| March 2018 | | Brawl is Starting!
New Council!
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- Elements Academy is in it's second round. Watch which student will come out on top with that triple A+ score board.
- Sideboard has come to a close with Linkcat taking the final round in a stunning 3-0 victory. His rainbow deck managed to out maneuver all of his opponents expertly.
- With the 11th war over, we now get to look back at the most amazing decks played, and the most sportsman players. Take a look at the Sportsmanship and Favorite Decks thread to go and see who was nominated, as well as to congratulate the most nominated sportsmanship player Afdarenty. Also do not forget to vote for the most exquisite deck from each of the 12 teams.
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- Congratz to Kalinuial for evolving an AI deck and making it more powerful in the deck competition AI Ascention as he turned an AI3 deck into the new False God "Karma".
- Brawl is a well known forum event, and needs your help creating image headers for the upcoming adventure. Taskmaster has people submitting image headings for each of the different brawl tasks. Go now and submit something while there is still time left.
- Brawl is starting right away as bosses will soon start bidding on the auctioned players. Competition Organizers have confirmed that competitions will stop during Brawl. So go now and sign up for the Competition Mailing Lists so that when brawl ends you will not miss any of the new and exciting competitions when they start back up again.
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- Join the resistance! Fight for our freedom! At precisely 10 o'clock. February 4th's Potluck of Slowbuilding is giving a new meaning to slowcooking. Players had to build decks based on aforementioned rules for this tournament. In the end, Spielkind snatched the 1st place, with his extraordinary decks.
- Brawling in space! In February 10th's We're Going Space Now, players were encouraged to build decks with cards that looked presumably like they belonged in space. In near zero-gravity environments, they battled ferociously to take the win. When brought back from space, we found that kaempfer13 was the last man standing. Congratulations kaempfer, you traveled space and came out victorious to tell the tale!
- When you got no ideas just use speedbuilding! In a good old fashioned Potluck Speedbuild on February 17th, players battled their way to the top of the game to prove their worth. Whence concluded, dragonsdemesne emerged with hardly a wound to brag his victory. Congratulations, dragonsdemesne!
- Let's try that again. February 25th's Do over - Unupgraded Allowed participants to tinker with the traditional starting decks for each element. Players fought fiercely to see who could make the best modified starter, and when the dust cleared, Vindilos stood tall and proud, showing off his very first tournament victory. Congratulations, Vindilos!
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- Leagues are up and running, with RavingRabbid holding tightly into 1st place with 1554 points, phoenix1211 is closing the gap in 2nd place, with 1522 points, and Mr Muffin being very close behind, with only 2 points less than phoenix. With just over a month left, league participants are scrambling to get as much as they can, or should be anyway. Get battling folks!
- For those who can't decide on their own restrictions, there are Weekly Featured Rules to tickle anyone's fancy! Just hop into chat and ask around for a match!
- With succulent Nymph/Mark and Electrum codes up for grabs, there's no reason NOT to jump into Leagues! It's a great way for new players to pick up the meta in preparation for war, or more experienced players to strut their stuff, or even try out some fun deck concoctions to see how they do! What's more, the max number of games per opponent has been increased to 15, and you no longer have to wait 20 hours between matches! Get involved now!
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- Do you have any exciting ideas for new fun fresh Forum Games, or how about bringing back old classics that you would like to see played again? You should then go let the Forum Game Organizer(Linkcat) know that you are interested in hosting a game. If you have a new idea post in the Ideas and games transfer thread or discuss your game idea with Linkcat.
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All Over The Place!
- Council has provided us with a monthly update for what they have accomplished this past month. Read further into this NL, or skip straight to it.
- Our lovable Fippe94 has updated his card game Fragments. Go check it out and let him know your thoughts on the game and how well he has done with its creation.
- DoctorC never stops to show off his creativity as he adds more pixilated images to his artworks collection. Do you have a request for a specific piece of art, go let him know what you would love to see as he always enjoys suggestions of what to make.
- The Off-topic section can often be filled with nonsensical posts about gibberish and humour. andretimpa went outside the box with this meaningful post and had quite a bit to say on the topic of discussion.
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Tea Time with ddevans96Below is a portion of the interview:
Will you marry me?  (anonymous)
My girlfriend might have an issue with that <3
Blue, Green, and Red are colors, Can you tell me your favorite movie program? (anonymous)
My favorite movie is The Secret of NIMH.
Who is your favorite community member? (TribalTrouble)
There's a group...
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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!  |
Hover over cards for details, click for permalink 4vj 6u3 6u5 6u5 6u5 710 710 710 718 718 718 718 718 718 72i 744 744 744 74f 74f 74f 74f 74f 75m 7q9 7q9 7q9 7q9 7q9 7q9 8pj
Card by card:
Nova: Mostly for the possibility of providing some light quantum so you can draw a card with a sundial. It also works like a tower or upgraded pendulum for playing cards sooner. Especially discord if you don't draw any pendulums. The deck only needs one tower of each element so getting more than that is a waste and drawing with your sundials is quite useful so you can get more poison, sundials, etc. Why not two novas? Because the deck can afford for one of them to be a supernova.
Super Nova: Works fairly differently than nova. Provides more light for drawing power and you can play a deadly poison of this alone. On the other hand super nova can't help with playing discord faster. It can still help with playing other cards faster though under the right circumstances. Why not two supernovas? So you get the bonuses from both nova and supernova and it gives the deck another useful free card for anti-hand clogging. Mostly for a bit more anti-hand clogging.
Discord: Absolutely necessary for DBH for happen. Can stall the opponent on its own and scatters the opponents quantum for perfect synergy with black hole. The 6 damage a turn it deals is also very good for this type of deck.
Bone Tower: The way this build of DBH Pdials produces the necessary death quantum.
Deadly Poison: Main damage dealer of this deck most of the time. Deadly poison is a very cheap, persistent damage source only removed by purify and nullified by healing which makes it perfect for a small stall based deck.
Death Pendulum: This deck will be fine death quantum wise if one of it's four bone towers are changed to a death pendulum which is what happened. This is to help make a turn two discord possible.
Gravity Tower: The way this build of DBH Pdials produces the necessary gravity quantum.
Black Hole: Also absolutely necessary for DBH for happen. Can stall the opponent on its own sometimes more than others and sucks up quantum from all elements for perfect synergy with discord. The healing, especially when combined with discord, is also useful for giving the poison more time along with the denial.
Gravity Pendulum: This deck will be fine gravity quantum wise if one of it's four gravity towers are changed to a gravity pendulum which is what happened. This is to help make a turn two discord possible.
Sundial: Ah, the infamous sundial. Poison stalls aren't complete without them. Together they can provide up to 6 turns of quite good protection for literally no cost. If that's not good enough if you have a spare light quantum (which most poison stalls have) you can also use them to draw more cards for other stuff particularly more sundial chaining and more misery for your opponent. Well deserved, needed for success, and fabulous space filler for this deck.
Strategy:
If all goes as intended by the deck you stall with DBH while playing deadly poison occasionally (or often in some cases) then chain sundials to victory. Important to note, the DBH portion of the deck is not well equipped for locking down the opponent it's meant to only slow them until sundials can take over. Often times your draw isn't so perfect so in the event of bad draws such as...
No discord: Hope black hole and your OP perfectly balanced sundials provide enough stalling to kill with poison. This isn't too far-fetched if the opponent's deck is slow enough.
No black holes: You have 5 of them and they don't need to be played fast so this shouldn't be a problem. If you don't draw them at all then hope discord and your OP perfectly balanced sundials provide enough stalling to kill with poison. This isn't too far-fetched if the opponent's deck is slow enough.
No deadly poison: Slowly drawing deadly poison is perfectly ok and normal. The deck is built to play poison slowly if you have to. No poison or very late poison (very rare since there's 6 of them) means you'll just die.
No sundials: If you can't draw more than one of these before you die then you die.
Quantum issues: One bone and gravity tower will be enough. If you don't draw death quantum see "No deadly poison" if you don't draw gravity quantum see "No black hole". It works out basically the same as if you don't draw the actual card soon enough the difference being you need them more and there's less of them but you only need one and nova/supernova can help some.
Strengths:
With a perfect draw, this deck is very strong because the enemy deck basically has to kill in 4-5 turns against DBH before this deck can chain sundials to victory. Or set up stalling of its own.
With a great draw, this deck is very strong against non-counter decks because the enemy deck has to kill in about 6 turns before this deck can chain sundials to victory.
With a good draw, it's not as strong but still quite viable.
Persistent damage in the form of poison meaning many stalling cards are dead or at least not good vs. this deck. Sundials in a poison stall are hard for many decks to deal with because of how good they are. OTKs are dealt with well with poison and chaining sundials when you think the enemy is close to being able to OTK you. Plus black hole is extremely good against many OTKs. Black hole for rainbows is another strength.
So in summary, DBH Pdials' strength lies in the potential to be really strong with a great draw and is good against certain decks.
Weaknesses:
Poor Consistency in draws.
Too much bypass damage like catatitans, unstable gas or poison. A rush that's not bad against DBH such as immorush with a bit of PC would counter this deck or if it's fast enough like perhaps freebird it may not need PC. Just like pretty much all poison stalls, too much healing or purify hardcounters it. A good amount of PC such as multiple explosions, shard of focus, and pulverizer. Pretty much anything anti-sundial / anti-poison stall. Sanctuary. Anything DBH isn't good but not too bad because you still have sundials and poison. This deck's fragile quantum makes it weak to quantum denial.
Alternative deck choices:
Unfortunately, this deck doesn't really have space for non quantum variations. You could replace the nova and supernova for another bone and gravity tower if you value a bit more quantum consistency over probably drawing something at some point with sundials. Here's a pendulum supernova based variant made by CactusKing That has more consistent quantum and better DBH at the price of less deadly poison and fewer sundials. For that version you could replace a discord and/or black hole for an explosion, lightning storm, silence, purify, earthquake, lightning, fog, heal, pandemonium, mirror shield, there's a lot of options if you don't want super consistent DBH.
This Month in Council
Henry Ford once said, "Coming together is a beginning; Keeping together is progress; Working together is success."
And he's right on the money. The Elements Council only succeeds as long as its members are working together. If the Council stops working as a team, or worse, stops working altogether, then nothing gets done. Thankfully, that was an issue the 14th Council did not have. This continues to remain a non-issue as we enter the 15th Council term. Success! And yet, the community still does not have a clear picture of what Council does day-to-day.
That's where this new Council Blog comes in, to inform you on what your elected Council members are actually up to when they're not joking around in the Discord chat. But first, Let's begin by answering a few key questions you might hold.
What Does Council Actually Do?
Primarily, the Elements Council is in charge of hiring new staff which you see when we make announcements requesting new volunteers like this one. Most people know about that part. In addition, Council implements new improvements to the community. One thing we’re not so good at, though, is telling you guys about exactly what we’re working on. This is where that changes.
What changes are you working on?
Let's look at the Current/Future Council Projects topic. Among those listed are The Blab to Discord Transition; Project Spearheads; and the Hiring Thread Revamp. Time to take a closer look at these.
Discord? As in the rare  weapon, Discord?
No, silly! I'm talking about the Discord chat you can join here. We'll be covering this project more in-depth in our next blog post in April!
For now, you just need to know this: it’s a more modern chat system than Blab, with more features and working pings, chat history that you can simply scroll through; and it works on just about all popular operating systems (even ChromeOS). You can even log in through your web browser instead of installing it, retaining that 'Blab'-like experience. Overall, Discord is sleeker, stronger, sexier, and simply better for our community.
Project Spearheads
All these Council projects are listed in the Projects thread, but if you’ve got questions, how do you know who to ask?
The “Spearheads” projects (spearheaded by CleanOnion, if you must know) aims to denote one or two people per project so that questions can be sent directly to the right people. Otherwise, questions have to go through the entirety of Council, which is a lot slower. It also serves as a handy list of “managers” for each project that we have - if there’s been no response to a project suggestion for a while, then it’s the Spearhead’s job to get that project on the go again.
At the moment, there are concerns that this project could cause drama - after all, if six people have contributed massively to a project, and only the Spearhead is named alongside it, then they’re the only ones getting credit and that’s not fair. Discussions are currently ongoing to resolve this potential issue, and the project will either be improved or discarded as deemed necessary. This is how many Council projects are developed, through slow refinement. From the outside, this might look like nothing is happening. We aim to change that.
The Hiring Thread Revamp
Whenever a staff position needs a new staff member it’s Council’s job to get one hired. We do this by making a hiring post in Forum News and Announcements - coincidentally, the current hiring is for a Newsletter Writer!
The project is a suggestion for revamping and modernising hiring threads slightly, along with a simple system to standardise the layout and update tips for applicants to read. However, this is a very early-stage project. Feedback from other Councillors will be coming in over the next couple of days to develop this project. You might see the outcome in hiring threads sooner rather than later!
If you have any questions or suggestions - no matter how big or small - regarding Council or how it functions, please send a PM with all of those questions right away! We’ll answer them as fast as we can, and might even publish some in the next This Month in Council. Thanks for reading.
--TribalTrouble
Many thanks to:
-Mr Muffin for Deck idea of the month.
-ddevans96 for The FCM Interview.
-TribalTrouble for This Month in Council.
-all readers for reading
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