Queen Sacrifice

[dragonsdemesne]

Where the name comes from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_sacrifice 

The deck:

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Deck import code : [Select]

5io 5io 6rt 6rt 6rt 6rt 7gk 7gk 7gk 7gk 7gk 7gk 7gk 7gk 7gk 7h0 7h0 7h0 7h0 7h0 7h0 7i6 7i6 7i6 7i6 7i6 7i6 7i6 7i6 7i6 8pp

Pretty simple.  Usually you'll get a tears or queen to start, and on turn 2 (sometimes turn 1 with luck) you'll have a nymph out.  Spam the SoSas when needed.  In about 2.5 hours of pvp2 games, I only lost two of them, and one was because I can't count damage and didn't play SoSa when I should have.  The legitimate loss was against a ghostmare with RTs.

It beat decks such as cremation rush, rainbow control, Zen, life rush, graboid rush, monodeath with bonewalls.   Heck, it even beat a monoaether with a turn 1 lobotomizer, because I waited until I had 2 nymph's tears and 12 water quanta, and thus he couldn't lobo them all fast enough.

The basic strategy is obvious.  Play tears ASAP, then spam nymphs.  Always spam in the following order: nymph activation, nymph's tears, nymph queen.  Often I don't actually end up playing the queens at all; they're just there so that I have 8 chances to have the key card in my hand.  Against dimshields, sundials, SoSa, and the like, where you aren't dealing any damage, do not use up any of your pillars, let the quanta stockpile.  If you make them into nymphs when they aren't dealing damage, you're wasting quanta; that playstyle allowed me to beat a sundial deck when I wouldn't have otherwise, by spamming more activations/tears/queens once the dial chain broke than I would have been able to had I played them earlier.

One player I faced pointed out what he saw as antisynergy between the nymphs and the SoSas.  I'd actually disagree.  Except for turn 1, you will never have more than 3 water quanta in your pool unless something goes horribly wrong, so it costs at most 3  to cast.  If you've got more water quanta than that after the first turn, it means either you didn't draw any tears/nymphs by turn 2 (never happened to me yet with 8) or your opponent has disrupted the game plan in such a way that you're probably screwed.

I didn't use 6 SoSas because I felt the deck needs a lot of quanta.  Even with 18, it can sometimes feel quanta starved.

The deck shouldn't really lose too much unupped; basically it's just a turn slower, and SoSa is slightly less wtfbrokenOP.  I haven't actually tried it unupped, though.

I don't usually post decks since basically everything's been done, but I've never seen this before.  Also, it should be noted that I got the idea from the deck that 10 men used against me in today's tournament.  (6 tears, and as far as I know, 24 pillar/pend, as I saw nothing else)  I went 1-1 against an unupped version of this.  (and 1-2 in the tourney match)

[Rutarete]

There were SoSacs in there to? now I know my chances earlier were worse off than I thought. lol, anuyway, I can vouch for this deck's effectiveness.

[Annele]

I thought Shards were banned from this morning's tourny.

[furballdn]

I don't see any point to add in the nymphs. You'll just use tears to get things done.

[dragonsdemesne]

I thought Shards were banned from this morning's tourny.

They were banned today.  That was the key change I made.  (along with possibly nymph queens; I didn't see him use any)  Like I said, I don't know if 10 men used anything besides 6 NT/24 quanta, but if he did, I didn't see it.  He certainly didn't use any banned stuff :p

I don't see any point to add in the nymphs. You'll just use tears to get things done.

I thought about that too, but I wanted to try and avoid the case where I draw no nymph's tears early.  The queens give two extra chances for that, but they aren't really needed.  You could probably change them into more towers, 2 more SoSas, or SoF for shields.  Plus, the nymphs are the only 'queens' in the deck, so unless I change it to unupped, I have to rename it, and I really like the name; it's clever

[furballdn]

Seems like you're just showing off your nymphs

6 nymph's tears is FINE for a 30 card deck like this. You only need to draw one to get the combo started. I'd rather more SoSa, although you do have to keep in mind, having that much SoSa is somewhat risky. If you lose 60hp without them ever having an optimal field to SoSa, you've basically packed a bunch of dead cards into your deck.

At least make it one queen so it actually fits the theme of chess. Having two queens would be broken

[Annele]

Seems like you're just showing off your nymphs

6 nymph's tears is FINE for a 30 card deck like this. You only need to draw one to get the combo started. I'd rather more SoSa, although you do have to keep in mind, having that much SoSa is somewhat risky. If you lose 60hp without them ever having an optimal field to SoSa, you've basically packed a bunch of dead cards into your deck.

At least make it one queen so it actually fits the theme of chess. Having two queens would be broken

Pawns.

[furballdn]

I am suddenly tempted to have ideas for EtG chess. Has it been done before?

[dragonsdemesne]

Seems like you're just showing off your nymphs

6 nymph's tears is FINE for a 30 card deck like this. You only need to draw one to get the combo started. I'd rather more SoSa, although you do have to keep in mind, having that much SoSa is somewhat risky. If you lose 60hp without them ever having an optimal field to SoSa, you've basically packed a bunch of dead cards into your deck.

At least make it one queen so it actually fits the theme of chess. Having two queens would be broken

No, *this* would be showing off my nymphs! 



6 tears might well be enough, but I hate making decks where I *need* a certain card to make the deck even function.  I know the odds are probably only a few percent or less (too lazy to calculate them) to not get an early Tears, but if you don't get one, this is just a SoSa farm :p  I think having the 4 SoSas is enough, though; in the games I played, I never needed to play more than 1, and you don't need it until several turns have passed, unlike tears/queen, which you must have by turn 2.

[Annele]

I am suddenly tempted to have ideas for EtG chess. Has it been done before?

There's been ACTUAL chess, but nothing like the take-off I think you're planning.
If you don't want to, I would be glad to plan something like this

[Rutarete]

I am suddenly tempted to have ideas for EtG chess. Has it been done before?

There's been ACTUAL chess, but nothing like the take-off I think you're planning.
If you don't want to, I would be glad to plan something like this

There HAS been an EtG Chess PvP event, though I think it was at least a year ago, if not more. I can't fetch the link at the moment (i'm on the ds), so try searching

[Absol]

Here ya go.
Now Mono Water has taken a level in badass.