After spending 20+ hours in the Arena in hopes of finding something that worked for
Trials Phase I, this finally succeeded.
As I played against over 9000 Firestalls and Immorushes (seriously, no exaggeration here), I discovered a few important things:
- A successful deck must not be reliant on permanents other than Bone Wall -- almost every deck using Fire cards will be running close to 12 Explosions, and many decks using Darkness cards will be packing a good number of Steals
- Bone Wall can be used to 'shield' some permanents from destruction -- if all of the permanents you use are lower on the "AI Permanent Destruction Priority List" than Bone Wall, then you're all set
- A successful deck must either be able to outrush its opponents through sheer damage potential, or have enough denial (quanta denial, draw denial, creature control, permanent control, etc.) to slow its opponents damage potential down to a crawl
- Creatures used in a successful deck must be resilient to creature control -- Firestalls are known to carry 12 Rage Potions, 12 Fire Lances, and at least 4 Rain of Fires
In most cases, a hyper-aggressive rush, a denial-based deck, or a sturdy poison or neurotoxin stall is the way to go. My ticket to victory was of the rushing variety.
Hover over cards for details, click for permalink
6u2 6u2 6u2 6u2 6u2 6u2 808 808 808 808 808 808 808 808 808 808 808 80b 80b 80b 80b 80b 80e 80e 80g 80g 80g 80g 80g 80g 8pjThe fastest and most cost-effective creature Aether can pump out is the Phase Recluse, so I capitalized on its combination of low cost (4
) and high power (7 attack). However, playing just Recluses left them open to all kinds of creature control (I'm looking at you, Firestalls with 12 Rage Potions and 12 Fire Lances), so I either needed more creatures to spam, or creatures that wouldn't die quite so easily. I opted for a combination of the two, with Twin Universe and Chaos Power.
The deck's strategy is pretty simple: play one Recluse, dump a whole bunch of Chaos Powers on it to make a really buff Recluse, then TU away and play the rest of the Recluses when you have the quanta to. Electrocutor is there for creatures with abilities that impede your ability to rush (Paradox, Antimatter, Devour, Freeze, etc.) and also slow down Growth creatures (like Spirits, Steam Machines, Firemasters, etc.).
It's surprising how many decks will crumple at the sight of at two or three Recluses with 15+ attack that appear by turn 3 or 4 :>
A big part of the decision-making process is to decide when to go for playing a Recluse, and when to save up for the TU next turn when you're in the awkward 4-5
quanta range. This deck is not as mindless as it seems at first
Oddly enough, this managed to breeze through Gold and Silver on its first try (probably because I didn't get any Firestalls or fast enough Immorushes
). Bronze took the most time to complete because it was filled with Dim Shield chaining decks.
Heavy-CC decks (Firestall, etc.) can be partially dealt with by waiting until you have a Recluse, at least 2-3 Chaos Powers, and a few TUs before playing the combo so that you rush out a bunch of Recluses with 10+ HP.
Major weaknesses of this deck include: Antimatter, Maxwell's Demon (usually), Purple Nymph, Gravity Shield, Otyugh (situationally), Bone Wall, Basilisk Blood, Auburn Nymph, Fire Bolt, Rage Potion, Freeze, Arctic Squid, Wings, Reverse Time, Dimensional Shield.
(Essentially anything that can kill the buffed Recluses, prevent them from doing damage, or otherwise remove them from the playing field)Pros- Fast games
- Relatively stable
- Fun (come on, you know you want to TU 20+ attack creatures
)
Cons- Firestalls are the bane of this deck
- Non-damage-based creature control is a hard counter
- No permanent control for those times when your opponents spam shields
- One-dimensional; there is little to no defense
