Round 1 - Strategy

[lava golem]

Round 1:
kevkev's thoughts:
  kevkev60614 vs. GirlsGeneration
I’ll probably go with dialbolt.  Good chance GG goes fractal charger cuz it’s solid all around.  (trivia: who was the first person to post fractal charger?).  Her best guess at my deck will be fractix, and if she’s right her chargers get around my dimshields, plus she might hope to put up more dimshields than I have deflags.  She has said in chat quite a bit that chargers are the best offensive gravity tool.  Dialbolt also ignores otys, grav pull and armaggio.

  jmdt vs.  Timerclock14
A LOT of research can be done here.  Earth could use stone dragons to avoid ragepots, Miracle/PA’d Titanium to deckout, EQ/SS to stay out of firebolt reach, or Terro might decide to give his rookie an easy to play grabby rush.  Immophoenix is a good all around option, as you can immo phoenixes that have been BB’d or whatever.  Interested in what your research reveals.

  Hyroen vs.  hrmmm
Entropy duo is not a bad option.  Gotta love fireshields and AM against life.  Actually a lot of decks might be ok.  I’d stay away from options that take awhile to set up, like bolt decks and Dragon Powa.  Ragepots are better than freeze and BB when dealing with adrenaline.

  majofa vs.  Tomatoman
Quinted fire spirits is megastrong.  With it you’re immune to CC, and fire spirits are airborne.

  Lava golem vs.  Kuroaitou
If Kael and Kuro predict you’ll immo rush, they’d be wise to use LS.  It slaughters phoenix and to a lesser extent golems.  If they do have LS as I already discussed taking Dragons, -2 phoenix, -2 pillar, +4 holy light, would be awesome.  If Kuro goes the devourer route, immo is a big winner.  Good luck deciding.

  Acsabi44 vs.  Boingo and  catalyzeme vs.  Dragoon1140
Potential Team Aether decks can be broken into three categories: dimshields, fractals, and other.  Vreely’s is a good option cuz it can outrush anything fractal and has four deflags for dimshields.  My gut says Dragoon1140 will look at War1 fire/aether matchups to predict our decks.  We used creature-heavy decks (here and here, so it might be wise to take bolt decks instead.  If we do run with creatures, dimshields and lobos are both dangerous to most of our creatures, so we can tweak out CC and tweak in deflags as desired.

  stinnger vs.  RavingRabbid and  brettbstock vs.  TheDictator
First off Round 1 is now 4+4 days long, so brett should make it back in time to play but we’ll have to choose his deck without him so I’ll need extra thought into feedback.  I like Sudden Killer for brett.  It has only one Fahrenheit, which he has.  I’d guess they’re slightly less likely to take PC because they know he doesn’t have very many rares and they’ll guess I’ll give him an easy-to-play rush deck.  Dimshield timing takes some time to get used to, though.  When you see this, brett, please find some time to practice against AI3 or one of us if possible.  Then crush them.

For stinnger, jmdt’s first thought was poisonbolt.  It’d certainly be unexpected for us to use poison against water, so maybe it’s worth a shot.  If you do use poisonbolt, I recommend replacing RoFs with ragepots.  Rav loves toadfish.  Nova/Grabby might be ok as well, as it is relatively fast and has six ragepots.

Please respond with deck thoughts for yourself and your teammates.
My thoughts:
kevkev60614 vs. GirlsGeneration
Key creatures for gravity: Graviton guard, Otyugh, Sapphire chargers, graviton firemasters.
Key Spells: Gravity Pull, Black Hole (with discord), Momentum
Key permanents: Titans
So, Based on that, I figured we should go with 1 thing to counter the key creatures: Rage potion, preferrrably upped (in case GG uses momentums on her elite otys) Fire shield will probably be useless since all gravity creatures have high hp, but there is always a chance GG would use fractal guards... Fractix would be a definite good choice, Quinted spirits would do well too since you could always stall her with rage pots and deflags...

Jmdt vs. Timerclock14
Key creatures for earth: Graboid, Shrieker, Stone dragon, hematite golems
Key Spells: Basilisk Blood, Enchant artifact, Earthquakes
Key permanents: Pulverizer (switch mark to gravity) Titanium shield
Based on that, I think we should use as kevkev suggested, phoenix immolation rush. BB will be useless, earthquakes will be useless, Although titanium shield will be a pain. We should still pack fire shield or some sort of CC in case shrieker rush comes up.

Hyroen vs. hrmmm
Key creatures:Rustlers, frogs, cockatrices, dragons
Key spells: Heal, Adrenaline
Key permanents: Thorn carapace, empathic bonds, emerald shields
Based on that, We should definitely take deflags and fire shields against life, rustlers will die immediately, life is generally a cheap rush element so rage potions could be considered. t50 rush could be used.

Majofa vs. tomatoman
Key creatures: wyrm, Azure dragon, FFQ
Key spells: shockwave, thunderstorm, flying weapon
Key permanents: Eagles eyes, wings, unstable gas, fog shield
With our strong permanent control, we can take care of unstable gasses, fog shield, basically, air's advantage.

Lava Golem vs. Kuroaitou
Key creatures: Devourer, black dragon, gargoyles
Key spells: siphon life, steal, Liquid Shadow
Key permanents: Dusk mantle, nightfall, vampre stilleto
Based on that, I think deflags and holy lights are our key cards, we could just use fire stall with reflective shield? in case of siphons. Quint could be considered...

Same thing as kevkev's advice on the other matches, I'm feeling a bit lazy lol  Although beware of toadfish+freeze+wings combo...

[catalyzeme]

Sudden Killer and Poison Bolt are the two bolt decks we have. If we are gonna use them both against water, I'll have to use one of the creature decks against Dragoon1140, not a bolt deck.

Dragon Powa might be workable for one of us to use against Aether. You have to time the deflags with big hits, but maybe -PU, +1 deflag (working 2 extra deflags in would be ideal, if they aren't being used elsewhere), to time big damage turns with deflagging a phase shield. Still seems like a big longshot though, and I wouldn't expect it to beat Aether. If we do Nova/Grabby for stinnger, that leaves Poison Bolt open, which seems like the best bet for an Aether deck that will likely be packing Phase Shields, Thunderstorms, and Lightnings.

EDIT: I know Aether only gets 24 phase shields, but they don't play earth first round. They play  . I expect we will see 12 of their phase shields. Of course they could go for a surprise, and water could be a creature threat as well, but 12 phase shields is what would be smart, especially knowing we probably didn't build our vault around one-dimensional, all-or-nothing fire bolt decks.

I love the Entropy Duo vs Life, and I love Quinted Spirits vs Air. We probably wont be able to play those decks against those teams every round, but the element of surprise is an advantage early. Life and Air will have a hard time countering those decks, unless air packs some perm control.

If kevkev keeps dialbolt, keep in mind the Phoenixes are no longer a problem, quantity wise. We won't be limited by those. I think vs. earth, vreelys or immophoenix would work perfectly. Damage and CC, that's what will probably be important.

[jmdt]

Few things of commentrary to add to what has already been said.

Dragoon1140 is definately going to have 3 upped cards.  I expect atleast one aether's decks to pack dim shields if not both.  I have a suspicion that we could see the pa/dim shield deck with lobo they used in the previous war.  Such would make vreely's crash and burn.  We may should look at using our direct damage decks versus aether until we see what they are packing.

I favor dialbolt for kev.  GG has gave solid indication that she will use Chargers.  Fractal chargers or fractal guard for GG makes the most sense.  Either way she will pack dim shields which will cause issues for the fractix deck.  Another option for GG is the discord/blach hole deck she likes; if needed the bolts can take down a discord in 1 shotdialbolt for kevkev,

The entropy deck seems perfect for hyroen versus life.  fire shield stops their best modes of attack and discord will disrupt most of what they are doing.  Keep in mind emerald dragons have 6 hp so will need help to kill with a rage pot.

quinted spirits versus air is pure win.

I like the deck with dragons and holy lights for Lava golem versus darkness.  holy light can kill anything they pull out or do direct damage.  Crimson dragons will get the most mileage if they use liquid shadows.  Fractal devouteres could derail this deck, but I know Kael has a dislike for using fractal.  Also, we should be able to out rush it.  Packing RoF might be a good idea, but it may be too expensive to use.

More later

[Hyroen]

As recommended by kevkev60614 I will be trying to use the duo created by both acsabi44 and catalyze.

If anyone has the time to go through each Life deck that was used in the previous war I would be glad to do the same for you, use the decks of your enemy element against a deck you choose.

[Acsabi44]

kevkev60614 vs. GirlsGeneration
Dialbolt is surely the deck to play here, as sundial stops momentum'd creatures and the deck has no fodder for Otys.
Also, I don't think you will need the RS.

  jmdt vs.  Timerclock14
I think any rush-deck that is pillar-undependent will do. ImmoPhoenix, NovaGrabby and to a lesser extent Vreely's deck are fine. From the 3 above, Vreely's deck is the fastest (if the opponent shows up with a pure shrieker-rush strategy then speed might be a factor) but it is slightlly pillar-dependent.
Immo decks are good also if the opponent plays an EQ-Dev quanta denial deck as with Immolation, you can come back into the game with zero quanta in the pool.

  Hyroen vs.  hrmmm
I fear a Fractal/Scorpions deck as it's fast, can win the game via poison if all of its creatures are killed (one thing fire is good at), and has access to heal, which  can put him out of firebolt range.
Fireshield is great vs. anyhing Adrenalined, and if he plays dragons then AM or ragpot is your friend. A RoF can also shine here.
If you decide to play the  duo, then maybe -1 chaos seed +1 ragpot would be an option.

  majofa vs.  Tomatoman
Quinted Spirits is the deck to play here, nuff said. Maybe swap the lobo with a deflag.

  Lava golem vs.  Kuroaitou
This one's a bitch, I cannot say anything  except that play Holy Lights (what you already know).


  Acsabi44 vs.  Boingo
Icecoldbro knows that I use a Fractal/Devourers deck in PVP,(I talked about it on chat and also played it vs. him several times) so my gut says he won't be sending it against me, fearing that I know the deck and the possible counters too well.
I expect a deck packed with Dimshields/ Immortal creatures.
I think I'll take DragonPowa with -1PU +1Deflag. PoisonBolt is an option too but I feel a bit uncomfortable with that deck. Also, Vreely might be an option, but as Jmdt pointed out above, it is dead to lobo.

catalyzeme vs.  Dragoon1140
I fear Fractal <something>, worst case Fractal/Devourers. Dragoon can take 3upped cards. 1, you can get the most benefit from only 3 upped cards if you can copy (PU/Fractal) them, and 2, Pests are out of RoF range.
I suggest a tweaked ImmoPhoenix here, with an emphasis on PC. The problem is, we are starting to run out of Deflags and we have no Steal in our vault, so you figure it out.
If PoisonBolt is not used elsewhere, then it's a viable option too.

stinnger vs.  RavingRabbid and  brettbstock vs.  TheDictator
A SuddenKiller and a Nova/Grabby would work here (I like the "daredevil" factor of a PosionBolt but still I think it's too risky).


Based on feedback so far, here's a list about which player will likely play which deck and which are left in the vault:

kev: DialBolt
jmdt: ImmoPhoenix/Vreely
Hyroen: 
majofa: Quinted Spirits
Lava: Dragons ??
Acsabi44: DragonPowa/(PB)
catalyzeme: PB/(ImmoPhoenix)
stinnger: NovaGrabby
brett: the SuddenKiller

decks not used: Fractix, Splash of Time, (Vreely), (ImmoPhoenix)

Of course, more feedback is needed.

[Hyroen]

Me and acsabi44 will be testing decks against each other.

I'm testing this deck:

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4ve 4vf 4vf 4vi 4vi 4vi 4vi 4vl 4vl 4vn 4vn 5f5 5f5 5f6 5f6 5fb 5fb 5fc 5fc 5gi 5gi 5gi 5gi 5gi 5gi 5gi 5gi 5gi 5gi 5gi
Against:

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5bs 5bs 5bs 5bs 5bs 5bs 5bs 5bs 5bs 5bs 5c3 5c4 5c4 5c5 5c5 5c5 5c5 5c5 5c5 5c7 5c7 5c7 5c7 5c7 5c7 5oi 5oi 5oi 5oi 5oi 5oi1-0

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5bt 5bt 5bt 5bt 5bt 5bt 5bu 5bu 5bu 5bu 5bu 5bu 5bv 5bv 5bv 5bv 5bv 5bv 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5li 5lj 5lj 5lj 5lk 5lk 5lk1-2

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5bs 5bs 5bs 5bs 5bs 5bs 5bs 5bs 5bs 5bs 5bs 5bs 5bs 5bt 5bt 5bt 5bt 5bt 5bt 61o 61o 61o 61o 61o 61t 61t 61t 61t 61t 61t1-0



In other news, I'm at 100k score

[lava golem]

I think we should look a bit more into this: http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,7419.0.html before we decide our final decks, try to have at least win 1 duel in every match we play so we don't lose 9 cards.

[catalyzeme]

I think we should look a bit more into this: http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,7419.0.html before we decide our final decks, try to have at least win 1 duel in every match we play so we don't lose 9 cards.

The event card only affects salvaging, not discards. We lose 6 cards in a loss no matter how we get it

[lava golem]

Ah ok, I guess I should've read more carefully  try to win 2-0

[majofa]

kevkev60614 vs GirlsGeneration
Dialbolt seems like the best option.

jmdt vs Timerclock14
Probably anything with Immolation and non-pillar dependent would work here. That takes Earthquakes and Basilisk Blood pretty much out of the picture. Possibly use 3 Cremations? or Elite Shriekers?

Hyroen vs hrmmm
Fire Shield seems like the best bet against Life. Antimatters are great as well. Probably shouldn't use a Firebolt deck against rush.

majofa vs Tomatoman
Quinted Fire Spirits seems to be the consensus on this one.

Lava golem vs Kuroaitou
The deck Lava golem plans on using should work well.

  vs
I imagine we'll go with Bolt decks for these? Dragoon1140 gets 3 upped cards, so he might opt to go for a Fractal deck of some sorts. Poisonbolt is what it looks like catalyzeme was gonna use.

  vs
Probably bolt decks here as well. All Water creatures could be Rage Potted too.

[Hyroen]

Time to talk about Round 2.

[jmdt]

Matches for round 2

kevkev60614 kobisjeruk
jmdt Miniwally
Hyroen Tinkady
majofa plastiqe
Lava Golem Memorystick
Acsabi44 Sir Valimont
catalyzeme glowing ice
Stinnger Dreggs
brettbstock Xinef
 
just a few first thoughts:
kevkev - fractix.  Devourer spam could destroy a bolt based deck. immos will have no problem here.
jmdt - ?
Hyroen - dim shield bolts
majofa- holy light dragons
lava golem - ?
acsabi - ?
catalyzeme - entropy deck
stinnger - poisonbolt
brettb - quinted spirits