Here I am at
300 wins 59 losses, playing PvP exclusively since I restarted a couple months ago.
And the deck got a few upgrades but basically stayed the same.
I tried different variations along the way, one less RoF, one more dragon, even stuff like Lava Golems, Ash Eaters and Immolates and this is the deck that was most consistent for me. Here's some strategy against the most common decks I faced off against:
My deck matches up really well against the Tremors deck (Graboids & Shriekers). If they don't keep their guys burrowed you can kill them at will with bolts and RoF, if they do keep them all burrowed I'd outdamage them with dragons. The really smart players keep most burrowed and 1 or 2 unburrowed so you can't RoF their entire swarm, but most players using that deck aren't really smart. : P
Upgraded Tremors deck is scary cause they get 4 Hp so you must keep 10 quanta stored to Fire Bolt them. Also in this matchup there isn't much else to Defrag so I usually go after pillars early if I can.
Mono darkness is usually a close match. The trick is to try and get your dragons out while the darkness player has less than 10 quanta because then they can't kill them with Drain Life, while trying to keep yourself above 10 quanta so you can Fire Bolt their dragons. RoF as soon as you can get 2 or more Devourers. Always save a Defrag for the Dusk Mantle. Late in the match I'd be calculating if it was worth it to kill a dragon or hold my Fire Bolts for the killshot.
Mono aether was probably my toughest matchup (outside of people with fully upgraded pvp decks, which were actually quite rare). I would always seem to guess wrong and put down a dragon only to see it Parallel Universe'd and then killed with Lightning. It's tempting to go after pillars with Defrag but you have to save those for Phase Shields, preferably when you'll be getting more than one dragon through by removing it.
Rainbows were generally very easy to beat. Defrag priority would usually be a Sundial or Phase Shield when I could sneak a dragon or two through, or a Boneyard right before I cast RoF. Unless there was an immediate threat like upped Otyguh or Falled Druid then I'd hold Fire Bolts for the finisher. Also if they had good control out I'd just sit tight and save up everything while counting my fire quanta till I had enough to finish em.
When to play Fahrenheit was always a game time decision. If I was playing something that had no chance to steal/destroy then it can be put out right away. Otherwise I'd sometimes hold it for some extra burst at the end, or wait until I saw them use steals/defrags on my pillars.
Anytime somebody cast antimater on a dragon I'l kill it with a fire bolt. 12 healing per turn means I need another dragon out just to balance that, and then a third to deal any damage. One player who was playing with a bunch of upped cards told me it was a bad idea to waste my fire bolts... I wonder if he still thought so after he lost, heheh. I beat a lot of people with upped cards and higher scores than me.
My worst loss was against somebody running earth/dark denial who got an amazing draw against me. Killed all my pillars and had 4 upped devourers out right at the start.... brutal. I lost couple times to decks I really should have beat except I didn't pick up a RoF. Desync was fairly rare for me, maybe like 1 every 20-30 games at most.
Well anyways I'm retiring this deck, and from 100% PvP. Still no interest in building a rainbow and fighting the false gods.. I tried it for a couple days before I restarted to do this and got bored quickly, plus I
hated that my win/loss ratio was so shit. I've got a few other decks that I want to try for unupped tournaments and noob league pvp, and maybe I'll try grinding against the Half Bloods for cash with a speed deck.
