Round 3 - Strategy

[wavedash]

Past Strategy Threads:

Round 1 (

http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,14369.0.html)Round 2 (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,14881.0.html)[/list]


Miniwally vs. Toimu13 (Aether)

When you think of Aether, immortal creatures come to mind. When you think of Water, creature control comes to mind. Aether also has the advantage in being able to use Fractal with virtually any other element out there, and Mindgate for card advantage.

Chrysaoras easily bypass Aether's Dissipation Shields, and clever use of Pendulums can neuter and Fractal- and Mindgate-users.Earthquakes and Trident could slow down any Fractal rush attempts, while Ice Shield and Ice Shields can deal with creatures after they are played.In past rounds, we tried rushing against Aether. To throw them off guard, Dimensional Shields and Mindgates can outstall anything they throw at us, provided they have no permanent control.

RavingRabbid vs. smuglapse (Death)

Poison, poison everywhere. Virus / Vulture / Boneyard / Bone Wall have great synergy. Deathstalkers can be paired with Entropy, Light, or Gravity to inflict poison damage along with Poison. Skull Shield / Alfatoxin is a deadly combo, especially against an element with no permanent control. As of the end of round 1, has no permanent control, and loads of creature control.
Purify.

Using a Poison deck bypasses their Bone Wall.A Dimensional Shield / Mindgate deck with Purifies to counter Poison and provide healing covers all bases.Death's tendency to either rush or carry heavy creature control and be abused with an Ice Bolt stall variation with Deflagrations and Steam Machines.Going even further, a Light / Water stall can control the crap out of any rush and ignores any Bone Walls.Fractal Chrysaoras bypasses Bone Wall, stalls with Dimensional Shields, and heal with Purify.

Has used Mummy Rush with Rage Potion / Deflagration control.



nilsieboy vs. Lava Golem (Fire)

A jack of all trades. Fire has incredible control in the form of Deflagration, Fire Bolt, and Fire Shield. Fire has incredible power in the form of Lava Golems and Phoenixes.

Steam Machine / Phoenix deck with Deflags for Fire Shields and Water CC seems to be the win.
Freeze-based rush decks with no permanents bar pillars will be able to out-rush and avoid pesky Deflagrations.Has used Dimensional Shields in past rounds.A Fire / Water deck could do pretty well here, with Deflags, Floodings, Purify, Steam Machines for damage, and possibly some Minor Phoenixes.They might expect us to diverge from the two strategies we presented the first round: poison and rush. Instead, offer a deck with every available form of offense delivered at once. Mark of Death, Chrysaoras, Ice Bolts, and some form of efficient creature rush all at once.  The Ice Bolts and Poison will deliver the victory over a Fire Stall, the Ice Bolts will provide control if they try to outrush us, and if they go for Dim Shields again, the Poison will win out as the Ice Bolts take out their creature-based offense.An Air / Water duo is pretty straightforward: Toadfish Infect creatures that aren't huge, Shockwave ones that are, slow everything down with Ice Shield and Arctic Squid, and Bolt to death when possible.A less predictable route to take would be to bring loads of creature control and go for either a deck out or an Ice Bolt kill.

vinvick3714 vs. kobisjeruk / Essence vs. Kael Hate (Darkness)

Devourers, Devourers, more Devourers. Creature control through Parasite, Drain Life, and Liquid Shadow. Excellent permanent control in Steal. Incredible synergy with Death through Nightfall, buffing up Deathstalkers. As of the end of round 1, has no Earthquakes.

Flooding could be very useful against any deck that attempts to spam Devourers and Dragons / Vampires, but 7 Devourers combined with Flooding's upkeep cost makes this tough.Will Darkness try to mimic the super-effectiveness of the Earth decks that kicked our ass last round, or will they stick with their tried-and-true tricks? They might bring a Darkness / Aether deck like this one (

http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,14759.0.html).A Water / Life duo can attempt to out-rush Darkness with Green Nymphs, Adrenaline Scorpions and Crawlers, and Forest Spirits.Even faster, a Supernova Rush mostly ignores Devourers and can use Antimatter to take advantage of Vampires and Liquid Shadow.[/list]


Bluesky vs. Dragoon / unit748596 vs. senabmi (Time)

Time has control in the form of Reverse Time and Eternity, but no permanent control. Devonian Dragons are very good in terms of cost effectiveness, but cost quite a bit. Pharaoh / Scarab stall with Procrastination or Reverse Time / Eternity / Pillar control are possible tactics Time might employ.
Lack of speed is Time's biggest issue, so Toadfish / Dragon rush will beat out any attempts on their part.
Stall decks and be out-stalled by control and even quanta denial for an Ice Bolt kill.



wavedash vs. Indrejue (Gravity)

Gravity has incredibly sturdy creatures and arguably the best creature control in the game with Otyughs. Black Hole has synergy with Discord and other quanta control. Gravity has great synergy with Earth (Pulverizers, Plate Armor Otyughs), Fire (Graviton Fire Eaters), Time and Death (Momentum Scorpions).

Gravity has lots of control, so playing a rush is playing into their hands. On the other hand, they have Black Hole for denial, so a stall might not work as well as planned either. If we take 6x Fire Pendulum for our Propaganda Cards, a Miracle Stall with Deflags, Ice Bolts, Freeze, and Nymph's Tears would work well. Biggest problem would be Fractal Chargers if the Nymphs didn't come out in time to take them down quickly.A Water / Entropy deck could work, with Discord to slow them down, Antimatter to stop Chargers, Ice Shield to freeze other creatures, and some other Water creatures to kill them slowly.Wings stall loses to Fractal Chargers, but can deal with Black Hole and Otyughs. Arctic Dragons are bulky enough to dodge Otyughs, while Toadfish love being eaten.

The Dictator vs. Gyrodiot (Air)

Wyrm can be coupled with Light or Entropy to deal heavy damage. Fog Shield and Wings are both fantastic shields. Firefly Queen rush is an oldie but a goodie. Unstable Gas is deadly. Shockwave and Owl's Eye are both very effective creature control. Flying Weapon is a bundle of fun. As of the end of round 1, has no Unstable Gas.

Their only permanent control is one Butterfly Effect and a bunch of Steals.  Everyone is scared of Ice Shield, and I predict that means that they'll bring their Steals, which means Devourers and Black Dragons will also join the party. The appropriate response is Discord / Antimatter to slow them down to the same speed their Devourers will put us at, and to counter their dragons. No permanents, to force the Steals to clog their hands. Slight problem in that a stolen Discord would be disastrous.A Water / Time duo with Reverse Time soundly beats any Flying Weapon deck.Any sort of purely offensive deck is fairly unlikely, as Water is packed with creature control. Because Air lacks any sort of true rush, a Light stall deck with Miracles healing and Morning Stars and Ice Bolts for final blow might do it.

[Vinvick3714]

I'm not going to repaste what me and nilsie said in the chat, but the basic parts were:

for aether, we're thinking about stalls. dimensional shields and some mindgates with maybe fractal and some crawlers as fast damage. some icebolts too, just to finish it off. This would work cause aether doesn't have any fast damage, and it's obvious they're going to take dim. shields, so we can stall longer if they do have perm control. We used rush last time, so they might not expect a stall.

For death:Light/water deck could also work here. We use ice shield, purifies, miracles, and squids. Control slows them down A LOT, and bone wall for them would have no effect for a stall.

For Fire: http://helltgivre.free.fr/elements/?mark=4sj&deck=z64vjz34vlz25c1z55i4z35i5z35i6z35jm5on61q6u5z27ds either that or the regular 4 deflag,  phoenix, 2 ice bolt, 6 steam machine, 14 water pendulum 3 minor phoenix 1 squid.

[wavedash]

I'm not sure I understand that rainbow deck. Crawlers are pretty slow, Minor Phoenixes are pretty weak, but Forest Spirits are beasts. I feel like this deck could be polished so that it has a single, definitive goal.

[Vinvick3714]

Yeah, nilsie said he was bored when he made it. It's kinda just a rough idea against fire, because we have to go very creative this round. Maybe -2 fire cards, +2 deflags, just so we have some PC.

[Essence]

my first thought re: me vs. KH -- I want to do a Supernova rush.  Still trying to figure out how, but it'll put him on the defensive, get the Devourers out of my hair, and make it easy to use Antimatter to take advantage of Vamps/LS.

Maybe like this:

Code: [Select]

4vh 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vl 4vl 4vl 590 5c1 5c1 5i4 5i4 5ie 5ie 5if 5if 5ii 5jm 5jm 5jm 5jm 5jm 5jm 5jm 6u3 6u3 6u3 6u7 6u7 7gl
...??

Maybe swap 1 Supernova for another Imp. Anti, +1 Nova, +1 Water Something?

[Essence]

For aether, we're thinking about stalls. dimensional shields and some mindgates with maybe fractal and some crawlers as fast damage. some icebolts too, just to finish it off. This would work cause aether doesn't have any fast damage, and it's obvious they're going to take dim. shields, so we can stall longer if they do have perm control. We used rush last time, so they might not expect a stall.

I like the reasoning, but two things. 
1) They can only use Dim Shields in 4-5 decks, and they have 9 players, so it's not a given that they'll take them.
2) Phase Spiders can be pretty fast damage.

For death:Light/water deck could also work here. We use ice shield, purifies, miracles, and squids. Control slows them down A LOT, and bone wall for them would have no effect for a stall.

Would be good.  Watch for steals on your ice shields, but since you're using no creatures, could work well.  Pack at least 3 Purifies if not 4. 

For Fire: http://helltgivre.free.fr/elements/?mark=4sj&deck=z64vjz34vlz25c1z55i4z35i5z35i6z35jm5on61q6u5z27ds either that or the regular 4 deflag,  phoenix, 2 ice bolt, 6 steam machine, 14 water pendulum 3 minor phoenix 1 squid.

Last I checked, we only had 3 discords in our vault, so 4-discord deck is fail.  Also, upping Discord is a waste compared to upping a Crawler.  Besides, fire/water deck failed epically against fire last round, so I'm not sure that you want to go that way. 

More tomorrow.  Night, all.

[Essence]

I lied -- one last important strategy thought.  Let's get a bit meta here.  Last round, I concentrated on the hardest matches first, giving them priority because I wanted to at least have a chance to win them all.  Nominally, we lost 2 because of deckbuilding, 3 losses could have gone either way, and we had 1 player who admitted he could have won if he'd played differently. 

This round, I say we figure out which matchups we are MOST likely to win, and give THEM priority.  I don't want to create suicide decks for our toughest matchups, but I want to win as many matches as we can.  We went 2-7 in Round 1, then 3-6 on Round Two -- I want to go BETTER than 4-5 in Round 3. 

[nilsieboy]

well i made that strange rainbow of idea,water has a lot of creatures with synergy and discords are nice to slow it down.
we'd try some entire new decks i think because some standart ideas from wich we thaught they'd work lost a lot.

[Vinvick3714]

Yeah, we really have to get creative for these rounds. The stakes are higher, and we have the lowest vault as of now, so we gotta go allout. for Essence's idea vs. KaelHate, the rainbow is definitely unexpected, as we've only done duo's so far. for your extra water card, maybe another toadfish? Or a chrys? I'm not really sure yet. But didn't we use water/entropy against fire last round? Not water/fire, right?

[miniwally]

Yeh last round we used water/entropy, I think our main problem is being predictable so I like essence's deck idea for him.

[wavedash]

For Essence's Nova Rush, I might swap one Mind Flayer for one Chrysaora. I really don't expect the Mind Flayers to be very useful, especially since you can't Lobotomize Devourers.

This round, I say we figure out which matchups we are MOST likely to win, and give THEM priority.  I don't want to create suicide decks for our toughest matchups, but I want to win as many matches as we can.  We went 2-7 in Round 1, then 3-6 on Round Two -- I want to go BETTER than 4-5 in Round 3.

God I love this idea so god damn much.

At the end of Professor Layton and the Unwound Future, there's a "boss battle" of sorts where two opposing sides have 6 members and a rating in stars of how strong each member is. At a glance, it's impossible, because each member of the "better" team is as strong or stronger than the "worse" team, but by pairing up the weaker team's weakest with the stronger team's strongest, you can prevail.

That's kind of a long-winded way to say I don't think it's possible to use this plan without sacrificing one or two matches.

[RavingRabbid]

Code: [Select]

5i5 5i5 5i5 5i5 5i5 5i5 5ia 5ia 5ia 5ia 5jm 5jm 5jm 5jm 5jm 5jm 5jm 5jm 61o 61o 61o 61o 61o 61o 61t 61t 61t 61t 61t 622 622 622
This is my idea for my match against death.

Fractal Chrysaora counters Bonewall and Control.
Plague is countered by chrysaora's poison.
Dimshield counter a rush.
Purify counters poison

Only card that could really screw this deck is purify, which they don't have in their vault.


Smuglapse is a worthy opponent, so I need a deck that fits my playstyle to be sure to make no mistake.