(Nearly) No Bazaar Challenge

[serprex]

So this came up in chat again. Figured I should try it out for once. Rolled an 8, so

Spoiler for decks:

pruned starter

Hover over cards for details, click for permalink

Deck import code : [Select]

4t3 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l9 5l9 5la 5lb 5lb 5lb 5lc 5lc 5ld 5le 5lf 5lf 5lf 5od 5oe 5oh 5ok 8pr

optimized with dagger spin

Hover over cards for details, click for permalink

Deck import code : [Select]

4t3 4t3 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5la 5lb 5lb 5lb 5lc 5lc 5ld 5lf 5lf 5lf 5oc 5oc 5od 5oe 5oh 5ok 8pr

Name: nbcerprelight
Spins: dagger, arsenic, colossal dragon
Oracle: mummy
Score: 151
Won: 39
Lost: 1
594
Time: ~90min

Played AI2 once to unlock oracle. Had a few close calls vs AI1 (usually involving arse or eternity), finally lost game 35 vs antimatter

Spoiler for day2:

Oracle card: Basilisk Blood

1030 score at 145-52. First edit was winning an OE, swapped 2 daggers for wind pillar+oe. Was able to nab a win off AI4 with that build, got lucky with them spamming fractal on dragonflies against a solar shield. Aside: I'm going for absolutely no bazaar, so no shopping for pillars. Which made getting my second water pillar drop pretty exciting. AI3 has a lot of good stuff for blessed pegs, tried out sky blitz with 4th wind pillar but was too often a dead card or not much. Dropped solar shield to run 4 pegs + 4 bless, but was finding poor results. Seems Solar Shield is good in a slow meta that's pretty wide & AI misplays PC on it often enough. Once I got up to 6 blessings I found success by cutting down to 3 pegs. Seemed games where I play 3 pegs don't go as well as ones where I play 1 pegs. Took awhile stuck in a limbo of 950-1000 score while experimenting

Should be able to go after AI4 if I can pick up miracle/fog

turns out this deck isn't half bad against ai4, won a ruby dragon after -dragonfly -firefly +windtower +shockwave

Hover over cards for details, click for permalink

Deck import code : [Select]

5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5la 5lb 5lb 5lb 5ld 5lf 5lf 5lf 5lf 5lf 5lf 5oc 5oc 5oc 5od 5oh 5ok 5ol 8pr

209-119 2nd OE opened up reducing air cards to 4 pillars 2 oe, fits in a 4th pegasus. Was able to get a Silurian Dragon off AI4

Spoiler for day3:

Firefly from oracle

ai4 gave an upped voodoo. Score is -12 at 296-281 w/l

-729 score now, 333-358, but rolled a Jade Dragon after switching to this promising deck

Hover over cards for details, click for permalink

Deck import code : [Select]

5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5la 5ll 5ll 5ll 5ll 5oc 5oc 5oc 5oc 5oc 5od 5oh 5ol 5ol 5ol 5on 5on 5oo 8pr

Spoiler for day4:

Back to work, also headache, also I need a life

Swapped thunderstorm out for flying weapon. Spun supernova & epinephrine. -1217 score at 384-437

day5: -1583 score at 403-479. AI4 dropped a fog, swapped out wings in pegasus rush. Upped drops: gotp, shrieker

day6: -1597 score at 446-521. Tried grinding AI2 with skips for nova/fog/dims. Drop rate too low, only came out with a dragonfly. Upped drops: eagle eye, aflatoxin, armagio. Pillars: . Cards no longer all show in ALL

day7: mummy firemaster obsidian. -1671 score at 500-595 (but is slowly increasing while score continues to descend, so one upped eagle eye is what I needed to go infinite on ai4)

8: graveyard, anubis, upped wind tower, gotp. -1898 score at 531-644. Later: phase salvager, firemaster

9: spine

[Linkcat]

Started with 

Played the starter running cards off the mark for a bit, got some decent bow cards so I switched to a bow pretty early. Winrate vs AI3 wasn't great, a lot of it depended on whether I drew my Dragon or not. Got 7 weapons before 500 score quest and rolled with Pulvy and Lobo for a while, decided to go for the free Vagger with that and my first upgrade because it was just too good to pass up. Finally spun a second Dragon at the end of Day 1. Toughest matchups were rainbow, aether, and steamies. It's very annoying that rainbow has all the best cards, but it's also the hardest and it gives the least spins because most cards are one or two ofs.

by NBC Life Bow

Hover over cards for details, click for permalink

Deck import code : [Select]

4sa 4sa 4sa 4sa 4sa 4sa 52q 55q 55t 595 5bs 5bs 5bs 5bs 5bs 5bs 5bt 5bt 5c0 5c0 5c0 5c1 5c1 5c2 5c2 5f6 5fb 5lf 5rk 7tb 8pn

Spoiler for Day 2:

Day 2 I grinded up to my second upgrade, while trying to figure out what to do I realized that I had 4 Blessings and just enough good targets to make a decent buffbow. After some testing and deliberation, I decided to go with Arse for the second upgrade over other options because it would be more useful long term. Was originally going to go Giant Frog but I just wasn't getting many good cards from spins to make a mono with. Ended up with this deck that I used to beat serp and iancu. Got 2 Blessings from spins but unfortunately no Lycan or Mutation.

by buffbow

Hover over cards for details, click for permalink

Deck import code : [Select]

4sa 4sa 4sa 4sa 4sa 4sa 4sa 4sa 4sa 4sa 4sa 4sa 55q 55t 595 5c1 5c1 5f6 5fb 5lb 5lf 5lf 5lf 5lf 5on 5rh 5rk 5ut 71a 7tb 8pq

The various creature interaction cards in both of these decks lead to a surprising number of tactical decisions which prevented the grind from getting boring.

Spoiler for Status end of Day 2:

Day 3 I started trying half-bloods. I only have around a 50% winrate so electrum gain is slow, but the chance to gain upgraded cards is worth it. Got a few nice ones already. Minor Vampire is MVP of the deck.

[DoubleCapitals]

Made a new one with no grinding arena at all:
Username: q2.0
Starter element:

[Wyand]

Like to ask a few questions regarding this NBC. Link how did you get so many cards in so little time?
Especially those quantum pillars... or is only serp playing it no ppms from bazaar? As I noticed AI1-3
never gives pends/pillars. Playing no ppm mode seems to really lock the player. Entropy starts with
10 pillars, that's problematic.

[worldwideweb3]

Like to ask a few questions regarding this NBC. Link how did you get so many cards in so little time?
Especially those quantum pillars... or is only serp playing it no ppms from bazaar? As I noticed AI1-3
never gives pends/pillars. Playing no ppm mode seems to really lock the player. Entropy starts with
10 pillars, that's problematic.

Only serp is doing no pillar pend buying.

[serprex]

As I noticed AI1-3 never gives pends/pillars.

False. I've rolled all my non initial PPMs (3 water towers, 1 time pend) off AI3

[Linkcat]

I won 85 cards in 564 spins. The QPs I bought from the bazaar, the rest come from starting deck and oracle/weapon quest.

I'm more curious about how serp got upped cards off of AI3.

[Wyand]

It means that it is my usual RNG that I haven't even seen a single PPM rolled in those games.
Played 40 so far, got these from rolls:

Dagger
Reverse Time
Druidic Staff (Oracle)
Graviton Mercenary
Stone Skin
Firefly Queen (Oracle)
Chaos Seed.

10 amethyst pillar is really a bottle neck, those few losses happened mostly due to having 0-1 ppm start.
(I sorta feel Zanz thought is the best starter, otherwise I have no idea why it is the only element
with less than 12 in-element pillar.)

I can understand why veterans like this, I remember the time when we started playing Doom fist only or played very restrictive
character builds in Diablo II.

Current deck:

Hover over cards for details, click for permalink

Deck import code : [Select]

4sa 4sa 4t3 4vc 4vc 4vc 4vc 4vc 4vc 4vc 4vc 4vc 4vc 4vd 4ve 4ve 4ve 4vf 4vg 4vi 4vi 4vi 4vk 4vk 4vk 52i 52j 52m 52m 52o 8pk

Spoiler for Today:

BB, Cata, Pharaoh and a Toadie so far from 10 games. And I've seen pillars rollin'.

Spoiler for :

serp you crazy man with those zillions of games. Don't waste your life, pls. No irony.

[DoubleCapitals]

It means that it is my usual RNG that I haven't even seen a single PPM rolled in those games.

iirc, the spin algorithm purposely tries not to pick PPMs unless it fails to find a non-PPM n times?

[Linkcat]

Yes, 10 times I believe.

[Wyand]

I think I restart this challenge. Playing no pillar buy version is very frustrating, especially with . I leave that to serp.
In AI3 you only have a "good" chance to get pillars against decks which has at least 15 ppms like the bow (tons of QPs)
or the duo (tons of pillars). Many AI3 decks has much less PPMs than those. Had no ppms in 82 games, saw them
rolling about 5 times...

Finishing with this collection:

[Wyand]

Abomination Fallen Elf Lycanthrope Maxwell's Demon Purple Dragon Schrodinger's Cat Antimatter Butterfly Effect Chaos Seed Mutation Nova Pandemonium Dissipation Shield Discord Shard of Serendipity Purple Nymph	- 2 - 4 - 3 - 3 - 1 - 3 1 3 - -	Bone Dragon Deathstalker Flesh Spider Mummy Skeleton Virus Vulture Aflatoxin Plague Poison Bone Wall Boneyard Skull Shield Soul Catcher Arsenic Shard of Sacrifice Grey Nymph	- - - - - 1 2 - 1 - - 4 - 1 0|1 - -	Armagio Chimera Colossal Dragon Graviton Fire Eater Graviton Mercenary Graviton Salvager Otyugh Sapphire Charger Acceleration Black Hole Gravity Pull Momentum Catapult Gravity Shield Titan Shard of Focus Amber Nymph	7 - 5 - - - 1 - - 2 1 - 1 - - - -	Antlion Gnome Rider Graboid Hematite Golem Iridium Warden Shrieker Stone Dragon Basilisk Blood Earthquake Enchant Artifact Plate Armor Stone Skin Titanium Shield Pulverizer Shard of Integrity Auburn Nymph	- 1 1 - - - 1 2 3 - - - - - - - -	Cockatrice Emerald Dragon Forest Scorpion Forest Spirit Horned Frog Rustler Adrenaline Heal Mitosis Emerald Shield Empathic Bond Thorn Carapace Druidic Staff Shard of Gratitude Green Nymph	- 1 - 1 - 2 - - 1 - 6 - 1 - -	Ash Eater Crimson Dragon Fire Spirit Lava Golem Phoenix Seraph Deflagration Fire Bolt Immolation Rage Potion Rain of Fire Fire Shield Fahrenheit Shard of Bravery Red Nymph	1 1 2 1 4 - 4 - - 6 2 1 1 - -
Arctic Squid Blue Crawler Chrysaora Ice Dragon Mind Flayer Steam Machine Toadfish Dry Spell Freeze Ice Bolt Nymph's Tears Purify Ice Shield Flooding Trident Shard of Patience Nymph Queen	2 - - 3|1 1 8 1 - 1 - - - - - - - -	Crusader Golden Dragon Guardian Angel Pegasus Photon Blessing Holy Light Luciferin Miracle Hope Reflective Shield Sanctuary Solar Shield Morning Start Shard of Divinity Light Nymph	3 - 1 - - 12 - - 1 3 -|1 - - - - -	Azure Dragon Dragonfly Firefly Firefly Queen Wyrm Flying Weapon Shockwave Sky Blitz Thunderstorm Fog Shield Wings Unstable Gas Owl's Eye Shard of Freedom Blue Nymph	1 - - 5 2 - - 1 1 - 1 1 4 - -	Anubis Deja Vu Dune Scorpion Devonian Dragon Fate Egg Ghost of the Past Pharaoh Scarab Precognition Reverse Time Golden Hourglass Procrastination Sundial Eternity Shard of Readiness Golden Nymph	1 2 3 - - - 4 1 - 2 5 3 1 1 - -	Black Dragon Devourer Gargoyle Minor Vampire Parasite Voodoo Doll Drain Life Liquid Shadow Nightmare Steal Cloak Dusk Mantle Nightfall Vampire Stiletto Shard of Void Black Nymph	1 -|1 - - - 9 - 1 - 3 - 2 1 3 - -	Immortal Phase Dragon Phase Salvager Phase Spider Psion Spark Fractal Lightning Parallel Universe Quintessence Silence Dimensional Shield Mindgate Lobotomizer Shard of Wisdom Turquoise Nymph	3 - -|1 2 - 2 - 3 - 2 1|1 4 3 1 - -

Stats: 4222 464W/206L 1583 LVL20