Using Quanta Index to determine the optimal number of Pillars in a deck

[Scaredgirl]

An important factor IMO that is not taken into account is the speed of the deck. Faster decks have less time to produce quanta, so they need more pillars. I've farmed AI5 with mono-aether before, and it generally doesn't run into quanta issues even though it supposedly uses way too much quanta, because it's a slow deck so it has more time to produce quanta.

The most popular speed deck in the history of Elements is that Earth Shrieker rush over there. It has 17 Pillars which sounds a lot at first, but it also uses 72 quanta, giving it a QI of 4,588 which is pretty average. So even though it looks to be producing extra quanta to make it fast, it's really not, it just has high cost cards.

If you used that particular mono-Aether for grinding, I can guarantee that you had quanta issues. Otherwise you are the luckiest player in Elements. I tested it myself today multiple times and and I had TONS of quanta issues. Trade 2-3 Shields for Pillars and you will see a huge difference in both speed and performance.

Sure you could play it with 10 Pillars and stall hiding behind Dimensional Shields, but why would you? The fact that you can stall doesn't mean you should do it. Why not take more Pillars and give your deck speed? You never know if your opponent has permanent destruction or if he uses Fire Bolts. In both of those cases your stalling strategy will kill you.

Here's a challenge for you: Use this formula and build a deck that has a QI of 7+. I can guarantee that I can tweak it so that it will perform better.

[Scaredgirl]

I updated the first post with more findings, theories and blind guessing.

[Bloodshadow]

For quanta-producing creatures, I think they should be counted as pillars. Or, more precisely, the QI of a deck should be the total quanta cost divided by the number of quanta-producing cards (pillars + creatures).

As for Towers, Immolation and such... I think they should be counted as negative cost. They don't produce quanta indefinitely, but they do generate quanta in single bursts so they can surely lower the QI.

For Miracle and Fractal, I have absolutely no idea what the heck can we do. I'm a math nerd, but this area of math is not exactly my favorite.

[PuppyChow]

I agree with Bloodshadow, and I intend on doing something similar with my deck advice generator. Thanks for the basic ratio, SG. I was planning on using an algorithm like this before, but mine has a few differences:

-for 2 cost abilities, it costs 8 quanta.
-for 1 cost abilities, it costs 4 quanta.
-one time abilities cost just what they say.
-differentiate between elements (ideal pillars of each. I have an idea as to how to factor the mark in to this).

My reasoning is that though some abilities are situational, you always want to have the quanta to use them anyway for those times you DO need them. Plus it's so much easier to code; I don't want to have to go give each ability an attribute of how situational it is.

As to mono aether, normal mono aether is funny because the whole IDEA of it is to NOT play every card at one time. Your goal with it isn't to be able to play every card. Your goal is to keep from taking damage with 6x dim shields; in your alteration, taking them out isn't a good idea unless you were just going for AI3. And if you were, then there are better options besides mono aether . Mono aether is weird because you don't have to play your cards at a fast rate; just at a rate to get 100 damage done before you deck out.

So: 15x aether pillar, 6x immortal, 5x dim shield, 4x phase dragon > 18x aether pillar, 6x immortal, 3x dim shield, 3x phase dragon. Even though you won't be able to play cards at the same rate with the former.

With my project, I plan on reflecting this by making mono aether decks a special case where it will run a different algorithm.

[Scaredgirl]

For quanta-producing creatures, I think they should be counted as pillars. Or, more precisely, the QI of a deck should be the total quanta cost divided by the number of quanta-producing cards (pillars + creatures).

Yes, but compared to Pillars, creatures are much more likely to be destroyed. I'm not sure if you can simply count them as Pillars. It's a good idea though, and something I hadn't thought about.

Not sure what you mean by "negative cost".

As to mono aether, normal mono aether is funny because the whole IDEA of it is to NOT play every card at one time. Your goal with it isn't to be able to play every card. Your goal is to keep from taking damage with 6x dim shields; in your alteration, taking them out isn't a good idea unless you were just going for AI3. And if you were, then there are better options besides mono aether . Mono aether is weird because you don't have to play your cards at a fast rate; just at a rate to get 100 damage done before you deck out.

So: 15x aether pillar, 6x immortal, 5x dim shield, 4x phase dragon > 18x aether pillar, 6x immortal, 3x dim shield, 3x phase dragon. Even though you won't be able to play cards at the same rate with the former.

Yes, but you are assuming that the opponent does not have permanent removal, momentum, etc. and just lets you stall in peace. That's not always the case. If your opponent can deal with the dim shields, your sluggish deck is done.

[PuppyChow]

Yes, but you are assuming that the opponent does not have permanent removal, momentum, etc. and just lets you stall in peace. That's not always the case. If your opponent can deal with the dim shields, your sluggish deck is done.

I'm not sure what the etc. is there for . Pests, perm removal, and momentum are pretty much it.

But ya, that's mono aether's crutch. You lose to a few things, like every deck. But mono aether is still a unique case, since its goal is too stall until you win not win asap. With the deck you altered it to you completely changed the goal of the deck. While it may perform better on your QI scale, it most definitely is not a better deck.

[Scaredgirl]

Yes, but you are assuming that the opponent does not have permanent removal, momentum, etc. and just lets you stall in peace. That's not always the case. If your opponent can deal with the dim shields, your sluggish deck is done.

I'm not sure what the etc. is there for . Pests, perm removal, and momentum are pretty much it.

Well I didn't say "Pests" so that could be the "etc". Or maybe Fire Bolts, etc. There are many ways to counter Dim Shields.

But ya, that's mono aether's crutch. You lose to a few things, like every deck. But mono aether is still a unique case, since its goal is too stall until you win not win asap. With the deck you altered it to you completely changed the goal of the deck. While it may perform better on your QI scale, it most definitely is not a better deck.

Where does it say that the only "good" aether strategy is slow stalling decks with 6 x Dim Shields? That's an old fashioned deck used by dinosaurs who keep on doing the same thing over and over again because it was the best strategy to beat FG's back in the day.

I've personally tested both of those decks today, and I found the one I made to be much better. It's much faster and more fun to play. You can be stubborn and say "definitely is not a better deck" all you want, OR you can actually go and test it out. Results might surprise you.

While your at it, test the Water deck too. QI, even this first rought version of it, works very well.

[PuppyChow]

I agree it works very well, since I'm using a very similar algorithm.

And I said that yours ISN'T a better deck, not that the "old fashioned" one is.

Yours is faster, but loses to most other speed decks (especially those with perm control) since aether creatures cost so much. They have different strengths and different weaknesses. The fact is, if you want to change the deck in that way, you're changing the whole point of it.

It would be like saying change from a FG Rainbow to a Shrieker Spam because it has a better QI. Both are great decks, but they're good for different things.

[Bloodshadow]

Yes, but compared to Pillars, creatures are much more likely to be destroyed. I'm not sure if you can simply count them as Pillars. It's a good idea though, and something I hadn't thought about.

Not sure what you mean by "negative cost".

1: Really? Pillars are very easily destroyed, too. There are permanent destruction cards, and Earthquake. To me, the chance of a creature getting destroyed is only slightly more than a permanent.

2: Negative cost means what it says; it reduces your total cost. For example, if your deck uses 50 , and you add a Burning Tower, the cost is reduced to 49. But for Immolation/Cremation it would probably only count as half (Immolation count as -4 while Cremation -5), because unlike Towers and Nova, it requires a creature to cast.

What to do about Quantum Pillars? Maybe you can try to do one normally, with each pillar counting as three pillars?

EDIT: Just had a thought. Maybe some of the costs in the numerator don't have to be constant? Say, the cost of Miracle depends on how many pillars you have in the denominator. I was thinking about Calculus, and how the slope of y=x² was always 2x instead of a constant...

[PhantomFox]

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It seems like deck size affects the calculation as well.  This uses 114 quanta, and so to reach a goal of 5, I would need 22 pillars?  Something seems off.

[Scaredgirl]

Yours is faster, but loses to most other speed decks (especially those with perm control) since aether creatures cost so much. They have different strengths and different weaknesses. The fact is, if you want to change the deck in that way, you're changing the whole point of it.

It would be like saying change from a FG Rainbow to a Shrieker Spam because it has a better QI. Both are great decks, but they're good for different things.

Speed decks with permanent control, huh? You don't see enough of those nowadays. Most people want speed decks to be FAST so they don't take cards like that.

Have you actually read that post by jmizzle7? Do you know what decks and what purpose we are talking about here? We are not building False Gods decks here. This is only about quanta usage, and the decks in question are starter decks.

What I did was I improved two "newbie starter decks" by making their quanta usage more efficient only using QI, My quick test confirmed it to be a success.

Like I said in my previous post, you should go test both decks out. Fight 10 times against AI3 with both decks and you'll see what I mean. Repeating "that deck is not good.. that deck is not good.." over and over again won't change the facts no matter how much you want the deck to suck.

Yes, but compared to Pillars, creatures are much more likely to be destroyed. I'm not sure if you can simply count them as Pillars. It's a good idea though, and something I hadn't thought about.

Not sure what you mean by "negative cost".

1: Really? Pillars are very easily destroyed, too. There are permanent destruction cards, and Earthquake. To me, the chance of a creature getting destroyed is only slightly more than a permanent.

2: Negative cost means what it says; it reduces your total cost. For example, if your deck uses 50 , and you add a Burning Tower, the cost is reduced to 49. But for Immolation/Cremation it would probably only count as half (Immolation count as -4 while Cremation -5), because unlike Towers and Nova, it requires a creature to cast.

1. There are way more cards and abilities that destroy/lobotomize creatures than there are cards that destroy Pillars. Earthquake is the only real threat, other permanent removals are generally saved for non-Pillar permanents.
Cards that do creature control in some shape or form, there are probably close to 20 of those, and low HP quanta generating creatures are an easy target.
 
I'm not saying my system is perfect. It could be that counting the ability only twice is not enough. Maybe three times would be better? Or maybe there's some other yet to be discovered way of doing it?

Whatever the best way is, I doubt it's simply looking at them as Pillars.

2. That's exactly what I did with that fire deck. 2 Immolation would give +14, but I gave only +7 (50%) because of the same thing you said - it requires a creature.

Maybe you can try to do one normally, with each pillar counting as three pillars?

I don't know what that means. If you simply mean that 1 Quantum Pillar = 3 Pillars, that would most definitely break the formula.

EDIT: Just had a thought. Maybe some of the costs in the numerator don't have to be constant? Say, the cost of Miracle depends on how many pillars you have in the denominator. I was thinking about Calculus, and how the slope of y=x² was always 2x instead of a constant...

Yep, I was thinking about a similar thing yesterday. Like the effectiveness of Immolation relies on the fact that how many small critters (for example Ash Eaters) you have. The more you have them, the more likely it is that you can use Immolation and get that extra quanta.

It's interesting stuff.

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It seems like deck size affects the calculation as well.  This uses 114 quanta, and so to reach a goal of 5, I would need 22 pillars?  Something seems off.

Here's the deck without towers:

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55n 55n 55n 55o 55p 55p 55s 55t 55t 55t 55v 55v 55v 6rn 745 745 745 745 745 748 74a 74a 74b 74b 74bThere are 25 cards, most of them relatively high cost. I don't necessarily see how 22 Pillars would be way too much, unless you specifically want a bigger deck that is a slow starter. Keep in mind that we are indeed talking about Pillars here, not Towers.

That 5 is just a number I guessed would be close to optimal. The real optimum number is probably something else.

But I do agree that the QI system changes when a deck becomes bigger. This is because of Mulligan and other things.

[PuppyChow]

Speed decks with permanent control, huh? You don't see enough of those nowadays. Most people want speed decks to be FAST so they don't take cards like that.

Have you actually read that post by jmizzle7? Do you know what decks and what purpose we are talking about here? We are not building False Gods decks here. This is only about quanta usage, and the decks in question are starter decks.

What I did was I improved two "newbie starter decks" by making their quanta usage more efficient only using QI, My quick test confirmed it to be a success.

Like I said in my previous post, you should go test both decks out. Fight 10 times against AI3 with both decks and you'll see what I mean. Repeating "that deck is not good.. that deck is not good.." over and over again won't change the facts no matter how much you want the deck to suck.

Speed decks with Perm Control? Mono fire, mono dark... .

And I thought we were talking about decks in general, not just starter decks. Mono aether using dim shields is built for pvp and AI5, not AI3 which is what most newbie decks are for.

I repeat, I never said that the new deck wasn't good. Just that it was good for different things. If you tried to take on AI5 with it, you would lose every game unless you got lucky. For some stats, I just played 5 games vs AI5. Won 1, Lost 4. (Oh and 3 of those I had over 50 aether at the end. I'm not sure a QI of 5 is about right).

Traditional mono aether is better at other types, but yes, your revised deck is better for AI3.

In effect, my problem with how you changed the traditional mono aether is this:
You changed the focus of it. You made it a completely new deck. If you had simply made it 6x dim shield, 6x phase dragon, 18 pillar (19 with mark), the QI is 6.33 (6 with mark). Not too bad of a QI, and you don't drastically change the focus of the deck.

Again, what you did with the deck was the equivalent of changing a deck from a FG Farmer to a Shrieker Spam because it has a better QI. You shouldn't do that, since they are BOTH good decks.