Strategy List: Fire

[willng3]

Fire is possibly our greatest adversary in this war.

Strengths:
-HIGH ATT Creatures:  It's almost unfair how cruel has become.  Crimson Dragon, Fire Spirit, Lava Golem, Phoenix

-Creature Control:  More proof:  Fire is MEAN.  Fire Bolt, Fire Shield, Rain of Fire, Rage Potion.

-Permanent Control:  Deflagration

-Rushing Ability:  Immolation, Lava Golem, Fire Spirit, not to mention various other creatures from other elements.  This is truly dangerous.

-Damage Spam:  Damage outside of What is inflicted through creatures is never something that's appreciated.  Fahrenheit/Fire Bolt.

Weaknesses:
-Creature Control:  's main weakness is creatures that have low HP, so we should take advantage of this weakness when possible.

-Reflective Shields:  Throw damage right back at the enemy I say!  Also can't be destroyed by Deflag.


I'm honestly not sure what kind of a deck would serve as a reliable counter.  We would have to just do our best to predict what they might use based on what they have in their vault I suppose.

Most likely synergies:
/ :  All out CC basically.  A viable counter for what has to offer. 
/ :  More CC.  Added bonus with Vulture powerup and Skele spawn.  I don't think Bone Wall will be used due to Adenaline being a common tactic here.
/ :  Fire Eaters, Fire Eaters, CC, and the like.
/ :  Stall + CC / PC?  Lava Golem rush, mini-Hermes.  All viable options.
/ :  Eh, Fire stall with Heals?  Not seeing this used often to be honest.
/ :  Ice Bolt/Fire Bolt, Freeze, Ice Shield, and an assortment of other cards.  Although with the threat of Adrenaline I don't see this being used very often.
/ :  Rage angels, lava rush with light splashed in...and that's about it.
/ :  CC overkill, Unstable Gas spam; if they go the second route we can expect to see very few creatures from the deck.
/ :  Hmm...not quite sure.  I suppose it would make a good fire stall variation, but I really don't know.
/ :  PC overkill?  CC overkill?  Yeah this could be really bad.
/ :  Aside from Sparks, Fractix (obviously more likely with masters than other members).  Fire stall with Dimensional Shields.

Okay, so that's a lot of synergies to expect, but seeing as how jmdt, the current residing Deck Helper is on the team, we seriously need to be prepared for anything and everything that could be used against us.  Commence discussion.

[Glitch]

Ironically the best counter to fire is... well... fire.

Any sort of massive CC + healing and we're set, with growth or quint or some other way of protecting our creatures.  Fire shield, rain of fire, pandemonium, all good choices.  (Especially since /our/ creatures will be strong enough to survive the storm).  Pandemonium + dragons would kickass, with jade shields to stop direct damage.

[wizelsnarf]

The problem with fire is they have 2 very good and very distinct deck types.

1st is the creature spam. They are damn good and before you can kill a crimson dragon you have to take 13 or whatever damage.

2nd is the Firestall. 0 creatures, lots of CC and PC.


This is a pain because it is near impossible to design a deck that beats both those options and we can't predict their deck. Our emerald shield could save us from the 2nd at least.


I think the safest plan is a large deck with tons of healing, CC, PC and very few creatures.

I am thinking about stone skin + Heal + emerald shield could be a good stall but that doesn't leave much room for CC or PC...

Any thoughts?

[hrmmm]

well as some of you know, i talked alot about deckbuilding with jmdt.
(there was a time, i set up farms for him^^).

he talked about "having the perfect counter to life" yesterday in chat.
so i risk a prediction about the deck he might planning against us.

it will be fast (golems, maybe phoenix, immolation if they want to use them in a life counter)

firestorm of corse.
deflag of corse

he knows about the strenght of adrenaline -- and 2 perm-counters: titanium shield/fire buckler.

he will count that we need to go duo. -- pendulums+cc we need for beating fire
earthquakes and armors?

fazit: i imagine a earth/fire deck with earthquakes, ea, plate armor, rage, ev. titanium, fire buckler, deflags and heavy critters.

possible counters?
pillars/pendulum split.
freeze?
ea + armor + basilisk + thorncarapace + heals?
or maybe rewinds?

[willng3]

The thing is hrmmm, I've tried making a deck like that before, and it just doesn't work that well.  The reason?  Too many cards.  I mean, just look at that card list.  If you want any one of them to serve their purpose for countering decks, then you need a fair amount of them in your deck, and unfortunately, that just isn't possible.  However, your point still means clear and true, a deck consisting of any of those elements combined together poses a great threat to us, but then again, I've been thinking a lot about it and I might have a counter to it.  What if we were to try an / duo?  There are two (possibly three) things we could do here in this position.

1)  Antimatter stall.  Use Heals to hold off damage until Dragons, Phoenix or Golems appear (note that we should definitely allow the Golems time to grow or else they'll simply negate the Antimatter we've put in place).  I dislike the idea of having to rely on a stall, especially when it's against , but I just don't see another alternative in this position.  In this case we DO NOT want thorn carapace as our shield choice since a. it can be destroyed, and b. it has the potential to kill off our leech supply from the opponent.  Given this, Emerald Shield will definitely be a more viable choice since a. it cannot be destroyed b. reduces incoming damage from non-antimattered creatures and c. ensures that our antimatter proceeds unperturbed.

2)  Fallen Elf.  Mutation would more than likely remove our dilemma completely by a. destroying the enemy creature, regardless of its current stats, b. turn it into an Abomination, which is much less useful than the previous threat, or c. mutate into something which is less useful than the previous threat.  Of course this is risky, but it's plausible.  One other concern:  Fallen Elf is terribly vulnerable to CC.

3)  Discord.  If Immolation is used (which is likely) this is mitigated slightly, but it should definitely slow down creatures being played.  We can go out on a limb and try to throw in Black Holes, but I strongly advise against such a tactic.

Does any of this sound doable?

[hrmmm]

got your point willing but first...

fire (and not only they) can use cards not only for 1 purpose.
and if you want to stop a rush you can use: firestorm, fire shield, rage potion...
you dont need to draw them all... but every card has the abillity to stop a life rush.

of corse maybe i just did a bad guess and i might totally wrong.
and you are right i packed too mutch ideas in my thread.
but  has dangerous synergies with

if i would fight a life deck, i would pack a titanium and our strongest troublemaker (adrenalined frog) is neutralized. same with fire shield of corse.

the carapace was meant in a possible  / deck.
sry i didnt made it clear (edited).

to your ideas:
1. antimatter stall -- i like this one, maybe paired with adrenaline?
but then we need to kill them quick (growing)
i thought AM creatures are not affected by thorn carapage. i didnt tested this.
unfortunally emeralds just blocks 1 single dmg. (yea the reflect and untouchable is nice but only 1 dmg reduction is to less for stall, a golem grows +2).

2. fallen elf -- 3/2 = *splork*
but maybe mutation as spell. but only uses as emercency mutation. in dont like mutate the oponent... this can be suicide (specially if they use immolation)
chaos seed seems a better choise for cc for me.

3. discord -- no optimal here, as you posted... immolation and deflags.
(blackholes: cant imagine a doable deck atm)


edit: back to g1tch's suggestion maybe. fight fire with fire. (and hope they dont pack armors)

[willng3]

You're right, AM creatures aren't affected by Thorn Carapace, my concern was just with the creature getting infected before AM could be placed on them, otherwise it's completely usable, though a bit vulnerable.  I've been messing around with an AM deck and it's tough getting the quanta balance right.  As of right now I've been using AMs, Emerald Dragons, Druidic Staffs, Heals, and Emerald Shields and it seems to be working okay, though I'm not sure how usable this would be against a deck as proposed above, especially considering the closest thing to that is Hermes...  I'm going to keep tinkering with it to see if I can't add some killing ability to it, because as of right now damage output is l o w.

[Glitch]

Again, stalling is a very legitimate win condition.

[willng3]

My one fear of stalling:  If we do attempt a stall then we must use a large deck correct?  But how large do we need it to be?  If we're not going to win by damage then we have win by deckout, and if our opponent is running a large deck as well, then we naturally need more cards, which thereby reduces the chances of us drawing the exact thing we need, when we need it.  I'm not opposed to stalling at all, it's just that in this position I fear it may be risky if we overdo it.

[Glitch]

Well, remember, light did so well last war because it always stalled, and they're opponents always rushed.

Stall tactics are always an option.  It's times like these I think team time has it easy.

[hrmmm]

jmdt: I bet you vault is ful of hax shields
jmdt: and firefly queens
jmdt: and bonds
jmdt: and rustlers
jmdt: and dragons
jmdt: you have no hope
jmdt:

/ ?

[Glitch]

He's trying to psych us out, ignore everything the other team says.