The Dragon's BL decks (BL 1 / 2013)

[dragonsdemesne]

Well, another league season come and gone.  This was my third league, and my first time in BL.  I had gotten slightly tired of the CL meta, having been through it for two seasons, and I wanted to try out BL for a change of pace.  (plus, I wanted to use my shiny marks more :p)  I had more detailed notes than last season; this time, I kept track of the wins and losses of all my decks, as well as my opponent's decks.  Anyway, here are the decks, and then commentary and whatever.  They are ordered by when I built them in the season; the first bunch were built beforehand, while the rest were built either in response to popular decks or inspired by my opponent's decks.

Firestall with SoG (7 wins 5 losses, 58% wins)

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4so 5cq 5cq 5cq 5cq 5cq 5cq 5f0 5f0 5f0 5f0 5f0 5f0 5f0 5f0 5f0 5f0 5f0 5f0 5f0 5f0 5f0 5f0 5f0 5f0 5f4 5f4 5f4 5f4 5f4 5f4 5f5 5f5 5f7 5f7 5f7 5fk 5fk 5fk 5fk 8pn

Often I see firestall using light for sancs/miracle.  That's a good deck, and I think I did that in CL last season, but I chose to go with SoGs of the mark for a few reasons.  One, SoG is cheaper than sanctuary and heals more.  Second, this allows me to use more fire quanta.  What I found in CL is that in a firestall matchup, the winner is usually the one who has more fire quanta, and this deck maximizes my fire quanta.  I used all of my red nymphs for extra CC, which allows me to save my firebolts for the player directly.  I used the deck mostly earlier in the season; after losing several games in a row to grabbow, which was one of the decks I expected to beat with this, I mostly quit using it.

Monotime Pharaoh (a.k.a. look at me, mom, all rares!) (22 wins 8 losses, 73% wins)

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Version 1: (when I owned only 1 nymph) 14-5

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4ss 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5ro 5ro 5ro 5rs 5rs 5rs 5rs 5rs 5s4 5se 5se 5se 5se 5se 5se 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 8ps

Version 2: (after I spun a second nymph) 8-3

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4ss 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5ro 5ro 5ro 5rs 5rs 5rs 5rs 5rs 5rs 5s4 5s4 5se 5se 5se 5se 5se 5se 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 8ps

This was one of my favourite decks this season to play.  I didn't even realize it was all rares until one of my opponents pointed it out, asking if I had any nonrares in the deck.  I did a double take, looked at the list, and realized it didn't :p  I had thought about including procrastination at one point, but after this was pointed out to me, I left it out just to keep it all rares :p  It did quite well, and most of its losses were due to low quanta draws rather than to bad matchups.  With the deck using such expensive cards, I like to see 4 quanta in my opening hand.  One game in particular stands out, where I drew nothing but quanta and SoRs for the first six turns.  By the time I got another card, I had drawn all six of my shards, and had something like 50 time quanta in my pool.  The worst matchups were things with reverse time or lobotomizer or quanta denial.  I don't think I ever went against devtal or earthquakes, but they would've been bad, too.  I was able to beat monodark every time I went against it, so a few devourers weren't a problem, though.

Owl's Eye healstall (7 wins 3 losses, 70% wins)

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4sr 5lm 5lm 5lm 5lm 5lm 5lm 5oc 5oc 5oc 5oc 5oc 5oc 5oc 5oc 5oc 5oc 5oh 5oh 5oi 5oi 5oi 5oi 5ol 5ol 5ol 5ol 5ol 5oo 5oo 5oo 5oo 5oo 5pu 5pu 5pu 5pu 5pu 5pu 5pu 8pq

A fairly simple stall, using owl's eyes to blast everything and sancs to heal.  Many games I found myself able to just start playing wings at will, as I would have enough to chain wings for the rest of the game if needed.  I only played it 3 times because then I realized that using SoGs and life mark was better.  Also, I didn't like the quanta balance.  I could not find a pillar/pend split I liked to get the right amount of both types of quanta; one always seemed to be overproduced and the other underproduced.

This led to the next version of the deck:

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4sr 5cq 5cq 5cq 5cq 5cq 5cq 5oc 5oc 5oc 5oc 5oc 5oc 5oc 5oc 5oc 5oc 5oc 5oh 5oh 5oi 5oi 5oi 5oi 5ol 5ol 5ol 5ol 5ol 5oo 5oo 5oo 5oo 5oo 5pu 5pu 5pu 8pn

This let me run slightly more healing with slightly less pendulums, as SoG is cheaper, leading to a lower quanta cost for the deck, and thus less pend/pillars to maintain the same QI.  This version went 3-0, beating a SoW/reflect deck, a druid sader deck, and an adrenapsion/PU deck.  I tweaked it again, after deciding I didn't like the thunderstorms.  I had tried them out because thunderstorm had just been changed, to +1 cost and +1 damage from its old version, but I decided that I didn't really need them most of the time.  I dropped them and increased the numbers on the eyes/FW/wings instead, and put the quanta back in to compensate for increasing the deck cost again.  This version of the deck below went 2-2, beating a mutation deck and a monolife deck, and losing to firestall and disquake.  I'm not sure why I quit playing this deck; after doing the math, it has a higher win rate than I remember it having.  It was a very boring deck to use, though, so maybe that's why.

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4sr 5cq 5cq 5cq 5cq 5cq 5cq 5oc 5oc 5oc 5oc 5oc 5oc 5oc 5oc 5oc 5oc 5oc 5oc 5oc 5oi 5oi 5oi 5oi 5oi 5ol 5ol 5ol 5ol 5ol 5ol 5oo 5oo 5oo 5oo 5oo 5oo 5pu 5pu 5pu 8pn

Disc/RT (7 wins 4 losses, 64% wins)

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4sj 4vc 4vc 4vc 4vc 4vc 4vc 4vc 4vc 4vc 4vc 4vc 4vc 4vc 4vc 4vf 4vf 4vf 4vf 4vf 4vf 4vl 4vl 4vl 4vl 500 500 5rk 5rk 5rk 5rk 5rk 8ps

Discord is one of those cards I have a love/hate relationship with.  I love using it, but I hate facing it :p  I didn't actually face it that often in BL, to my surprise.  I'm pretty sure I used more discords than anyone I faced in BL by a large margin.  The combo of discord and reverse time can be qutie nasty, stalling the opponent for even longer due to the synergy between them than either one alone can do.  However, because creatures had to be cut to fit the reverse times in, it lacked as much damage as a pure entropy deck has, and stalls tended to wreck the deck.  Its losses came to a 60 card stall, a mutation deck, a ghostmare, and a grabbow.  (though it beat immograbbow in a different match, so 50/50 there)  It was able to beat every mono it faced, as well as a devtal, a catatitans, and an immograbbow.  I used this deck mostly earlier on in the season, and eventually abandoned it for the monoentropy version I built later.

Disquake (14 wins, 5 losses, 74% wins)

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Version 1: (7-3)

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4sa 4sa 4sa 4sa 4sa 4sa 4vh 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vl 4vl 4vl 590 590 590 593 593 593 5c1 5c1 5f6 5if 5oi 5oi 5rk 5v1 8pm

Version 2: (7-2)

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4sa 4sa 4sa 4sa 4sa 4sa 4vh 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vl 4vl 4vl 590 590 590 593 593 593 5c1 5c1 5f6 5og 5oi 5v1 61q 61q 8pm

(-1 flying weapon -1 mind flayer, -1 reverse time, +1 fog shield, +2 lightning)
(technically, there was a version before version 1, but all I changed was -3 earth pend +3 quantum pillar to make version 1)

I've always been a strong fan of denial, and discord + earthquake is just mean :p  This deck did quite well for me, and I found myself using it right up to the end of the season.  Early on I changed 3 pendulums to 3 qps because I found if I got a draw with only pends, I was screwed, so after getting a loss solely because of that, I changed the deck.  I changed it again after finding that I was never using the flying weapons.  (I really should have taken out the other one, too; I don't think I ever actually got to use it)  The mind flayer wasn't a bad card, but I was finding that the spirits were taking all my water quanta, and it wasn't really making much of a difference in my games.  The reverse time was removed because it was fighting with graboids for time quanta, and with the flayer gone, I had aether to use, so I added the lightnings, which turned out to be an excellent play, as was adding the fog shield.  A better version of this deck would be -1 flying weapon, +1 fog shield, to make 0 and 2 of those, respectively.  One opponent a week or two ago mentioned that they thought one copy of black hole would be good in here, too.  I think it would be, but I had no idea what to cut to add it.

My losses were to emerald dragon/rustler, a really cool forest spirit psnbow (I forget who created it, but they were quite proud of it), a monoearth stall, a fate egg novabow, and a chrysaora/dial novabow.  It was able to beat a wide range of decks, including OTKs, dunes, UGnymphwings, other grabbows (including a denial one like this), adrenastaves, firestall, and DBH.  All in all, it was quite a successful deck.  I didn't think it could beat novabow decks, but it proved quite effective even there.

It's a trap! (2 wins 1 loss, 67% wins)

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4sa 4sa 4sa 4sa 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 50a 52q 52q 55t 55t 590 590 590 590 5c1 5c1 5c1 5fb 5fb 5og 5og 5v0 5v0 61q 61q 8pm

This has some notable differences from the version rootranger popularized, stemming largely from my love of control, as I added some CC and shields.  The rage pots doubled as CC and excellent buffs for my own voodoo dolls.  I had one random SoSe to make use of entropy quanta, as I had no room for werewolf or discord due to my darkness quanta being used on dolls, and my arsenics using my weapon slot.  I won against a monodeath rush and a graboid rush, and lost to UG/blue nymph.

Monofire phoenixbolt (1 win 1 loss, 50% wins)

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4so 5f0 5f0 5f0 5f0 5f0 5f0 5f0 5f4 5f4 5f4 5f4 5f4 5f4 5f6 5f6 5f7 5f7 5f7 5fc 5fc 5fc 5fc 5fc 5gi 5gi 5gi 5gi 5gi 5gi 8po

I completely plagiarized this from Vangelios' BL compilation last season :p  I'm just not a fan of monofire, so I only ran it twice.  It beat devtal and lost to monolight.

Vang's modded death/light stall (15 wins 9 losses, 63% wins)

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4sq 53e 53e 53e 53e 53e 53e 542 542 542 542 542 542 542 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5lg 5lg 5lh 5lh 5li 5li 5li 5li 5li 5ls 5m6 5m6 5m6 5m6 5m6 5m6 5mq 5mq 5mq 5mq 5mq 5mq 8pq

Another one that I plagiarized from Vangelios' BL compilation before this BL season even started.  I swapped out his dragons for 1 of each nymph, since I had them.  The light nymph was definitely stronger than the light dragon due to the valuable healing ability.  The grey nymph didn't hit as hard as a bone dragon, but with 8hp it's much harder to kill, and it did have its afla ability, though I rarely ever used it.  Eventually I cut the grey nymph for another miracle.  I also added some reflective shields later on to combat firestalls and UG decks.  (and, I thought, purifies, but it turns out it's still bugged; purify will go through the shield, but the reflect animation goes off, so I don't know whether purify is WAI and the animation is bugged, or whether purify is bugged and the animation is correct)  Most of my losses came midseason; I started off doing quite well with this deck, but I think I overused it, and people were starting to expect it, to the point where I'd get comments like 'oh no, not THAT deck again', or 'hmm you didn't use that death/light stall, that's odd for you'.  It lost three games due to earthquakes, one to a firestall bigger than this deck, one to a time/light eternity healstall, and a couple other RNG losses.  It was very good against 30 card rushes, and beat shard golem rushes, ghostmares, monoaether, a few other creature decks, and had about a 50/50 vs grabbow.

The immortal (earth/light stall) (1 win 0 losses, 100% wins)

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4sm 4sq 58s 58s 58s 594 594 594 594 594 594 59c 59c 59c 5aa 5aa 5aa 5aa 5aa 5aa 5aa 5aa 5aa 5aa 5aa 5aa 5aa 5aa 5aa 5aa 5aa 5aa 5aa 5aa 5aa 5aa 5aa 5aa 5aa 5lh 5lh 5li 5li 5li 5li 5li 5li 5lm 5lm 5lm 5lm 5lm 5lm 5ls 5m6 5m6 5m6 5m6 5m6 5m6 8pq

I beat an OTK with this one game, but this isn't a fun deck to play; it takes too long.  The best reason to use this deck is 500hp EMs against the AI.

The other immortal (life/light stall) (0 wins 2 losses, 0% wins)

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4sq 5c2 5c2 5c2 5c2 5c2 5c2 5c3 5c3 5c3 5c5 5cq 5cq 5cq 5cq 5cq 5cq 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5li 5li 5li 5li 5li 5li 5lm 5lm 5lm 5lm 5lm 5lm 5m6 5m6 5m6 5m6 5m6 5m6 5mq 5mq 5mq 5mq 5mq 5mq 5mq 5mq 5mq 8pn

With more healing and carapaces for CC but no stoneskins, it plays much like the old earth/light 500hp EM deck.  I played against grabbow twice and lost twice.  My notes say that the first game my opponent had 'an incredible draw'.  It was one of those games where grabbow gets everything they need, and gets it by like turn 2 :p  (you know the ones, forest spirit, werewolf, arse turn 1, graboid turn 2, or something like that)  After having it crushed twice by a rush, I decided to abandon the deck permanently this season.

Monowater stall (5 wins 3 losses, 63% wins)

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5i4 5i4 5i4 5i4 5i4 5i4 5i4 5i4 5i4 5i8 5i8 5i8 5i8 5i8 5i8 5i9 5ia 5ia 5ia 5ia 5ia 5ia 5ib 5ib 5ib 5ib 5ib 5ib 5ih 5io 5io 5j2 5j2 5j2 5jm 5jm 5jm 5jm 5jm 5jm 5jm 5jm 5jm 8pp

Again, I like stallish control decks, and this one's no exception.  It beat an earth rush, a water nymph tear's rush, a time/light stall, a bonecats, and a fire rush, and lost to firestall, PUquintSoW, and momentum dunes.  (yes, even with 6 purifies and CC... I was NOT happy about that one, lol)  I mostly abandoned this deck later in the season.  Its win/loss record wasn't bad, but a lot of the decks it happened to be matched up to were rather gimmicky, and I felt like it might not stand up to more competitive decks.

Eternal Grabbaquake (5 wins 3 losses, 63% wins)

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1 time nymph version: 3-1

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4sm 4ss 58o 58o 58o 58s 590 590 590 590 590 590 593 593 593 593 5aa 5aa 5aa 5aa 5aa 5aa 5aa 5aa 5rk 5rk 5rk 5ro 5ro 5s4 8ps

2 time nymph version: 2-2

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4sm 58o 58o 58o 58o 58s 590 590 590 590 590 590 593 593 593 593 5aa 5aa 5aa 5aa 5aa 5aa 5aa 5aa 5rk 5rk 5ro 5ro 5s4 5s4 8ps

On paper this idea seemed pretty good, but in practice, I found myself always short of one type of quanta or the other.  Either I would get something like a 2 pend draw and take 4 turns to do anything at all, or on the other side, I'd lack enough time quanta to use my eternities and nymphs.  I fairly quickly abandoned this deck, after realizing it was only beating weaker decks anyway, and losing to anything that was any good.

DBH (0 wins 2 losses, 0% wins)

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4ve 4ve 4vf 4vf 4vl 4vl 4vl 4vl 50u 50u 50u 50u 50u 50u 50u 50u 50u 50u 50u 50u 50u 50u 55v 55v 55v 55v 55v 55v 568 568 8pl

In CL I had quite a bit of success with DBH, including quite a few ragequits :p  In BL, however, I couldn't get it to work.  (and I lost to it several times, too )  The shard of focus change to require gravity quanta kept me from including it in this deck, and that might've made some difference, but I think the biggest thing was my quanta balance.  In CL, I could run only pends because I only needed 2 in order to get a turn 2 discord.  In BL, however, you need 3 pends, and all I used was pends.  This meant my deck was fatally slow anytime I got less than 3 pends in hand.  Other people using DBH this season were using pillars and pends to compensate, but weren't using nymphs, so they didn't need as many pendulums.  I probably should have gone this route myself, taking out the nymphs and using more pillars.

Fire and Ice (1 win 1 loss, 50% wins)

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4so 5f0 5f0 5f0 5f0 5f0 5f0 5f0 5f4 5f4 5f4 5f4 5f4 5f4 5f5 5f5 5f7 5f7 5f7 5gi 5gi 5gi 5gi 5gi 5gi 5gi 5gi 5gi 5gi 5gi 5gi 5gi 5i8 5i8 5i8 5i8 5i8 5i8 5ia 5ia 5ia 5ia 5ia 5ia 8pp

In addition to denial and control decks, I like unconventional decks, and this is a more unusual take on firestall, using purifies for a less effective form of healing, but allowing for ice bolts to increase the OTK potential and give many spare bolts for CC.  This deck suffers from the same problem as firestall, though, namely that I don't like playing with it :p

Monoentropy Dick (20 wins 6 losses, 77% wins)

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4sj 4vc 4vc 4vc 4vc 4vc 4vc 4vc 4vc 4vd 4vd 4ve 4ve 4vf 4vf 4vf 4vf 4vf 4vf 4vl 4vl 4vl 4vl 500 500 50u 50u 50u 50u 50u 50u 50u 8pj

A slightly rude name, yes, but it's what I called it in my notes, because I always felt like a dick laying down discords and then following up with either maxwells or purple nymphs to keep the creatures they eventually got under control.  My losses were to a monoaether with SoP off the mark (very clever deck by Vangelios!), a firestall, a disquake, a DBH, a ghostmare, and a monodeath soulcatcher/virus deck.  It beat a wide variety of decks, such as blessed dunes, vader sader, accelertitans, monofire, monodark, it's a trap, devquake, DBH, and several others.  This was a deck I used right up until season's end, as you can see by the number of games I played with it.  At some point in the season I decided it needed more quanta, so I added another pillar to make it a 32 card deck.

Devtal (5 wins 3 losses, 63% wins)

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5ul 5ul 5um 5um 5um 5um 5um 5um 5up 5up 5ut 5ut 606 606 606 606 606 606 606 606 606 606 606 606 606 606 622 622 622 622 8pu

I won the first five games I played with this deck and lost the last three :p  I built this deck later in the season trying to counter somebody, and I kept it around and dusted it off once in awhile whenever I thought my opponent knew me too well.  It beat nymph's tears, monoaether twice, druid sader, and some earth/time/water trio that I locked down so hard that I never found out what it contained.  It lost to DBH, ghostmare, and monofire.

Red Nymph Dolls (2 wins 0 losses, 100% wins)

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4so 5f0 5f0 5f0 5f0 5f0 5f0 5f0 5f0 5f0 5f0 5f0 5f0 5f0 5f0 5f6 5f6 5fb 5fb 5fc 5fc 5fk 5fk 5fk 5fk 5ur 5v0 5v0 5v0 5v0 8pt

The first time I used this deck, I speedbuilt it because my opponent had just used rage pot dolls, and I was being silly :p  It defeated adrenastaves and a golden nymph tears deck.  It was a little too gimmicky for my tastes, though, and I was a little scared to use it often :p

Monoaether SoW (2 wins 1 loss, 67% wins)

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4su 61o 61o 61o 61o 61o 61o 61o 61s 61s 61s 61t 61t 61t 61t 61v 61v 61v 62m 62m 62m 62m 62m 62m 63a 63a 63a 63a 63a 63a 63a 8pu

I built this the day after winning my aether mark in a tournament, as I had no decks using it at the time.  It defeated graboid/EQ and firestall with sancs, and lost to adrenastaves.  Losing to adrenastaves made me realize the deck really needs lobotomizer, but I didn't really enjoy the deck well enough to keep using, so I never redesigned it to include lobo.

Improved It's a Trap (1 win 2 losses, 33% wins) (turned out to be a misnomer :p)

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4sa 4sa 4sa 4sa 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 50a 52q 52q 55t 55t 590 590 590 595 595 595 595 5c1 5c1 5fb 5fb 5og 5v0 5v0 61q 8pm

After realizing my trap deck above contained no basilisk bloods, I redesigned it to include them.  I was not pleased with the result.  I defeated catatitans (my opponent had a terrible draw) and lost to immonovagolem rush and monoaether SoW, the second of which was an obvious hard counter :p

"The Deck" (4 wins 3 losses, 57% wins)

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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 52r 58v 5f6 5f6 5ia 5ia 5li 5li 5lm 5lm 5lm 5lm 5m6 5m6 5m6 5m6 5m6 5m6 5ol 5ol 5rl 5rl 5rp 5rp 5rp 5rp 5rp 5rp 5up 61q 61q 61q 61q 61q 8pq

The first match I played with cheesy, he completely spanked one of my (at the time) undefeated decks with a 60 card stall kind of like this one.  (I think it was either monoentropy dick or disc/RT)  After that game, I built my own version, but it didn't do very well, and I abandoned it.  Later on in the season, I changed my mind.  I decided that it wasn't the deck concept that was bad, but that it was this particular version that was bad.  I reduced the light quanta strain, added another pulverizer, and swapped a few other things around, creating a different enough deck that I'll put it in a separate post. (actually two different versions of this deck, but I'll get there...)  This deck defeated monodark twice, a grabbow, and it's a trap, and lost to accelertitans, chrysaora poison, and a trident duo.

"The Deck, v2.0" (12 wins 2 losses, 86% wins)

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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 52r 58v 58v 5cq 5cq 5ia 5ia 5li 5li 5lm 5lm 5lm 5m6 5m6 5m6 5m6 5m6 5m6 5ol 5ol 5rl 5rl 5rp 5rp 5rp 5rp 5rp 5rp 5up 61q 61q 61q 61q 61q 8pq

This version of "the deck" was easily one of my top decks this season.  (thanks, cheesy!)  It lost to catatitans (I got no PC or healing) and to a grabbow with an early SoP against my 1 qp draw.  (and I still almost won, and would have if my opponent hadn't had SoP)  It defeated a lot of different kind of decks, and many players would complement the deck afterwards, or, if they'd seen it a few times, say something like 'does that deck ever lose?' or 'damn, that deck counters EVERYTHING'.  It's got healing, it's got PC, it's got CC, it's got card draw, it's got shields.  It's got resistance to pesky devourers or discords, and it destroys stalls.  It beats OTKs and firestalls easily.  It even beat grabbows and decks packing shards of focus.  It would win even if I got 1 pillar draws or otherwise bad hands.  (well, except that one I mentioned above)  And best of all, I really enjoyed using it.  It took a lot of skill to play properly, and while I may not have piloted it perfectly, I did well enough.  I would totally take as my league prize a mark for this deck, except as an 11 element deck (all but fire are used somewhere) I have no idea which one to take for it :p

"The Deck, v2.0 alternate version" (6 wins 0 losses, 100% wins)

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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 52r 58v 58v 5cq 5cq 5cq 5ia 5ia 5ia 5li 5li 5lm 5lm 5lm 5m6 5m6 5m6 5m6 5m6 5m6 5ol 5ol 5rl 5rl 5rl 5up 61q 61q 61q 61q 61q 61q 623 623 8pq

-6 sundials, +2 mindgate, +1 purify, +1 SoG, +1 hourglass +1 lightning over the other 2.0 deck.  I tried alternating between the two 2.0 decks, but both were so good that I could not decide which one was better :p  Eventually I settled on the one above, as you can tell by the number of plays.  Both went 6-0 in their first six games, after which I settled on the other version.  I think the sundials made it a little better, and the mindgates were just a touch too expensive alongside the lightnings.  Mindgate, as I have mentioned in many posts, is my favourite card ever, so I always like to try and use it when I can.  If I could have found a way to fit it into the other version without compromising the QI, I'd have done it in a heartbeat.  As it was, the aether QI was a little too high.

Monolight stall (1 win 1 loss, 50% wins)

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4sq 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5lh 5lh 5li 5li 5li 5li 5li 5li 5lm 5lm 5lm 5lm 5lm 5lm 5ls 5m6 5m6 5m6 5m6 5m6 5m6 5mq 5mq 5mq 5mq 5mq 5mq 5mq 5mq 5mq 8pq

I ran a monolight deck in CL using dragons, miracles, SoDs, and morning star and nymph.  This deck used sanctuaries instead of dragons, and an extra morning star and more quanta/miracles/SoDs and attempted to go for deckout.  It lost to grabbow and won vs monodark.  I borrowed this deck from cheesy as well, but I didn't think my version had enough stall power to beat most rushes.  (i.e. the grabbow that I lost to)  It beat monodark because I picked this predicting (correctly) a devourer deck from someone who was using devourers a LOT.  Plus, in CL, the upped cards make the deck less prone to quanta screw.  Miracles are a full 3 quanta cheaper, which makes a big difference, and the upped towers really help as well.  I just noticed that I never built that deck for BL, which is odd.  Perhaps I tried and didn't like how much quanta it needed... or perhaps I just forgot :p  It could easily have been either way, as even the CL version was very expensive quantawise, and I don't remember ever considering it for BL, but looking at it now, it would be hard to build it in a way that satisfied me.

Grabbow (11 wins 2 losses, 85% win rate)

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Version 1: 1-0

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4sa 4sa 4sa 4sa 4sa 4sa 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 52q 52q 55q 55q 590 590 590 590 5c1 5c1 5c1 5f6 5f6 5og 5og 5v1 61q 61q 8pm

Version 2: 10-2

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4sa 4sa 4sa 4sa 4vh 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 52q 52q 55q 55q 590 590 590 590 5c1 5c1 5c1 5f6 5f6 5lf 5og 5og 5v1 61q 61q 8pm

Grabbows are hardly unusual, but I'll admit I janked this one from cheesy as well, and slapped my own touches on it.  (interesting that two of my top decks were inspired by ones he used against me)  The momentum in particular was the part I borrowed from him; I've never really used momentum in grabbows before, but it worked pretty good.  It beat a wide range of decks, from forest spirit PSN to a FFQ deck to ghostmare to monolife to adrenacatatitan, and beat every grabbow it came across (depending on your definition of a grabbow, around 4) as well as some graboid rushes.  It lost to a monoaether psion/dim/lobo deck and to a sofonovabow deck.  I modded it after the first game because I felt it had too much quanta with 6 pillars and no really expensive cards.  I added a lycanthrope (good card) and a blessing (since I had no light cards) to utilize all twelve elements.

Monolife Scorpion Stall (1 win 0 losses, 100% wins)

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5bs 5bs 5bs 5bs 5bs 5bs 5bs 5bs 5bs 5bs 5bs 5c3 5c3 5c4 5c4 5c5 5c6 5c6 5c6 5c6 5c6 5c6 5c8 5c8 5c8 5c8 5c8 5c8 5c9 5c9 5c9 5c9 5c9 5c9 5cg 5cg 5cg 5cq 5cq 5cq 5cq 5cq 5cq 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 8pn

In pvp1/2, I often build silly decks and try them out there without really caring if they win or lose.  This was one of those decks.  I only tried it once in BL, mostly because it was really fun.  It defeated a monodark deck using devourers.  Of all the life decks out there, this one is probably my favourite.  The twin weaknesses of CC killing mitosised scorpions, and just not getting a mitosis scorpion drawn, kept me from playing it more.  If I didn't care about winning (as I don't in pvp1/2) I'd use this deck a lot more, and I frequently use it there.  (I have an upped version for pvp2, but it's exactly the same) 

Bonebolt (1 win 0 losses, 100% wins)

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52g 52g 52g 52g 52g 52g 52g 52g 52g 52g 52g 52h 52o 52o 52o 52o 52o 52o 52q 52q 52q 52r 52r 52r 52r 61q 61q 61q 61q 61q 61q 8pu

Built near the end of the season, this deck defeated a DBHsofo deck.  It's a decent deck, but there's something about it that made me not want to play it very often.  I'm not really sure what, though.  I think I feared that unupped death was just a bit too slow, compared to CL's bonebolt, for example.  Death is an element that gets a -lot- better upped.  (gravity is the other that gets one of the biggest boosts upped) 

Well, there you have it.  That's all the decks I used this season.  There were two other novabows I built early on but I never used them, as I lost confidence in them sometime after building them but before using them.  (one was based on antagon's famous novabow and the other was a more controllish grabbow based on a deck calindu was using at the end of CL last season, but it doesn't translate very well to unupped play)

Spoiler for Me dithering over which mark code to get as a reward...:

One of the reasons I kept track of wins and losses was to know which decks were succeeding and which weren't, and against which other decks, rather than just going by memory.  (I think in the last two seasons I was flogging a few dead horse decks that should've been dropped, for instance)  The other reason was that as it is my custom to pick mark rewards for decks that most helped me win the mark, I wanted a concrete record of which deck did the best for me.  As you can see, however, with the exception of "the deck 2.0" and the grabbow, they were all within about 63-77% win rates, and as my top two decks used 11 and 12 of the elements, respectively, it is hard to pick a mark for them :p  For my first league reward, I picked a mark of entropy in honour of my speedbows and DBH that did very well, and in my second league, I picked a mark of fire for my firestall, which was actually something of a rogue deck that season, believe it or not, and because the fire mark was the strongest one that I didn't yet have.  (it bombed in my first league season due to sofos being in 'other' still and being used everywhere; sofo wrecks firestall, as it turns out)  I'd also like to have a set of all twelve marks before getting duplicates of any others, but of the other marks I don't have, I barely ever used those elements.  Of the 5 marks I don't have, death is probably the strongest element.  It is quite possible I'll end up going for that one, maybe to remember the death/light stall by.  Of the elements that were most successful for me this season, I would say that those were time (monotime pharaoh), light (the mark of my 60 card stalls), entropy (monoentropy dick), and earth (grabbow, disquake).  I will probably pick either death or one of those four, but I'm not sure yet, and codes haven't been sent out, anyway.

Spoiler for Various niceties:

I would like to thank the following people by name for a fun and enjoyable BL season.  All of you were great, but there's a few I'd like to single out.

Cheesy and Jenkar: For hosting leagues this season!
Cheesy and Vangelios: For fielding some great decks for me to assimilate and make my own!
Danieela and Rob77dp: For being the two players to complete a full ten matches with me this season!
Rob77dp, Cheesy, Moehrpi, Deuce, ddevans, andCalimar: For being the players who beat me more games than I beat them this season!  You guys kept me on my toes and forced me to improve.  (4-6, 2-3, 0-2, 0-2, 0-1, and 0-1, respectively)
Marsu: Even though we only met once this season due to time zone differences, I still felt like it was a head to head competition to stay ahead of you in the standings.  I kept waiting for you to slip and lose a couple at the end of the season, but you had a ridiculous winning streak at the end... congrats on the league win!

Spoiler for Comments on the metagame:

As expected, grabbows of all shapes and colours were the most popular deck archetype this season.  Every deck I made, I had grabbow in mind as a possible opponent, and every time I built a deck, I would ask myself, "can this beat grabbow?"  If the answer was 'no', I went back to the drawing board.  I also saw quite a few monodark decks, several monoaethers, several catatitans or adrenatitans, some ghostmares, some nymph's tears, and, oddly, at the beginning of the season, several emerald dragon/rustler decks.  I also saw firestalls and DBH, but they were more at the end of the season, it seemed.

I only saw two OTK decks all season, one being a clever voodoo universe OTK and the other being a firecell OTK using vulture/fractal followed by rain of fire on a field of malignant cells.  If you count firestall or unstable gas decks as OTKs (they have the potential, but they don't have the combo feel of an OTK to me, so I don't count them) then that's two more.  I did not see very many shards of sacrifice or focus.  Actually, I didn't see that many shards at all, which was far different than the last two seasons in CL for me.

edit: because the deck code for 'the deck 2.0' was wrong; I accidentally reposted the code for 'the deck'.

[Marsu]

/e: Oh, that wasn't even a typo. Boring. :p

Will edit this post after I took the time to read yours I've slept. Looking forward to it already, thanks for sharing!

[Cheesy111]

and lost to firestall, PUquintSoW, and momentum dunes 

*whistles innocently*

[TribalTrouble]

Looks like you learned a lot from this, as did I just reading that. Very nice decks, and I might use some variations of The Deck for my arena deck

[Paddoo]

Thank you very much for sharing, it was a very instructive read, especially for someone like me who lacks experience in league meta. Your comments on each deck are really useful.

+ rep ! 

[Chapuz]

In both "The Deck"s I was surprised by the low amount of hourglasses.

+ rep for the originality of your decks and comments, and congratulations for your mark! Mark? Why not Nymph? 

[RootRanger]

Good decks, though it makes me a little sad to see a pure deckout being one of the best decks in the league. Not because it is unoriginal or unfair - it isn't - but because I find deckouts rather boring and frustrating to play against. Personally I prefer faster games.

I notice that Mono Entropy and Grabbow are still top notch decks, even after all these years. Some decks just don't lose their place in the meta.

Overall it was nice to see some insight on the meta I haven't really gotten in to.

Mark? Why not Nymph? 

It's a simple question of rarity. Considering the thousands of people who spin the oracle each day and the low distribution of marks, mark cards are hundreds of times rarer. The fact that you have a card hundreds of times rare than something most players consider an extremely rare card is amazing.

[dragonsdemesne]

@cheesy: I'd forgotten that was you... :p  Darn those dunes!
@tribaltrouble: I've seen that sort of deck done in the arena before.  I find them interesting, but most people hate them, usually disparagingly referring to them as 'oraclebows'.
@paddoo: You're welcome.  That's part of why I post them.  I like to help other players, and I also like to get feedback on my own decks.
@chapuz: For "the decks", I felt that without a time mark, I couldn't use as many hourglasses, and as well, being unupped they use a lot more quanta.  I think if I were to change things I might go for three just to increase the odds of getting one.  I already have a few ideas for improving that deck.  As for picking a mark rather than a nymph, it is because I am a collector and the thought of there being cards I can't get any other way is abhorrent to me :p  (gotta catch 'em all...)  Thus, while I'd rather have a nymph for deckbuilding in most cases, I'd rather have a mark in my collection because I can get nymphs (eventually) from the oracle.  Though, the way the fat man's been to me lately... I haven't gotten one in a couple months.  Also, I already have at least one of all the nymphs, so there aren't any I can't play with, although there are still quite a few I only have one of.  If I were to take a nymph, based on my current collection, it would be either an air nymph or a light nymph. (the two best ones that I only have 1 of right now)

[ddevans96]

...ddevans...who beat me more games than I beat them this season!...0-1

If we had play more matches, you probably would have had me beat by a wide margin. I'd have like to play you more, but after those first couple of days I never really had the motivation for leagues. Ah well, maybe 3/2013, when I'm unbanned :3

[Vangelios]

 OH! no!, now we will have clones demesne in the next BL
Well, I won your devtal 3 times, 2 with dragonsbolt and 1 with BH discord. And I lose for Owl's Eye healstall, Monoentropy Dick, Monowater.

Dragonsbolt

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4so 4so 4so 5f0 5f0 5f0 5f0 5f0 5f0 5f0 5f2 5f2 5f2 5f2 5f4 5f4 5f4 5f4 5f4 5f4 5f6 5f6 5f7 5f7 5f7 5gi 5gi 5gi 5gi 5gi 8po

BH-Discord

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4vc 4vc 4vc 4vc 4vc 4vc 4vc 4vc 4vc 4ve 4ve 4ve 4vf 4vf 4vl 4vl 4vl 4vl 500 50u 50u 50u 50u 50u 55v 55v 55v 55v 55v 55v 8pl

The "Vang's modded death/light stall" is light JoJo by Odii, this deck is a very powerfull stall.....
 The first time I saw this deck was in BL 2/2012, the regen2k9 used against me, after Odii, but him lose because I put 2 SoFo and Seraph in first turn, I soon realized that it was very good and I started winning too, I now redesigned to 1.32, I prefer with more damage, and have 2 versions;

Divine Sacrifice

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534 53e 53e 53e 53e 53e 53e 542 542 542 542 542 542 542 542 542 542 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5la 5la 5la 5lh 5li 5li 5li 5li 5m6 5m6 5m6 5m6 5m6 5m6 8pq

Poison Stall

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52o 52o 52o 52o 52o 52o 52q 52q 53e 53e 53e 53e 53e 542 542 542 542 542 542 542 542 542 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5li 5li 5li 5m6 5m6 5m6 5m6 5m6 5m6 8pq

[treebeard xiii]

looks like i missed a golden opportunity to get high in the ranking for a league season after reading through the meta it seems i had deks that would beat the meta this season unfortunately cls meta wasn't so nich to me with bh being rife in most decks (bows no likey bh). Plus some nice decks so much entropy more than i expected, hopefully you will join bl again next season so we can meet again, I still have a score to settle with you from cl .

[dragonsdemesne]

Owing to the fact that 1) I don't have a death mark and 2) of the decks I used, the one newest (for me) is the death/light SoSa/miracle stall, I took a death mark for this season's reward code.  Yay!