Lock him dry.

[Gandora]

Hi
This is my first Pestal Deck. I know that there exist a lot of variations, most of them have a vampire and a lobo.
Mine is not meant to beat any FG's (though I beat Elidnis and another one with this ). Anyway, here it is:

by Gandora

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I tried to build a deck that forces the enemy to discard a lot using Silence (or Nightmare). The chain should be on going until I can fractal
the pests. In other words: lock him until you can use fractal on a Pest. It actually doesn't work badly, I just wanted to hear some feedback
Especially from people with more experience playing Pest Decks

The steal is for the case the enemy plays a dangerous shield or weapon before he's locked.
With 23 Pest and an Eclipse and no shield on the opponents side, you only need 3 (more) turns to win.
The common vampire is more or less replaced by Nightmare.

If you have any suggestions on how to make the idea work better I'd be glad to hear them

[pikachufan2164]

***TRIALS RESPONSE***

It's an interesting concept, but I've found that the Nightmare + Silence combo is actually kind of counter-intuitive. Yes, you do get to deny draws and force discards, but that's not really going to get you anywhere because the cards will eventually get played. I've experimented with a Phase Recluse + Silence + Nightmare deck in the past, and the main problem that I saw there was the lack of damage before my denial ran out -- I suspect that your deck might run into the same problem.

Because the deck is trying to do more than one thing at once, it interferes with the mindset of Pestal. Ideally, you want to set up fast Pests and Fractals for a lockdown, followed by Vampires to ensure that you outheal any damage your opponent has gotten played before the initial lockdown. (Note that the Vampire Fractal aspect is what lets you win games if the initial lockdown strategy fails) Having only 5 Pests and 3 Fractals isn't going to cut it, even with the added early denial. The lack of quanta sources is also going to hurt you in the long run. Even though you've included more early denial to make up for that, Nightmare and Silence still cost quanta to play and reduce your chances of an early lockdown. A standard Pestal usually plays with at least 13 Pends to ensure a fast initial Fractal of Pests.

Here's a Nightmare Pestal variation that you can try out. I've removed the Silences, as you want to make sure that you have enough quanta to cast Fractal as early as possible. 6 Pests and 2 Vampires for better combo control (I would have liked a third Vampire to reduce the chance of not drawing enough damage post-lockdown), and some extra quanta to get the combo going faster. This deck goes with only 12 Darkness Pends, but quanta is a bit more expendable due to Pests, and Nightmare does help slow down the opponent's early game if you play it after they play out their initial pillars and early-game cards.

by pikachufan2164

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[Gandora]

***TRIALS RESPONSE***

It's an interesting concept, but I've found that the Nightmare + Silence combo is actually kind of counter-intuitive. Yes, you do get to deny draws and force discards, but that's not really going to get you anywhere because the cards will eventually get played. I've experimented with a Phase Recluse + Silence + Nightmare deck in the past, and the main problem that I saw there was the lack of damage before my denial ran out -- I suspect that your deck might run into the same problem.

Because the deck is trying to do more than one thing at once, it interferes with the mindset of Pestal. Ideally, you want to set up fast Pests and Fractals for a lockdown, followed by Vampires to ensure that you outheal any damage your opponent has gotten played before the initial lockdown. (Note that the Vampire Fractal aspect is what lets you win games if the initial lockdown strategy fails) Having only 5 Pests and 3 Fractals isn't going to cut it, even with the added early denial. The lack of quanta sources is also going to hurt you in the long run. Even though you've included more early denial to make up for that, Nightmare and Silence still cost quanta to play and reduce your chances of an early lockdown. A standard Pestal usually plays with at least 13 Pends to ensure a fast initial Fractal of Pests.

Here's a Nightmare Pestal variation that you can try out. I've removed the Silences, as you want to make sure that you have enough quanta to cast Fractal as early as possible. 6 Pests and 2 Vampires for better combo control (I would have liked a third Vampire to reduce the chance of not drawing enough damage post-lockdown), and some extra quanta to get the combo going faster. This deck goes with only 12 Darkness Pends, but quanta is a bit more expendable due to Pests, and Nightmare does help slow down the opponent's early game if you play it after they play out their initial pillars and early-game cards.

by Gandora

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First of all, I'm simply AMAZED of the effort you put into your answer!!     
Thank you so much! I'm really happy about this!

I tried it in trainer, it was incredible how fast the enemy was locked O.o
Actually it was so much fun that I kept playing it for more than 30 minutes

I thank you really much for giving me deeper information of how a pestal deck is meant to work and what the role of the vampire is (never thought he'd be that important...)
I also appreciate that you kept my idea letting the nightmares in
As you stated in the second paragraph my version really tried to do more than it can handle and that's why after comparing them in some tests your lockdown indeed was faster.
I kind of still miss my silences though as it was fun to see the enemy discarding but I guess there are decks in which silence fits better.
I actually can't do much more than to agree and learn from what you wrote me

That's why I want to thank you one more time for this elaborated answer and I'll surely keep in mind your advice when I have the cards to build a pestal deck

[Poker Alho]

i LOVE denial xD
the vampires are there to be fractalled too i suppose? massive healing/damage source... i like it

[UnderneathTheLens]

***TRIALS RESPONSE***

It's an interesting concept, but I've found that the Nightmare + Silence combo is actually kind of counter-intuitive. Yes, you do get to deny draws and force discards, but that's not really going to get you anywhere because the cards will eventually get played. I've experimented with a Phase Recluse + Silence + Nightmare deck in the past, and the main problem that I saw there was the lack of damage before my denial ran out -- I suspect that your deck might run into the same problem.

Because the deck is trying to do more than one thing at once, it interferes with the mindset of Pestal. Ideally, you want to set up fast Pests and Fractals for a lockdown, followed by Vampires to ensure that you outheal any damage your opponent has gotten played before the initial lockdown. (Note that the Vampire Fractal aspect is what lets you win games if the initial lockdown strategy fails) Having only 5 Pests and 3 Fractals isn't going to cut it, even with the added early denial. The lack of quanta sources is also going to hurt you in the long run. Even though you've included more early denial to make up for that, Nightmare and Silence still cost quanta to play and reduce your chances of an early lockdown. A standard Pestal usually plays with at least 13 Pends to ensure a fast initial Fractal of Pests.

Here's a Nightmare Pestal variation that you can try out. I've removed the Silences, as you want to make sure that you have enough quanta to cast Fractal as early as possible. 6 Pests and 2 Vampires for better combo control (I would have liked a third Vampire to reduce the chance of not drawing enough damage post-lockdown), and some extra quanta to get the combo going faster. This deck goes with only 12 Darkness Pends, but quanta is a bit more expendable due to Pests, and Nightmare does help slow down the opponent's early game if you play it after they play out their initial pillars and early-game cards.

by DarkGDude

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I think if you replace 4 darkness pends with 4 aether towers, you can get the first fractal about 1 turn earlier, on average.

by DarkGDude

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