Guest posts by ggabriel

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Issue Archive / Pilars in slotmachine

« on: December 15, 2009, 10:09:30 pm »

That's out of date. Generally speaking pillars won't appear on the slot machine for a normal deck, but decks that don't have a sufficient number of unique cards will have some pillars inserted. This was put in to nerf farming decks; otherwise you could create a deck with 1 rare and 29 pillars, and anyone who beat you (which would be pretty much a guaranteed win) would automatically get 3 copies of that rare since it would be the only thing on the slots--so it adds pillars instead so you'll mostly get those.

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Issue Archive / Extra HP

« on: December 15, 2009, 10:09:30 pm »

I've seen HP changing around randomly when it was pretty obviously a glitch, and also HP going steadily upwards in what could be cheating. However, but it doesn't always happen against the same people (one time I fought someone in PvP, his HP was going up about 20/turn so naturally I lost, then I fought him two more times in the next hour and won without any hijinx.)

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False Gods / The False Gods - info

« on: December 15, 2009, 10:09:29 pm »

The wiki page is probably inaccurate and out of date--most of it are first impressions that I posted when the update went live, for the sake of having the information out there. I haven't followed it that closely on the wiki since then, but I don't think it's been getting updated very much. Some people have added wiki pages going into a bit more detail on specific gods, but I don't think all of them are done yet.

Morte has no ways to deal with weapons or shields, so he normally dies like a chump if you can keep shields up.

If by "normally dies like a chump" you mean "normally poisons you to death", then certainly. Morte is very much winnable, but I find him one notch up from Scorpio in terms of difficulty; even if you can tear through a bonewall in 2 turns, that's 2 turns you probably can't afford to take before poison kills you. Plus he does carry Improved Miracle, which you can't really do much about unless you get lobotomizer out early enough to shut down his rays of light--you can't afford to hold back damage while you chip away like you can with Miracle because you need him dead fast, nor is it really feasible to go through 400ish health before you die of poison. Also, Scorpio sometimes gets really really slow starts since his pillars are spread out more; Morte doesn't.

As far as Scorpio goes, you do definitely want to play Parallel Universe (although it's still not a priority). Even if you're lucky enough not to get poisoned too badly, he will happily icebolt you to death once your health gets low, so giving him extra targets to play icebolts on can potentially save you.

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Deck Help / Zero Pillar Immolation Deck

« on: December 15, 2009, 10:09:29 pm »

Echoing what CB said. Several of your card picks look good on paper, but in most situations they're entirely irrelevant to the strategy of this deck.

Nova/immolation/photon is the core of your quanta supply. With mark of fire, ash eaters may be able to partially substitute for photons--their damage output is not worth much, but it's enough to contribute and you can still easily use them for fodder. There's virtually no point in having a dragonfly vs. having another photon, though. I'm kind of iffy on this use of deja vu; while deja vu + blessing is fun, I don't think you're reliably going to be able to get it out in time to do any good.

Deflagration is key--it protects you from Owl's Eye/Lobotomizer, and stops most shields from reducing your damage output. Steal can work in a pinch, although it's more expensive than I'd like and there are some other tempting options for darkness quanta.

Lava golems are tremendously good for damage output. Most variations on this deck I've seen ran mark of earth and had lots of golems, but that arose in part from when lava golems cost 3 instead of 4; now that they're more expensive, some experimentation is probably in order. Graviton Fire Eater is another decent source of damage; it's a bit slower to start, but it's a lot sturdier which makes you a bit less vulnerable to creature-killing cards. Other creatures worth looking at include forest spirits and lycanthropes.

Lobotomizer seems like a good idea, but spending 5 quanta just to remove the skill from one enemy creature? If you want to throw in a little creature control, try a mind flayer instead. You can get it out and start lobotomizing things after only 2 nova/immolations.

Chrysoara isn't bad--it's cheap immolation fodder and it converts death quanta into damage. Its damage output is a bit low, though, and you may find better uses for water/death. The poison spell does damage a bit faster than chrysoara, but I'd recommend ditching it--it still doesn't do damage fast enough to be relied upon, and it takes up a card that does not help you get your critical immolation fodder up.

Chaos Seed is a fantastic card that seems to be under-rated in a lot of rainbow decks; it's extremely inexpensive and will generally take care of many threats. You might consider replacing 1 or 2 of them with Freeze--it's just as inexpensive but has a more reliable effect. Freeze won't kill things, but it's guaranteed to stall them for 3 turns and that's what you're really after. Freeze an otyugh to get your creatures room to grow large enough that they're not in immediate danger of munchies, or simply beat down the opponent to critical health while it's frozen.

Dragons are horrendously expensive and are still very vulnerable to creature damage which is your #1 threat. Two golems are cheaper, more effective, and in most circumstances less vulnerable than 1 dragon; of course, the dragon has the advantage of only taking 1 card instead of 2, so they're nort worthless. I think 4 is definitely too many, though.

Blessing is decent, although I wouldn't rely on it--it's expensive and only adds a static 3 damage/turn, not too hot, but it does help protect your creatures against damage. That being one of this deck's biggest weaknesses this is definitely worthwhile, although getting it out fast enough to matter may be difficult.

Boneyard, Rain of Fire, and Fireshield, though--these are all powerful, but here they don't fit in. They don't contribute to your primary strategy (putting out a lot of damage fast), they do a poor job addressing counters to your primary strategy (killing your creatures to stop your damage), and they're too expensive to be effective for stalling in situations where you're having difficulty getting your primary strategy up and running. If you need creature control, I'd vastly prefer to use Chaos Seed and Freeze over RoF/Fireshield to kill/stall early threats--if the game lasts long enough for a late threat to emerge, you've already failed.

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Deck Help / Fix My FFQ Deck!

« on: December 15, 2009, 10:09:29 pm »

I don't use a lot of FFQ decks, but my first thought: lose the novas and everything that isn't air, life, or light. Get six queens, six rustlers, six Empathic Bonds, whatever light spells you think might be useful, and then go with 50% air/life pillars. You're trying too hard to be a rainbow deck, and it's making it hard for you.

I do use a lot of FFQ, and I'm afraid I have to disagree. Splitting pillars doesn't work very well; you can't afford to gamble on drawing the right mix of pillars. FFQ is very vulnerable to being shut down in its early stages, so you need to get up and running ASAP so you can grow the swarm large enough to resist most conventional counters (Rain of Fire will always demolish you, though). Sticking to wind pillars only and using Mark of Life or Mark of Air + Nova is typically the way to go, in my experience.

I mostly use Mark of Air + Novas myself; it lets you laugh off earthquake denial tactics (and devourers, to a lesser extent) and lets you get your critical first queen out quickly, plus you can splash in a couple inexpensive off-color cards (deflagration is probably the most important one). I'm not sure I see Entropy + Supernova as being a step up, though. I commonly use 8x or 9x pillars, and even with an air mark this is barely enough--sure, Supernova gets you a little bit of extra air quanta, but unless you draw more than 1 Supernova/turn you're going to be behind in air quanta. Being able to get out deflags after only 1 Supernova is a nice perk, but if you upgraded the deflagrations and stuck with regular nova you'd still be able to do the same thing...

As far as tweaking the deck goes, dropping down to 5x queens is acceptable; I find that in PvP at least it hurts less to take out a queen than it does a rustler. I'd definitely ditch one of the weapons. I prefer Owl's Eye in my FFQ deck but that's mostly because of all the excess air quanta I get, so Druid's Staff might be a better choice for a non-Mark of Air deck. You could probably lose one of the deflags or the steal, too; they're important, but the more of them you have the greater the risk you'll find your hand clogged with excess ones you don't need.

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Game Suggestions and Feedback / Free Metamorphosis?

« on: December 15, 2009, 10:09:29 pm »

Also, to get away from deck experimentation itself, when you already have a few decks that have different purposes (e.g. coin farming, pvp, false gods, card farming) then most likely you need to switch between marks to use the different decks. The price makes it so you can't switch between each thing without even a little of a repercussion.

Why should there be a repercussion? Why is it somehow a bad thing if players can just do whatever they feel like doing in a game instead of having to waste extra time grinding to get there in the first place, then wasting more extra time every time they decide to do something different? Grinding is neither fun nor rewarding; making something take longer is an annoyance, not a challenge.

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Game Suggestions and Feedback / Free Metamorphosis?

« on: December 15, 2009, 10:09:29 pm »

I see what you are getting at, but you're implying that experimenting necessitates buying cards. You don't just buy cards all willy nilly, you think of what cards would work together, buy those cards, and experiment with the particulars.

Yes. Then after I'm done experimenting with that deck I think of other cards that would work together in a different deck, grind a few freaking hours to get them, and experiment with those particulars for a while until I think of even more cards for yet another deck. Getting hit with extra fees in-between decks is annoying, especially since if I want to go back to a preferred grinding deck in order to try something out I have to pay even more.

(For me personally it's not so bad now, since I've simply accumulated so many cards through experiments/getting random cards on the slots, but it took an irritatingly long time to get to this point.)

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Game Suggestions and Feedback / Free Metamorphosis?

« on: December 15, 2009, 10:09:29 pm »

Think of the fee as a penalty for making a bad deck.

I do think of the fee as a penalty for making a bad deck and as such I think that it's a terrible idea. Why penalize players for experimenting with new decks? The game is terminally boring when everyone sticks to the same few standard decks all the time. As has been pointed out, building new decks is already expensive in terms of all the cards you need to buy, plus any experimental deck is going to take time to test and refine it and in the end may not be viable anyhow. Why, on top of all that, should players be penalized even further by having to pony up cash every time they want to change their mark? 100 coins may not be a lot of money, but it still adds up.

At the very least, marks should be "buyable" or include some kind of discount for returning to a mark that you've used previously. 1000 coins for "buying" a mark would be ludicrous, though, and would not do much to make it easier for players to try out new decks (although at least you could buy your standard mark so you don't have to pay even more money just to switch back to what you were using before.)

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Deck Compilations / Please criticize my aether deck.

« on: December 15, 2009, 10:09:29 pm »

lol actually that proof is not mathematical/complicated as you claim it to be

but I do agree that Phase dragons are better than Immortals except when versus gravity shield, FYI if ppl think immortals are better just let it be because it is their loss lol, there is no point of getting flamed by everybody when you are trying to help

Just because I disagree with brain's analysis doesn't mean it's flaming. Okay, I threw in a couple snarky comments but that's it.

Still, when you put it that way, I just have to apologize. I never realized brain was simply trying to help non-aether players like me by suggesting that aether players stick to relatively easy to beat dragon-only decks instead of promoting more dangerous mixed decks.

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Deck Compilations / Please criticize my aether deck.

« on: December 15, 2009, 10:09:29 pm »

If you can play a 2nd immortal, you can play a 2nd dragon the same way. Delaying the 2nd dragon by 1 or 2 turns if you don't have quanta quickly compensates after 1 or 2 turns. Meanwhile the 1st dragon played is already making huge profit in terms of damage versus the 1st immortal played

If you have a cumulative 13 quanta, and at least two creatures, then if those creatures are dragons your 1st dragon is making no headway whatsoever because you can get out your 2nd immortal by the time your 1st dragon comes out. Meanwhile, realistically you'll have to delay your 2nd dragon a minimum of 2 to 3 turns (longer, if you've got low pillars) because of shield upkeep. Against a fast deck you won't always be able to afford playing your first dragon before having to start spending quanta on shields (which will almost certainly delay your first dragon, but won't affect your first immortal), let alone a second one. Waiting longer to shield invites the other player to deflagrate/steal you to death.

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Deck Compilations / Please criticize my aether deck.

« on: December 15, 2009, 10:09:28 pm »

I never got good use out of Lightning cards. They were always taking away the mana quanta I needed to get my dragons out fast.

What situations do you use Lightning that aren't covered by Dimensional Shield?
The only thing I can think of is Momentum-heavy Gravity decks.

I've never bothered running aether in PvP myself, but in my experience playing against it I've had several decks that would generally beat aether if I didn't get lightning bolted too much. If I'm allowed to build up my attack force to overwhelming levels I can just play a couple of deflagrations and beat the aether player to death where a timely lightning bolt or three could have taken out a key part of my attacking force and prevented me from doing lethal damage, buying them time to set up more shields.

Alternately I sometimes run FFQ, often with novas as the only source of life quanta to get rustlers going. This makes for very fast setups, so left to my own devices I can frequently get enough fireflies+empathic bonds to slow down and eventually completely outheal whatever an aether deck can throw at me, but spells that kill the rustlers are a serious setback for this deck.

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Deck Compilations / Please criticize my aether deck.

« on: December 15, 2009, 10:09:28 pm »

I have yesterday proved mathematically that for all matters the Immortal is a useless card.

That's nothing; yesterday I proved mathematically that I'm the grand duchess Anastasia! You wouldn't think it would be true, given that I'm male, have no Russian ancestry, and am about a century too young. But, y'know. Math!

Care to elaborate on this "proof", or should we just take your word for it?

(Not trying to be hostile just for hostility's sake, but "proving" such a thing is 1) ridiculously complicated and 2) flies in the face of the empirical observations of myself and other players, so I can't help but look askance at this kind of declaration.)