Bad memory - Haunted by your past (duo time/darkness T50)

[SnoWeb]

Since Ghost of the past is out, I have been playing around to see how effective is the fully buffed nightmare mechanic.  The versions with precognition/nymph and/or additional gargoyles are good but IMHO do not use  nightmare at its full extends (see here (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,22105.msg302214#msg302214), here (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,21525.msg294107#msg294107) and here (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,20254.msg274672#msg274672)). Most of them go more in the rush direction than in the full fear effect. I think that to make it work at its top, a second denial mechanism is to be added. In a time darkness duo, they are only two options: devourers and rewind. 7wavemaster already showed a nice defencive version with said devourer (here (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,20200.msg275029#msg275029)). The other alternative is rewind. I believe it makes an extremely powerful cocktail. I do realise that the master of darkness already proposed something similar here (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,20160.msg274560#msg274560) but I wanted to have a thread to discuss the mechanic involved. Here is the deck: (?? are GotP)

by SnoWeb

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7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q4 7q4 7q4 7q4 7q4 7q4 7qe 7qe 7qe 7qe 7qe 7qe 7tb 7tb 7th 7th 7th 7th 7th 7th 8pt

The strategy is simple. Play the GotP as early as possible and try not to wait to much to play your first nightmare. This creates the following phenomenum: (a) if he can play a card, your opponent will play it right away, (b) if he cannot he will discard anything but a GotP. The idea is to rewind the creatures he plays and to slowly fill his hand with GotP. The use of rewind combine with the draw denial will slow him down and you'll grind is HP (9 attack does the work quite well). If he can play a GotP just nightmare + rewind it, he'll discard next turn (doesn't work with opponent too rich in time). Around turn 7-8 (if he is not dead yet), your opponent hand is full of GotP and he'll discard. The most rewarding type of victory is when this discard is the "coup de grace".
Why 6 rewind + 2 vampire dagger and not 3 rewind + 2 eternity + 3 pillars? Because you don't really need more than 6 rewinds but you need them early. Rewinds are also generally faster than eternity and as you are not in a stall strategy you don't really need the loop. Moreover, the healing effect of the dagger is really nice to soften the damage of early creatures and eventually to EM.

[omegareaper7]

I like the deck. I use a slight a variation of this myself for top50. I use plus 2 pillars,  plus 1 golden nymph, plus 2 eternitys ( might remove these for top50, because like you said, you rarely need more the 6)
Minus 3 rewinds and 2 vampire daggers.
The only times i've really lost with my version is on horrible 1 pillar draws or if my opponent was to heavily time based. Fortunately, neither of those happen very often.

[SnoWeb]

I tested exactly the same version as yours. I find that the nymph is not as useful as it seems. It fits perfecter for the rushes but here it kind of hinders your hand without giving you mush more speed. The horrible-one-pillar-draws are less of a problem when you can rewind instantaneously with 1 instead of with 5+2 with 1 turn delay. Also, I think the dagger (which only costs 2 ) helps in those cases to avoid to discard a GotP. Finally said dagger is a nice card versus the numerous life rushes. It gives you just the little stall effect to set your fearful denial combo. However, it's good to see that we are on the same wavelength. See screenshot below.

Something you might also want to try to fit in the deck are steals as some shields can be quite painful. In this case you might want to replace 1/2 dagger (or 1 GotP).

[omegareaper7]

I do tend to run a bit high on darkness quanta. So maybe i'll try running 1 steal and 1 vampire in place of the eternitys. I'll see how this runs  for a bit.

[TheForbiddenOracle]

Would it work unupped?

[pikachufan2164]

Would it work unupped?

Not without fairly major modifications. You won't be able to easily run Nightmares and Daggers from just your mark, and your first Ghost will come out later, since it will take you longer to get the 6 without the extra "comes into play" generation of Towers. Note that Rewind will cost 2 instead of just 1.

[TheForbiddenOracle]

Would it work unupped?

Not without fairly major modifications. You won't be able to easily run Nightmares and Daggers from just your mark, and your first Ghost will come out later, since it will take you longer to get the 6 without the extra "comes into play" generation of Towers. Note that Rewind will cost 2 instead of just 1.

Mind you, daggers cost less when unupgraded.. What about replacing 2 rewinds with pillars?

[SnoWeb]

I actually ran it exactly like this in pvp1 10 times. I had 10 victories. The ghost are cheaper but the rewind more expensive. Similarly the dagger are cheaper but the nightmare more. I think it is maybe a bit low on darkness. It's clearly slower but it's the same for the opponent so ... it worth to give it a try IMO.

[Neopergoss]

I tried it unupped with darkness pendulums and mark of time. Worked pretty well. I used 2 steals and no weapons; maybe I should've used dagger.

[SnoWeb]

@Neopergoss: you should post your unupped version here that we can discuss it.

PvP2: I did some tries (a good hour) in PvP2. The deck is good. I lost twice only. I remember the first one was an early quinted otyugh (very destructive to this deck). Otherwise the deck is particularly efficient against SN powered speed-decks. Those decks empty very fast and the first nightmare generates generally 5 or 6 cards. It gives you a possibility of 3-4 discards which is very good and discouraging for the opponent. Generally, these decks can play a Ghost around midgame. The best here is to nightmare and rewind it creating this way a 9 card lock - a nightmare. Against monoaether, a TU is always welcome because it creates the same situation without any chance for the opponent to play the rewinded creature again. A lot of fun then ...

[Acsabi44]

I made an unupped version a while ago: (two, actually)
http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,22026.msg301799#msg301799
http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,22026.msg301700#msg301700 this has upped nightmares but works unupped too (to a lesser extent tho)

[omegareaper7]

So i've been thinking, for those extra bad draws where your stuck with one pillar for a while, maybe have a deja vu in there somewhere? Good or bad?