Round 1 - Main Topic

[TuckingFypo]

Following DD's testing for the mono air/fire splash:

vs. Nova/Pegabow 0-3
I wasn't sure about the mark, but I used  .  Don't think it made a difference though.  The AI played decently.  There's only one copy of each so I didn't see an OE or FShield for those three games though, and that could have made a difference.

vs. Poison/Miracle Stall 2-3
Not sure if this is a good or bad matchup.  Unupped miracles were BIG for the first two wins against the stall, I had about 12-14  quanta before I died, and spam of Miracles in hand.  For the losses, I played the Plagues all at once and killed the entire offense.  Poison very slowly killed the AI.  There was also a time when the AI didn't dive the Wyrms, which actually left me with 5 HP, and I Miracle'd.

vs. Immo/Bless 1-3
Wasn't sure about the mark ( or  ), but I went with  .  Immo decks are unstable, and that's where that one win came from.  The 1.29 Immo/Cremate nerf didn't change too much (the pendulums did help, though).  The AI played a FShield, but I blew it up.

vs. SSStall 3-0
The Stoneskin stall lost pretty badly.  Though that's a good thing.    I never played a Miracle.

vs DuneScorp/Blessing Stall 1-3
I don't like these results.  These games were pretty close.  This was a race between me getting an Eternity Lockdown and the AI getting a Deflag on the Eternity.  Speaking of Deflags, the AI blew up my Sancs first for all three losses.  As human players we'll probably use the Deflags better, so there's a good chance we could have won.

If we're almost completely sure that  is going to use a stall, the mono air is the way to go.  Since we're fighting against Soilders and not the Lieutenant/General, the poison stall won't have as many upgrades, so hopefully we won't have to deal with upped Miracles.  The Stoneskin stall isn't a problem, and we could have won against the dune scorpion deck if the AI learned how to explode things correctly.

[DrunkDestroyer]

Well, we're never completely sure what people will throw at us.

I mean, you might expect a stall, so we might prepare a counter-stall, so they might rush us, so we might need an anti rush to deal with it as said a few posts away. It's like bluffing in (amateur) poker. Aha! He's bidding high, he wants me to think he has good cards! No, shit - he's bluffing! He wants me to ...ect.

Best thing to do is just go for a solid deck, and go with instincts. And seems like it likes throwing down stalls, 'specially against .
Discords seem great, then Sanctuary. 2 Discords (and 2 BEs) vs 6 Sanctuaries isn't really as great as it sounded before IMO.


So at this point in time I'm definitely with Pervepic's decks here. Since the 'Deckbuilder' role no longer exists, I'll probably make the topic sometime tomorrow. (I'd like to leave the discussion topic open as long as possible in case of extra thoughts and other, even if there is none in the forseeable future)



(And edit: So what is with the starting/current vault issue? I'm not sure I understand..)

[TuckingFypo]

Sort of not really speaking of which, is our deck against already decided?  I mean Pervepic's Phoenix/Dragon one.

If you go to the vault doc, there are 4 tabs at the bottom, one of which is the Current Vault.  The Current Vault is missing 3 Hopes.

[Legit]

Well, we're never completely sure what people will throw at us.

Pretty much. We have to guess what the other teams will use and then attempt to counter it.

I think all the teams will use expected decks first, in order to keep their vault a surprise. For example, Aether may use Bonebolt because everyone knows they chose at least one of those to include in the vault.

With that said, the fire/air duo works fairly well against most Aether decks. I like it.

Light has lots of options. Discord/Crusader perhaps?

[DrunkDestroyer]

kevkev has been PM'ed about the Hopes and vaults, since I have no idea why we would be missing three (as far as I am concerned we have not been penalised anywhere, and they would probably not force discard 3 random cards or anything) , just waiting on a reply for that.

The two decks checked out with the deck compliance tool, so that should have us set up. The Rules still say that we need an individual thread, and just to be safe I'll get on that still later in case anything changes - since that isn't editable by everyone (at least for round 1) Google Docs is king


(Discord/Crusader is not as good as it sounds - I think the Air splash should be decent against it, Miracles like always being the biggest worry).

And yeah, I see us going with perves fire duo with phoenixes against aether


Ok, basic advice for the games. It might seem like some effort, but try to record (even mentally) an idea of what the opponent is packing in their deck. Knowing that they have 6 miracles might make you want to target pillars early, while sometimes you might want to not empty your hand of damselflies because they have a RoF somewhere. (All judgement calls in the end, but with 5 games it seems like a good investment IMO).

[pervepic]

Yep, you can overcheck decks with the deck building tools and quanta calculator just in case, but those tools make more mistakes than I do. The thing is that they don't (at least they didn't) know how to calculate certain spells and quanta producing critters, immos, novas etc, just to mention some. They are just wrong in case of some entropy decks, for example. But I and I'm sure that at least Plastiqe too (just looking at the decks he posted) do these things by heart and much more precisely. We just have done those things so much (Plastiqe is a war winner and I made most of the decks in war 1 for entropy team and almost all decks in war 2 for air team, both teams ended up in the second place).

That doens't mean that we can't lose both games in the first round. We just don't have enough information right now. I just liked to take something simple and kind of similar first and not to betray our other decks. These decks are based on certain predictions  - deck against light should overrush stalls and against aether break through bone walls (thats's why there are damselflies and phoenixes). So, there is no point to test an anti-stall deck against immo rush, for example, which is kind of opposite deck to that what i predicted. If you want anti-immo deck, then play bone walls and shockwaves, but then you have to lose to stalls. But now I didn't predict immos, but i may be wrong, of course. Certainly it is true that more universal decks are almost always better and predictions can't be too narrow (especially at the beginning of war). That's why there are fog and owl's eye in the anti-stall deck, which main point was to do a lot of damage. Good cards tend to be good almost everywhere.

[kev]

kevkev has been PM'ed about the Hopes and vaults, since I have no idea why we would be missing three (as far as I am concerned we have not been penalised anywhere, and they would probably not force discard 3 random cards or anything) , just waiting on a reply for that.

Your Hopes are back.  I apologize for the inconvenience.

And yes, if you were penalized you would've been notified and it wouldn't have been random discarding.

[DrunkDestroyer]

I'm happy with our strategy and everything, the Google Docs has been updated (we no longer need individual salvage/discard threads, and deck threads) so we're good to go for this round.

If decks need to be changed for whatever reason, it's the 'Deck Compliance' tab in the Vault (which will even tell you whether or not it is legal), remember the Player Order when changing decks though.

I've copy pasted them directly from the thread, which you might want to do as well if you are playing the decks, to make sure there are no disputes.

And even more advice I just keep throwing in, never knowing when to stop - but if you have arranged a time, posting it (privately) here, or somehow alerting us may enable one or more of us to spectate the game, just to see whats going on (Yes, even though Spectate has never been the most reliable tool in the world... little things sometimes make the difference. There was an outrage over Darkness doing it to Entropy I think, last war - delaying the game an hour to discuss tactics, but hey! they won so...)

[pervepic]

Seems that we can also put up decks there that everybody else had. And spectating was a very big issue in war 2 too, luckily there is improved trainer now and top 50 is gone...

[Bloom]

So have we decided finally on the decks we're going to use this round?

[Legit]

Yeah, they are listed in the Penultimate War Tool (accessed by the vault link). Go to the "Deck Compliance" tab.

The new war tool is epic, by the way. It makes things so much easier.

[plastiqe]

I'll probably make the topic sometime tomorrow.

We still need the topic, yes? 5 hours left, I'll make sure to get it up if DD doesn't.