Dark Force [Gravity/Dark][AI4][EM]

[Caffre]

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55p 55p 55q 55q 55q 55q 562 562 562 5ur 5us 5uu 5uu 5uu 5v0 5v0 5v0 5v0 5v0 5v0 606 606 606 606 606 606 606 606 606 606 744 74b 74b 74b 74i 7t9 7t9 7t9 7te 7ti 8pl

Had a lot of success (and fun!) with this deck, thought I'd share it. 

It's pretty well rounded -- Oty for CC, Steals for permanent control, and Liquid Shadow for healing.  The Quanta balance has been good to me most of the time, but every now and again you just get bad draws.

Not much of an arena deck (Gold/Plat anyway), but great against AI4.

Strategy
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First:

• Usually you want start with getting a doll out to discourage any broad spells (eg.  pandemonium). 
  If you neither have acceleration in your hand or the to play it in the next few turns, play your dagger first instead, to buy some time with its healing.
  Don't forget that if you can wait to play your weapon, you can steal your opponent's first and then play your dagger on that.
• Accelerate your doll, which not only raises its attack each turn, but hurts the opponent as your doll loses health.
  If your opponent has a lot of creatures out by the time you get your doll down (or you see creatures that'll be trouble) save up your  for an Oty before accelerating the doll.
  
• Don't necessarily grant momentum right away: sometimes the negative shield effects actually help you (A couple  dolls against a  Thorn shield nicely poisons your opponent).
  Save your gravity for accelerating, and your momentums for boosting your Oty in a pinch (to eat a large creature), or when the shields are actually blocking your dolls (eg. dimension, hope, etc.)
  
• After getting a doll started, don't throw down lots more if you are short on .  You almost never need more than 2 dolls for a match anyway, and you need your  for Liquid Shadow.
  You don't usually want to grant vamp before you reach 10 ATK power -- more ATK means more heal -- but don't wait too long either or you'll have less turns of healing.
  

At any time:

• If dragons or high-health enemies come out, put out your gravity shield. (--but waiting gives you a chance to steal your enemy's shield first!)
• If you are stuck waiting to draw creatures, use acceleration or liquid shadow to either kill off enemy creatures or ruin their powers (eg. a Squid or SoFo with vamp isn't a threat) to buy you some time.
• The lone Drain Life is a serendipitous boost if you need to reduce an enemy's HP to eat it, or need to bring down your opponents' HP enough to kill it in your  turn.
• Put the cloak on if you are threatened w/ lobotomize or reverse time, or if anything currently critical is at risk.
• Sometimes you have to eat one of your own Otys (Oties?) to be big enough to eat a nasty enemy the next turn.  It's an Oty-eat-Oty world.

Those are the general rules, but do what fits the situation.  I'm surprised at what I've survived with this deck.

Good Against
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• Those annoying dimension shields.  Momentum + damage to your dolls gets around that.
• Most (?) creature control.

Weaknesses
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• Reverse Time is a big one. 
  You might get lucky with a cloak, but an opponent with lots of RT is typically a lost cause.  Steal Eternity every-all-the-time.
• Antimatter can be problematic, esp. if in vampire mode -- but I don't encounter this much.  Typically just waiting a bit longer accelerating and you'll be OK -- though steal the entropy towers to reduce risk of repeat.
• Lobotimize sucks, but isn't necessarily a game over.  Steal or LiqShad the threats.
• Small adrenal creatures.  Accelerate so they die faster and attack less.
• Quantum denial is occasionally an issue.  Fortunately, most of the cards are low cost.
  
  • Steal a Sanctuary pretty much whenever there's even possibility of quanta denial.  It not only heals but protects your quanta.
  • Cloak if earthquakes are coming, or don't play all your towers at once so they only destroy one at a time.
  • Accelerate or LiqShad devourers if you had a bad quanta start.
  • Toss a doll if you have to -- there are a few spares in your deck.
  • Discord is bad news -- steal it ASAP

As mentioned at the outset, sometimes you just get bad draws -- and they tend to be several in a row, but then you're good for a while.  Give the deck a chance, because you can get some nice EMs once you get the hang of it 

Hope this helps someone!

[omegareaper7]

Deck looks starved for quanta.

That aside, accel is better with armagios then it is with voodoo. One extra damage a turn isn't a big deal, especially when they start out weaker to.

[AD TienzuStorm]

Looks interesting, you should probably try and make it into thirty cards though. That way, you can get key cards faster. You'll probably only need five dolls, not six.

Also, remember that usually, at least 1/3 of you deck should be quanta generators (key word: usually).

[Caffre]

Deck looks starved for quanta.

That aside, accel is better with armagios then it is with voodoo. One extra damage a turn isn't a big deal, especially when they start out weaker to.

You're right about the quanta.  I'm toying with exchanging some  pendulums for  towers;  initial results seemed improved.  And it turns out improved  shields cost 2 less , and I'm finding that helps a lot, even with only one improved shield.

The trouble with using armagios instead of dolls:

• Much higher strain on  quanta, which you really need for shields and abilities -- while dolls are cheap and in different quanta pool
• Enemies won't think twice about zapping your armagios -- but they will the dolls since it hurts themselves as well.
• While the dolls don't have as much HP as the armagios, you really don't need the extra HP.  I've never lost a match where I thought "oh if only my doll didn't die so soon".

Looks interesting, you should probably try and make it into thirty cards though. That way, you can get key cards faster. You'll probably only need five dolls, not six.

Also, remember that usually, at least 1/3 of you deck should be quanta generators (key word: usually).

I usually agree -- any more than 30 cards can really bog you down.  However, I find 30-card rush decks can sometimes be too focused; I wanted something a little more versatile/fun/strategic that could survive more situations.  I find 35-40 usually lets you add an extra card type with some added quanta to support it.

I am going to try dropping a doll though, in exchange for a tower

I'm trying a variant now exchanging an Otyugh for one Gravity pull.  Tried adding more pulls, but found that detracted too much from the vamped/accelerated strategy and just ended up destroying my creatures -- once you lose the vamp tactic this deck dies.  Having just one GPull just might help in a pinch; but I don't think it should be part of this deck's main strat.

Currently trying this variant.  Done OK a couple times -- quanta balance feels better, but Black Holes still really....suck.

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55p 55q 55q 55q 55q 55t 562 562 5uk 5uk 5uk 5us 5uu 5uu 5uu 5v0 5v0 5v0 5v0 5v0 606 606 606 606 606 606 606 744 749 74a 74a 74b 74b 74i 7t9 7t9 7t9 7tb 7te 7ti 8pl

Please share if you've had any success with this or your own variant! 

[AD TienzuStorm]

Looks good, quanta is probably still strained..

Also, you should probably post in the Introduce Yourself thing, then you can join a lot of stuff on the forums.

[omegareaper7]

A bit better, but 30 cards is still a better option as mentioned. You can run a duo easily with 30 cards. You could just drop it to 35 if you don't want to go that low.

I honestly feel the deck need at least 3-5 more quanta sources as well. 11 is low for most 30 card decks. Why would it be any good in 40 cards, especially when you need quanta early?

[Keeps]

It's a shame overdrive and vampire replace one another...  so one needs to make sure they over drive the voodoo doll before liquid shadow...  which makes the whole thing kind of clunky.   Still it's a concept not heavily explored because of that and glad you found some fun in it.