Mono Dark Elder Grinder

[El]

Before I show you the deck I think I should mention that I know it's slow.  Speed is one of many considerations I have to weigh.  I only found this game a week ago but I have read some articles on the wiki about speed decks and played around a bit with lava golem rushes and death rushes and life rushes.  I don't like them that much, and I'll explain that more below, but I thought I should address the elephant in the room before I get to the particular deck I'm using.

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5uk 5uk 5uk 5uk 5uk 5uk 5uk 5uk 5uk 5uk 5uk 5uk 5um 5um 5um 5um 5um 5um 5up 5up 5up 5up 5uq 5uq 5us 5us 5us 5us 5ut 5ut 5ut 5ut 5ut 5ut
These are the cards I actually use right now, I'm new and all my upgrades are going into a god killer deck right now so I won't be upgrading any cards for this deck in the near future.

Things I like about this deck:

• It wins a lot, 93% (28 of 30) over the 30 games I kept track of, which seems pretty decent.
• It gets EM a lot, 43% (13 of 30) of those 30 games were EM games.  So even though it's a bit slow, it at least partially makes up for that with winning big a fair amount.
• It does a lot of different things.  It has creature control, spell damage and healing in drain life, it has permanent control in steal, it has quanta denial in devourers and steal, and obviously it has creatures.  This makes it a bit more interesting to play than a straight rush because you have to make some decisions about how to use your cards. 

Things I don't like about this deck:

• It's too big.  I just can't decide where to pare back.
• If I don't get a Nightfall out fast enough, I do damage excruciatingly slowly.  On the other hand, running with 3 seems excessive when they don't stack.

The Elder decks I have the most trouble with are the fire/water deck and the rainbow deck.  Fire/water because I can't seem to slow down its rush enough (this would obviously not be a good deck against a good rush deck) and because it has so much control.  Rainbow because my quanta denial doesn't really work.  I still win more than I lose against those decks.

So what I'd like help on is paring it down to 30 cards, any thoughts on switching the vamps out for gargoyles, and whether you think I should then change my mark to earth.  As soon as I can get a vampire stiletto I'll obviously throw that into the deck.

I would of course appreciate any other thoughts you might have as well.

Thanks!

[TheonlyrealBeef]

A few thought about the deck:

• If it's speed you want, pillars/pendulums work better than devourers. Devourers might deny your opponent's quanta at the same time (making them good for longer battles), but cost quanta before they get you quanta.
• You might want to consider splitting up your Pillars into 50% Pendulum, 50% Pillar. It generates the same amount of quanta as it does now (as long as you keep your Mark at Darkness), but makes it less vulnerable to Earthquake.
• In longer, drawn out battles, Vampires work better than Gargoyles, because you need that healing to survive, I also wouldn't recommend an Earth Mark unless you could make use of that high hp Gargoyles get from them, should you switch them, for example, by using Liquid Shadow on them afterwards.
• A Dusk Mantle or two wouldn't hurt this deck either (they'd work great).

For getting electrum fast I would recommend faster decks (there exist faster Darkness decks), but this deck is a lot of fun to play (at least for me when I started playing).

[El]

Thanks very much for your reply!

Of course you're right about the pendulums (pendulae? certainly it sounds cooler).  Dusk Mantle might help against the fire/water rush deck, but now I have to figure out even more things to get rid of!  That or I just have to accept having more than 30 cards in my deck.  It's probably not that big a deal.

[toxic heart]

as same as you, im new but i use a mono aether and im grind at lvl 5.

take mind that u deck is slow and no have creature control, only 4 steals that can work beeter for stealing weapons and some bastards shield (FIRE SHIELD) , for a longer battle mix this element with  or something else that have some creature control, is a purpouse not obligation.

i no have a good english because im from chile (spanish idiom) 

[TheonlyrealBeef]

as same as you, im new but i use a mono aether and im grind at lvl 5.

take mind that u deck is slow and no have creature control, only 4 steals that can work beeter for stealing weapons and some bastards shield (FIRE SHIELD) , for a longer battle mix this element with  or something else that have some creature control, is a purpouse not obligation.

i no have a good english because im from chile (spanish idiom) 

Drain Life is perfectly valid creature control.