| June 2016 | | Trials are here! Happy 7th birthday Elements! |
| | - Trials is here! Sit back, grab some popcorn, and watch the show! Currently in the community vote phase. Be sure to ask your questions before it's too late. The more the better!
- Budokan is now in the signup phase! Claim your spot before the time runs out!
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- Elements'Paint with Elements competition is in the voting phase. Get those votes in before it's too late!
- The War Memorial competition is well underway. Get your submissions in before the time runs out!
| | |  - Names! There are names everywhere! May 7th's Upgraded Name Game Tournament was certainly a namely one! Players had to build their decks based on the cards that had the first letter of their name based on "Trials Hype"! In the end, it was iancudorinmarian who claimed his victory. His decks can be found here! A small interview below:
Spoiler for Hidden: Did you like the tourney in general? How about the rules?
I generally like name game tournaments, and this was no exception. The addition of upgraded cards was great too. And of course, my favourite card, SoSe and another one of my favourite cards, Supernova, were both allowed, so I managed to create my favourite type of deck: A SoSebow!
When, for you, was the most exciting moment of the tournament?
Most exciting moment was when I was playing Catatitans against Dani's mono aether. She would've won if she topdecked a PU at any given time, but fortunately it didn't happen. I was literally trembling with excitement and fear at the same time during that game. Good thing I don't have heart problems.
In just a short sentence, or even one word, how would you summarize the whole tournament?
Interesting and fun.
- It's FOOTY dammit! EtG may not be a sport, but May 14th's Unupgraded FIEA Tournament was certainly one that caught the eye of many, sports fans and EtG fans alike! Players had to build decks based on the combination of several team flag colors represented by the elements (Brazil: Life, Time, Water, and Germany: Darkness, Fire, Time, etc.) The matches were tense, and it was RootRanger who came out champion in the end! His decks remain a secret, however, a small interview below may give us a clue: Congratulations, Root!
- Randomness! May 21st's Unupped Speedbuilding: Random is Key was more fun than it looked!Players had to build decks based on random numbers designated by TO dice rolls - two d10s for creatures and spells, and a d6 for permanents. They also had to use the exact number of permanents, creatures, and spells in each deck. You'd have to be there to believe all the excitement! It was Solaris who came out on top however, with a very close win against ji412jo. His decks can be found here! A small interview below: Congratulations on your first win of many, Sol!
- That moment when you need to get a calculator. May 28th's Splitting 12 a Dozen Ways tournament definitely got the brains of the players working things through. Players had to build decks based on cards quanta costs divisible by 12. (2 cost could be used 6 times, 4 cost could be used 3 times, etc). In the end, it was JCJ and his killer decks that reign champion of the number 12! A small interview below:
Spoiler for Hidden: Did you like the tourney in general? How about the rules?Really enjoyed the rules. Few decks could be built exactly as they stand in the meta, so you had to get creative.When, for you, was the most exciting moment of the tournament?During deckbuilding, thinking about what people were likely to bring, I realised that there were'd many decent stalls that were buildable, but that stall breakers were also fairly hard. I focused on making a great stall, and fell upon the idea of using Shard of bravery to achieve deckout, because the rules meant that it would be hard to put much damage in most decks, so a good stall should do well. I realised I could use SoB to race through a deck of Entropy Pillars, giving great stall with diss field (so long as they brought little PC). I finished off the deck with Pandemonium, and it won 2-0.In just a short sentence, or even one word, how would you summarize the whole tournament?Troll stalls best stalls 
| - BL and CL has started! Get ready to charge into battle with your enemies, or have a relaxed fight with a few buddies, and get those games in!
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| - RootRanger's Mafia 59, 1984 Mafia, nears its conclusion! The game opened with Linkcat opposing returning veteran Demagog's controversial plan in an extended argument, and continued with a string of town lynches and both players falling in the night. Then, rob77dp was confirmed as town by Espithel's save, and after the mafia left him alive, he used what he had learned from watching the Championship to guide the town into three straight mafia lynches! They now stand on the cusp of victory as they hunt for the final member!
- In the 2016 Mafia World Championship, the town lynched 3 mafia in the first three days, but has had no luck on the final member, and our own Linkcat has been lynched under questionable circumstances. Nearing 5000 posts, this is surely a game to watch for any fan of mafia!
- Submachine's Witch Game 5 has drawn to a close! The humans managed to solve five of the seven mysteries, but unfortunately Sub has ended the game after its lengthy duration in order to focus more on his studies. Congratulations to Fippe94 and Kuroaitou for carrying the humans as far as they did!
- Kuroaitou's Quantafied 2 is all but finished! Linkcat has continued his deadly rampage, and only three players remain. He has agreed to spare mathman101 so that they can kill 1011686 to secure the remaining Master of Games points after majofa took first place. The rest is just a formality, as long as math keeps his end of the deal...
- Submachine's RUNAWAY has stalled! There has been sufficient player interest, but where is the host?
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- Card Curator voting is underway. Stay tuned to see who the chosen will be!
Big hugs and thank-yous to this month's donors!
Indium Donors:
HookedOnFonics
Meeting with this, please check the Forum Hosting Status and consider donating. The forums are funded until October 1st.
Is your name Ian? (ProBacon)
Nope, it's Iancu Dorin Marian. "Ian" is just the laziness of people in action.
I know you will probably get a lot of questions about Trials/War, so I'll opt for something different. What do you like to do off of Elements, aside from Hearthstone? Do you attend any clubs/do anything extracurricular? (Solaris)
Not really, I spend most of my time at the computer. And I also play fifa on my ps3, but that's about it. I am very lazy. I am also the designated driver for my family most of the time, since my father likes to drink and I don't drink (not due to religious reasons or anything like that, I simply don't) anyway. Plus, I really like driving, so it's a win-win situation.
How does it feel to have Discord as a minion?  (Aves)
Well...
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New Members
Spoiler for Introduction posts: Here are the members who posted in the Introduce Yourself board (but not later than in 2 months prior to Newsletter). Just click a certain name to be redirected to corresponding introduction post. Don't be rude, say hello to new comers  |
The Blue DenialBow This Deck idea of the Month is brought to you by Afdarenty
Hover over cards for details, click for permalink 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vl 4vl 4vl 593 5oc 5oc 5oc 5oc 5oc 5oc 5oc 5p0 5p0 5p0 5p0 5p0 5rk 5rk 6u3 6u3 6u3 74f 74f 77j 7ms 7ms 7ms 8pj
Continuing to highlight powerful PVP decks, I bring you a deck used by Team Air in both Wars #8 and #9. The deck uses a powerful selection of denial cards to disrupt your opponent, and the devastating Blue Nymph to finish games. Don't feel that you can't play this deck if you don't have 5 Blue Nymphs - just swap them for Azure Dragons or upgraded Wyrms. In fact, Wyrms are more effective than the Nymphs against decks with Reverse Time or Reflective Shields, though they leave you more vulnerable to the majority of shields.
Card by card:
Nova/Supernova: The most efficient way to provide quanta for the various denial cards, as well as the Fire quanta needed to trigger Unstable Gas. Although Nova/Supernova generate a lot of wasted quanta, focusing on the core strategy is more important than quanta efficiency here. Although Supernova provides more quanta, Nova will allow you to play Discord one turn earlier. This is the reason for the 3/3 split in the deck.
Discord: Arguably the best denial card in the game. This will slow down most decks you play against by two to three turns. Synergises well with Black Hole and Earthquake.
Earthquake/Quicksand: Slows down your opponents quanta generation significantly. An individually powerful card that becomes ridiculous when used with either Discord or Black Hole, or ideally both.
Blue Nymph: The main source of damage in the deck. If you have the quanta to use their ability each turn they become a 26 damage creature - far more powerful than any other creature in the game. They also give the deck an excellent solution to shields.
Reverse Time: Cheap creature control. Forcing your opponent to pay double the quanta cost of their creature will often be enough to lock your opponent out of the game when used with all the other denial cards.
Black Hole: A combo card that enables Discord to work at maximum efficiency and punishes slow quanta production after Earthquakes.
Strategy:
Your game plan is similar against all decks. Use your denial cards (Discord, Earthquake and Black Hole) to slow down your opponent and to protect your Nymphs, use your Nymphs to generate a lot of Unstable Gas, then enjoy the explosive end to the game.
When using Reverse Time, make sure to only target creatures that can effect the outcome of the game. For example, don't feel the need to Rewind your opponents Horned Frog. Wait for them to play Adrenaline on it first, then Rewind it. That way it will really hurt them. Similarly, it is rarely worthwhile to use your Earthquakes on only 1 Pillar or Pendulum.
Strengths:
Blue Nymph is a notoriously difficult card to deal with, even without factoring denial into the mix. Discord, Earthquake, Black Hole and Reverse Time all synergise extremely well with each other. If you draw the right combination of cards few decks will be able to keep up with you.
Weaknesses:
Occasionally you'll have draws where you don't draw many Nova, leaving you unable to play your denial cards, or a draw without many Air Pillars, leaving you with slow damage. Reflective Shields will prevent all of your damage from Unstable Gas, slowing the deck significantly. Decks using Nova and Immolation will allow your opponent to play creatures quickly despite your denial cards, however Black Hole and Reverse Time are especially effective against those strategies.
Speaking of Black Hole and Reverse Time against nova decks, both are effective cards against this deck. Nymphs are expensive creatures, so one Reverse Time can slow you down by two or three turns, and Black Hole is strong denial and healing against Nova. Also, any deck with enough creature control to kill your Nymphs can cause you problems if they escape the quanta lock.
Alternate Cards Selections:
As mentioned earlier, Wyrms and Azure Dragons both fit into the deck well, and Fog is worth considering in any Air deck. Purify is a good tech card if you expect Poison decks. Quintessence is a fine card to include as a 1-off if you expect to play decks with a lot of creature control cards. Forest Spirit can become a major threat if given enough time, although it starts off slowly.
This Card review was written by Hyroen
Art by: HERE & HERE
Originally designed by Manipul8r, this theme and card were reworked and by Xenocidius, much like the last CIotM of this year. Reinventing the classic  Life archetype of Natural Selection, this design follows a similar theme as the card currently included in Cygnia, Survival Trait | Survival Trait. Another card involving the mechanism of creature generation, Natural Selection | Evolution can be included among cards such as Mitosis,  Fractal and Parallel Universe, however its mechanic has a certain  Death twist in that those that are not destroyed propagate. Despite this, however, it rewards and specifically interacts with creatures that are alive and this makes the mechanic and card have more of a Life theme than the Death theme that some suggested.
Creature Generation
Being relatively cheap, cards such as Immolation and Owl's Eye can make this card quite dangerous, especially considering that the effects of this card stack whether upgraded or not. Despite its thematic low cost in Life it is still a bit limited in the sense that both versions require a creature death, and as such, both versions require more than 1 creature being on the field. It is also important to note that while the standard Natural Selection focuses on generating a copy of one of your creatures in play when another of your creatures is killed, the upgrade focuses on buffing any of the same creatures as the one that was destroyed. As such, the standard version is much trickier to use in that the destruction of creatures generated by Natural Selection will result in propagation of only different creatures in play, whereas the destruction of creatures buffed by Evolution will, indeed, produce more of the same creatures, however it will result (especially with repeated effects of Evolution) in bulkier creatures of the same type and thus, it will be more difficult to replicate specifically the same creature.
Here is a deck designed by Hyroen that shows an effective way to use Natural Selection | Evolution!
Deck 1:
Hover over cards for details, click for permalink 4t9 4t9 4t9 7am 7am 7am 7am 7ap 7ap 7ap 7dm 7dm 7dp 7dp 7dp 7dp 7dp 7dp 7ds 7ds 7ds 7ds 7ds 7ds 7f2 7f2 7f2 7f2 7f2 7f2 8pn
(Relics represent Evolution)
A  / duo which capitalizes on Life's strength's to heal, generate creatures and through Evolution, strengthen them as well. As the Phoenix is a resilient creature, it makes an ideal candidate for Cremation when a buff is welcome and also makes use of the fact that whether massively buffed or recently played Cremation can be played on any creature on one's side of the field. This is aside from the fact that Minor Phoenixes in particular come out quickly and their Ash counterpart when the Minor Phoenix is destroyed is a relatively bulky 0|5 ideally suited for Mitosis. Feral Bonds make use of the resilience of the Phoenix as the healing largely only grows and Creature Control will have a -very- difficult time mitigating the healing provided. Mitosis is included not only for Feral Bond synergy but also to be able to Cremate weaker and more frail Minor Phoenixes and have Evolution buff all the others. Explosions are packed for pesky Dimension Shields and other potentially dangerous permanents.
Life is classically seen as the element of survival, vigor, and organic in contrast to Death which is associated with elimination, silence and the end of the road for an organism. Though contrasts, Natural Selection | Evolution shows that it is through Death that the worthy survive and are rewarded in Life. Once again a CIotM which can be seen as archetypal, Natural Selection | Evolution represents a classic concept of the Life element and would make an excellent addition to its arsenal.
To see more of Xenocidius's work check his portfolio HERE.
Until next time!
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Gl hf!
Many thanks to:
-iancudorinmarian for the interview~
-Afdarenty for DiotM.
-ProBacon for Puzzle of the month.
-mathman101 for tourney proofreading.
-Hyroen for CiotM.
-Linkcat for Forum Games section.
-all readers for reading
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