Hopeful Dead

[coinich]

Instead of the Grateful Dead.  Get it?

Not sure if I've tried this concept before, but the goal is to get a stable deck that focuses around the lowly Skeleton.  Yes, that old friend.  Anyways, ATM, the deck runs Retros to kill enemy critters and to work with Graveyards, producing the Skeletons.  From there, Luciferine gives them Bioluminescense allowing Hope to be played, and Eclipse boosts all stats.  Bonds work too, though I suppose it might work better with shards, honestly, but they don't fit the spam theme.  Works fairly well now, and has won a few against AI5 but this deck has severe vulnerabilities, so any suggestions are welcome.

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? ? ? are Darkness Pendulums.

[catalyzeme]

Is it pretty slow? It seems like the process of waiting for enemy creatures to appear, infecting them, the creatures dying, accumulating skeletons, playing luciferin, getting the light quanta for hope... seems like a slow process.

Also, have you tried substituting a graveyard for another tower? Seems like 6 graveyards would be tough to get out on 5 towers. Also, the fact that you have to include 6 cards basically to get one eclipse out seems not worth it, even though it seems pretty essential to the deck.

I think the quad-color of this deck is just too much. What if you scrapped the Light altogether, and did Bone Walls, taking advantage of all the creatures you are killing? I suppose that might be straying too far from the goal of your deck though.

Wish I could be more helpful! Seems like a good idea if all the pieces fall into place, but its survivability while you're getting everything together seems low. The classic RoL/Hope deck seems much more efficient, and even that can have trouble getting all the cards right.

[twinsbuster]

again, combining many ideas into one deck can be suck
you can just simply build a retrovirus bonewall deck, a skeleton feral bond deck or a luciferin hope deck, but not combining all into one.

[deathalo44]

Eclipse can't stack, so your skeletons and viruses would be about 2/2. Any shield besides gravity shield can totally stop your attacks

[coinich]

Yeah, I understand its a bit concept heavy, but when it works it actually works.  And sorry deathalo, the skellies are 4|3 and Retros are 3|2, so even a Diamond Shield won't keep the skellies out.  As for getting the required skellies, it isn't that difficult; need just 1 Graveyard and a Retro and to sacrifice the Retro.  I did originally have 5 Graveyards but I found I wanted more/faster and I often had more quanta than I needed.

[Supersonique]

isn't it better to do :

-1 Eclipse
+1Nightfall

?

[jmizzle7]

You could get even more creative and try out some Holy Flash tech.

[Boingo]

Is it pretty slow? It seems like the process of waiting for enemy creatures to appear, infecting them, the creatures dying, accumulating skeletons, playing luciferin, getting the light quanta for hope... seems like a slow process.

The answer is: yes.  I tried it out on AI3 and lost a few times in a row.  I like the concept so I'm trying a couple of things to make it a bit speedier, will post back if I find a combo that works.

[coinich]

Please do.  TBH, with that many Retros, it doesn't hurt to sacrifice one or two anyways.

I'm toying with this myself.  Would've never have thought of Holy Lights!

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[TheonlyrealBeef]

I thought Holy Light/Flash was meant as sarcasm, I mean seriously, doesn't it only slow you down by drawing a not useful card?
Unless I'm overlooking the strategy behind it...
But a strategy with it that actually works would indeed be awesome

Maybe an idea to add some bone walls? All those deaths for skelles stack up nicely to help stall untill you get hope up. Though that's not original, I know

All this depends on whether you are actually intending to use it I guess

[Boingo]

I have tinkered around a bit with your skeleton-based deck idea.  Key to success is waiting to deploy your Ball lightnings till you will get at least 8-9 skeletons (any combo of graveyards/Ball lightnings: e.g., 2x4, 3x3, etc.) otherwise your Hope will be suboptimal.

Variant #1: Psychedelic Hopeful Dead (psychedelic since it's a rainbow and sticking with the Grateful Dead theme)

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52n 52n 52n 52n 52n 5rp 5rp 5rp 5rp 5rp 5rp 6qq 6qq 6qq 6qq 6qq 6qq 6qq 6qq 6qq 6qq 7an 7an 7an 7k3 7k3 7k3 7k4 7k4 7ta 7ta 809 809 809 809 809This is by no mean fully optimized:
Traded:
[Boneyards for graveyards]: the lower cost lets you get them out more quickly.
[Feral bond for epinephrine]:  it adds attack power plus builds more rapidly allowing hope deployment ASAP.
[Retrovirus for ball lightning]:  CC meant the retrovirus was almost never doing its job. Ball lightning solves this by adding a little more punch for 0 cost.
[Towers/Pendula for QTs]: So much quanta goes untapped, but you can deploy nearly everything when you need to.

Added:
[Sundials]:  Stall till you can get Hope up/draw power speeds the deck.  Don't worry about eating up to do it, you'll make it all back once your skellies are deployed.  I tried both upped and unupped sundials, went with unupped so the mulligan feature doesn't totally screw you--sundials and luciferases but no QTs in an opening hand is a real bummer.Variant #2  Hopeful Dead: Duo from the Vault

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Variant #2 in action:
(http://imageplay.net/view/m7Gbd82598/DuoHopeDead)
Other ideas: Miracle would likely be a good addition to either deck.  They're both quite fragile with regard to CC.  A dragon or 2 would be a welcome addition but would stray from the skeleton focus.

Your thoughts?