Phase 3 - Community Vote

[RavingRabbid]

Phase 3 - Community Vote

Phase ends when above poll expires.

It's time to vote for your favorite Master candidate!  Every community member has one vote. You can change your vote at any time as long as there is still time on the clock.

Vote based on who you think would make the best Master of that element. Do not vote based on who is the best player or who you know personally. Try to pick someone who you think would help the community the most.  Feel free to ask the candidates difficult questions to help you make your decision.

For reference, here are the 6th Trials Standings (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,43965.0.html) and Phase 1 Submission (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,43688.0.html) threads.

[Laxadarap]

Me Interviewing Myself Because I'm a Narcissist
Q: Will you trash talk your opponents?
A: Why yes, yes I will.  n00b, your mother is an armagio, vagman, the only vag you get is from that pregnant gravy dragon, and nils, your mustache is fake.  Also, my opponents don't know what capitalization is.  Hehe

Q: I didn't know you liked gravity!?!?
A: I'm really not sure why I like it, but I just do.  I just love the fact that it goes tl:dr to shields, and despite being considered the "slowest" unupped element in the game, it can field a very great deck with one of the fastest ttw's.  As well as still saying tl:dr to shields.  Plus, thematically, gravity controls and influences every other element (except for maybe aether, but we still say tl:dr to shields and lightning .  Last war Jenkar foolishly tried to argue that gravity couldn't control air, but just let your little wyrms stop flapping, gravity becomes extremely real.

On a slightly different note, Gravity has always been my favorite element, if there was a profile "edit stamp" you could see that.  Also, I like even though it may not be the most complete or strongest element, it is one of the most versatile.  There really isn't anything you can throw at a gravy deck that it can't shred to pieces (in upped play atleast).  It has some of the best CC in the game, some of the most versatile CC in the game, a very cost efficient momentumed card when dealing with cost theorem, huge meat shields, and a plethora of ways to bypass shields.  It also has a whole lot of synergy with many other elements, and I personally like duos and trios way more than monos.

Q: You don't seem to bleed orange like n00b, is he more enthusiastic about gravy than you are?
A: n00b's condition is actually due to a vat of chemicals he feel into when he was 3 years old.  It also left him with a tail that spontaneously combusts, and a well warranted craving for marshmellows. 
Seriously, just because I'm not associated with an element doesn't mean I don't love it.  I am probably not known because I have only been in one war, and that was for a different team, however, that is just nilsie's fault (a fault I'm willing to overlook XD).  I signed up for Budoken and went for gravy just because I loved it, and I feel like I did a fantastic job (although I couldn't win, Aether OP XD)

Q: You don't have the1337 pvp skills vagman does, nor do you have a lot of experience.
A: I may be a relatively new player, but I have played in almost every event since I got here, mostly because pvp is what I love to do.  I find PVE boring, unfortunately, and don't really grind anymore, but I do try to make any tournaments and events I can, RL pertaining.  Why? Because that is how you get experience.  By doing it.  Even if I get to face nilsie and I end up losing, this will still be one of the greatest battles I've ever been in, and it will be a great learning experience, plus, I can (and will) always come back next year.  Plus, vag only had 1 match on me, it was a 3-2 as well .

Q: Would you like to sappily thank anybody?
A: No.  I'm a narcissist, I'm here just because of my uber awesomeness.  In reality, I really can't thank everybody, though I wish I could, so I will choose one person.  Back when I was just a kong noob, I heard the "pros" talking about war.  (believe it was makkuradaimyou and dm1321).  I was of course curious, because I thought I was hot shit, and I could destroy everybody.  dm took the time to bring me into a private lobby and explained to me everything that war was, especially when I told how gravity was my favorite element, and I would probably try and go for gravity.  This was right before dm faced nils, so he asked me if I wanted to pvp, and he promptly smashed me with adrenaguards (which I believe he beat nils with).  That was pretty much when I realized that there was life after Kong, and that I could actually do something for gravity other than just saying "my gravy deck kills all youz".

Q:Is there any last words you want to say?
A: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTCRwi71_ns&feature=relmfu
Also, MURICA! Time to take those europeans off of their mastership thrones! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWRCsa1OO4k

Finally, if I get in the final battle, I will finally put a picture of myself in the pictures thread, and it will be doing whatever action you guys vote for.  And I will do it, with some slight restrictions. 

Hopefully this wasn't tl:dr'd, if it was, vote for me anyway.  I will also answer any questions you guys have, I know I'm going to be asking some (to other elements)

[nilsieboy]

reserved for questions and other stuff.

[n00b]

Questions and Answers:

Spoiler for Ruterate:

To all - What would you add to Gravity if you were the (co-)developer? Why?

Honestly, I guess I hadn't thought about it too much at this point. In my opinion, Gravity doesn't need much "added" to it as much as it needs things to be updated and rebalanced. Technically as a whole, Gravity is almost a complete element: having creature control, strong attackers, very unique cards, and a stereotype of high defense. However, in the case of Elements the Game and Gravity now, the latter (having high defense) doesn't have enough benefits thus far for the cost increases and attack decreases it puts on Gravity's creatures. So, to answer your question, if I was a co-developer, I would work on redoing existing Gravity cards, primary examples being Colossal Dragon and Graviton Mercenary.

Spoiler for Absol:

Graviton Mercenary and Colossal Dragon are widely considered UP. How would you change that?

Heh, just read the above question... funny how things go around here, eh? Anyways, to answer the question: Colossal Dragon is a prime example of the essence of Gravity: sacrificing attack and cost for high defense. However, at this point in time, high defense of a dragon doesn't pay out, as there already are things such as Armedilgo and even Flown Titan which would ultimately be cheaper than Colossal Dragon (with Flown Titan even having the same amount of attack) and with better defense. To change Colossal Dragon, I would decrease the stats to 7|10 but then also decrease the cost to 9 . While this would still be overlooked by things such as Elite Charger (u), it would make Colossal Dragon an at least playable creature in Gravity's unupgraded game.

Graviton Mercenary: A card that in some instances seems versatile (such as when upgraded) and some instances seems completely useless. With the stats of 3|5 and costing a heft 4 , this card is usually overshadowed by the Sapphire Charger (aka Honey Charger). The thought on it for many people is this: Why pay 4 for a 3|5 creature when you can pay one more to get a creature with one more attack and the ability to bypass all shields. I don't have too much else to say about this, but my proposed idea would be to make the stats of this card 3|3 and decrease the cost to 3 . I feel like this would easily make it more useable, but not so much so as to take the place of Sapphire Charger in Gravity's unupgraded game.

Spoiler for mrpaper:

How do you think you could make gravity a force in war 6?

Honestly, I think that Gravity has the potential to do much better in War than it is usually thought to do. In War 4, Gravity had an opportunity to at least place in the top half, but ended up being plagued by our best deckbuilder deciding to come on three times throughout the whole event. However, the one time when he actually contributed to our team, his deckbuilding showed that Gravity can be a force: We easily went 5-0 that round. Of course, you could say that any great deckbuilder can turn anything around from at least reasonable cards, but I'm going to concentrate on something else. Teamwork. Though I may be considered more of a newbie (no pun intended), I have in fact served as the Lieutenant under nilsieboy in War 5. Even though Gravity placed dead last, I was able to see some of the things that were wrong that I may have overlooked in War 4 (as it was my first war ever). One of the most major of these things is teamwork. A team that has five people working together to build decks and counters will almost always beat a team of one who creates the decks. I know some of you know that deckbuilding is not my strong point, but I can say how if everyone contributes their thoughts to parts of War, whether it be deckbuilding, the Vault, or even basic strategy, any team, let alone Gravity, can become a major player in War.

Spoiler for furballdn:

Unupped gravy is regarded by most as the worst (mono) element there is. Why do you think this is and how would you fix it?

Elite Charger. Is the card OP? Should anything be done about it? What are your thoughts on it?

Chimera. The only uses you really see for it are in OTKs. Can you guys make a good deck with chimera that isn't cliche?

As half-answered before in the previous questions, one of Gravity's weaknesses is the fact that it sacrifices attack and cost for health, and that having higher health doesn't have nearly enough uses yet to be worth the sacrifice. Upgraded Gravity is able to have the speed that unupgraded Gravity does not have, and throw in that on top of powerful cards like Graviton Guard and Honey Charger and you've got yourself a pretty good mono-Gravity rush. However, unupgraded tends to be very slow and cumbersome, primarily due to the fact that the cheapest mono-able creature costs four , and only has three attack! I believe that to fix Gravity's unupgraded game, either some existing cards would need to be cheapened or their attack would need to be increased.

Elite Charger: Heh, one of if not my favorite cards of the game. Yes, this card is technically OP. No, nothing should be done about it.
No, I'm not saying that it shouldn't be nerfed simply because Honey Charger and I go way back. Whenever chat decides to start up a discussion on what cards are OP, UP, and which are severe enough to need changes now, the topic always comes up about Overpowered but Underused cards (OP-UU). The reason that Elite Charger is able to be as powerful as it is (7|5 with Momentum for 5 ) is that it will almost always require a mono/duo or a strong rainbow to be able to play it, which oftentimes will cause people to ignore it altogether. If Honey Charger ended up being one of those abused cards, like Nova or (can't really think of much else), then yes, it would need to be nerfed. However, as it is not like that, it is perfectly fine for the time being and is one of the reasons Upgraded Mono Gravity is a force to be reckoned with.

Spoiler for nensuru:

What you think of changing the element of plate armor to gravity?

Gravity shield and Black hole are very game changing cards imo, but can be usless in certain situations. Would you change them to be more versatile cards?

Honestly, to the first question, I had never really thought about it. Although it seems like a good idea (so it can pair up with Gravity Shield and be in-element), imo, it wouldn't fit too well with Gravity's overall theme. Earth and Gravity may seem similar, but there is one primary difference: Earth has cards to give creatures higher health, whereas Gravity's cards already have higher health. Earth has cards like BB, Plate Armor, and even Stone Skin that are able to raise the health of either the creatures or the user. Gravity has Armedilgo, Colossal/Massive Dragon, and Flown Titan that already have higher health.
Tl;dr: Would be nice, but not thematic or necessary.

The second question shall be answered a card at a time:

Gravity Shield: Gravity Shield is one of those cards that seems to sit on a fine line. On the one hand, it is almost completely useless against rushes, as most of those creatures have five or less health. On the other hand, if you ask those who competed in Light, it can be very powerful, completely stopping out some larger rushes and stalls. However, as I said before, it sits on a fine line. Yeah, there aren't too many creatures out there with over five health, but what if you changed it to creatures with over four? The result would be a (slightly) overpowered card that is able to block things from Abomination to Bone Dragon to even Graviton Mercenary. If this would happen, the cost would need to be increased by one, which ultimately will slow down decks depending on those for shields, and thus will make that card even less used than it already is. In other words, it would be nice to see Gravity Shield get a buff such as I suggested above, but it may not be worth the cost increase.

Black Hole: A card that you almost always hear complaining about by the newer players. Being able to suck up a total of 36 quanta, this card becomes a devastating force against rainbows; however, it usually fails against most things smaller than a trio (unless Discord is used). I mean, perhaps there should be a formula where the cost of the card changes due to the number of quanta it can pick up, though what such a formula would be escapes me (and, in the end, it'd end up decreasing the cost of but one or two quanta), but I think that the situational usefulness of this card is what stops it from getting nerfed. If you were able to effectively play this card in many/most of your decks, it would surely be put up to get a nerf (though some already think it should be nerfed to two quanta of each element). In other words, Black Hole being so situational is what makes it able to still be so powerful.

[Rutarete]

To all - What would you add to Gravity if you were the (co-)developer? Why?

[vagman13]

Another creature,a mid-cost attacker.Gravity relies way too much on chargers ( and even those suck unnuped.So a cost 5 quanta, 5/7 attacker would be my choice,maybe less attack if the creatures has an interesting ability.

If that was not possible , then I would add a defensive spell that would synergize with gravity pull and gravity creature's high hp.

[Cheesy111]

Another creature,a mid-cost attacker.Gravity relies way too much on chargers ( and even those suck unnuped.So a cost 5 quanta, 5/7 attacker would be my choice,maybe less attack if the creatures has an interesting ability.

If that was not possible , then I would add a defensive spell that would synergize with gravity pull and gravity creature's high hp.

Why would a 5 cost 5|7 attacker not be imbalanced considering Abomination is 5 for 5|5?

[vagman13]

I am talking about the upgraded version. You can find plenty more examples in the game where the cost is much lower than the damage attribute (frogs,cocks,crawlers,angels etc)

[Laxadarap]

To all - What would you add to Gravity if you were the (co-)developer? Why?

Shameless advertising is a go.  Honestly, I would love to see this: http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,39079.0.html
Reasoning: Gravity is one of the slowest unupped decks in the game.  Upped gets a lot better because graviton guards are actually cost effective, and Elite charger is just awesome.  Other slow decks (think light and darkness) both have great healing, and darkness has fantastic denial and PC.  Gravity has a 3 hp otyugh, which simply can't cut it in a mono.  The only rushing cards in the game it can eat are Lava golem, pheonix, Seraph, Pegasus, and Phase spider.  Not exactly a good matchup for the oty.  This is an in element buff, that synergizes with overdrive (not acceleration though), oty's, armagios, catapult, and would fit really well.

Another thing I would add is a 6-ish attack creature, probably 6|6 for 6 quanta.  (Yes, I'm satanic)
Reasoning: Gravity is again, a very slow rushing element, this would help this, as oftentimes, you don't really need the momentum of a charger.  Second of all: G-Pull is a very versatile, very cool card, unfortunately, gravity can't really take advantage of it's CC potential.  Unless your running a deck full of guards (which I would love to see a competitive deck that runs guards and gpull (not one somebody builds now, because I'm sure I could, but one with a deck thread)), you have nothing to beat down your opponents creatures with.  Gogo Magios?  1 hp a turn laughs at you. 

Finally, the only element that I don't really see gravy having a synergy with is darkness.  How should we fix this? They are both slow elements, and Bhole + Pest only really works in arena.  You can argue that you could accelerate and then liquid shadow gravy's high HP creatures, but that requires a 3 card combo, and it's not really effective if the creatures aren't really accelerated (gogo 7 attack dragon).  Something that would be cool, would be a permanent that increases all drain effects by one.  Mono's well with bhole, works great with devourers, drain life, though it hurts flooding even more.  If I was co-developer, I would promote an actually competitive synergy between gravy and darkness.

Spoiler for Other synergies:

=PU chargers, PU titans, fractal guards, fractal chargers, lightning with gshield/oty
 =Catatitans, shockwave+oty
  LS acceleration?
  Bonewall + magio.  Bonewall + oty, bonewall with acceleration.  Also, poison splash with gravy's defense.
  Accelerate/gpull all the things!, and pulvy
  DBH, diss shield +magios
  Rage potions with high hp critters, fire eaters
  Adrenaline works great with titan, charger, and guards, also mitosis
  Blessing + miracle.  Luciguard (not really competitive, but hell),
  sundials with catatitans (works really well).  RT-magios (time doesn't have a whole lot of synergy either)
  Purify + acceleration, freeze + catapult

[Absol]

Graviton Mercenary and Colossal Dragon are widely considered UP. How would you change that?

[ARTHANASIOS]

To all candidates: Create an effective deck which uses 5-6 unupped Graviton Fire Eaters.

[vagman13]

To all candidates: Create an effective deck which uses 5-6 unupped Graviton Fire Eaters.

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Graviton Mercenary and Colossal Dragon are widely considered UP. How would you change that?

Upped graviton mercs are quite effective when used along with fracta or mitosis and adrenalinel.Unnuped is a whole different story.The only way I can see them become more effective is through a stat boost,maybe a +1 attack.Other than that some usefull skill for the merc would be appreciated.Some sort of skill that has to do with guard or protect comes to mind.