| November 2016 | | New League Organizer War continues! |
| | - WAR continues! Since last month, we have said farewell to seven teams. ( ) The surviving five have made it into Round 10, with Air (337) and Gravity (299) having a strong lead in cards, trailed by Water (207) and Earth (199) with Darkness (105) still hanging on to the game.
- Double Double Double Double is nearly through Round 1, though everyone is still in as the competition is of course a double elimination.
|
- Elemements challenges local inspirational poster artists to display their work. And by inspirational poster they mean satirical, cynical, and hopefully funny memes that tie back to our beloved game. For great justice!
| | | - You can say that twice, Double Trouble had us doubling and quadrupling the cost brackets of each of the cards in our decks in October 1st's tournament. Timdood3 managed to survive right to the end, cutting each of his opponents in half. The following is all he had to say on the matter:
- Illusions including the mystery of magic and nature baffled our participants as they fought using a magical or natural set of elements in October 8th's Naturalists vs Magicians tournament. TheonlyrealBeef showed us just how Natural he could be by going all the way to the top. Unfortunately, we didn't get an interview.
- Squares, standard playing cards, and our tourney this week all have something in common; #4. Four of a Kind tasked players creating unique decks that revolved around the number 4. Guess who went for a second trophy in a row, TheonlyrealBeef decided to top the charts once again with another victory. We could not get an interview, however.
- Fast, quick, hurried are all words describing the effects of this weeks tournament! Speedbuilding 7x7 was pulled archives and used again on October 22nd to show off who could build the best decks the fastest from a random set of cards. mathman101 walked away from the fight with a smile and trophy for winning another tournament. When asked "Would you 60 gravity pillar stall for a klondike bar?" mathman avoided the question with a response about the tourney instead:
- Seasons cycle through the months of the year, but this week you can keep one season around during all your matches. By choosing one of the four seasons and using its related elements, Spielkind showed us how strong the winter can be in October 29th's Seasons as he cast his way into a victory. Steal a look inside his mind and how he interpreted the tournament:
Spoiler for Hidden: Did you like the tourney in general?I like tourneys in general, read about every week and think about what would I have played. That tourney this week was my first after no idea, 2 years cause of bad timing, so the theme wasn't why I participated, it was the time. How about the rules?The rulez I like really, they are understandable but complex, not easy, and it makes very different possibilities of the meta and the enemy-decks. Good I found the right potion between rush and stall, without losing against bigger stalls.When, for you, was the most exciting moment of the tournament?It was at 1:0 vs glennfoo, he killed me with my own nymphs after tons of pande on my horde, letting my hope with only 3 light creatures gone, cause never drew another fractal to win... but then I dropped the right counter for his deck and won. But when you can't do anything and see your nymphs copying on the other side of the field and letting you alone.... not that nice. But then comes pesital, what else In just a short sentence, or even one word, how would you summarize the whole tournament?Winter is coming. Grats spiel!
| - Battle League: This season has seen 50 matches to date - and flyingcat is currently in the forefront with 1556 points!
- The season is halfway through but that means there's still half of it left and still time to join in on the action!
|
| - Fabian771's Code Crash began earlier this month, though as it proceeds the actions of the coders and hackers remain known mostly to themselves as the game takes place in a secret electronic battle.
- Mafia 63 by skyironsword saw the battle rage between the strawberries and the other fruits! A very few civilian fruits survived the carnage to live to tell the tale!
- Mafia 64 by Demagog has been announced; stand by for further details.
- Fippe94's psychological strategy game Paradise Lost 3 is in its first of several separate games, pitting players against each other in the mentality of 'if not being first, at least not being last'.
|
Please take a look at our Forum Hosting Status and consider donating! Remember, you can get a fancy forum icon for yourself! $5 for bronze donor, $20 for silver donor, $80 for gold donors, and $320 for indium donors!
What's your favorite game that has occurred on the forums? (Lunaris)
Despite my performance last time around, I do quite like brawl as a whole.
What do you think your spirit animal is? (anonymous)
I dunno, a kiwi bird?
How do you think that we could improve not only EtG, but the community as well? (Lunaris)
Perhaps branch out to other games...
| 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 The Selfless Golem by AfdarentyThis deck review was written by AfdarentyHover over cards for details, click for permalink 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 71u 71u 71u 71u 71u 71u 786 786 786 786 786 7ee 7ee 7ee 7ee 7ee 7ee 7qb 7qb 816 816 816 816 816 816 8pk Use Shard of Integrity to create a huge, Immaterial, Spell Damage creature while using your Shards of Sacrifice to stay alive until the late game! Designed for use in Platinum Arena - 46% winrate over 50 games!
Card by card:
Mark of Death: Being able to chain your Shards of Sacrifice is key for this deck. The most reliable way to do this is by using a Mark of Death.
Nova: Nova is the engine for the entire deck - want to draw cards to get that extra SoSac? Make your Shard Golem deal spell Damage? Play your Golem in the first place? Use Nova.
Shard of Sacrifice: Most decks in Plat will be able to deal 100 damage to you before you can deal 200 damage to them - or at least, without Shard of Sacrifice they would. This card gives you the extra turns you need to win the damage race.
Shard of Integrity: The win condition of your deck. This removes all the Shards in your hand and makes a Shard Golem with them. The more shards that were in your hand, the more powerful your Golem is - and there are a ton of Shards in this deck. If you have 2 Shards of Wisdom in your hand the Golem you make with be Immaterial. This is key to beating many Plat decks.
Shard of Bravery: The card draw from Shard of Bravery helps improve the consistency of the deck a ton. Whether you need more Shards of Sacrifice to keep you alive, more Shards of Wisdom to add spell damage to your Golem, or just need to draw your Shard of Integrity at the start of the game - Shard of Bravery has you covered. As an added bonus, it adds more attack to your Golem than any other Shard.
Precognition: This is in here for similar reasons to Shard of Bravery - card draw. As a bonus, the often overlooked ability to see your opponents hand is far from irrelevant in this deck. You can check if you opponent has Purify waiting to counter your Shards of Sacrifice, how much burst damage they have, if they're playing any Creature Control cards, and more.
Shard of Wisdom: The most important card to go into your Shard of Integrity. If you have 2+ of these in your hand when you play Shard of Integrity your Golem will be Immaterial, countering all kinds of Creature Control. Not only that - if you play Shard of Wisdom on your Immortal Golem it will let it deal Spell Damage! This lets you punch through the vast majority of shields, and makes your Golem very difficult to slow down.
Strategy: In most matches, you'll want to draw with your Shards of Bravery and Precognitions until you have 2 Shards of Wisdom, then play your Golem ASAP. It's also important to draw two Nova early - this lets you use a 3rd Shard of Wisdom on your Golem and gain spell damage. This deck can be difficult to play perfectly, particularly in the early game. This isn't a deck that gets a lot of wins with Elemental Mastery - often, if you try to, you'll lose a match you could have won. Be as safe with your Shards of Sacrifice as you can be. In most Shard Golem decks, you want to make your Golem as large as possible in the early game. With this deck, you're less worried about how large your Golem is, and more worried about drawing all your combo pieces. It's much better to have a Shard of Sacrifice in your hand than it is to have it in your Golem!
The key to success is knowing how to use your card draw. If you need a 2nd Nova, don't use your Shard of Bravery to make your Golem stronger - draw with it! Similarly, if you already have 2 Shards of Wisdom, play your Shard of Integrity before you play your Precognition. There's a chance the card you draw is the 3rd Shard of Wisdom you need to make your Golem Immortal, or the Shard of Sacrifice that will give you 2 extra turns to win the game! It's also important not to play your Nova when you don't need them. When you play Shard of Sacrifice you'll lose most of your Quanta - this can leave you unable to play your cards if you wasted your Nova early on.
It helps if you know what you're playing against. Precognition can help you to scout out what you're playing against. There are some tips below:
- Against denial decks, such as Fractal-Pests or Discord-Black Hole, having an Immortal Golem often isn't that important. Don't wait for a 2nd Shard of Wisdom - get your damage in ASAP!
- Against decks with Vampires, you can use your Shards of Sacrifice to prevent the AI from playing creatures. This will stop them from healing, but it's a high risk play if they have 10 or less damage out.
- Against decks with Silence, don't be afraid to play your Shards of Sacrifice a turn or two earlier than you normally would. Better too early than too late!
Strengths: The major strength of this deck is that it decimates Plat decks with low HP. In my 50 match sample, I only lost 2 out of 14 games against Plat decks with less than 140 health.
Purify is much less of a problem than you might imagine. As Shard Golems are a very fast source of damage, you spend less time with Shard of Sacrifice active with this deck than you would with, say, Poison Dials. This gives your opponent a smaller window to draw the Purify. Also, the AI will typically waste Purify early game by targeting their own health. If your main source of damage is Poison this is a big set back, but not for this deck! In 50 games, Purify was played 11 times. I only lost one match as a result of Purify whilst Shard of Sacrifice is active.
Control Bows can't do a thing about your Immortal Golem other than hope to heal more damage than your Golem can dish out. As these decks are quite slow, you can often fight through one Miracle to win the match. You'll see these decks quite often.
You also have a strong match up against Denial decks - another Platinum staple. Unlike most decks, you play all your damage instantly - you don't need to wait for pillars to make quanta for you. Their denial cards don't hurt you at all, and they're typically quite slow - this gives you plenty of time to get your damage in.
This is also a very quick deck - both to win with, and to lose with. Over 50 matches, my average game length was only 6.66 turns. This is excellent in a grinder!
Weaknesses: It's important to stress that once Plat decks start to dip below 100 health or so, many of these bad match ups become quite favourable - the Shard Golem is extremely fast, and can often just race them.
Ghostmare is a 'nightmare' to play against with this deck. Their draw denial from Nightmare stops you from drawing the Shards of Sacrifice you need to keep health, and Shard of Integrity forces you to empty your hand for them. Decks that can outheal your damage are also a major problem - Life decks with many Shards of Gratitude, Light decks with many Miracle, or Darkness decks with many Vampires will all cause you problems.
Very fast decks - usually Mono Air or Mono Death - will also cause you trouble. To beat a 200hp Mono Air you need a Spell Damage Golem in the first few turns, so you can deal damage past their Fog, followed by 3 or 4 Shards of Sacrifice. It's far from impossible, but a lot of the time you'll be missing something and narrowly lose. Mono Death is a particularly difficult match as often they play Shards of Sacrifice themselves. This lets them heal off a lot of your damage.
Finally, this deck can be quite draw dependent to play - some games you'll have a great match up but lose anyway, because you didn't draw a second Shard of Wisdom against a Control Deck, or you drew your Shard of Integrity too slowly, or you didn't get the Shard of Sacrifice you needed to stay alive. In one extreme example, I played against a Mono Entropy deck with no damage - only Antimatter and Dissipation Shield. As Immaterial Golems are immune to Antimatter and Spell Damage bypasses Dissipation shield this is a perfect match up - but I didn't draw the 3rd Shard of Wisdom I needed for Spell Damage until the 26th card in my deck. I ended up decking out by one turn.
Conclusion: This deck has a very competitive win rate in Platinum at the moment, and is one of the fastest grinders around. It's a great deck to snipe the Top 10 decks - these give increased rewards, and often have under 140 health. If you're sick of losing to Denial decks, or just fancy a change from the more regular Poison Dials/Swallow, try it out!
This Card review was written by Hyroen
One of the most representative mechanics within Time is anything related to drawing cards or drawing cards in general. Cards such as Sundial, Golden Hourglass, Eternity. Reverse Time and Precognition all involve card advantage through either drawing cards or returning cards to a deck so they can be drawn again. As such, they set and cement a precedent for the mechanic to be housed in the element of Time. Therefore, Time has become known as one of the elements which can speed through its decks, but is also known for being the element of deckouts. Where there is a Stall with significant Deck Out capabilities, unless it's just simply a larger deck, expect Time to be part of it. The only issue with these types of decks, especially in Mono Time decks, is that although they can survive in terms of Card Count, without healing they will seldom make it to the end. This is where Flowing Time | Revolving Time by The_Mormegil comes into play. Reinforcing the drawing theme of Time, this month's card focuses on rewarding drawing cards by also healing the owner 3HP per card drawn, and yes, it stacks. So, regarding a card that helps the Time Deckout Stall, it's about that this card was looked at.
Stall Flowing Time | Revolving Time is meant to embody the eternal nature of Time. It fits perfectly into a stalling type of deck with Eternity but in doing so, also somewhat reveals the deck it's supposed to fit into, decreasing its surprise factor and versatility. Maximizing drawing capabilities while also maintaining the deck a mystery is quite difficult to do. As such, once the first Flowing Time is revealed, expect to see plenty of Golden Hourglass, potential Sundials, and of course, Eternity. Meaning that with the right build, opponents will be in for a rough ride. However, because the card has predictable synergies, particularly non-rare permanent synergies, a deck with this sort of build will have a clear weakness, one to repetitive Permanent Control.
Here is a deck designed by Hyroen that shows an effective way to use Flowing Time | Revolving Time!
Deck 1: Hover over cards for details, click for permalink 4t9 4t9 4t9 4t9 4t9 4t9 5s4 5s4 7km 7km 7km 7km 7km 7km 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q3 7q3 7q5 7q5 7q5 7q5 7q8 7q8 7q9 7q9 7q9 7q9 7q9 7q9 8pq (Relics represent Revolving Time)
Though Flowing Time | Revolving Time is excellent at capitalizing on the drawing capabilities of Time, stalls become that much trickier to face take out when Max HP is increased. That's how the classic Immortal earned its name! Considering that this stall may ironically take some time to set up, it helps quite a bit to pack on the Max HP to prepare for large blows. Furthermore the increase in Max HP will only allow the healing capabilities of Revolving Time to truly shine, especially with a few Golden Nymphs, which are also decent hitters, and in late game, solid Eternity targets.
While we whoosh past from last month's card, we arrive to a beautifully thematic card in Flowing Time | Revolving Time. Most importantly, this card is a perfect example of what it means to solidify and strengthen existing elemental character, which is important for card game flavour. Allowing the drawing theme of Time to be reinforced, Flowing Time | Revolving Time makes an excellent addition to Time's arsenal.
Good luck to all teams in War!! Click HERE to find out more about War 10!!
Be sure to view more of The_Mormegil's work in their Portfolio!
Can anyone guess the element of next month's Card Idea of the Month?
Thanks for reading! Until next time!
Trivia Question of the 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 the fact that a die roll (fortuitously enough) picked the element, this month's question pertains to Entropy.
The second law of thermodynamics can be simply stated as which of the following?
Many thanks to: -Hyroen for CiotM. -Afdarenty for DiotM. -mathman101 for the Tournament section. -Skotadi Phobos for the interview. - All readers for reading!
|
|