Rush, Stall, Break - The Hidden Rock-Paper-Scissors Game Within Elements

[mesaprotector]

One thing I noticed when playing MtG, and again in Elements, is that each card has at least one of the following three purposes:

Rush - The ability to deal damage quickly to your opponent.

Stall - The ability to slow down or heal your opponent's damage.

Break - The ability to get around stalling and make your damage difficult to stop.

Good examples of each type of card are Giant Frog, Thunderbolt, and Unstoppable.

(http://elementsthegame.wikia.com/wiki/Giant_Frog?image=GiantFrog-png) (http://elementsthegame.wikia.com/wiki/Thunderbolt?image=Thunderbolt-png) (http://elementsthegame.wikia.com/wiki/Unstoppable?image=Unstoppable-png)

Some cards have multiple uses - for example, Rage Elixir can either be a quick buff card (Rush) or creature control (Stall). There is exactly one card which, without comboing with different cards, can be used in all three ways. (Anyone figure out what it is? )

Categorizing decks

Decks are frequently the same way. For example, Powerful Wyrms, Dissipation Shield Deckout, and Flying Morning Glories (see spoiler).

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6rk 6rk 6u2 6u2 6u2 6u2 6u2 6u2 7ms 7ms 7ms 7ms 7ms 7ms 7ms 7ms 7ms 7ms 7mt 7mt 7mt 7mt 7mt 7mt 7mu 7mu 7mu 7mu 7mu 7mu 8pj

Elite Wyrms aren't particularly sturdy attackers, and this deck has no control whatsoever, but man is it fast.

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4vg 4vg 4vg 4vg 4vg 4vg 4vi 4vi 4vi 4vi 4vi 4vi 6ts 6ts 6ts 6ts 6ts 6ts 6ts 6ts 6ts 6ts 6ts 6ts 6ts 6ts 6u7 6u7 6u7 6u7 6u7 6u7 6ug 6ug 6ug 6ug 6ve 6ve 6ve 6ve 6ve 6ve 6ve 6ve 6ve 6ve 6ve 6ve 6ve 6ve 8pj

Tons of control and virtually no damage, this deck's purpose is clearly to deck your opponent out.

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7dg 7dg 7dg 7dm 7dm 7dm 7dm 7dm 7dm 7jo 7jo 7jo 7jo 7jo 7jo 7jo 7jo 7jo 7jo 7k1 7k1 7k1 7k1 7k1 7k1 7n2 7n2 7n2 7n2 7n2 8pq

Divine Glory's deck minus the Miracles, clearly does a good job ignoring control and shields but can easily be outrushed.


This can be applied to PvP matchups as well as general knowledge about the meta. If you're facing someone who loves to rush, or you're playing in PvP1, where bad rush decks are the norm, without any further information take a stall deck.

Why is this a Rock-Paper-Scissors scenario?

Well - Stall decks are based entirely on controlling and healing damage. If a control-heavy deck faces a control-less speedbow or mono rush, a couple of Maxwell's Demons, Firestorms, or Miracles will usually be enough to win. So Stall beats Rush.

Creature control and shields, on the other hand, won't help much against the slower but surer damage of Break decks (such as Bolts, Catapult damage, or Poison). Or, for that matter, the Explosions and Morning Glories of the example Break deck. So Break beats Stall.

On the other hand, Break decks don't have many ways to slow damage, which is necessary against a Rush. They'll simply get outrushed. Now Rush beats Break, and the circle is complete.

What this means for balancing cards

Rush cards, generally speaking, are the easiest to balance. A simple cost/attack ratio and maybe a comparison with other cards is usually enough to tell if a card is OP or UP.

Stall cards are trickier. Comparison is again your friend here. Cards can also be balanced (especially shields), by what % of damage they will usually block in comparison to their cost.

The general rule for break cards is that they must have some counter. Immortal creatures are still affected by shields, Bolt damage is stopped by reflectives, and poison has Purify. None of these cards has a great cost/attack ratio, so they have to be judged based on their counters.

If a card has multiple purposes (like Rage Elixir), it's balanced as long as all of its uses are balanced. For example, upped RE does 6 damage for 3 (fine, even a bit weak). Alternatively, it's a situational +6 - attack buff. Improved Blessing is a +3 attack buff for 2 , but unlike RE it isn't situational and even increases a creature's HP. So, I would say that Rage Elixir is balanced, however annoying Firestalls are to play.

Hope you found this article interesting and enlightening!

[Poker Alho]

Very nice post i enjoyed it reading it all

still trying to figure out that one card that does all 3 things...

EDIT: maybe arsenic? can be used in rush decks, poison dealer as a breaker, and its used in all poison stalls

[UnderneathTheLens]

Very nice post i enjoyed it reading it all

still trying to figure out that one card that does all 3 things...

Overdrive, possibly?

[Laxadarap]

maybe discord, decent damage for cost(rush), slows down monorushes considerably (stall), and can stop shield chaining with a 1 turn gap (break).

[Drake_XIV]

Very nice post i enjoyed it reading it all

still trying to figure out that one card that does all 3 things...

Overdrive, possibly?

Hm, Overdrive is missing slightly on the Stall factor, although it does exhibit similar control in terms of lobotomizing and damaging low health creatures.  But definitely one of the closest examples.

[RootRanger]

This was generally a good post. However, stalls really aren't strong against rushes in the same way that breaks are strong against stalls and rushes are strong against breaks. Rushes will often have the speed and power to get past stalls, after all, rushes don't have very many CC cards slowing them down. So how would I beat a rush, and why are stalls ever used?

Well, you're missing an important fourth category: domin. A domin is in between a rush and a stall. It includes more defense than a rush but less than a stall, and more damage than a stall but less than a rush. Domins generally have enough defense to slow down a rush while doing enough damage to beat it, but domins tend to lack enough damage to get past a stall. Domins provide the missing link in the game of RDSB.

But what about rushes vs stalls and domins vs breaks? Well, they generally have even match ups. A rush such as Mono Death Rush will takes out Mono Entropy Stall, thanks to Poison, but Mono Entropy Stall can hold off Mono Life (do people still use that?) A domin like Mono Air will fall to Flying Titans, but a domin involving Reverse Time should be able to hold it off.

What if you mix two of the four main deck types? What will happen then? Stall + Break? The famous Fractal-DimShield combo. Rush + Break? How about Fractix. Domin + Stall? Pandebonium. I'll let you try to figure out other examples.

And lastly, the RDSB model is just a model. It's an attempt to understand the large, complex metagame by grouping it into four neat categories. But the truth is that the large, complex metagame is just how it sounds: large and complex. There are always exceptions, odd combinations, decks that play different ways, and decks that aren't even in the RDSB model. But maybe by understanding a simplified form of the metagame, the large, complex, big, scary metagame-monster in the closet won't seem as big and scary anymore.

EDIT: I agree with idle.

[Silver]

I don't have nearly as much experience as you but I'd just like to say that it seems to me like this is an oversimplistic model. I find people often try to reduce metas into a single RPS scheme when there are many little counters that make a more complicated whole.

For example looking at the popular SoD-Miracle Mono Light. It's a stall, no one is going to argue about that. You know what's not good against it? Your Morning Glory "Break". Momentum decks are not good against it. Poison is not good against it.

There are Break-ish decks that can be good counters, but I find it's also valid to just straight up rush it before it gets the quanta to get the healing in motion.

Also a lot of decks fit into multiple categories in different ways. For example the popular Scrambled Shriekers and It's a Trap!. They've got elements of rush and stall and interact with other decks in more complicated ways then how much does each deck fit into these different categories.

When I expect Scrambled Shriekers, I don't do a Break-Stall as your post would suggest. I would just rush it but with a rainbow deck.

Again I am not experienced as you, and nowhere nearly as good, but I'm just saying that it looks to me like elements is a lot more complicated than you're giving it credit for.

edit: I got kind of ninja'd

[mesaprotector]

Thanks for the comments guys!

I don't have nearly as much experience as you but I'd just like to say that it seems to me like this is an oversimplistic model. I find people often try to reduce metas into a single RPS scheme when there are many little counters that make a more complicated whole.

Well, of course it's more complicated than this, but I wanted to keep it relatively simple. A typical stall deck relies on CC and shields, which Break (short for "stallbreak", which you might have guessed) decks are meant to counter. There are also Break cards that do nicely against healing, like Overdrive and Steam Machine.
 

This was generally a good post. However, stalls really aren't strong against rushes in the same way that breaks are strong against stalls and rushes are strong against breaks. Rushes will often have the speed and power to get past stalls, after all, rushes don't have very many CC cards slowing them down. So how would I beat a rush, and why are stalls ever used?

Well, you're missing an important fourth category: domin. A domin is in between a rush and a stall. It includes more defense than a rush but less than a stall, and more damage than a stall but less than a rush. Domins generally have enough defense to slow down a rush while doing enough damage to beat it, but domins tend to lack enough damage to get past a stall. Domins provide the missing link in the game of RDSB.

Interesting response. I had thought of domin decks as Rush + Stall, but I guess that could be reserved for rushes with healing or damage reduction, like USEM or upped mono-light.

Very nice post i enjoyed it reading it all

still trying to figure out that one card that does all 3 things...

Overdrive, possibly?

Hm, Overdrive is missing slightly on the Stall factor, although it does exhibit similar control in terms of lobotomizing and damaging low health creatures.  But definitely one of the closest examples.

Overdrive isn't great as a stall card. Discord, btw, isn't a break card because as long as your opponent keeps chaining shields, it can't do anything.

[Poker Alho]

already edited my first post but noone saw it... is it arsenic?

[bogtro]

Generally a good post, but Elements is far more complex than a standard RPS. Decks like Stall Faster, Pestal (Denial), It's a Trap, and OTKs are not included in the Rush-Stall-Break method that you're talking about. The metagame is closer to RPS-n for some relatively large n (at least 6 IMO)

In my opinion, there are at least 6 types of decks:
a) Rush (e.g. vNG/GoD)
b) Stall (e.g. Firestall)
c) Stallbreaker (e.g. Decks focused on Overdrive, Arsenic, Growth, etc.)
d) Denial (Pestal, Dishole, etc.)
e) OTK (not the same as stallbreaker, example is Instosis)
f) "Balance" (Rushy with control - e.g. Stall Faster)

Rush generally loses to Stall, beats Stallbreaker, beats Denial, loses to OTK, loses to Balance
Stall generally beats rush, loses to Stallbreaker, loses to Denial, loses to OTK, loses to Balance
Stallbreaker generally loses to rush, beats Stall, beats Denial, beats OTK, loses to Balance
Denial generally loses to rush, beats Stall, beats Stallbreaker, beats OTK, beats Balance
OTK generally beats rush, beats Stall, loses to Stallbreaker, loses to Denial, beats Balance
Balance generally beats rush, beats stall, beats Stallbreaker, loses to Denial, loses to OTK.

On the topic of cards, I feel that cards fall into
a) Buff (Blessing)
b) Damage (Lightning)
c) Creature without skill - Vanilla (Horned Frog)
d) Creature with skill (Maxwell's Demon)
e) Permanent
f) Weapon/Shield

Cards can fall into multiple categories. Overdrive buffs but does Damage. Liquid Shadow buffs but does damage. Rage potion can buff or do damage. Holy Light can buff or do damage.

Within Elements, there are many RPSes, such as PC vs. Perms (should I take PC? should I take shields? PA? cloak?), CC vs. creatures (should I take CC? should I take higher def creatures? quint? cloak? buffs?), Denial vs. Sanctuary, etc. etc.

[Drake_XIV]

Now, who's going to be the one to make the intricate diagram displaying this?

[Kardo]

There is exactly one card which, without comboing with different cards, can be used in all three ways. (Anyone figure out what it is? )

My first thoughts are...

Pulverizer
- Rush in that it deals damage. (Not fast enough to be counted in rush IMO)
- Stall in that it destroys weapons and damage-dealing permanents (grasping at straws here)
- Break in that it does what the card is intended to do, breaks permanents and thus most shields/healing.

Unstable Gas/Blue Nymph
- Rush in that it deals a lot of damage with each explosion.
- Stall in that it has (albeit weak) creature control to reduce damage taken.
- Break in that it gets around stalls by stacking damage into one turn.

Fate Egg/Mutation could technically turn into a creature that exhibits any one of the 3 types, but that's pushing it. As is SoSe.

All bolt type spells can fall into all 3 categories. They are CC to reduce damage. They deal damage (though not as quickly as most Rush decks). And they can get around healing through OTK. Obviously this fails the "Exactly one card" though.