With the introduction of The Oracle letting people know who they are going to face next False Gods can sometimes reasonably be taken on prematurely by countering rather then having access to an arsenal of upgraded Spiky Death. Of course some are just monsters that are going to be tough to take down no matter how prepared you are but we won't be trying if we don't know what's coming.
This thread will not be giving concrete exact decks to be copied as much of it will have an emphasis on working with what you already have and trying to buy as little as possible to take them down. Many cards will do the same job in their own way. If we need to slow down heavy hitters we can suggest Procrastination or Ice Shield or Reverse Time or a few Freezes so that anyone is more likely to be able to make the deck. Feel free to post what you have and I can give specifics on a couple of cards to add or remove to help the deck.
This is far from just "My Guide" I will organise the first post but this is an open thread. Anyone is welcome to give their own suggestions or changes to what's already up there. I fully encourage and will greatly support anyone trying to contribute.
The Gods will not really be done in a particular order so if you're a new player and The Oracle has given you a god that you will be facing feel free to request we go over them next for you.
The first god I post is simply the first god that The Oracle gave me.
IncarnateAssuming the information on the Elements Wiki is correct this is Incarnate's deck.
The first thing to do is analyse his deck. That sounds more clever of me then it is, Incarnate is very simple.
First thing I notice is that he's packing 8 of both Retrovirus'(Retrovirii?) and Bloodsucker's. These can kill stuff fast, and by stuff I mean your creatures, this is however his ONLY means of creature killing . You can deal with this in a couple of ways:
Play immaterial creatures either ready made or quinted.If you've been using Aether either as a primary or maybe even secondary element you've probably got one of those fancy pants decks stuffed with Phase Dragons and or Immortals or at least some Quintessences for the secondaries. Incarnate can do nothing to get rid of these however they are expensive to play and so you can't throw out a ton of them so Bone Wall can slow them considerably. Bring immaterial creatures plus a means to get rid of Bone wall fast and you've got a good start already.
How about using Aether and a small amount of Life cards? Use a few Cockatrice or Horned Frog and Adrenaline>Parallel Universe>Quintessence to get you started huh? Cockatrice bring an extra 1|1 for just a price of 27 rather then 26 but they end up doing less damage when Adrenalined so the Frogs with damage and the lower casting costs are the better choice. They're mainly there for Bone Wall destruction though so if you have Cockatrice already they'll do just fine. With the Immortal approach he can't replenish his Bonewall easily by killing your creatures. He will however get a lot of creatures out and may be able to deal enough damage to kill you first with the health advantage. But hey! Dimensional Shields. He has no Permanent control whatsoever so you can buy your souped up phased out frogs or birdies more then enough time to dismantle his Health bar.
Neutralise his Retro's and Bloodsucker's.There's a lot of them but it is all about gaining control. He won't be able to use their ability on the turn that he plays them. If you can give them only one turn to live they're out of there. A popular tactic for this would usually be Otyugh and they're fantastic. But these cards only have 1 health (2 in an Eclipse) and so Scarabs are still excellent for the task. And at less then half the price of Otyugh and also costing only 2 Time to throw out they an excellent replacement. (If you aren't using a deck heavy in Gravity it's much easier to find simply the 1 Gravity per Devour then if you had to use it to produce the Devouring creatures too, you may end up in the situation where after playing multiple Otyugh you can't eat with them until a couple of turns later)
If you can get out 3 Scarabs or so without them being killed then you should easily be able to munch up anything that comes their way on turn 1 so it won't get to use it's ability to kill them. Hold the Scarabs in your hand until you can rush a few out rather then playing them as soon as they are drawn. The added benefit is that when Bloodsuckers and Retro's aren't being played you can eat Vampires as they'll only have 3-4 and deal with another part of his deck.
His Graveyards however will grow massively from this strategy. I reccomend eating as a plan only if you have accress to something like Rain of Fire to wipe the board of Skeletons after you fill it from killing his creatures and then know exactly when you should and shouldn't eat. Otherwise by killing his creatures to protect yours you only serve to fulfill his goal of pumping out skeleton legions for him and saving your own creatures becomes a moot point.
You don't have to kill something to neutralise it however. The Retro's and the Bloodsuckers are only a threat because of their abilities Mind Flayers could be used to Lobotomise them. They could also Lobotomise the Vampires too.
The next thing his Deck brings to the table is a ton of Graveyards and Bone Walls. There are 10 and 8 respectively which is a lot. It can be very hard to deal with them all however I believe I may have stumbled upon something. Pulverizer could have dealt with them but being a Rare that's out of the discussion for this thread.
I thought about Deflagrations and Steals combined to deal with his Permanents. But what if you steal 2 or 3 Graveyards for yourself, wat for him to throw up some more then Rain of Fire to clear his field and fill both of your areas with Skeletons. Throw down a few empathic bonds either 4 or 2 and make sure you kill his Eclipse cards. Now you both have a field full of Skeletons but you're healing about 2 damage for every skeleton you have and he's left with the same amount of skeletons as you and they only do about 2 damage each. It's a total lockdown he can't play anymore creatures and the ones he has left are doing nothing. The only source of damage remaining is his Vampire Dagger which you can easily remove. This is a risky and odd build to set up though and probably not too consistent. You could also use shields to reduce his Skeletons damage so you can survive while you're building up Bonds.
Honestly the best way to deal with the Graveyards is probably just to leave them and not let anything die.
Finally he brings 12 Vampires.
With 6 damage when an eclipse is out they are his hardest hitting creatures and also the source of his healing. They are perhaps the biggest thing you need to deal with.
My proposed solution is thus. Antimatter. Antimattered Vampires heal you for 6 and drain 6 from him. You antimatter 6 Vampires and they either are a massive help to you or they simply cancel out the other 6 Vampires so fully 12 of his creatures do NOTHING AT ALL.
Whoa whoa whoa I hear you say. Antimatter, Quintessence, Adrenaline, this doesn't sound cheap at all! You're not supposed to buy everything but Water can get a couple of the tricks in at once. Nymphs Tears costing just 62 each. Nymph's Tears and Pillars costing 6 each allows me to field recyclable constant use Antimatter, Quintessence, Adrenaline and much much more on a budget. The tears can allow you to get a few Nymphs in the game of whatever elements you happen to be using at the moment. Get a Turquoise Nymph out safe and you can use it to protect the others so you don't need quints and such. It is not the perfect strategy for defeating Incarnate. but it is cheap...Very very cheap.
To recap.
"He can only play Vampires and Retro/Sucker. Antimattering the Vamps is one way to deal with them and Aether can use either Immortal Creatures or Lobotomise to take care of the Retro/Sucker or you can just ignore them if you're not using Cratures. From there it's just a case of outdamagine a few 1|1 and 3|1 creatures. Adrenaline can help you rip down Bone Walls if they are slowing you down too much."
More to come. I'll add anything new suggested or discovered by me to any of the Gods as I go.
