Deathstalker | Deathstalker

[coinich]

Odd Boingo, because my deck ripped T50 to shreads, and it was a strong /:darkness deck.  I had no problems with perms ('cause I had Steal) and Eclipse is far more efficient than Unstoppable.  Yes, some shields hurt, but usually they weren't anything enough to remove the threat of my critters.  The key is IMO that the Deathstalker is a Tier 2 card; its strong but building a deck off of it alone or as the key card isn't quite as wise.  Building it with Flesh Recluses makes the deck so much stronger and the poison nicely compliments the 8 damage a turn an Eclipse'd Recluse gives.  Yes, 4 quanta is 4x as large as 1 quanta, but with a mark and only 1 tower thats cut down to 2 turns.  With three Eclipses in the deck, the odds are highly favorable for having one in your first 7-9 cards, which is where you want it to be.  If its used as a creature rush, shields are usually just run over or stolen, Lobo is bad but not the end of the world as long as you have other creatures.  Eternity is annoying, but as long as you have the 3 quanta, its not bad.  Antimatter will hurt on a Recluse far more than it will a Deathstalker, so thats not even something I worry about.

[Boingo]

Odd Boingo, because my deck ripped T50 to shreads, and it was a strong /:darkness deck.  I had no problems with perms ('cause I had Steal) and Eclipse is far more efficient than Unstoppable.  Yes, some shields hurt, but usually they weren't anything enough to remove the threat of my critters.  The key is IMO that the Deathstalker is a Tier 2 card; its strong but building a deck off of it alone or as the key card isn't quite as wise.  Building it with Flesh Recluses makes the deck so much stronger and the poison nicely compliments the 8 damage a turn an Eclipse'd Recluse gives.  Yes, 4 quanta is 4x as large as 1 quanta, but with a mark and only 1 tower thats cut down to 2 turns.  With three Eclipses in the deck, the odds are highly favorable for having one in your first 7-9 cards, which is where you want it to be.  If its used as a creature rush, shields are usually just run over or stolen, Lobo is bad but not the end of the world as long as you have other creatures.  Eternity is annoying, but as long as you have the 3 quanta, its not bad.  Antimatter will hurt on a Recluse far more than it will a Deathstalker, so thats not even something I worry about.

I didn't mean to imply Eclipse decks were bad or not worth using, just that the momentum decks seems to draw more consistently in my experience.  The one I'd been using often results in EM, something I hadn't done with Eclipse. But to be honest, I hadn't tried your deck--just 30-card decks both in the thread and of my own creation--they all seemed to have inconsistent draws or the eclipse wouldn't show up till I'd be facing a permafrost shield and my recluses were already antimattered. I can say after grinding with your Nightstalker deck for a bit, it is a lot of fun and seems better balanced than what I'd been using.  And you're right--it's really a recluse deck nicely complemented with deathstalkers.

EDIT: This is, of course, not statistically rigorous, but does reveal some things:  I ran your deck and my deck for 15 consecutive non-farm T50 matches just to see if there were major differences.  Not surprisingly, neither one handles RoL/hope decks very well, though the momentum deck came within 1 turn of winning once.  Rainbow decks were usually the quickest wins for both.  The BH allowed for more EMs for my deck, but the win/loss was roughly the same.

Nightstalker: 8 wins, 7 losses, 1 EM
Black Hole Scorpions: 9 wins, 6 losses, 7 EM

[Malduk]

Nightstalker: 8 wins, 7 losses, 1 EM
Black Hole Scorpions: 9 wins, 6 losses, 7 EM

Small sample, but those stats are bad.

Can we make this card unfractalable (through a new passive or something), and just make balancing from there? 

[Boingo]

Nightstalker: 8 wins, 7 losses, 1 EM
Black Hole Scorpions: 9 wins, 6 losses, 7 EM

Small sample, but those stats are bad.

If by "those stats are bad" you mean the loss rate approaches 40-50%, then I totally agree.  The losses largely reflect the popularity of RoL/hope decks in the T50 as they accounted for nearly every one of those losses--the recluse version could steal electrocutor but couldn't do anything once the shield was in place while the momentum version could only get through hope till electrocutor did its thing. Maybe plague would help to take down the RoLs, not sure how to best work them in at this point.

[jmdt]

Nightstalker: 8 wins, 7 losses, 1 EM
Black Hole Scorpions: 9 wins, 6 losses, 7 EM

Small sample, but those stats are bad.

Can we make this card unfractalable (through a new passive or something), and just make balancing from there? 

This card seriously needs atleast 1 attack to be really viable over other any other combination out there.  As is, the card is nerfed so hard it is just plain slow. 'speed' poison is one of the slowest rush decks out there and this guy is slower and easier to counter from my testing.  Right now there is 0 reason to play this card if you prefer death when a mono death with mummies, spiders and deadly poison would run it to the ground.

My suggestion would be to make this card a 1/1; 4 cost unupped, 3 upped.  1 attack so the card can actually do something itself, and 1 defence so its easy for the opponent to get rid of.

[rant]
I still don't get why everyone thinks fractal is that powerful.  I have statistics that prove that fractal decks are no more powerful or faster than other decks, actually slower, but yet everyone is still scared of fractal.
 
Even with fractal its would still not faster than fractal frog or fractal phoenix with 1 attack and its 2 poison effect (and those to decks are slower than a number of popular rush decks).  Both those decks can kill in 4 turns.  There is no possible 4 turn kill with a fractal deck of this card even with 1 attack out of the box.
 
If its not more powerful than what's in the game already and what's in the game already is not over powered, then why do we worry so much about balancing everything because of fractal.  if this is equal or slower in speed to other 3 cost cards with 1 attack then it is is fine.  Even if it is slightly faster, if its not gamebreaking that's ok too.  People don't realize its ok to have powerful cards as long as they are still balanced and there are solutions to stop them; shields will always hamper this card, purify shuts it down completely and there are several mass CC options.
 
1 would just like to see 1 new card thread where someone doesn't frak out that a card is great, but fractal will make it op without actually camporing it to what's in the game.  Fractal is not that great a card.  If it were truely overpowered everyone would be forced to use it in every deck to compete.  Such us not the case however.  My fire and earth rushes will outrun a fractal deck every time.
[/rant]
 
 

[Malduk]

[rant]
I still don't get why everyone thinks fractal is that powerful.  I have statistics that prove that fractal decks are no more powerful or faster than other decks, actually slower, but yet everyone is still scared of fractal.
...
[/rant]

It is getting a bit offtopic, but let me just say it: Fractal is not a rush card, so saying its not powerful because there are faster decks is kinda mute point. Fractal is used to make a final/big nuke, to avoid creature control, or to just compliment your strategy in some other way. Using Fractal in a rush deck is "okay", but not the main reason that card is strong.

In this case, fractaling Deathstalker (if the card had attack stat) would make such a big poison counter on your opponent in one turn that the ONLY real counter would be having Purify in your hand. On the other hand, if the card had attack stat, but without Fractal, getting 2 counter per creature played is not really a big deal. Not only it could easily be outhealed, but it would also take enough time for poison to build up, so you can develop your own strategy OR just CC scorpions.

That is why I believe that the best way to introduce this card in the game would be to buff it in some way and place a passive on it that would make it impossible to Fractal.

[coinich]

To be honest, I'd prefer a simple poison buff instead of anything more complicated.  The 0 ATK is what makes this card, why change it?

[Boingo]

To be honest, I'd prefer a simple poison buff instead of anything more complicated.  The 0 ATK is what makes this card, why change it?

I agree.  The added poison buff would help offset the need for another element to simply get the bloody card to work.  Even if it were something like alternating 2 and 3 poisons each attack would help.

[MrSexington]

To be honest, I'd prefer a simple poison buff instead of anything more complicated.  The 0 ATK is what makes this card, why change it?

I agree.  The added poison buff would help offset the need for another element to simply get the bloody card to work.  Even if it were something like alternating 2 and 3 poisons each attack would help.

You could even make the card read: "Add 2 or 3 poison damage to each successful attack."

And the amount of poison would be random: 50% 2 poison & 50% 3 poison.

[Malduk]

Ewww random. Either 2 or 3 or alternate or whatever, but lets not introduce luck factor where we dont need it.

[Clipse]

Ill take three please!   

[Sengiratolom]

i liked the scorpid in the following deck:
Gravity mark
10 bone towers
6 deadly poison
2 arsenic
6 deathstalker
6 momentum


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