The Devonian Way

[johannhowitzer]

I've been messing around with dragon rushes for a while now, and a deck posted by Rember (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,21061.msg407042#msg407042) has sent some inspiration my way!

What if you could take all the fun of a draconic OTK and package it in streamlined form in an unupped deck?  I give you The Devonian Way!

by johannhowitzer

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4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 55q 55q 5fb 5op 5pu 5pu 5rm 5rp 5rp 5rp 5rp 5rp 5rp 5rr 5rr 5rr 5rr 5rr 5rr 61r 61r 63a 63a 63a 8ps

Try this in PvP1 sometime.  It is very vulnerable to PC, but what dragon rush isn't?  This achieves 102 damage in ten turns... six of which will be spent ignoring all enemy creatures.  I tried adding a single Blessing, but found it was too problematic to support 9 on top of everything else, as that's 3 past your Novas - so two Momentums are a better option.

Counting is important.  There is just enough quanta here to run both PUs and a Sky Blitz... I've always had a little leeway.  Count the number of Precognitions you've played... you need to start your Sundials when your deck shows 12+X cards, where X is the number of Precogs left unplayed.  If you face PC, try to hold off even a little longer.  For poison decks, start sooner - it's better to have less poison over your Sundial turns and be exposed a little at the end.

When you have all the requisite cards, play Devonian Dragon -> Momentum x2 -> Rage Potion -> Sky Blitz -> Parallel Universe x2, then watch your opponent die!

Suggestions on further improvement welcome.

[Wadjet]

While it's not incredibly viable, it looks really awesome XD

The only thing I think needs changing is some way to make it deck out less often, since one reverse time can screw you over pretty hard.

[johannhowitzer]

You have to play this badly to deck out, or face a Pestal deck.  I have never decked out.  It's more viable than you might think!  Also, Reverse Time will only stop one dragon, and only if you don't get the OTK.  In the past 10 games or so, I've only had the combo fail once or twice.  This is a challenging deck to play correctly, but also a very difficult deck to play against if you're not running something that can easily counter.  The only ways to stop this combo are 1) stop the quanta from being produced, 2) pierce the Sundials somehow (PC, Fahrenheit, neurotoxin, etc.), 3) boost your maximum life (only possible with Stone Skin in PvP1).

[johannhowitzer]

A note about quantum production... here's the total cost of the cards in this deck, including the Sundial abilities:

4
3
9
28
6
14

Time is easily covered with just mark and a little extra - I've always had a lot of extra in this deck.  The rest are covered by the Novas, except Aether and Air... hence the pendulums.  You need 8 and 3 beyond the Novas... so the most crucial thing is to get Aether pendulums out early.  The worst kind of draw would be to get all three of those at the very bottom of the deck.  But so far I have never failed to get the 14 I need by the final turn, even if I've had to avoid using the Sundials' hasten ability late in the match.

If you have to discard anything, drop a Precog.

[majofa]

Swapped the deck around a little, it is now WAR legal
Works in the same way as johannhowitzer's version.

by majofa

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4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 55q 55q 5fb 5op 5pu 5pu 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rm 5rp 5rp 5rp 5rp 5rp 5rp 5rr 5rr 5rr 5rr 5rr 5rr 61r 61r 8pu

[johannhowitzer]

Except that you are unlikely to get the you need to play any cards early.  You need to draw two Time Factories in your version to be able to play Precogs with any tempo, or get several Novas early.  This really needs to run on Time mark; is necessary throughout, while is needed only at the end.

It may be legal for War, but try playing it a few times - it's nowhere near as reliable. 

[majofa]

I never said it was better or worse, I only stated that it was a different version... and that it was WAR legal.

...and yes I did try it a few times, even in pvp1....

[johannhowitzer]

One quirk about playing this deck that I didn't mention... as the only two cards that can forcibly stop the combo once it's available are Stone Skin and Sundial, and Sundials are present in this deck, beware of playing them on the penultimate turn against an opponent who has the quanta to play a Steal.  Such will cause deckoutage.

I also just had a really fun game against a fire rush.  He told me, "you really need to get better at this..." at which I said, "I need two cards to kill you."  He replied, "holy crap," and just as his hammer dropped me to 1HP, I said "TOO SLOW!" and pulled off the combo.  The one downside to this deck is that you can't see your opponent's reaction!  Because right now I think his jaw just made a new route to China.

[EowynRoh13]

Well, sirvincent, you defeated my deck, Endrya last night. I was so fascinated with the Devonian deck you had, that I even dreamed about trying to beat it! So I'll start working on my own version once I build a new account up. I screen shot the defeat and figured out how to build the Devonian deck from that. This posting confirms that I figured it out correctly. What fun! Great idea!

[phaedrus]

Look forward to trying this out!
Super cool idea.

[johannhowitzer]

Thanks, guys!

One problem I've been having lately is getting the Aether Pendulums soon enough; it's caused a couple deckout losses.  Tried putting in a fourth Pendulum, but then my winrate against faster decks seemed to go down.

It's a good winrate in PvP, but the combo can fail in a variety of ways...
- Too many Sundials and combo-cards force you to play Sundials two at once
- Too few Sundials leave you open to attack
- One pendulum type or the other is buried and you don't have time to get the extra 3 or 8

Hostile threats that can prevent the combo...
- Extremely strong early damage, usually an immorush
- Permanent control (Steal is the least threatening)
- Strong weapons, especially Fahrenheit
- Lucky Devourers or Fractal Devourers (I've had a handful shut down my production before)

[johannhowitzer]

Upped version is now called the Way of Jade!  Thanks to upped cards removing almost all usage, Silurian Dragon turned out to be an inferior option, mostly due to its low HP - even with Unstoppable, it can't handle an unupped Rage Potion.  Jade Dragon can.  I tossed around the idea of using Blessing to get around that, but I was a bit more attracted to the concept of turning this whole thing into an EM deck!  The max size combo is seven cards, since you don't want to count on drawing an eighth combo card after the last Supernova.  The order of the combo at the end is Jade Dragon -> Unstoppable -> Rage Potion -> Sky Blitz -> Liquid Shadow -> Twin Universe x2

The total quantum consumption of this deck is:
3
2 (spent and recovered via supernovas)
1
12
8
6
6
3
12

Note how the six Supernovas alone cover all costs!  This makes this deck a lot more stable.  So why the Quantum Towers?  Two reasons - first, you don't want the only playable card on turns one and two to be a Sundial - those are the only cost-less cards in this deck otherwise, and the Mark will take two turns to charge for a Supernova.  Second, QTs make the deck more resistant to Devourers and Black Holes.  Although the only elements that are "stretched" are Life and Aether, so you could actually substitute towers or pendulums of those elements.  Personally, I like QTs for another reason as well - you will appear to be a conventional novabow to most people.

by johannhowitzer

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6qq 6qq 6qq 6qq 6qq 6u3 6u3 6u3 6u3 6u3 6u3 74a 7ad 7dr 7n9 7q9 7q9 7q9 7q9 7q9 7q9 7qb 7qb 7qb 7qb 7qb 7qb 7te 80b 80b 8pj

One glaring weakness of this deck: 4TK rushes.  Unupped PvP is a bit slower, and so the four or five turns of vulnerability aren't as much of an issue, but in upped PvP, you may get stung by some fast rushes, and unfortunately there just isn't a good way to make this draw faster.  The only alternative I can think of is Aether Towers, a Phase Shield or two, and a little luck.  Thankfully a 4TK isn't super-common even for the fastest rushes out there, and if the rush is THAT fast, you may not be facing any PC.