Discussion on making a better Anti-FG deck

[Levgre]

The point of this thread is to discuss and debate what type of deck may have better performance against FG's than the current decks.

Imo there are 2 factors which play into effectiveness.  Win %, and win speed.   So while a deck who's only goal is to survive and deck out the FG may win 80% of the time, it would not be as good as a deck which is twice as fast which wins 70%.

However, I do think win % is more important than win speed since it's not just about farming electrum, but putting the FGs in their place.  We want to win.

 of course if you lose that is a waste of time, so generally if you have a higher win% the deck is more efficient.



So in this thread, put out any ideas you have on cards, decks, or strategies which you believe could achieve the goal. 


I will start off by analyzing the effectiveness of Air Nymphs, Death Nymphs, and Purple Nymphs.  Experimenting with these also gave insight into how well the associated cards work, those cards being antimatter, aflotoxin, and unstable gas. 

I think Death Nymphs and Aflotoxins may not be the solution because they take a long time to fill the board.  You end up needing extra creature destruction anyways, to eliminate what got on the board before it was filled.  Death Nymphs seem to be more effective, as opposed to the Aflotoxin spell, since you can repeatedly poison any creature.  With the Aflotoxin spells you have limited uses.

Air Nymph seems to have potential both as a huge source of damage that bypasses shields, and a form of creature control.  The problem is the Unstable Gases can be stolen or destroyed, it requires a lot of wind quantum and wind is overall a bad element to focus in, I think.  Most wind cards are not good against false gods, although perhaps the deck could also focus on firefly queens for its strategy.

Purple Nymph has the drawback of requiring the most quantum out of any of these 3.  You only need 11 wind quantum to get out a wind nymph and use its ability once, 10 death quantum to play the death nymph and ability, but 13 entropy quantum to play the purple nymph and its ability.  And entropy rainbow decks tend to be built for speed.  Although, a slow entropy deck could have potential, as you could also save up quantum for butterfly effects.  The anti-matter spell itself may be more effective in this case.


So those are my recent thoughts.  Add your thoughts on any cards/strategies that you think could be the next best FG killer!

[yaladilae]

My first idea
Move this to the FG section...

My second idea
Look into the FG section....

[RedRevive]

I will start off by analyzing the effectiveness of Air Nymphs, Death Nymphs, and Purple Nymphs.  Experimenting with these also gave insight into how well the associated cards work, those cards being antimatter, aflotoxin, and unstable gas. 

Nymphs seem to be too expensive is what the general consensus is.  I mean late game sure, they're a renewable alchemy card, which is excellent.  But early game, I would much rather just have the alchemy card in hand rather than having to worry about protecting my source of the card.

[AiBerry]

I agree with Yaladilae here. The Anti-False God Decks forum seems specifically to list possible decks to use against false gods. Theory should probably be in the false gods forum.

[Essence]

Agreed.  That said:


There seems to be a distinct two-part element to all successful anti-FG decks:

1) Establish a mechanism by which to stay alive
2) Establish a win condition

The simplest (and original) anti-FG deck, the mono-aether beatdown, did this in the simplest possible way: slap up Dimensional Shields to stay alive while Phase Dragons provided the win.  This deck barely works at all anymore, because it seems like almost every FG is set up with either a way to ignore your shields (Explosion/Steal/Momentum) or a way to outlive your damage (Miracle, Bonds, Black Holes). 

So the standard rainbow deck comes with a HUGE variety of ways to establish your continued life: Oty+Firestorm+Bone Wall, Permafrost+SoG, Bonds+Graveyard+FFQ, and of course those mix-and-match quite well. 

On the other hand, the standard rainbow deck doesn't have too many tricks up it's sleeve for actually killing the FG.  Fallen Druids make Mutant Swarms, and if something screws that up, you're stuck relying on one big Otyugh and a swarm of Fireflies...which doesn't always cut it. 


Alternate FG decks like Yaladilae's Poison Quartet (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,5725.0.html) utilize a profound alternate method of winning (poison buildup) while using a strong defense (Permafrost+Inundation+SoGs), with a strong counter-defense (Anubis+Quint) but they still go through the same phases -- namely, you draw madly and struggle to survive the onslaught until you get your defenses up, then you keep drawing until you establish the Fractal+Chrysora+Anubis = Immortal Chrysora win condition. 


The point here is that, when considering any anti-FG build, you have to start by asking yourself "How am I going to survive?" -- then ask "How am I going to win?".  There are relatively few ways to answer that first question:

Massive healing (Bonds+swarms, Miracle+Stone Skin)Permafrost (Dusk Mantle/Procrastination/Diamond Shield)+Strong HealingDissipation Shield + Massive QuantaHope+Lots of Light-producing creaturesStacked Dimension Shields (+Sundials?)

Feel free to mention any I've missed. 

Basically, your goal as an anti-FG deckbuilder is to find some win condition that you can pair with one of the above methods of staying alive.  Oh, and it helps a lot if you can work some counter-defense (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,1719.msg18004#msg18004) into your deck as well. 

[Xinef]

Massive healing (Bonds+swarms, Miracle+Stone Skin)Permafrost (Dusk Mantle/Procrastination/Diamond Shield)+Strong HealingDissipation Shield + Massive QuantaHope+Lots of Light-producing creaturesStacked Dimension Shields (+Sundials?)

Feel free to mention any I've missed.

antimatter
flood+squid
vampires
gravity shield + oty/some other way to deal with low hp creatures
flying druidic staffs
flying vampire stilettos
creature+quantum denial

Except antimatter I guess these are rarely used against FG, but this topic is about finding new strategies, so I guess it's worth mentioning other options.

[RedRevive]

I would love to see Hope incorporated into a realistic FG strategy.    Nymph's Tears +  Pillars  Fractal +  Hope?  Would that be enough ?  And you would need phase shields to stall right...  Along with miracle perhaps.

[MisterBadguy]

This would be the perfect place for this then. Recently I've been messing around with a quantum denial strat (yes, I'm insane) revolving around with Dischord/Gravity Nymph right now, and I've found that the quantum denial is massive enough to cripple an FG and keep you alive. My main problems being a) It's way too slow. Even when I DO get what I need on the table the FG usually has a few things that can either kill me outright or mess with my Nymphs b) it's hard finding a good finisher for Entropy/Gravity duo. :/

Problem a has all sorts of answers. Most of them require splashing into Aether, which would be cool if I wasn't so Gravity intensive. I'd just make it Aether/Grav, but the Dischords are what make the whole thing work, so I'm stumped.

Problem b is unworkable without some kind of splash, or an obscene amount of Chargers, or some renewable way to feed Fallen Druids.

So am I just chasing clouds here? Or is it possible? Thoughts?

[RedRevive]

This would be the perfect place for this then. Recently I've been messing around with a quantum denial strat (yes, I'm insane) revolving around with Dischord/Gravity Nymph right now, and I've found that the quantum denial is massive enough to cripple an FG and keep you alive. My main problems being a) It's way too slow. Even when I DO get what I need on the table the FG usually has a few things that can either kill me outright or mess with my Nymphs b) it's hard finding a good finisher for Entropy/Gravity duo. :/

Problem a has all sorts of answers. Most of them require splashing into Aether, which would be cool if I wasn't so Gravity intensive. I'd just make it Aether/Grav, but the Dischords are what make the whole thing work, so I'm stumped.

Problem b is unworkable without some kind of splash, or an obscene amount of Chargers. D:

So am I just chasing clouds here? Or is it possible? Thoughts?

Are you flying your discords?  Or are you just running one discord for the entire deck? 
I would also like to know how many Gravity Nymphs you happen to have?

[MisterBadguy]

No flying Dischords, though I might have to try that... This is my basic concept.

Dischord scatters the FG's quantra to random pools.
Grav Nymph eats quantra from all pools and gives you life for it.

Basically Dischord makes the Grav Nymph more effective. Increasing quantum drain and life gain from the Black Hole ability.

Also keep in mind this is being done in the Trainer. I don't think ANYONE has a players set of Grav Nymphs yet lol.

[RedRevive]

As I suspected, you were using a set of gravity nymphs for renewal, heh.   What happens when your nymphs get killed?  Maybe use supernovas to access quintessence then?

[Levgre]

I  have tried quantum denial in the form of tridents.  While I think it has potential and is effective at times, there are too many gods which can bypass it. The best strategy has to be effective against all or most gods. 3 automatic quantum per turn is really hard to deal with...

I think gravity nymphs with tridents could be better at shutting a god down, but still too slow.  Discord helps although you need it early or it hardly makes a nick in their quantum supply, and it can be destroyed.