for the first few turns) but eternal phoenix had a low quanta start and never got a fractal all game (13 ttw) so I had no problems at all. He still had about nine phoenixes at the end, though :p (and 36 aether quanta)

Game 5: WIN. I was slightly late with my damage, but EP was slightly late with a fractal, and when he did use it, he fractaled ash, buying me another turn, which I didn't actually need.

Game 6: LOSS. Low quanta draw and no thunderstorms until it was too late doomed me.
Game 7: LOSS. 1 pillar draw sucks. Got a couple more right away, but never saw a bonewall all game. Thunderstormed a couple times and rushed with vultures and skeletons, and got him somewhere around 80hp or so, but without a bone wall, it was too much damage. A single bonewall at any point and I'd have almost assuredly won. (opening hand was 1 pillar 4 vultures 1 thunderstorm 1 boneyard)
Game 8: WIN. Pretty straightforward.
Game 9: WIN. 75x bonewall and four 30 attack vultures on the last turn says it all.

dragonsdemesne · « **Reply #3 on:** November 09, 2013, 01:09:05 am »

FEROX (Entropy/Titanium Shield) 8-5, (Entropy/photon/shield mono) 0-2

Spoiler for Hidden:

FIRE QUEEN 3-6 (Vulture RoF OTK) (bad RNG loss, good RNG WIN, bad RNG loss) (0-1 modded vulture RoF OTK) 0-1 another modded vulture otk

Spoiler for Hidden:

GEMINI 9-2 (liquid antimatter nymph's tears)

Spoiler for Hidden:

Game 1: WIN. I had several ideas for a deck here, from dimshields to wings to otyughs to liquid antimatter, and when I saw majofa had done liquid antimatter, I figured that would be a good place to start. Based on how things played out, I think the only way you can lose is if you bottomdeck all the nymph's tears. I got a weak draw with 4/5 of the obsidian pillars early (and so less entropy quanta) but I still had a nymph's tears early, and one purple nymph dominated the game. Just remember not to use liquid shadow too early on AMed spiders; you want to keep some healing you, particularly at the beginning. Keep steals for electrocutors. I didn't have to steal an electrocutor that game, so I stole a dimshield on the last turn when he had 12hp and I had 4 nymphs out. I also got an EM, which should happen most of the time, I think.

Game 2: WIN. Lots of NT, pends, and steals to start, but no obsidian pillars for awhile; an early lobo would have been tough to overcome, but Gemini didn't get one until it was far too late. Pretty easy win; it was also an EM.

Game 3: LOSS. Gemini wins coin toss, plays turn 1 lobotomizer. No steals. GG.

Game 4: WIN. Gemini had a 1 gravity tower start, which meant that no massive dragons came out for a long time. This resulted in me dominating the board with my nice hand, but failing to do much damage with LS spiders in the meantime, and dimshields blocked my nymphs. I was worried I'd deck out, but finally Gemini got a 2nd gravity tower and managed to get a dragon out, which with LS helped kill him in the end. I think I had about 4 cards left in deck, one of which was a steal.

Game 5: WIN. Easy game; everything went according to plan. Slightly slower due to a lack of early obsidian pillars, but the purple nymph kept everything under control.

Game 6: WIN. Gemini's early spider rush was a bit scary, but nymph's tears came out in time for purple nymph, and it was straightforward after that.

Game 7: WIN. Took a long time to get obsidian pillars, but gemini never got lobotomizer, so despite taking 20+ turns to win, I was in no danger.
Game 8: LOSS. Gemini came out swinging unbelievably fast. Four spiders and an immortal, and I just couldn't antimatter everything in time, despite having a decent hand. Was down to like 60 by the time my purple nymph came online, and it -almost- saved me, but I ended up at 3 entropy on the last turn, and couldn't AM one more thing to buy more time.
Game 9: WIN. Very easy. Got an EM.
Game 10: WIN. Spider spam early nearly got me, but purple nymphs stopped them in time.
Game 11: WIN. Easy win.

GRAVITON (blessed otyughs) 0-1, (rainbow control with flayers) 0-1, (modded rainbow control with flayers) 0-1, (improved rainbow control with flayers) 0-1, earth NT control 0-1, improved earth NT control 0-1, blessed dunes 0-1

Spoiler for Hidden:

Game 1: (blessed otyughs) LOSS. Several people at the end of the graviton strategy thread recommended this. I found it to be too slow, although admittedly I had a 1 pillar + 1 pend draw, so it took until turn 4 to get an otyugh out. However, I don't think it has much of a chance, so I'll be looking for something else next time.

Spoiler for Hidden:

Game 2: (rainbow control with flayers) LOSS. Taken from majofa's strategy thread, but added more quanta because it was really quanta light, and added gravity shields because they're really good against him. (majofa had steals for graviton's shield, but he only has 2 in the deck so it isn't reliable) I got 1 pillar all game, so I don't know if the deck even works. I suspect it's probably too slow, but I might give it another try, since thais game was a joke. -1 flayer -1 hourglass and probably -1 quint, for +3 quantum pillars, would likely be a good start.

Spoiler for Hidden:

Game 3: (modded rainbow control with flayers) LOSS. I had a turn 3 quinted flayer, and I loboed everything like a boss. However, because I took the steals out, when Titan hit the field, it killed me before my flayers + quinted fire spirit could do the same. I'd added the lightnings, but they weren't needed at all. Next time I will drop the lightning, add the steals back, and everything should be good to go. I'll probably get rid of the antimatter as well; it's expensive at an 8 cost, and with a gravity shield or wings out, nothing can get through to heal you anyway, unless it has momentum, and if the flayers are doing their job, then they've loboed everything.

Spoiler for Hidden:

Game 4: LOSS. I tried to fix the weaknesses of the game 3 deck, but I never got a steal or an hourglass, and my 2nd water quanta took forever to get, so my quinted flayer was late. I got a wings but it was exploded. Complete blowout; lost in like 7 turns.

Spoiler for Hidden:

Game 5: LOSS. Planned on auburns to stall, dry spells to get past gravity shield (though firestorm helped there) but it was simply too slow, though much better than any of the decks I've tried so far. I got him down to around 130. It also went a bit slow because my first hand had 3x stone pillars and 1x water pillar, so it took awhile to get a nymph out, and the first one was hit with gravity pull. Graviton unexpectedly helped me get past his gravity shield by firestorming my field, but I just didn't have enough quanta and auburns to keep everything at bay all the time, and when titan hit the field, I had no answer for it.

Spoiler for Hidden:

Game 6: LOSS. Dropped the dry spells that were originally intended to bypass gravity shield by damaging my own nymphs (graviton will do this for you with fire storm) and 2 pillars and added 4 purifies, to help counteract a titan after getting an auburn lock down. I had the supreme misfortune to draw in this short 8 turn game all four purifies, lots of pillars, and no tears whatsoever.

Spoiler for Hidden:

Game 7: LOSS. I got pretty much an ideal draw against an extremely bad graviton draw, and still lost. This has no chance.

HECATE (nymph tears rush) 0-1 (PU/AM) 1-1, PA grav shield/dragon 0-1

Spoiler for Hidden:

HERMES (voodoo universe; probably a bad idea to try this deck) 0-1, (bonebolt PU) 0-1, rainbow control 0-3, PU/reflective 0-1

Spoiler for Hidden:

Future ideas to try: quinted otyughs with lightning, pandebonium (without arsenics since it's rare), some sort of liquid shadow/hp dragon, some sort of water control (dry spell and bolts will actually kill a lot of his stuff if done immediately), NT/dry spell rush
Ideas not to try: liquid antimatter (hermes will CC his own stuff), voodoo universe (already tried it; too slow/unreliable)
Ideas for people with enough rares: SoW/dune scorp/lightning/reverse time, SoW/quint/reflective shield, quinted squid, SPlat

Game 1: (loss with voodoo universe) This probably isn't going to work... it took too long to get my 2nd nova for a voodoo doll, and by then, I'd spent all of my basilisk bloods delaying Hermes' creatures to keep myself alive up to that point. I had nothing left to do the voodoo universe combo. I did a total of 30 damage with a PU on a ruby dragon that lasted one turn before dying, and one backlash hit with his ruby dragon into a gpulled doll. I'd been thinking that since Hermes has a lot of creatures (which would run into the gpulled/BBed dolls) and a lot of CC (that he probably wouldn't use on dolls) that it might work, but it's too slow to set up. It might get lucky once in awhile, but it's not going to be reliable.

Game 2: (loss with bonebolt) This actually wasn't too bad, but I only got Hermes down to 115hp. The deck simply doesn't have enough damage output. Dropping all of the poisons and adding phase dragons, dims, and a bit more aether quanta to handle that might help, although the dims would probably just get exploded, anyway. I don't think I'll try this again, but something that packs a bit more punch along with a bit more control along this same line of thought might do the trick, if such a deck exists.

Spoiler for Hidden:

Game 3: LOSS. I got 1 pillar in the first 17 cards, and it got exploded on turn 2, so this hardly got a fair chance. I'll try it again and hope RNG doesn't decide to screw me again :p

Game 4: LOSS. No reflective shield meant that while I completely controlled the board, I ended up getting lanced to death. Given the number of pillars in the deck, I think it might be wise to drop all the mindgates and enchant artifacts and go with more healing and two more reflective shields. Purifies might be a reasonable addition, as they cannot be exploded.

Game 5: LOSS. I had everything I needed fairly early. Reflective shield, check. Lots of quanta and CC, check. Mindgate with EA... took a lot longer, but check. 14 cards left in deck, and on track to kill hermes with mindgated lances. Suddenly, a fahrenheit comes up, and EA is immediately put on it (I had about 4 explosions in hand from mindgates) and I had absolutely no answer to that. Heals had already been used, and that was that. I'll need a different strategy for sure next time.

Spoiler for Hidden:

Game 6: LOSS. Went with a PU/reflective shield strategy; keep the bolts away from your face, PU big stuff, and bolt it after you PU it. I got hermes down to about 140 before dying. Probably best to not even bother with the shields and go for more aether quanta; I'd have done better, though it still would not have been a win. Dimshields can work, and there's the EA/dim/PU deck that majofa posted, but dims alone will probably die to explosions, and the EA/dim/PU deck I already tested and it's not good enough to be a counter.

INCARNATE (*countered*) (Fractal voodoo/dimshield retrovirus AI abuse) 9-0

Spoiler for Hidden:

JEZEBEL (gravity control with EA) 0-1, (EA modified grabbow) 0-1, (rainbow control with EA) 1-5, modded rainbow control with EA 0-1

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LIONHEART (*countered*) 8-1 (gravity shield stall)

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MIRACLE (*countered*) 10-1 (accelerated PUgon / dimshield)

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MORTE (blue nymph tears rainbow stall) 5-3, (blue nymph tears stall with 3 aether pends) 9-2

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dragonsdemesne · « **Reply #4 on:** November 09, 2013, 01:09:13 am »

NEPTUNE (monoaether + deflags off mark) 9-2

Spoiler for Hidden:

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5f6 5f6 5f6 61o 61o 61o 61o 61o 61o 61o 61o 61o 61o 61o 61o 61o 61s 61s 61t 61t 61t 61t 61t 61t 61v 61v 61v 61v 61v 61v 8po

Game 1: WIN. Stolen verbatim from majofa's threads. When chaining dims, make sure to take into account the fact that Neptune has a lot of shockwaves. I started the chain 1 turn earlier than I thought I needed it, and this ended up winning me the game, because I took a TON of shockwaves to the face. I never had to deflag a permafrost shield because it never showed up.

Game 2: WIN. I had a one pillar hand, but topdecked quite a few pillars in the next several turns. It was all I needed. Still never had to use the deflags, although with two in hand I nearly took out his poseidon while short on aether quanta, but I never did; I probably should have, but it didn't matter. It occurred to me while playing this game that one could ease the quanta requirement slightly by replacing one of the immortals with a short sword. It would deal 1 less damage, but it would cost 5 less quanta, and neptune can't deal with weapons. I'll probably do that next time, although it's a very minor improvement.

Game 3: WIN. Deflagged the only permafrost shield he ever got. I chained my dims really late, later than I should have, and the subsequent shockwaves brought me down to 5hp, but I won in the end without too much difficulty. I forgot to swap an immortal for a short sword, though.

Game 4: LOSS. Got only 2 pillars to start and all three deflags, which meant I had both a low damage output and only one dimshield. I ended up getting shockwaved to death from behind a dimshield. I put it up when I was at 15hp, and neptune had already spent 2 shockwaves, so I hoped I would be safe. Three shockwaves hit me the next turn, and I lasted a few more turns, but a final shockwave took me out.

Game 5: WIN. Got a little scary with the number of shockwaves pointed at my face after the dimshields came down, but I won with 18hp.
Game 6: WIN. Easy win. Faced two permafrosts but had two deflags.
Game 7: WIN. Easy.
Game 8: LOSS. Got 3 deflags, but Neptune had all 4 permafrosts, and was never down more than 1 turn without it. I ended up losing by one turn.
Game 9: WIN. Easy win.
Game 10: WIN. Won the turn my dimshield chain would have run out.
Game 11: WIN. Easy win despite a 2 quanta start.

OBLITERATOR 6-4 (LA with drain life)

Spoiler for Hidden:

Game 1: LOSS. Didn't have a very good game here. He got the shriekers out before the dragons, and I had to LS/AM them first to stay alive, and so they died before he drew the dragons. By then, I was out of antimatters, and he was out of (unburrowed) shriekers when I got 10 darkness for drain life. It can win games, for sure, but I'm not going to try it again; it won't have the win rate a counter should have. The idea was suggested by ColourlessGreen, but he might've had a totally different build; I didn't ask for his exact deck, he just gave me the rough idea.

Game 2: WIN. Absolutely owned Obliterator this time. However, I also had very good RNG which blessed me with a lot of quanta, and Obliterator didn't get his pulverizer until late, so he couldn't deny my quanta. He also led with dragons instead of shriekers (unlike the last time I tried this deck) so I was able to LA them without them dying to poison too soon, and then I either drained the shriekers or ignored them and let him burrow them. The deck would possibly be improved by something like -2 drain life +2 pendulum, which I might try next time.

Game 3: WIN. I decided not to make any changes to the deck after all. I got a 1 pend draw and thought I was screwed. I topdecked a couple more, and just barely managed to stabilize in time, partially due to a (if I do say so myself) well-placed liquid shadow on a shrieker so it couldn't burrow, thus letting me handle it the next turn, which might have made the difference. The fact that I made it at all with that hand was a miracle, although admittedly obliterator didn't get a pulverizer; had he, my pendulums would have been toast, as would I.

Game 4: LOSS. Bottomdecked 4 of the antimatters in the last 11 cards, and ended up being overwhelmed.

Game 5: WIN. I was one turn too slow to drain or AM the first shrieker before it burrowed, but I controlled almost everything else that showed up. I must have gotten all the drain lifes in the top half, and I think two of the antimatters. Pretty easy win, and an EM thanks to a final drain life to the face.

Game 6: LOSS. 2 pend start and early shriekers instead of dragons screwed me, since LS/AM didn't last as long.
Game 7: LOSS. Low quanta start, plus early pulverizer, and shriekers burrowing before I had quanta to do anything to them made for a terrible game.
Game 8: WIN. Just barely stabilized with antimatters in time.
Game 9: WIN. Easy win, got EM.
Game 10: WIN. Easy win.

OCTANE (reflective shield/stoneskin) 0-1 (AM/quint reflective) 0-1, (rainbow deckout stall with reflective shield) 1-3, improved reflective deckout 2-1

Spoiler for Hidden:

OSIRIS (flooded bones) 0-4

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52g 52g 52g 52g 52g 52g 52g 52g 52g 52n 52n 52n 52n 52n 52n 52r 52r 52r 52r 52r 52r 542 542 542 542 542 542 542 5i8 5i8 5i8 5i8 5i8 5i8 5ih 5ih 5ih 5ih 5ih 5ih 8pp

Game 1: LOSS. This was done as a rather silly idea I had brainstorming in chat. The funny thing is, I think it would have worked, but Osiris got two early momentums and I didn't get any icebolts all game. Perhaps with some purifies to outheal the momentum damage, or a bit better luck, or fewer copies of some of the other cards...

Spoiler for Hidden:

Game 2: LOSS. Ran a slight mod of this. It might have actually worked, but I misplayed due to counting damage wrong, and didn't play a bone wall when I should have.

Game 3: LOSS. 1 pend start pretty much sums it up. I managed to get out the bonewall/flooding combo (too late) and had two turns of hilarity as stuff everywhere died, but since I was at 11hp, I was within catapult OTK range. It took the AI those turns to figure out that it could actually kill me with catapults :p

Game 4: LOSS. I finally proved that this deck is a failure, in that I had a very good hand, and got everything to work just as planned. Early bone wall, early boneyards, early flooding, and lots of scarab production, along with three purifies. Osiris kept making scarabs, and they kept drowning, and my bone wall ended up growing to over 300 bones at the end. The scarabs would die, giving me lots of skeletons and walls, and then the skeletons would attack and die, giving me even more walls. The purifies kept me healing from the one momentumed creature he had early, and eventually I double icebolted it. Unfortunately, Osiris eventually got three trebuchets out and started catapulting things at me, and the 6hp healing/turn was simply not enough to overcome that. I did actually get 1 turn away from a win, with Osiris at 9hp, but I lost in the end.

PARADOX 1-0 (fractal hope), 6-2 (mindgate/dim/fractal silliness)

Spoiler for Hidden:

Game 1: WIN. I stole this deck verbatim from majofa's threads. I had pretty much a perfect draw; all the quanta I needed, one flayer early, a fractal on time for his RoLs, and a hope in hand ready to play as soon as I got enough light. I still barely won; even with that perfect draw, I only got control of the game at 8hp; had the AI had something like one more blessing in hand early, which is not unrealistic at all, I'd have lost. One miracle was played with RoL quanta that was accumulated before everything was lobotomized. The deck worked, but it's not going to have a good enough win rate to be considered a counter to him, so I'll be trying something else next time.

Spoiler for Hidden:

Game 2: WIN. I thought about trying a gravity/light deck with otyughs and sanctuaries and gravity shield; block all his big stuff, eat all his little stuff, and outheal his weapon. But then I thought of this hilarious deck. I didn't think it would work, but it was so funny I had to try it. And I did win :p It was extremely close, but I also had a 2 pillar start and didn't get another one until about 15 cards in. (2 pillars was just enough to keep a dimshield chain going, plus I had my sundials) The idea was to mindgate TUs for whatever the biggest creature on the board was, while stalling with dims and dials. I ended up discarding most of the mindgates and fractals due to quanta screw, though. By the end, I thought I was going to deck out, but Paradox didn't play a 3rd miracle when I thought he would, so I won. (I also only ever mindgated one TU all game, so I couldn't get much of an attack going; in retrospect, I should have included my own PUs) I'd have lost if I hadn't topdecked a luciferin to go along with the hope I had in hand, because I had no more dims left, and dials would have blocked my own attacks. I also managed to win with 99/100 hp thanks to a mindgated miracle. (had I not already spent the lucis to stay alive, the deck could actually EM in theory) I would -definitely- make some changes to this deck to improve it, based on how things played out. I'm pretty skeptical about this ever being a counter to Paradox, but holy crap was it ever funny to win with such a retarded deck.

Victory image (because this win was so ridiculous that nobody in their right mind would believe me otherwise)

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Game 3: WIN. This was so funny I had to try it again... Things were looking rather rough when I couldn't mindgate a TU for a very long time, and I feared I was going to deck out. The one blessed deja vu I had managed to force one miracle played, but it was slow going. Eventually I mindgated a TU (in triplicate, because I had three mindgates out by then) and with a host of 20/20 deja vus I quickly overwhelmed Paradox.

Game 4: WIN. Paradox didn't stack any one creature with blessings for a long time, so he got to play a lot of miracles. I came close to decking out, but eventually he ran out, and I got the win, while hiding behind an enormous hope shield.

Game 5: WIN. So awesome :p I love how a counter deck I built as a complete joke has gone 4-0 so far.

Game 6: WIN. Almost decked out due to stupid overuse of my own hourglasses, but paradox ran out of miracles when I had 1 card left in the deck.

Game 7: WIN. Terrible hand resulted in my being very worried, since I couldn't find a fractal or luciferin to get light quanta going, and paradox played three RoLs turn 1, so the odds of my mindgating them dropped. However, thanks to the AI discarding miracles (I know it had at least 3-4 that it threw away, due to my mindgates) I was able to kill Paradox without him playing any miracles. I never actually played a Hope; I just dimshielded/sundialed.

Game 8: LOSS. Got 1 dim and 1 dial all game, no hopes.
Game 9: LOSS. Dimshield/dial chain broke, and never drew hope. Mindgates didn't give me anything good all game.

RAINBOW (voodoo universe) 0-1, BH/momentum dunes 0-1, 60 card CC spells 0-3, another 60 card CC spells 0-1, yet another 60 card CC spells 2-5

Spoiler for Hidden:

SCORPIO (voodoo universe) 0-1, rainbow control 0-1, air/aether/water mindgate control 0-1, modded rainbow control 0-2

Spoiler for Hidden:

Game 1: LOSS. Never got a voodoo doll in the 20 cards I drew. I got a lot of sundials that I kept chaining, but the poison buildup killed me. Might have a chance with a purify or two tossed in, but probably not.

Some people in the scorpio thread mentioned a monoaether with purify variant, but I don't think it will work, at least not rareless. I once tried it upgraded to see if it would work, and scorpio's permafrost shield means you will almost always deck out before you can kill with elite phase dragons. Shards of wisdom would probably make that deck work, but as I'm trying to do it rareless, something else will have to suffice.

Spoiler for Hidden:

Game 2: LOSS. Pillars failed to produce enough aether for dimshield until I had way too much poison for it to matter. I think a variant of this should be successful, but this definitely needs tweaking. Wings blocks everything except the lone dragon, and pande kills his physalia/squid fairly well. Quinted queens to breed, deflags to remove permafrost, and the rest should be fairly obvious. Bonds for healing might make sense. I think the bone walls are probably a waste of space. It would be nice to fit more of... everything, but other than make the deck 60 cards, I'm not sure how to do that.

Spoiler for Hidden:

Game 3: LOSS. I dunno... I just thought it would be fun :p And it might have worked, but I only got 2 dims and no wings all game, so I ran out of stall about a third of the way into my deck. If I'd drawn more shields, I think it actually had a bit of a chance. The idea is to either win by deckout, or mindgate so many creatures that you win that way.

Spoiler for Hidden:

Game 4: LOSS. Game hates me; had purify in hand and made 1 water quanta all game.
Game 5: LOSS. Not sure if it's true or not, but I felt like I didn't get enough dials or dims as I should have. I think I'll probably redesign this, but some sort of 60 card stall with purifies is probably the way to go. Quinted FFQs, however, seem not to be.

SEISM (EA + dims/dragon/fractal) 0-3, rainbow stall 0-2

Spoiler for Hidden:

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592 592 592 592 5aa 5aa 5aa 5aa 5aa 5aa 5aa 5aa 5aa 5aa 5aa 5aa 5aa 5aa 5aa 5aa 61t 61t 61t 61t 61t 61t 61v 61v 61v 622 8pu

Game 1: LOSS. I got a great opening hand with EA and 6 pendulums, so I never got EQed all game. However, I only got 2 dims in the top 18 cards, so eventually the chain broke and I died. I put the 2nd EA drawn on seism's pulverizer, to try and clog his hand with his own PAs, but it didn't make any difference in the end; he drew too much good stuff to play. This would probably do okay with a better draw.

Game 2: LOSS. I got 2 EA and all 3 phase dragons in the opening hand. Never saw a dimshield all game, so 5 ttl.

Game 3: LOSS. Got only 1 pend in the opening hand, topdecked a second. Seism miraculously did not quicksand me, despite ending the turn with 4 quanta, so I slapped EA on the pends next turn. Lots of dimshields to start meant I could chain for a long time, but low quanta meant I couldn't play phase dragons for a long time. Eventually I got them out, but not until Seism had diamond shield. I ended up going through 5/6 dims, with the last one in the bottom 4 cards; had I drawn it as the 5th last card, I'd have won. Instead, I drew the fractal, and played a whole bunch of shriekers, so Seism ended at around 70hp instead of about 120. This deck looks really cool on paper, but in practice it's going to have a hard time winning. I had to chain dimshields as soon as I had 6 aether quanta because I was already 1 turn from death that early. Had I drawn the fractal earlier I could've won, as well. If all the stars align, this deck can scrape a few wins together, but I'm trying something new next time with a better chance.

Spoiler for Hidden:

Game 4: LOSS. I tried to put together a decent counter, but I had a terrible hand, getting only 2 quanta to start, and one of them was the time pend that was mostly included just to bait quicksands. I also failed to mindgate any pillars; Seism had a 1 pillar draw and didn't get any more for a long time, but that was enough to quicksand everything, because I didn't get any earth quanta for the five (!) enchant artifacts I had in the first 5-6 turns. I'm going to try this deck again, likely with modifications.

Game 5: LOSS. -2 mindgate +2 lightning. I did a lot better this time around, but with EA for only my quantum pillar stack early on, I didn't have enough quanta to both dimshield and mindgate often enough, so I couldn't build up any sort of attack all game, though I managed to chain dims/dials for a long time. I mindgated a pulverizer, which sounds better than it was; I destroyed his shield and pulverizer, but couldn't touch his PAed pillars. When I mindgated a dragon, I foolishly played it and it got rewound, costing me a draw, and possibly the game, depending on what I missed out on. I think it might be better to just use one type of pillar and cross your fingers that you get EA in time. In the two games I've played, I did have EA fairly early. One redundant EA can also be used on mindgated towers. I'll have to make some changes; in its current form, this deck isn't going to win.

SERKET (*countered*) (wings/dragon/precog) 13-0

Spoiler for Hidden:

xyan · « **Reply #5 on:** November 09, 2013, 01:10:10 am »

Quote from: dragonsdemesne on November 09, 2013, 01:09:13 am

okay fine, after this one, you can post

over-attached postmaker?

related: following this with interest

timetock · « **Reply #6 on:** November 09, 2013, 01:12:12 am »

following

CuCN · « **Reply #7 on:** November 09, 2013, 01:12:27 am »

Are you also going to post your fully upped counters?

Tsmuji · « **Reply #8 on:** November 09, 2013, 01:21:18 am »

Following for interest. I guess this could be a bit of a community effort too, I'd be willing to try any decks you post against oracle predictions every now and then.

dragonsdemesne · « **Reply #9 on:** November 09, 2013, 01:40:14 am »

Quote

Are you also going to post your fully upped counters?

I'll post them in a separate thread sometime tonight and link to it in 'resources', so as not to clutter this thread with them.

Quote

this could be a bit of a community effort too, I'd be willing to try any decks you post against oracle predictions every now and then.

Absolutely. The whole point of the decks in this thread will be for the community, especially newer players who can't afford upped cards and don't have 9001 rare weapons and shards and nymphs to use. Suggestions are certainly welcome. I have FG: Destiny today, so I'll design my counter for that and post the results above, and then I'll post my upped decks in another thread, along with their current W/L to date, which I've kept track of for my own purposes.

dawn to dusk · « **Reply #10 on:** November 09, 2013, 02:42:00 am »

following, it seems quite interesting

RulacMage11 · « **Reply #11 on:** November 09, 2013, 05:07:53 am »

following as well, and will definitely help test decks.

Author

dragonsdemesne

Dragonslaying 101 (Or, how to beat the false gods unupped with oracle counters) https://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php?topic=52272.msg1108414#msg1108414

dragonsdemesne

Re: Dragonslaying 101 (Or, how to beat the false gods unupped with oracle counters) https://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php?topic=52272.msg1108415#msg1108415

dragonsdemesne

Re: Dragonslaying 101 (Or, how to beat the false gods unupped with oracle counters) https://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php?topic=52272.msg1108416#msg1108416

dragonsdemesne

Re: Dragonslaying 101 (Or, how to beat the false gods unupped with oracle counters) https://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php?topic=52272.msg1108417#msg1108417

dragonsdemesne

Re: Dragonslaying 101 (Or, how to beat the false gods unupped with oracle counters) https://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php?topic=52272.msg1108418#msg1108418

xyan

Re: Dragonslaying 101 (Or, how to beat the false gods unupped with oracle counters) https://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php?topic=52272.msg1108421#msg1108421

timetock

Re: Dragonslaying 101 (Or, how to beat the false gods unupped with oracle counters) https://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php?topic=52272.msg1108422#msg1108422

CuCN

Re: Dragonslaying 101 (Or, how to beat the false gods unupped with oracle counters) https://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php?topic=52272.msg1108423#msg1108423

Tsmuji

Re: Dragonslaying 101 (Or, how to beat the false gods unupped with oracle counters) https://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php?topic=52272.msg1108425#msg1108425

dragonsdemesne

Re: Dragonslaying 101 (Or, how to beat the false gods unupped with oracle counters) https://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php?topic=52272.msg1108428#msg1108428

dawn to dusk

Re: Dragonslaying 101 (Or, how to beat the false gods unupped with oracle counters) https://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php?topic=52272.msg1108437#msg1108437

RulacMage11

Re: Dragonslaying 101 (Or, how to beat the false gods unupped with oracle counters) https://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php?topic=52272.msg1108451#msg1108451