Round 6-Strategy

[Acsabi44]

  If anyone has time to look at the leftovers given the above eight decks, it'd be huge.

Note: I had to leave in the middle of this so take it as an extremely rough draft.

I'll do that tomorrow but I really need that vault updated bc I just cannot see what's left. If nobody else does, then I will do it for myself tomorrow but it will take a good amount of time.


Now for something completely different.
(not essential for deck strategies, but maybe interesting nevertheless)


Here's some game theory about the situation we and Team  are.

I'm assuming that we have 2 deck types to consider: (Immo)Rush and Bolt.
Entropy also has two types of decks to consider against us: Anti-Rush and Rush(novagrabby rush, adrenalined maxwells or such.)

I'm also assuming that
Antirush > ImmoRush (total counter)
ImmoRush > Rush (ours is faster)
Rush > Bolt (theirs is faster)
Bolt > Antirush (ours has less dead cards in this case and is more efficient in winning)

I think that theese predictions are more or less correct.
...see a pattern there?

Here's the payoff matrix constitued from the cases above:

decks played	ImmoRush	Bolt
Antirush
Rush

Note that the table is symmetrical.
In game theory, a situation like that is called a Nash Equilibrium.
Both teams can gain advantage only if they know information about the other team's choice. Neither team can benefit if they change their deck while the other team remains unchanged.

The problem with this type of equlibrium is that it is stable and cannot be broken without knowing the other team's strategy beforehand.
The optimal solution in a Nash eq. is usually choosing a strategy randomly. Over time the random decisions equal out for both teams, but sadly we don't have "over time".
This also means that the optimal strategy would be to run a Rushdeck and a Boltdeck against them, assigned randomly. (btw both us and them differed from this strategy last round. Luck was not on our side and it meant a 0-2 loss. If we played according to this startegy, we would've had an 1-1 round with them. Statistically, an 1-1 is the best we can hope for in this matchup.)

If you guys wanna read about this kinda stuff more:
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Nash_equilibria

(now I know that the situation is not black and white, there could be other choices to consider on both sides, but as I see it, the problem basically comes down to this.)

[brettbstock]

How about we salvage some Otyughs from Phantomfox's deck, and add some extra CC to Immopheonix for a match vs. entropy? I mean, sure it might have a few more than 30 cards, but hey. luck has been on our side so far. Any other ideas?

EDIT: CC being in the form of fire cards, to keep the  '1/2 your cards must be from your element' thing going.

EDIT TO AVOID DOUBLE POST: I don't know why, I just have a good feeling about this round. If I get too hyper, or perky, or whatever it's called, please let me know, and I'll immediately stop.

[Stinnger]

So what do people think about my matchup with  ?  I am leaning towards nova/grabby but if I am totally wrong here please advise.

[kev]

So what do people think about my matchup with  ?  I am leaning towards nova/grabby but if I am totally wrong here please advise.

We'll have to determine which decks are available.  Novagrabby would be a good matchup, but it might be a better matchup elsewhere.  More on that later.

I'll do that tomorrow but I really need that vault updated bc I just cannot see what's left. If nobody else does, then I will do it for myself tomorrow but it will take a good amount of time.

I'm in the car for another 14 hours tomorrow (leg 4 of 4 in my superlong trip).  I decided I couldn't wait and wanted to get some stuff down on paper today.  I updated the vault with discards and went through our remaining decks on page 1 of this thread.  It was a tremendous amount of work, but now we can get down to making decisions.

Here's the payoff matrix constitued from the cases above:

decks played	ImmoRush	Bolt
Antirush
Rush

Yeah, that's what I said.    I was just completely unable to state it so eloquently.  I disagree with a couple of conclusions, though.  Choosing a strategy randomly is right (under the assumptions you made), but running one rush and one bolt isn't necessarily.  And 1-1 isn't the best we can hope for in the short run.

All of this assumes a random opponent and no incentive to use one deck over another other than winning.  But our opponent isn't random (insert joke) and we need to think about all of our matchups, though the Entropy matchups are the most important.  I just mean to say if the best we can hope for in an Entropy matchup is 50/50 and the outcome was independent of our choice due to a completely random opponent, we should concentrate on the best decks for our other matchups and leave the leftovers for here.

Meh.  That's the justification I'll give to my stall deck recommendations.

[kev]

jmdt reminded me that I should've used the updated Dragon Powa deck code, which means my Google doc vaults should/could be +5 aether pillar/pend, +5 fire pillar, -10 fire pend.  That helps some.

He also talked about salvaging either AM for a viable entropy duo or EQs and titanium with our BBs for a viable earth duo rather than the mono fire deck I proposed.

It's almost like he didn't like my mono deck idea.    I like both ideas in principle.  I'll be interested in seeing how effective they are, and which opponents they will work against.  Let's see rough drafts, Jimmy.

[Acsabi44]

Choosing a strategy randomly is right... but running one rush and one bolt isn't necessarily.

it is, as it optimalizes our strategy, if my assumptions are correct.

And 1-1 isn't the best we can hope for in the short run.

Not on the short run, but statistically, yes. The pattern shows itself after 100 (or so) matches played. Until that, the 'luck' factor has too much impact.

All of this assumes a random opponent

This is not about randomness, more like the lack of information.
We know so lilttle about entropy's choice that we might as well chose randomly.

we should concentrate on the best decks for our other matchups and leave the leftovers for here.

would be correct, but unfortunately we absolutely HAVE TO beat entropy if we wanna win this war.


Anyways, back to srtategy. I'll update my post as I have the time, but now I really have to do college stuff.


jmdt vs home_wreckaz

Fractix is bonkers vs. bonewall.

[kev]

Updated my deck selection post on the first page.  They're a pretty good draft pending the testing I mentioned.

Actually there are fewer actual decisions to be made this round due to vault restrictions.  Large departures from my recommendations would have to look deep into vault restrictions.  I've tried to provide the framework to do so on my other first page post.

[jmdt]

Just have a sec, but will post more later.

If runs novagrabby, or hope especially, does fractix have the mustard to beat them?  Hope is slow, but if set up, we're screwed.  I bet they expect a bolter from cat, or a weaker deck  Immophoenix should be perfect here.

I can run fractix versus , but I will have 1 less immo to throw out at them.  This may or may not be a big deal.  I'll have to see how fractix works versus what they have.  If I don't like it, bone wall is increadibly tough to get out versus discord and I may can go that route.  For the 2nd deck, using eq versus death effectively limits their options in a big way taking away bonewall and potentail for critterspam.

Suddenkiller 'should' work versus 'if' we get out a phase shield.  Otherwise ouchies.  Since they have tons of CC versus us, this may be a good idea.  I'll have to flip a coin to figure out which person to give the deck to.  I'm leaning to versus amilir, but idk.  The wings dragons deck should be good versus entropy.  I will caution that we may want to add some control, but otherwise it should be ok. 

I like dragonpowa versus as well.  It would have won against their garbage deck last round.  However, switching it with immophoenix may make sense depending on what we expect from

poison bolt seems life a great choice versus aether. They are hurting pretty bad right now. fractal devourers could hurt, but I also doubt we will see it.

and yeah, novagrabby should do well versus the slower decks that generally runs

[lava golem]

What about the entropy duo I used last round against light? that could prove to be useful.

A darkness duo with devourers and vampire stilleto could work.

[brettbstock]

I was thinking, maybe, something like this, if we salvage otyughs from Phantomfox.

Code: [Select]

55r 55r 55r 55r 5f0 5f0 5f0 5f0 5f0 5f0 5f2 5f2 5f2 5f4 5f4 5f4 5f5 5f5 5f5 5f6 5f6 5f6 5f8 5fb 5fb 5gi 5gi 5gi 5gi 5gi
Of course, this is going to run us out of a good few key cards in the vault if we lose with it. Any comments?

[Acsabi44]

I was thinking, maybe, something like this, if we salvage otyughs from Phantomfox.

Of course, this is going to run us out of a good few key cards in the vault if we lose with it. Any comments?

feels a bit underpillar'd.

[lava golem]

Regarding the entropy duo:

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4vi 4vi 4vi 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vl 4vl 4vl 5f0 5f0 5f0 5f0 5f0 5f0 5f0 5f0 5f0 5f0 5f6 5f6 5fc 5fc 5fc 5fc 5fc 5fc
and the darkness duo:

Code: [Select]

4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 5f0 5f0 5f0 5f0 5f0 5f0 5f0 5f0 5f0 5f0 5fc 5fc 5fc 5fc 5fc 5fc 5um 5um 5um 5um 5um 5um 5ur 5ur