Wise Scorpions [Duo][FGs]

[Aneninen]

Right now, I'm working on the elaborate statistics of my version of the deck (the plan is to play 600 matches), however, I'll include my thoughts and observations how the other two decks would work against certain Fake Gods. (Especially SnoWeb's version since it's farther from my one.) As ddevans96 noticed, the two decks have an entirely different play, which means, an entirely different "FG Spectrum". Eventually, tests so far show a really, really weird spectrum for my version and I suspect another strange one for the Hourglass-ed deck.

In my opinion, both (or all three) versions should be examined, since (1) winning rate – though not the best one – seems to be reasonable and (2) the different versions have many cards in common so, once one make the upgrades for one of them it takes almost no additional cost to create the other one (two).
Also, many of the cards are already a priority on most player's upgrade list. (I mean, many has already upgraded Dimensional Shields, Eternities and Animate Weapons for other decks and most have some Time/Ether Towers/Pendulums in their hand.)

[eaglgenes101]

There are light and heavy versions of ghostal decks (well, there were before sog nerf), limitless, and rainbows. Are the differences between their light and heavy versions less than it is for this deck?

[Aneninen]

There are light and heavy versions of ghostal decks (well, there were before sog nerf), limitless, and rainbows. Are the differences between their light and heavy versions less than it is for this deck?

All I know right now is that even in worst case, a new "worths to play" Fake God Deck is about to reborn, even if it's definitely not the best possible Fake God Deck in the current form. However, stats are still changing a lot, because (1) it's the law of statistics ^_^ and (2) in many cases it took time for me to figure out the best gameplay against certain Fake Gods.
If the other versions are much more effective than mine, we might have a powerful new deck around here.
It's also possible that a "hybride" of these would be the best deck out of the Wise Scorpions theme.
Finally, my hypothesis is (which is a mere theory right now) that SnoWeb's version and my one are so different that they even hardly belong in the same forum topique. ^_^

Noone knows for sure 'till zillions of tests are made. Some people need to do these, ain't them? Put it in this way: I used Instosis a lot for farming Fake Gods which was made and tested by others before. Perhaps later some will use a kind of Wise Scorpion Deck. Perhaps my version will be uneffective and "deck evolution" cleanses it – but, even for this conclusion we need lots of information about these decks.

[Aneninen]

WARNING: LONG POST (including detailed statistics)

Here come all the statistics and gameplay tips in general and against all the Fake Gods about the deck I posted before.

(Recapitulation: the import code was 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q8 7qd 7qd 7qd 7qd 7qd 808 808 808 808 808 808 80d 80d 80d 80d 80d 80d 816 816 816 816 816 81q 81q 81q 8ps )

My thoughts about the other version(s) will appear in a separate post later, perhaps some-when, someone will take his/her time and efforts to provide us detailed statistics about that/those. Remember: I don't admit that my version is the best one but, I didn't change the deck because I wanted to collect enough data about it.


About the cards in general:

Towers and Pendulums: nothing special. Except for playing against Seism (see later), play every Tower/Pendulum as you can. In many cases you'll able to play a sharded Scorpion in the second turn.

Scorpions and Shards: in most cases, the priority is to play a Scorpion and Shard it as soon as you can. Once the opponent is poisoned its job is done; don't care if you lose the Scorpion in the next round. Speed is extremely important if the opponent has Bone Walls or a Dissipation Field, if these shields appear before you managed to poison, you'll most probably lose.
If the opponent has an Eternity on the table, don't play more than one Scorpion.
If you have two or more Shards in your hand without a Scorpion and at least one Scorpion in the game feel free to Shard it once more since it will do considerable direct damage as well. Of course, only do this if you're sure that the Scorpion will hit. In most cases, it's unwise to use more Shards on a single Scorpion if the opponent has massive Creature Control. Don't use multiple Shards if the opponent can use Twin Universe; never ever do this against Gemini! Finally, if you're in a close match (or the opponent's deck Miracle or massive healing) count how many damage will you do in the next few turns. This little extra damage can easily turn the tide of the match.
If the opponent is poisioned and you have more than one Scorpion in your hand with no Shards, sometimes worths playing it. The opponent use a card against it which not only increase the poison but also drives away a dangerous card from you. This is crucial if the opponent deck has Siphons or Fire Lances. (Of course, don't do this if the opponent has Creature Control cards in play, eg. an Otyugh or an Eagle's Eye, you'll gain nothing.)


Phase Shields: the timing of shielding is very, very important. If the incoming damage per turn is medium and you're not low on HP, start shielding when you have 17 cards left – mathematically you'll be shielded for the rest of the game. If you manage to draw al the shields. If you have only one shield in your hand, keep waiting as long as possible – taking damage now can save you later. If you have more shields and the poison is already done you can throw in the first Shield as the first hard hitter creature appears. Also, if you have more shields in your hand and your quanta income is good, start shielding early if the opponent has plenty of Permanent Control. If you first Shield is lost, the second might stay safe. Play Shields as soon as you can if your opponent has poison-attack creatures on the board or if his/her deck has Discord. Avoiding Discord in early game is a priority, even over the Scorpions! On the other hand, don't play a Shield if the opponent is not poisoned yet and either you don't have quanta for the Shard after it, or – more important – if his/her deck has Steal. Never let your HP go too low if the opponent has direct damage cards (Siphon is the most dangerous). Finally, if your Eternity is already out, consider a gap in the Shield Chain at a point when the incoming damage is minimum.
In short: the timing is difficult indeed, you'll need lots of games to find the right moment. If you're short on quanta, always count when will you be able to play a next Shield. Even with practice, you will Shield too early or too late. Sadly, you'll also lose some mathes because you can't draw a Shield when it would be life-saver.

The Eternity: it's good if you draw it, turn-tider against certain Fake Gods but, in most cases its secondary to the Scorpions. With this deck, its main use is to slow the opponent down – expecially if the opponent has many Permanent Controls. So, if it appears in mid-game, try to rewind something in every turn. Also, it has an additional prupose: in-difect controlling the opponent's quanta (see examples below!).
Special case: if you have the Eternity in your starting hand and the opponent has a full hand (due to his/her bad draw, most probably), play the Eternity as fast as you can and Rewind everything at all cost! If you have no quanta for using the Eternity and playing a Scorpion too, play the latter one when you're sure that the opponent has just enough quanta for a costy creature you saw before. If this works, you'll be able to hold out long enough for avoiding not only the creatures but also the Permanent Control cards.  You can even win against "Impossible" Fake Gods, though, don't expect a big win rate.
Not tested but, this might be a big 'pro' for having multiple Eternities in the deck.


About the statistics... (Feel free to skip this section if you're uninterested)

600 games were made.
Though it doesn't make a difference, these matchs were not entirely consecutive, certain matches were left out. Namely, due to bugs (2 times), oracle pets, and because I lost a paper with about 40 games or so. (Though, the winning rate on that one was similar.) Also, these statistics don't include my early matches (posted and deleted before).
However, as it comes to the Fake God cathegories, I considered the games are not appearing in the statistics as well.
Also, the games themselves are considered in the cathegorizing. After all, a simple win/lose data doesn't show how the particular game went. Some games were won by sheer luck others were lost due to insane bad draw (eg. no Scorpion appeared in the first 20 cards, this has a chance of roughly 0,05%).
It took some time against certain Fake Gods to figure out the best strategy. (Eventually, the winning rate after the first 200 games was about 6% lower than in the second 200 games.) In some cases I still don't know which play is the best since I had too few games against that particular Fake God.
Finally, 600 matches are still not enough, of course. Take a look at this scheme: - - - + - - + - - + - - - + - + - + + + + - (+ is for win, - is for lose). This, is actually the sequence of the games against Gemini. If only the first 10 matches had made the winning rate would have been 30%, if only the last 10 matches, 60%.

In short: the cathegories are not entirely corresponding to the actual winning rates. That'swhy I consider Hermes harder than Ferox, Fire Queen harder than Jezebel, though, the winning rate was higher against Hermes and Fire Queen.


Against the certain Fake Gods... – the numbers show games played / games won

VERY EASY – playing against these Fake Gods is a piece of cake. Even if you have a terrible starting hand or a constantly unlucky draw, you can win in the most cases.

Serket (21/17) – Play the first Shield as you're poison count is about 4–5 (or less, if the match is going good). Both your Scorpions and your Permanents are in safe; play as many Sharded Scorpions as you can. Eternity is mostly useless due to the cloak.

Destiny (25/23) – Unless she gets a silly mutant it's easy. Watch out for the Rewinds!

Neptune (25/21) – If you have many "spare" Scorpions play them because he usually destroys them with Shockwave which increases the poison. Nothing special.

Elidnis (16/13) – Her deck is not too reliable (fortunately...), poison as quick as you can before she gets out too many creatures and Bonds. Don't use more Shards on a single Scorpion if you're short on Shields, she may Twin Universe it.

Lionheart (25/24) – The easiest win with this deck. Like Destiny, he tends to die due to his own Hourglasses.


EASY – you'll win in most cases. However, certain things can turn the tide to your disadvantage.

Incarnate (24/14) – Launch your first Scorpion as fast as you can. If his Bone Wall appears before you can poison you're most probably dead. For the same reason, don't "trigger" his Shield with the Eternity.

Paradox (25/17) – Miracles are a pain. Try to start shielding as late as you can, or leave gap(s) if the incoming damage is still low. The Eternity is not as useful as it appears, in most cases you won't be able to rewind all the pumped-up creatures.

Miracle (20/13) – Similar to Paradox. If she starts with the Dragons you'll be forced to shield early which can cause a problem later. If the Eternity is out (since it's a long match, it's very likely) rewind the Light Dragons; the best timing is three turns before your damage is enough to kill her. After the first turn she'll play the dragon and after the second one (unless she gots zillions of Towers) she won't have enough quanta for the Miracle. The latter one works more times than you think. ^_^


Medium – you've got a considerable chance against these Fake Gods. In some cases careful planning is needed.

Hekate (17/8) – That's a difficult match. Poison as fast as you can and try to hold back your Shields. Especially since she usually steals your Towers if the Shield is not on the table. However, watch out, poisoned Voodoo Dolls, Rage Potions and Nightmare hurts you. Mostly, when your HP is about 50–60 you can play the first one. If you're lucky enough and she plays a Liquid Shadow on your Scorpion, Shard it as many times as you can. If you have the Eternity in play rewind the Liquid Shadow-ed Dolls, since Shields can't block that damage. On the other hand, don't expect a lot, most probably your Eternity will be stolen after a few turns. Though, this might save your Shield since in most cases the AI uses Permanent Control on the weapon first. Frankly, this match needs many, many practice.

Decay (25/11) – Poison as fast as you can. Eternity is useless, he'll steal it and you'll hardly have quanta for using it. (The only use is the case when he steals it when his Electrocutor is out since it hits less and he can't use it.) In general, if Decay is already poisoned, play everything you can even if it appears to be pointless. Even a shardless Scorpion can drive away a Siphon – this card is the main threat. Shields are useful only if the Eclipse is out (fortunately, he has only 2 of them) and if he's already Fractal-ed his Pests but, in this case, most probably you won't have the quanta for it. The best timing for playing a Shield is when he has enough Quanta for a Fractal. If he uses Fractal and gets the Eclipse later you'll be safe for a few turns. (Frankly, this can save you!) Most probably you'll finish this match with no quanta at all – don't care about this. You'll get annoyed in some games because he usually plays zillions of Siphons in late game (you'll die due to this many times). However, poison also increases fast (mostly cause of the Fractals) so you can outrush his deck many times even before the Eclipse appears.

Ferox (16/5) – This game is annoying. The first problem is that he starts so fast that you'll lose some games even before your deck is "kicked in". Those Bonds are a pain too, he'll out-heal you easily. On the other hand, he has no control cards so, play as many sharded Scorpions as you can. The more poison you land the more likely you outdo the Bonds. Eternity helps too in slowing him down. The fight against Ferox is never short and never easy and unfortunately, he turns the tide with those Bonds many times.

Morte (18/6) – Again, poison as fast as you can. If the Bone Wall appears before you poison, the match is most probably over. Also, if he manages to reach 10+ poison in early game this match will be short and painful. If the Arsenic is out start Shielding. If you have the Eternity, rewind the Angels; he'll re-play them and will be unable to accumulate quanta for the Miracle. This game is a rush; either you poison him quickly or he does the same to you.

Seism (23/11) – This one is fun indeed. First of all, play only one of the different Towers/Pendulum in your first turn. Remember: you need only 3 Time and 2 Ether quanta for a sharded Scorpion. Don't ever play more than one Scorpion: he'll rewind it which slows your deck and you mustn't waste your quanta for this once he's already poisoned. In mid- and late game always count how much quanta do you need for the next Shield or for the Eternity. The latter one works well. Rewinding not only slows him down but also makes him wasting his earth quanta – the less he remains the less he heals if he has a Granite Skin in his hand. In general, carefully plan everything: your quanta management, your Shield timing, even your damage, estimating the incoming damage. Against Seism, planning is everything, if you do this right, you're already halfway there!

Gemini (22/9) – Against him, the sooner you have the Eternity is the better. (However, I'm unsure whether it triggers his Shield chaining or not.) Once he's poisoned you only have to wait and rewind his creatures. (Needless to say, Momentumed creatures are a priority.) Try to hold back your Shields till you can, but, never let your HP go below 30 or so, he has plenty of Unstoppable cards in his deck. Never Shard a Scorpion twice or more times: he'll use Twin Universe on that one and if you're unlucky, he'll use an Unstoppable on it and clone it for a few times. (I lost a match due to this silly mistake). If you don't have the Eternity, you'll need to be really lucky for this game though, it's not entirely impossible to win without that weapon.


HARD – you can beat these Fake Gods but, you'll need luck and skill for the victory.

Chaos Lord (16/4) – In theory, he has Discord and annoying Control cards. In practice, his deck is big, so sometimes these won't appear at all. The main problem is that he usually produces strong mutants and/or mutants with powerful abilities (or I'm just unlucky against him but, in most cases I lost cause of his mutants). He's simply too random; it's hard to plan a strategy. As always: poison fast and Shield carefully. If you have the Eternity, rewind the most annoying mutants.

Jezebel (14/1) – She's my "blind spot". I lost the first five games since I had ridiculously unlucky hands. In the next few matches things went wrong and I'm not sure, why. Shield as late as you can; she usually steals your Towers (and, compared to many other decks you won't need too many quanta after all...) The most feared Nymphs, like Gravity don't hurt you really hard but, Air and Light Nymphs are painful. As it comes to Jezebel, I can't give you any more advice; I don't know how to play this good, I don't recognize all the Nymphs by their attack. I'm not even sure whether she's in the Hard cathegory or somewhere else. Sorry.

Hermes (22/7) – Plenty of Explosions but, huge deck. He usually uses those Explosions on your Towers/Pendulums and many times he runs out of them by the time you start Shielding. Eternity helps though it can be exploded in a few turns. If you're lucky he starts with the Spectres which can save you percious time at Shielding. If he's already poisoned you can play shardless Scorpions too, he targets those with the Lances instead of you.


VERY HARD – usually you'll lose to these Fake Gods. However, in certain circumstances you can have a decent change. If things go wrong, autoquit; see details below.

Osiris (16/1) – He has both of the least desired things: Momentum and Permanent Controls. Quit if more than two Shards appear, unless you can rewind them with your Eternity. Use Eternity against the Momentum-ed creatures. If you don't manage to poison in the first 5 turns or so, you won't win; even if you hold out for a long time he'll launch his grown-up Scarabs with his Trebuchets (most probably in late game he'll have at least two of these). The best thing in this deck against Osiris would be an Electrocutor – a pity that you don't have that one, ain't it? ^_^

Akebono (21/2) – Quit if more than one Shard appear. An early Eternity can win you this match since all of their creatures are expensive (especially the Dragons). Try to keep his board as empty as you can, or else the game will be finished with his Chimera.

Dream Catcher (23/2) – It took a long time to figure out the best possible play against her. Start with a Shield as soon as you can: this will block her Discord in the early game and due to her Butterfly Effects you won't be able to shield later. If the Shield is on, start poisoning, then play the Eternity if you can. By midgame she'll most probably have something with Butterfly Effect which, in theory, ruins your chances. However, her damage output is is not very big: even if she destroys all your permanents and screws your quanta up, once she's poisoned you can win sooner or later. Quit if both the Discord and the Butterfly Effect appeared before you managed to poison her.

Obliterator (18/2) – This can be won only if you can rewind his Momentum-ed creatures. Once he's poisoned, play shardless Scorpions if you wish, he'll use a Gravity Force on them (and increase his poison due to this). Quit as the Pulverizer appears, your chances against that weapon (unless you can win the game in a few turns) is zero.

Scorpion (23/1) – Too many forms of poison. Shields can block the Puffer Fish, Eternity is good against the Physalia. Against poison cards you have nothing. Quit if you're poisoned by the amount of 10 or more before you were able to poison her. Also quit if she has more than one Physalia on the board. Purify fortunately, rarely appears. Since her deck is huge you can have a chance for winning sometimes.

Fire Queen (26/4) – In theory, you can't win. In practice, since her deck is big, she has ridiculously bad hands in some games. You have two thin chances: (1) you have the Eternity out in the early game and you can rewind her Queens many times to slow her deck and her Firefly swarm (2) you can outdo her healing quickly (either because she doesn't have too many Queens or because she doesn't have enough Bonds). But, to tell the truth, don't expect a lot of playing against her; quit if she starts consequently healing more than you can poison.


IMPOSSIBLE – Even if you can win some games, playing against these Fake Gods is a waste of time. Autoquit, frankly.

Octane (22/2) – 5 Gases and you're dead.

Divine Glory (25/2) – Playing against her is like being the coyote in The Road Runner cartoon: even if you think you'll win, you'll lose. If not because of the explosions, due to the Miracles.

Rainbow (10/0) – Not too many matches were played against her but nothing worked. Her deck is too versatile with plenty of controls. Don't forget about her Miracles too.

Eternal Phoenix (17/1) – Zillions of Explosions in a slim deck, insane amount of damage output.

Graviton (26/1) – Everything that counters your deck: Permanent Controls and Momentum. Do I have to say more? ^_^

Dark Matter (12/0) – It's not the Black Holes. The Chargers, they matter.


Overall Statistics – in other words, the TL;DR version of the post

Games played: 600
Games won: 221
Games lost: 379

Win Rate: 36,83%
Normalized Win Rate: 35,03%

Conclusion: In this form, this deck is definitely not the strongest Anti-Fake-God deck around. Still, its win rate is reasonable, and you'll be able to get a considerable amount of gold by using it. A real drawback is that you need 5 Shards of Wisdom for it, however, most of the other cards are used in popular decks so, many players already have them (Eternity, Towers/Pillars, Phase Shields) in upgraded form. Also, most of the chanceless games can be quit quickly which saves you time. Some of the matches are long but, not un-bearable long and/or boring.
Needless to say, there are things to be improved.

[Aneninen]

WARNING: LONG POST (Summary of the statistics are at the end of the post)

As I said before, I made another version of this deck and also made statistics which contained not only the Win/Loss data but also the typical events which were happened during the games. These give a more detailed insight about how the deck works in practice.

The version of the deck I used was the following:

Spoiler for Deck image and import code:

Hover over cards for details, click for permalink

Deck import code : [Select]

7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q5 7q5 7q8 7q8 7qd 7qd 7qd 7qd 7qd 808 808 808 808 808 808 808 80d 80d 80d 80d 80d 80d 816 816 816 816 816 81q 81q 81q 81q 8ps

1. The most common events – basicly, why the deck loses (or wins); also the percentage of the event is given.

Bad draw (8%) – this is not a "definite" factor, people tend to call a game a "bad draw" if things don't work out well. This contains all bad situations which are not among'st the events described later. Typically, silly starting hands and draws (eg. 1 Tower/Pendulum in the first 12 cards) or extreme lucky opponent hands (eg. 30+ incoming damage per turn at the 3rd turn), etc. Bad draws hinder all decks, so this is not a unique factor; especially since it's unsure that the game could have won if the bad draw hadn't occured. Even more, it should be decimated by the Good draws (3%) which were excellent starting situations and lead to an easy victory in all cases.

Momentum (6%) – the worst enemy of the deck. If you have an Eternity out you can still Rewind the Momentum-ed creature but, it doesn't work against Chargers (it will reapper in the next turn) and Titans (you can't do anything about this).

Steal and Explosion (6%) – another problem but, it's less fatal than the Momentum. First, the AI uses all the Control Cards before you start to Shield or play a Hourglass or an Eternity. If you had enough Towers you might survive. Second, the AI always targets Eternity first, Hourglasses next and Shields third. So, if you expect massive Permanent Control, try to play two (or three) of them in the same time (or, if you have plenty of Shields and need the Eternity, play the latter one a turn later). Making the AI abuse the PC cards is really, really important! (About 1,5% of the games were won because I was able to play lots of Permanents early.)

No Shield (6%) – unfortunately, even if you have an Hourglass out you're unable to draw a Shield. Surprisingly many games were lost due to this. I have no idea how to lessen that 6%. Though, sometimes if you "gap the Shield Chain" in a turn when you can still survive, helps but still, this is a big problem with this deck.

Pulverizer/Shard of Focus/Butterfly Effect (4%) – if any of the multiple Permanent Control cards appear early, you're doomed. Get used to it. In mid- and late-game you can still win, due to the fact I explained before.

Outheal (3,3%) – Elidnis, Ferox and Fire Queen can simply outheal you (the healing exceeds the poison). The latest one is the worst offender since she takes out your Scorpions too.

Early Eternity (2,9%) – as far as I can estimate, these games were won just because I drew an Eternity quickly. Compared to the previous version, having 2 Eternities helps a lot. I don't know whether a third one would boost or hinder the deck.

Lucky/Unlucky (2–3%) – I call Lucky/Unlucky if the outcome was decided by sheer luck/unluck. Eg. managed to draw a Shield just before you were about to die or (inverted example), you got the Eternity right after the Shard of Focus appeared. I only mentioned this because you can't decide how a deck works out against a certain Fake God by lucky and unlucky events. In general, I had roughly the same amount of lucky and unlucky matches so, it doesn't change a lot. However, against a particular Fake God it greatly modified the statistics.

Poison (1,9%) – Scorpion and Morte tends to out-poison you. (Against Serket, if you lose due to the Poison you were unable to draw a Shield). You can do nothing about this, but, it's not a major factor.

Miracle (1,8%) – against Miracle, Morte, Divine Glory, Paradox and Rainbow. However, surprisingly few matches were lost due to the AIs Miracle(s).

Shielding (1,6%) – only Bonewall and Dissipation Field hurts. The latter one rarely shows up before you can poison (2 games). Against Incarnate, you can still win sometimes if he plays a Bonewall before the poison (if you have an Eternity for damage). Against Morte this does not work.

No quanta (1,6%) – the game was lost because the deck was short on a certain type of quanta. Since I used both Towers and Pendulums, I expected this an important event but, it occured surprisingly few times. Anyway, the main reason about using Towers and Pendulums is, that in many games it's possible the play the first sharded Scorpion earlier. (Plus, it helps in certain situations, eg. against Seism.) This event doesn't include the games when the opponent actively disrupts your quanta accumulation, eg. Decay's Pests.

Powerful Creature (1,5%) – the game was lost because an unexpected Creature appeared. This goes mostly for Chaos Lord (though, eg. Destiny managed to get a Charger once and boosted it lots of times). 1,5% doesn't appear much but, I lost 6 times to Chaos Lord because he had a mutant with Steal or Destroy early. I'm not sure whether it's normal or I was unlucky.

No Scorpion/No Shard (1,1–1,4%) – I was unable to draw a Scorpion in the first half of the deck. If my calculations were correct, the mathematical chance for this was about 2,3% (though, some games were lost before that amount of cards were drawn). However, it's not an important event, even some of these games were won.

Gameplay error (0,97%) – self-explanatory; misclick a card, forgetting to play a Shield, etc. Sh-t happens. ^_^

The following cards (appearing in one or very few decks) has no singificant effects on the statistics: Black Hole, Purify, Siphon Life, Liquid Shadow and any of the Nymphs.



2. About the statistics

725 games were made, which means 25 against each Fake God in average.
The Total Games / Games Won data (see below by the certain Fake Gods) contains every games.
On the other hand, the cathegories ignore certain matches since I tried to avoid certain "distortion factors". Eg. I ignored all the Lucky/Unlucky games, 50% of the Good/Bad draws etc. Also, I applied a Win by/Loss by data too (not shown here; I don't want to bother others with such details). +3 meant easy win, the AI had no chance, –3 stood for I had no chance. +2/–2 were "normal" Win/Loss, while +1/–1 were really close matches (usually 1 turn or draw and almost Won/Lost). I considered these too, eg. if there were much more +1s than –1s I reduced the Win Rate.
Games were quit only if there was no mathematical chance left for winning. (Eg. Gemini made the 2nd 2 Momentumed Spider, I had 20 HP left with no Eternity out. I will lose regardless I draw an Eternity next.)

I know that this appears cheating. However, first of all, the raw data still shows every games. Besides, these are mere predictions how the things would have been if I had made about 7500 games or so. On a long term, Luck/Bad Luck doesn't count and blissful/painful events are "spreaded" equally against the certain Fake Gods. Eg., against Neptune I had several silly games, lost a lot of times because I had no Shield in the first 12 (or even 18) cards, and even the successful games were seriously absurd (eg. no Scorpion in the first 24 cards). Against Graviton I had 5 Won but, only one of these were "normal" (I outrushed him by Poison), all the others were insane Lucky (eg. I had the Eternity out before he drew any Towers). Of course, these are only predictions, maybe something which I consider absurd is quite probable in practice. But, for deciding these, one should perform zillions of complicated calculations (eg. What is the chance for playing a Sharded Scorpion before Morte plays a Bonewall? Mind the Quanta accumulation, the Hourglasses and the gameplay of the AI too!) Frankly, who has time for that?


3. Against the certain Fake Gods... the numbers show Games Played / Games Won; from best to worst opponent

See my previous post for more tips and tricks.


VERY EASY – The deck perfectly works against these Fake Gods; even if you're unlucky (eg. unable to draw a Shard) you can win in many cases.

1. Lionheart (36/35) – This is the easiest (and one of the dullest) match, I'd suggest this deck as an Oracle Counter too. The only thing you should know: if you're short on Shields and Hourglasses don't play multiple Scorpions, his Rewinds can keep you off your Shields. He'll die due to his Hourglasses.

2. Destiny (27/23) – Basicly, same as Lionheart. (Also a valid Oracle Counter.)

3. Neptune (21/13) – Despite the bad statistics (detailed above) this one is a piece of cake. Rewind something in each turn to increase his Poison counter, since your Scorpions will be destroyed instantly. Quite a boring game anyway.

4. Miracle (25/18) – Unless she starts out strongs (Dragons) and you have a bad draw, you'll win. No games were lost cause of her Miracles.

5. Serket (18/14) – Shielding is a priority over the Scorpions. If you fail to draw any, you'll most probably lose quickly but, that rarely occurs (2 games in 18).

6. Paradox (14/11) – Shield as late as you can since her damage output increases dramatically later. In very rare cases she clones your Scorpions. If this happens when you have no Shield out, you'll most probably lose. (Maybe she's only "Easy", too few games played.)


EASY – An easy win in most cases.

7. Seism (35/25) – Like Paradox, he's also "Easy or Very Easy". Still good stats despite some painful games (No Shield 3 times, Bad draw 3 times, other out of luck events 2 times). I've explained this one before, just one more trick: if you're approaching deckout, try playing unsharded Scorpions, he'll Rewind them and you can Rewind his Creatures meanwhile. One of the most exciting games with this deck.

8. Elidnis (21/12) – In theory you should have no problem (only 2 games were lost because she outhealed me). In practice, though her deck is quite unreliable, she can surprise you in many ways. Eg. Quintesscenced Ulitharid, clones your Scorpions, Pufferfish, etc. Keep your fingers crossed that you won't meet any of these surprises.

9. Incarnate (24/18) – As I mentioned, sometimes you can still win even if he plays a Bonewall before your Scorpions. Poisoning is a priority above all!


MEDIUM – You have reasonable chance, on the other hand, you can lose many times. In almost all cases, skillful gameplay is needed.

10. Gemini (29/14) – Unknown, maybe "Easy", maybe a "worse Medium". Play Eternity as fast as you can. Strangely, against Gemini there were only 2 games when I had an Eternity in my starting hand (though, if my calculations are correct, there is a 37% chance for that!). Always Rewind something and never Shard a Scorpion multiple times because he will clone it.

11. Ferox (30/13) – Even if it's considerably easier than with the previous version, it's still an annoying game; sometimes you'll waste plenty of time for a lost match. This game greatly depends on your and his draw.

12. Hekate (30/11) – A complicated match which needs practice. Try to hold back your Permanents 'till you can play more of them in one turn. Bad draws hurt you a lot against her since she starts out fast with that Doll/Rage combo. Sometimes before you can play anything but Towers half of your HP is gone.

13. Decay (25/10) – If he gets an Eclipse fast or he manages to take away more quanta than you can produce before you can poison him, you're doomed. In all other cases you have a good chance.

14. Osiris (25/10) – If you plays Eternity before he plays a Shard of Focus, you'll most probably win, if she plays the Shard first, you'll most likely lose. Keep rewinding his Shard (once it appeared)! Not only because you don't want to get your Permanents destroyed. You can also sabotage his deck and more important: his Gravity quanta. If you can't, you can also lose cause of his Trebuchets. It's unsure whether he's "Medium" or "Hard", I don't know what's the chance for getting an Eternity before his Shard.



HARD – Playing against these Fake Gods is never easy. However, sometimes, if you're lucky and skillful enough, you can still win.

15. Eternal Phoenix (19/6) – In theory, I thought that this one was "Impossible". But, after all the additional calculations, Eternal Phoenix became the 15th easiest (and 15th hardest) Fake God. And I don't know, why! Perhaps Fractal increases Nervetoxin fast. Perhaps if you play all Permanents you can protect your Shields. Still not enough explanation, bad draws (3 games), and quanta and Shield shortage (2–2 each) also occured against him (more times than against many other Fake Gods). Only 5 games were lost because he destroyed the valuable Permanents (mostly the Shields).

16. Hermes (27/9) – He almost reaches the "Medium" cathegory. Plenty of Explosions but, due to his fat deck, sometimes your Permanents remain on board for a long time. Sometimes (poor AI?) he uses all the Explosions on your Towers. Greatly depends on his starting hand and Creatures.

17. Chaos Lord (20/7) – As I mentioned, plenty of games were lost because he managed to produce a powerful mutant (eg. a Dragon with Steal). I'm not sure whether I'm unlucky or he has a great chance for this. Discord and Dissipation Field rarely turns the tide, even if I expected so before. Nevertheless, poison as fast as you can.

18. Morte (21/5) – Scorpion is the top priority, if he plays a Bonewall before he's poisoned, everything is over. Still, you can die due to his Poison, or his Miracle.

19. Jezebel (23/5) – Don't expect a lot, you'll lose cause of her Steals. Even worse: she doesn't only steals your Hourglasses and Eternity she can even use them! But, there is something. If she starts stealing before you played the cards mentioned (and your Shields), she'll use the stolen Towers (Pendulums) for creating Nymphs. Though that 2 Nymphs do considerable damage, their abilities are not too dangerous. (Especially Ether; Invulnerability doesn't make a big difference since her board is cloaked all the time.) So, in many cases the most devastating Nymphs (Air Nymph is the worst possibility) don't show up at all.

20. Obliterator (25/6) – Almost "Very Hard"; quit if the Pulverizer appears early. If not, you can still lose to the momentumed Creatures (these 2 cases covered 19 games). However, if you play an Eternity quick (which is the top priority) you can slow his deck down and outrush even the previous two things by the Nervetoxin.


VERY HARD – Thin chance. If things go wrong, quit. Some of these matches don't worth the effort at all.

21. Akebono (24/4) – Same cathegory and gameplay as Obliterator. At least you can take out the Shard (if you have the Eternity out) but, this is offset by the Chimera. Also, I found Akebono faster than Obliterator. Obviously, quit if a Shard appears before your Eternity.

22. Scorpio (24/4) – In most cases, she'll poison you faster than you intoxicate her. Shield quickly, Rewind Physalias and keep your fingers crossed. Still, it always worths a try, games against Scorpion rarely last long.

23. Divine Glory (21/3) – Your only chance if she doesn't draw a Fire Tower in early- or mid-game. Even in such cases you can lose cause of the plenty of Miracles. I don't recommend this game, even if you have a lucky start you can lose.

24. Fire Queen (24/3) – In theory, the Eternity can slow her deck down. In practice, your Scorpions don't live long (massive Creature Control), so it's hard to increase her poison counter. She outhealed me even after a good start in 13 games. Quit if her amount of Bonds and Queens exceed 4. Even if not, this game is highly unrecommended: after a long, long fight she turns the tide by playing a few Bonds and Queens.

25. Rainbow (25/2) – 5 games lost due to her Permanent Controls. But, even worse: 6 games cause of her Miracles! I'd say, simply quit: firstly, it's a waste of time, plus, it's hard to win any cards from Rainbow.


IMPOSSIBLE – In one word: autoquit.

26. Graviton (34/5) – Don't get fooled by the stats: they were merely lucky exceptions. You're no match for him.

27. Dark Matter (31/2) – 18 games were lost cause of the Momentum alone.

28. Dream Catcher (27/2) – Butterfly Effect is far more effective the deck than Shard of Focus or Explosion. Don't bother.

29. Octane (20/0) – Just look at the statistics. It tells everything.



4. SUMMARY – Overall Statistics – TL;DR version starts here

Base Statistics

GAMES PLAYED: 725
GAMES WON: 290
WIN RATE: 40%
NORMALIZED WIN RATE: 39,68% (Games would have won if the deck had faced every Fake Gods same times.)
CARDS WON: 139 (Estimated data, I didn't write this data during the first 200 games.)

Predicted Statistics

NORMALIZED WIN RATE EXCLUDING AUTOQUITS: 44,88% (No games against Impossible rated Fake Gods)
NORMALIZED WIN RATE EXCL. PREDICED AUTOQUITS 49,42% (The same as the previous but, excluding Divine Glory, Fire Queen and Rainbow)

ESTIMATED WIN RATE: appr. 44,24%
(It's a complicated guess; excluding all the Lucky/Unlucky games, appr. half of the Good/Bad draws and normalizing certain data, eg. in 725 games there should have been about 6 more games than there were in which there were no Scorpions in the first 18 cards.)

ESTIMATED WIN RATE EXCLUDING AUTOQUITS: 49,23% (the previous data and no games against Impossible Fake Gods)


4. For further examination – If someone's interested in, might have a try...

– Would a third Hourglass help?
– Should the deck contain an Eletrocutor instead of an Eternity (or two)?
– How could it work with 4 Shards and Scorpions (I don't recommend, the probability of getting draw with eg. no Scorpion in the first half of the deck is more than double)
– Should the deck use a different mark?
– Only Pendulums / Pendulums and one type of Towers / Only Towers?
– Do the decks posted by others work better?
– Is the quanta management okay (it seems so but who knows)?
– Would a single Lightning work against certain Fake Gods (eg. Akebono, Dream Catcher, Hermes etc.)?

[Higurashi]

That's the best collection of testing results I've ever seen, for any deck ever. You actually kept a statistical record of WHY the deck lost when it did. I'm amazed and I wish everyone did that. The FGei thread needs people like you. Or hell, just you.

Looking at the deck and results, I see it's not as effective as plain ol' Monoaether. It's obvious to me the main reason for this is that it's slow, whereas MA is actually quite fast for an FG killer. High damage comes out fairly quick, but with this you don't have any healing to survive the long race. What made Ghostal so good was the combination of Phasies, draw denial and high damage output. Sure, Neurotoxin can rack up to very high amounts, but it takes much longer than a fistful of Ghosts, and you don't have unlimited time as long as you can only pack 6 Phasies.

If we turn this deck into IGT with Dunes, we solve that problem. You get unlimited time to build damage, and your damage source is less vulnerable to control (you can play it whenever). However, in the end it remains IGT with slower damage, because double draw denial removes any threat of CC lowering your Ghost damage anyway.

But heck, I love both Scorps and SoW too. I'll still play it.

[Aneninen]

Lol, I've never admitted that this had been the best anti-False God ever ^_^ But, one doesn't know until he/she tests it.

For some "not-that-fanatic-players":

(1) The amount of games matters. If I watch the games No. 501-600, the (unmodified) Win Rate was mere 34%. No. 601-700 reached 45%. Quite a big difference, isn't it?

(2) Even minor modifications can alter the Win Rate dramatically. The two different versions of this deck had almost 5% difference! Even an "accetable" deck has the potential – perhaps changing some cards again can increase the stats... After all, the good old anti-False God decks weren't invented in one day, were they?


Thanks for the confidence, Hirugashi anyway. I checked FGei before but, as far as I saw they use a bit different system. Eg. I made no stats about the time. However, with this deck, lost games are usually short which might be an advantage too. (Or, at least, games with some Rainbow versions, the good old Instosis and RoL/Hope were longer, as far as I can remember – even losing took more time.)
According to that page, Wise Scorpions deck beats some other decks while other decks beat Wise Scorpions – I think that's normal.

Perhaps later I'll test other decks too but I'm not the fastest one (I usually play some matches when I take a break from my work). Also, right now I don't have any other anti-FG idea and to tell the truth, I'm a bit bored of this one after 1000+ games. I want to see other cards on my board! Crawlers, Dragons, Nymphs, Vampires or anything but those stuffid Scorpions all the time, lololol!

[Higurashi]

Oh, I was just commenting on the deck in general since I noticed I hadn't before despite following the thread. I played a LOT with ol' IGT and a bit with Ghostal, so it's a nice feeling to play this too.

There's certainly no rush when testing decks. Taking it easy means you're more meticulous too, which is very important when determining winrate against FG's, HB's and Arena. Not as much when against Elders. I'd love to see you and some other people revive the FGei thread, testing other decks and taking steps to update that thread for the new patches.

[Acab Jef]

i dont get why the quint isn't needed anymore?

profit of quint:
spell damage after SoW
immortal after SoW

so both are quite good for the deck, against false gods the 4 extra poison per turn could matter a lot?

[Calindu]

i dont get why the quint isn't needed anymore?

profit of quint:
spell damage after SoW
immortal after SoW

so both are quite good for the deck, against false gods the 4 extra poison per turn could matter a lot?

Test before you speak, quint would make this a 3 cards combo, and afaik spell damage will make the scorp to not inflict poison.

[Acab Jef]

Test before you speak, quint would make this a 3 cards combo, and afaik spell damage will make the scorp to not inflict poison.

i am not saying you can't use the 2 card combo. the quint is just an extra wich improves the deck.

[Aneninen]

Hirugashi: is FGei thread dead? I didn't notice it... however, the whole system seems to be a bit difficult with all those tables and stuffs. Perhaps that was the main factor behind losing its popularity? Nevertheless, some kind of testing system should exist...

Acab Jef: I've tried: Immaterial Scorpions don't poison :-( Besides, a three-card combo is much more vulnerable to everything (bad draws, control cards, etc). Unless you manage to create a three-card synergy which works in several two-card (or single-card) versions too, or which have "shunts", it won't be a reliable core for a deck. Shunt means alternative solutions; eg. a Flying Titan can be Catapulted or Accelerated, in a duo  / deck it cand be Liquid Shadowed too, so, the Titan/Animate Weapon core can be expanded in different ways. (However, the core still needs both cards in this case.)