PvP Version of the FFFF

[Wu_Li_Mammoth]

by Wu_Li_Mammoth

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77i 7dg 7dg 7dg 7dg 7dg 7dg 7dg 7dh 7dh 7dh 7dh 7dh 7dh 7di 7di 7di 7di 7dk 7dk 7dl 7dm 7dm 7dm 7dm 7dn 7dn 7dp 7dp 7dp 8po

My fire deck, tuned for PvP.

EDIT: I've posted below what i believe is a better version of the deck, i've left this up to show some of the decks evolution, and to help you avoid some of the pitfalls i've made in its design.

Increased explosions to deal with the heavy permanent game, alternately used to destroy pillars. The fire spirits are out to allow more brimstone eaters, forcing the opp to use cards to deal with weenies, or allow you to rack up heavy fire quanta.

Deploy eaters early, if you have 3 on the board, keep one in the hand for a cremation in case you get stormed. Play farenheits early even if you don't get your enchant, but play the enchant as soon as you get it off of cremation quanta.

Hold out your big damage for large bursts, deploying multiple dragons and throwing fire lances all in the span of a couple turns. Save one explosion to deal with any shields put up to counter your burst.

[Wu_Li_Mammoth]

Traded out the fire buckler for another lance, the buckler just gets blown up most of the time, and it works too slowly to be of any use in the short games this deck promotes.

I've taken out the protect artifact, though i might put it back in. It wasn't coming up in games where it was useful very often. It's a good combo, but for it to work you need an eater, a cremation, a farenheit, and the protect. Getting all 4 of those cards in the first 8'ish turns (the average game length for this deck) doesn't happen that often. If i put in 2 protects i chance drawing both of them. Having two cards that aren't contributing to the rush is bad enough, the second one being utterly useless is downright crippling.

I think the best solution is probably a third farenheit, hoping to draw it earlier and more often than the opponent can destroy it.

[Wu_Li_Mammoth]

Put 2 fire spirits back in, took out two eaters.

This gives you 6 potential damage dealers on the field, 6 out of 30 is enough to stay ahead of enemy creature destruction, whereas 4 dragons alone tend to get fully controlled.

I'm also leaving two dragons unupgraded:

Crimson Dragons are 2 quanta cheaper, and many times i've found myself 1 or 2 quanta short of a Ruby, and getting a crimson out a turn earlier would be more damage over all (it would take 4 turns for the ruby to make up for that extra turn, they rarely live that long, and when they do the games aren't that long). Crimsons can come out on turn 1 with just 2 towers, an eater, and a cremation. First turn rubies require an almost perfect open draw, or blowing two cremations on turn 1, which you should *never* do (why never? You're playing 5 cards from the hand to deploy one easily killed creature, you will get out carded if you do this).

Keeping both types of Dragons in the deck gives you the option of which to play when. You can still play the ruby if you have the extra 2 quanta, and the 3 damage per turn on two cards is a rather small difference in a deck with this much total damage.

Keep in mind that your dragons have 2 or 3 hit points. It may not seem like much, but its more than one. You can use those "extra" hit points to delay destroying a fire shield, or cremating a doomed dragon. Often players will not blow a card to kill a dragon they imagine is going to die in a few turns anyways. This is a mistake, no doubt about it, but a commonly made one, use it to your advantage as dragons can do a lot of damage in just a few turns.

[Wu_Li_Mammoth]

A few more notes on the play of this deck:

1. Never cremate a fire eater just to make your farenheit deal more damage. The fire eater will only yield 9 quanta, at most 2 more damage on your farenheit, it does this much damage per turn alive, and generates fire quanta. However, if you also plan to use a fire lance to finish your opponent, cremating the eater will generate more overall damage in the short term.
2. If a phase shield or other heavy defense is played, and you don't have a spare explosion, you might consider cremating anything in the field you can, especially if you believe your opponent carries ample creature destruction. Its better to get the quanta back now, and "pull in" your offense to be rebuilt once the opp is vulnerable. This is not always a good idea, but if you can recognize when it is, its a useful tactic.
3. This is a rush deck, that means its a race to the finish. If you do not have more health than your opponent, you are losing the race. You need to at all times overmatch your opponents damage, though once you have, its usually a good idea to hold damage in your hand to burst. Play just enough offense to out damage your opponent. This doesn't apply against opponents with little or no creature destruction (i.e. green mono rush), but these decks are rare, and very easy to beat any how.
4. Against timebow decks, it might seem natural to blow all your explosions keeping hourglasses out of play. If your opp is only playing 1 or 2 of them, then you should. However, if they lay down several hourglasses, then you should either destroy their towers early (providing they only have a few) or if they have both several towers and hourglasses out early, keep your explosions for shields and shards.
5. Suckas love to steal farenheit, whoop-dee-do, it sucks when it gets taken from you, but only another fire deck can make real use of it, usually you should just let them use it, it won't do much damage in a deck that can steal it anyways, wait for them to play their own weapon over it, and destroy that one.
6. Good players make calculations based on your current quanta, and what cards you have in play. Keeping a cremation in hand for the killing blow will throw off these calculations. This deception is a major strength for this deck.

I've tried several variations on the deck, mostly variations that *in theory* provide a valid defense without slowing down the deck. Such as running ray of lights and miracles instead of eaters, or running a mark of death and a couple bone walls (punishing the opp for destroying your creatures). However, even running a couple Shards of Gratitude, a very low cost defense, seems to slow down the deck more than it can handle.

You WILL out damage every other deck in this game in a pure race, nothing does more damage than farenheit and rubies. So long as you have no defensive cards in your deck, you will draw something that helps you kill your opponent with every single card. This is your biggest strength, and any dilution to this concept weakens the deck.

[Boingo]

So when do you typically cremate?  Early in the game of near the final blow?

[Wu_Li_Mammoth]

One cremate is for getting out an early dragon, often this dragon will deal heavy damage before your opponent can get enough quanta (or cards) to deal with it.

The second cremate is for the killing blow, the third is there to make sure you get two, and is often buried in the bottom of the deck. If you get all three use the third situationally, either to push an extra dragon if your dragons are meeting little resistance, or save it for the final burst if keeping dragons out is proving to be difficult.

Don't just use them because you get them, over cremating will result in you getting out carded. If you don't have a clear purpose for using a cremate, hold on to it.

[darkfrogger]

im forced to use 2 extra brimstone eaters because i dont have fahrenheits :\
Anyone have suggestions for replacements?