Elements Community Newsletter: August 2012

[ZephyrPhantom]

AUGUST 2012

FORUM BRAWL - ROUND 3 The Forum Brawl event has entered Round 3, with 7 new tasks + 1 bonus task for each member on the 6 teams! Don't forget to vote for the Round 2 submissions here! (Round 1 Results can be found here.)	2/2012 LEAGUES HAVE ENDED Beginner and Championship leagues have ended! Congratulations to the respective 1st place winners, Odii Odsen and blarp, who have been added to the Hall of Fame	12 LIVES - ROUND 4 The PvP Event 12 Lives is in Round 4! Check out the Battle Results here!
NEW ETG CHAT SET UP As a result of lack of ad revenue, Elements the Game forums can no longer support the 'blab' chat. As a result, we've moved chatrooms to an IRC (Channels #elementsthegame for normal room and #etgtournaments for tourneys) hosted by Higurashi. See here for more info.	COMPETITIONS New Competitions The most recent competitions happen to have ended at the time of this newsletter, but in the meantime the COs are looking for Feedback on the Word Count limit. Please post your thoughts. Competition Winners Elements Journalist - furballdn ETG User Cards 2- pikachufan2164 Read more...	CARD IDEAS New Cards in Forge Decaying Dragon | Dragonic Horror by Zblader Philosopher's Stone | Philosopher's Stone by Xenocidius Spider Cow | Nano Spider Cow by moomoose Flare Burst | Flare Burst by Drake_XIV[ Giant | Giant by Rutarete Fae | Alfar by Zblader Top Five Designers moomoose - 57 Xenocidius - 49 Zblader - 49 EvaRia - 27 Ajit - 25 Read more..

CARD IDEA OF THE MONTH Obscure This month's Card Idea is Obscure; review by our Idea Guru OldTrees below: Obscure is a Darkness spell suggested by odideph. Many attempts have been made at misinformation/deception cards. Obscure goes a step further than most by depriving new players and veterans alike. Normally what happens could be derived from noting the cards played and the order/quantity of damage dealt. Obscure carefully eliminates most sources of information (See its notes). As an example a player will be damaged by an obscured creature but will not see when the creature attacks. Like many cards, Obscure has multiples uses. Obscure can target creatures, permanents or players. Some example uses: An obscured mutant can use its ability but the opponent will not notice the effect unless they look for it. An obscured protected permanent will cause the opponent to waste PC when it fails to effect the obscured permanent. An obscured player does not know their current hp status. This can also be used to psyche the opponent out as they worry about their health. I will leave some of the tricks a mystery. How many can you find?

DECK IDEA OF THE MONTH The deck idea of the month is My RoL/Hope (mostly) unupped by Krathos.  Deck Helper willng3 reviewed it. Hover over cards for details, click for permalink Deck import code : [Select] 5la 5la 5lk 5lk 5lk 5lk 61o 61o 61o 61o 61o 61o 61u 61u 61u 622 622 622 622 622 63a 63a 63a 63a 63a 63a 7jp 7jp 7jp 7jp 7jp 7jp 8pu Normally when a deck is posted that begins with the word "My", players can be expected to become skeptical of that deck's efficiency due to an implied lack of professional.  Krathos's variant of RoL/Hope proves to break from that tradition by being a beginner-friendly version of a FG grinder which has continued to remain effective for nearly two years after it was posted. RoL/Hope was by no means a new concept when this variant was posted, but the aim of this deck was to go in greater detail about a mostly unupped version of a highly efficient FG grinder which would function well for anyone interested in creating the deck.  The basic principle of killing FGs fast to sell upgraded cards for the purpose of upgrading other cards would allow this mostly unupped RoL/Hope to be transformed into a more effective RoL/Hope mod such as Perpetual Light.  Regardless of the various updates that Elements has undergone since RoL/Hope's introduction to the game, both Krathos's mostly unupped variant and Perpetual Light have shown to continue to work well with respect to their grinding purposes.  In short, an investment in either deck made nearly two years ago would still be capable of paying off at the present. While many FG grinders have been designed over the years to better counteract FGs than RoL/Hope, each update seems to remove yet another one of these designs from the top FG grinder list while RoL/Hope makes it through the storm standing as strong as ever.  With current updates bringing large changes via Shards and the like we can wonder if this will change in the approaching future.  However, if we adhere to past trends then it looks like RoL/Hope, upped or mostly unupped, is here to stay for quite some time.

Other News Community Card Design is in Stage 2! Elements Elimination has ended, with as the victor!

Brought to you by Zblader!

[Naesala]

I love how these always come out right on time towards the beginning of each month.

[Rutarete]

Thanks for doing the newsletter Z!

[Chapuz]

I don't get the Deck idea of the month. Isn't is suposed to show a deck idea created this month?

[willng3]

I don't get the Deck idea of the month. Isn't is suposed to show a deck idea created this month?

No...

[OldTrees]

I don't get the Deck idea of the month. Isn't is suposed to show a deck idea created this month?

No...

What is your method for determining the limits on the X of the month?

For the card idea I include all cards I notice and are at least in the polls that month. On slower months I also include all cards in the crucible.

[willng3]

I don't get the Deck idea of the month. Isn't is suposed to show a deck idea created this month?

No...

What is your method for determining the limits on the X of the month?

For the card idea I include all cards I notice and are at least in the polls that month. On slower months I also include all cards in the crucible.

My usual method is to give the spotlight to any hot, popular decks that became a community favorite during the past month or so, that way it's relevant to the community's interest when reading the article.  However, with a lack of game updates this becomes very hard to accomplish to the point where I'm usually left with selecting a deck from the Community Recommended Decks board and discussing it.  So really my only limitation is to use a deck that's popular with the community.

[OldTrees]

Good system. Thanks for sharing.