Upped Mono-Aether FG grinder

[Polari]

Everything below the line is written for 1.28 and 5-healing shards. In 1.29 you can either play the same deck or switch to SoSas. I haven't played the deck with 1.29 SoGs myself and it's obviously worse now, but I hear (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,23368.msg439714#msg439714) it's still viable. Personally I have tested (https://spreadsheets0.google.com/pub?hl=en_GB&hl=en_GB&key=0AgxDeoyDoRYZdGFiUzNLRjNEZGVhMk5kalJBc3c1N1E&output=html) the SoSa version a little but not enough to say which version is best. It works though, that's for sure. The correct build might even be a mix, as both shards work just fine even as singletons and having SoGs to drag you over 3240 would certainly help the SoSas.

by Polari

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6rt 6rt 6rt 6rt 808 808 808 808 808 808 80d 80d 80d 80d 80d 80d 80e 80e 80f 80f 80f 80f 80f 81q 81q 81q 81q 81q 81q 81q 8pu

Monoaether is like the most obvious deck in the history of elements, but the upped version manages to stand among the top FG farmers. My personal stats (404 games as of writing this) can be found here in this spreadsheet (https://spreadsheets0.google.com/pub?hl=en_GB&hl=en_GB&key=0AgxDeoyDoRYZdGFiUzNLRjNEZGVhMk5kalJBc3c1N1E&output=html) and additional, more detailed stats by Jenkar, kirchj33 and CCCombobreaker in the FG Efficiency Study thread (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,25609.msg349339#msg349339) (FGES later in this post). The win rate is about 45%, EM rate either a little over or under half the wins, depending on whether you play for speed or EMs. The average game length in FGES was slightly over 3 minutes.

First, the deck:

by Polari

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6rn 6rn 6rn 6rn 808 808 808 808 808 808 80d 80d 80d 80d 80d 80d 80e 80e 80f 80f 80f 80f 80f 81q 81q 81q 81q 81q 81q 81q 8pu

The basic strategy is unchanged from the unupped version - chain phase shields to not die and kill with immaterials. The upgrades and SoGs make a huge difference in speed and consistency, meaning you'll hardly ever lose the good matchups and occasionally steal wins against the bad ones. The SoGs specifically do several things:

-They extend the time you have before having to play the first shield
-They let you break your chain for a turn after healing up, also buying you additional draws
-They soak some perm control, letting your shields and lobos do their thing
-They give you a solid amount of EM wins

There's little to say about the card choices so I'll go over it very briefly. The core is 6 Shields, 5 Dragons, 2 Lobos. I think those numbers are correct. 6 shields is a no-brainer, you're already clogged early with five 14-casters and I'm pretty sure I think a third Lobo would hurt you more in matchups where you don't desperately need one than help in the ones you do.

The only cards that are missing from the list and that I could understand are Immortal and Twin Universe. Immortals would sometimes be nice as they are easier to play, but they suck balls against shields of any kind (except Bone Walls). Just play dragons. I haven't thought about TUs too hard, but while they help in a few matchups, glancing over the list of FGs I can't imagine them pulling their weight overall.

So the question is how many SoGs do you play. I kinda went by gut feeling here, but so far I've never wished I had less, and I believe cutting more pillars would begin to slow you down a bit too much. Of course, one or two cards won't make a huge difference overall; Bonestorm reports success with 6 Dragons and 4 Shards while Higurashi swears by 3 Lobos. I can't say which version would win most overall, so do consider your options.

The 6/7 split on Towers and Pendulums is naturally because of Earthquakes, favouring Pendulums as those seem to get killed first if there's an equal number of both on table. Personally I played 9/4 for my first 350 or so games, because Towers had been more useful in other decks and I couldn't be arsed to up Pendulums only for this deck. It doesn't make much of a difference as long as you have at least a few of both.


The matchups

The categories are sorted more by gut feeling than actual numbers from the sample size I have, especially the three between good and nightmare. YMMV. Do check both links mentioned in the beginning for a larger sample size. The ones in this post are rarely updated, last as of 329 played matches.

The FGES guys have got notably different results for a few gods. Dream Catcher, Elidnis, Gemini and Seism have been worse for them and Fire Queen, Hermes, Jezebel, Obliterator and Scorpio better.

edit 6.4.11 - Moved Dark Matter up; Miracle down
edit 3.8.11 - Moved Serket, Chaos Lord and Octane up; Morte, Miracle and Seism down
edit 9.9.11 - Combined the two unfavourable sections, moved Rainbow to nightmares

Cakewalk:

No permanent control. No exceptionally problematic threats.

Dark Matter - 13 wins, 1 loss, 4 EM wins

Draw a Lobo before you lose to Chargers or Nymphs and you've pretty much won. With only 2 in deck it feels like you should crap out more often, but it rarely happens in practice. Unless they get a very early Nymph or lots of momentum against 0 SoGs, you'll have quite a lot of time to draw one.

Destiny - 11W 0L 10EM

I guess you could lose to lucky mutations. Other than that, he's got nothing.

Incarnate 8W 1L 7EM

He has a shitload of Bone Walls which you may lose to if you draw your Lobos and Dragons late. Lobo viruses to fight this. If you choose to open your shields, pay attention to how much he's going to heal with Vampires; you'll often be barely able to finish and that life might make the difference.

Lionheart - 12W 0L 12EM

The easiest matchup ever. He's slow and doesn't do anything you'd care about.

Neptune - 14W 1L 9EM

The bad news is that he's pretty fast and can force you to take more damage in than you'd like. The good news is that in practice this only hurts your EM rate and it's really hard to actually lose.

Paradox - 12W 0L 12EM

Just don't get caught off-guard with a Miracle. Normally you won't even need to do the one-turn kill as he doesn't produce that much light quanta compared to what he burns on his other spells. Just lobo the rays whenever possible.

Good matchups

They've got some annoying stuff, but usually you'll win anyway.

Osiris - 11W 4L 7EM

Draw a Lobo before he produces any Scarabs and he's like an easier Lionheart. A late Lobo will might still stabilize, and with SoGs it's definitely possible to win regardless. You will be losing games to Trebutchets though; the Pharaohs and Scarabs only need a couple of turns to get out of hand.

Morte 12W 2L 2EM

He poisons you at about the same rate you get your SoGs out while his creatures aren't that threatening. EMs will be rare, but so will losses.

Serket - 6W 3L 3EM

No perm control and no ways around a shield. The problem is the shitload of poison creatures that force you to shield up faster than anything else. If you can execute your normal gameplan despite having to start early, you win, but there are going to be games where your chain breaks.

Close ones

They've got legit threats, but either they won't draw them consistently or you can deal with them with a good draw.

Dream Catcher - 5W 7L 1EM

It's all about Butterflies and Lobos. If you get a Lobo and a SoG or a shield to absorb the first activation, you pretty much win right there. Anything other than a Butterfly is merely an inconvenience. If he gets a Butterfly first, it's possible to get back to the game by drawing a Lobo fast and playing it along with another permanent to sandbag, but I've yet to see that happen.

Elidnis - 7W 5L 2EM

It's all about Feral Bonds. If he builds up enough healing to overcome your damage, it's over. Otherwise he has nothing. Don't try to get fancy and slowroll dragons for EM, a couple of Bonds off the top and you'll be struggling to seal the deal in any way.

Gemini - 6W 5L 5EM

The Momentums by themselves aren't a big problem thanks to SoGs and Lobos. The two things you'll lose to are Twin Universe spam on an unstoppable creature or getting outstalled by the opposing Phase Shield chain.

Miracle 4W 7L 4EM

The problem with this build is that with a Jade Shield out, your total damage output is 43. Also with his shields - and especially if he gets a Jade Staff out - it's a bit tricky to time the big turn exactly right. He can also force you to start your shield chain quite early and not allow breaking it for a turn, so you'll whiff relatively often. This could be a favourable matchup if you did the math really carefully to put him in range with as few cards in library as possible, but there's a limit to how far ahead I'm going to calculate ahead. This means losing games to stuff like Miracle being at 41hp with a Dragon and a Lobo out, 4 cards in library and missing one Dragon because you didn't wait a couple of turns in the beginning.

Seism - 6W 4L 4EM

Don't focus too hard on playing around Earthquakes, losing 2 towers is usually acceptable. What typically happens is that you get one dragon out early, get stunted midgame but do manage to play shields and SoGs, and eventually get enough damage in. Even if you do lose your towers, having them stick for a couple of turns is enough to do this. Just be aware of how much quanta you really need for the next turns and at some point near the end, you'll want to simply unload all the towers in your hand. Of course, sometimes he draws more quakes than you have Towers. Then you lose.

Unfavourable

Like the previous category but worse.

Against perm control gods you generally first bait out whatever removal they got early, then hope you don't lose to more of it on the critical turns. First try to sacrifice your towers and pendulums. Usually this happens naturally as you wouldn't play out anything other than Lobos anyway before you're losing some life. Then try to get a Lobo killed. Then play out your SoGs. Then hope they don't have more explosions when you've got your shield chain going. You can usually live through one Explosion if you've kept your life total high with SoGs. Expect to lose a lot of games to those filthy lucksacks drawing their Explosions on the last possible turn.

Against Steals, also consider what permanents you'd lose next and how hard losing them would suck. Having SoGs on the other side of the table is a huge pain in the ass. Also:

Something to note against FG's with Steal and Shields of their own: best case scenario is that you manage to trick them into stealing your Phase Shield (preferably at 0 counters left). I just beat Chaos Lord by doing that so his Dissipation Field went bye bye. :>

Akebono - 5W 8L 1EM

You'll win if everything goes right, but even a slight misstep and he'll punish you. The dragons come out fast, and if you ever fall to one-hit kill range, expect a wild Chimera to appear. Lobo everything on sight.

Chaos Lord - 2W 7L 0EM

Very light perm control and lots of stuff you don't care about, plus 4 Dissipation Fields which you autolose to if one hits the table at any point in game... unless you have him steal a Phase Shield, which is easier to do than you'd think. I conceded to a Field on the spot until Higurashi pointed this out and there should probably be one or two extra wins.

Eternal Phoenix - 2W 13L 0EM

Exactly as described above. If possible, lobo Hermes's growing creatures so you can survive one hit if your shield gets nuked. Expect to lose a lot of games to those filthy lucksacks drawing their Explosions on the last possible turn.

Fire Queen - 3W 7L 2EM

Another Feral Bond deck. If you can Lobo the queens and/or the number of Bonds stays manageable, you're golden.

Hermes - 3W 14L 1EM

Exactly as described above. If possible, lobo the growing creatures so you can survive one hit if your shield gets nuked.

Jezebel - 2W 8L 0EM

The nymphs kill you really slowly, so it's winnable despite the Steals and everything. I've won this in two ways: if you draw lots of towers and dragons, you can ignore your permanents and do a dragon rush. Normally you cross your fingers and bank on the normal anti-perm control plan.

Obliterator - 1W 8L 1EM

First, you need a Lobo to not lose to unstoppable 11-power creatures. Once you've got that down, hope he doesn't draw his Pulvys in time.

Octane - 2W 6L 0EM

Draw multiple SoGs while Octane draws few Explosions and you have a chance. Most of the time you'll just get blown out.

Scorpio - 3W 5L 1EM

Scorpio is the FG you might have expected Morte to be. More ways to poison you around a shield, Ice Lances to kill and Permafrosts to stall. Definitely possible, but hard.

Nightmares:

About 10% win rates at best. Might as well skip unless you feel like fighting it out.

Decay - 0W 8L 0EM

At first it feels like winning should be possible, but in practice? Even if you get 2-3 dragons out, closing the deal through the Dusks and Drains is a tall order.

Divine Glory - 1W 12L 0EM

You know the drill. Sometimes you'll face multiple flying swords and ten Explosions, and there's nothing you can do. Sometimes he craps out and you'll win as long as you don't forget about Miracle and go on autopilot like I did once.

Ferox - 0W 8L 0EM

Too much healing to handle. The only matchup with 0 wins in the FGES stats.

Graviton - 1W 13L 0EM

You could deal with the Explosions and Momentums, but you also need to dodge Gravity Shield at least until he's low enough to finish with Lobo alone.

Hecate - 1W 8L 0EM

There's no single thing you'll lose to, but half his deck is cards you'd rather not face. Lots of Steals. Lots of damage, of which plenty goes around your shields. Some healing. You'll only win if he craps out.

Rainbow - 2W 9L 0EM

Again, you know how it goes. Sometimes he's short on Hourglasses and/or Towers and gives you an opportunity to win. Sometimes he gets going and there's nothing you can do.

[troe1505]

Fantastic thread simply fantastic love the way you go into details about the fg's weakness' thanks for that i just tried the deck for fun and it works wonder

[ODSTRookie]

Very well done, I have never seen such an in depth description of how a mono aether deck fares against each fake god let alone strategies for each. Excellent work!

[Wonder]

Wow you actually collected data o-o Really nice job!

[johannhowitzer]

Granted, this is a common enough deck concept and has been used against FGs before, but I'm still very impressed.  We don't often see new members with this much diligence and eloquence... if you stick around, I foresee you becoming a valued member of the community.  You kind of seem like a lurker, actually.

+Karma for being a non-noob, and here I go to look at your other posts! 

As for the deck itself... if your stats pan out long-term, maybe I've underestimated mono-Aether as a FG grinder.  Certainly with decks like this, a little foresight goes a long way; this isn't the easiest deck to play against FGs and you really have to know what you're up against and how to counter.  In other words, maybe the reason I didn't think it works well against FGs is because I haven't seen how it can be used properly?

Peppered throughout your specific FG strats I see a number of places where a specific permanent is a problem.  A handful of Explosions and Fire mark just might solve that, and I can't really see it wrecking too many games against the FGs you've listed as favorable.  Explosions will help deal with:

- Neptune's Permafrost
- Osiris' Trebuchet
- Serket's Eclipse
- Elidnis' Bond
- Gemini's Phase Shield
- Rainbow's Hourglass
- Jezebel's Permafrost

Even as little as 2 Explosions could turn the tide against some of these.  You'd probably end up dropping one shard and one pillar, plus you'd lose the reliable quanta from the Aether mark, which would make Seism a little less probable.  It's a trade-off, but possibly a beneficial one.

[Polari]

Granted, this is a common enough deck concept and has been used against FGs before, but I'm still very impressed.  We don't often see new members with this much diligence and eloquence... if you stick around, I foresee you becoming a valued member of the community.  You kind of seem like a lurker, actually.

Well I kinda am a lurker. There's a bunch of other games I'm playing more seriously, and Elements is more of a casual thing for me. I just felt like writing this after I was very surprised at how well I was doing with the deck, and noticing that it was completely under the radar on the forums.

As for the deck itself... if your stats pan out long-term, maybe I've underestimated mono-Aether as a FG grinder.  Certainly with decks like this, a little foresight goes a long way; this isn't the easiest deck to play against FGs and you really have to know what you're up against and how to counter.  In other words, maybe the reason I didn't think it works well against FGs is because I haven't seen how it can be used properly?

More likely you just haven't tried a good version? I don't know, I don't think the deck is very hard to play in general once you get used to what you can do with SoGs, but the impression I got earlier was that AEther was supposed to be one of the cheap and somewhat passable unupped FG grinders, but completely outclassed by "real" upped FG decks. The unupped, shardless version is, in fact, quite shitty, so it's easy to just think that hey, upgrades don't really change how the deck operates so it can't be good even if it plays out a little more efficiently.

Peppered throughout your specific FG strats I see a number of places where a specific permanent is a problem.  A handful of Explosions and Fire mark just might solve that, and I can't really see it wrecking too many games against the FGs you've listed as favorable.  Explosions will help deal with:

- Neptune's Permafrost
- Osiris' Trebuchet
- Serket's Eclipse
- Elidnis' Bond
- Gemini's Phase Shield
- Rainbow's Hourglass
- Jezebel's Permafrost

Even as little as 2 Explosions could turn the tide against some of these.  You'd probably end up dropping one shard and one pillar, plus you'd lose the reliable quanta from the Aether mark, which would make Seism a little less probable.  It's a trade-off, but possibly a beneficial one.

Currently the deck has barely enough quanta, removing a pillar and especially changing your mark would completely destroy your Seism matchup and probably hurt many others as a consequence of slowing yourself down. I can imagine the Explosions making a difference in some best-case scenarios (Elidnis, Gemini IF he draws a perfect shield chain, Rainbow/Jezebel/something IF you draw one of your few explosions early AND they have something you need to destroy AND you don't just win/lose anyway), but very hard to believe they'd be beneficial overall.

[Bonestorm]

I'd also underestimated Mono-Aether as a FG grinder, probably more because of people tearing into it in chat and dissaproving. But I gave this deck a run, and I'm pretty impressed with the results. I use monoaether as a counterdeck in PVP sometimes and i've got 1.4k FG kills so I could see before I started that it would be decent vs a few gods, I think what I really underestimated is how resilient it would be vs some of the ones it's not so well matched to.
     Definately worth keeping this as a mono and small in size, the shield chain fits nice in 30, the damage always seems to have came out with a turns left on the board to spare (vs shielding included).. generally just a lot better than given credit for IMO. After a few games I felt I could cut a tower, and did so (Used it -1Pend +1 EPD) awesomely I can't remember a single time I had any really desperate quanta troubles in around 50 games (2 seism wins in there) so i'm very much under the impression that 12 towers/pends 5 EPD 5 SoG would be also be viable.

Nice 'when you're in the mood for it' FG farmer, probably gets tedious after using it a while by nature of shield chain . I certainly enjoyed it while I ran it though.

Using it (+2Elec, -1 Pend) vs Paradox & Dark Matter for oracles from now on. 

I too had good luck vs the messenger god of disgusting destruction.. (maybe the deck is just a bad omen for him eh ) Won 3 Lost 1 vs Hermes



Also a small success with Chaos Lord! (but of course bad luck with the last turn momentum)

[Higurashi]

Yep, I've seen a lot of posts that discredit MA as an FG deck without having actually tested it enough. Good to see some stats.

[CCCombobreaker]

I requested this be included in the FG efficiency thread and ran the test myself with StatsMasta. 

http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,25609.msg374519#msg374519 (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,25609.msg374519#msg374519)

Not all the results are in yet, but so far this is one of the top decks.  Thanks for repping MA!

[Higurashi]

Something to note against FG's with Steal and Shields of their own: best case scenario is that you manage to trick them into stealing your Phase Shield (preferably at 0 counters left). I just beat Chaos Lord by doing that so his Dissipation Field went bye bye. :>
Also won Snova.

Screenie: http://i.imgur.com/DIzVw.jpg

rofl. He wanted a rematch, so I faced him for the second time in a row. Beat him again and won a Druid.

Applied on Hecate: http://i.imgur.com/WqoGw.jpg
Ah heck, I'll just use this to add more shots. DG fail: http://i.imgur.com/io7sf.jpg
EP was very mad at my towers, so I rushed him like heck and had 9001 shields to spare: http://i.imgur.com/huunj.jpg
Yep, I've knocked CL down to playable (3w 0l today): http://i.imgur.com/7jbuI.jpg

[tttt]

I'm surprised higu has so few posts in this thread. MA has been in the FG farming business forever, and it has always been decentlyish. The problem is that the upgrades required are not usually available to newbies and it gets boring quickly.

[TheCrazyMango]

I'm surprised higu has so few posts in this thread. MA has been in the FG farming business forever, and it has always been decentlyish. The problem is that the upgrades required are not usually available to newbies and it gets boring quickly.

its like USEM in terms of excitement