Water Damage Dealing with Gravity Momentum

[estava]

Hi folks. It has been a while. I recently came back to Elements and I tried some new ideas. Spent around 30k gold upgrading some cards and trying them with my standard Water deck.

I was meaning to post my cards, but as I tried new ideas and lost, mostly playing on the Bronze arena, I had to try again until I was happy. It seems that the Gravity Pendulum finally gave the deck some balance. Even in the worst case scenario of drawing the Pendulums, since they alternate with giving Water quanta, on the second turn they start providing some much needed Water quanta so there's a little hope of recovering ground.

Hover over cards for details, click for permalink

Deck import code : [Select]

74a 74a 75m 75m 7gk 7gk 7gk 7gk 7gk 7gk 7gk 7gk 7gk 7gk 7gk 7gk 7gm 7gm 7gm 7gm 7gm 7gm 7gn 7gn 7gn 7go 7go 7go 7go 7go 7gp 7gp 7gt 7gt 7gu 7h8 7h8 8pp

I have a feeling that it's never enough. But then we do start the fights at arena against opponents who have some advantages on their side with extra HP, quanta and so on. It seems as though if they just had upgraded cards they would always whip out our cards.

Until now I had always trusted in my mono Water deck, mostly for the rush feeling and for AI3 farming. I was never too fond of waiting for fights to finish, so the quicker they ended the better it was. But at the Bronze arena I started running into Aether decks with dimensional shields a lot. So I came up with the idea of using the Momentum cards to get past them. Luck though sometimes sucks, as right when we need the combination to work, it seems that we never get the right cards.

For now, I am happy with the deck against Aether decks. At least it gives us a little something. Like, play a Permafrost shield to buy some time. Or if they never come, maybe try a rush of Nimphs. And if that doesn't work, maybe get the needed Momentum cards out before long. Use Lances to kill some low level Psions. Or use Lances to freeze the Lobotomizer weapon. You could also use Congeal on Psions. And for a starter, the Crawlers are always a good card, not too expensive in Quanta and they can draw an early Lightening that could kill a more costly card. Lastly, the Puffer Fish might also lend a poisoning hand.

Momentum can also help with getting past other kinds of annoying shields. And it's an extra point of attack and HP at least.

This deck is not one of the quickest ones to play, but at arena with opponents who have more HP and so on, just going all out with a rush deck could also have its downsides.

I like that most fights still end before 10 turns though. Also it's quick the play the cards since there aren't many choices, besides playing the Momentum and using the Nimph power at the right time. It takes some time to get used to them.

In one of my previous ideas, I tried to use the Poseidon weapon, but having to watch for when it was ready to fire by having enough quanta was very hard when I was just spamming cards. In fact taking too much time to play the moves was one of the worst things to happen when I changed away from my standard Mono deck. Luckily when I settled on this version of the deck, I was already getting used to the new "maintenance" needs. :-)

Nimphs can be very strong. With them, winning a fight in 6 rounds is possible. But after we have a Nimph on the board, the second one becomes a little useless, with all of the Crawlers that we can play and the other Nimphs that we can spawn by using the Nimph power. Just spawn Water Nymphs if you can. The Gravity Nymph is kind of useless, and could be eaten by "devour" types of creatures.

My win rate with this deck at the Bronze arena seems to be over 80%. Enough to have fun with and get those special spins most of the time.

I actually love the Bronze arena with the different types of enemies. Sometimes we think we are going to win and then lose. Like against anti-matter enemies. Against them, spamming Nimphs can be great. And timely Lances and Congeals can keep their Nymphs away. As always you need to be mindful for when you play some cards. Against a Dark deck who would most likely steal your Permafrost shield and turn it against you, maybe don't play it most of the time either. But against other kinds of enemies like Life, an early Permafrost can save you from getting rushed.

Good luck!

[CuCN]

One thing that's often done in a duo deck where one of the elements is only needed in small quantity is to make the mark that element and then use all towers of the other element. In this case it would mean changing the mark to gravity and using all water towers. That way, you don't need to draw both the gravity pendulum and the momentum to use it.

[StreptoFire]

One thing that's often done in a duo deck where one of the elements is only needed in small quantity is to make the mark that element and then use all towers of the other element. In this case it would mean changing the mark to gravity and using all water towers. That way, you don't need to draw both the gravity pendulum and the momentum to use it.

Yes. This technique is called "splashing" a second element on your deck.

Also, putting a mark of fire and swapping the unstoppables for a few deflags may work better against mono aether.

[estava]

Thanks for the inputs. I like the deck so far, so I am not going to change just now. To show you how it performs, I have recorded a video showing the deck at the Bronze arena:

I also have a variation of it with Quantum Pillars instead of Gravity Pendulums as the defending deck at the Platinum arena. The record so far has been 10:0. It was also having success at the Gold arena before I leveled up to Platinum.

Yesterday after I posted the deck I had a bad spell of 4 or so losses in a row. Very humbling. But then I started winning again a lot.

I used to like more Water Quantum towers, since if it lasted a lot, the extra quanta used to help with the Lances against the enemy HP at the end of the fight. I noticed though that it is now capped at 75, so I am fine with not having more of them. Then again, the defending arena deck can have 2x Water Quanta production, which is enough to get all critters out before long.

[Blacksmith]

How did you record that? I like how you increased speed! also spacebar might speed things up

[estava]

I recorded it using a program called Camtasia. Then when producing the video I increased the speed to 2x. Thanks for the tip on the spacebar. I am so used to the mouse though. :-)

I also tried to record the audio. But I messed that up. I don't even know how it would play on 2x the speed.

I have updated the deck to the following:

Hover over cards for details, click for permalink

Deck import code : [Select]

74a 74a 74a 75m 75m 7gk 7gk 7gk 7gk 7gk 7gk 7gk 7gk 7gk 7gk 7gk 7gk 7gm 7gm 7gm 7gm 7gm 7gm 7gn 7gn 7gn 7go 7go 7go 7go 7go 7gp 7gp 7gt 7gt 7h8 7h8 8pp

One of the main differences is that I dropped the Puffer Fish and added another Unstoppable for Momentum. I think that's the only difference, but I am not sure. I was trying other changes, but I had to come back to this deck since I was losing easy games when testing the changes.

With an extra Unstoppable, I think we increase the chance of making the combination to work. Just a single Gravity Pendulum could provide enough quanta for the 3 Unstoppable cards before long.

The dragons are great for when we have lots of quanta midfight and against the shields the block other critters. I found that without the dragons I was missing punch when I tried to play with more Puffer Fish. I tested up to 3 Puffer Fish, but the result was underwhelming.

Also there is a fine balance to make the Nymphs to work. If we drop towers, it's possible that the Nymphs can't do their multiplication job properly. So I have to keep enough towers for them as well.

I tested again the Shard of Focus, but without a change of mark it's nearly impossible to make it to work. Even when I got the shard first hand, it was too late by the time I could have used it, as I waited for the Pendulums to come.

I also tried to learn about the Dry Spell. I was underwhelmed in my tests.