Round 6 Deck Discussion

[kev]

Gen. majofa vs Gen. kev UTAlan vs Jen-i Bloom vs Gen. PlayerOa Elbirn vs Gen. glennfoo Anthraxx vs justaburd Deckbuilding: Duel phase has started Duels: Fighting ends!

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

[Jen-i]

Our Enemy's Enemies

	none

[kev]

UTAlan

vs

Jen-i

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.

I think my analysis was good but my conclusion was slightly off.  Because our vault is tighter and we didn't use Light Stall last round I feel last round's analysis will be just as right.  I think (again) we'll see their Grabbow, though Fractix again is a real possibility.  I think our best deck against that range is probably Hurricane with tstorms, but I'm interested in seeing whether testing supports this.

Gen. majofa

vs

Gen. kev

My spidey sense says a dimfractalagon is coming from maj.  He salvaged a bunch of dims two rounds ago.  We haven't shown many steals/deflags/UGs/Nymphs recently.  I'd like to take our original catatitan build.

Anthraxx

vs

justaburd

They added a snova and an upped explosion last round against us.  Two of their three upped cards, solely to get an OTK option in case we dim stalled.  Their deck also smells like they thought they might be facing sancstall.  They're getting that a lot these days.  They know we still have sancstall and I really think they will build against it again.  They don't have a lot of stallbreaks, so there's a chance we'll see dimfractalagons again.  Sadly they won't use low hp critters against us.  So let's forego cc, splash steals, get overquanta'd, and rush!

Bloom

vs

Gen. PlayerOa

We used Bonair against Time until it failed and then we used it some more.  At this point Oa has to build a deck capable of beating Bonair or he'll look kinda silly.  Before I started this post I took maul's list of available decks this round from our pad and I'm now giving my thoughts on our five matches in order of importance.  At this point, I think only sancstall and Bonair are left.  Bonair is a no-no in this matchup unless we're very confident they can't build a counter, even with full knowledge of our deck.  I don't love sancstall against either grabbys or pharoahs but this is what it has come to.   

Elbirn

vs

Gen. glennfoo

That leaves Bonair.    I actually don't hate it in this matchup as I think we're likely to see low hp critters.  If we can swing it, I'd like to get this deck as close to our original build as possible (i.e. spell cc and Arse).


One last comment: I'm fine using Relics aplenty this round.  Let's kick some ass, gents. 

[justaburd]

vs I would say that the water rush majofa's been playing is likely, with majofa choosing a different rush otherwise. Given water's cc even while rushing... Would the bonair be reliable enough against the rush?

vs fractals. That said, fractals require stupid amounts of quanta, so... denial bow?

vs masturbation deck. 2/2 split like I always favor. If they rt, go with cata, if they don't, accel and shrug. Fog for pharoah spams.

vs so... how many times can we face fire and how many times have I said hurricane?

vs dark duo is left. Steals seem quite powerful, but that disco hmm.

[Jen-i]

Regarding the Aether match up:

Hurricane Tests at 50% (10 games) against Fractrix - however two of those games should have been losses as the ai foolishly fractalled an Ash instead of a Phoenix.

Denail bow is a risky call against Aether - if kev is correct and they run a grabbow we are dead in the water.

Jen's Leanings at the moment:

- Strategist Dark Duo (Nightmares & Steals) - perhaps packing some CC to counter PU?

- At least on paper it looks like they are going to be quanta stressed this round - I expect that this leads to their decks being slightly underquantad - considering the cost of most of their cards perhaps Denail-bow is a solid play here?

- Bolt Fire duo (w/ Wings - needs testing)

- I highly expect them to bring their Discord nova-bow - if we slightly overquanta Hurricane (to counter Discord) the CC should handle their creatures - the only questions are can we afford the quanta and does it really beat Discord. If not perhaps we build a weaker Grabbow to counter Discord and see what happens.

Spoiler for Alternate Denial Bow Build:

Hover over cards for details, click for permalink

Deck import code : [Select]

4vh 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 52o 52o 590 590 590 5oc 5oc 5oc 5oc 5oc 5oc 5oc 5oc 5og 5og 5oi 5oi 5ol 5ol 5p0 5p0 77j 77j 7tb 8pm

Note: This changes our salvages - and may put undue pressure on in-element hitters

- they look to be creature heavy - either Bone Air or Hurricane could be a good play

[AnnaMall]

Since we are in a tight situation it might be better to prioritize the matches, cause I want to use the same few decks over and over again and I see others doing so as well.

Predictions
  sending a mono with psions or the PUgrabbow
  sending dim drags (PU if they got some left or fractals, sure have those) or dark duo
  the bow we seen 2 times
  gimped firestall 6 bolts 3 pots 3 miracles possible? monofire
  PUgons dims or dimless with lightning

Suggestions
  strategist's dark duo, its the most versatile deck with the most versatile role vs the top team. Probably lose to heavy PU and pestal
  fire duo or denial bow or acc/catatits
  Hurricane tests nicely vs timebow and with a few upps for Q can be EQ resistant vs the GnG
  Bonair with all the CC we can afford and atleast 4 7hp creatures/animated weaps
  denial bow mod or fireduo the wings should be used here imo

[Jen-i]

Event Card Thoughts:

Originally I thought it would make sense to convert a little more than we'd need this round to create a buffer for next round. But I've now done the math and its not needed.

If we assume 13 quanta sources on average per deck each round then unless we go 1-4 or worse (I didn't do the math we're probably okay then too) we'll have to convert 12 cards and recover 1 quanta sources from a deck.

Even if we go 5-0 we'll be okay - 12 conversion allows for us to acquire the quanta needed for a single deck

[kev]

Due to the constrained vault, maybe it makes sense to get two decks set and then think about the other three.  We can't afford to all wait and see whether anyone else is taking Deck X and we really only have a handful to consider.    It makes the most sense for Aether and Water matchups to pick first.  So let's discuss them.

Jen, are you still leaning towards Shadow Drags?  Obviously I voiced concerns above: I think you're a dog to bows and Fractix.  But I trust your analysis and if that's the way you wanna go, I totally support you.  Here's a really rough draft of a dark duo I was toying with for our entropy matchup, but might be good here.  We might not have the cards (15Q and 6 drags makes Jen a sad panda).  We had also considered pairing Str role with dark duo.  Anyway...:

Spoiler for Hidden:

Hover over cards for details, click for permalink

Deck import code : [Select]

5oc 5oc 5oc 5oc 5oc 5oc 5oc 5oc 5oc 5oc 5oc 5oc 5of 5of 5of 5oh 5oh 5pu 5pu 5pu 5pu 5pu 5up 5up 5up 5v1 5v1 7mv 7mv 7mv 8pt

I'm not hearing a lot of clamoring from others who wanna take Tits this round.  Is it cuz I spoke so soon this round, or just because it's a better fit there than in other matchups?  I'm still leaning that way, but here's an opportunity to talk me out of doing it.

[AnnaMall]

I mentioned prioritizing and it seems I was not clear enough, also sparked by kev's last post....

Maybe start with the weakest element and go with something they cannot possibly beat. A bonair with a sideboard of 4 drags and 2 pillars can beat all they have and the possible gimped firestall they might come up to counter bonair.

Time has 3 decks: pharaohbow, GnG and ghostall. A huricane with 3 Ts probably can handle all their decks.

After those it gets complicated, but at least there are 2 matches which are reasonaly comfortable.

[Jen-i]

Hey kev,

Here's what my testing tells me:
vs. Fractrix (11 wins for Shadow Dragons)
     (5-0) Playing Fractrix
     (6-0) Playing Shadow Dragons
vs. PC Grabbow (11 wins / 4 losses for Shadow Dragons)
     (7-3) Playing Grabbow
     (4-1) Playing Shadow Dragons
vs. PU Grabbow 0 wins / 6 losses
     (0-3) Playing Grabbow
     (0-3) Playing Shadow Dragons

I'm not sure we have a deck that can consistently beat their PU grabbow.

All that said - Bone Air would be my 2nd choice to run in this match up - TStorms are also an effective counter to Fractal and "can" hurt their PU decks

[kev]

Still haven't heard any objections to my taking Tits, so unless someone speaks up I'll be going with this:

Hover over cards for details, click for permalink

Deck import code : [Select]

55s 55s 5og 5oi 5oi 5oi 5oi 5oi 5pu 5pu 5pu 5pu 5pu 5pu 5pu 5pu 5pu 5pu 5pu 5pu 5pu 74c 74c 74c 74c 74h 74h 74h 7mv 7mv 8pl

[Jen-i]

Jen's Current Thoughts based on testing and on what the vault supports:

- Denial Bow - my testing says this deck is a consistent winner against Ghostal, Grabbies & Ghosts, and their Discobow

- Cata Titans - decks seems fast enough - Mall says it beats everything they've got except a Dark Duo - kev likes the deck. That's good enough for me.
Note: I've done no testing here - in large part because water's vault is so hard to predict at the moment

- I'm not sure what aether will send our way - they've been consistently running fractals at everyone - which leads me to think that Nightmare is a great counter to them - however they've run a PU graboid deck that will give Shadow Dragons nightmares - the question I suppose is what are they going to bring. I'd be happy to hear your predictions and why you think they'll bring your prediction.

- predicting what they'll bring is the challenge - Bone Air beats everything except a Miracle Stall & Sanc Stall beats everything except a Mono Rush - pick your poison

- I'm still looking for a deck that beats both the PU/Dim deck from last round and a Discord deck - if we can't find one or the other I think - I'm leaning towards the fire duo I suggested earlier in large part because we're lacking in-element damage at this point - perhaps with SW's for CC