Looking for Aether/?? deck that ISN'T about Fractal

[WhiteTigerShiro]

Here's the deck I'm currently running:

Code: [Select]

6rn 6rn 808 808 808 808 808 808 808 808 808 808 808 808 808 808 80c 80c 80c 80c 80c 80d 80d 80d 80d 80d 80d 80e 80e 80f 80f 80f 80f
It works well enough, the only problem is that it's weakness is very glaring (especially in Top50 farming):  Permanent Control (both the lack thereof, and when facing it).  Simply put, if my opponent is running any form of control this deck is guaranteed to lose.  Likewise, if my opponent has permanents, it's a struggle at best.

I've been looking for a way to modify the deck to splash-in a little Fire or Darkness to fix this, but since Aether has virtually zero synergy outside of Fractal it's hard to find a working combination.  Too much of the other color and it becomes harder to get enough Aether Quanta to do what the deck is meant to do, too little and I can't seem to get the quanta to cast the Perm Control.  Meanwhile, adding more cards makes it harder for the deck to flow, not enough creatures hit the field fast enough and it's harder to draw enough Shields to keep going.

[Unholy Spirit]

Code: [Select]

6rn 6rn 7t9 7t9 808 808 808 808 808 808 808 808 808 808 808 808 808 80c 80d 80d 80d 80d 80d 80d 80e 80f 80f 80f 80f 80f
You could use a Fire Mark and Explosions instead.

So for instance, if you wanted something a little closer to your deck...

Code: [Select]

6rn 6rn 7dm 7dm 7dm 808 808 808 808 808 808 808 808 808 808 808 808 808 80c 80c 80c 80d 80d 80d 80d 80d 80d 80e 80e 80f 80f 80f 80fIt might very well be better, since unlike my deck, yours can't really make good use of many permanents, and in the case of a shield or weapon, it might even be a hindrance.

This is the same thing I did with my Despair deck.

http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,10229.0.html

[WhiteTigerShiro]

An interesting idea.  I'd forgotten about the whole setting your mark to get a small amount of a less-used Quanta thing.  Definitely a toss-up between Steal and Explosion though.  On the one hand Steal would require finicky timing to destroy his shields (Steal it right when I would be playing a Shield anyway), but has the nice side-effect of being able to steal other perms that look nice when there's no shield to worry about.  Meanwhile, Fire lets me just burn the Shield right away without having to delay any.

[Unholy Spirit]

Yes, it certainly is an underused idea.  I personally try to go out of my way a little bit to use a mark for which I have no towers.  It actually works very well in many situations, as it manages quanta much more efficiently and can easily reduce the chance of an unusable draw.  As for the question of Fire or Darkness, they differ in quite a few ways, but I would probably suggest Fire for your deck.  Darkness works for mine because it uses a Quantum Tower and Fractals, because certain permanents like Feral Bond work very nicely with the deck, and because the multiple copies of Hope can very well mitigate the harm of stealing their shield.  But even with those factors, people argue that Fire works better.  For yours, I would definitely recommend Fire.  It's unfortunate that not many other Fire cards would work well in your deck, because Explosion is very cheap and you'll probably have plenty of Fire quanta left over, 10-15+ at the end of each game. It is for this reason that I wouldn't recommend upgrading Deflagration early if you'd rather use the coins for something else.

[jmdt]

Yeah I tried the version with steals when I first started with great results, atleast better than mono aether.  With steals, having immortals is also not as necessicary.

[Unholy Spirit]

Keep in mind that I slapped these decks together in a few minutes.  While they'll still be pretty good, the ratios might be a bit off.

[jmdt]

Keep in mind that I slapped these decks together in a few minutes.  While they'll still be pretty good, the ratios might be a bit off.

I find 3 steals are optimal.  Also the immortal isn't needed over a 6th phase dragon since gravity shield is no longer a problem

[Unholy Spirit]

To me, it was never about the gravity shield.  I think that the #1 most overlooked thing in this game is the value of variety.  Each different card in your hand represents a different choice you could make.  You're rather limited when you only have dragons, shields, and pillars in your deck.  Simplicity is not the way to go, unless you want a game that requires little or no thought.  Say you had 21 Aether quanta...you could play both a dragon and an immortal.  Or say that your opponent only has 1-5 health points left (after you would damage them, if you have dragons out) and you're really low on quanta...although I realize that this particular situation is pretty rare, it still presents another possibility entirely.  Or maybe you're in a situation where they have a Gravity Shield and you don't have or can't play a Steal...there are really virtually infinite situations in which an Immortal would be preferable to a Dragon.  Plus, the damage to cost ratio is exactly the same.  Of course, the dragon is worth more because it's a single card.  Two Immortals equals a Dragon in combined attack and cost, but you'd have one less card to play...and like I said before, having more cards is very important (specifically a wider variety).  So there are drawbacks, but the benefits outweigh the costs.  It's for that reason that I would highly recommend at least one Immortal, up to two.

[jmdt]

To me, it was never about the gravity shield.  I think that the #1 most overlooked thing in this game is the value of variety.  Each different card in your hand represents a different choice you could make.  You're rather limited when you only have dragons, shields, and pillars in your deck.  Simplicity is not the way to go, unless you want a game that requires little or no thought.  Say you had 21 Aether quanta...you could play both a dragon and an immortal.  Or say that your opponent only has 1-5 health points left (after you would damage them, if you have dragons out) and you're really low on quanta...although I realize that this particular situation is pretty rare, it still presents another possibility entirely.  Or maybe you're in a situation where they have a Gravity Shield and you don't have or can't play a Steal...there are really virtually infinite situations in which an Immortal would be preferable to a Dragon.  Plus, the damage to cost ratio is exactly the same.  Of course, the dragon is worth more because it's a single card.  Two Immortals equals a Dragon in combined attack and cost, but you'd have one less card to play...and like I said before, having more cards is very important (specifically a wider variety).  So there are drawbacks, but the benefits outweigh the costs.  It's for that reason that I would highly recommend at least one Immortal, up to two.

I like the most damage potential possible and 6 dragons is the key to this.  This deck is light on damage already and needs the dragons.  The only reason to use immortal to have a way around gravity shield in a mono aether build.  The steals replace the immortals in this deck and make gravity shield, as well as fire buckler, permafrost, and carapace a non issue as you you can steal them between chaining shields.  It also allows you to pick up SoG and other irritating cards.  Simplicity and having multiple copies of key cards in a deck is always the way to go.

If you think the immortal is better, run 50-100 games of testing with both versions and let me know which fares better.  I bet there's ~0.1 turn difference if any, and probably going toward the side of the dragon.

[Unholy Spirit]

Depends if the opponent has 100 or 200 health points.