Vault planning

[willng3]

Okay, so now's a good time to start planning what decks we plan to use and what decks we can expect them to face.  This information will in turn affect what we want to go in the Vault.  However, before starting this there are a few changes to how the Vault is structured that need to be addressed immediately:
- at least 50% of cards have to be from your element
- maximum of 18 per card from your element (restriction doesn't apply to Pillars or Pendulums)
- maximum of 6 per card from other elements (restriction doesn't apply to Pillars or Pendulums)
- no Shards
- Our starting Vault is 299 cards

In particular, the maximum of 18 per team element and the maximum of 6 per other elements are the ones that should have us most concerned.  This means that the number of strong synergies that Life possesses with other Elements will be reduced with each new round that passes.  With discards starting at 12 cards per round and increasing by 6 each round until we reach 30, Vaults will start to break apart pretty quickly with multiple losses, and we will want to save as many Life cards as possible with each round that passes.

Also, important rules for deckbuilding:
- Any mark
- At least 50% of your cards have to be from your element
- Generals can use up to 6 upgraded cards plus one per Relic the team possesses (unupgraded cards taken from the Vault are transformed into upgraded ones)
- Lieutenants can use up to 3 upgraded cards plus one per Relic the team possesses (unupgraded cards taken from the Vault are transformed into upgraded ones)
- Other players can use up to one upgraded cards per Relic the team possesses (unupgraded cards taken from the Vault are transformed into upgraded ones)
- You cannot change your deck until the round is over
- Each War team begins with 2 Relics

In particular the Relics issue is the most important.  Unless we're expecting us to have multiple Relics each and every round (I wouldn't) we'll need to build most of our decks completely non-upgraded.

With this out of the way we can start considering what we want to take in our vault.  I will post a list of strategies and decks that I have picked up over my PvP career at a later time after everyone has gotten a chance to reflect on this a bit.

[willng3]

Okay, I've spent enough time getting deck ideas ready.  Here are some of my personal favorites:
Nature's wrath

by willng3

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5bt 5bt 5c2 5c2 5c2 5c2 5c5 5c5 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5f6 5f6 5fb 5fb 5fb 5fb 5fc 5fc 5fc 5fc 5fc 8po

Stallish, but still deals damage quickly.  Phoenixes are amazing creatures that can absorb a lot of the CC Life finds itself prone to while dealing a ton of damage.

PUgon

by willng3

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5bs 5bs 5bs 5bs 5bs 5bs 5bt 5bt 5bt 5bt 5bt 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 61q 61q 61q 61q 61r 61r 61r 61r 61r 61t 61t 61t 61t 8pu

The unupped version of the deck I used during last Trials which allowed me to win 5 duels in a row without much trouble.  The deck is very sinister in that the Lightnings can be replaced by Silences or Lobos depending on what decks you plan to face.  If you want to see more of what this deck is capable of, I'd read my match report here:  http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,37115.msg466804.html#msg466804

Frogtal from hell

by willng3

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5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 61t 61t 61t 622 622 622 622 624 624 624 624 7ae 7ae 7ae 7ae 7ae 7ae 8pu

I also considered using this last Trials, but since Frogs were banned I couldn't.  It functions very similarly to PUgons except that Frogs cannot pass through Wings.  Silences are extremely menacing in a Fractal rush like this because you can spam a ton of creatures, then chain Silences to prevent them from being stopped by Shields or CC.

AdrenaTitans

by willng3

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55s 55s 55s 55s 55s 55s 55t 55t 55t 5c7 5c7 5c7 5c7 5c7 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 7n2 7n2 7n2 7n2 7n2 8pl

To be honest, I was somewhat scared of this deck last Trials and for good reason.  Though the whole combo aspect is a bit problematic sometimes, this deck is both fast and largely unaffected by any types of shields that come at you.  CC except Reverse Time is also laughable.  I originally had 3 Heals in this deck until I realized that 3 Gravity Pulls effectively allow you to negate 150 points of damage over the course of a game with Titans.  My only regret is that the Animate weapons make it only accessible to me and the lieutenant during the first Round.

AdrenaGhosts

by willng3

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5bu 5bu 5bu 5bu 5bu 5c7 5c7 5c7 5c7 5c7 5c7 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5ro 5ro 5ro 5ru 5ru 5ru 5ru 8ps

Also dangerous.  Eternity by itself is very threatening to other rushes which increases the chances of this deck outrushing the opponent greatly.  Also, creatures like Otys and Maxwell's will think twice before setting foot on the field with Eternity out.  Adrenaline synergizes very well with both Ghosts and Frogs as an added bonus.

Shockwave Dragons

by willng3

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5bs 5bs 5bs 5bs 5bs 5bs 5bs 5bs 5bs 5bt 5bt 5bt 5bt 5bt 5c3 5c3 5c3 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5ol 5ol 5ol 5on 5on 5on 5on 5on 5on 8pr

Stallish, but still pretty darn fast.  You're basically just abusing all of the damage that Shockwaves, OE, and Thorn Carapace can provide.

Stoned Dragons

by willng3

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58r 58r 58r 58r 594 594 594 594 594 594 5aa 5aa 5c3 5c3 5c3 5c3 5c5 5c5 5c7 5c7 5c7 5c7 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 8pm

This one's interesting.  Basically, the plan is to get out Thorn Carapace and Druidic Staff as soon as you can to allow your stall ability to increase several times over.  Hold off on using Stone Skins unless you need them to keep you alive; otherwise use them when your quanta hits 75 .  In the middle of the game when the opponent's field is completely cleared away by Thorn Carapace, start slaughtering with Adrena-Stone Dragons who quite simply don't care about just about any type of CC used on them.

Scorpion Firestall

by willng3

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5c4 5c8 5c8 5c8 5c8 5c8 5c8 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5f4 5f4 5f4 5f4 5f4 5f4 5f7 5f7 5f7 5gi 5gi 5gi 5gi 8po

Mainly posting this here because you can use the cards from this deck and Nature's Wrath to create a much bigger and much deadlier Firestall.  But this one also has the ability to deal damage extremely quickly (works much better when Scorps are upgraded though).


These are just some ideas to get the ball rolling.  This is a time for us to brainstorm on any decks that we can think of that are useful.  Raid old Team Life sections for ideas, present your own ideas, etc.  A lot of this will also be discussed in chat (hopefully).

[killsdazombies]

I think we should focus on taking cards for elements we need, Aether, Fire, Air, you know, The CC gods.

[Helston]

I propose we change the quanta balance of PUgon a little to:

by Helston

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5bs 5bs 5bt 5bt 5bt 5bt 5bt 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 61q 61q 61q 61q 61r 61r 61r 61r 61r 61t 61t 61t 61t 8pu

Works a lot more smoothly when you can pump out the dim shields and PUs that little more quickly.

Looks like we need something that can counter discord, and I don't think we'd go too well against an EQ deck either, making Discake the worst thing we could possible face. I'll dig around a bit for some life-novabows to see if I can come up with something good.

[Helston]

Shockwave Dragons (Wings)

by Helston

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5bt 5bt 5bt 5bt 5bt 5bt 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5ol 5ol 5ol 5on 5on 5on 5on 5oo 5oo 5oo 5oo 8pr

Things I learnt today, Wings >>> Discord, Graboids. A simple variant that means we need some extra pendulums and wings brought along. From what I recall War #4, Wings is a fairly strong card in War in general, too.

Novabow

by Helston

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4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 55q 590 590 590 590 5bs 5bs 5bu 5bu 5bu 5c1 5c1 5c5 5c7 5c7 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5f6 5og 61q 8pm

Went trawling through the archive and came up with this. It's a variant of something will made for War #3 or so. 10 creatures gives it a bit of CC resilience as well as plenty of adrenaline choices. Makes Earthquakes cry.

I've put the decks in this thread into the vault. I've managed to hit the 299 mark exactly by using my version of PUgon instead of will's and including enough cards to switch between the two Shockwave Dragon decks. There's also two extra Lightnings, two extra Silences, three Lobotomizers and only six Dimensional Shields (will's decks use a total of seven).

We really need some more talk and contributions here. The six most important things in War are the six team members, and number seven is the Vault. Only one of those things is up to us at this stage, so we really need to put some effort into this.

[drolly]

Some weeks ago, TheonlyrealBeef showed me a Devtosis deck in chat which turned out to work surprisingly well. By changing the mark to Darkness and using Life pendulums, it can be modified to fulfill the War restrictions. However, this slows it down by exactly one turn:

by TheonlyrealBeef (Life mod by drolly)

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5c6 5c6 5c6 5c9 5c9 5c9 5c9 5c9 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5ul 5ul 5um 5um 5um 5um 5um 5um 5up 5up 8pt

The general strategy is to get a mitosing Devourer, stall the opponent (a complete stall is not too likely, however) and amass Darkness quanta, get mass healing from bonds and finally play Mitosis on a dragon. Steal a nasty shield if necessary. It's weak against rainbows and Immolation but has the ability to wreck duos.

[willng3]

Several things fell on my plate today that are going to interfere with my activity for the next few hours, but I will make a few comments here to get myself ready to go into more detail later this evening.

I propose we change the quanta balance of PUgon a little to:

by Helston

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5bs 5bs 5bt 5bt 5bt 5bt 5bt 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 61q 61q 61q 61q 61r 61r 61r 61r 61r 61t 61t 61t 61t 8pu

Works a lot more smoothly when you can pump out the dim shields and PUs that little more quickly.

Looks like we need something that can counter discord, and I don't think we'd go too well against an EQ deck either, making Discake the worst thing we could possible face. I'll dig around a bit for some life-novabows to see if I can come up with something good.

My one concern with this build is that it takes much longer on average to play Dragons due to the lack of Emerald Pillars.  Since you generally can't play a PU without a Dragon to target there becomes an increase in early discards whether it be a Dim Shield, PU, Dragon or Lightning.  However, I do agree that the strain on is a bit concerning sometimes in the early game which causes me to wonder if -1 PU +1 Dragon in the original build would help that situation.  Either way, there's not too much pressure on deciding the optimal build yet given that quanta can be adjusted easily.

Shockwave Dragons (Wings)

by Helston

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5bt 5bt 5bt 5bt 5bt 5bt 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5ol 5ol 5ol 5on 5on 5on 5on 5oo 5oo 5oo 5oo 8pr

Things I learnt today, Wings >>> Discord, Graboids. A simple variant that means we need some extra pendulums and wings brought along. From what I recall War #4, Wings is a fairly strong card in War in general, too.

Novabow

by Helston

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4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 55q 590 590 590 590 5bs 5bs 5bu 5bu 5bu 5c1 5c1 5c5 5c7 5c7 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5f6 5og 61q 8pm

Went trawling through the archive and came up with this. It's a variant of something will made for War #3 or so. 10 creatures gives it a bit of CC resilience as well as plenty of adrenaline choices. Makes Earthquakes cry.

I've put the decks in this thread into the vault. I've managed to hit the 299 mark exactly by using my version of PUgon instead of will's and including enough cards to switch between the two Shockwave Dragon decks. There's also two extra Lightnings, two extra Silences, three Lobotomizers and only six Dimensional Shields (will's decks use a total of seven).

We really need some more talk and contributions here. The six most important things in War are the six team members, and number seven is the Vault. Only one of those things is up to us at this stage, so we really need to put some effort into this.

Both of these look very nice.  I would probably prefer that we take that Wings deck versus the Shockwave Dragons that I've proposed as well.

Some weeks ago, TheonlyrealBeef showed me a Devtosis deck in chat which turned out to work surprisingly well. By changing the mark to Darkness and using Life pendulums, it can be modified to fulfill the War restrictions. However, this slows it down by exactly one turn:

by TheonlyrealBeef (Life mod by drolly)

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5c6 5c6 5c6 5c9 5c9 5c9 5c9 5c9 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5ul 5ul 5um 5um 5um 5um 5um 5um 5up 5up 8pt

The general strategy is to get a mitosing Devourer, stall the opponent (a complete stall is not too likely, however) and amass Darkness quanta, get mass healing from bonds and finally play Mitosis on a dragon. Steal a nasty shield if necessary. It's weak against rainbows and Immolation but has the ability to wreck duos.

I remember testing a Devtosis earlier in addition to my earlier decks, but for whatever reason decided it wasn't efficient enough.  This looks good though, we could definitely find a use for it with teams having severely limited access to Rainbows this War due to vault restraints.

[willng3]

Another deck I think is worth using:
Disclaimer:  I dislike unupped Crusaders.

by willng3

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5c5 5c5 5c5 5c5 5c7 5c7 5c7 5c9 5c9 5c9 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5ll 5ll 5ll 5ll 5ll 5lm 5lm 5lm 5lm 5mq 5mq 5mq 5mq 8pq

Similar to the Monks deck we used last War, all that's really missing are the Animate Weapons (though they could easily be added if the player has access to the upgrades).  If it isn't capable of handling Discord I suspect it would be able to with a bit of tweaking given that it's got plenty of Sancs.

[willng3]

Okay this about does it for suggestions on my part:

Grabbow

by willng3

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4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 55q 590 590 590 590 590 5bs 5bs 5bu 5bu 5c1 5c1 5c5 5c7 5c7 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5f6 5og 61q 8pm

Helston's version with -1 Frog +1 Graboid

Toadbow

by willng3

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4vh 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 595 5c1 5c1 5c1 5c1 5c1 5c5 5c5 5c5 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5f6 5ie 5ie 5ie 5ie 5rk 61q 8pp

Amazingly fun.

Druid Grabbow

by willng3

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4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 590 590 590 590 5bs 5bs 5bs 5bs 5c5 5c5 5c5 5c5 5c5 5c5 5c7 5c7 5c7 5de 5de 5oi 5oi 5oi 5oi 5oi 8pm

Just something a little extra.

[Helston]

My one concern with this build is that it takes much longer on average to play Dragons due to the lack of Emerald Pillars.  Since you generally can't play a PU without a Dragon to target there becomes an increase in early discards whether it be a Dim Shield, PU, Dragon or Lightning.  However, I do agree that the strain on is a bit concerning sometimes in the early game which causes me to wonder if -1 PU +1 Dragon in the original build would help that situation.  Either way, there's not too much pressure on deciding the optimal build yet given that quanta can be adjusted easily.

Assumed that build in the Vault by re-adjusting quanta, adding an extra dragon.

I remember testing a Devtosis earlier in addition to my earlier decks, but for whatever reason decided it wasn't efficient enough.  This looks good though, we could definitely find a use for it with teams having severely limited access to Rainbows this War due to vault restraints.

I'll give that Devtosis a bit of a try, I reckon we switch it in for the Adrenaghosts.

Another deck I think is worth using:
Disclaimer:  I dislike unupped Crusaders.

by willng3

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5c5 5c5 5c5 5c5 5c7 5c7 5c7 5c9 5c9 5c9 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5ll 5ll 5ll 5ll 5ll 5lm 5lm 5lm 5lm 5mq 5mq 5mq 5mq 8pq

Similar to the Monks deck we used last War, all that's really missing are the Animate Weapons (though they could easily be added if the player has access to the upgrades).  If it isn't capable of handling Discord I suspect it would be able to with a bit of tweaking given that it's got plenty of Sancs.

I'll have a look at this one too, I'm thinking it'll suit us better than Stoned Dragons. Even if it isn't a better deck, the extra Staves and Mistosis will probably be better in the long run.

Okay this about does it for suggestions on my part:

Grabbow

by willng3

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4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 55q 590 590 590 590 590 5bs 5bs 5bu 5bu 5c1 5c1 5c5 5c7 5c7 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5f6 5og 61q 8pm

Helston's version with -1 Frog +1 Graboid

I was trying to be very specific for how the quanta was distributed with this one, but the extra damage there might be worth the very slight unbalancing of it.

Toadbow

by willng3

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4vh 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 595 5c1 5c1 5c1 5c1 5c1 5c5 5c5 5c5 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5f6 5ie 5ie 5ie 5ie 5rk 61q 8pp

Amazingly fun.

We might have the room to put that in in addition to the Grabbow if we wanted to squeeze it in, but I've got no idea how many variations of one deck we can put in the Vault. The plus being that if one of these loses early on we can salvage enough to keep the other deck going.

Druid Grabbow

by willng3

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4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 590 590 590 590 5bs 5bs 5bs 5bs 5c5 5c5 5c5 5c5 5c5 5c5 5c7 5c7 5c7 5de 5de 5oi 5oi 5oi 5oi 5oi 8pm

Just something a little extra.

Love it, and we could even make it without adding anything to the Vault (although it might still be welcome).

EDIT: Changed the Grabbow in the Vault to will's version. Hardly makes a difference quanta-wise with more potential damage.

[willng3]

I agree with the replacement of AdrenaGhosts and Stoned Dragons with those two decks.

As for the Novabows, if we can take the cards used for either version then that's great, but otherwise we can manage with one.

It's 3AM here so I'm going to have to resume discussion in about 5 hours.