As a newbie, grinding in this game felt really slow, so I put some thought into winning games
faster. My goal with this deck is to minimize turns, and minimize inactivity.
Also, I was not happy after being raped by some Level 3 AIs with Aether Dimension Shield decks and Darkness Devourer decks, so I wanted to be able to defend against those 'denial' decks in particular. Here's what I've come up with. It wins quite a lot on Level 3, and does okay in PvP:
4x Nova
6x Immolation
4x Ash Eater
3x Crimson Dragon
2x Fire Shield
4x Deflagration
2x Rain of Fire
2x Lava Golem
3x Photon - Light (free)
3x Chaos Seed - Entropy 1
1x Boneyard - Death 3
1x Poison - Death 1
1x Chrysora - Water 1 (skill Death 1)
1x Graviton Fire Eater - Gravity 2 (skill Fire 1)
1x Blessing - Light 3
1x Dragonfly - Air 1
1x Deja Vu - Time 1 (skill Time 1)
1x Steal - Darkness 3
1x Lobotomizer - Aether 3
This list is
very rainbow, on purpose. It quickly generates a small number of each quanta, so my criteria for choosing a lot of these cards was: "do I have a better use for that element?"
The only element that I'm guaranteed to have a steady supply of is Fire, so all expensive cards are Fire, and I try to minimize dependence on other elements. There are two exceptions which I'll discuss later.
How It Plays:
What it needs to get started is a cheap minion to Immolate. This can happen one of three ways:
Photon (cha-ching!)[/li] Nova + one of the cheap guys (Ash Eater, Chrysora, Deja Vu, Dragonfly)[/li] Free Fire quantum from Mark of Fire + Ash Eater[/li]
The important thing about the above conditions is that the first two work on round 1. If my hand is okay, I can play an Immolate on round 1, giving me enough Fire quanta to play a Lava Golem (plus one or two Earth quanta for him to eat). If it's a great hand, I'll be able to Immolate two minions and play a Crimson Dragon on round 1.
And that's the key to this deck: it can hit hard before the opponent has time to get his strategy in place. This way I've been able to reliably beat Aether shield decks on Level 3.
Reasoning Behind Choices:
Fire Shield: It's my defense against Parasites, Lycanthrapes, and stolen copies of my own creatures (all of which are weak defensively).[/li] Lobotomizer: I asked myself, what quanta are you NOT using for anything? 3 Aether for 5 damage seems pretty good, and if I hit five Nova/Immolates early, it can save me from an early Otyugh or FFQ. Mainly it's there because I'm not using Aether for anything else, though.[/li] Lava Golems: I generate 2-5 quanta of Earth, so one of these will be well fed, and they do good damage even unfed.[/li] Steal: Can be game-changing, and I'm not using Darkness for anything else.[/li] Blessing: Damage + protection = sweet, and I'm not using Light for anything else.[/li] Boneyard: I burn through my minions, and once I get Fire Shield up, both sides suffer losses. A few free Skeletons makes the late game easier.[/li] Poison: Maybe this one should go away. I thought of it as a nice cheap source of damage, but it may not add enough to justify its space in the deck.[/li]
What Needs Help:
The deck feels too big. I'll bet it could be narrowed down considerably, and made more reliable.
I'm using Death for three things (Chrysora, Poison, Boneyard), when really I can't expect enough Death quanta to use all of them. Chrysora can be Immolated, so it's not a total waste even if I can't feed it, but that might not be good enough.
This deck is very vulnerable to Otyughs and Thunderstorms. I could avoid the Thunderstorms by keeping minions in my hand until I'm ready to Immolate them, but that goes against my core strategy, which is to maximize damage by getting creatures out as quickly as possible.
I'm not sure the spells are the best I could pick. Deflagration is great against an early weapon or shield, and it works well as a delaying tactic if I see an opponent with very few pillars up in round 1. Rain of Fire works nicely against the same foes that Fire Shield kills, so maybe a smaller deck would give me more reliable Fire Shield instead.