| July 2016 | | Trials is over!
New Newsletter Writer! |
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- Budokan is underway now. The fight rages to prove worthiness and claim the title of Budosei!
- The 10th Trials are now officially concluded! Congratulations to the following:
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- Deckbuilders everywhere picked up the pieces from the last Card Design War to make something new in a War Memorial. Victory was awarded to JonathanCrazyJ for Watering the Garden Gnomes!
- Speaking of Card Design War, its third lifetime has begun. Card designers compete to see who thrives and who gets cast into the darkness as parasites. Round 1 flashed by already - keep an eye out for voting each time as the rounds continue!
| | | - Wipe the dust of those cards from the bottom of your collection! June 4th's Forgotten No More upgraded tournament was one to remember! Participants had to build decks using the 50 least used cards in the game! In the finals, it was inthisroom who claimed the victory. Though he may not have shared his decks, and unfortunately didn't want a small interview, we congratulate him nontheless! Good luck in future tournaments itr!
- "And now, I will play this card!" "Lol nope, you don't!". June 11th's unupgraded Master of Denial is certainly a very interesting tournament! Players had to build decks with at least 6 denial cards, at leat 6 creatures, and maximum 30 cards in a deck! In the end, DANIEELA proved to be the true queen of denial with her smashing decks! A small interview below:
Congrats DANI!
- Potluck time! June 18th's tournament was none other than the classic Potluck Speedbuild! Players had to build decks following these rules: No pillars, trio deck, must have an equal number of creatures and spells. Afdarenty was the one to emerge victorious this time! His decks remain a mystery however! A small interview below:
Spoiler for Hidden: Did you like the tourney in general? How about the rules?
The Potluck rule set is always a gamble. The randomised rules this time were okay, I thought, though my favourite tournaments are the ones where everyone is bringing a different set of decks to everyone else. This tournament there was a heavy incentive to play denial decks, which in turn led to lots of immolation and nova - these three were almost every deck I played or played against. But hey - it's Potluck, it can't be perfect every time, and I had fun figuring all this out and building decks to counter.
When, for you, was the most exciting moment of the tournament?
In the first game of the final, me and worldwideweb timed out. We played it out against AI, and I lost. I knew I'd have a very hard time winning the next two games so I was feeling pretty down, but then worldwideweb lost against the AI on his side too. It's very rare for two human players to both lose against the AI like that. It turns out that my Discord did a beautiful job of scrambling his quanta on his side of the game, much better than on my side. In the replay of Game 1 my draw was excellent, and winning that game left me in a very strong position to win the final.
In just a short sentence, or even one word, how would you summarize the whole tournament?
Pot-lucky.
- Food for thought: We eat food, not thoughts! In which case, June 25th's unupgraded Iron Chef of Elements tournament was full of "food"! Contestants had to build decks following these rules: No monos, Each deck must include at least one spell, one creature, and one weapon as well as two non-preparation, food, or utensil card. A list was provided. By the end of the night, it was rob77dp who was crowned as master chef of Elements with his astonishing decks! A small interview below:
Spoiler for Hidden: Did you like the tourney in general? How about the rules?
I liked the tournament, generally, despite a few oddities about the rules or inclusions of cards as food (Gargoyle, Shrieker), prep (Deflagration, Holy Light), or utensil (Titan).
When, for you, was the most exciting moment of the tournament?
The most exciting moment of the tourney was at the point the final was assured as 2-0 in my favor. Having never won a tournament before (finished fourth after making the final in my very first October 2012) that was quite a euphoria I hadn't experienced before.
In just a short sentence, or even one word, how would you summarize the whole tournament?
Pre-planned and minimizing instincts.
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- Six weeks have gone by though it seems like this season just began. Yet if you haven't started, don't despair! Still have two more weeks to join in and half the season ahead to climb the ladder to victory!
- (July 16th) League links are back up to date!
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- Dare you enter the maze? Relic Sweeper 3 is now live, challenging those bold enough to try. Artifacts long forgotten await...as does death. Even though the game is going, sign-ups are still open if you feel brave.
- Elements Mafia 60 is four days in, with casualties on both sides. Civilians or criminals, humans or robots...anyone could come out on top from this fray.
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- Council is currently hiring one new Brawlmaster. Go apply now before the time runs out!
Tea Time with JenkarBelow is the portion of an interview: Call it now - what is the outcome of War 10? (Anonymous)
Hard to say without knowing what the new masters are going to be.
I have high hopes for light & air, but i think... Darkness again.
On what device are you currently answering this question? Be specific about brand, model, and OS, please. (Anonymous)
A macbook Air (13 inch) from early 2014. Os is Yosemite.
What's your favourite kind of happiness, and what kind of happiness do you feel best represents you? (CleanOnion)
I have a two way tie there....
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New Members
Spoiler for Introduction posts: Here are the members who posted in the Introduce Yourself board within the past month. Just click a certain name to be redirected to the corresponding introduction post. Don't be rude, say hello to newcomers!  |
Deck Idea of the Month
Shocking The Void by AfdarentyThis deck review was written by dark ripperHover over cards for details, click for permalink 5lj 5lj 5og 7ms 7ms 7ms 7ms 7ms 7ms 7ms 7ms 7ms 7ms 7n0 7n0 7n5 7n5 7n5 7n7 7n7 7n7 7n7 7n7 7n7 7u2 7u2 7u2 7u2 7u2 7u2 8pt
The deck featured this month was made by Afdarenty.
Since it's Trials time, I said I would review a trials deck. This time we saw a particular shard making its debut in trials and be played quite a lot.That would be the Shard Of Void. Several trialists decided to build SoV stalls for their own reasons, some succeeded and some didn't. But it looks fun to play, doesn't it?! (This deck was not altered at all)
Card by card:
Mark Of Darkness: Since the only quanta in the deck are air quanta, mark of darkness alone fuels the Shards of Void.
Wind Tower: Wind Towers are used here in order to play the air cards as fast as possible. Pends wouldn't be the correct choice here since the only darkness cards are the 1 darkness quanta SoV's.
Shard Of Void: The core of the deck. All the cards in this deck play a secondary role to buy enough time for the SoV's to eat away the opponent's hp.
Shockwave: Shockwaves act as the primary CC of the deck. With just one air quantum you can kill any targettable creature with 4 or lower hp. Plus, it can be used sometimes as a finisher when the SoV's have eaten enough hp.
Fog Shield: Hax shield is obviously OP. Jk. An easy shield to play that can block 100 40% of the opponent's creatures and weapons attack. It tries to buy enough time for the SoV's to do their job.
Eagle's Eye: Air's weapon is a very good addition to this deck. Not only does it deal decent (7) damage to the opponent but it acts as CC when needed. For some creatures with more than 4 hp that shockwaves cannot kill, or for rushes that shockwaves just aren't enough. Of course it can be used as finisher as well.
Luciferin: Huh? Luciferin? ... Afda pls... some people might say. But in a trial's match those 10 hp that a luciferin can offer might be what grants you the win. Since it doesn't cost quanta from a particular element it's easy enough to add to this deck.
Strategy:
The strategy for this deck is quite simple. Play all your cards as fast as possible and try to prevent the opponent from rushing you till your SoV's eat enough hp. Ideally you want a quick fog shield, an EE by turn ~3, a couple of shockwaves on hand and ~3-4 SoVs in the first ~10 cards. That way you have enough damage and enough stall to accomplish your goal.
Strengths:
This deck is essentially a stall. So decks that rely on brute rush wont work easily against it. Every deck that rushes with low hp creatures. For example grabbows or immorushes will find themselves lack damage after shockwaves and EEs kill their creatures. Also, stalls that depend on healing are useless against this deck or stalls that dont have damage. In general, decks that dont pack PC will have a hard time playing vs this deck.
Weaknesses:
Of course, SoV stall has several weakness as well. Quite a lot of cards are counters to such a deck. It hates PC, too much damage, SoD based stalls with damage, 1HKO decks, quinted creatures(+SoW), cloaks, Poison, high hp creatures,Fahrenheit+Bolts etc. are bad matchups for this deck.
This Card review was written by Hyroen
Art by: Krava found HERE.
The concept of increasing damage output after having taken damage is already a significant part of  Fire's theme as seen in the card Rage Potion | Rage Elixir. Though Anarook manages to capture the creature form of this concept cleanly and properly in this card idea, it is a recurring concept in the element of Fire which can assuredly be found even in the archives of Kongregate's card idea thread. Blood Rager | Blood Berserker increases in attack by 1 ATK for every 10HP that the player has lost. This allows it to passively increase in attack, however it is limited to an increase of 9 points in its attack, to a limit of 12 |14 with a typical maximum HP of 100. Furthermore, this creature relies on the player receiving damage to reach its full potential, meaning that if this creature faces a stalling deck low on damage potential, Blood Rager | Blood Berserker fails to do much at all.
Main Attacker
While not being the most efficient damage for its cost, this card is most at home being a main source of damage. However, this card does expect incoming damage, and otherwise faces serious issues against stalling decks. While Fire Bolts may help in an self-damaging OTK type of deck, the reliability provided by increasing max HP through  Shard of Divinity or  Stone Skin is impressive and furthermore, falls right into Fire duo territory.
Here is a deck designed by Hyroen that shows an effective way to use Blood Rager | Blood Berserker!
Deck 1:
Hover over cards for details, click for permalink 4t9 4t9 4t9 4t9 4t9 4t9 778 778 778 778 778 778 77k 77k 77k 77k 77k 77k 78q 78q 78q 78q 78q 78q 78q 7dl 7dl 7dl 7dm 7dm 7dm 7dm 8po
(Relics represent Blood Berserker)
As discussed above, the ability for Stone Skin to push the attack cap of this creature much higher than it originally was means that as long as 20 damage was taken and (ideally) 20 or more HP has been increased through the use of the first Stone Skin, Blood Rager | Blood Berserker becomes at least a 1:1 cost:attack creature. Furthermore, due to the stalling potential of this deck through the use of Fire Shield and Stone Skin, it is possible that this deck will outlast other classic rushes, as such, 2 more cards are included over the classic 30 card deck in order to defeat them. Where this deck truly suffers is against stalls, where damage output is low and card count is high. In this case, it may be prudent to include a couple of Fire Bolts to simply have the option of late-game self-damage for a massive increase to Blood Berserkers in play, or to simply be able to bolt the opponent. Explosions should help against most permanent-heavy stalls, however, in the general case, this deck will have difficulties against the classic stall.
Fire is classically seen as the element of fury, destruction and, in some cases, renewal. Blood Rager | Blood Berserker does its element justice if not in its design, artwork or balance (which it does), it certainly does in represent a classic mechanic represented a number of times in an element that is happy to go off in a blaze of glory as long as it means burning down all who may oppose it.
To see more of Anarook's work check his portfolio HERE.
Until next time!
Puzzle of the Month
At a party, everyone shook hands with everybody else. There were 66 handshakes. How many people were at the party?
Trivia Question of the Month New this month! A fact which relates back to Elements will be featured, with a question one month and its answer in the next.
(Please read and try before consulting Wikipedia.)
In recognition of Darkness which currently holds sway over the forum...look at the past of an iconic creature that steals life: the vampire.
Bram Stoker is widely credited with defining the modern image of the vampire though his book Dracula, published in...
Many thanks to:
- Jenkar for the interview.
- ProBacon for Puzzle of the Month.
- dark ripper for DiotM.
- Hyroen for CiotM.
- All readers for reading!
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