Upgrading my fire/poison deck

[cocobingo]

Hi all !
Quite new to Elements ! I've been playing for less than a week but I'm enjoying it !

I have 1500 gold and would like to upgrade a card for the first time !

I have a somewhat peculiar deck I think.
Pure fire, but with a Death Mark, 6 poisons and 2 arsenics. Here is the full description :

Death Mark

death :
6  poisons
2  asrenics

fire :
21 burning pillars
6 crimson dragons
6 fire bolts
5 deflagrations
3 rains of fire
2 fire shields
1 fahrenheit


Total = 52 cards

OK, that's a lot. I know I should have less cards, but actually I'm enjoying my deck as it is.
I'm beating level 3 almost all the time, top 50 about 1 time in 3 or 4.
I started pvp yesterday so I played only ~10 times. I won most of the games, and lost twice against excellent decks (with only upgraded pillars and almost only upgraded cards).
I am having hard times only against decks with firefly queens and boneyard. Sometimes I can beat them if I can deflag the boneyard and rain fire / fire bolt the creatures, but sometimes I just don't have the cards or the quanta.
Against pure upgraded desks with upgraded firefly queens (7 life points), I can do nothing.

So first of all, which card should I upgrade ? Upgraded dragon is tempting me, but there might be a better choice ? Like upgraded fire bolt ?

Then, what do you think about this deck ? I know it has too many cards, but it is hard to take some out without breaking a quite instable equilibrium here. I'd like to add another rain of fire, just hesitating here...

Thanks a lot for your input !

Have fun !

[cocobingo]

Thanks for the advices, they do help !
Indeed, upgrading a rain of fire sounds good. It's really helpful against decks with a lot of creatures and 7 quanta is a lot. I think I will just add an upgraded one, because I was already thinking about adding a normal one.
About building a deck to make money against the false gods, well... I don't know... I am doing well in PvP and I really like my deck, so I think I'll keep playing with it for the moment.
What is the reward for beating a god ? I haven't even dared to fight one for now ! 

[cocobingo]

The way I see it, unless you are running Rainbow, it is really hard to run a deck with more than 35-40 cards. This is the fire deck I use (or rather used before I went rainbow god hunting):

16 Fire Pillars
4 Crimson Dragons
5 Deflagration
6 Fire Bolt
1 Fire Shield
2 Farenheit
2 Rain of Fire
Total 36

Yep, that looks good !
I think I'll try to shorten my deck with yours in mind.
I was not planning to upgrade my poisons for now, so I'll upgrade the rain of fire. I might upgrade another before starting to upgrade the pillars.

Thanks a lot for you advices, very nice to have some return on my deck !

[Mathaos]

The way I see it, unless you are running Rainbow, it is really hard to run a deck with more than 35-40 cards. This is the fire deck I use (or rather used before I went rainbow god hunting):

16 Fire Pillars
4 Crimson Dragons
5 Deflagration
6 Fire Bolt
1 Fire Shield
2 Farenheit
2 Rain of Fire
Total 36

With your deck, I would go with the above, drop one of the Farenheits, and then add the Arsenics and 5 of the poisons (maybe go with the full 6, but my gut says it is a good idea to go with slightly less) to give you a nice round number of 42. You might even get away with dropping an additional dragon (much of your damage will be coming from the poison) and the Fire Shield (In my experience, Fire Shield usually does not have much of an effect on the battle, so it usually just sits in my hand) to drop the number to 40. Trust me when I say that if you are running a primarily mono-fire deck, compactness is a key. You need this so that you can be sure you will have a good chance of drawing your destruction cards when you need them.

As for the upgrade order, the previous posters gave you good advice, though you might consider upgrading a few pillars before upgrading the rain of fires. Just keep in mind that upgrading the poisons makes them cost two, so upgrading them causes your death quanta requirements to increase a fair bit.

[Scaredgirl]

Like Mr. Jellyfish said, you should consider going rainbow and fighting False Gods. And with the money you make in that can be used upgrade this deck. It would take you a lifetime to grind money with this deck because it's not that effective against Gods, and you would be forced to fight level 3's and top-50's for pennies.

[Uncle Jellyfish]

Though it's big, it seems pretty stable to me. I think your best bet is to upgrade your Rain of Fires first, since, once upgraded, the cost will drop from seven to five. Next, upgrade your Pillars into Towers. I know it'll take a while, but if you DO decide to farm the Fake Gods for money (check the rest of the forum for ideas on decks that can beat them effectively), you could upgrade this pretty quickly. If you decide to stay with this deck, upgrade the Fire Bolts after you're done with all of the Pillars. After that, nothing else really needs to be upgraded unless you want to. The Dragons change from 12/3 to 15/2, which makes them killable by unupgraded Otys and Ice Bolts. You could upgrade Deflags into Explosions later, since they cost one less, and Arsenic's upgraded version does four damage instead of two. Take your pick, but get those Rain of Fires up first, and then your Pillars. Hope that helps. =D

[Uncle Jellyfish]

Just keep in mind that upgrading the poisons makes them cost two, so upgrading them causes your death quanta requirements to increase a fair bit.

He's right. I forgot to mention that. If you plan to upgrade your poisons, it might slow down how often you can cast them, so you're probably better off leaving them unupgraded.

[wckz]

Thanks for the advices, they do help !
Indeed, upgrading a rain of fire sounds good. It's really helpful against decks with a lot of creatures and 7 quanta is a lot. I think I will just add an upgraded one, because I was already thinking about adding a normal one.
About building a deck to make money against the false gods, well... I don't know... I am doing well in PvP and I really like my deck, so I think I'll keep playing with it for the moment.
What is the reward for beating a god ? I haven't even dared to fight one for now ! 

God rewards:
- 120 coins for elemental mastery, don't remember without
- 3 spins to win one of their cards (All their cards are upgraded, so it's an upgraded win [Sell this and it makes 1k coins ])
- Being annoyed and vengeful 

[cocobingo]

Just keep in mind that upgrading the poisons makes them cost two, so upgrading them causes your death quanta requirements to increase a fair bit.

He's right. I forgot to mention that. If you plan to upgrade your poisons, it might slow down how often you can cast them, so you're probably better off leaving them unupgraded.

I've been thinking about it, but I'm not sure I agree with this. I have not found the upgraded poison on the wiki, but I guess it gives 4 poison counters for 2 quanta ? I think I've played in PvP against someone who used it on me.
If that is right, apart from playing a quantum-denial deck, with my Mark of Death I'll get an upgraded poison out in two turns, whatever happens. That is just a 2HP loss compared to playing 2 non-upgraded poisons in a row.
I think it would be worth it, because I always end-up with unused death quanta.

Can someone confirm that upgraded poison is 2 death quanta for 4 poison counters ?

Another question : can virus be sacrificed to put a poison counter on players, or only on creatures ?

[cocobingo]

Upgraded Poison gives 3 poison counters for 2 Death Quanta, and no, you can't use Viruses to put poison counters on players. Btw, if you want to know what an upgrade card looks like, just put the card into your inventory, go to the Upgrade Cards screen, and then just mouse over the card you want to see the upgrade for. You'll be able to see the upgrade on the top half of the screen. This works for ALL cards.

Ok thanks for the info.
3 counters for 2 quanta, not sure if it is worth it indeed... I'll think about it when I have the money anyway...

I know about the upgrade card stuff, but I'm at work right now, not a very good place to open elements !

[cocobingo]

I'm at work right now

LOL! Work? I'm guessing you're not in either of the Americas, unless you work a night shift. It's just past 1am here on the West Coast. >.<

You guessed right, Europe calling !

[cocobingo]

Well Europe, welcome to the forums!

Thanks !
Looks like elements is mostly played in the US. Not good for finding duels or PvPs...

Actually (totally off-topic), how are players found for random PvP ?
Most often I fight against players with my level, is this a coincidence or is it the way it works ?