Season 1/2014 of leagues are over, and I usually post my decks afterwards. I'm not going to post all of the decks I've already posted in previous season threads, but I will post the new decks I used, and a bit of my thinking behind them.
BL:
Lightning Devtal (4 wins 1 loss)
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4st 4su 4su 5uk 5ul 5um 5um 5um 5um 5um 5um 5ut 5ut 606 606 606 606 606 606 606 61o 61q 61q 61q 61q 622 622 622 622 63a 8puThis one really surprised me; it did a lot better than my previous devtals, so I'm including it here, even though it's an old idea. That little bit of CC was enough to let it beat decks it had absolutely no business beating, like disquake and grabbows. I made the quanta split as earthquake-proof as possible, with one-ofs of the aether pillar/pend and obsidian pillar. The lone loss was to treebeard using a nymph's tears death duo; skull shield hosed my vampires, my lightnings were too small to kill his nymphs, and I never got the dragon.
Pdims (1 win 1 loss)
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4su 4su 52o 52o 52o 52o 52o 52o 52q 52q 52q 53e 53e 53e 53e 61o 61o 61o 61o 61o 61o 61o 61o 61o 61o 61o 61o 61o 61s 61s 61s 61s 61s 61s 61t 61t 61t 61t 61t 61t 8pkI don't remember if I've posted this one before or not, but I haven't seen anyone else try it before. It beat a SoP/squid duo with discord, and lost to adenavamps with steals. The idea was to mount a slow but steady offense of poison and immortals while hiding behind a solid defense of dimshields and SoSas. The mark is enough to cast early poisons and the arsenic easily enough, and provides just enough quanta to chain SoSas later on.
Blue Nymph Mindgate "The Deck" (6 wins 1 loss, counting all mods this season)
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4sa 4sa 4sa 4sa 4sa 4sa 4sa 4sa 4sa 4sa 4sa 4sa 4sa 4sa 4sa 4sa 4sa 4sa 4sa 4sa 4vp 4vp 4vp 4vp 52r 52r 58v 58v 58v 5c4 5c4 5ia 5ia 5lm 5lm 5lm 5lm 5lm 5p0 5p0 5rl 5rl 5rp 5rp 5rp 5rp 5rp 5rp 61q 61q 61q 61q 61q 61q 621 621 623 623 623 623 8puEssentially "The Deck", but with an alternate win condition in the quinted blue nymphs. The emerald shields were there because this was used in shardless matches, and usually I use shard of divinity to avoid OTKs. Plus, with the extra mindgates, an aether mark was needed. I tried it with miracles as well; I think I took them out because I didn't have a light mark, and couldn't play them reliably without one. The sole loss came versus Zawadx's disquake, when I got a 1 pillar draw.
CL:
40 card miracle pdials (3 wins 1 loss)
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718 718 718 718 718 718 71a 71a 71a 71u 71u 71u 71u 71u 71u 72i 72i 72i 72i 72i 72i 72i 72i 72i 72i 72i 7k2 7k2 7km 7km 7km 7km 7km 7km 7q9 7q9 7q9 7q9 7q9 7q9 8pqYes... because pdials wasn't annoying enough, I modded it to include miracles. The slightly larger size also prevented deckout in at least one game. The sole loss came to mathman101's pestal, essentially a hard counter to the low quanta production of this deck.
Dial '3' for fire (0 wins 3 losses)
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7dg 7dg 7dg 7dg 7dg 7dg 7dg 7dg 7dg 7dg 7dg 7dg 7dg 7dg 7dk 7dk 7dk 7dk 7dk 7dk 7dn 7dn 7dn 7k0 7q9 7q9 7q9 7q9 7q9 7q9 8pqWhile this deck was a total catastrophe at 0-3, I include it to show what didn't work. The plan was to stall with sundials until enough quanta was obtained for the OTK, which ideally would happen sooner by drawing faster via dials. The lone mirror shield provided a win condition against another mirror shield. It lost one game to a DBH with SoFos (jen-i), lost another game to a speedbow with CC (mathman101), and lost to a fractal graviton deck (krzyeiksxtd), although that last my notes say I bottomdecked the sundials, so it might've been a bit of bad luck. Still, while the deck has one solid focus, it has no versatility and is too easily disrupted by PC or denial, and couldn't even really stand up to a rush properly, so I abandoned the idea.
Patient Hopefuls (3 wins 2 losses)
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5ok 5ok 5ok 5ok 5ok 5ok 7hi 7hi 7hi 7jp 7jp 7jp 7jp 7jp 7jp 7k4 7k4 7k4 7mt 7mt 7mt 7mt 7mt 7mt 7n9 7q9 7q9 7q9 7q9 7q9 7q9 8ppThis was a really fun deck. With 18 creatures, shard of patience gets real deadly real fast, and with 12 of them being light-emitting, hope is quite strong even without mitosis or fractal. Dials help stall in the early game, as well as draw into the SoP and hope you will likely need to win. The lone sky blitz was as an additional OTK weapon to catch people offguard, and again, with the dials, the odds of having it when needed were increased, and with shard of patience, it was a very serious threat when drawn. It was 31 cards to try and avoid deckout situations where a gravity shield or other nuisance came down (and because I didn't know what to cut!) and I actually did win one game via deckout, so it was worth it. It lost to a PSNbow (jen-i) and a SoSebow (treebeard) and defeated an entropy/nymph's tears deck (ddevans, this was the deckout game), mitojade rustler (mathman101) and immorush (brandenc6).
Shardless timebow (11 wins 3 losses)
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4vp 4vp 4vp 4vp 5s4 5s4 6qq 6qq 6qq 6qq 6qq 6qq 6qq 6qq 6qq 6qq 6qq 6qq 6qq 6qq 6qq 6qq 6qq 6qq 71b 71b 71b 77f 77f 77f 77i 77i 7do 7do 7gq 7gq 7k2 7k2 7k6 7k6 7k6 7k6 7q5 7q5 7q5 7q9 7q9 7q9 7q9 7q9 7q9 80a 80a 80a 80a 80a 80a 80i 80j 80j 8psI love my 60 card decks... :p The upgraded nature of CL let me try a version of 'the deck' that I feel would have failed in BL; it was successful here because it was able to produce enough time quanta and light quanta, whereas in BL, the hourglasses would cost twice as much to use, and the miracles would cost 3 more, so without a light mark they would be hard to play in time. The time mark also meant that I had quanta to use golden nymphs, as well as a lone fractal for them, or whatever else my opponent deigned to play for me or give me via mindgate. I was also able to use firestorms, whereas I feel that rain of fire is just a touch too slow to work in the unupped version of this deck. I included two protect artifacts because I was facing a lot more PC than I saw in BL. The three losses were to a red nymph SoFo deck (blacksmith) where I had 3 towers in the first 30 cards, and twice in a row against a speedbow MegroN used; I had a bad draw in the first game, and immediately reused the same deck in the next game, thinking to give it a proper chance, and got slaughtered again. It defeated chaos dunes, a monofire rush, two different people's DBH speedbow, a voodoo rage PU deck, an aether mark 'the deck', a monofire phoenix/nymph deck, a monolight rush, a quinted blue nymph bow, an entropy/water PSN, and a 31 card control SN-bow.
The fractal and golden nymphs were the biggest differences between this and some of my other 60 card stalls. I think that caught quite a few people offguard. 8hp nymphs are hard to kill, and those that survive are giving me that precog every turn, giving me card advantage (basically instant win if maintained while using this sort of deck) and letting me know if my opponent had any threats in hand, like OTK potential, so that I could improve and adjust my play accordingly.
Octopus Catatitan (0 wins 3 losses)
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744 744 744 744 744 744 74c 74c 74c 74c 74c 74c 74h 74h 74h 75m 75m 75m 75m 75m 75m 7gr 7gr 7gr 7n2 7n2 7n2 7n2 7n2 7n2 8ppThis was really cool (or so I thought) but it just couldn't win any games. It's your standard catatitans, but with some octopus for control, as well as to enable catapulting frozen titans (+50% damage from catapult if the creature is frozen, for those that didn't know) It was also a deck that was only possible upgraded, where animate weapons are 'other' and where the upped gravity quanta is enough that I can use pendulums for water generation without impeding the gravity part of the deck. I got trashed by three different rushes, a DBH speedbow (jen-i), a SNbow using web and wings (pest.) and a charger/otyugh rush with rewinds (AW not like rewind!) off of a time mark (rem4life)
Fractal Blitz (6 wins 3 losses)
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7mt 7mt 7mt 7mt 7mt 7mt 7n9 7n9 7n9 808 808 808 808 808 808 809 809 809 809 80i 80i 80i 80i 80i 81q 81q 81q 81q 81q 81q 8puThis was my favourite new deck of the season. Out of the six wins, -three- of them were turn four kills. With the right draw, this thing could really put out the damage fast. With the wrong draw... it was a sitting duck. Things could go from disastrous to OTK-time with a single topdeck. I deliberately used way more aether quanta than QI would indicate is needed, because you want to win fast and win hard, and if you don't win right away, because there is no control, stall, or healing whatsoever, you will almost certainly lose. I also made a point not to use this deck more than once against the same person, because a good portion of the deck's effectiveness came from the opponent not quite knowing what was going on until it was too late. Lots of times I'd topdeck the last part of a combo, sometimes one turn away from death, and 'gg' my probably rather confused opponent sitting pretty at around 80 life and looking at just a few damselflies and a nearly empty hand, and then whip out seven fractalled ball lightnings and a sky blitz and leave them wondering what the hell just happened.
Fractal Ruby dim/firestall (3 wins 3 losses)
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7dg 7dg 7dg 7dg 7dg 7dg 7dg 7dg 7dg 7dg 7di 7di 7dk 7dk 7dk 7dk 7dk 7dk 7dm 7dm 7dn 7dn 7f2 7f2 7f2 7f2 7f2 7f2 7f2 80a 80a 80a 80a 80d 80d 80d 80d 80d 80i 80i 8puThis was probably my second favourite new deck of the season. On paper it looks really good; lots of CC, some PC, dimstall, OTK potential, and fractal dragon. In practice, it just didn't seem to work quite right. I think the biggest problem was that there was too much demand on fire quanta, and I often found it took too long to be able to OTK. I think I also had some bad luck with this deck, based on my notes, as well as one extremely stupid game-costing play, so I would definitely give it a chance in the future, possibly with slight mods. It beat an immorush (pest.), a devquake (rem4life), and a bonebolt (ddevans96), and lost to a speedbow, a monodeath rush, and a 31 card SN control (jen-i). (that last one was the one where I made a stupid play, costing the game)
Chaos Dunes (1 win 3 losses)
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6u2 6u2 6u2 6u2 6u2 6u2 6u7 6u7 6u7 6u7 7q8 7q8 7q8 7qd 7qd 7qd 7qd 7qd 7qd 7ri 7ri 7ri 7ri 7ri 7ri 7ri 7ri 7ri 7ri 7ri 8pjJen-i used something kind of like this against me one game, so, being the shameless dragon I am, I stole it. I didn't have too much success with it, though. It beat an immorush (pest.) and lost to psiontal (rob77dp), a DBH speedbow (rem4life) and a NT/discord duo (jen-i). (must've been revenge for my stealing his deck...)
Light/aether stall (2 wins 1 loss)
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5ls 5ls 5ls 7jo 7jo 7jo 7jo 7jo 7jo 7jo 7jo 7jo 7jo 7jo 7jo 7jo 7jo 7jo 7k1 7k2 7k2 7k2 7k2 7k2 7k2 7k6 7k6 7k6 7k6 7k6 7k6 7la 7la 7la 7la 7la 7la 7la 7la 7la 7la 7q9 7q9 7q9 7q9 7q9 7q9 80a 80a 80a 80a 80a 80a 80d 80d 80d 80d 80d 80d 80i 8puA stall with an alternate damage win condition, this was theoretically an interesting deck, but fairly boring to actually see in action. Stall, stall, stall, then either win by deckout, or win with fractal nymphs or morning glory chipping away at them. I beat a ghostmare (megron) and a fractix (rem4life) and lost to a 30 card SN-bow control deck (jen-i). (that deck was really good btw, jen-i; I might steal it next season :p )
Deck records:
Match records:
Shoutouts:
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Jen-i - for being the only opponent to complete 10 matches with me this season, and doing it in BOTH leagues, as well as giving me the most losses in both leagues, and for doing it with some really unique decks I haven't seen anywhere else, and for beating me in the BL standings.
Afdarenty - What the hell? World champion 2014, #1 in CL, -and- #1 in BL, giving the top prize to Jen-i only because Afdarenty is too 1337-hardcore-beastmode to be allowed to have both first place prizes. Very nice
theelkspeaks - I cannot believe how much this guy improved this season. He very quickly became an utter pvp terror in BL, and he earned a mark to prove it. Watch out for this guy in the future... he's probably going to do even better next season.
zanzarino - Because awesome game and awesome server fix midseason.
Justaburd - No 'just a' about this guy. Our tireless league organizer.
me - (am I allowed to do this?) Because I met my goal I set beforehand of placing top 3 in both leagues, albeit just barely.
One other thing I wanted to add. This was my sixth (!) league season, and this was by FAR the hardest of them all, including my first one where I was still learning how to pvp properly. The skill level of players in both leagues was higher than any other season I've participated in. Good job everyone!
