KOTH (slowly finding the best T50 deck)

[SickPillow]

King Of the Hill

This competition will pit T50 decks against eachother in a one-on-one matchup, to slowly find the best deck against T50 opponents.  Now, most people say: "You can't compare decks in T50! T50 opponents change every day!".  But I say, This is not True. 

For the competition I will play both decks against T50.  I will switch between decks every 10 games.  This way if any changes occur in the T50 decks, it will affect the performance of both decks.  I will play at least 100 games (unless one deck makes me very angry) for both decks, which should assure somewhat comparable statistics.  The win/loss ratio and turns-to-win stats will be compared and one "king of the hill" deck will be crowned.

Post your deck if you wish to challenge the leading KOTH deck.  Otherwise I will make my own pick.

*disclaimer* Please note that I am not playing 10,000 games with each deck, so it is possible that the worse deck can win a match-up.  Also, if i say how your deck "sux SoO hard", plz forgive me 

Current King of the Hill deck:

Napalm Grenade's Fire Rush

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5f2 5f2 6rl 7dg 7dg 7dg 7dg 7dg 7dm 7dm 7dp 7dp 7dp 7dp 7dp 7dp 7dq 7dq 7dq 7dq 7dq 7ds 7ds 7ds 7ds 7f2 809 809 809 809blank card is a fire pendulum



Subjective Ranking of T50 Decks:


1. Mono-Earth Shrieker Rush - See Matchup 1-14

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6rk 778 778 778 778 778 778 778 778 778 778 778 778 778 778 778 778 778 77g 77g 77g 77g 77g 77g 77h 77h 77h 77h 77h 77h2. Napalm Grenade's Fire Rush - Link to 14th Matchup (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,11882.msg171442#msg171442)
Link to the deck (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,6960.0.html)

3. Skillgannon's Speed Blitzing  - Link to 13th Matchup (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,11882.msg168988#msg168988)
Link to the deck (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,664.0.html)

4. hrmmm's V2 Fire Rush - Link to 3rd Matchup (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,11882.msg156938#msg156938)
Link to the deck (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,11389.0.html)

5. Da Fastest Speedbow Eva! - Link to 9th Matchup (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,11882.msg164938#msg164938)
Link to the deck (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,11757.0.html)

6. Zse Rainbow - Link to 4th Matchup (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,11882.msg156939#msg156939)

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6qq 6qq 6qq 6qq 6qq 6qq 6qq 6tt 6u3 6u3 6u3 6u3 6u3 6u3 6u7 74b 74f 74f 77f 77g 77j 7dq 7gv 7ju 7n3 7q7 7t9 7t9 7t9 80b7. jmdt's Healbow - Link to 6th Matchup (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,11882.msg161755#msg161755)
Link to the deck (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,11831.0.html)

8. Sal's Fire Rush  - Link to 8th Matchup (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,11882.msg163921#msg163921)

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5f2 5f2 6rk 6rk 7dg 7dg 7dg 7dg 7dg 7dg 7dg 7dg 7dg 7dg 7dp 7dp 7dp 7dp 7dq 7dq 7dq 7dq 7dq 7dq 7ds 7ds 7ds 7ds 7ds 7ds9. Yaladilae's T50 Speed Deck  - Link to 5th Matchup (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,11882.msg156947#msg156947)

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4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 5l9 5l9 5l9 5l9 5l9 6u1 6u1 71a 74a 74a 74a 77g 77g 7ae 7ae 7dp 7dp 7dp 7dp 7dp 7dq 7dq 7dq 7dq 7dq10. edxju's Burning Colors  - Link to 10th Matchup (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,11882.msg165910#msg165910)

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4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 6u1 74e 7ae 7di 7dp 7dp 7dp 7dp 7dp 7dq 7dq 7dq 7gl 7jp 7jp 7jp 7jp 7jp 7n0 7qb 7qb 7qb 7qb 7qb 7qb 7tb11.  Vreely's 27-Card Fire Rush - Link to 2nd Matchup (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,11882.msg156937#msg156937)
Link to the deck (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,3874.0.html)

12.  Korugar's Fire Rush - Link to 12th Matchup (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,11882.msg167930#msg167930)

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5l9 5l9 5l9 5l9 5l9 5l9 7dg 7dg 7dg 7dg 7dg 7dk 7dl 7dm 7dm 7dm 7dm 7dm 7do 7dp 7dp 7dp 7dp 7dp 7dp 7dq 7dq 7dq 7dq 7dq 7dq 7tb13.  Sdgc's Cremix - Link to 7th Matchup (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,11882.msg163026#msg163026)

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7dg 7dg 7dg 7dm 7dm 7dm 7dp 7dp 7dp 7dp 7dq 7dq 7dr 7dr 7dr 7ds 7ds 7ds 7ds 7ds 7ds 7f2 7f2 7f2 7f2 7f2 7f2 80i 80i 80i14. nothingfarm's Fractal Chargers - Link to 11th Matchup (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,11882.msg166346#msg166346)
Link to the deck (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,5396.0.html)

15. Boingo's Fractal Phoenix - Link to 1st Matchup (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,11882.msg156936#msg156936)
Link to the deck (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,11087.msg146233#msg146233)

[SickPillow]

First matchup:

For my first matchup I chose these two decks:

The first deck:
The classic shrieker rush deck.  It is usually not really considered a T50 deck, but usually it performs pretty solidly.  There is no permanent control.  But you can use burrow to minimize dmg from your own creatures with antimatter, as well as hide from otyughs and firestorms.

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6rk 778 778 778 778 778 778 778 778 778 778 778 778 778 778 778 778 778 77g 77g 77g 77g 77g 77g 77h 77h 77h 77h 77h 77h


The second deck:
Right off the "Top50 deck list", Fractal Phoenix Lite, by Boingo.  Its a fractal Minor Phoenix deck, with explosion for perm control.

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7dg 7dg 7dg 7dg 7dg 7dg 7dg 7dg 7dg 7dh 7dh 7dk 7dk 7dk 7dk 7dl 7dm 7dm 7dm 7dm 7dn 7ds 7ds 7ds 7ds 7ds 808 808 80i 80i


Results:

I played 30 games for each side, 60 total.  I quit early since the deck "Fractal Pheonix Lite" was not performing, and would surely lose.  The deck felt very underpowered and I just didn't have it in me to keep grinding out losses.  The deck suffers from severe low quanta, which makes farenheit all but useless.  I hope Boingo doesn't take this badly... but I really think his deck needs to be changed if it is to be listed under the "T50 deck list".

Stats!:
Mono-Earth Shrieker Rush:
Win/Loss = 26/4, 80%, with a TTW of 6.5833
Fractal Phoenix Lite:
Win/Loss= 11/19, 36.6%, with a TTW of 9.636
Winner is Classic Shrieker Rush!

[SickPillow]

Second matchup: (Shrieker Rush is Awesum, wut?)

For this matchup, there is the reigning champion:

Mono-Earth Shrieker Rush

The classic shrieker rush deck!  Fast and simple.

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6rk 778 778 778 778 778 778 778 778 778 778 778 778 778 778 778 778 778 77g 77g 77g 77g 77g 77g 77h 77h 77h 77h 77h 77h

Then there is the challenger:

 27-Card Fire Rush, by Vreely

I found this deck on the "Top50 deck list".  The deck uses a cremation based dragon/lava golem rush.  The new "twist" of the deck is an added 3 precognition cards.  If the procogs can be used immediately, they turn a 30 card deck into what is essentially a 27-card deck.

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74a 7dg 7dg 7dg 7dg 7di 7di 7dm 7dm 7dm 7dp 7dp 7dp 7dp 7dp 7dp 7dq 7dq 7dq 7dq 7jp 7jp 7jp 7jp 7jp 7jp 7qb 7qb 7qb 80a


Results:

I played 100 games for each side, 200 total.  The 27-Card Fire Rush deck fell behind early, but still did well.  I was cheering for it.. but it couldn't quite beat the consistency of the Shrieker Rush. 

Stats!:
Mono-Earth Shrieker Rush:
Win/Loss = 78/22, 78%, with a TTW of 6.167
 27-Card Fire Rush:
Win/Loss= 68/32, 68%, with a TTW of 6.471

Winner is Mono-Earth Shrieker Rush!

Shrieker rush is turning out to be surprisingly good for T50.  What really makes the deck thrive is that it basically never has issues with quanta, nor does it get bad draws.

What I've noticed from the 27-card Fire Rush deck, is that sometimes it suffers from a "failure to launch".  It is worth noting that Precognition always seems to be part of the problem, by congesting the hand.  Basically you are missing either ROLs or cremation, and have one or more procogs.  In this situation precogs don't do their function, they don't move the deck along.  Precogs only work when you have already used a cremation to gain the time quanta needed for precog.... so instead of moving the deck along, they end up hurting you, by causing more "bad hands".

[SickPillow]

Third matchup: (Shrieker's don't give up, they burrow.)

For this matchup, there is the reigning champion:

Mono-Earth Shrieker Rush
The classic shrieker rush deck!  Fast and simple.

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6rk 778 778 778 778 778 778 778 778 778 778 778 778 778 778 778 778 778 77g 77g 77g 77g 77g 77g 77h 77h 77h 77h 77h 77h
Then there is the challenger:

 hrmmm's V2 Fire Rush
This deck was suggested by jmdt.  The deck is extremely fast, going by the turns to win study, it is the fastest deck to kill AI3 opponents.  The ratio of quanta production to dmg cards has been tweeked to perfection in this deck, and therefore it runs very smoothly.

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5f2 5f2 5f2 6rl 7dg 7dg 7dg 7dg 7dg 7dg 7dg 7dp 7dp 7dp 7dp 7dp 7dp 7dq 7dq 7dq 7dq 7dq 7dq 7ds 7ds 7ds 809 809 809 809


Results:

I played 100 games for each side, 200 total. 
During the testing I gained 5156 points, and 13,491 electrum when including money from cards sold.

Stats!:
 Mono-Earth Shrieker Rush:
Win/Loss= 88/12, 88%, with a TTW of 6.364
 hrmmm's V2 Fire Rush:
Win/Loss= 84/16, 84%, with a TTW of 5.929

Both decks were fun to play.  Both decks performed really well.   Also the competition this time wasn't very hard.  There were only a couple decks that caused some problems.  These decks had a variety of creature control.

Looking at the stats you can see that the V2 Fire Rush had 4 more losses than the shrieker deck. You could say "this is probably due to the Fire Rush running into more difficult decks", but that is not what I observed.  I tracked which decks the Fire Rush was losing to, and saw that the shrieker rush was winning some of these same matchups.  For example, AntiLord had a deck with flying Eagle's Eyes, which one shot killed dragons and unbuffed lava golems.  The shrieker rush, on the other hand, won the matchup since it takes 2 shots to kill each shrieker, and you can burrow one after taking dmg.  Another matchup was vs datkewlguy, who ran a deck with multiple otyughs and vampires.  Shrieker again wins by burrowing and doing 60+ dmg all at once when the time is right.  As the third example, CsuMaestro was running a deck with fireshields, fireballs, sog, and farenheit.  Dragons and Lava Golems immediately died, while shriekers stayed alive long enough with their 4 hp to take the win.

Basically, V2 Fire Rush is the best AI3 grinder out there, because AI3 doesn't really fight back.  In T50 you will meet more decks with true creature control.  Here it actually matters that you are running a deck with creatures with virtually no hp.
If you compare Turns To Win, you see that the V2 Fire Rush did better, but even here the difference is not as great as it seems.  Some of those matches vs anti-creature decks takes the shrieker rush 10 or 11 turns to win.  For the same matchups the Fire rush spent 15 turns and lost, but since there is no Turns To Lose stat, the fire rush seems even faster.

There is nothing wrong with playing T50 with hrmms V2 Fire Rush, if i ran the 200 game comparison again, it could possibly win.  And if nobody is running anti-creature decks (very unlikely), it would be the fastest T50 grinder for sure.  But as it is, I have to give the win to the Shrieker Rush.

Winner is Mono-Earth Shrieker Rush!

[SickPillow]

Fourth Matchup: (Testing the first rainbow)

For this matchup, there is the reigning champion:

Mono-Earth Shrieker Rush
The classic shrieker rush deck!  Fast and simple.

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6rk 778 778 778 778 778 778 778 778 778 778 778 778 778 778 778 778 778 77g 77g 77g 77g 77g 77g 77h 77h 77h 77h 77h 77h
Then there is the challenger:

 Zse Rainbow
This deck was put up for testing by zse.  The deck aims to control enemy creatures and permanents, rather than beat them down with pure rushing.  If you can get yourself set up, there is a very high percent chance of winning.

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6qq 6qq 6qq 6qq 6qq 6qq 6qq 6tt 6u3 6u3 6u3 6u3 6u3 6u3 6u7 74b 74f 74f 77f 77g 77j 7dq 7gv 7ju 7n3 7q7 7t9 7t9 7t9 80b


Results:

I played 100 games for each side, 200 total. 

Stats!:
 Mono-Earth Shrieker Rush:
Win/Loss= 84/16, 84%, with a TTW of 6.488, 22 Elemental Masteries
 Zse Rainbow:
Win/Loss= 80/20, 80%, with a TTW of 9.788, 25 Elemental Masteries

Shrieker Rush performed great as usual, with much the same win rate as in the last matchup.  The Zse Rainbow deck also did very well in terms of win/loss.

The feeling of playing the two decks was worlds apart.  Where the Shrieker deck is pure rush, the Zse rainbow deck is all about control.  With the Zse deck, it feels more like you are really playing elements, than just grinding out wins.  You have to constantly think, "which enemies do I want to eat", "which permanent do I want to steal", "should I use Black hole this turn? or next?  Basically the exact opposite of the Shrieker deck, where the biggest concern is "when do i need to unburrow, to win before getting eaten".   

The Zse Rainbow deck will win against other rainbow decks, virtually every time... but what it loses to, are rush decks.  The deck usually cannot put up enough control cards fast enough to stop a good rush deck.  So where Shrieker rush will win half the rush battles, Zse rainbow will only win a small percentage against rush decks.
So its definately fun to play a deck where you have to strategize a little.  And you will have to do just that, to win with the Zse rainbow deck.  But is it better than the Shrieker rush?  ...  well no.  (unless you really are dying for more interesting fights)

The Shrieker deck still put up a better win percentage.  And the Turns To Win greatly favor the Shrieker rush.  You get slightly more Elemental Masteries with Zse Rainbow, but it isn't built to really capitalize on EMs.

Winner is Mono-Earth Shrieker Rush!

[SickPillow]

Fifth Matchup: (rush, rush, la la la)

For this matchup, there is the reigning champion:

Mono-Earth Shrieker Rush
The classic shrieker rush deck!  Fast and simple.

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6rk 778 778 778 778 778 778 778 778 778 778 778 778 778 778 778 778 778 77g 77g 77g 77g 77g 77g 77h 77h 77h 77h 77h 77h
Then there is the challenger:

 Yaladilae's T50 Speed Deck
This deck was put up for testing by Alterra.  Its a cremation based rush deck with 3 Unstoppable cards for bypassing shields.

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4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 5l9 5l9 5l9 5l9 5l9 6u1 6u1 71a 74a 74a 74a 77g 77g 7ae 7ae 7dp 7dp 7dp 7dp 7dp 7dq 7dq 7dq 7dq 7dq


Results:

I played 100 games for each side, 200 total. 

Stats!:
 Mono-Earth Shrieker Rush:
Win/Loss= 85/15, 85%, with a TTW of 6.624, 20 Elemental Masteries
 Yaladilae's T50 Speed Deck:
Win/Loss= 77/23, 77%, with a TTW of 6.779, 23 Elemental Masteries

Shrieker deck did well as ususal.  It came up with a slightly higher TTW number due to a couple 15 turn games.

Yaladilae's T50 Speed deck did pretty well.  It is a pretty good rush deck and that alone allows it to win a good amount of games.  Momentums sometimes clog up your hand and give you some bad starts.  In a lot of the games I wished I had more earth quanta.  Since earth quanta powers both elite graboids as well as buffing lava destros, you never really have enough. 

There is no real difference in gaining EMs.  Yala's deck just ran into a few more farms.

In conclusion, Yala's T50 Speed deck works alright for T50, but there are better choices for rush decks, such as Shrieker Rush or V2 Fire Rush.

Winner is Mono-Earth Shrieker Rush!

[jmdt]

Give this deck a try.  Its hrmmm's V2 fire rush (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,11389.0.html).  Its the fastest deck in the game and always does brilliantly against T50 for me.  I highly doubt you'll find a faster t50 grinder

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5f2 5f2 5f2 6rl 7dg 7dg 7dg 7dg 7dg 7dg 7dg 7dp 7dp 7dp 7dp 7dp 7dp 7dq 7dq 7dq 7dq 7dq 7dq 7ds 7ds 7ds 809 809 809 809

[SickPillow]

Give this deck a try.  Its hrmmm's V2 fire rush (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,11389.0.html).  Its the fastest deck in the game and always does brilliantly against T50 for me.  I highly doubt you'll find a faster t50 grinder

Sounds good.  I started another already, but i'll try it for my 3rd matchup.

[zse]

Modified Terroking T50 Speedbow.
Original in here http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,5786.msg65719#msg65719

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6qq 6qq 6qq 6qq 6qq 6qq 6qq 6tt 6u3 6u3 6u3 6u3 6u3 6u3 6u7 74b 74f 74f 77f 77g 77j 7dq 7gv 7ju 7n3 7q7 7t9 7t9 7t9 80b

[SickPillow]

Modified Terroking T50 Speedbow.

Nice.  I'll give it a try.  Soon I'll be sick of fire rushes, so this rainbow will be a nice switch. 

[tinkady]

idk you should waste time testing this, but a faster version of upped shrieker rush is -4 elite shriekers, -2 stone towers, +6 elite antlions. although that could be wrong against T50? i dont see any reason why it would be.
also in the fire rush deck posted by Jmdt, shouldnt the unupped Crimson dragons be replaced by Ruby dragons? or is that on purpose? (10/12 vs 12/15...its a bit cheaper and a teensy bit better ratio but not as efficient as a spot cuz of lower damage)

[EvaRia]

For the shrieker rush shouldn't you use a longsword?
It does the same amount of damage for less quanta.