| April 2017 | | Trials Have Begun! |
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- The 11th Trials are upon us! As you read this, challengers from all twelve elements are converging to battle to the end, until one titan rises in each element to claim the title of master, and the honor of leading their element to War! There are a number of ways in which you could be qualified for Trials, so check out the rules page and see if you can envisage yourself as the revered leader of your favorite element!
- Trinity has reached a splendid conclusion! iancudorinmarian overcame an upgrade disadvantage to dispatch worldwideweb3 in the final, while Aves claimed third place! iancudorinmarian's versatile element picks of
   allowed him strong options in Domin, Stall and Denial which his opponent couldn't cope with. worldwideweb3 is making a habit of becoming a glorious runner-up! I'm sure he won't mind us mentioning it, as he does in his own signature...
- Draft has almost completed its first stage, the draft itself. In a frantic couple of weeks, the ten teams have anonymously sent in bids, and card by card, divided the meta between them. Some have fared better than others, and we look forward to the big reveal of which team is which, so we can congratulate or commiserate. As you'd expect, the final cards as yet undrafted are a sorry bunch. See if you can construct a deck out of these, and post it in the comments!
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- The Competition section has well and truly reopened in the wake of Brawl! Art Competition: A New Standard saw budding Vexillologists attempt to design flags or standards for their favorite elements! DoctorC claimed a pixilated victory (shown above, albeit slightly stretched), and we saw a range of styles and interpretations, from simple real-world style flags of basic colors and shapes, to imagined war-standards, to russianspy1234's conceptual piece 'Darkness' shown in the spoiler below.
- As one competition concludes, another is born! The first Card Design Competition since Card Design War 3 is here... although it's more card theft than card design! Idea Factory Espionage forces us to re-imagine the famous mechanics of the game, and place mutilated versions of them in a rival element! So far only three submissions have been made, so make use of the remaining time to steal your idea!
| | |  - This calls for wisdom. Let the person who has insight calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man. That number is 666. March 4th's Mark of the Beast tournament was full of excitement, as participants battled their way to the top! kaempfer13 claimed first place with his beastly decks. Congratulations!
Spoiler for Hidden: Did you like the tourney in general? How about the rules?I enjoyed it, winning is always nice.  I found a surprising variety of decks, even though the rules forced you to build around very few decent cards. There were no unbeatable decks and some slightly unusual tech choices turned out to be highly beneficial (like Timdood running 6 shockwaves in his FFQ deck to counter GotP, he only lost because eternity does some damage and coupled with steals denying his quanta he was forced to wait too long until he had enough quanta to output queens faster than i could rewind them). The rule of using 6 distinct cards makes legality checks a bit difficult, as a single copy of a card (that no other rule prevents you from running or forces you to run) can make the difference between a legal and illegal deck. I for instance failed my 40% rngroll to acknowledge that fog as 7th card made my UG deck illegal (it fit right into the other  cards around it and I didn't count it when I checked for legality upon building the deck, as I literally missed it). When i finally realized my mistake at the end of the tournament I was so shocked that I briefly forgot how to count and thought most of my decks ran 7 cards and were thus illegal! Luckily for me, it was only that one and glennfoo didn't ask for a legality check, so the current tournament rules allowed me to proceed without having to replay a match that happened several rounds ago. Still, I'd rather not use illegal decks, so I'll look even more carefully in the future! When, for you, was the most exciting moment of the tournament?That probably has to be the first match of the final. Adrenavamps was a deck that I did not predict, however I was lucky with my deck choice anyway. Lightnings took care of them easily, but had he drawn a single combo more than I had lightnings and a decent amount of luck with dusk mathman could very well have won. We both surprised each other with decks that the other one had neither faced nor built in this tournament. Timdood also caught me a bit offguard when i finally realized that eternity alone (while incredibly effective) would not have been enough to stop his FFQ deck, as his shockwaves shutdown most of my damage output. In just a short sentence, or even one word, how would you summarize the whole tournament? 666. Interestingly, I found 6 of the 6 cost cards -that you had to include 6 copies of- to be viable.
- Challenge a Master, Become a Master.
But first, you will need a warm-up! Trials Hype was Mar. 12th's tourney getting us hyped and ready for trials. Battling his way in with sword and teeth was none other than Calindu himself!
- It has been 700 years since the planet was evacuated... and only garbage litters the landscape. Can they be the key to restore the lost glory? This week's tournament, Mar. 18th's The grand return of the Axiom. Buff your smaller creatures and use combinations to tinker your way to the top! Major strategist kaempfer13 crafted his victory with his awesome decks.
Spoiler for Hidden: Did you like the tourney in general? How about the rules?
I kinda liked that decks had to be build around cards that are usually not used and no monos were possible; before fate egg was banned i was worried about reverse time running rampant and after the ban I still wanted to use it, but didn't come up with a good deck in my slightly less than 1 hour long preparation. I'm sure it would have done well as it turned out that armored scarabs +graboid was the strongest deck and it would counter that alongside mutadecks (noone even bothered using those interestingly), ffq decks and gravity earthduos. Obviously with borderline unusable cards required in the decks slightly unusual strategies started to work, which I'd always appreciate, though of course the rest of the deck were usually generally good cards we've seen used many times before.
When, for you, was the most exciting moment of the tournament?
All my opponents had kinda poor rng and my respective chosen deck was never unfavoured (a few 50-50 matches happened), so it was never really that tense for me. The match with Absol could easily have been interesting if his deckbuilding skills hadn't been so rusty, as he partially predicted and countered me, but his dmg output was just too poor to make me sweat at any point. I forgot what decks draco used, but he had pretty bad draws. I guess the most exciting game was g1 with mathman, kinda a mirrormatch of armoured scarabs+graboid, he build his deck slightly differently though. However a pretty poor quanta draw for him gave me a pretty easy win. The situation in the next game wasn't too different and at this point I was quite sure I could add yet another trophy to my collection (and right I was). So, unfortunately I have no real highlight, most of my wins were kinda handed out to me.
In just a short sentence, or even one word, how would you summarize the whole tournament?
Scarab's time to shine!
- They say survival of the fittest is the way to go. A statement could never be more correct with Mar. 25th's 6x6 Slim Pickings tournament! This popular speedbuilding method is one of the community's favourites. TheonlyrealBeef was the survivor of this tournament, scavenging through what little there was to pick from and coming out with the best decks!
Spoiler for Hidden: Did you like the tourney in general? How about the rules?Lazy and uninspired, but at least the meta was interesting. Except for the Nymphs, there were too many Nymphs allowed and not enough alternative attackers from the same elements, it's like whomever organized it was trying to win with Nymphs, good thing I showed them! When, for you, was the most exciting moment of the tournament?Last game against Timdood3, I won with 1hp! He kept using a similar deck, but I had no clear counter ready for it. So I just lucked my way to victory. In just a short sentence, or even one word, how would you summarize the whole tournament?Mummies!
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- Battle League: worldwideweb3 is marching ahead with 1574 points! Ryli right behind, a tough call indeed, stay tuned, and find out the winners in 10 days!
- Leagues 1/2017 are almost finished! A low number of games played so far, and only ten days remaining before those shiny prizes are given away. Get those games in!
- If the promise of valuable prizes weren't enough, this season's Leagues have adjusted the meta by allowing shards as standard (though you can ban them if your opponent agrees). On top of that, should you want a challenge, the League Organizers are releasing Weekly Features Rules to spice up your clashes! Good luck!
| | | - Quantafied 3 - by Linkcat has ended with a couple of Jolts, a Firestorm, and a very charred Aves lying slain by last-one-standing Ryli! Congratulations on your victory!
- Elements Mafia 68 - by Kuroaitou saw town talk their way to victory. Seriously. Loads of talking. The Kuro effect made this an excellent mafia game with 185 pages of scum-hunty goodness. rob77dp managed a mighty 551 posts. That's dedication. Or insanity, but let's go with dedication!
- Sign-ups are up and running for Elements Mafia 69 - by killsdazombies! What a lucky couple of months for the mafia players of the forum, first a Kuro mafia, now a KDZ one! In a Dreams inspired mafia game, the Nightmares will try to crush the Dreamers in their sleep. Don't miss this mafia slumber-party!
- Kuroaitou is rumored to be working on a new Forum Game called "ESC". Well, not exactly rumored. He literally told everyone he's working on a new Forum game called ESC. But we can release this exclusive snippet from the rules! "Every player has 10 hearts. Lose all hearts, you die. If one team remains, they automatically win by massacre. If one team escapes, they also win by ESC (Escape~)."
| All Over The Place!
- April Fool's Day saw a few curiosities across the forum... here's a few of the best...
- Chat went... odd. Specifically, for 10 minutes every hour it went upside down and was populated by Kuroaitous.
- In other news, unrelated to April Fools, Laarry has been posting a daily pixelated picture, and delighting the community with their simple cuteness! Take a look at Laarry's Daily Drawing!
- If you see or hear about a in interesting thread that you think should be included in the newsletter, let the Newsletter Writers know, it may be included in next month's 'All Over The Place' section!
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- There have been no new hirings this month, but a very exciting opportunity is currently open for one of the most respected and important roles on the forum! Warmaster Hiring is open, apply now!
Tea Time with RyliBelow is the portion of an interview:
What is you favorite weapon and why is it that? (Anonymous)
Titan Throwing large objects for no good reason is fun.
Minecraft, Terraria, or Roblox? (Anonymous)
None of them are my sort of game, but Minecraft, if I had to play one.
Do you have a crush on anyone on the forums? (Anonymous)
They'll know...
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New Members
Spoiler for Introduction posts: Here are the members who posted in the Introduce Yourself board within the past month. Just click a certain name to be redirected to the corresponding introduction post. Don't be rude, say hello to newcomers! |
TUNE OF THE MONTH!
With Trials starting up, this month's song is a call to anyone in any walk of life, elements or not, who needs to understand, they ARE worthy.
Mutating the Most Bang for your Buck
Hover over cards for details, click for permalink 6ts 6ts 6u3 6u3 6u3 6u3 6u3 6u3 6u4 6u4 6u4 6u4 6ve 6ve 6ve 6ve 6ve 6ve 7an 7an 7an 7ee 7ee 7qb 7qb 80b 80b 80b 80b 80b 8pu
Card by card:
Supernova: Main source of non-entropy-element quanta and the primary way of getting a creature out to mutate. Save them up in pairs when possible for Improved Mutation.
Improved Mutation: Although primarily meant for giving you an attacking creature while neutralizing Singularities, it can also be used on the opponents' stronger creatures to both weaken them, and strengthen you by giving you a Twin Universe target. Just be careful since it can easily backfire with this usage, especially if the target becomes immaterial.
Twin Universe: The nicest thing about combining Twin Universe with mutants, is that you essentially get a new Mutant that is stronger. And even when you do not get a decent mutant up in time, you can use it on your opponents' creatures instead.
Precognition/Shard of Bravery: Efficient card draw, essentially shortening the size of your deck, allowing you to use a smaller deck. The only problem is that you pretty much need to use at least one Supernova to use them, praying you will draw another through these. So in the most cases that you will want to use it, you risk breaking up the combo by not drawing what you need.
Epinephrine: The thread best describes the full advantages of using Epinephrine with PU mutants, but it is essentially the most efficient buff card for increasing the power of Twin Universe. This way, even mutants that would otherwise appear weak can be used as powerhouses.
Strategy:
You'll want to play your Towers and Pendulums while saving up the rest in hand. Discard Improved Mutations or Epinephrines if you get too many of them, or play Supernovae one by one if you have a lot of them, but no Improved Mutations yet. Play the combo all at once as soon as possible: double Supernova, Improved Mutation on the Singularity.
Strengths:
Excels against slower decks, specifically quanta-lock decks. The versatility of TU and Mutation also offer it a good chance against buff decks as well.
Weaknesses:
The main glaring weakness is the cards you need in your hand to start the combo. It is essentially a 5 card combo (Supernova x2, Improved Mutation, Epinephrine, Twin Universe). The deck cannot consistently beat even ai2 for this reason.
Alternative deck choices:
The idea behind the deck was to take mutations to a new level by building a combo that relies on it: adrenaline was meant to mitigate the effect of low-power mutants affecting your outcome. Although the deck succeeds at this, making a large combo on already unreliable mutants, has made the deck both slower and less reliable than other mutation decks. To keep the idea but make it more competitive, I'd suggest using a bunch of cheap rainbow cards to help keep you alive and deal with some other weaknesses while you are at it. That way, you can use your first supernova for both these cards and extra card draw, rather than relying on starting out with exactly 2 Supernovae. It also uses less quanta generators: you really don't need much more than 2 Pendulums to supply your entire deck thanks to Supernovae.
This Card review was written by Hyroen
Art by: Zblader.
 Darkness is an intriguing, fan-favourite element that can be inviting and challenging for new players yet almost forever difficult to entirely master. Highly controlling and disruptive, the element seeks to overwhelm the opponent through techniques from behind the shadows. Associated with thievery and using your own opponent's cards against them, Snatch | Snatch by Anarook finds a perfect home within the element. Designed to allow the user to snatch cards that the opponent discards, this does not mean you will only be getting the opponent's junk. Darkness always finds a way.
Quanta Production
Without a specific discard-forcing spell, Snatch has no specific card it directly synergizes with, however, plenty of cards work quite well with it, some of which work well together as well.  Shard of Bravery,  Silence, Black Hole, & of course, Nightmare are potent cards in their own right, however, they work beautifully in concert with this card's main objective. Seeing as the benefits of the 'snatching' effect can be highly dependent on the opponent's deck, this card may see more use either in Rainbow decks or in decks capitalizing on Nightmare to influence the cards the opponent may be discarding. Otherwise, this card may be seeing its main benefit become the that it generates.
Here is a deck designed by Hyroen that shows an effective way to use Snatch | Snatch!
Deck 1:
Hover over cards for details, click for permalink 4t9 4t9 4t9 4t9 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7qe 7qe 7qe 7qe 7ri 7ri 7ri 7ri 7ri 7ri 7t5 7t5 7t8 7t8 7th 7th 7th 7th 7th 7th 8pt
(Relics represent Snatch)
The ability of Snatch to be able to potentially create duplicates of a creature that you want with a simple discard of the opponent makes every discard deadly. Not only would an opponent discarding a Ghost of the Past make them take 13 damage, but depending on the space in your hand, the discard would produce a pseudo-Fractal effect depending on how many copies of Snatch you have in play. As such, this deck could easily be losing slightly at one point and then winning drastically the next. Furthermore, should you note that you have much more than  , you can always try using the quanta generating effects of Snatch to bring out several Obsidian Dragons.
Darkness is a well-defined element and a wonderfully fun element to design cards for. Known for using the opponent's cards against them and looking for openings to strike, Snatch makes an excellent addition to a game which does not capitalize on discards quite as much as it could, and from the elegance of this card, not as much as it should.
To see more of Anarook's work check out their portfolio!
Until next time!
Many thanks to:
-Ryli for the interiew.
-TheonlyrealBeef for DiotM.
-Hyroen for CiotM.
-all readers for reading
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