So, I'm not a really superior deckbuilder like jmdt or
Sha'kar Jangoo or PuppyChow, but I do pretty well. More importantly, what I
do do well is
write. So I figured that I'd take notes on my process and write a short blurb on how an Essence deck comes to be.
In this case, it started with a thought:
creatures don't get a lot of face time. Ever since the ridiculous FFQ nerf, FFQ decks (which were already too slow) got downright unplayable, and
's other creatures just aren't really anything to stop and gawk at. There was a brief moment when Wyrm threatened to become cool, during the two weeks when Shard of Readiness allowed you to use a creature's ability right away, but that was about it.
So, I decided to make a deck that made
creatures front and center, just to see what it could do. FFQ and Firefly have been used to death. That left Wyrm, Damselfly, and Sky Dragon. Dragons are pretty vanilla, so I decided to focus on Wyrm.
Wyrms' primary disadvantage is that, for what they do, they're
expensive, so balancing them out with a second element is a pain in the butt, because you need a
lot of
quanta to make them go. By a happy coincidence, Damselfly creates
every turn, so they seemed like a natural pair.
Next, I tried to think of cards that went well with Elite Wyrm. The obvious ones were Momentum, Blessing, and Chaos Power. Because my goal was to make
both creatures shine, however, I wanted to find something to pair well with Damselfly as well.
I looked across
,
, and
to try to find something that made sense. Originally, I wanted it to be a rush card, because Wyrm+buff was a rush tactic, but I just couldn't find anything except Adrenaline, and I knew that quanta balancing Wyrm with two other elements would just suck.
Then, I hit upon Butterfly Effect. Damselfly was a perfect target. I knew I was onto something: Wyrm+Chaos Power for offense, and Damselfly+BE for permanent control. I decided that if I was going to go for a domination deck, however, I needed CC as well.
does CC really well, so I started looking at options in
that could complement Eagle's Eye, Shockwave, and Thunderstorm. It didn't take long to realize that Eagle's Eye +Maxwell's Demon would kill almost anything in the game if used in combination. Seriously, who plays with Massive Dragons, anyway?
So, I had my cards: Elite Wyrm, Chaos Power, Damselfly, Butterfly Effect, Eagle's Eye, and Maxwell's Demon. I just had to figure out how to quanta-balance it all. I used ScaredGirl's quanta balancing theory to come up with an appropriate amount of upped Pendulums and Towers, and then playtested and tweaked the result just slightly to account for Damselfly's
production and the fact that you don't actually use Maxwell's or BE as often as you use Dive, and then I took the new deck to PVP2.
Winds of Change is currently 43-18, a satisfying 70% win rate in PVP2. More importantly to me, I've gotten lots of compliments on having a very unique and startlingly effective deck. Most of the losses have been to decks with Rain of Fire, which kills everything except the one CP-ed Wyrm and the Maxwell's Demon.
So, without further ado, the deck:
The Winds of Change.
6ts 6ts 6tt 6tt 6u2 6u2 6u2 6u2 6u2 6u8 6u8 7mt 7mt 7mt 7mt 7mt 7mu 7mu 7mu 7mu 7mu 7n5 7n5 7oe 7oe 7oe 7oe 7oe 7oe 7oeAll told, it's a lot of fun to play, and no one has seen it coming, which is the part I love most.
