Dark/Aether Fratcal deck

[Uncle Jellyfish]

@Cambadillac

Personally, I would take out a single Obsidian Tower and add in an Obsidian Dragon. That way, late game, if you had to, you could play and Fractal it, and then play a whole handful of them (assuming you aren't full of Pests by then). It is still a devastating deck, and I would hate to play against it (Pests are aptly named, as they are the most annoying creatures in the entire game, to me, because ALL of my decks rely on the Mark >.<").

[Cambadillac]

@Cambadillac

Personally, I would take out a single Obsidian Tower and add in an Obsidian Dragon. That way, late game, if you had to, you could play and Fractal it, and then play a whole handful of them (assuming you aren't full of Pests by then). It is still a devastating deck, and I would hate to play against it (Pests are aptly named, as they are the most annoying creatures in the entire game, to me, because ALL of my decks rely on the Mark >.<").

Good call.  Late game, i will easily have the quanta to drop like 5 dragons.  true dat!

[vrt]

Simple = better.


You could change the mark to Earth and add in 2 earthquakes, that'd pretty much guarantee the late-game control.

[PuppyChow]

Simple = better.


You could change the mark to Earth and add in 2 earthquakes, that'd pretty much guarantee the late-game control.

That looks suspiciously close to my deck >_>. I would make mark aether though.

[vrt]

Simple = better.


You could change the mark to Earth and add in 2 earthquakes, that'd pretty much guarantee the late-game control.

That looks suspiciously close to my deck >_>. I would make mark aether though.

I know, it's what I get for not checking the forums before playing around in the trainer. Always someone to beat me to it. :p

[BluePriest]

I tried a siphon life version but found that I missed to many possible pests holding them in hand.

Yeah. In that screeny, I had discarded about 4 pests.

Hey zanz, to make fractal even more OP, can you extend the number of creature slots to 30? kthx .

Nah, the game would lag too much, why not increase the hand size to 15 instead

[Shadowjack]

Did some play testing with below version of Dark Frag deck v/s False Gods.  This is pretty well tuned and doesn't often give you a bad draw.  All games were played in Trainer of course so I can't attest to if the A.I. there acts the same as the live version or not.



Strategy Notes(more to come as I write them):

Scorpio - Minimizing poison gain is key.  Use your anti-creature to kill Puffer Fish, they are your bane.  Steal Arsenic soon as it pops up.  Fractal+Vampire+Vamp Dagger will win you the game if you can out race poison and don't get screwed over by Permafrost Shield. (Medium-Hard)

Eldinis - Lots of vectors to win here.  Frag+Pest = Choke down quantum and stunt immortal pump creature growth.  Siphon Life spirits before they even grow.  Frag+Vampires and outrace their damage.  Frag+Whatever+Steal Empathy (Easy).

Octane - Two quantum decks can't handle the Pest rush.  Steal Eagle Eye and you can win on Pest drain and Siphon Life alone.  (Easy-Auto Win)

Incarnate - Sort of a pain in the ass due to Retrovirus, Bone Wall, and, to a lesser extent, Bloodsuckers.  If you can stave off Bloodsucker/Vampire rush plus remove Retroviruses as they come up and Pest their Death quantum down you can win with Frag/Vampire rush.  Narrow vectors to victory make this match-up...(Medium to Hard)

Graviton - Steal Grav Shield, Pest+Frag neuters their Graviton Fireman rush, Thunder Bolt/Siphon Life any early Elite Otys to render them useless, finish off with Frag+Vampire rush.  (Easy)

Chaos Lord - Once you establish your Pest drain you pretty much win.  Rainbow style decks are too quantum fragile to handle shifts in their quantum base.  Here Dissipation Field actually helps you out buy allowing you to further muck up his quantum base with Vampires+Vampire Dagger+Eclipsed Pests.  Maxwell Demons can be a pain but easy to work around.  Time your Steals on Dissipation Field properly and you win. (Easy)

Dark Matter - Pretty much the same as Octane.  Dual quantum decks can't handle this kind of denial with added bonus of his quantum becomes yours so his weak Black Hole non-sense hardly affects you all.  Frag+Pest and you pretty much win. (Easy...yes you are reading that right).

Siesm - Dual quantum deck normally the bane of rainbows falls hard against this deck.  Pests screw with his earth quantum while increasing yours without urgent need for pillars.  Pretty much an easy win unless you stall a bit and can't counter shrieker rush with Vampire spam. (Easy)

Gemini - Oddly annoying deck due to fast damage rush, occasional Electrocuter, and Dimensional Shield.  If you can shut down the Recluse rush and counter immaterial bozos with Vampires you will win.  This deck isn't very forgiving if you stall out too much.  (Easy - Medium)

Fire Queen - Unless you can close down the Fire Queen factory pretty fast you are screwed.  Save steals for Empathy if you can.  Stealing an Eagle Eye with a wind tower might do in a pinch.  Fire Flies are annoying as hell because they produce a third quantum source that "shields" the life quantum you really want to drain.  Winnable but most likely you are going to get bum-rushed like a rabid emo after a box of eye-liner.  (Hard)

Miracle - Normally more than two quantum sources gives this deck a problem but this deck is so Light quantum centric that a decent number of Pests will roll over this deck pretty easily.  (Easy)

Morte - Can be a pain but just Pest spam, steal his Graveyards, and time your Eclipse just right and you will win.  (Easy to Medium)

Divine Glory - Pain as always but you actually stand a decent chance of winning with this deck.  You basically have to establish about a 10 quantum a turn drain with Vampire+Frag proliferation to out-race Glory rush and you will win.  Points for this deck making his fire quantum almost irrelevant with Pest drain and two quantum focus.  (Medium)

P.S.: Yes I know I am improperly abbreviating Fractal as "Frag".  I just like referring to it that way and "Frac" sounds too much like I am caught in an episode of "Battlestar Galactica".

[2 Sexy]

Did some play testing with below version of Dark Frag deck v/s False Gods.  This is pretty well tuned and doesn't often give you a bad draw.  All games were played in Trainer of course so I can't attest to if the A.I. there acts the same as the live version or not.



Strategy Notes(more to come as I write them):

Scorpio - Minimizing poison gain is key.  Use your anti-creature to kill Puffer Fish, they are your bane.  Steal Arsenic soon as it pops up.  Fractal+Vampire+Vamp Dagger will win you the game if you can out race poison and don't get screwed over by Permafrost Shield. (Medium-Hard)

Eldinis - Lots of vectors to win here.  Frag+Pest = Choke down quantum and stunt immortal pump creature growth.  Siphon Life spirits before they even grow.  Frag+Vampires and outrace their damage.  Frag+Whatever+Steal Empathy (Easy).

Octane - Two quantum decks can't handle the Pest rush.  Steal Eagle Eye and you can win on Pest drain and Siphon Life alone.  (Easy-Auto Win)

Incarnate - Sort of a pain in the ass due to Retrovirus, Bone Wall, and, to a lesser extent, Bloodsuckers.  If you can stave off Bloodsucker/Vampire rush plus remove Retroviruses as they come up and Pest their Death quantum down you can win with Frag/Vampire rush.  Narrow vectors to victory make this match-up...(Medium to Hard)

Graviton - Steal Grav Shield, Pest+Frag neuters their Graviton Fireman rush, Thunder Bolt/Siphon Life any early Elite Otys to render them useless, finish off with Frag+Vampire rush.  (Easy)

Chaos Lord - Once you establish your Pest drain you pretty much win.  Rainbow style decks are too quantum fragile to handle shifts in their quantum base.  Here Dissipation Field actually helps you out buy allowing you to further muck up his quantum base with Vampires+Vampire Dagger+Eclipsed Pests.  Maxwell Demons can be a pain but easy to work around.  Time your Steals on Dissipation Field properly and you win. (Easy)

Dark Matter - Pretty much the same as Octane.  Dual quantum decks can't handle this kind of denial with added bonus of his quantum becomes yours so his weak Black Hole non-sense hardly affects you all.  Frag+Pest and you pretty much win. (Easy...yes you are reading that right).

Siesm - Dual quantum deck normally the bane of rainbows falls hard against this deck.  Pests screw with his earth quantum while increasing yours without urgent need for pillars.  Pretty much an easy win unless you stall a bit and can't counter shrieker rush with Vampire spam. (Easy)

Gemini - Oddly annoying deck due to fast damage rush, occasional Electrocuter, and Dimensional Shield.  If you can shut down the Recluse rush and counter immaterial bozos with Vampires you will win.  This deck isn't very forgiving if you stall out too much.  (Easy - Medium)

Fire Queen - Unless you can close down the Fire Queen factory pretty fast you are screwed.  Save steals for Empathy if you can.  Stealing an Eagle Eye with a wind tower might do in a pinch.  Fire Flies are annoying as hell because they produce a third quantum source that "shields" the life quantum you really want to drain.  Winnable but most likely you are going to get bum-rushed like a rabid emo after a box of eye-liner.  (Hard)

Miracle - Normally more than two quantum sources gives this deck a problem but this deck is so Light quantum centric that a decent number of Pests will roll over this deck pretty easily.  (Easy)

Morte - Can be a pain but just Pest spam, steal his Graveyards, and time your Eclipse just right and you will win.  (Easy to Medium)

Divine Glory - Pain as always but you actually stand a decent chance of winning with this deck.  You basically have to establish about a 10 quantum a turn drain with Vampire+Frag proliferation to out-race Glory rush and you will win.  Points for this deck making his fire quantum almost irrelevant with Pest drain and two quantum focus.  (Medium)

P.S.: Yes I know I am improperly abbreviating Fractal as "Frag".  I just like referring to it that way and "Frac" sounds too much like I am caught in an episode of "Battlestar Galactica".

how many games did you play and how many games did you win? Is it better than the rainbow decks against fg?

I haven't tested your upgraded version but I tried it unupgraded and I lose in 5-6 turns without much set up.

i've tried a few non-upgraded versions on pvp and so far I'm at 1 win 7 losses. One problem is you'd need obsidian tower, devourer,fractal, and aether tower at the beginning. It's a complex combo, and missing any of the 4 types of cards will not make the combo. Later on you'd need vampires/siphon life/ etc., and there is a chance that the cards won't come up on time. Even if it does work does not mean it will be fast enough to win.

I really like the deck though it looks awesome when everything falls into the right place

[Shadowjack]

That is why I point out that I am up against the trainer A.I. because it seems to act kind of strange in relation to my experience with the non-trainer interface.  For instance, Seism will almost always throw an Earthquake at a standard rainbow deck with Quantum Towers yet with this deck it hasn't done it once.  Maybe the A.I.'s threat assessment tends to save earth quantum for casting bodies over blasting pillars if they aren't quantum towers?  Also I noticed that the amount of spell type anti-creature just doesn't get thrown at a Pest like it would at other stuff perhaps because the A.I. is coded to assess it's quantum usage differently when faced with a 0 attack power creature whose activated ability is "Burrow", ignoring the drain ability as the real threat.

If you take this all into account it may go a long way to explaining why it works, at least for me in the trainer, so well against the A.I.  It, perhaps, is just successful at exploiting the A.I.'s blind-side.  I think that, without extensive tweaking, it is a weak pvp deck as it can be easily disrupted by someone who knows how to muck with the deck's engine (i.e. Pest denial/quantum acceleration into Vampire/Eclipse proliferation) unlike the hapless A.I. 

As for wins and amount of games played I didn't make an accounting.  I played at least ten games each against the False Gods in question and tried to note what, in my opinion, contributed to a loss and what contributed to a win.  I was just trying to extrapolate from my experiences with the deck.  I would say that, without a doubt, you need this deck to be upgraded.  If you have a couple of Pests (i.e. upgraded from Devourer) and two Obsidian Towers(upgraded from Pillars) in your opening hand then you have a Pest out on first turn v/s a turn later in an non-upgraded version which is a HUGE difference in how your deck ramps up in the weakest stage for this deck, the early game.  This deck is a prime example of a "momentum"(the concept, not the card) style deck and as such is weaker against early, fast rush.  This deck exerts control through denial which isn't the same as control at all.  If an opposing deck can put out threats before you can deny them the ability to do so then your options are limited as the deck is light on board control and heavy on denial and momentum.

I hope I covered enough ground to at least answer some of your questions.  Thanks for your interest.

[CelestrialDreamer]

For the FG-killing version deck, i have to say i dont like it
I tested it in real game.
There is no healing and by the time you lock FG's quanta, FG had probably put 20damage/round or even more (i already drained his creatures)
Maybe I am doing something wrong?

[Shadowjack]

For the FG-killing version deck, i have to say i dont like it
I tested it in real game.
There is no healing and by the time you lock FG's quanta, FG had probably put 20damage/round or even more (i already drained his creatures)
Maybe I am doing something wrong?

Vampire Dagger = Healing

Frag+Vampires = Healing

You aren't going to lock up any False God quantum who can produce over two different types of quantum with any consistency.  This isn't a Lock deck, it is a momentum denial deck. 

I wasn't aware Fractal is out in regular game.  I'll make this deck and do some testing and see if there is an A.I. inconsistency between the two.  Thanks for the feedback!


P.S.:  If you don't have Vamp Dagger then put in an extra Vampire.

[Shadowjack]

Yep, there is a HUGE difference between how the trainer A.I. acts v/s how the regular game A.I. acts.  DON'T dive into this deck for regular game.  It is far too fragile to handle a real A.I. 

Grrr, sorry guys.  I thought it was too good to be true  .


P.S.: Yeah, this deck is a wash.  I didn't realize the HUGE competence gap between the trainer A.I. and the real A.I. and this deck just can't handle the retarded permanent control that makes Quints auto-include in any serious False God deck but is a weak-assed card in this deck.  I think I am through with trying to crack the False God thing.  There isn't enough reliable, diverse quantum producing sources to allow anything but very narrow deck types viable in that environment.  Yeah, yeah I know you can swing a little into Earth for borrowing but why stop there?  Why not go into Life for Empathy?  Or Entropy for Druids?  See where this is headed? 

Sorry, but I am just getting too frustrated with the lack of diversity of pillar-style quantum generating cards that would allow more interesting interactions with the card base.  I have no big problems the regular card base just the cards that allow you play them more diversely.

But hey!   You can at least whip Dark Matter's ass!  Whoopty-freaking doo!