Elements Community Newsletter - July 2012

[RavingRabbid]

Sorry for the slight delay.

ALL HAIL OUR IMMATERIAL OVERLORDS! General deuce22, Master of Aether, triumphed in an epic final battle against General 10 men, Master of Time. After 12 rounds, Team Aether (Avenger, coinich, EvaRia, hainkarga, pikachufan2164, The_Mormegil and the already mentioned deuce22) was proclaimed winner of War #5. The banner and favicon of the forums have been changed to show that the forum is "Reigned by Aether". Sportsmanship awards were given to bjessee, mega plini and ralouf Team Water's Toadmare was nominated most exquisite deck of War #5.	2/2012 LEAGUES ENTER THE LAST MONTH As no players can now join, for Beginner and Championship leagues just no time remaining.	SCORGASM AND AVATAR ARE OVER Kev was the winner of Scorgasm, having accumulated more points than anyone else. Check out the Final Standings! Shantu became the first Avatar in The Avatar - Bending Elements Style.
FORUM BRAWL IS STARTING On monday (6th), at noon, signups for Forum Brawl will be closed. Be sure to sign-up before time runs over! Remember to read the rules before doing it!	COMPETITIONS New Competitions Chat Painting [Voting Phase] Elements Journalist [Submission Phase] Competition Winners Revive the Archive 2 - Jenkar Read more...	CARD IDEAS New Cards in Armory Martyr by blarp Magpie by Daguerreo Natural Selection by Xenocidius Avalanche by Daguerreo Top Five Designers moomoose - 54 Xenocidius - 47 Zblader - 47 EvaRia - 27 Ajit - 25 Read more..

CARD IDEA OF THE MONTH Ghost of the Future This month's Card Idea is Ghost of the Future; review by our Idea Guru OldTrees below: Ghost of the Future is a Time creature card suggested by russianspy1234. It is a very simple card so this summary will be brief. Ghost of the Future is a rush card. It has higher stats than normal for its quanta cost. However this comes with a large drawback. It cannot attack if the opponent's hand is full. Even when it does get to attack it gives the opponent a card from their deck. This drawback gets more severe as more Ghosts of the Future are used. Ghost of the Future can also be used in a deckout deck. A single Ghost of the Future increases the cards drawn per turn. This increases the infrastructure cost for anti deckout from 1 Eternity to 2 Eternities and an Animate Weapon. Several Ghosts of the Future can be used as a deckout engine. However the additional Ghosts will quickly be pacified by the drawback. Ghost of the Future is a good example of an elegant design. The disadvantage balancing the solitary and swarm uses. The alternate cost is a good way to let the player use the card sooner while the player continues to pay for the card.

DECK IDEA OF THE MONTH The deck idea of the month is Nightmares of the Past! by Acsabi44.  Deck Helper willng3 reviewed it. Hover over cards for details, click for permalink Deck import code : [Select] 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rk 5rk 5rk 5rk 5ro 5ro 5ru 5ru 5ru 5ru 5ru 5v1 5v1 5v1 5v1 5v1 5v1 8pt Nightmares of the Past! serves as one of the most basic examples of the infamous Ghost of the Past + Nightmare (Ghostmare) combination in its prime.  Ghostmare acts as an extremely lethal force in both PvP and Arena where the deck uses the sinister synergy of Ghost of the Past and Nightmare to prevent the opponent from drawing cards for a turn and potentially fill the opponent's hand with dead cards that cause considerable amounts of damage to their HP if discarded.  Reverse Time and Eternity further strengthen the Ghostmare combination by sending creatures back to the top of the opposing player's deck, thereby removing yet another drawing opportunity for the opponent by turning their own creatures against them.  There are few decks which exist in the game that have the ability to play as many mind games with the opponent as Ghostmare can.  For instance, from starting the duel and observing a Darkness Mark together with Time Factories one can generally assume that the deck they will have to face will indeed be a Ghostmare variant of some sort.  But even then the correct course of action to counter that deck can be difficult to discern: Would it be wisest to empty the player's starting hand immediately in the hopes of finishing the Ghostmare as quickly as possible or would it be better to play cards at a slower rate in order to mitigate Nightmare's power and remove the threat of forced discards?  Later on in the duel another issue to resolve will arise in the form of creatures: If a deck relies on creatures to do damage then it would be reasonable to assume that it could not win without them inflicting damage to the opponent.  However, if those creatures could then be rewound as Nightmare is used to prevent the player from drawing any cards during the next turn, then is playing them necessarily the best course of action to take?  Psychological warfare is perhaps one of the greatest weapons a player can use during a duel, and few combinations can utilize this power like Ghostmare. As stated before, Nightmares of the Past! is a basic yet effective form of the Ghostmare deck type.  Ghostmare is also a common foe in the Arena where it is easily one of the most hated decks to face.  The reason for this animosity is quite simple: By abusing the ability to draw two cards during a single turn while the player is forced to skip a draw due to Nightmare (or Reverse Time in a sense), the player then becomes at a considerable card disadvantage.  In Gold and Platinum Leagues it is not at all uncommon to see a well-built Ghostmare variant reach the top 10 of its league.  In PvP Ghostmare is just as much a force to be feared, especially when restrictive deck building permits it to be used against other (less effective) combinations.  One of the best cases of Ghostmare displaying its horrifying potential is found within the forum's largest PvP event, War.  While the Ghostmare combo wasn't available prior to War 3, it has been a dominant force for both Teams Darkness and Time ever since it was made available to the both of them.  In War 3 it netted Team Time the most wins (5) of any deck they used.  In War 4 Team Darkness was able to gather 9 wins using its own Ghostmare variant which also happened to be the highest number of wins for any deck during the event.  Team Time then went on to surpass this record during War 5 by netting 11 wins using a Ghostmare variant during War 5; no other deck used by any team came close to this number during War 5. Ghostmare and, by extension, Nightmares of the Past! proves to be one of the most infamous forces within the EtG realm and will continue to impart a foreboding presence upon the game itself for some time to come.  Though it is not by any means an invincible combination, it oftentimes requires quite a bit of skill and counter-decking in order to bring it to its knees.

Brought to you by RavingRabbid!

[rosutosefi]

Looks like you linked the toadmare to somewhere people like us shouldn't see. Give us access to Team Water stuff! 

[Annele]

If my avatar is going to be used regularly, I should probably change it to something less childish/not made on Word.
That said, these newsletters are really cool, they are a great way to keep up to date around areas of the forums one isn't as active on.

[Shrink]

I love these newsletters. Really wish there were Newsletters of the Week.

[OldTrees]

I love these newsletters. Really wish there were Newsletters of the Week.

Sorry. I don't have time to find a good card per week. So that part would not be possible on a weekly basis.

[RavingRabbid]

Looks like you linked the toadmare to somewhere people like us shouldn't see. Give us access to Team Water stuff! 

Some kind of pitchforkproof deleted a topic. Fixed.

[UTAlan]

I love these newsletters. Really wish there were Newsletters of the Week.

Sorry. I don't have time to find a good card per week. So that part would not be possible on a weekly basis.

Nor do we really have the volunteers to put this work into a weekly one. We barely pull of the monthly editions. >.<

[Shrink]

I love these newsletters. Really wish there were Newsletters of the Week.

Sorry. I don't have time to find a good card per week. So that part would not be possible on a weekly basis.

Nor do we really have the volunteers to put this work into a weekly one. We barely pull of the monthly editions. >.<

More than appreciate the work you guys put in anyways

[juan_de_diablo]

Yes, looks great and very enjoyable!

[willng3]

Hey, the deck and card ideas of the month unintentionally went together quite nicely.  Neat.

[sieglsiegl]

Is there any way to add this to my homepage?

[Annele]

Is there any way to add this to my homepage?

You can get Elements to email you every time a new one is made by going to the board these are posted on (forum news and announcements) and clicking "Notify".