A study on 100 random unupped pvp games

[Shylderidh]

5. Strategies / synergies used

Poison decks (main source of damage by far is poison) : 14 (3 using mostly time scorpions as creatures, 6 forest scorpions, 2 chrysaoras, others arsenic and spells based or mixed) including 4 poison stales (3 bone wall + poison, 2 being also shrodinger walls, 1 dim shield spam + poison)
Growing creatures decks (more than half creatures seen have growing, steam or ablaze attribute) : 12 (8 with mostly golems including 3 immo rushes, 1 with mostly fire spirits, 2 forest spirit based, 1 steam machines)
Big timebows (50 cards or more, using mark of time, several hourglasses and quantum pilars) : 7
Dragon rushes (mono or duo decks of 35 cards or less where half or more creatures seen are dragons) : 7
Immo rushes (no or less than 3 pilars seen, using immolation) : 5 (3 being also golem decks)
Phoenixes decks (more than half creatures are phoenixes) : 5 (1 being also an immo rush, 3 using immolations but more than 3 pilars)
Aether stales (chaining dim shields) : 5 (one being also a poison deck, 3 paralell deck, the other phase dragon based)
Paralell opponent (using more than 3 copy cards - mindgates, fractal or paralel universes -, copying opponent creatures) : 5
Firefly queen decks : 4 (including 3 lifelight rushes*)
Shrodinger wall (using cats and bone wall) : 4 (2 being also poison decks, the others vulture based)
Lifelight rushes (using rustlers and life creatures powered by light quanta) : 4 (3 being also ffq decks)
Firestales (decks using less than 3 creatures with farenheit and bolts as main damage source) : 3 (all mono fire, one using shards of gratitude)
Random creatures and mutants decks (decks using mostly random creatures) : 3 (1 mutant deck, 1 mixing eggs and mutants, 1 using eggs and rewinded skeletons)
Graboid rushes (using earth and time duo and mostly graboids) : 2
Denial decks other than pestal (using at least 2 different denial powers) : 3 (1x earthquake + discord + black hole, 2x earthquake + devourers)
Devour decks (most creatures have devour ability) : 3 (2 sphinx-scarabs including one aether trio with fractal, 1 buffed otyughs)
Pestal (having devourers and fractal) : 2
Flying weapons decks (using flying weapon 2 times or more) : 2
Unstable gas deck (3 ug used) : 1
Ghostmare : 1

Other decks were too mixed to be classable.

(edit : added some more categories)

(* just realised that I haven't counted light produced by fireflies as secundary element when there was no light pilar/pendulum)


6. Performances

(See below for the decks I used.)

Global success rate of my opponents : 30%

Success rate by size :
30-35 cards : 38% (46% excluding newby category)
36-44 cards : 34% (41% excluding newby category)
45+ cards :  23% (26% excluding newby category)
45+ cards excluding decks with time drawing powers : 8% (12% excluding newby category)

Success rate by composition :
Mono 31% (6/19)
Duo 31% (12/38)
Rainbow & quartet 28% (8/28)
Trio 26% (4/15)

Success rate by category
Firestale (2/3) : 66%
Denial other than pestal (2/3) : 66%
Big timebows (4/7) : 57%
Dragon rushes (3/7) : 42%
Phoenixes decks (2/5) : 40%
Parallell opponent (2/5) : 40%
Poison decks (5/14) : 35%
Growing creatures decks (3/12) : 25%
Firefly queen decks (1/4) : 25%
Shrodinger wall (1/4) : 25%
Aether stales (1/5) : 20%
Random creatures decks (0/3) : 0%


7. Incidents and players behavior

Games with desynch error : 5 (better than last time)

Player behavior :
First turn quitters : 8 (average deck size of first turn quitters : 51, average score : 325, seems there is a trend)
Other quitters : 14 (when clearly losing : 7, when clearly winning : 2, just after a desynch error happened : 3)
non mute and polite (saying things like "gg" or "good luck")* : 19
commenting almost every move : 3
asking to let them win : 2
asking for advice : 2
roleplaying : 1
insulter : 1

* as I was busy taking notes, I've not searched to start conversations, and was just answering to salutations, so it doesn't mean that people wouldn't be polite if you talk to them of course.

Annex. My decks and results

Started with water decks, then switched to accelerated dolls, and rushed stale. As I was globally rather unlucky with my draws, I finally used a more classical mono fire deck (its results showing the efficiency of simple brutal 30 cards decks against the usually too big and slow decks encountered - or just how op fire is). An interesting thing to note is despite a large majority of the decks being bigger than mine I've only lost 3 times by deck out (always with water wind and fire 30).

Water wind and fire (33 cards version, in forum trio section) : 13 games (7 win)
Water wind and fire (30 cards version) : 31 games (20 win, 1 EM, 3x decked out)
Accelerated dolls : 8 games (5 win)
Rushed stale (death mark, 32 or 33 cards versions, in rainbow section) : 14 games (7 win, 1 EM)
Monofire 30 :  34 games (31 win)

accelerated dolls

by Shylderidh

Hover over cards for details, click for permalink

Deck import code : [Select]

4vj 4vj 55t 55t 562 562 562 562 576 576 576 576 576 576 576 595 595 595 595 5aa 5aa 5aa 5aa 5ia 5uo 5up 5ur 5ur 5v0 5v0 5v0 5v0 5v0 8pt

monofire 30

by Shylderidh

Hover over cards for details, click for permalink

Deck import code : [Select]

5f0 5f0 5f0 5f0 5f0 5f0 5f0 5f2 5f4 5f4 5f4 5f5 5f6 5f6 5f6 5f7 5f8 5f9 5fc 5fc 5fc 5fc 5fc 5fk 5gi 5gi 5gi 5gi 5gi 5gi 8po

[Absol]

Hmm. This is definitely interesting, for all n00b pwners out there. Keep up the good work!
Also, an advice. Flash lags when you switch tab or window, so you may want to make sure that isn't the case while recording the results, as observing how they play their card will be just as important as the deck composition.

[UndeadSpider1990]

Flash lags when you switch tab or window

Not sure why but this seems especially true on Kongregate.com! Anyone else get that?

[Shylderidh]

Actually I don't record the games, just take notes on paper and fill an excell page when I've finished to play.

ps : making this study makes me think that a "PvP 1,5" option (unupped but only against people having say a score higher than 1000) would be a great addition to this game. While I prefer unupped pvp to the upped format, encountering this amount of starter decks or other too big ones (with their owners often quitting first turn as their random big decks are more prone to bad draws) is a little tiring (also splitting pvp1 in a newby and an "at least a little" experienced category would allow to reduce the newby pvp price - I imagine more than a few of those early pvpers lose the little money they farmed against ai1 in 2 or 3 pvp games then abandon).