guide: lockdown and denials

[dragtom]

a guide to lockdowns and denial


-introduction
-list of denial cards
-counters to denial
-rating a lockdown
-lockdown and denial decks
   -list of denial-based false gods
   -list of denial-based decks
   -list of lockdown decks



Introduction

In elements, there are 2 ways of winning a match: decking the opponent out, or killing the opponent before he kills you – no exceptions. The second way is the preferred way in most decks. It is achievable in multiple ways: simply deal damage as fast as possible (rush), heal while killing the opponent or remove any damage he gets out (stall), hide behind a dimensional shield/sundial until you can suddenly deal enough damage (otk), or prevent the opponent from playing cards as much as possible. The last one is what we call ‘denial’. A lockdown is denial to the point where the opponent cannot play anything at all. A true lockdown is hard to achieve: where in a ‘normal’ denial-deck a part of the deck can be based on denial, and the rest on beating down the opponent, a lockdown-deck usually requires the full deck to be based on denial. Therefore, all cards have to synergize with each other, or at least complete each other.

When making your own lockdown it is important to keep in mind what you will be facing. In pvp the opponent won’t make stupid mistakes- they will save towers to be able to play a creature, requiring some creature control. False Gods usually produce lots of quanta, so it is not recommended to lockdown one. In the arena, the ai will produce more quanta with their mark, so simply destroying all pillars will not cut it.


Denial cards:

The number of typical denial cards is quite limited – especially if you want to make a lockdown with it. As such, lockdowns may look quite similar. But don’t let this be a reason not to make your own!

Spoiler for list of denial-cards:

	Denial-cards ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------	Other cards that fit in a lockdown: ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
	-	Spoiler for quantum pillar: Most lockdowns are rainbows. This helps fuelling the required quanta.
	Spoiler for silence: A great denial-card early, or late upon fearing a miracle. It mixes nicely with precognition, and it can be used if your lockdown doesn’t come early enough. Not used too often for this purpose though, as it may delay your deck even more.	Spoiler for fractal: Works extremely well with devourers, allowing a devourer- lockdown. May also work with wardens/squids. Don’t bother otherwise.
	-	Spoiler for flying weapon: In case of multiple weapons. You can have both the same weapon multiple times or different weapons.
	Spoiler for devourer: devourer is awesome! A single devourer has little use. Simply putting 6 in your deck makes a difference. If you combine this with fractal or mitosis, however, it is very easy to make a lockdown. If you spam them with either methods, it stacks nicely with both nightfall and shard of patience. These creatures are weak to quantum pillars. Spoiler for nightmare: As a standalone card, this can deny 1 draw of your opponent. In that case, this card is just ‘meh’, as it will require 1 of your draws as well. However, one may actually lockdown the opponent by completely filling his field. If this card is mixed with a creature such as photon, you may achieve that. Don't forget that, without a proper shield, those photons may beat you down	Spoiler for nightfall: In case of dvourer spam this may give you enough damage. Spoiler for steal: Some permanent control is recommended to deal with a weapon/shield that got out early. The downside is that this may overwrite your own weapon.
	Spoiler for aflatoxin: One can actually lockdown the opponent, by filling its entire field. This card does just that, and it does a great job at it. However, the opponent should get a creature out in the first place. After that creature died, it takes a few more turns to fill the opponents field. This card also comes with a high cost. Don't forget that without a proper shield, malignant cells may beat you down. Spoiler for grey nymph: Like aflatoxin, this can be used to fill the opponent's field. However, this costs even more than aflatoxin. It does have high damage and repeatable cc: If you have the quanta, this can fit very good into your deck. But as a supportive card- it will be hard to make an entire lockdown based on these.	-
	Spoiler for earthquake: earthquake is a very strong denial card. It can totally shut down any tower-based deck. Still, only earthquakes won’t cut it, since every tower will last at least 1 turn. Spoiler for pulverizer: Some permanent control is recommended to deal with a weapon/shield that got out early. And this card does that wonderfully. In case the opponent has no dangerous permanents left, you can simply continue shattering his pillars.	Spoiler for iridium warden: A single warden can shut a single creature down. If one or two get past, wardens may be a key to victory. Spoiler for auburn nymph: Like a warden, but it can shut 6 creatures down at once. Plus it comes with a pointy stick that stings the opponent down slowly. But it has a high cost- so only use this if your quanta would otherwise skyrocket. If you have one, that is.
	Spoiler for discord: A great denial card. An early discord can shutdown a mono for up to ~5 turns without help, but becomes useless after that- unless it did get help from other cards. ‘other cards’ can be black hole, earthquake, and devourer. The only downside of this card is that it is useless against rainbows. Spoiler for butterfly effect: Some permanent control is recommended to deal with a weapon/shield that got out early. This can be casted on devourers without removing their quanta-siphoning ability. Like with a pulverizer, you can continue on the opponent’s towers after his pesky permanents. The cost of this is very high though, only use this if you have quanta left.	Spoiler for pendulum + supernova (upgraded): If you have them, you want to get both a discord and a devourer out as soon as possible. And this allows a first turn devourer, followed by a second turn discord. Additionally, supernova can fuel the rest of your deck.
	-	Spoiler for fire shield: If the opponent gets creatures out, they are usually either free, or very cheap. Most of those creatures don’t have high hp, and can be effectively destroyed with a fire buckler. Spoiler for deflagration: Some permanent control is recommended to deal with a weapon/shield that got out early. This does just that. This card is cheap, but cannot be used more than once, leaving pillars intact.
	Spoiler for black hole: Drain quanta. Deny. A very strong card. Makes an awesome combo with discord – black hole greatly benefits from the rainbowized quanta, and discord greatly benefits from drained quanta. It is very common in lockdowns. Also gives healing, this makes elemental masteries easier. Spoiler for shard of focus: Some permanent control is recommended to deal with a weapon/shield that got out early. This does that very well, and allows a few more pillars to be destroyed. Then it is followed by a black hole, this is already awesome by itself. The problems of this card lay in the speed and in the quanta cost if you want to use it to its full potential. Spoiler for amber nymph: Black hole on a stick. Awesomeness on a stick. But the cost is so high. Like auburn nymph, only use if your quanta would be high without this card.	Spoiler for otyugh: Usually the creatures the opponent plays come early or are free. Usually these have low hp- lower than an otyugh has. Spoiler for chimera: In case you will get high damage via shard of patience, but you don’t have any permanent control, this may be the solution- although there aren’t many shields that can counter you by this moment.
	-	Spoiler for mitosis: Very much the same as fractal: strong with devourer and possibly a few other stall-creatures. The advantages over fractal: it is cheaper and it allows more creatures without more copies, and it doesn’t suffer from a full hand (which you may get). The disadvantages: after playing fractal, fractal is way faster, mitosis removes the creature’s skill, and the mitosised creature may be targeted with cheap creature control.
	-	Spoiler for crusader: Much like flying weapon, this allows a weapon effect multiple times. It comes with some damage, but it also costs quite some quanta.
	Spoiler for reverse time: Deny a draw and remove a creature. The latter is why this is a strong card while nightmare isn’t. The downside of this card -the owner of the target creature can play it again- is solved in a lockdown. Spoiler for eternity: Reverse time on a stick. Strong- it can stall a great deal all by itself- but it has such a high cost. If you have enough quanta to get this out early, go ahead.	Spoiler for precognition: Allows you to know when to cast silence/black hole. Also makes your deck slightly faster, including the time it takes to lockdown.
	Spoiler for trident: earthquake on a stick. And this stick doesn’t mess up the quicksand’s quanta. It is very strong to keep a lockdown. It is a bit slow though. Other weapons may be a stronger choice.	Spoiler for shard of patience: Recommended when using a devourer spam. Burrow your devourers while this shard is up, and unburrow them when you remove this from the field. This does make you vulnerable to gravity shield, though. Spoiler for arctic squid: freeze on a stick. As you may have noticed, I love sticks. Also fish sticks. And this ‘fish’ can shutdown up to 4 creatures at once, without having a cost that is that high. Still, it is not cheap- use with caution. Spoiler for nymph queen: In case you have both enough quanta and quantum pillars, these can be the source of damage.

Counters to denial

Spoiler for sanctuary:

Depending on your deck you may or may not want to rage quit if the opponent gets this out. Note that if you destroy it, the effect will remain up to the end of the opponent’s turn – if he also has a salvager, you may want to rage quit not depending on your deck.

Spoiler for immolation:

Instant quanta is instant creatures. A lockdown is hard to achieve against immo-rushes. If you have (repeatable) cc, you can still win. Also, it gives you some health if you include black hole.

Spoiler for nova:

Same as cremation, but way less of a counter – 1 or 2-costing creatures are not that deadly.

Spoiler for towers + a human opponent (upped):

Once a human notices you are playing a lockdown, ‘it’ should save all its towers until it got enough in its hand to plays a creature. This is not an issue in unupped environment (pvp 1) or against ai.

Spoiler for a faster lockdown:

If you are locked down yourself, it becomes way harder to lockdown the opponent. The solution is simple, though: pray to the rng. Pray more/better than the opponent, so yours will be faster.

Rating a lockdown:

If we, as a community, were to rate a lockdown, it would definitely not be with ‘turns to win’. A lockdown isn’t meant to win fast- it can even deckout.
One could use ttl - ‘turns till lockdown’- the number of turns it took to lockdown the opponent.
The problem is that a lockdown may be broken. How should we deal with this while testing for the ttl?
With this last point, we can have another point to rate: ulr – ‘unbroken lockdown rate’, in %.
Finally, like all other decks, win rate can be used.

Keep in mind that those stats change even more than usual with the opponent you are facing.


lockdown and denial decks

Here are a few examples, see what others made.
Mostly a work in progress.


List of denial-based false gods

Spoiler for decay:

Hover over cards for details, click for permalink

Deck import code : [Select]

7t6 7t6 7t6 7t6 7t6 7t6 7t8 7t9 7t9 7ta 7tc 7tc 7tc 7tc 7tc 7tc 808 808 808 808 808 808 808 80e 80i 80i 80i 80i 80i 80i 8pt

This god has an entire deck based on lockdown. Though the pest spam sometimes comes late, he will lockdown you- unless you are prepared.

Spoiler for seism:

Hover over cards for details, click for permalink

Deck import code : [Select]

778 778 778 778 778 778 778 778 778 778 778 778 778 778 778 778 779 77a 77a 77b 77b 77c 77e 77e 77e 77f 77g 77g 77g 77g 77g 77g 77i 77i 77j 77j 77j 77j 77j 77j 77k 7q4 7q4 7q4 7q4 7q6 8ps

If Seism had a smaller deck, he’d always destroy all your pillars. Now, he only destroys all your pillars 90% of the time. (Okay, 70%).
As if that wouldn’t be enough, he rewinds the creatures that you manage to get on the field.
Seism may not always lock you down, but it does deny a great part for sure.

Spoiler for dark matter:

Hover over cards for details, click for permalink

Deck import code : [Select]

744 744 744 744 744 744 744 744 744 744 744 744 744 744 744 744 744 744 744 745 745 745 745 746 748 74a 74b 74b 74c 74d 74d 74d 74d 74f 74f 74f 74f 74f 74f 74o 74o 7ju 7ju 7ju 7ju 7jv 7k1 8pq

Dark matter may or may not lockdown you. Basically, if you play a rainbow, you are in trouble, if you use a mono, he annoys you a bit.

Spoiler for dream catcher:

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Deck import code : [Select]

6ts 6ts 6ts 6ts 6ts 6ts 6tu 6tu 6tu 6tu 6tu 6tu 6u3 6u3 6u3 6u3 6u3 6u3 6u5 6u5 6u8 6u8 6u8 6ug 74f 77i 77j 7dr 7gl 7gn 7n7 7n7 7q1 7q2 7t6 7t6 80a 80h 8pj

This guy denied before it was cool.
And it does a good job at it. Discord, butterfly effect, pests, quicksand, black hole… you name it.
Although he denies you for a great part, he usually doesn’t have enough to lock you down.

[Chapuz]

Your opponent will hold his pillars only if you are playing with Earthquakes. The human spoiler must be corrected. There is no other reson to hold your pillars. When first mentioning a tower, you could specify "upgraded pillar"

Also, Nightmare is a decent card in speedbows. As denial? Maybe likely.

As this guide is destinated to newbies, I suggest using the name of the unupped cards instead if tue upped ones. Also, use the proper names of the nymphs

[jazzfan27]

Maybe include something about field lockdown with Malignant Cells?

[dragtom]

good tips, will include them both.
except for:

Your opponent will hold his pillars only if you are playing with Earthquakes. The human spoiler must be corrected. There is no other reson to hold your pillars.

I was actually saying 'towers', not 'pillars'.
A human may save, say, 5 towers to bring out a lava destroyer.
then again, as I'm going to change all names to the unupped forms...

and for:

Also, use the proper names of the nymphs

I did use the proper names of the nymphs- just the upgraded version.

[andretimpa]

A skull shield is a good  card to include with aflatoxin.

[TribalTrouble]

So this is what you've been working on... interesting.

Did Dream Catcher get cut off or did someone hit send before it was finished?

[ColorlessGreen]

Your opponent will hold his pillars only if you are playing with Earthquakes. The human spoiler must be corrected. There is no other reson to hold your pillars. When first mentioning a tower, you could specify "upgraded pillar"

While dragtom already addressed this slightly, in order to be more clear to any newer people who might be reading this:

The big reason to hold towers when not against earthquake is if you're against basically any other form of quanta denial (i.e. devourer/pest, discord, black hole, etc). If your deck contains quite a few low cost cards and you're otherwise locked down, it can be an extremely good strategy to hold your towers until you have enough of them to play a card out of your hand, then play the towers and the card in the same turn to take advantage of the towers giving you a quantum when you play them. Though, if the per-turn quanta generated would get you out of lockdown, that's possibly the better choice. It's situational, but there are definitely situations besides earthquake where holding towers is smart.

In a real world example, pretend you're up against a field of 23 devourers and you're holding a thunderstorm. Do you play air towers as you get them and never have more than 1 quanta available during your turn? Or do you sit on them until you've got three, then play all three and a thunderstorm and clear their field?

[TribalTrouble]

States 'in a real world example'.... proceeds to talk about something in the internet.

[ColorlessGreen]

States 'in a real world example'.... proceeds to talk about something in the internet.

Hey, I am absolutely in the real world while sitting on my computer playing elements.

(Though I'll definitely concede I could have used a better phrase there.)