The deckHover over cards for details, click for permalink
4ss 4ss 4ss 4ss 5s4 5s4 5s4 5s4 5s4 5s4 5se 5se 7q4 7q4 7q4 7q4 7q4 7t8 7t8 7tb 7tb 7tb 7th 7th 7th 7th 7um 7um 7um 7um 7um 7um 7um 7um 8psThis was my 5th deck last trials finals, which won against Shard of Freedom + Flying Weapon + Vampire Dagger. First off, I must admit that in retrospect, the deck would have been better with 6 Time Mark cards and 0 Shards of Readiness.
The bans for the final battle disallowed the use of most of my standard Darkness decks, including Ghostmare, but I feel like the most important card to ban in Ghostmare is Reverse Time (hypocritically, I also banned Ghost of the Past, possibly because I didn't expect joey to have/use 6 Nymphs). This deck proves this theory by replacing the Ghosts with Nymphs. Although its impact on what is already in the opponents' hand is more limited (you can simply discard Nymphs), the number of draws the opponent is denied is at least equal, while potentially getting more damage/healing out of Nightmare. Nymphs also have more HP, allowing them to resist most CC. Last but not least, they can actually draw additional cards, drastically increasing your draw advantage and allowing you to draw lock your opponent even longer.
The main downside is that Nymphs cost more quanta to play, while having a slightly lower attack. This is especially important for the first Nymph, since you cannot start your draw lock until it is played. Furthermore, the upkeep of the ability will slow down your offense by playing more creatures even more. This is partially offset by being able to hoard more draw denial cards in your hand (instead of them being immediately useful) and drawing additional quanta, but the deck will require more base quanta to function properly. All of this added together is also why I would rather see more quanta instead of Shard of Readiness in retrospect.
As for its strengths and weaknesses, it is strongest against creature-based non-fractal decks. The niche flying weapon deck is also hard-countered by it. The more expensive the creature, the more effective this deck is against it. Cheap creatures and rainbows give the deck some problems, but neither of those were feasible in the Darkness Trials final battle. With Fractal and Bone Wall banned, the two most obvious counters feel rather cheap to mention, while Gravity Shield and Wings feel far too niche to mention in a Darkness setting.
Counterdeck attempt #1A generic option -that further emphasizes the quanta deficit the used deck suffers- would be to use Devtosis. Devtosis does suffer significantly from having Mitosis removed after Reverse Time, but you still get that extra Devourer when you play it after the Devourer has already been in play for a turn. Keeping in mind what would have been legal for Joey (9 upgrades, no Steal, no Mitosis on even games), the deck was played on an odd game, so:
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5c9 5c9 5c9 5c9 5c9 5c9 5ul 5ul 5um 5um 5um 5um 5um 5um 606 606 606 606 606 606 606 7ta 7ta 7tb 7tb 7um 7um 7um 7um 7um 8pnExcept the low amount of upgrades means this might not even win 50% of the time, auch... With Steal and an equal amount of upgrades this becomes trivial since you can upgrade the Pends and exchange Vampire Dagger for Steal, but that feels like cheating. So time to think of a different, somewhat generic option. Devtosis is just bad when your opponent has 13 more upgrades.
Counter deck attempt #2Sanctuary was also banned, but in general, creature-less decks work well against Reverse Time. Ignoring the blatant weakness against Pestosis, Siphinity works really well:
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5li 5li 5li 5li 5li 5li 5m6 5m6 5m6 5m6 5m6 5m6 5uo 5uo 5uo 5us 5us 5us 5us 5us 5us 606 606 606 606 606 606 606 606 606 606 606 606 606 606 606 606 606 606 7q9 7q9 7q9 7q9 7q9 7q9 7tb 7tb 7tb 8pqEven in the actual matchup of Flying Vampire Daggers, Golden Nymphmare nearly decked out. So with no Eternity in the deck, Siphinity can simply use 2 Drains on a single Nymph starting at as low as 13 quanta. The remaining offensive power is then trivial to outheal.
