Colossus

[DrBla]

COLOSSUS

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778 778 778 778 778 778 778 778 778 778 77a 77a 77a 77a 77a 77a 77b 77b 77i 77i 77k 77k 77k 77m 77m 77m 78q 78q 78q 78q 78q 7dg 7dg 7dl 7dl 7dm 7dm 7f2 7f2 7ju 7ju 7ju 7ju 7jv 7jv 7jv 7jv 7k1 7k2 7k2 7k6 7k6 7k6 7km 7km 7km 7km 8pq

Spoiler for a bit of art:

by Zsoltkosa from Deviantart

Strategy & Concept:
The main idea behind Colossus is the word BIG. This is implemented by using a plethora of different things:

• Max health increase
• Deck size over 100 cards
• Creatures with a lot of health
• Permanent protection
• Quanta & hand protection

The main goal of Colossus is utilizing a stategy that no False God uses currently: Max health increase+synergystic effects (mainly healing). While on a conceptual level Colossus is not (supposed to be) a fast FG, in the mid/late game a lot of damage can be dished out by all his creatures, however as no momentum, and only a little pc is present, shields help a lot against Colossus. As a matter of fact Gravity Shield blocks all creatures used by Colossus, so a PA-d Gravity Shield means that Colossus can't hit you anymore. Not that locking down all of Colossus' damage means an instant victory, as with the max hp increase and healing in there Colossus can simply outlast slower decks.
Another aim of this FG is using cards that are not common in other FGs. Pendulums, Warden, Sanctuary and SoD are not used by FGs at all, Steel Golem, Granite Skin are used by only 1 FG (onto you Seism!). Even other cards are not that used, Basalt Dragon, Fire Buckler and Archangel are all used by 2 other FGs. Explosion and PA are exceptions to this, as those are used by a lot of FGs. So all in all Colossus increases card diversity in the FG deck pool alltogether. Originally I also wanted to include Gnome Gemfinders (more being onto Seism!), but they didn't really fit in thematically, they didn't fit in with the lot of health criteria and they did fast damage, all of which did not fit with the concept of Colossus, so they were axed.
There are quite a few combos in this deck, most of which the AI knows how to use properly. First of all there's healing and max hp increase + Fire Buckler. There's not much to say here, except that AI will hold on to Granite Skin even on max quanta, which occassionally clogs the hand of Colossus, but this doesn't happen all that often. Next up is Blessing+creatures, where blessing+Warden would be a really nice combination, unfortunately all other creatures in Colossus' deck are higher priority Blessing targets, so Wardens usually only get Blessed, when they are the first and only creature(s) on board. Finally Archangel healing can also be utilized, as all creatures have rather high health.

Testruns:
As the maxhealth based mechanics have a chance of resulting in long, drawn out games I decided to do a few testruns to see how it turns out. Most of the times when matches felt like a pain (eg: pdialsosac) you would normally have Colossus on your skiplist, but just in case I played all the matches here from beginning to end. For testing purposes I used Swallow, Pdialsosac, Limitless Speed, Voodoo Bravery. Here are the results:

Swallow:

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744 744 744 744 744 744 744 744 744 74b 74b 74b 74b 74b 74d 74d 752 752 752 752 75m 75m 75m 7gq 7gq 7h0 7h0 7hi 7hi 7hi 8pp

Stats:

Wins:	19
Loses:	31
Win Rate:	38.00%
EMs:	8
EM Rate:	16.00%
TTL:	9.193548387
TTW:	19.31578947

50 matches played. Playing Swallow was a lot of fun, it had a ton of highs and lows. Good experience, not a certain win, not a certain loss. Blessed Wardens are difficult to beat, but not impossible.

Pdialsosac:

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710 710 710 710 710 710 710 718 718 718 718 718 718 71a 71a 71u 71u 71u 71u 71u 71u 7km 7km 7km 7q9 7q9 7q9 7q9 7q9 7q9 8pq

Stats:

Wins:	0
Loses:	10
Win Rate:	0.00%
EMs:	0
EM Rate:	0.00%
TTL:	19.6
TTW:	-

10 matches played. Please don't try this at home. I don't even know why I bothered with 10 matches, it's like playing Miracle...

Limitless Speed:

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6qq 6qq 6qq 6qq 6qq 6qq 6qq 74a 7dr 7dr 7jq 7la 7la 7la 7n9 7q5 7q5 7q5 7q5 7q5 7ri 7ri 7ri 7ri 80b 80b 80b 80d 80d 80d 80d 80d 80d 8pu

Stats:

Wins:	2
Loses:	8
Win Rate:	20.00%
EMs:	0
EM Rate:	0.00%
TTL:	19.375
TTW:	21

10 matches played. I personally really disliked this matchup, even though it has a lot of interesting elements to it. Limitless Speed is an OTK deck, but naturally with max hp increase the exact 200 damage does not result in an instant win. However it does result in you having a board full of terrifying flying  momentum creatures, 3 50/1s and a 25/1. Now Colossus has no ways of removing these. Momentum protects them from Fire Buckler, and Wardens, even with blessing, can only stall for time, since your dragons are flying. As the AI targets Hourglasses before shields, the limited PC in Colossus is not enough to break the Phase Shields. The matches did have a lot of variety to them, tho I still didn't really like this matchup, but I can imagine people not hating this, especially as the matches play out slightly different than the usual Limitless Speed matches.

Voodoo Bravery:

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6u3 6u3 6u3 6u3 6u3 6ve 6ve 6ve 6ve 6ve 74d 74d 77l 77l 77l 77l 77l 77l 7ee 7ee 7ee 7ee 7ee 7ee 7tg 7tg 80b 80b 80b 80b 8pu

Stats:

Wins:	16
Loses:	34
Win Rate:	32.00%
EMs:	0
EM Rate:	0.00%
TTL:	8
TTW:	10.3125

50 matches played. Nothing really unexpected here, the only noteworthy thing is that compared to other FGs, as the max hp of Colossus is usually not exactly 200 a bit more counting goes into these matches, but alltogether they were fine. There were even some clutch matches, when I couldn't PU damage into a victory, but the next turn I still won because the remaining hp on the Gravity pulled Voodoo Doll was just enough.

So that about wraps up everything, I'm open to all sorts of comments, criticism, ideas and oppinions.

[JonathanCrazyJ]

Not enough people post / comment on this section. Mainly because it is similar to the Card Design section, and all theoretical until / unless Zanz returns. That doesn't stop me loving it

I love FG proposals, and this is thematically lovely, with some really nice research and work gone into the match-ups section.
One negative is adding to the pool of Miracle using Gods, which I think is a bit of a saturated market.
Having said that, I have thought that it's a shame Wardens are not used by any Gods, and for new players to come up against Blessed Warden combo would be a really good thing - for many newish players their only way to encounter new strategies is to come up against them.

Question: I rarely use the trainer, but the last time I did I was unable to find the place where you could play against a custom deck?

[DrBla]

I'm glad you liked it. In the top left corner of the trainer ther's an "import" button, click it, insert the deck code and select the AI type (you can currently choose AI3 and FG).