Sevs, I appreciate you starting this topic. Without any history in TWm, its really hard to have a dialogue about important stuff.
First off, let me say that we should be able to squeeze in 11 or 12 decks with some other cards to fill things out. We only need to carry the quanta to fill out ~9-10ish decks, allowing us to take more cards to fill in other decks so start thinking of what 11 or 12 decks you think would be best. Especially with the prop bonus now. Right now we are sitting at 378 cards in the vault.
I think sevs is right when he says we don't need any ghosts. They're probably too big of a risk early on. I had packed them before because they come out faster, but they're probably only marginally more effective, and even less so from earth's standpoint.
I would like to have the potential to run 3 nova grabbows. Showing all 3 of them in the first round would likely be a bad idea, but having the ability to fall back on these late in war is important, and having salvage cards to fill them out is also important. These are also likely our strongest decks from a flexibility standpoint. I think I did enough testing today to determine they are still completely viable with the deflag nerf.
Here is my to do list as far as filling in the vault:
1. Do some more immo phoenix testing. Before the deflag nerf this was one of our strongest decks. It still has the potential to remain so after the nerf as a general's or lieutenant's deck. It's a good go-to option vs. water (freeze), dawkness (slow element in general & devs), entropy (rainbow quanta > discord), and decks that rely heavily upon OE/shockwave/wings to stop grabbies. I want to see just how decent this option is from a pvp standpoint after the nerf.
2. Evaluate the testing - This means taking a good hard look at the data, ensuring that we have multiple (3+) good options vs. each opponent and are not extremely deficient against certain decks like bonebolt.
Side note: Aether ran bonebolt 3 straight rounds against earth in war 3. Its a very hard deck for our cards to counter.
3. Simulate a few rounds of war in the vaultbuilding tool. This will help determine exactly how much quanta we need. Its better to go on the low side with quanta because it can be converted later, but now is our only chance to pack specific cards. This exercise will also give me some idea of how to manipulate salvages and discards with the new rules early on. It should also help give an idea of which accessory cards to bring outside of specific decks to help counter specific opponents. I encourage others to do the same exercise.
4. Begin building vault. This will be easy from a general sense after doing the previous 3 steps, but it will be difficult to fine-tune it. Much team discussion will be needed.
I will finish step 3 within the next 24 hours and keep everyone updated.
A few specific points:
I tried testing several gargoyle/dev/darkness duos and none performed well. For those of you who think you have a good deck that's untested please do so now & do it in a hurry or it will not be considered for the vault. I will only bring strong decks overall.Bonebolt, as previously identified is a big problem for us. I wouldn't expect them to open with it against us, because they will expect us to be prepared after last war, but any number of deficiencies in our vault will leave us exposed to it. We should be mindful that death may run the same thing and be prepared for it from them as well. Mono w/ pulvy seems to do well. A grabbow w/ purify might also. A pulvybow w/ purify would probably run right through it. Some trident deck might work, although for us to run a trident deck it is a huge vault commitment to an overall weak deck, which leads me to my next and final point for now...EQ will probably be more effective this war in light of the recent changes with 1.29. Immo usage will be much lower and some teams may even shy away from nova (although I doubt it). That being said, I still don't think EQ is a great strategy for us because its predictable. I would rather stay away from EQ in round 1 and force a bunch of awkward quanta splits, then come with it heavy in round 2 or vice versa. The former is probably a better strategy. Discord is probably a better strategy for us than EQ for the same reasons: awkward quanta splits, aversion to immo/rainbow quanta, higher likelihood of monos & duos than in war 3.
[li]Marks... no. Nymphs... 1 or 2 might be useful.[/li][/list]
