Bestiary of Dragonsdemesne

[dragonsdemesne]

I hadn't been planning on contributing any decks to the 1.4 bestiary, but I changed my mind... :p  I figure if I want to see the kind of decks I'd like, I'll help build some myself   My goals will be several with this thread:

1) Good lore on the decks (no boring crap)
2) Creative decks that people hopefully haven't encountered before (not just moar pestal/immorush/SNbow/epic rainbow stall, etc)
3) Decks that hopefully teach players new things or give new deckbuilding ideas to new players

Then I'll put my submissions in this thread.  I'll try to do at least one a day.  Most likely some days there will be lots, and others none, but whatever; we'll see how it goes.

[dragonsdemesne]

Yeti

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4vc 4vc 4vc 4vc 4vc 4ve 4ve 4ve 4ve 4vi 4vi 4vl 4vo 4vo 50u 50u 50u 50u 50u 5i7 5i7 5i7 5i7 5i8 5i8 5i8 5i8 5i9 5ia 5ia 5id 6ts 6ts 6tu 6tu 6u2 6u2 6ve 6ve 7gt 8pp

I had several thoughts behind this deck.  One was that an entropy/water duo is fairly unusual, so that alone is probably worth something.  Another was to highlight how certain cards behave differently between unupgraded and upgraded, and to show that they aren't necessarily strictly worse unupped.  For example, the micro abominations, while smaller (and often maligned by newbies as 'worse' than abominations) are cheaper and can use butterfly effect, which the bigger ones cannot.  I also used both chaos seed and chaos powers to try and give the newbie players the idea that the unupped version can be used alongside the upped one.  I then picked one unupped water dragon and one upped one to showcase the differences between the two; one has higher attack and lower defense with higher cost, so the newbie will hopefully see cases where one could be played but not the other, or how one could be killed but not the other, and so on.  I also tried to stick to the theme of the 'abominable snowman', or yeti, and went with various freezing effects to represent their power and mastery over snow and ice and the like.  I didn't use any squid because I didn't want to overwhelm the new player with rares, but I did include one discord, because my lore mentions that they use 'chaotic magics', which originally meant just the chaos seeds/powers, but I figured that discord is pretty chaotic as well :p  It'll also give them something to worry about... that discord might get drawn at any time and mess up their quanta

Lastly, as I didn't intend the deck to be extremely powerful, I only gave it 75hp.  However, I added a 4x mark (the bestiary changes it to 5x for some reason, so I'm not sure which it will end up having) mostly for the icebolts.  That'll hopefully give new players some ideas about how to build interesting arena decks, as such a deck would be nearly impossible to build for a human to use, for example, because of the quanta requirements.

[Marsu]

Yay! I love that very first deck of yours already! Hoping you will add many more, we really need some more good decks.

One minor thing: I personally would avoid single copies of strong cards (Ice Shield, Discord), because it slightly increases the influence of RNG.

[Newbiecake]

One minor thing: I personally would avoid single copies of strong cards (Ice Shield, Discord), because it slightly increases the influence of RNG.

Every deck, no matter the level, is supposed to have a small chance to yield a Rare Weapon though. I remember Zanz stating this a long, long time ago when the "new" AI3s were implemented. Discord is pretty annoying though, and does completely mess up some decks; maybe replace it with a Trident to smooth out the RNG.

[dragonsdemesne]

Coldfire

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7dg 7dg 7dg 7dg 7dg 7dg 7dg 7dg 7dg 7dg 7dg 7dg 7dk 7dk 7dk 7dk 7dk 7dk 7dm 7dm 7dm 7dm 7dm 7dm 7dn 7dn 7dn 7dn 7do 7do 7do 7do 7f2 7f2 7f2 7f2 7f2 7f2 7f2 7f2 7f2 7f2 7f2 7f2 7go 7go 7go 7go 7go 7go 7h2 7h2 7h2 7h2 7h2 7h2 7h3 7h3 7h3 7h3 8pp

This was loosely based on a BL deck I had called 'fire and ice'; you can probably figure it out :p  The idea behind this one was to create a thematic elemental that was extremely powerful in one narrow area, but very vulnerable to being countered in certain ways.  As you can see, a reflective shield would cause serious problems for this deck, and there are several other fairly decent counters, but the deck would also be quite strong against a variety of human opponents who aren't prepared for it.  I didn't want to call the elemental 'fire and ice', because that sounds more like a strategy or an idea rather than an actual being, so I named it 'Coldfire' instead; that, and the lore, should give the opponent a very good idea of what's coming.

As is obvious, the deck is centered around burninating everything with the ridiculous amounts of CC and PC, and either killing the opponent with extra lances, enormous hard to kill 15hp steam machines, or simply a deckout with 60 cards.  The deck has a massive amount of hp (300) but absolutely no way of healing, so any damage done to Coldfire is basically permanent.  Again, the mark isn't showing right in the image, but I picked a 3x mark, in order to get the QI for fire and water to be as close to each other as possible, so that there shouldn't be more of one than another.  The deck should have tons of extra quanta at all times, which for the lances and steam machines and fahrenheits, is perfectly fine.

[dragonsdemesne]

Yay! I love that very first deck of yours already! Hoping you will add many more, we really need some more good decks.

One minor thing: I personally would avoid single copies of strong cards (Ice Shield, Discord), because it slightly increases the influence of RNG.

I agree that the single copies of ice shield and discord increases the RNG influence, but I did that on purpose :p  The deck isn't particularly strong, and I actually wanted a couple of 'bomb' cards to keep a player on their toes.

[dragonsdemesne]

Yargheith v2

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5oj 7af 7af 7af 7af 7af 7am 7am 7am 7am 7ap 7ap 7ap 7ap 7b0 7b0 7b0 7jo 7jo 7jo 7jp 7jp 7jp 7jp 7jp 7jp 7jt 7k2 7kc 7mt 7mt 7mt 7mt 7mt 7mt 7n9 7nq 7nq 7nq 7nq 8pn

I built this one heavily based on my current arena submission, because it's currently sitting at a 35-7 win rate with 40% thumbs ups, which is, based on my rather extensive arena thread, about as good a combination of creativity and win rate as it is possible to get there.  The only differences I made from my arena deck were to upgrade all the nymphs, and add one mitosis, one light nymph, one miracle, one sky blitz, and one more tower.  Given that the deck already feels fairly thematic around light and life, I don't think too much of an explanation is necessary.

Yargheith is an anagram of Eighth Ray, a concept from Edgar Rice Burroughs' Barsoom novels, the first of which was made into the John Carter movie a few years ago.  Maejal is just a name I made up.  The deck is v2 because I accidentally submitted the first one with Coldfire's lore :p

[dragonsdemesne]

Zanz posted in the 1.4 thread saying he needed more water decks, so I came up with this one... it's fairly simple, but should still be quite strong, and it's got a good thematic sense about it.

Scylla
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scylla
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Between_Scylla_and_Charybdis
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/scylla?s=t
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charybdis



In Greek mythology, Scylla was a sea monster.  (Charybdis was a giant whirlpool nearby where Scylla lived, though apparently wiki says in most versions she was also a sea monster that caused whirlpools, but in my readings of mythology I've never come across that)  Anyway, Scylla had been a naiad (or nymph) so I included the nymphs in the deck to represent herself.  Then I included all of the creatures I considered sea monsters (abyss crawlers, arctic octopus, pufferfish) and added some permafrost shields, shards of patience, and inundations.  The inundations are obvious; she's a sea monster and drowns stuff :p  I figure that a sea monster also has to be quite patient to await ships and the like, so the shards of patience make thematic sense as well.  The shields don't really make as much sense, although they do contribute to the idea of Scylla trapping her prey, so they kind of fit.  I deliberately included zero spells for thematic reasons; I wanted Scylla to be more about brute force.  This is also why I gave her a crapton of hp (600) and only 1x mark/draw; I wanted her to be huge and slow, which also fits with the patience theme.

edit: because duh, not much use without the deck code!

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7gk 7gk 7gk 7gk 7gk 7gk 7gk 7gk 7gk 7gk 7gk 7gk 7gk 7gk 7gm 7gm 7gm 7gm 7gm 7gm 7gp 7gp 7gr 7gr 7gr 7gr 7gr 7gr 7gu 7gu 7gu 7gu 7gu 7gu 7h1 7h1 7h8 7h8 7h8 7h8 7h8 7h8 7hi 7hi 7hi 7hi 7i6 7i6 7i6 7i6 7i6 7i6 7i6 7i6 7i6 7i6 7i6 7i6 7i6 7i6 8pp

edit: I might have gone way overboard with the hp :p  Ah, well... if Zanz likes the deck, he can tone it down if necessary.

[dragonsdemesne]

I can't figure out where the 'load deck' thing went in the trainer, so I'll redesign the deck and post the code and stats rather than do a screenshot like my previous entries.

Tricentia
HP: 15
MARK: x5
DRAW: x3

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5ld 5ld 5ld 5ld 5lh 5lh 5lh 5lh 5lh 5lh 5li 5li 5li 5li 5li 5li 5m6 5m6 5m6 5m6 5m6 5m6 7q9 7q9 7q9 7q9 7q9 7q9 8pq

There were several things I tried to make happen with this deck.

1) I wanted a deck with a very low starting hp, but lots of SoDs.  The name comes from tri (3) and cent (100), so 300.  The plan was to start the deck at 12hp, and then 12 SoDs in the deck could give a total of 300 hp.  However, only multiples of 5hp were possible.  (I thought about naming it something like "Sparta", but decided that didn't fit the elements world, and that it would've been more suited to something like a crusader/longsword deck, anyway)

2) I wanted a deck that had no actual quanta sources in the deck.  Note that there are no pillars or pendulums :p  This is somewhat unique, particularly for a stall!

3) I wanted a deck with few upgrades.  The only upgraded cards are the sundials, because they cannot be played in monolight, otherwise.

4) I intended that this deck be used in a lower level area, perhaps as some sort of newbie boss, hence the low hp and few upgrades.

5) I wanted to help teach newbies how to break stalls.  There are several ways that this deck can be beaten.  By carefully timing one's attacks, and noting that the AI will always gain 5 quanta (plus anything from solar shield) one can perfectly predict the minimum time between miracles, and plan one's moves accordingly.  It also allows for the occasional quick rush and simply overwhelming the paltry beginning 15hp.  Also, with a small amount of healing (enough to survive one morning star) and a larger deck, one can simply deck out Tricentia without effort. 

It might be a better idea to change the solar shields to reflective shields, in order to keep the quanta gain fixed at 5 off the mark.  I'll leave that up to Zanz.

[dragonsdemesne]

Poeh

HP: 40
Mark: x1
Draw: x1

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52g 52g 52g 52g 52g 52g 52m 52m 52m 52m 52m 52m 52t 52t 52t 52t 52t 52t 542 542 542 542 542 542 5i6 5i6 5i6 5i6 5i6 5i6 5lj 5lj 5lj 5lj 5lj 5lj 5lk 5lk 5lk 5lk 8pp

Comments about the design of this deck:

1) Edgar Allan Poe lived to be 40 years old.  The deck has 40 hp and is 40 cards.  He frequently wrote about horror and strange creatures.  Crawlers, mummies, and skeletons fit this bill.  The deck's name "Poeh" is a homonym of "Poe", and will hopefully be a hint to the astute player of some of the contents of this deck.

2) The deck's name "Poeh" is an anagram of "Hope", which is the surprise card in this deck, and a hint to its presence within.  I wanted to show the newbies a fairly interesting, yet simple deck using luciferin and hope.  It isn't optimized by any means (death and particularly water are very poor choices for lucihope) but it will hopefully give the new player ideas for improving it on their own.

3) I wanted something that would fit fairly well in a low level zone.  Zanz mentioned that he needs more lower level opponents, and I think this fits the bill rather nicely.  It also uses water, which is the element Zanz said he has the fewest submissions for, although it isn't a strong focal point of the deck.  (frogs and a life mark, for instance, would have been strictly better in this scenario, but I was going for theme, not power)

[dragonsdemesne]

White Shadow

HP: 50
Mark: x1
Draw: x1

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5l9 5l9 5l9 5l9 5l9 5l9 5lc 5lc 5ld 5ld 5ld 5ld 5mq 5mq 5mq 5mq 5mq 5mq 5mq 5mq 5mq 5mq 5mq 5mq 5uu 5uu 5v1 5v1 5v1 5v1 5v1 5v1 5v2 5v2 7jq 7jq 7jq 7jq 7kc 7kc 8pt

Comments:

Every card in this deck (except nightmare, and even that could be arguably shadowy) is quite obviously based around the light or shadow theme.  The deck very deliberately has far too little light quanta.  The idea is that the deck plays like a trap.  It will most likely play an early photon, solar shield, and nightmare the photon.  If the player foolishly spams all the photons, then White Shadow will have enough quanta to spam its upped dragons and nymphs.  If not... well, White Shadow will probably have its ass handed back to it :p  Liquid shadow is for the light dragons (hopefully the AI will do this :p), holy light is just for thematic reasons (it's light!), and cloak is to try and protect the solar shields, since if the human does something like deflag the solar shield, they can spam the photons without fear.

This deck will hopefully teach the new player to hold on to their photons in this scenario.  Sometimes keeping cards back is the right solution.  In this case, it will not only prevent White Shadow from gaining craploads of light quanta, but it will prevent further nightmares from being as effective.  If the human is stupid and spams photons into the solar shield, then White Shadow will happily give you another full hand of photons and wait to see if you do it again :p  It plays somewhat like the infamous halfblood grinder Day Traitors (with its RoLs, solar shield, and nightmares, in addition to the Vampire Crusader core) only in reverse!

[dragonsdemesne]

Sorry; I forgot the descriptions for the last two decks.  Poeh had something about a disgusting sea monster crawling out of the ocean, and I mentioned it being both playful and blissfully unaware of the damage it could do to you, and I dropped a hint about how it had 'secret powers' from the depths of the ocean or something.  For White Shadow, I mentioned something about how he liked to use tricks and illusions, and the last line was a question something like 'will you fall prey to the wiles of White Shadow?', hopefully hinting that there was a trick to improving your odds against him.  (i.e. not dumping all your photons onto the field)

Desoeufs (the name is french; Des Oeufs translates to 'the eggs')

HP: 60 (the sixty second egg...)
Mark: x1
Draw: x1

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4sa 4sa 4sa 4sa 5bs 5bs 5c6 5c6 5c6 5c6 5c9 5c9 5c9 5c9 5c9 5c9 5ri 5ri 5ri 5ri 5ri 5ri 5se 5se 5se 5se 5se 5se 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 8pn

Description:
A twenty foot tall purple hen squawks and flaps her wings madly, dancing the Macarena.  Hundreds of eggs made of Jell-O the size of a human head litter the ground behind her, each one with Zanzarino's face singing "The Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny" in unison.  They all smell just like fresh bacon. It's going to be one of THOSE days, isn't it...?

Commentary on deck design: I wanted to do fate eggs.  I knew a million other people probably already did fate eggs.  I needed a new way to do fate eggs.  So I basically took the ghostosis deck, and swapped ghosts for eggs.  EGGTOSIS.  Eggs.  Everywhere.  Mitosing.  With SoR.  I hope you think this deck is as funny as I do...   (If you don't know what "The Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny" is, I suggest you watch it on youtube; it's hilarious.  If you don't know what the "Macarena" is... you are living proof of the statement 'ignorance is bliss')