I started today a test on earth element, 100 % mono deck, so avoiding the graboid/shrieker rush.
Here is my deck:
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58o 58o 58o 58o 58o 58o 58o 58o 58o 58o 58o 58r 58r 58u 58u 58u 58u 58u 58u 591 591 591 591 591 593 593 593 593 594 594 8pm
At 500 score I took the Pulverizer and tried to blend it in.
Results and conclusions are like this:
1. As mono deck, at worst times I get only 2 pillars at start and quite often an earthquake. Depending on how many pillars the opponent gets from start I can partially or completly annoy him by cutting off his resources. As dual (changing mark to gravity and adding pulverizer) I was many times in the case of getting 2 pillars, using the earthquake in round 3, loosing like that not only the cut-off on the opponent but also not beeing able to discard creatures due to low resources.
2. The advantage I personally think this deck brings is eliminating for a certain degree the shields problem. You will say that involving Pulverizer would do it better. Well, atm since I have only one I refuse to use it since is completely unreliable.
Now, comparing with Shrieker/Graboid rush, I tried it and when I was against shields (specially Dimension Shield) you are totally dead. If opponent gets two in a row is a loss already. Well, with this deck you get a chance to survive. Due to the high quanta generation and the Stone Skin, you can survive and even win, depending how late you can use those.
Current score is 83 wins, 14 losses, so over 85% win rate. Also note that smart use of stone skin can win you extra income, since the max electrum wining lloks like this for AI3:
- 99 hit points - 20 electrum
-100 HP - 40 electrum (full HP makes it double)
What happens with stone skin is that if you end with more then 100HP (even if not full HP) you get awarded with extra electrum, like 1 electum extra for each 10 extra HP over 100. For example having 158 HP left will get you 25 electrum if not full HP, or 50 as full HP.