Ideas for SoFr Eagles

[Falconian]

Hello, I need new ideas for my AI4 deck:

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5cq 5cq 5cq 5og 5og 5og 5oi 5oi 5oi 5oi 5ol 5ol 5ol 7ms 7ms 7ms 7ms 7ms 7ms 7ms 7ms 7ms 7ms 7n5 7n5 7n5 7nq 7nq 7nq 7nq 8pn

Win rate is about 70-80% (was 10% less without SoL due to poison/rushes).
It's pretty efficient vs AI4 since you kill the AI's initial hand, then they are slowed down considerably and you dish out big damage / evade CC so that made me tons of money (which I used to up the 10 pillars).
Should I just farm SoB's now? I have 2 unupped but they are not enough to pull that off.
Or maybe Chaos Power? I have 5 Chaos Power, but I'm afraid to drop the heals.

Also general Air rush thread I guess

[Ghaladh]

I don't think that splashing the SoG is such a great asset. In such a configuration, it would seem more natural to use FireFly Queen, IMO. Secondly, It's always better to put 6 SoFree in the deck to make sure that the asset offered by this kind of shard will be used during the game; 4 is quite risky and it's too much luck-based.
The deck might work, but at this point you might want to change a couple of Owl's Eye with Jade or Druidic staff, for extra healing, and remove one Fog Shield, and 2 wind towers and replace them with 3 Air pendulums.

However, it would work much better as a mono-Air in AI4. You don't need the healing, if you are able to deliver enough damage before losing too much health.

[Falconian]

I don't think that splashing the SoG is such a great asset. In such a configuration, it would seem more natural to use FireFly Queen, IMO. Secondly, It's always better to put 6 SoFree in the deck to make sure that the asset offered by this kind of shard will be used during the game; 4 is quite risky and it's too much luck-based.
The deck might work, but at this point you might want to change a couple of Owl's Eye with Jade or Druidic staff, for extra healing, and remove one Fog Shield, and 2 wind towers and replace them with 3 Air pendulums.

However, it would work much better as a mono-Air in AI4. You don't need the healing, if you are able to deliver enough damage before losing too much health.

Did some 100 games vs AI4 with 4 SoF, they are enough.
You will almost always get 3 by the time you win, more than enough to deflect single-target CC and bypass walls.
I recall maybe 3-4 games in which I had really bad luck with shards, but then again 5 would be my max.
Every time I tried 6 SoF (or even 6 flying weps) I got many games where I was flooded with shit hands/draws.
Maybe 5 is the all-proof number, but 4 is usually enough.

I kept records of SoG heals: on average I get from 60 to 120 HP per game (aka your EHP per game is 160-220).
Improved Heal heals for much less overall, but has the spike heal factor, although I found that would have been relevant in only a few games.
So SoG is more reliable than Heal in the vast majority of situations.
I also tried putting in my Jade Staffs / Vamp Daggs but obviously they conflict with the deck's whole strat due to taking the wep slot and needing Flying.
When animated, Staffs have too low damage to be worth the animating, and Daggers too low HPs to survive; also, animating one of them means you're animating one less Eagle which means 3 less CC and less damage.

So I found it's really down to SoG vs Sanctuary/Miracle when it comes to healing.
I did try a setup with 2 Sanct and a Miracle (+3 pends for the quanta), they work great too. Haven't found noticiable changes in win rate, except Miracle won me one game once against a big rusher deck.

Right now I'm sitting on 85-90% win rate vs AI4 with this:

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5cq 5cq 5cq 5og 5og 5oi 5oi 5oi 5oi 5oi 7ms 7ms 7ms 7ms 7ms 7ms 7ms 7ms 7ms 7ms 7n5 7n5 7n5 7n5 7n5 7n5 7nq 7nq 7nq 7nq 8pn

The only hard counter to the deck I found to be Shard of Wisdom+Phase Dragons in Silver/Gold arena, but haven't seen it in AI4.
Otherwise the only reminder is to wait for 3 SoF before animating when against Rewind/AM users.

I tried FFQ but the win rate is laughable.

And yes I tried without healing. Win rate drops by 15-20%, even if you use 4-5 Chaos Power to bump the damage.
W/o healing, stall + poison and basically any decks with strong healing/rushing will kill you before you unload the strat.
It's slightly faster, but I guess I'm just more obsessed with maximizing win rate than killing 1-2 turns earlier.

I'm trying FGs now, with some success:



But I found I need more healing for FGs to survive until the strat unloads, and +1 SoF due to steals / deflags.

[Ghaladh]

Well, if you are using this deck against something else beside AI4, I am totally with you about the importance of healing. I still think that 6 SoFree would help a lot but, as it is, I bet your deck works just fine. AI4 is hardly a great damage dealer, that's why I wasn't considering healing as an important part of your deck, but if you deal with FG and the arenas it's totally a different story .

I am upset that FFQ doesn't work very well against higher challenges like Gold Arena or FG; I love that card .

[SpikeSpiegel]

Why 6 weapons and only 4 Animate Weapons? Btw, solid, maybe a little bit low on  quanta.

EDIT: nvm, i've seen edited deck.

[Falconian]

Well, if you are using this deck against something else beside AI4, I am totally with you about the importance of healing. I still think that 6 SoFree would help a lot but, as it is, I bet your deck works just fine. AI4 is hardly a great damage dealer, that's why I wasn't considering healing as an important part of your deck, but if you deal with FG and the arenas it's totally a different story .

I am upset that FFQ doesn't work very well against higher challenges like Gold Arena or FG; I love that card .

I'm upset about FFQ being semi-irrelevant now too.
I remember when FFQ decks were bread and butter of Elements.

Btw more dead FGs:

Spoiler for Graviton:

Spoiler for Neptune:

I was hoping someone could make a working Miracle-based version for FGs, that'd be great.
Gravi, Neptune and Chaos Lord are pretty easy with this deck, but others are dangerous.

[Ghaladh]

I was hoping someone could make a working Miracle-based version for FGs, that'd be great.
Gravi, Neptune and Chaos Lord are pretty easy with this deck, but others are dangerous.

Morte, Miracle, Paradox and Divine Glory (not sure about the latter) use Miracle in their decks, hence only OTK decks will be truly effective against them.

Octane, with its Unstable Gas, is pretty much unbeatable; you can't possibly have enough PC to keep him at bay.

Fire Queen, Ferox and Elidnis have too much healing per round, so you need much more damage to put them down. Perhaps Twin Universe or some buff might help you.

Hecate deals unpreventable damage. Your healing will not suffice against her. More healing is the only way you can survive the fight against her.

Seism, Rainbow and Dark Matter will kill you before you will be able to do react properly. Too much denial and PC make them horribly annoying. Just skip them.

Jezebel with his Nymphs will create Unstable Gas and infect your creatures. I don't think your deck would be able to beat him.

Dream Catcher will use any sort of effects on your creatures and SoFree will not protect them. You need a way to replace the killed creatures. Immaterial creatures will help you or fractal... but that would mean adding more cards to your deck.

Hermes is just too fast. So far I only beat him with PDial; anything else seems ineffective.

Skorpio and Serket are not truly hard, but you need to include a few Purify if you want to survive the fight.

That's all I can think about at the moment.

[UndeadSpider1990]

The birds need to fly or they won't benefit from SoFre.

I played...

-1 Fog +1 Flying Weapon -1 Owl's Eye +1 Shard of Freedom -1 Shard of Gratitude +1 Druidic Staff

[AD TienzuStorm]

The birds need to fly or they won't benefit from SoFre.

I played...

-1 Fog +1 Flying Weapon -1 Owl's Eye +1 Shard of Freedom -1 Shard of Gratitude +1 Druidic Staff

Why Druidic Staff? The last thing you need is another weapon. The cost isn't worth the clunkiness it causes IMO. Otherwise, I agree with your changes.

[Monox D. I-Fly]

Why Druidic Staff? The last thing you need is another weapon. The cost isn't worth the clunkiness it causes IMO. Otherwise, I agree with your changes.

To fill the weapon slot when the birds are already flying?

[AD TienzuStorm]

Why Druidic Staff? The last thing you need is another weapon. The cost isn't worth the clunkiness it causes IMO. Otherwise, I agree with your changes.

To fill the weapon slot when the birds are already flying?

And that helps because..? It's not like weapons are harder to target with PC compared to other Permanents.

[Monox D. I-Fly]

Why Druidic Staff? The last thing you need is another weapon. The cost isn't worth the clunkiness it causes IMO. Otherwise, I agree with your changes.

To fill the weapon slot when the birds are already flying?

And that helps because..? It's not like weapons are harder to target with PC compared to other Permanents.

My Arctic Octopus can't Freeze weapons. For my deck, the only way to block a weapon is using Ice Lance, and even that only has 30% chance. And I believe that there are other mono-decks which don't even have a method to block a weapon.