My personal opinion is, despite pillar/pend overlap, we should purchase at least 15 pillars for every team member. There are maby
duos which need less than 15 pillars/pends but sometimes we may need to play a fat stall, so we need a few more quanta sources than normal.
Moreover, I think we need
at least 6 copies of each life card because
is one of the few elements without useless cards and we need them to make our decks. Also, the following cards should be taken
at least 12 times each; Emerald Dragon, Horned Frog, Heal, Druidic Staff. In general, I think the most versatile Life's duo is the
duo. That's because Life and Darkness together have an answer to everything and awesome combinations of damage & healing:
* Single target CC (Parasite, Drain Life, sometimes even Mitosis)
* Mass CC (Thorn Carapace)
* % DR shield (Dusk Mantle)
* PC (Steal)
* Reflection (Emerald Shield)
* PC & CC protection (Cloak)
* Grower (Forest Spirit)
* CC-resistant creatures (Burrowed Devourer, Stoneskined Gargoyle, Grown Forest Spirit, Emerald Dragon's health of 6)
* Creature spamming (Mitosis)
* Powerful buffs which work wonders either together or seperated (Adrenaline, Liquid Shadow, Nightfall)
* Agressive healing (Vampires, Stilletos, Black Nymphs, LQs).
* Defensive healing (Heals, Bonds, Staves).
The only thing that totally breaks the
comboes are Mass CC spells which are not used very often.
Because of this, I think we should have a small
vault to use it as a surprise factor for later rounds.
Other awesome elements to combo with
are
(Animate Weapon, FFQ, EE etc.),
(Adrenarchangels, Crusaders & Staves, stalls of all sorts etc.),
(Firestalls, Explosions, Nature's Wrath etc.),
(Adrenaline & Momentum, MitoGuards etc.),
(Stoneskin & Heal stalls, MitoSteel etc.),
(NT),
(PUgons, Frogtal etc.),
(Antimatter & Adrenaline, Fallen Druid, BE),
(Adrenarsenics, Malignant Bonds etc.) and
(AdrenaVus, Pharaohs & Bonds etc.). Yeah, every element comboes well with life!
But
has an answer to everything.
Finally, I would like to mention that I am quite dissapointed by the fact Spine Carapace and Jade Shield are greatly underused at War. Both of our shields are awesome and can counter a ton of different things. Two of the greatest menaces in the game, Graboids and Psions, are greatly countered via Spine and Jade respectively.
* A Graboid can remain burrowed to avoid CC, however it can't avoid Fire Shield or Thorn Carapace. However, while it can take some damage from Fire Shield and then emerge completely healed, the poison from Spine Carapace is going to follow a Graboid even after its evolution to Shrieker. So, here it goes...
Turn 1: Graboid is played, it attacks and gets poisoned by Thorns. At the end of 1st turn it has 3 health and 1 poison counter.
Turn 2: Graboid evolves to Shrieker, it takes one damage from poisoning, attacks and gets poisoned again. At the end of the 2nd turn the Shrieker has 2 health and 2 poison counters.
Turn 3: Shrieker attacks one last time before dying from poisoning. Graboid's total life span with Thorns on the field = 3 turns.
Of course, RNG can screw you by letting a creature falling again and again on your Thorns without being poisoned even once!
* Otyughs work very well with Thorns; see, while Fire Shield instakills any creature with a health of 1, Carapaces let such creatures live for another turn, allowing your Otys to feast upon them if they want! Moreover, even fat creatures are reduced to 1 or 2 hps before dying from Thorns, making them a tasty Oty meal.
* Wardens can be extremely annoying when combined with poisoning, because they can delay the poisoned creature till it dies. That's why Iridium Thorns are nasty to mess with.
As for Jade Shield, well, you have a DR of 2 combined with reflection and immaterialism; all in one. What else do you need? By far the most jack-of-all-trades shield in the game, excellent if you can't guess what your opponent is going to bring.
