Post by: kev on April 12, 2013, 06:49:20 pm
Battles:
Support Battles:
| :aether Gen. deuce22 | vs | :air Gen. kev |
Support Battles:
| :air Jen-i | vs | :aether hainkarga |
| :air AnnaMall | vs | :aether vagman13 |
| :air justaburd | vs | :aether Avenger |
Support bans (reminder that rares are NOT allowed):
Note: yes, Crimson Dragon is the complete list. I confirmed with WMs that sanc and mirror shield are legal for Team Aether to use.
Time til deckbuilding ends: Duel phase has started
Time til duels end: Fighting ends!
Countdown to 48 hour mark: was here
Time til duels end: Fighting ends!
Countdown to 48 hour mark: was here
Please try to have initial thoughts written 48 hours into deckbuilding each round at the very latest and remember that your thoughts on all of our matchups are appreciated (not just your match). Bonus points for earlier. ;) That gives us two days to discuss, finalize, sdcp, add everything to vault, etc.
Post by: AnnaMall on April 14, 2013, 08:42:33 am
The only deck that can beat 2 nymphs consistently is their bow. A mono aether can be tweaked to be competitive as well as fractix but not consistent enough for comfort. I think they got 2 bows left.
Our options to counter their bow is a bit puzzling. If we go CC heavy they just keep grabs buried and pop up for otk, that is if we can have enough CC to adress 6+ shriekers. If we go dims we lose the farts and the PC. So here is an assortment of the bows we need to test against.
That the core of their genbow deck, from this they can go a few different ways
1)Used vs pony R10. Can otk but it needs the whole deck to be drawn(87 creature dmg +lightnings). In practice with the minimal dmg of the burried grabs it works well as an otk and a rush(TTW=7,76)
2)More reasonable OTK and a better rush version (TTW=7,4)
3)Last war's final match winner. Bit slower(TTW=8.3), OTK is 10dmg short but has enough PC to go through dims and enough dims in itself. A pretty safe deck for them to play
4)Finaly something that I consider more tailor made for our vault, in line with jen's mono aether. (ttw=8.1)
1)Used vs pony R10. Can otk but it needs the whole deck to be drawn(87 creature dmg +lightnings). In practice with the minimal dmg of the burried grabs it works well as an otk and a rush(TTW=7,76)
2)More reasonable OTK and a better rush version (TTW=7,4)
3)Last war's final match winner. Bit slower(TTW=8.3), OTK is 10dmg short but has enough PC to go through dims and enough dims in itself. A pretty safe deck for them to play
4)Finaly something that I consider more tailor made for our vault, in line with jen's mono aether. (ttw=8.1)
Post by: kev on April 15, 2013, 05:31:28 pm
I agree with what's already been said. As deuce kindly pointed out, our range in their view is 2 Nymphs speed version, 2 Nymphs control version, or some clunky dim and/or Psion splash. I think the best reason to take an aether duo would've been the element of surprise, which obviously isn't there and wouldn't have been a great reason in the first place. Given all of this, they have to put us on 2 Nymphs. They could try to middle-of-the-road and prepare mainly for 2 Nymphs but also be okay against an aether duo. That's not really deuce's style; he prefers to mindgate and prepare against one deck when he thinks he can. He’s more likely to pick a specific 2 Nymphs build we’ll use and maximize winrate against it. But it’s possible he could try to middle and it’s possible he might accidentally middle (by taking deflags in a grabbow against our dims, for example).
General Thoughts
- They'll expect to see 2 Nymphs as it's our strongest deck, they've seen close to 100% of our vault, and we haven’t seen a great counter to 2 Nymphs yet. They specifically went 1-1 last round to force us into using 2 Nymphs this round. Do they have a great counter?
- Since they're expecting 2 Nymphs with maybe an outside chance of Psions, they won't go with dims.
- They will guess we used the 2 Nymph control version last round in case we encountered their grabbow, and that means they’re less likely to send it if they have a good alternative.
- There's a possibility they could throw oddball decks at us (RoL/Hope for example), hoping to get lucky, knowing we likely can't use the cards we'd salvage, and saving their stronk decks for later. I don't see any advantage to that, though, and I think they'll try to just end the War.
Deck Options
1) Mono - Critter only or control version. Here's (http://elementscommunity.org/tools/deck/?deck=zD5ocz15ogz35onz17msz17muz37mvz17n58pr) a Mono control version build. It’s okay against PUboidbow. If we draw a Fog we win and if we don’t we lose. It's tough to make a mono speed version because it'd involve using Nymphs but not their abilities, which is… not ideal. Every Nymphy mono is better using a fire mark.
2) Dim splash or Psion splash. Dim splash slows the deck down and loses a hitter or two, but still loses to psiontal, PC in fractix/grabbow, dim deckout… pretty much everything. Psions are weak against lobo and lightning. I don’t think we’re likely to face dims, but even if we are, 2 Nymphs seems like a better option.
3) PUgon - Speed version,
4) Fractal Wyrms - Speed version, control version, or dim version. I went 2-1 with this (http://elementscommunity.org/tools/deck/?deck=z85ocz15ogz85puz27muz17n5z17oez280i8pu) but can tell it’s pretty much garbage. Three wyrms and three fractals will make for some ugly draws. I’m not happy with how fast it is. I didn’t make a version with four dims cuz it’ll be messy to quanta balance and the end product will be way worse than the six dim, zero fractal splash I discuss above in 2).
5) 2 Nymphs – Speed (http://elementscommunity.org/tools/deck/?deck=z25f6zF5oc5pu7msz17muz37mv7n5z17ng8po) or control (http://elementscommunity.org/tools/deck/?deck=zD5ocz15ogz35onz27dmz27mvz17n5z17ng8po) version. We used the control version last round and the speed version the round before. As I’ve said, this is what they expect to see but they don’t have any perfect counters (I believe), and it’s a solid all-around deck. The deflags are less useful if we see no dims as I expect, but they’re still not worthless.
Conclusions
As I see it, the only viable decks we have are Mono control (dom), PUgons (rush), 2 Nymphs Speed (break, rushy), and 2 Nymphs Control (break, dommy). A lot of what I’ve said above boils down to what’s been said more succinctly in chat: they believe a break is coming; they’re likely to bring their rush (PUboidbow), we should bring a dom. Imma start testing stuff now.