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[ColorlessGreen]

What's a good Platinum grinding deck? I went through the recommended section but didn't know which ones were still viable, which ones are more oriented toward gold...

Bookmark this thread. It contains the most current published information on arena farming decks, as well as stats on their performance.

edit: When looking at that thread, be sure to look in the archive sections (though plat doesn't have an archive section right now). "Archive", when used in the context of that thread, just means "decks which aren't in the top five by win rate" and looking at win rate alone does not give you a full picture of a deck's performance, so there's quite a lot of very useful decks that you won't see unless you click into the archive spoilers.

[traceurling]

How do mechanics of graviton/phase salvager work? In confused still... :/

[Higurashi]

If a Graviton/Phase Salvager is on your side of the field, it will give you your destroyed permanent back by adding it directly to your hand. This means you need space in the hand to get it back.

Scenario:
1) you play Dimensional Shield, Phase Salvager and Chaos Power (on the Salvager). You end your turn.
2) Opponent plays a Lava Golem and then Deflagration on your Dimensional Shield. The Shield is destroyed, but you get a new copy of it added to your hand because of the Salvager's passive ability (which incidentally means it can't be lobotomized). Opponent hits you with the Lava Golem and then ends its turn.
3) It's your turn. You can play the new Dim Shield copy as normal, but you have to pay for the quanta cost again.

Ya dig?

[BeefSupreme]

How do mechanics of graviton/phase salvager work? In confused still... :/

>you play a shield
>your opponent destroys said shield
>you play Phase Salvager
>shield returns to your hand

[traceurling]

So quintessence + dim shield + chaos power = infinite phase shield? Like every time a permanent is destroyed while your salvager is on the field then it's auto added to your hand?

[Higurashi]

No, because a destroyed Dim Shield still leaves you open for attack for that round. If your opponent can do 33 damage in one turn, he'll kill you with 3 Deflags just the same, because getting a shield in your hand isn't going to reduce any damage during the opponent's turn.

But yes, you can get lots of renewed Dim timers this way if you're playing someone dumb (AI). Do note that with Earthquake you only get one out of a possible three destroyed pillars/pends back.

[traceurling]

I dig, thanks. Been underestimating these cards, now I see there's potential for some epic decks...

[CuCN]

The opponent has to destroy it for it to be returned to your hand. If your dim shield expires on its own you won't get another one.

[xsindomanx]

Is there a good explanation / reason as to why the AI sometimes doesn't use a 0 cost skill? I know the AI doesn't 100% use its creatures' skills if they have just the right amount of quarta for it, but how is it different for free ones?

A few times, the AI wouldn't use accretion (SoF) even when the SoF had less than 30 health and I had a sundial.
Also, just once I saw the AI only generating 1 scarab after using SoR on a Pharaoh.

[TribalTrouble]

An artificial intelligence is very hard to program. To understand why it does certain things is almost impossible.

[Higurashi]

Unless you've seen the code like a few of us.

The AI has a few conditions that increase or decrease the chance that it will use an ability. For instance it might not consider a perm to be a high enough priority at the time, given what's on the field and its current HP. However, all its conditions aside, it actually has a little randomness programmed into it. Every time it's prompted to make a decision, there's a small chance that it will simply cancel the decision. This is the reason it didn't destroy your Sundial, even though it might've saved its life.

[xsindomanx]

Why is brimstone eater the only fodder creature with a cost? I've never thought of this even while using fire rush, because I used photons or gemfinders for immo fodder, but coming to think of it, the cost might be part of the reason for that.

EDIT: Thanks a lot Higurashi for the response to my previous question