Adrenapires [Darkness] [Life] [Unupped]

[Belligerence]

I'm still fairly new to Elements, and this my first post on the forums, so let me know if there's something wrong or incorrect here, please. With that aside, let's move on to how I came about this deck.

After having started Elements, and making 4-5 accounts, I was brave enough to ask for help on the Kongregate chat. The kind folks happily linked the rather awesome newbie guide which showed how to make decent AI3 grinders from your starting deck. But I wasn't satisfied with the score, and I heard tell of PvP offering (relatively) more substantial rewards than AI3. So I browsed the forum, learned the basics of deck making, and went about making my "own" deck for PvP. I stumbled across adrenaline and vampires, quite by accident, and was astounded at the effect that 2-3 adrenaline vampires could have on both you and your opponents health. I quickly built upon the idea to make the deck below.

by Belligerence

Hover over cards for details, click for permalink

Deck import code : [Select]

5bs 5bs 5bs 5bs 5bs 5c7 5c7 5c7 5c7 5c7 5c7 5uk 5uk 5uk 5uk 5uk 5um 5um 5um 5um 5um 5um 5up 5up 5up 5uq 5uq 5ur 5ur 5ut 5ut 5ut 5ut 5ut 5ut 8pt

I read the "READ THIS FIRST" post beforehand, and as such I searched for decks containing Adrenaline, Devourers, and Vampires. I found a relatively similiar deck from a War event or somesuch, but it wasn't the same, in fact it was a good bit different than this deck, so I'm going to go ahead and post it.

The idea should be clear to pretty much everyone; Nightfall + Vampires = 3 attack, one of the optimal targets for Adrenaline.

A couple things to note:

This works great for PvP depending on what other decks are currently in PvP1. With the addition of devourers to the deck, you have basically 2 options for winning the fight:
1. Play Nightfall, Vampire Stiletto, Pillars, and Devourers as you get them. Save Vampires and Adrenalines until you can play 2-3 vampires and Adrenaline them in the same turn, unless your enemy has no CC, or you need healing earlier.
2. Deprival. Does your enemy have only a few pillars? Drop your devourers, Adrenaline them for 2x more quanta denial, and steal his pillars. This method is slower than the first method, but is far more likely to result in a rage quit. After all, who enjoys sitting around dying from 1 damage creatures (Nightfall + devourer) while watching all their quanta get eaten?

Weaknesses:
1. Mono fire decks. Just give up, and hand them the win. A single RoF will obliterate all your creatures, leaving you helpless. A good player won't waste CC on devourers, and will wait for your vampires.
2. Antimatter. Nothing to say other than Antimatter + Vampire + Adrenaline = ouch.
3. Fractal devourers. This deck can obliterate fractal devourers more than half the time, but if they get out an early fractal or you get a slow start, its over.
4. A hope shield of 3 or more is completely impossible to beat.

I realize its a 35 card deck, and that the mark is Darkness. This is entirely intentional. This deck requires very little quanta to function, but the quanta it does need is absolutely required. You could add in an Emerald Pillar to help balance Life quanta if you desire, but I think it runs better without an extra tower.

I'm done rambling now. Please, share your thoughts, suggestions, and opinions!

[furballdn]

I know 35 cards is intentional, but I still prefer 30 card decks. That aside. it's pretty standard adrenavampires. 6 devourers may be more than you need though. Anyways, to get around the main problem of your fragile vampires, you can pack in cloak. Unless your opponent packs in PC or AoE seplls, you should be able to protect your 12 atk healing vampires.

[mesaprotector]

Welcome to the forums Belligerence!

Well... for a first deck post, this is actually really good. No dead cards, a fairly focused strategy, and decent quanta balance. (As you mentioned, another emerald tower might help.)

Possible Fixes

Weak to mono-fire - well, there's no good way to help that. Upped Vampire + Nightfall/Eclipse has more than 3 HP, as do upped Pests, but until then, problems. (Devourers can be burrowed, but it's not usually worth it.) Fortunately RoF isn't that common in the current metagame.

Weak to antimatter - you could add some CC, such as Drain Lifes. Not sure how useful they'll be against most decks, but they'd definitely give you a chance.

And as for Damage Reduction (DR) shields, yes they are a pain. The new shard, SoP, helps get around those, but it's not easy to find and would mess with your adrenaline. I'd just go with the fact that Hope isn't too common in PvP, and you can steal almost everything else.

Additional Strategies

Pestosis (Devourer + Mitosis) is a fairly common and solid combo, and would fit with your current duo. Its disadvantages are that it would likely slow down your deck even further, probably forcing you to drop the Vampires or Adrenalines, in favor of more stally cards like Drain Life.

To make the deck faster, you could add a couple of frogs, but I doubt that would be worth it either.

So, in other words, nice deck, and sorry none of my suggestions will likely help at all

EDIT: Actually, I do have a suggestion I think would help. You have exactly 5 emerald towers, and 5 obsidian towers. Replacing these with 10 pendulums (because you'll need the first, I'd suggest flipping your mark to ) would likely improve your draws - I'm guessing you occasionally have frustrating games where it takes you forever to get enough life quanta to play an Adren.

[Belligerence]

I know 35 cards is intentional, but I still prefer 30 card decks. That aside. it's pretty standard adrenavampires. 6 devourers may be more than you need though. Anyways, to get around the main problem of your fragile vampires, you can pack in cloak. Unless your opponent packs in PC or AoE seplls, you should be able to protect your 12 atk healing vampires.

Ahh, I apologize if its a redundant deck. I had luck with it in PvP1, and wanted to share and get opinions on it. My original deck idea had included 3 cloaks, but I found that when I wished I had them, they were never there, and when I didn't need them, they clogged my hand. So I removed them. I don't think 6 devourers are too many, simply because they help speed up the deck once they hit the field. Oftentimes I can draw only a single Darkness Pillar in my hand, and still push out creatures, a Stiletto, and Nightfall steadily.

Welcome to the forums Belligerence!

Well... for a first deck post, this is actually really good. No dead cards, a fairly focused strategy, and decent quanta balance. (As you mentioned, another emerald tower might help.)

Possible Fixes

Weak to mono-fire - well, there's no good way to help that. Upped Vampire + Nightfall/Eclipse has more than 3 HP, as do upped Pests, but until then, problems. (Devourers can be burrowed, but it's not usually worth it.) Fortunately RoF isn't that common in the current metagame.

Weak to antimatter - you could add some CC, such as Drain Lifes. Not sure how useful they'll be against most decks, but they'd definitely give you a chance.

And as for Damage Reduction (DR) shields, yes they are a pain. The new shard, SoP, helps get around those, but it's not easy to find and would mess with your adrenaline. I'd just go with the fact that Hope isn't too common in PvP, and you can steal almost everything else.

Additional Strategies

Pestosis (Devourer + Mitosis) is a fairly common and solid combo, and would fit with your current duo. Its disadvantages are that it would likely slow down your deck even further, probably forcing you to drop the Vampires or Adrenalines, in favor of more stally cards like Drain Life.

To make the deck faster, you could add a couple of frogs, but I doubt that would be worth it either.

So, in other words, nice deck, and sorry none of my suggestions will likely help at all

Thank you for the welcome, I'm looking forward to a (hopefully) long stay here . I like the idea of mitosis, but I think that in the end it would slow the deck down more than it would help it. The current main idea behind the deck is to drop 2-3-4 vampires, and adrenaline them in the same turn, for the "omg wtf" effect. Which is certainly does, going from 20 hp to 50+ is a nice feeling.
I like frogs, my first AI3 grinding deck was the mono Life one, but they don't fit the strategy of the deck. Playing a frog isn't the same as playing a vampire and being healed as well .

[Absol]

I'll say, drop the devourers. They slow the deck down by taking the quanta Vampires need. Sure, they return more later, but speed is power.
Also, drop all pillars, and change to full pends ( pend/ mark) and maybe one more Steal, or Cloak.

EDIT:

by Absol

Hover over cards for details, click for permalink

Deck import code : [Select]

5c7 5c7 5c7 5c7 5c7 5c7 5up 5up 5up 5uq 5uq 5uq 5ut 5ut 5ut 5ut 5ut 5ut 606 606 606 606 606 606 606 606 606 606 606 606 8pn

Steal often interferes with your weapon, so i take the Dagger out and put in more Nightfall. You can also fit in Cloak somewhere.

[Belligerence]

I'll say, drop the devourers. They slow the deck down by taking the quanta Vampires need. Sure, they return more later, but speed is power.
Also, drop all pillars, and change to full pends ( pend/ mark) and maybe one more Steal, or Cloak.

EDIT:

by Belligerence

Hover over cards for details, click for permalink

Deck import code : [Select]

5c7 5c7 5c7 5c7 5c7 5c7 5up 5up 5up 5uq 5uq 5uq 5ut 5ut 5ut 5ut 5ut 5ut 606 606 606 606 606 606 606 606 606 606 606 606 8pn

Steal often interferes with your weapon, so i take the Dagger out and put in more Nightfall. You can also fit in Cloak somewhere.

Fair enough reasoning. The reason I had the Stilettos in is because they're cheap, and the 4 healing can help you stall a bit while you build up quanta for vampires + adrenaline. I'm heading out for the night soon, but I'll take a look at this version tomorrow, it looks nice. A quick question; the Oracle was kind enough to give me a nymph several days ago... a Green Nymph, to be exact. Would it fit in the deck (either - 1 adrenaline, or - 1 pendulum) or should I just let the nymph sit all by herself in my "inventory"?

[Cheesy111]

Nymphs are a little expensive and wouldn't fit in a small, focused duo like this, however they are definitely useful in other decks.  Mono-life rushes, for example, tend to work well with Green Nymphs just because they often have excess quanta.

[furballdn]

I'll say, drop the devourers. They slow the deck down by taking the quanta Vampires need. Sure, they return more later, but speed is power.
Also, drop all pillars, and change to full pends ( pend/ mark) and maybe one more Steal, or Cloak.

EDIT:

by furballdn

Hover over cards for details, click for permalink

Deck import code : [Select]

5c7 5c7 5c7 5c7 5c7 5c7 5up 5up 5up 5uq 5uq 5uq 5ut 5ut 5ut 5ut 5ut 5ut 606 606 606 606 606 606 606 606 606 606 606 606 8pn

Steal often interferes with your weapon, so i take the Dagger out and put in more Nightfall. You can also fit in Cloak somewhere.

Fair enough reasoning. The reason I had the Stilettos in is because they're cheap, and the 4 healing can help you stall a bit while you build up quanta for vampires + adrenaline. I'm heading out for the night soon, but I'll take a look at this version tomorrow, it looks nice. A quick question; the Oracle was kind enough to give me a nymph several days ago... a Green Nymph, to be exact. Would it fit in the deck (either - 1 adrenaline, or - 1 pendulum) or should I just let the nymph sit all by herself in my "inventory"?

Probably keep it in your inventory. A nymph is way too expensive and impractical in a deck like this. Just keep using regular adrenaline.

[Belligerence]

I'll say, drop the devourers. They slow the deck down by taking the quanta Vampires need. Sure, they return more later, but speed is power.
Also, drop all pillars, and change to full pends ( pend/ mark) and maybe one more Steal, or Cloak.

EDIT:

by Belligerence

Hover over cards for details, click for permalink

Deck import code : [Select]

5c7 5c7 5c7 5c7 5c7 5c7 5up 5up 5up 5uq 5uq 5uq 5ut 5ut 5ut 5ut 5ut 5ut 606 606 606 606 606 606 606 606 606 606 606 606 8pn

Steal often interferes with your weapon, so i take the Dagger out and put in more Nightfall. You can also fit in Cloak somewhere.

Fair enough reasoning. The reason I had the Stilettos in is because they're cheap, and the 4 healing can help you stall a bit while you build up quanta for vampires + adrenaline. I'm heading out for the night soon, but I'll take a look at this version tomorrow, it looks nice. A quick question; the Oracle was kind enough to give me a nymph several days ago... a Green Nymph, to be exact. Would it fit in the deck (either - 1 adrenaline, or - 1 pendulum) or should I just let the nymph sit all by herself in my "inventory"?

Probably keep it in your inventory. A nymph is way too expensive and impractical in a deck like this. Just keep using regular adrenaline.

Alright I played around with that a bit and... I have to say my original version has a higher win rate, and is more balanced. The pendulums often leave me drowning in life quanta, but I spend most of my time hoping for a bit more Darkness quanta to play my vampires. I lost a good deal of games which would have been an easy win with either devourers or a more steady source of Darkness quanta (pillars). I played around 100 matches with this version and got around 60% win rate in PvP1 while the original version was about 80-85%, so it's not just bad luck.

[UnderneathTheLens]

I'll say, drop the devourers. They slow the deck down by taking the quanta Vampires need. Sure, they return more later, but speed is power.
Also, drop all pillars, and change to full pends ( pend/ mark) and maybe one more Steal, or Cloak.

EDIT:

by DarkGDude

Hover over cards for details, click for permalink

Deck import code : [Select]

5c7 5c7 5c7 5c7 5c7 5c7 5up 5up 5up 5uq 5uq 5uq 5ut 5ut 5ut 5ut 5ut 5ut 606 606 606 606 606 606 606 606 606 606 606 606 8pn

Steal often interferes with your weapon, so i take the Dagger out and put in more Nightfall. You can also fit in Cloak somewhere.

Try this, the other one didn't have very good quanta balance.

by DarkGDude

Hover over cards for details, click for permalink

Deck import code : [Select]

5c7 5c7 5c7 5c7 5c7 5c7 5uk 5uk 5uk 5uk 5uk 5up 5up 5up 5uq 5uq 5uq 5ut 5ut 5ut 5ut 5ut 5ut 606 606 606 606 606 606 606 8pn

[Absol]

Oh, you're actually right. Further testing shows excess while not enough .
I'll say 6 pillars 6 pends, though. I've always included at least 6 of any pillar batch (except pillar-pend split, they count as a same batch)

[koolvince09]

I've tried both Belligerence's and Absol's and, even though Absol's does make more sense quanta wise, but i do prefer Belligerence's just because you can almost guarantee that you won't loose, because you weren't able to put out your minor vampires, since this's happened to me before, where i had a whole bunch of pendulums, but i lost because every time i drew a card, i usually had the pendulum come rather than my creatures, but Absol's idea would work great if you had hasten, but that'd mean you'd need  which, would make the deck a Trio, instead of a Duo.