The Amazing, the Incredible, Pesty FG Deck!

[Terroking]

I guess it's pretty draw-dependent, but more on the FG's side.

It's still working for me 

[PuppyChow]

The problem is still that you need to wait usually at least 3 turns before you can fractal a pest, and by then FGs have 2-4 creatures most of the time that you can't get rid of. Then even after you fractal a sole pest, it still will likely be gaining a few quanta/turn so will probably get 4-5 creatures out. Then you have to wait a few more turns, taking the damage from those creatures, to get the quanta for fractal again so you can fractal a vampire. This is assuming you even draw the second fractal and a vampire, and many times you'll die before you do so. But since 5-8 pests isn't enough to deny a FG, you STILL aren't denying the FG quanta. So any creature control is killing the pests and vampires off since you only fractaled one pest. But you couldn't fractal pests twice since you had to stop the damage, and now you desperately need to draw a THIRD fractal or the FG will just keep playing creatures and killing your vampires, eventually killing you. The odds of drawing three fractals early are astronomically low.

IMO, the RoL/Hope deck is better since it just needs a single fractal and a single creature to stop the bleeding while this deck needs 2 (preferably 3) fractals and two different creatures, one of which you only have two copies of, to stop the bleeding.

That's what happened in my experience.

[Terroking]

The problem is still that you need to wait usually at least 3 turns before you can fractal a pest, and by then FGs have 2-4 creatures most of the time that you can't get rid of. Then even after you fractal a sole pest, it still will likely be gaining a few quanta/turn so will probably get 4-5 creatures out. Then you have to wait a few more turns, taking the damage from those creatures, to get the quanta for fractal again so you can fractal a vampire. This is assuming you even draw the second fractal and a vampire, and many times you'll die before you do so. But since 5-8 pests isn't enough to deny a FG, you STILL aren't denying the FG quanta. So any creature control is killing the pests and vampires off since you only fractaled one pest. But you couldn't fractal pests twice since you had to stop the damage, and now you desperately need to draw a THIRD fractal or the FG will just keep playing creatures and killing your vampires, eventually killing you. The odds of drawing three fractals early are astronomically low.

IMO, the RoL/Hope deck is better since it just needs a single fractal and a single creature to stop the bleeding while this deck needs 2 (preferably 3) fractals and two different creatures, one of which you only have two copies of, to stop the bleeding.

That's what happened in my experience.

Of course you can deny them with just one Fractal, but they'll overwhelm you fairly quickly when they draw more towers. It really depends on the FG and ho many towers they have, and also the costs of their creatures. Usually, you can Get your first pest/Fractal out when they have only 1-3 creatures, then the second when they usually have 3-5.

Dusk shield will almost always hold them off until you can draw a Vampire (If you don't have Dusk, then you should have Vampire. You may not get either, but every deck in the game can lose with a bad draw) and can Fractal is, which will almost always null whatever damage the FG has out.

[PuppyChow]

Against Neptune I distinctly remember it getting 3 blue crawlers out and beating me down with those. I had a dusk shield out. And then, when I DID fractal a vampire, they all died >_<.

Dark Matter had an archangel and 2 elite chargers out (momentum). I had a dusk shield out, but that doesn't do much against momentum. And I couldn't get the quanta for fractal due to black holes and me only drawing one aether tower.

Against Destiny it got two maxwells out and two fate eggs, and I wasn't denying whatsoever due to supernovas.

Against Hermes it got three lava destroyers out, and then I started to deny quanta but then I didn't draw a single vampire or a second fractal. I got a dusk shield, but then it got exploded.

Against Graviton, momentum combined with not drawing ANY fractals or ANY pests. Nuff said.

Against Octane? Well I couldn't deny quanta since it got 5 towers on the draw. Unstables pwned me. Oh and no aether towers.

What about Morte? That time I actually had a chance, but then it used plague and I lost. *Maybe* if I had played this one differently I would have won.

Verdict: Dusk shield can't hold them off long enough to fractal vampires, since you really need 2 fractals of pests to deny a FG, and if you can't do that they'll eventually kill your vampires with creature control. Maybe the FGs had good draws and I had terrible ones, but that's my take on it.

[Terroking]

The point is that they shouldn't have any quanta to get rid of your Vampires, except the extra they get from the initial Tower play, but you should have too many vamps out for that to matter anyways.

Yes, Morte can be difficult, you've got to try and attract Plagues until you can let loose all the Pests in your hand and send him to 0 so no more can come out. Or Viruses, for that matter.

[Zeru]

I usually stole graveyards from him. When he used plaque, he freed himself from the quanta control, but gave me an even greater attack power.

[bojengles77]

The point is that they shouldn't have any quanta to get rid of your Vampires, except the extra they get from the initial Tower play, but you should have too many vamps out for that to matter anyways.

Yes, Morte can be difficult, you've got to try and attract Plagues until you can let loose all the Pests in your hand and send him to 0 so no more can come out. Or Viruses, for that matter.

The Key with morte is always putting those 3 creatures out early to draw out plagues. last game i pulled 3 plagues at once on 3 RoL and then i put out the rest of my hand next turn unopposed

[Elasseyra]

I tried something similar to this before after I faced decay the first time. It didn't work at all. But anyway, I thought I'd give it another try.

The point is that they shouldn't have any quanta [...]

The problem there is that FGs generate tons of quanta due to double draw and 3x Mark. FGs easily generate 10+ quanta by turn 3-5 (I don't even consider Supernova/QT decks here, because they're hopeless), unless they get horrible draws. You can counter that only with a (nearly) perfect draw.

I completey agree with Puppy here, either you can't establish your denial fast enough and get teared down, or you don't get the vampires to stay alive. There are just too many key cards.

I won 6 of 33 games when I tried it. One was against Divine Glory who only had drawn 1 Morning Glory by turn ~15 where I drained him dry. Any deck wins such a horrible draw. Others were similar. You can only win if your draws are perfect or FG's draws are horrible (often it requires both).

[Zeru]

This deck has a winning percentage of ~40% and the fights are very fast. I recommend it to anybody who is bored with his traditional rainbow. It looks very primitive but is has some strategic versatility and that is what we want against FG, right :>
Having a good chance against 22 FG (I crossed out rainbow and dream catcher, they are to hard but still not auto-loose) is another advantage.

[Boingo]

I used a fractal/pest deck in the past as my lvl 5 grinder before switching to a Puppychow style rainbow for FG grinding.  When I saw this deck, I was a little skeptical it could take on the big boys, but had to give it a try.

Divine Glory and Obliterator (who gave me a hard time with the rainbow style) were my first 2 opponents, and while not good for statistical comparison at least gave me a good feeling:  DG got one animated weapon out and was EM'd.  Obliterator did even worse (see image.)  Thanks for the deck!

[Artois]

I thought this would be fun, and so built it... but Im with PuppyChow.  It relies on a miracle draw v. an awful draw for the FG too much.  10% win rate seems about reasonable?

Back to the drawing board...

[Boingo]

I thought this would be fun, and so built it... but Im with PuppyChow.  It relies on a miracle draw v. an awful draw for the FG too much.  10% win rate seems about reasonable?

Back to the drawing board...

I think the rate is certainly >25%--with 30 FG matches so far, I'm at 27%.  The FGs you beat are different than with Puppychow though.  For example, Fire Queen is a routine win with Puppychow but I'm 0-3 so far with the Pesty Deck. On the other hand, I rarely if ever beat Octane or Obliterator with a Puppychow deck but am 3-1 and 1-0 respectively with this deck.

I'll post back when I have a few more matches to give a more reasonable assessment.  In the meantime, here's Octane and Dream Catcher: