Round 5 Deck Discussion

[Elbirn]

Vagman13 vs Jen-I whatifidogetcaught? vs Gen. kev Bloom vs Drake_XIV Odii Odsen vs Justaburd Vangelios vs Annamall Elbirn vs Laxadarap Deckbuilding: Duel phase has started Duels: Fighting ends!

Notes: Don't forget the effects of last round's event card! You must put the relics in your vault manually.

We'll use this topic (and chat) to discuss who should take which deck with what build, etc.  As I said in the Deck Ideas thread, you are ultimately responsible for your deck choice each round.  I will not be choosing your deck for you (though I hope you'll listen to the opinions of your teammates and I  ).  Part of deckbuilding is choosing roles for each player.  It makes more sense to include who should be Lt for the round as a part of the deckbuilding discussion as the Lt gets three extra ups.  Likewise, we have a decision to make each round on whether to make use of the Berserker ability, etc.  In future rounds we will also need to discuss s/d/c/p.  All of these discussions occur concurrently, and we'll use a thread like this as well as chat to facilitate the discussion.

Spoiler for Member roles reminders:

General - uses nine ups
- Lieutenant - uses six ups
- Strategist - may remove up to six cards from his deck before each duel. Each duel must have a legal deck, and his full deck must also be legal.
- Berserker - discard 1, 2 or 3 cards from the Vault during deckbuilding. The Berserker may use 1, 3 or 4 extra upgrades respectively.
- Quartermaster - if the Quartermaster plays in a battle, each winner from their team may claim 1 card from their element by relinquishing 3 of their salvage, or 2 salvage if the Quartermaster wins. Limit of two cards per person. Teams may not claim cards they already have at least 6 copies of.
- Standard Bearer - salvages N more cards and discards N fewer cards, where N is the number of wins their team has had that round.

Please try to have initial thoughts written 48 hours into deckbuilding each round at the very latest.  Bonus points for earlier.   That gives us two days to discuss, finalize, sdcp, add everything to vault, etc.

Countdown to 48 hour mark: was here

[Elbirn]

Opponent	Also Faces...
	[GEN] [GEN] [GEN]
	[GEN]

[kev]

Vagman13 - I think they'll put us on our Light Stall and will try to protect against UGs and a PC splash as well.  Their grabbow beats all of those, so I like taking an RT splash or Hurricane to counter.

Vangelios - I liked Light Stall last round against Fire.  I like it even more this round.

Drake_XIV - I liked an RT splash or Hurricane last round against Water.  I like them as much this round.

whatifidogetcaught? vs Gen. kev - I like Bonair, actually.  They probably believe it to be dead, and it's time to revive it.  Their only (I hope) grabbow is dead.  I'd actually consider OEs rather than Arses.  Thoughts appreciated.

Odii Odsen - Gotta find a way to counter discord, and they know that.  They'll prepare against our Light Stall and/or our Grabbow.  If we can work it out of our vault, wingfractalagon might be a good option.

Laxadarap - We should go perm light here as gravy seems to be very perm concerned.  If RT splash isn't used elsewhere, here is a good spot.  Otherwise, a discord splash is a good option.

[Jen-i]

I'm gonna edit this post as I build decks and put together my thoughts:

Flying Titans - I still think we need to build with the goal of beating both Fire Stall and their rushes. Playing to beat one or the other either results in an awesome mindgate win or in disaster, if we can get a deck that wins 70% in either matchup we're far better off than even a 90% winrate against one match and an autoloss in the other (All these arguements can be set aside if there's a truly compelling reason to think they'll favour one deck or the other against us.

Spoiler for TS Titans:

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Note: The Flying Titans deck I suggested should be able to beat both Firestall and their Rushes - but I haven't done any testing yet. I think kev's lightstall suggestion is valid too - however I'm not sure we'll have enough quanta to be able to run it this round.

- Just as a response to kev - Time won with one novabow and lost with a 2nd last round - here's their winner
I like the Bone Air play here - although I'd like an alternative option as well.

- I agree with kev - for the same reasons I did last round - Hurricane is my vote here too.

- Denial Bow is a possibility - but needs to be tested.

Spoiler for Denial Bow:

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- Fractalagons is barely salvageable - Taking Fractal from the deck denies us recovering damsels - which in turn forces us to recover more pillars from the Shadow Dragons deck losing out on recovering dragons. I don't think the cost is worth it. If we could still run a Fractal Damsels deck it would be worth considering, but recovering Fractals means we have only 3 Dragonflies in the Vault.

I expect they'll try to counter our light stall - they don't truely have a break deck that they've shown - PUagons would be the closest they could come - and while they could run a 50 card Diss Shield stall we've shown so much bypass damage that its kinda a crazy deck to go with. My expectation is that they salvage Fractal from last round and run PUagons with 2 Fractal for an ability break stalls. The question is what deck can we run that wins this matchup - and still beats Discord? I suspect our Grabbow can likely outrush it (but this needs testing) - RT Splash is also a possibility

- I don't have a clue yet - I've been considering Bone Air - RT Splash - and the Grabbow from last round.

[Elbirn]

I'll use this post for thoughts on my match later.

[AnnaMall]

  Hurricane seems to handle most of their decks but not firestall. Acctits handle firestall but are 50-50 vs their creature rushes. Do we gamble in the mindgate or chalenge the in game RNG?

  Expect their ghostmare to be gimped or dead. Sanc stall is a fear as well as the bow we have been facing forever. RT deck or bonair with OE is my opinion

  Huge vault not a chance in mindgating. I suggest we sent something that does not fit the other matchups or something that is not needed in the long run

  I liked the denial bow suggestion by jen here. Elb does not have the nymphs to play though, so maybe sub elb for this one? Also the straight bow can work here with some mods to make it perm light.

  Either fractalgons or DBH coming our way with pandebonium a prime option if they still got it ungimped (doubt it). The Question is what do we have that beats both? sancstall or hurricane? need testing After some fast testing it seems that lightstall and huricane +wings have some decent chances

Spoiler for hurricane mod for DBH:

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  Still having sancstall which looks like a good option vs aether will scare away the pestal. RoL/hope is a nono but we should sent 2 Ts their way anyway. Also they salvage alot so might see new decks popping out. Bonair or jen's war bow modded with cloaks (lobo and lightning will not be a surprise)

[Jen-i]

After some testing I'm not sure the Flying Titan deck I suggested beats Fire Stall - their addition of Phoenix to the deck adds enough damage to make the game  a toss up - I'm not liking it!

[AnnaMall]

Havent given ups hope of a deck that beats all of fire...experimentingatm with this pseudo otk. Looks crap but i ll test some more tonight. On the bad side it is counterproductive vault wise, no?

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[Jen-i]

Here's my deck selection for the round:

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In limited testing so far:
60-70% against their grabbow from 2 rounds ago (10 games)
50% against their grabbow from last round (10 games)
80% against their Fractal Bone Bolt deck (5 games) - the loss was from drawing no pillars or pends
100% against Pestal (3 games) - none were close but the AI is stupid.

Things I learned in playing - never ever play the Damsel if you suspect their running Fractal! It might be for the best to remove the Damsel from the deck - however I'm keenly aware of our quanta needs this round and they need to be included somewhere.

[kev]

I'm disappointed to have not heard any thoughts from Bloom, Burd, and El yet.

Jen has posted a list of available decks in team chat.  I'm always a fan of the new, but the vault is incredibly strained at the moment so I expect more decks will come from that list this round as there's just not much opportunity to think outside the box given vault constraints.  Vault strain also means it's even more important to get deck discussions/decisions rolling.

We're in 3rd place at the moment and this round we face the two teams currently above us.  We're in a great spot but we really need the whole team to contribute!

[Elbirn]

Elbirn v. Laxadarap

In typical short sighted fasion, my opinions are based on what gravity has used thus far, and they have two surviving decks. A boner and their EQ/Pulvy.

Spoiler for Hidden:

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Preparing against the EQ/flying pulvy deck. RT splash, as mentioned, could work well. I'd made a few minimal changes here; damsels > towers, needed EQ resistance. I also would much rather replace the eternity with moar RT's, but that can't be helped. Fogs and wings are also helpless against pulvy, but the RT's wrecks the flying pulvy AND accelerated creatures.

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Our Bonewall > Their bonewall. Dunno how this fares against the dreaded EQ Pulvy tho. Untested/modified

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Insta-kill CC could be strong against EQ Pulvy, AND has plenty of creatures to counter their bonewall. Untested/modified

I'll be on later to talk more, for now I've got a lot of work to get done, sorry >.>

[AnnaMall]

I believe their firestal is going either vs entropy or vs us. So option #1 acctits

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reverse vs immorush R3 0-5
reverse vs fat rush 1-4
reverse vs poisonbolts 5-0
reverse vs darkduo 1-4 (2-3 second set)
reverse vs firestall 4-1

Alternatively

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