Deck Helper comment: This deck was posted before the 1.32 game update and as a result may work very differently now. Use at your own risk.
After brewing a bunch of shitty FG deck ideas, I stumbled upon one that kinda works. It's not going to break any records, but wins enough to be worth playing if you're looking for something different for a change. I know I find it fun to play! I'm collecting stats here in this spreadsheet (
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?key=0AgxDeoyDoRYZdDRpUHpOaWllLVFOSmlXWDJ6Y3V2UHc&gid=5), notice the separate sheets for different versions and combined results. As of writing this I'm at 61 wins out of 173 games total (35%), 26 out of 77 (34%) for v3. I'm expecting it to rise slightly as it settles down, v2 won 45% and the current version feels very similar.
v3:
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75m 75m 75m 7aj 7aj 7aj 7am 7am 7am 7am 7ba 7ba 7ba 7ba 7ba 7ba 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q5 7q5 7q5 7q5 7q5 7q5 7q8 7q8 7qc 7qc 7qc 7qc 7ri 7ri 7ri 7ri 7ri 7ri 7ri 8pnBasically the same as v3 but with time mark. I still don't know which one's better, but in any case it's a moot point now that the shards require a life mark.
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75m 75m 75m 7aj 7aj 7aj 7am 7am 7am 7am 7ba 7ba 7ba 7ba 7ba 7ba 7bu 7bu 7bu 7bu 7bu 7bu 7bu 7bu 7bu 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q5 7q5 7q5 7q5 7q5 7q5 7q8 7q8 7qc 7qc 7qc 7qc 8psThe initial, lighter build. Missing the 6th hourglass added for consistency, 4th pharaoh added for staying power and additional towers and pends to compansate.
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75m 75m 75m 7aj 7aj 7aj 7am 7am 7am 7am 7ba 7ba 7ba 7ba 7ba 7ba 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q5 7q5 7q5 7q5 7q5 7q8 7q8 7qc 7qc 7qc 7ri 7ri 7ri 7ri 8pnI've gone through the list of gravity, life and time cards a couple of times and I doubt there's anything good to add to the deck other than messing around with the manabase or maybe switching to unupped shields. More life means more consistent carapace early, but makes having enough time an even worse bottleneck in midgame. I've thought about unupped shields but haven't bothered actually testing them, my gut feeling is that they'd be much better against Dark Matter and Decay but slightly worse in general. I also tried splashing for a few off-color cards mostly for quints, but my versions with quantum towers sucked balls and would have eventually morphed into this deck (
http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,4958.0.html).
At its core this is a time stall similar to many others I've played like various (
http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,11131.0.html) dune scorp decks (
http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,20173.0.html) or Fast-Draw Ghostal (
http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,30623.0.html), this time with pharaohs and bonds as the meat of the deck. Your plan is to get into a position where you're outhealing all enemy damage with a carapace slowly eating their table away. Strangely enough, while none of the matchups feel like sure wins except maybe Gemini or Paradox, on the other hand, I'm also beating gods that feel like I should have no chance against. Rainbow is impossible to outstall and you're way too slow and mana-hungry for Seism, but I think everyone else is beatable. Ok, a few others you're probably not going to beat (as of now I've won at least once against 21 out of the 29 gods), but at least you've got a fighting chance against most.
Generally you start out by playing an hourglass ASAP, then trying to get a shield down. Playing shards early is a bit iffy as the mana used makes a huge difference. Often you'll want to hold them for a while to make sure you don't delay your shield too much. Other than that it depends a lot on the matchup. An active Eternity is usually great, but against some gods you'll want to prioritize starting your scarab production and getting your bonds active. Your usual plan against CC is to play multiple pharaohs at once, and if they survive initially, you'll have scarabs serving as cannon fodder. The AI seems to prioritize devour over scarab production for everything except lobo effects. Against those hoard time, then dump a bunch of pharaohs at once and keep rewinding and replaying one.
Some notes on various matchups:
Akebono is weak to Eternity and if you can just get a couple of shards out and make him replay a dragon each turn, you're winning.
Against Decay your plan is to get a shield and an eclipse on the field and survive the first batch of pests. This usually results in a heartbreaker where you fall just a bit short, but it's possible.
Divine Glory and other PC gods can also be beaten with the usual time deck plan. As long as you can get your first hourglass online, you'll have enough permanents to soak up their explosions. DG feels like an ok matchup. EP and Hermes don't feel hopeless, but their speed makes it really hard to win. Graviton has little CC and can be beaten if you get an Eternity to stick for a while.
Feral Bond gods aren't a problem as you'll eventually clear their board. Ferox's speed is problematic, but Elidnis and FQ are among your best matchups.
Do not play your shields against Hecate.
Lionheart and Miracle are surprisingly bad. Your CC is limited to rewinding and carapace poisoning, and killing their high-toughness guys with carapace takes a bit too long. Lionheart is probably around 50/50, but I think Miracle is worse. Entirely winnable though as long as he doesn't get those fast dragons.
Neptune is a good matchup if you're willing to deck him out, which is mind-numbingly boring and takes ages as he'll choke on CC and draw one card a turn. Killing him otherwise is near-impossible, just getting a single scarab out is very hard. Miracle is similar in that while killing him isn't a huge deal, he has enough Miracles to make it more likely he'll deck out first. That at least should happen in a somewhat reasonable time.
Obliterator will eat you once he gets a Pulvy, but he only has 4. Prioritize using Eternity whenever possible to delay it. Diamond shield is highly annoying but can be overcome by growing scarabs. You might need to dump multiple pharaohs at once to dodge gravity force.
Serket is
probably around 50/50 too maybe 33%, which is pretty solid for a deck with no real way of stopping his poison damage. His regular attack damage is pitiful, he takes a while to set up, and has no disruption against your bonds. Last game I played against him I won with 40 poison while healing, I don't know, 80 or something each turn.
