A good day to every fellow forum-reader!
Some time ago, I wrote a long post covering basic concepts and theories associated with a rush deck, and the tempo of the game in general. I recieved mostly positive and useful reviews so I decided to continue and write one more article like that.
(if you want to read that post, the link is
http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,12203.0.html )
In this post I'll cover yet some other concepts essential to undertand and master the game, with primarily focus on stall decks.
The following will be discussed:
1, basic concept of card advantage
2, resource management in Elements
3, based on 1 and 2, what are the essential gameplan and focus of a stall deck.
4, conclusions derived from the above
Let us begin!
1, The concept of card advantage
The idea behind card advantage is that whoever has more options to control and manipulate the flow of the game, will eventually win. Having more optinons usually means having more cards in hand.
Let's examine how the situation of card advantage can manifest itself!
Imagine two players, A and B playing a game of Elements.(Let's assume they have a VERY large amount of every quanta needed, so they will always be able to play any of their cards.)
A's deck is dense with threats, yet B's is full of answers to those threats. Every time A plays a threat (mostly a creature, or a weapon), the next turn B neutralizes it (say, with a firebolt or a deflagration). 3 turns has passed. Player A played 3 threats, and B played 3 answers. They have played an equal number of cards. If A chooses to play another threat, B can yet again neutralize it with one of his/her cards.
Now let's assume that B has a handful of Rain of Fires, while A has 7 Giantfrogs (a creature with 3 toughness). A chooses to play 2 of his frogs. In her next turn, B can kill them with only one of her cards: one RoF. In this case, A is down 1 card (he has 5 in his hands whle B has 6). Next turn, A again plays 2 frogs, and B kills them with a RoF. Now B has 5 cards while A has only 3. If the flow of the game continues in this manner, the players will arrive at a point where A has no cards in hand wile B still has some. Now, whatever threat B chooses to play, A cannot neutralize it since he has no cards. Even if he draws one that can kill B's threat, B still can play another threat unhindered.
So in this situation, B has the card advantage. How did she achieve this? By using fewer cards than her opponent to neutralize A's threats. Another method she could have used is drawing more cards than her opponent. Either way, if she has more cards, she can assume that she can neutralize future threats and defend her own permanents better than her opponent. Eventually she will win this game.
some examples of gaining card advantage in a game of Elements:
- RoF-ing several of the opponents creatures
- Devouring several of the opponents creatures! (you played 1 card and killed more than one of the opponent's)
- Drawing cards via Golden Hourglass (you play one that(if sticks on the battlefield) nets you more)
- Using Mindgate (somewhat similar to hourglass, provided your deck is designed to play almost any card the opponent might have)
- Rewinding an opponent's blessed, adrenalined or momentumed creature (s/he played 2 cards and you played only one). The same is true for Freeze or Basilisk Blood, if the game ends before the creature becomes active again.
- Fractaling a creature (if you are capable of playing the copies)
- Continoululsy using Eternity on opponent's creatures (this one is tricky. while technically they won't be down a single card, they keep drawing the same threat which you can neutralize with ease, while you can draw more threats. And they won't be drawing any answers. Virtual card advantage.)
- Generating Scarabs via Pharaoh
some methods which are NOT netting card advantage:
- drawing a card via Sundial or Precognition (they don't net you card, simply replace themselves in your hand with another card.)
2, Resource management in Elements
Every game of Elements is, at its core, about resource management. The resources used in the game are the following:
- Life points (or damage, as decerease in life points.)
- Quanta in the pool
- Cards in your hand (and to a lesser extent, cards in your deck)
The player who can turn these resources into eachother with the best ratio wins the game.
some examples:
- you play a pillar. You turned one card in your hands into some quanta in your pool (the amount? 1 per turn as long as the pillar sticks or the game lasts. )
- You played a Heal. You just turned 3 life quanta and a card into 20 life points.
- You Firebolt your opponent. You used 3 fire quanta and a card to deal 3 damage to him/her (that is, denied 3 of his/her life points).
- you play a Lava Destroyer. there goes 5 quanta and a card, for 7 damage. And the promise of future 2 damages for 1 earth quanta.
- You activate a Golden Hourglass. 2 time quanta into a card. Not bad!
This looks simple enough; Everybody wants to play their cards to their maximum extent. Yet, answer me one question: Have you ever had lots of excessive quanta in your pool when the game ended? If the answer is yes, that means that in the particular match you did not convert your resources at a maximised ratio. Namely, you converted too much of your cards into quanta(too much pillars, maybe) and too few of them into damage(too few cards played).
Designing a deck that converts each resource at the best possible rartio is hard. If you play a rainbow deck that uses only a few elements, then you are wasting the other element's quanta. Similarly, if you play a mono or duo with too much pillars, that means too much of your cards will turn into quanta and too few will be using that quanta.
Keep this in mind next time you are designing or fine-tuning your deck
3, ...So what makes a stall deck tick?
The stall deck aims to always have more options to manipulate the game than the opponent. Deniing options from the opponent(quanta drain, game lockdown) is also a "pseudo-way" of having more options. To achieve this, the stall deck sacrifices most of its speed, and instead aims to overcome the opponent on the long run, where its card advantage can dominate and it can play its threats safely.
In order to work properly, the stall deck must focus on the following game aspects:
- slowing down the game so it has enough time for the card advantage to actually matter
- always having a diverse set of answers in its hand so it can neutralize the opponent's threats
- it can neglect the quanta/damage ratio of its creatures a bit, but instead must concentrate on having (drawing) more cards and maybe gaining life (i.e. slowing down the damage race). So it should turn its quanta into cards and life more instead of damage.
Yet it has to have an effective way to win the game. (It can be slow, but it has to be consistent and defendable. Back when Sundial stood for 2 turns, I used to have a pretty effective stall deck that had only 3 Morningstars in it for damage.)
4, Conclusions
If you consider everything written here, and the concepts I wrote about rush decks as well, it's easy to come to the conclusion that the current metagame is unbalanced, in favor for the stalling decks. That's because you can turn quanta into cards for neutralizing or locking down at a much better ratio than you can turn quanta into damage. The main weapons of a stall deck are the following:
- sundial (negates damage and costs no card. nerfed, but still essential)
- Dimensional shield (if the opponent has nothing on the board but simple attackers, then basically
timewalks* gives you 3 free turns!)
- hourglasses (card drawing is essential for a stall deck)
- otys (simply unfair. The upped version will almost always can devour anythinng. Deniing opponent's creatures and turning them into damage at the same time?? for 1 quanta? come on... RoF is more fair bc it's an one-time and you can play around it.)
-supernovas. 1 card into 24 quanta is a lot, even more if you consider that a pillar will give you that amount in 24 turns (most matches end before that). Interestingly, Supernova is a role player in lots of agressive decks, because it provides not just enermous advantage, but speed also. Still, my opinion is that a stall deck can abuse the card to much unbalanced effects.
In no way I am saying that every card mentioned should be nerfed, I'm just saying that theese are the biggest weapons in a stall deck's arsenal, and most of them is making the enviroment hostile to rush decks. In my dreamworld, Oty and Supernova would be a lil' less powerful, but hey, if you prefer stall decks, the you'll hate Lava Destroyer as much as I detest an Oty.
Thank you for reading through my post! I hope that I could mention some new information to the newev players and veterans alike. I hope that some of you will think that keeping these points in mind is worth it and will make you a better player.
Please, share your thoughts and opinions about all of the above, and don't be afraid to correct me if you think that I'm in any way wrong.
Thanks,
Acsabi44
*: timewalking an opponent is a jargon used in MtG discussions. It means denying the oponent of his/her activities on his/her turn(s), effectively gaining a free turn. It comes from a really old and poverful card that allowed you to take an extra turn for a very cheap cost. In elements, it would be something like: " 
: Take an extra turn."
