Thoughts on Initial Vault

[QuantumT]

We're nearing completion on our starting vault, so I want to get everyone's thoughts on what it looks like right now, both what it does well as well as anything you think it's missing. This is just being done so we can gauge where we're at right now.

For starters, I'm concerned about how little PC we have.

[The_Mormegil]

Long list of thoughts, in card order of appearence:
4 Fractals seem a bit low, I think 5 Fractals are the most common number for Fractal based decks, so I'd either add one or take them out altogether and wait to salvage them if we can.

2 Arsenics seem a bit low too. I think we need at least 6, flying arsenics is a good deck, and although I think we will manage to salvage at least some Arsenics along the way, maybe taking out some other cards to make space for this one is a good idea.
For instance, I'd gladly take out the Flesh Spiders for that.

6 Graboids means we will have just one Graboid deck out at a time. As predictable as they might be, grabbows are still one of the best choices out there. Also, with the addition of UGs, they make for a great deck, imo. Maybe slower than most grabbows, but surely more reliable against all sorts of decks. Most grabbow counters will be destroyed by that, too.
6 Novas have the same issue. Plus, Nova is very versatile and can improve many decks, including most UG decks - which in my opinion are undervalued.

I don't think Catapults will be required. If we have them, we might use them, but Flying Titans works well even without them. If it is meant as a counter to RT... it might work, but I still think it's not a primary card.

5 Morning Stars are low. Also, I think taking some light pendulums would be good. The reason is that they may be used for flying morning stars (which, with Wings, is probably a strong counter to anything Entropy could throw against us except the decker). Flying Morning Stars may also be our best bet against Time - it's immune to Steal or Reverse Time, and Time/Darkness duo is one of the decks we'll have lots of trouble taking down. 3 Sanctuaries are low as well - they are really a strong card, if you think about it, not just as Discord counter, but as healing cards.

I don't think we'll need 6 RTs to start with. ANY team fighting us will pack RTs on at least 50% of their decks. We can pick them up as salvaging cards while we go on, I don't see the need to take them since we don't really have a use for them out of the bat.

6 water pillars AND 6 water pendulums make me think we're going a bit out of our way with toadfishes. As good as fishes and squids might be, they aren't really our best deck, are they?

Also, 5 Wings in a deck are sufficient, in my opinion, so taking 15 might be an idea. And might I ask why we have 12 Firefly Queens while we have just 3 Bonds and 4 Hopes? Are we going to make 2 FFQ decks without enough cards for them?
While at the same time, not taking Fireflys means we won't have access to them for the whole War (nobody else is picking them). I still think some good decks can come out of Fireflys.

Changes I would do to the Vault as it is now:
-4 Fractal (Fractal decks won't be our primary decks, while it will be key to some other teams. Salvageable.)
+6 Arsenics (Enough to make a deck, plus two to split into novabows)
-6 Flesh Spiders (I didn't really see a deck with these which surpasses our other spider deck)
-2 Catapults (as stated above)
-6 Reverse Time (as stated above)
-3 Wings (as stated above)
-6 Firefly Queen (I don't think we'll see the need for TWO firefly decks in a single round)
-2 Sky Blitzes (are we really going to need 12 of these? I don't think we'll use more than 3-4 per deck)
-6 Earthquake (I don't see the need to have these. They may be strong, but they are completely out of target)
+6 Nova (as stated above)
+6 Graboid (as stated above)
+3 Bond (not really necessary, but these are always nice to have, and 3 seem low)
+1 Morning Star (as stated above)
+3 Sanctuary (as stated above, one of our best decks needs these)
-6 Water Pillar (as stated above)
+6 Firefly (as stated above)

TOTAL CARDS: 460

From the ideas I stated above, we could take out easily 2 Arsenics, 2 Bonds and the 6 Fireflys. That means 10 free cards we could use in different ways. For instance, taking back Fractals if we deem it necessary, or taking more Morning Stars / Sanctuaries (which I would like as an idea).

Also, a question to the veterans: isn't it better to focus a bit more on our best decks, so that we can play more than one per round? Also, if we had to discard lots of cards from a deck, while also not having some to back them up, wouldn't we be left with half-decks which result in many useless cards?

[omegareaper7]

I think four fractals is enough, you never really need more then 2 to nearly fill your field. Five just seems like to many to me, while four seems about right.

[The_Mormegil]

Well, most fractal based decks seem to use five. Check successful decklists such as frogtal, RoL Hope, devtal... Anyway I don't think our Fractal decks are all that wonderful. Yeah, dragonflies help, but...

[jippy99]

My thoughts on Morm's vault changes (Changes are in yellow):
-2 Fractal (Fractal decks won't be our primary decks, while it will be key to some other teams. Salvageable.) Leave us with a few.  Its always good to have some
+6 Arsenics (Enough to make a deck, plus two to split into novabows)
-6 Flesh Spiders (I didn't really see a deck with these which surpasses our other spider deck)
-0 Catapults (as stated above) For the flying titan deck.  Titans + Cata is very good.
-0 Reverse Time (as stated above)  We need RTs.
-3 Wings (as stated above)
-6 Firefly Queen (I don't think we'll see the need for TWO firefly decks in a single round)
-2 Sky Blitzes (are we really going to need 12 of these? I don't think we'll use more than 3-4 per deck)
-0 Earthquake (I don't see the need to have these. They may be strong, but they are completely out of target) Although I see your point, its good to have these
+0 Nova (as stated above) 12 is unnecessary.  We well definitely be able to salvage these
+0 Graboid (as stated above) read nova
+0 Bond (not really necessary, but these are always nice to have, and 3 seem low)3 is fine for now
+1 Morning Star (as stated above)
+3 Sanctuary (as stated above, one of our best decks needs these)
-0 Water Pillar (as stated above) We need those for the toadfish decks
+0 Firefly (as stated above) We don't need these

TOTAL CARDS: 461
What I am saying is as of now's vault, meaning that some of these may have already changed.  We also have the propaganda bonus of 12 cards, putting us at 472 cards.  The extra 11 can be used anywhere.

[Hisar]

Everything looks pretty good to me, although I'm curious why we have 5 gravity pulls and 3 accelerations with only one titan deck.

I like the changes the others have posted, although I think keeping an extra 2 queens might be helpful in case we have to discard some.

In terms of flying arsenics, I think other flying weapon decks are much better.  In a death/air stall I'd rather have owl's eyes, and if you aren't stalling poison takes too long to kill them.

[truddy02]

Here on my thoughts:

155 total pillars/pendulums is too much.  With 24 conversion per round we should be fine as long as we start converting early.  This allows us to take more nonpillar cards and as we see what is really working and what isn't we can convert what isn't.

12 if these pillars/pendulums being water also seems like too much.

12 Firefly queens seems a bit high.  3-4 in a deck tends to be enough and even with some redundancy I think we would be fine with 8-9.

12 shockwaves also seems to be too much.  They can kill only one kind of dragon, which will be a large majority of the creatures we see because of wings.  They are ok to splash in a deck here and there but I would be fine with 6 of them.

I agree with QT about not enough PC and would like some card for a deck that uses steals.

I think it would be nice to have a few more midhitters from other elements.  Maybe some abominations to use in entropy duos and/or some frogs to use with life. 

I wouldn't mind having a little more redundancy on some healing cards (sanctuary and/or bonds) as others have said.  I wouldn't put this as an extremely high priority.

I would like to keep the spiders because they are a good midhitter and can be used with poison and wings.  I don't see that much of a use for flying arsenics.  We have plenty of flying weapon decks now and I don't see it being better than any of them.  2 are good to use in a wings/poison deck.

I have to agree about taking out catapults.  Flying titans is gravity heavy enough without them.  I don't see making an effective deck using them.

I'll go card by card here just to show my overall view:
-10 wind pillar
-10 air pendulum
-6 shockwave
-3 firefly queen
+4 fog shields (for some redundancy)
+6 lightning
+6 phase shield
+4 abomination
+3 sanctuary
+4 frogs
-2 water pillar
-2 water pendulum

total -6 cards is 464 leaving 8 cards to be added.

This is just a couple spots where I could see changes made.  I don't see any real overhauls necessary.   

[Newbiecake]

Some comments regarding these cards currently in the vault:
6 Earthquakes: Do we really need that many? We do lack PC but, there isn't much synergy between Air and Earth.
0 Iridium Golems: If there are going to be earthquake decks, why not add a few Iridium Golems as well?
12 Deflagurations: Again, seems like an overdose. 8-10 is good I think?
2 Catapults: Perheps 1 more? 3 of a card in a 30 card deck has a good chance to be drawn. We do need Catapult Titans to counter certain Death decks.
3 Santurary: Redundency on healing hard shouldn't hurt. 1-2 more?
12 Toadfishes: Are we really relying on Toadfishes that much? I think 8-10 should suffice.

[Amilir]

More later, but for now:
6 EQ is one deck.  There is very little point in taking half a deck.
Iridium golems really aren't that good.  They're a one per turn upkeep, killable, and only hold one enemy.  BBs are better if we take earth CC at all.
Those 12 deflags are the only PC in our vault!  We need more, not less.
A third catapult might be reasonable.
I was expecting miracles to switch to sancts.  This may yet happen.
Again, toadfishes are 6 a deck.  It would be outright silly to take one and a half toadfish decks.

[The_Mormegil]

Iridium golems really aren't that good.  They're a one per turn upkeep, killable, and only hold one enemy.

I know this is unupped, and we can't really count on buffs (without Fireflys even my weird trio can't work - if it even worked competitively at all). But, before dismissing the wardens, try running them against T50 rushes a bit... They actually work very well. They don't cost THAT much, and can lockdown creatures easily. They are also cumulable, so you can gain many turns if you put some out fast... They're like Squids, only a little better (in my opinion). We do have stronger synergy with water, though...

[omegareaper7]

We don't have any steals in the vault? I think we could really use at least a few, as they can be a real game changer if you steal something important.

[The_Mormegil]

The problem is, what do we use them with? Air and darkness don't pair that well...