Pestal 101

[Xenocidius]

It seems Pestal decks have fallen out of popularity (edit: maybe not quite, but they still suck (pun intended)). They're too slow to effectively deny the opponent, too unreliable with quanta, and with all the Fractal nerfs going around are hard to pull off. Well I beg to differ. I'm reinventing the Pestal deck. This is what I have so far:

by Xenocidius

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7t6 7t6 7t6 7t6 7t6 7t6 7ta 7ta 7td 7td 7um 7um 7um 7um 7um 7um 7um 7um 7um 7um 808 808 808 808 80i 80i 80i 80i 80i 80i 8pu

With Pendulums providing much more reliable quanta than dual towers, I figured the Pestal concept was worth revisiting. I've been testing this in the Trainer and it seems incredibly consistent.

Generally you can play a Pest on turn 1, or rarely, turn 2. A Fractal often comes around turn 3, or at least turn 4, and you'll usually have a decent supply of to play your Pests. The second Fractal can come just two turns later.

Normally you'll want to hold Eclipse and Vampires in your hand for the first Fractal, so as not to use precious . By the time you can pull off a second Fractal however, you'll have a surplus of . For your third Fractal you can fill up with more Pests if your opponent has a lot of quanta generation, or Vampires if you have effectively denied them.

I'm not great with quanta balance, so it probably still needs some work, but the basic foundations are there. So far I've never failed to deny AI3, and have even denied AI4 (I wouldn't recommend it though). I've also had success against Platinum league in the Arena, with -1 Fractal and +1 Vampire Dagger.

Another version, based on people's suggestions:

by Xenocidius

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7t6 7t6 7t6 7t6 7t6 7t6 7t9 7t9 7ta 7ta 7tb 7td 7td 7um 7um 7um 7um 7um 7um 7um 7um 7um 808 808 808 80i 80i 80i 80i 80i 8pu

[Bonestorm]

Pestal decks haven't fallen out of popularity at all, I know some players use it in CL and people often mention in chat about farming arena decks with it.

Six seems like too much fractal, I see variants with 5 - I currently use 4.

Steals are win.

[Xenocidius]

Pestal decks haven't fallen out of popularity at all, I know some players use it in CL and people often mention in chat about farming arena decks with it.

Hmm, really? I guess I just haven't heard much talk of it, or had much luck with the builds I've seen.

Six seems like too much fractal, I see variants with 5 - I currently use 4.

That's way too unreliable - the goal of this deck is to play a Fractal by turn 3 (and again on turn 5 if need be), which happens a lot.

Steals are win.

Steals are good, but they seem to mostly clog up my hand. With the quanta denial and huge damage output, the only real permanent threats are shields, and they don't have too much of an effect.

[Selvaria]

I'd say -1 fractal +1 vamp. Too many fractals made dead draws often.

Steals are good, but they seem to mostly clog up my hand. With the quanta denial and huge damage output, the only real permanent threats are shields, and they don't have too much of an effect.

I can see shields can be a problem and common too. Not to mention permanent like Sanctuary.

Pest seriously take a huge hit after sanctuary is introduced.

[Xenocidius]

I'd say -1 fractal +1 vamp. Too many fractals made dead draws often.

Steals are good, but they seem to mostly clog up my hand. With the quanta denial and huge damage output, the only real permanent threats are shields, and they don't have too much of an effect.

I can see shields can be a problem and common too. Not to mention permanent like Sanctuary.

Pest seriously take a huge hit after sanctuary is introduced.

Well, if you look at the shields in the game, you'll find that they are really not a problem.

1 damage reduction (Shield, Skull Shield, Solar Shield, etc.): These don't make much of a difference. Your Pests can still deal 1 damage each, and Vampires still own. Against Solar Shield, you'll want to hold the Eclipses until you have enough creatures to kill the opponent in 1 or 2 turns.

CC shields (Ice Shield, Fire Shield, Thorn Carapace, etc.): Similar strategy to Solar Shield. Hold Eclipses until the end so that your Pests don't get frozen/damaged/poisoned. No such qualms against Permafrost Shield - it can't freeze your Pests.

Missing/Blocking shields (Dusk Mantle, Fog Shield, Phase Shield, etc.): Dusk and Fog are annoying, but only serve to slow the match down. Phase Shield/Wings chaining is stopped dead by quanta denial (and Vamps go through Wings anyway). None of your creatures have more than 5 attack, so Gravity Shield has no effect.

2/3 damage reduction (Titanium, Jade, Permafrost, Tower, Diamond): They negate your Pests, but you'll still win on Vamps. They're expensive, so your opponent will rarely get them out. As for Jade Shield, Steals don't help anyway.

Sanctuary: Ah, I forgot about that one. If you can't deny them before they play it, then you're pretty much dead. I doubt you'd be able to get the Steals early enough to be able to deny him anyway.

All in all, you can use Steals if you want, but I see them as dead cards.

[couponlady]

I made myself a pest deck. I have Aether as my mark for the Fractals in my deck. I was thinking of adding Pandemonium to my deck. If you upgrade the Pandemonium you have good creature control. Is there any way you could try making a Pest deck with Pandemonium.  I looked at the False God decks and really like the Pest deck. Why doesn't the deck have Upgraded Pendulums instead of Upgraded Pillars. Upgraded Pendulums would make the deck go faster. I was thinking you could just use Upgraded Pendulums and this would allow you play Pandemonium.

[Xenocidius]

I made myself a pest deck. I have Aether as my mark for the Fractals in my deck. I was thinking of adding Pandemonium to my deck. If you upgrade the Pandemonium you have good creature control. Is there any way you could try making a Pest deck with Pandemonium.  I looked at the False God decks and really like the Pest deck. Why doesn't the deck have Upgraded Pendulums instead of Upgraded Pillars. Upgraded Pendulums would make the deck go faster. I was thinking you could just use Upgraded Pendulums and this would allow you play Pandemonium.

Well, Decay (the False God) has a 3x Mark of Darkness, which combined with Pests generates enough that pendulums aren't needed.

If you were referring to my deck, it does have upgraded pendulums. As for Pandemonium, adding another element really upsets the quanta balance, and the creature control really isn't needed. If any creature control were added it would be Lightning or Siphon Life.

[Mithcairion]

First off, 6 is too many Fractals.  Even RoL/Hope runs with 5, and I would argue that Fractal-ing RoLs is more vital to that deck's success than fractaling Pests is to this one's.  Also, by reducing the number of Fractals you have, you can in turn take out an Aether Tower or two and replace them either with Pends, or any combination of Steals, Dusk Mantle, and Vampire Dagger.  Before you decide that I'm wrong out of hand and disregard this (I promise, I have read all of your previous arguments), please take into consideration what I say.

First off, the fact that you label this "Pestal 2.0" can be very misleading to a new player.  This could very well lead them to believe that this version is better than other posted versions and, to be perfectly honest, it's not better.  Not necessarily any worse, either, and that's one of the beautiful things about Pestal; the fact that there are so many different ways to play it depending on what you think may be coming.

Also, when it comes to adding in Steals, this is a very effective weapon since the goal is to achieve a quanta lockdown, or very close to it, of your opponent.  If you are able to get that lockdown, but they are in turn able to get out a troublesome permanent or two (Fire Shield, for instance) and then you are able to Steal that permanent, you then have that game won.  In essence, they're using their last gasp of quanta to play something that could possibly buy them the win, and you are in turn snatching that hope from them.  You're giving yourself another out, another win condition, which will always be superior to having only one.

As for the Dusk Mantle and Vampire Dagger, well, see above about win conditions.  The more things you can give your opponent to have to worry about, the better.  Also, there is exponentially more CC in game than PC, so they can do wonders in the early game, especially if your hand gets flooded with quanta producers and Fractals.  In fact, the two of them put together can almost win a game for you by themselves.

These suggestions will not cause this deck to beat all others, but the intent is instead to make it more viable against a wider variety of decks.  Happy elementing!

[Calindu]

I like to play pestal's with 6 siphon life's,after you lock your opponent you can EM quite often every time.

[Xenocidius]

First off, 6 is too many Fractals.  Even RoL/Hope runs with 5, and I would argue that Fractal-ing RoLs is more vital to that deck's success than fractaling Pests is to this one's.  Also, by reducing the number of Fractals you have, you can in turn take out an Aether Tower or two and replace them either with Pends, or any combination of Steals, Dusk Mantle, and Vampire Dagger.  Before you decide that I'm wrong out of hand and disregard this (I promise, I have read all of your previous arguments), please take into consideration what I say.

RoL/Hope runs with 5 Fractals? Since when? I've always used it with 6 ...

First off, the fact that you label this "Pestal 2.0" can be very misleading to a new player.  This could very well lead them to believe that this version is better than other posted versions and, to be perfectly honest, it's not better.  Not necessarily any worse, either, and that's one of the beautiful things about Pestal; the fact that there are so many different ways to play it depending on what you think may be coming.

The name stemmed out of the fact that I was seeing no Pestal decks on the forums, and hadn't found any effective ones. I was obviously mistaken on that (Pestal vs. Platinum (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,28170.msg387913#msg387913)? Wow ..).

Also, when it comes to adding in Steals, this is a very effective weapon since the goal is to achieve a quanta lockdown, or very close to it, of your opponent.  If you are able to get that lockdown, but they are in turn able to get out a troublesome permanent or two (Fire Shield, for instance) and then you are able to Steal that permanent, you then have that game won.  In essence, they're using their last gasp of quanta to play something that could possibly buy them the win, and you are in turn snatching that hope from them.  You're giving yourself another out, another win condition, which will always be superior to having only one.

As you can see, I've discussed Steals in the above posts, and the only dangerous one I can think of is Sanctuary, for which you would need more Steals than practical anyway. I'm mostly worried about them clogging the hand and upsetting quanta balance, but I understand that they could work quite well.

As for the Dusk Mantle and Vampire Dagger, well, see above about win conditions.  The more things you can give your opponent to have to worry about, the better.  Also, there is exponentially more CC in game than PC, so they can do wonders in the early game, especially if your hand gets flooded with quanta producers and Fractals.  In fact, the two of them put together can almost win a game for you by themselves.

Vampire Dagger is cheap and could work quite well. As for Dusk Mantle, the opponent rarely gets out strong enough hitters for this to make a difference. And even so, that's what the Vampires are for.

I like to play pestal's with 6 siphon life's,after you lock your opponent you can EM quite often every time.

The problem with those is that they clog up your hand massively. Besides, EM is what Vampires are for.

The main idea of this deck is to Fractal a Pest as early as possible, on as empty a hand as possible, and deny the opponent as quickly as possible. The extras hinder this idea, which is why they haven't been included.

Nevertheless, some extras may help this deck quite a bit, so I've added another version in the OP. I've also changed the name so as not to mislead anybody.

[Calindu]

I like to play pestal's with 6 siphon life's,after you lock your opponent you can EM quite often every time.

The problem with those is that they clog up your hand massively. Besides, EM is what Vampires are for.

The main idea of this deck is to Fractal a Pest as early as possible, on as empty a hand as possible, and deny the opponent as quickly as possible. The extras hinder this idea, which is why they haven't been included.

Nevertheless, some extras may help this deck quite a bit, so I've added another version in the OP. I've also changed the name so as not to mislead anybody.

they don't clog your hand,it kills creatures and heal you,at the end of the game you will EM quite often with 3 siphon life's because i usually end with 3 digits of quanta.

[Xenocidius]

I like to play pestal's with 6 siphon life's,after you lock your opponent you can EM quite often every time.

The problem with those is that they clog up your hand massively. Besides, EM is what Vampires are for.

The main idea of this deck is to Fractal a Pest as early as possible, on as empty a hand as possible, and deny the opponent as quickly as possible. The extras hinder this idea, which is why they haven't been included.

Nevertheless, some extras may help this deck quite a bit, so I've added another version in the OP. I've also changed the name so as not to mislead anybody.

they don't clog your hand,it kills creatures and heal you,at the end of the game you will EM quite often with 3 siphon life's because i usually end with 3 digits of quanta.

You can be pretty short on early game, and you're pretty much forced to play them all when you're ready for your first Fractal, draining precious quanta. Not to mention the space they take up in the deck.

As for EM, assuming the opponent gets any damage out, you can still EM by Fractalling Vamps, which you do once your Pests are outdraining his quanta production.