Strategy

[Mithcairion]

This is a thread for general strategy to employ throughout the event.  While this will be my baby, I want (and to some degree expect) everyone to contribute in some way, shape, or form.  I always welcome feedback on anything and everything I say.  I'm not quite certain as to how kirch will want our private section set up, but I know that it generally is much easier to find what you're looking for when you don't have to sort through 20+ threads to find what you want.

For starters, here are links to our team chat (http://typewith.me/7Rk4fxFhyu) and our War 4 Intel Document (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?hl=en_US&key=0AprBQuUifY8mdDg0Y05SeUU1LUdnVl9UQXJOVXBzV0E&rm=full#gid=4).  I will be following this post with general strategy thoughts on every team thus far, and specific thoughts will come as the event progresses.

[Mithcairion]

Strengths:

Card Advantage.  Parallel Universe and Fractal provide for a phenomenal amount of card advantage for them.  PUs can be used to make a hard hitting deck like a Grabbow hit even harder, and Fractal makes any cheap creature spammable (particularly useful with Minor Phoenix given these War rules).Shield.  Dimensional Shield is the one shield that

must be planned for whenever we go against Aether.  Poison, Momentum and PC are really the only way around them, unless a deckout strategy is employed.  Combined with their card advantage, this becomes a powerful stalling tool.Alternate Damage.  Lightningbolt provides hands-down the best damage CC for an incredibly cheap price.  The fact that it is so cheap provides for a great amount of versatility and when coupled with PU or Fractal can provide for a tremendous amount of burst damage.[/list]
Weaknesses:

Lack of Healing.  They have zero healing cards in their element, although they do synergize well with some elements that do, namely through the use of Devtal and Fractogs.  That being said, in order to use any healing they need to have a deck that is devoted to healing in order to make effective use of it.Pricey Cards.  Dimensional Shield, Fractal, and Parallel Universe all cost at least 6 quanta (unupped).  While other teams have exploited this in the past, Aether did a great job last War of not leaving themselves vulnerable to quanta destruction.No PC.  While they can roll out some very strong decks, they need to make a concerted effort in order to use it in their decks.Dimensional Shield.  Yes, I know that this seems like a strength since creatures can’t hit through it, but the fact is that they rely on it without having too many other methods of defense.  With that in mind, we can use their over-reliance on it to our advantage and punish them for it.

What we know about their Masters/Team:
Well, Higs once again has UTAlan and EvaRia at her disposal, as well as relative unknowns (but fully carded) hainkarga and markkilleruk.  UTAlan is great at organization and is a googledoc genius, so we can expect them to be very well organized and to have a reasonable grasp on what teams are doing.  Once they figured out that we didn’t have an answer for Bonebolt they never used another deck against us.  For the most part her team is relatively inexperienced in the PvP circuit, although I can all but guarantee that they will one and all put in the time necessary to get the most out of their decks.

All decks used vs. in War 3:

Won 2-0

by Mithcairion

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4vh 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 52q 590 590 590 590 5c1 5f6 5og 61q 61q 61q 61q 61q 624 624 624 63a 63a 63a 63a 63a 63a 63a 8pm

Won 2-0

by Mithcairion

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5oo 5oo 5oo 5oo 5oo 61o 61o 61o 61o 61o 61o 61o 61o 61o 61o 61q 61q 61q 61q 61q 61q 61v 61v 61v 61v 63a 63a 63a 63a 63a 8pr

Lost 2-0

by Mithcairion

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5lc 5lc 5lc 5li 5li 5li 5lm 5lm 5lm 5lm 5lm 5lm 61o 61o 61o 61o 61o 61o 61o 61o 61q 61q 61q 61q 61q 61q 61t 61t 61t 61t 61t 61t 61u 61u 63a 63a 63a 63a 63a 63a 63a 63a 63a 63a 8pq

Lost 2-1

by Mithcairion

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5oc 5oc 5of 5of 5of 5of 5oo 5oo 5oo 5oo 61o 61o 61q 61q 61q 61r 61r 61r 61r 61r 61r 63a 63a 63a 63a 63a 63a 63a 63a 63a 8pr

Lost 2-0

by Mithcairion

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52o 52o 52o 52o 52o 52o 52q 52q 52q 52r 52r 52r 61o 61o 61o 61o 61o 61q 61q 61q 61q 61q 61t 61t 63a 63a 63a 63a 63a 63a 8pk

Lost 2-1

by Mithcairion

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52h 52h 52o 52o 52o 52o 52o 52o 52q 52q 52r 52r 52r 542 542 542 542 61o 61o 61o 61o 61o 61q 61q 61q 61q 61q 61r 61r 61r 61r 63a 63a 63a 63a 8pk

Lost 2-1

by Mithcairion

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52h 52h 52h 52o 52o 52o 52o 52o 52q 52q 52r 52r 52r 542 542 542 61o 61o 61o 61q 61q 61q 61q 61q 61r 61r 622 63a 63a 63a 63a 63a 8pk

[/list]

[Mithcairion]

Strengths:

Creature Control.  Air has the most hard CC available to them compared to any other element.  Shockwave allows for instant CC on most non-dragons, and Owl’s Eye is ever valuable and annoying CC on a stick.  Even Unstable Gas and Thunderstorm can be used for mass CC, although Unstable Gas is used mainly as an alternate source of damage and we will never see Thunderstorm in the vault.  Care must be taken in order to either protect creatures or come up with alternate sources of damage.Shields.  Wings and Fog are two of the most often used shields in the game.  Fog is useful due to its splashiness in rainbows, primarily Grabows, and Wings presents a whole different set of problems due to the fact that the only flying creature we have is Crap Dragon...err, Stone Dragon.Powerful mono decks.  The fact that Dragonflies/Damselflies are quanta generators help to give one of the faster mono decks out there that has the added benefit of being incredibly difficult to derail.  In addition, their dragons have the added benefit of being hardy while still hitting hard and Sky Blitz gives them a powerful surprise tactic.Flying Weapon.  A favorite tactic for Air throughout different Wars, and most likely to be a favorite tactic once again.  This gives Air a variety of tactics to choose from and built in powerful creatures, albeit even more susceptible to Reverse Time than usual.

Weaknesses:

Lack of healing.  Air has no in-element source of healing and doesn’t synergize well with many elements that do.  The only one that does is , and even then they almost have to go with a pure stall.  So long as we don’t make the mistake of planning our decks for simply 100 damage this should pose no problem at all.Shields.  As much as their shields are a benefit, they can also be problematic, as neither of them are perfectly reliable.  We’ve all been on both sides of a Fog Shield hax, and Wings can obviously stop a lot of what we do, but neither are straight ‘damage reducing’ shields and can thus not be depended on in a pinch.  This can be used to our advantage as they will likely be overly reliant on both.Lack of PC.  This is only kind of a weakness due to the fact that Air has a very good synergy with .  Dragonflies/Damselflies make excellent Immolation fodder, and Unstable Gas provides for some hard hitting and sudden damage.  Outside of that, though, PC is likely to only be in a deck as a rainbow splash.

What we know about their Master/Team:
DrunkDestroyer has been around for a while but this is the first time that he has truly distinguished himself in the PvP scene.  Pervepic has not been involved in the PvP metagame in quite some time so it remains to be seen just what influence he has in dictating team strategy, but it must be noted that he is a former Master of Air and almost unparalleled when it comes to War strategy.  One thing that stands out to me is that none of Air’s team is particularly active right now and they could certainly face activity issues as the event goes along.  For those of you placing War bets, this looks like a team set up to fail, to me.

All decks used vs. in War 3:

Won 2-0:

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5i4 5i4 5i4 5ie 5ie 5ie 5ie 5ie 5ie 5jm 5jm 5jm 5oc 5oc 5oc 5og 5ol 5ol 5on 5on 5on 5oo 5pu 5pu 5pu 5pu 5pu 5pu 7gr 7gr 7grLost 2-1: 

Code: [Select]

5c5 5c5 5c5 5c5 5c5 5c6 5c6 5c6 5c7 5c7 5c7 5c7 5c7 5lk 5lk 5oi 5oi 5oi 5oi 5oi 5oi 5oj 5oj 5oj 5oj 5oj 5oj 5ol 5ol 5pu 5pu 5pu 5pu 5pu 5pu 5pu 5pu 5pu 5pu 5pu 5pu 5pu 5pu 5pu 5puWon 2-0: 

Code: [Select]

4vf 4vf 4vl 4vl 4vl 4vn 4vn 4vn 5of 5of 5of 5og 5og 5op 5pu 5pu 5pu 5pu 5pu 5pu 5pu 5pu 5pu 5pu 5pu 5pu 5pu 5pu 7mv 7mvWon 2-0: 

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5f6 5f6 5f6 5f6 5oc 5oc 5oc 5oc 5oc 5oc 5oc 5oc 5oc 5oc 5og 5og 5oi 5oi 5ol 5ol 5om 5om 5om 5om 5om 5om 5oo 5oo 5oo 5oo 5p0 5pu 5pu 5pu 5pu[/list]

[Sevs]

Aether
Their decks for LT and General will be different from what they bring elsewhere. I am positive that fractix will be used for LT or General just about every round.

If we are careful about countering lightning and dimshield, everything else should fal in line.


Air

They are also decently expensive. their main damage comes from their weapon, dragons, ffq or wyrm that takes 2 air each round. some way to disrupt quanta will surely be a a huge hit to their arsenal.

If at all possible I believe bonewall would be an excelent shield

[Avenger]

Bonewall, or... dimshield. Whole world is one good deck against .
 

[CCCombobreaker]

Kirch and I were talkin last night and we really have a hard time with coming up with a counter for the mono Entropy deck seen here:

by CCCombobreaker

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4vc 4vc 4vc 4vc 4vc 4vc 4vd 4vd 4vd 4ve 4ve 4ve 4ve 4vf 4vf 4vf 4vf 4vf 4vf 4vl 4vl 50u 50u 50u 50u 50u 50u 6ts 6u5 6ve 8pj

I tried a bunch of crazy stuff (all of which failed)... but I hit a deck that won 1 of 5 and that little ray of hope was then refined to this:

by CCCombobreaker

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4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 52q 52q 58o 58o 58q 58q 58q 58q 58q 58q 58u 58u 58u 58u 58u 58u 590 590 590 590 5aa 5aa 5og 5og 8pm

and with a variant

by CCCombobreaker

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4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 52o 52o 52o 58o 58o 58u 58u 58u 58u 58u 58u 590 590 590 590 590 590 5aa 5aa 5og 5og 5og 6rl 6rl 8pm

which both went 4-1 against the mono entropy... but the problem is this style deck is super weak against dis-hole (and violates the limit of novas >.> ).  On the spreadsheet the decks we listed as good are OE control (which we think they will prepare for with 5-6 dragons and 3-4 AM + discos) and the deathstall.  Perhaps we can get more tests run with the deathstall?  But I like these almost monos with novas to counteract the disco and reliably bring in solid off element permanents since entropy is generally PC light.  And with all little creatures (til you evolve for the kill) they have no good targets for AM to help them survive.

[Sevs]

Have you tried EQ's I know they might go for some strange pend split but the deck is based on very high cost creatures + abillities. Can we play discord EQ?

[kirchj33]

Have you tried EQ's I know they might go for some strange pend split but the deck is based on very high cost creatures + abillities. Can we play discord EQ?

I expect to see AMs for some reason.  I feel it in my gut.  Counters our wings and if its supplemented, it should help counter our grabbows.  They will bring their best decks vs. us because of our 2-0 start.  In fact, we can expect this from most teams now.  No more of being overlooked with a crappy mono time deck.  Those days are over!

CCC tested a mono stall that I would maybe consider.  3 tit shields, 6 wardens, 6 BB, 6 SS.  It almost held up vs. their most damage heavy version of a mono and that was w/o the shields upgraded.

[CCCombobreaker]

Have you tried EQ's I know they might go for some strange pend split but the deck is based on very high cost creatures + abillities. Can we play discord EQ?

I was testing vs the deck I posted and that thing has a crazy pillar pend up-pillar up-pend split.  It can always be counted on for them to get discord even if you EQ a stack on turn 2.  And the discord WILL set us back more than the EQ will set them back.  I couldn't beat their mono by trying to EQ and damage race it.  EQ + mono stall was more effective, but still not awesome.  The pure mono stall was sketch but possible, and perhaps a heavier quanta version would work better... but disco BH or disco EQ will still be really mean...

[Mithcairion]

Vault Analysis - Round 3

  299 cards remaining

KnownPer Cards Remaining in Vault	Number	Assumed Salvaged	Number	Assumed Saved	Number
Lightning	10	Poison	6	Titan	3
Dimensional Shield	9	Parallel Universe	4	Sapphire Charger	3
Fractal	13	Dimensional Shield	2	Ice Dragon	2
Aether Pendulum	47	Lightning	6	Earthquake	3
Bone Dragon	2			Blue Crawler (conv.)	1
Arsenic	2			Poison	5
Bone Wall	4			Arsenic	1
Deflagration	3			Deflagration	3
Phoenix	4			Nova	3
Devourer	5			Bone Wall	5
Minor Vampire	3			Arsenic	1
Aether Pillar	16
Nightfall	2
Golden Dragon	1
Sanctuary	6
Lobotomizer	2
Phase Dragon	1
Phase Spider	3

Percentage of Vault "Known":  44.5%
Percentage of Vault Reasonably Assumed:  60.5%

[Mithcairion]

Vault Analysis - Round 3

  321 cards remaining

Known Cards Remaining in Vault	Number	Assumed Salvaged	Number	Assumed Saved	Number
Wind Pillar	26	Unstable Gas	3	Reverse Time	3
Azure Dragon	9	Shockwave	2	Steal	3
Fog Shield	3	Fog Shield	1	Fractal	5
Owl's Eye	5	Maxwell's Demon	1	Sanctuary	1
Air Pendulum	16	Owl's Eye	1	Titan	3
Devourer	6	Entropy Pendulum	3	Flying Weapon	3
Steal	3	Pandemonium	1	Fire Bolt	6
Minor Vampire	6	Poison	6
Nova	6	Dragonfly	6
Momentum	1
Graboid	4
Deflaration	8
Wings	3
Purify	3
Golden Dragon	2
Hope	3
Firefly	5
Aether Pillar	2
Lobotomizer	1
Fractal	3
Burning Pillar	1
Phoenix	4
Fire Pendulum	1
Shockwave	2

Percentage of Vault "Known":  38.3%
Percentage of Vault Reasonably Assumed:  53.3%

[Mithcairion]

Vault Analysis - Round 3

  217 cards remaining

Known Cards Remaining in Vault	Number	Assumed Salvaged	Number	Assumed Saved	Number
Devourer	6	Bone Wall	2	Black Dragon	3
Dark Pendulum	29	Flesh Spider	3	Vampire Stiletto	1
Fractal	5	Reverse Time	1	Gargoyle	11
Dusk Mantle	2	Graboid	5	Poison	6
Vampire Stiletto	3	Lycnathrope	1	Dark Pendulum	6
Minor Vampire	3	Nova	6	Cloak	3
Obsidian Pillar	7
Black Dragon	2
Steal	4
Liquid Shadow	3
Parallel Universe	5
Time Mark	1
Time Factory	1
Reverse Time	6
Ghost of the Past	6
Time Pendulum	1
Nightmare	5

Percentage of Vault "Known":  41.0%
Percentage of Vault Reasonably Assumed:  63.1%