Here's my variation on the Maxwell Buckler deck from earlier.
Theory behind the changes:
1.
Oracle gave me a weak pet (this is a critical part of the strategy. If you don't have a pet this
WILL NOT WORK!)
2. Original decks out too easily
3. Original deck can't safely AM more than once, making it prone to loss if Ferox gets a fast start and less likely to EM
4. The original deck cannot EM at all if Ferox gets his staff out
5. The original deck looked a tad weak on fire quanta (slow start on the buckler and spirits come out a couple turns later than they need to if you don't get your fire towers early enough). Final fire quanta is fine, but it needed a faster start on the fire.
6. The original seemed to have chaos quanta to spare.
Hover over cards for details, click for permalink
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Basically I added a couple of BEs and a fire tower. I also used improved AMs because I had them but it would have worked just fine with regular AMs too (it would probably be about a turn slower on the kill due to slower bond control).
The BEs are for use on your pet. You might toss in a 3rd to avoid them both showing up on the very bottom (can't say for sure because with pet as a requirement it's hard to experiment in trainer). This deck has 33 cards (not the typical 30) but the effect on whether you get things early enough should be negligible and the balance feels good. The ability to take out bonds makes winning easy and is worth the extra space. The extra turns also work out mathematically in your favor in terms of likely average damage per spirit (they come out a fraction of a turn later on average, but still last nearly 3 turns longer on average and the later turns are worth more than the early ones, especially with BE).
With this deck you also don't need to be nearly as conservative with your AMs. If you get BE or have plenty of early spirits running go ahead and AM whatever Dragons you want. I used 2 AMs and won easily with 8 cards to spare and EM. (If you don't have BE yet, but things are tight and you have an extra AM, go ahead and play it (especially if you have a couple of spirits); you can still win as long as you don't get totally messed up on both BEs and spirits (which should be rare, given how many there are).
As I said before, the dependence on a pet makes this impossible to test in trainer. I'm eager to learn how this works for others. I believe the improvements are solid but only testing will tell for sure.