Competition: Battle of the Opposing Elements! (Masters only)

[Scaredgirl]

I lost my fight against Xdude. 0/3. Epic fail...

I saw the battle. I didn't see any "epic fail". It's not easy to go against a fully upgraded deck.

[Terroking]

And that's game. 3-0 to me  Nice playing though Essence, one dragon would have won that last game.

Game 1- I used the same deck as last time, throwing in 3 Diamond shields to cut everything down and keep away nasty puffer fishes (Which he ended up playing).

Game 2- Used the same deck one more time, he took Death mark and chrysoras, but it was too slow, even with SoGs and Perma on his side.

Game 3- Use the same deck but threw out 1 diamond shield and 1 QS for 4 SoGs, which combined with a diamond shield, healed past all 6 of his crawlers (He kept my entire field iced over with just 2 squids and a shield...)

[Bloodshadow]

I have a feeling that Terro may win this... Yeah, with EQs, Pulverizer, Protect Artifact, Diamond Shield...

@SG: The fact that I lost to Xdude 0/3 was pretty fail. I didn't even win once

[Essence]

:watermark

I have been terribly bested by the Master of Earth.  It seems like the defensive power of Water is unmatched, but there is little Water can do in the face of Earthquake+Diamond Shield+Shard of Gratitude.


Here are the decks, and matches:

(http://www.screenshotdumpster.com/view/m7Gbd51246/MastersDeck2_1)

Match 1:

I came up with a deck designed to survive a Shrieker Rush (like the one Terroking posted earlier) and slowly assure victory through building up poison.  The theory was that SoGs+Permafrost+Congeal would halt any offense in it's tracks, and Puffer Fish would win on it's own in 17 turns and wouldn't be too difficult to save up for even through EQs.  Splitting between Towers and Pillars would help.

Terroking played a Shrieker Rush...with a few extra cards, one of which was Diamond Shield.  I had a solid defense up early, but his Shield came out before my Puffer Fishes, so I called this game on account of rain after only 5 turns.

Winner: Terroking


(http://www.screenshotdumpster.com/view/m7Gbd51247/MastersDeck2_2)

Match 2:

I switched from Puffers to Physalia and a Death Mark, figuring on getting around his Diamond Shield like that. 

The match went well at first, as I got up a solid defense early again, and started poisoning quite well.  Then, in a stroke of genius bad luck, I managed to go for four complete turns without my Permafrost Shield freezing any of his 4-5 Shriekers.  Highly unlikely, but enough to finish me easily.

Winner: Terroking.


Match 2.5: We started the third match, and I saw that he had added SoGs to his deck in order to compensate for Poison.  It became clear that I would deck out before I won, but we desynced, and I went to check the rules.  I couldn't find any rule that said we had to play the same deck if we desynced, so I changed up and asked for a rematch.


(http://www.screenshotdumpster.com/view/m7Gbd51248/MastersDeck2_3)


Match 3: I figured on going for direct creature damage, but I knew that EQs would make it nigh-impossible to set up a Dragon, which left Abyss Crawlers.  I also figured that Octopods would easily secure my victory, nailing down any Shriekers that didn't get frozen by my shield. 

My shield waited a little while to show up, but his deck wasn't exactly on the ball either, so by the time his offense got rolling, I had a good thing going.  But so did he.  Diamond+SoG on one side vs. Permafrost+Octopus+SoG on the other meant that it went all the way to the deckout...and he had more cards.

Winner: Terroking.



Conclusions: There's basically no way for Mono-Water to defeat EQ+Diamond Shield+SoGs except by deckout -- which I totally could have done if I had learned my lesson earlier.  If there's a rematch, I feel good about taking the win.  But I totally give mad credit to Terroking for adapting quickly and intelligently to each new development in my decks.  Good games, dude.  Good luck in the finals.



:watermark FTL!

[Glitch]

Sorry if I made blood lose by posting the strategy or anything, but if xdude hadn't figured it out I'd be disappointed.

[Terroking]

Wow, I'm in the top 3  This has gone my fast...

[bobcamel]

Well, you own the element that is the most versatile. Sort of.

You can use EQ to deny xdude his pillars so he can't do the Miracle thing, or deny the pillars of everyone so they can't play anything.
You can use Pullverizer to break Bonds and Hourglasses (even though you probably won't be facing Puppy as whoever is Aethermaster will beat his heal-and-protection-less deck easily while hiding behind Dimshields.)
And you can do the Diamond Shield+SoG thing to be highly resillent, even more so with Stoneskins.
And you can use BB to stop enemy creatures for long, no matter what the enemy would be.

[Essence]

Yup.  The only thing is that he can't really do it all at once with any consistency, so his enemies had better be good at Yomi. (http://www.sirlin.net/articles/yomi-layer-3-knowing-the-mind-of-the-opponent.html)

[bobcamel]

I'd just take many Earthquakes if I were him. No pillars for the enemy, no action from the enemy, at all. Other tricks are for supplementing.

Wonder why is Seism beatable at all, then. Probably AI dumbness.

Oh, and I see you got the green triangle thing too! We do seem to have many things in common. We're good critics, we have thise things, we like Water, and

[Essence]

Nah -- it's Supernova + Entropy Mark, along with only one Diamond Shield, so he's frequently beaten before it comes out.


And yeah, I'm Watched.  It's what you get when you post people's PMs on the open forum and ignore moderator warnings. 


(...and sometimes we don't finish our

[bobcamel]

So you deal in rope too? Guess that's why

[Bloodshadow]

Hmm... I might've won if I had Shards of Gratitude instead of Vampires. But I don't even have a single one...