Air - basic decks for newcomers (unupped)

[Narabo]

***Disclaimer ***
The decks below are most probably not the best. In fact in a game containing random, terms as best, perfect, etc are hard to define if not unusable.

The decks might not be original, in some situations I specially avoided go the old awesome way to build a deck or another. More important, this thread is not to claim author rights on any deck but to show the potential of    element and have some fun.

All decks presented in this thread passed a testing of 40 matches (I know is not much) and got at least a 80% win rate against AI3.

Since I am presenting only non upgraded decks, main focus will be on AI3 farming, therefor whenever is possible decks will be oriented on getting high win rate and high speed, after all nobody wants to use stall decks to farm AI3.


What you need to know about air itself:

Air is an element that prefers freedom. Every single creature has airborne skill and this is usefull on exactly its own shield, wings. A good thing if you consider the fact that will make a steal spell only half effective. Creatures are all fragile excepting dragon. As costs you can consider air creatures somewhere at mid cost. However, to make things shake down you will need to boost your creatures with things like dive or Sky Blitz, making quanta cost very high.
Air has good creature control, be it by using shockwave or Owl's Eye.
Air has the ability to ignore shields by using Unstable Gas (however this is a bomb that can explode on your own head if you face steal).
Air has some shielding capabilities, Fog Shield can delay opponent for 1-2 rounds, Wings can work as a Dimension shield in certain circumstances.

If I have to choose main card from Air element, I will clearly choose:



This card is so solid that if played early can ruin alone an entire deck, specially rushes that plays low HP creatures.

1. Mono/Duo/Trio decks :

a) 

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5oc 5oc 5oc 5oc 5oc 5oc 5oc 5oc 5oe 5of 5of 5of 5of 5of 5of 5og 5og 5oi 5ol 5ol 5op 5op 5pu 5pu 5pu 5pu 5pu 5pu 5pu 5pu 8pr

As you most probably observed the deck uses 2 weapons. Tried several decks without, it just doesn’t get close to 80% wins. So if you choose air as your favorite element, your main objective is getting the weapons. Gladly you will face often in AI3 decks with EE so you will have good chances to get some fast.

b)  /

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4vk 4vk 4vk 4vk 4vk 4vl 5oc 5oc 5oc 5oc 5oc 5oc 5oc 5oc 5oc 5oc 5od 5od 5od 5od 5od 5of 5of 5of 5of 5of 5og 5og 5oi 5oi 5ol 8pj

Again dependant on weapons. Mutations have two porposes. To partially counter replicating creatures of the enemy, or when you control the air quanta turn Dragonfly  into something more usefull.

c)  /

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52o 52o 52o 52o 52o 52o 52q 52r 52r 52r 52t 52t 52t 542 542 542 542 542 542 542 542 542 542 542 5oi 5oi 5oi 5ol 5ol 5ol 8pr

Another deck that you will not be able to use from start, but worthy when you have the chance to use it. It is weapon heavy dependant but once you build it, will make wonders. After 20 matches still had 100 % winrate (couple of games were close wins). While it is not very fast (8-11 turns per win) the incredible win rate might compensate just fine. If you ask why mummy, well, it just provides increased chances to survive against time (will never use reverse time on it ) and pandemonium(again a chance to get a reverse time from it). Vultures might take too much to raise if you get weapons late, and are more fragile against Otyugh and scarabs.


d)  /

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55q 55q 55q 55q 5oc 5oc 5oc 5oc 5oc 5oc 5oc 5oe 5oe 5oe 5oe 5of 5of 5of 5of 5of 5op 5op 5op 5pu 5pu 5pu 5pu 5pu 5pu 5pu 8pl

Not much added from gravity but is the think that will help you pass shields. Add to that Sky Blitz and shields become hilarious.


e)  /

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4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 590 590 590 590 5aa 5aa 5aa 5aa 5aa 5aa 5aa 5oc 5oc 5of 5of 5og 5oi 5oi 5ol 5ol 5ol 5om 5om 5pu 5pu 5pu 8pr

I presented this deck on my Earth element presentation, and will keep the same here .

http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,49239.msg1070582.html#new


f)  / /

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5bv 5bv 5bv 5bv 5c6 5c6 5c6 5c6 5lk 5lk 5lk 5oc 5oc 5oc 5oc 5oc 5oc 5oc 5oc 5oc 5oc 5oc 5oc 5oc 5oj 5oj 5oj 5oj 5oj 5oj 8pn

Old classical FFQ. Tried some variants of it without great succes tho.


g)  /

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5f6 5f6 5f6 5fb 5fb 5fb 5fb 5oc 5oc 5oc 5oc 5oc 5oc 5oc 5oc 5oc 5oc 5of 5of 5of 5of 5of 5of 5og 5oh 5ol 5pu 5pu 5pu 5pu 8po

This deck has no high speed so it will mostly fail against time’s pharaoh deck, and sometimes against FFQ (you can counter it with thunderstorm+rage potions). However you have some freedom against shielded decks and also an option to either kill enemy creatures, even increase your own attack when facing safe opponents like nature decks. Number of creatures is low but you have enough CC not to make it end of the world in most cases. Avoided to take Unstable Gas on porpose since even with 6 in deck you have big chances to be able to play only 3-4 in a fight and you will be weak against PC decks. A steal might even make it suicidal.

h)  /

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5i8 5i8 5i8 5i8 5ie 5ie 5ie 5ie 5ie 5ie 5jm 5jm 5jm 5jm 5jm 5jm 5jm 5jm 5jm 5jm 5jm 5jm 5jm 5jm 5jm 5of 5of 5of 5og 5og 8pr

Take advantage of Toadfish at max, some shield protection and decent speed. Good CC, possible weapon denial. You will most probably have troubles passing Dimension shields, but again, you can’t have all 

i)  /

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5of 5of 5of 5og 5oi 5oi 5ol 5ol 5rk 5rk 5rk 5rk 5rm 5rm 5ro 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 8pr

It contains rares, it is slower than many AI3 farmers, fails against aether, but it has nice CC and Dragons .  Can’t say much more, found it hard to get anything to work between the 2 elements but is just not the best combo.

j)  /

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5oc 5oc 5oc 5oc 5of 5of 5of 5of 5of 5of 5ol 5ol 5pu 5pu 5up 5up 5up 5v1 5v1 5v1 5v1 5v1 5v1 606 606 606 606 606 606 606 606 8pr

Steal is obvious to give you anti-shield ability. You’ll wait a while to play a dragon and then start nightmare it and lock further good draws on opponent. Not a rush tho, but still remains with decent CC and PC.

k)  /

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5of 5of 5ol 5oo 5oo 5oo 5oo 620 620 620 620 625 625 625 625 625 63a 63a 63a 63a 63a 63a 63a 63a 63a 63a 63a 63a 63a 63a 8pr

Now this deck will tell you that in certain circumstances dimension shield is not best. As long as you have spiders and you don’t face aether dragons, your wings act as a dimension shield with 5 turns of protection. You also have psions to completely pass shields, minor CC from weapon and air dragons to spend the quanta efficiently(you need at least one type of high HP creatures)

2. Rainbows including Air cards :

a) FFbow

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4sa 4sa 4sa 4sa 4sa 4sa 4vh 4vh 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 52q 590 5c1 5c1 5f6 5f6 5ll 5ll 5og 5ok 5ok 5ok 5ok 5ok 61q 61q 8pr

It looks fragile, Crusaders in many cases will not be very helpfull, still you will find the deck quite fast.

b) Cut wings deck

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4sa 4sa 4sa 4sa 4sa 4sa 4sa 4vh 4vh 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 52j 52q 55q 590 5c1 5c1 5f6 5f6 5lf 5oo 5oo 5oo 5rt 620 620 8pr

A slower rainbow version which perhaps turns Wings into most succesfull shield in game. Basically you will use spiders to cut down all possible wings from airborne creatures and let Wings take the role of a 5 turns Dimension Shield. You will still get some damage incoming from newly played creatures, but even like that damage is drastically reduced.
* Consider playing this deck in Bronze Arena. It is working well and will get you special spins.


As a note, Air is not the most rewarding element in a rainbow, at least not in unupped versions, most used air cards in rainbows beeing Fog Shield and sometimes shockwave. With this exceptions all other cards will require a high amount of air quanta which will not be provided fast enough by a rainbow deck (things can change in upped rainbow with usage of super novas).


Hope you enjoy this lookout in air element and most probably will come soon with next element 

[Higurashi]

Blue Nymph does not have airborne.

Nice variety as always though. Have to note the Gravy/Air duo doesn't need any pends at all, let alone 7.

[Blacksmith]

It's interesting that you haven't posted the most common decks or the most obvious ones. I like that.

I would like to add Owl's Titan deck 1 of my favorite decks.

And if this is of any help I would be happy.

Spoiler for Hidden:

http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,41795.msg518549.html#msg518549

[Narabo]

I am clearly still missing a lot of cards speaking in terms of rares, so the decks so far are build with I already own.

Since this is mainly made for new players (if they find out the way to this topic) I honestly say that I already overabused rares in air decks

[TribalTrouble]

You may want to replace the word 'threat' in the disclaimer with 'thread' lol...

Will edit this later when I have to look through the entirety of this thread.

edit: Also, "preffer' should be spelled 'prefer' (this is right after the disclaimer)

[Narabo]

Now you know I also lack perfect grammar