Round 5-Strategy

[catalyzeme]

Can't talk atm.  On my phone.  I proposed two discord duos against light a page ago.  I'm surprised it isn't being given more consideration.

I'm about to get on a plane and then I will probably go to bed after. I might not be around much before the deadline.

If it's possible, because we don't end up using it against light, I would prefer to use this EQ deck:

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593 593 593 593 593 5f0 5f0 5f0 5f0 5f0 5f0 5f0 5f0 5f2 5f2 5f2 5f6 5f6 5fb 5fb 5fb 5fc 5fc 5fc 5fc 5gi 5gi 5gi 5gi 5giSo if those cards are available, can you change that for me kevkev? If we use an EQ deck against , I will stick with Dragon Powa. Hopefully the pillar/pendulum situation will be okay for everything, with the 12 card conversion.

As for the discord deck, a discord based deck with fire creatures I personally am not confident is definitely better than EQ, if the EQ is successful against the miracle stall. By the time miracles are necessary, I'm not sure light will have trouble accumulating it even with the discord in play. They can focus on playing fire cards and build up light. I don't think it has the ability to get past 3 fireshields, RoFs, and multiple miracles without getting killed or decking out. At least not consistently. jmdt succeeded with the EQ deck in at least preventing miracles from being able to be played by taking out light pillars and pends. Plus light's rush decks have immos and novas, so Discord would have somewhat limited use against them. I think both the EQ deck and the Discord deck are a gamble (we can't do much better than that). Other people that have tested them more might have a better feel than I do, most of the testing I did this round was for life and for gravity.

[jmdt]

yeah my initial thought was that eq would be a bad idea versus since they pillar split.  However, on testing, the eq deck beat 's fire stal and eq/SS stall 100% of the time.  The immocord deck has the speed to put out damage with discord keeping miracle and CC at a minimum while it races out.  With out the speed of immo, discord is not nearly as effective.  The eq can effectively prevent miracle, and once 2 phoenix's come out, we can win the damage race versus their weapon.  The eq deck can't effectively stop the rushes, but its almost impossible to stop everything light's doing with 1 deck; I predict a stall and it definately can beat those 2 out of 3.

[jmdt]

So here are my final recommendations:

kev versus :
kev is going for a pure rush of no land stompy to run out of the gym before they have a chance to get any defence set up.  They have no rush remotely as fast as ours, so unless they pack RT's we should win in a landslide.  Even if they do pack RT, with 6 immo and 6 nova along with fire mark the deck can still get up and go.  In AI3 testing, I ran into the time mark deck and got hit with sveral RT and still was able to put damage out pretty fast.  As far as upgrades, I favor the speed cremeations allow.  With 1 nova and a cremeation, you can put out 1 lycan and 2 golems turn 1 for 11 damage and 20 damage output turn 2since we don't have a 6th golem to round out the deck and have extra quanta from cremeation, 1 phoenix will add the extra damage back in and also give another cremeation target if needed. I managed a 4 turn win with this build, so its definately fast.

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The strongest base deck we have versus is immophoenix.  Its immune to discord (mostly) and faster than anything they have.  Phoenix are also nice if they run heavy CC, antimatter,  or maxwells.  They fear this deck and for good reason.

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I have 0 idea what underworld will run, so I'm gonna run our grabby rush since there is almost 0 way thay can have a deck that is faster nor will they likely pack as must CC since they will be worried with defeating a stall.  I'll run upped graboids since they're the best attack and it gives them +1 hp.  I get more mileage uping graboids than any card im immophoenix so I chose novagrabby for this reason.

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4vh 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 52q 590 590 5c1 5f0 5f0 5f0 5f0 5f0 5f3 5f3 5f6 5f6 5fb 5fb 5fb 5fb 5fb 5fb 5og 77g 77g 77ghyroen versus
Again, noone know what will run.  Since we plan to rush them, immophoenix is the perfect choice; its one of our best decks and has a chance against anything.  Unless is packing liquid shadows we should win this matchup in a landslide.

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52q 595 5f6 5f6 5f9 5f9 5f9 5f9 5f9 5f9 5fb 5fc 5fc 5fc 5fc 5fc 5fc 5i7 5i7 5l9 5og 5og 5rk 5ur 61p 61p 61p 61p 61p 61qmajofa versus
We've used 3 rush decks and a shield stall versus so far.  I expect them to pull RT's or maybe PC out this round to counter what we've ran so far.  Poison bolt is the perfect bolt deck versus earth.  Worst case, we let the poison kill them, and use the bolts and rage pots to kill shriekers in the mean time.  I doubt they'll expect poison bolt and will run few if any eq's since our immophoenix burned their eq deck last round and definately no purify.

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brett has the misfortune of playing 's general.  Luckily the team is limping and has only 2 working decks left in the 4 they are fielding.  's nova grabby is a tough deck, so using spare parts I constructed a second nova grabby just to deal with potential decks that could bring.  In testing, it beat life's novagrabby and also took out the ffq deck they still have.  The important thing to note brett is that you must get the fire shield out as quick as possible.  Fire shield completely dominates

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4vh 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 52q 590 590 590 590 590 5f0 5f0 5f0 5f0 5f0 5f0 5f0 5f3 5f5 5f5 5f6 5f6 5f8 5f8 5fb 5fb 5onlava golem versus
is very close to the limit for 9 decks, so some if not all decks will have to be scavenged just a bit.  Since lava has the implosion, the lt, he will probably get one of their grade A decks.  Many of their decks are very scary to what we do as we can't effectively rush them straight up due to miracle. running CC is also difficult since ther dragons have so much hp.  The best way to defeat them across the board is an immocord deck with phoenix's.  discord can disrupt their quanta for stalling while phoenix's put damage out quickly with immo.  this deck has potential to beat evey deck has run to this point.

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If we has a 5th set of immo, we'd run a second immocord, unfortunately we aren't quite as lucky to have them.  I did a good bit of thinking for the deck here.  At first I though eq would be a terrible idea, but upon testing it was undefeated versus their stall decks.  against their immo or nova deck we will be in trouble, but if they bring dragons we will be successful. Hopefully in this matchup they have a second rate or suicide deck and it doesn't matter.

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has 3 good decks and 5 matches.  Since we don't face one of their top 3, I have a good feeling we'll see a suicide or garbage deck.  however, we must be fully prepared for whatever.  I've wanted to break out dragonpowa for a while now and this is the perfect opportunity.  It can beat their immo deck that gave us problems, and also should own most of their other slower decks.  I modded the deck with pends to make it run a bit better and more dependable.

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[majofa]

^^^ I support everything jmdt said above, and all the decks as well. ^^^

[lava golem]

A solid choice of decks. I agree on jmdt's choice of decks.

[Acsabi44]

I'd still play EQ vs gravity.

I'll most likely pack -1 freeze +1 CS.

Other than that, I fully agree with jmdt's very good recommendations. 
Thank you, and all the other teammembers for your hard work and briliant ideas this round. I am very confident in our success in this crucial round.

I'll update the decks topic with those decks, if anybody wants to play anything else, then post in that topic.

[kev]

I've had less time on vacation to post and test than normal, so an extra special thanks to jmdt, maj, and everyone who has contributed this round.

kev versus :

I wish I'd had more time to test and think about which cards amilir will up.  As is, I'll take jmdt's suggestion.  Let's hope amilir ups dragons or something, cuz by the time they're pulled he'd be dead.

hyroen versus
Unless is packing liquid shadows

I was just thinking about this.  Due to the setup of their vault they had to build eight 30-card decks which leaves no room for opportunistic cards like purify.  So if LS isn't an inherent part of their deck, we won't see it.  Ftw.  Hopefully. 

lava golem versus

I'd tweak this, as four discords seems excessive since we're not expecting PC.  Also, pends should replace the pillars.  If we open draw one, we get discord out one turn earlier.  And we can definitely make due with less fire quanta, as it's only used to revive phoenixes.  And we have way more pends than pillars.  Lava, please consider this change.

stinnger versus
If we has a 5th set of immo, we'd run a second immocord

I had the same thought yesterday.  Discord slows decks down by a few turns but if we can't speed up with immos, they might catch up.  I'm still not super happy with the EQ deck but I see the logic of them potentially being low on pillars combined with light being a pillar intensive element to begin with.  I might continue to recommend sudden killer, but meh.

Everything else looks to be shaping up great.  Thanks again to jmdt and everyone who contributed.