Did they patch the game in the past few days or something?

[IXBlackWolfXI]

I played this game years ago, but I lost the link and didn't find it again until i stumbled upon it over at kongregate. Been playing for four or five days now, and was doing fine. Had it rough at first, but then i found a mono-dark deck online, made a few tweaks to it, and was owning with it. The lvl 3 ai was nothing to me (except for the water/fire deck), and half of my games ended with me at full health. Obviously, this made farming money pretty easy.

But two days ago, I noticed something odd. The lvl 3 ai was slaughtering me in most of my games, and even when i did win it was with barely any health left. Note that this did NOT happen right after i changed the deck, and I wasnt just getting lucky before, I played literally hundreds of games with this deck, I've fairly certain that I wasn't just getting lucky. And besides that, i've noticed the spinner thing doesn't come with well most games now. Virtually every game before I would get extra money, and every 3 or 4 games I would get a card, now it rarely gives me anything at all. Something about it obviously changed.

I've tried to adapt, but nothing works, even other decks I've found online don't do anything. I even found a mono-aether deck was supposed to be able to take on the lvl 4 ai, but that thing can't even beat lvl 2. And the deck I'm currently using CAN beat lvl 2, though its a struggle.

I have made some changes to my current deck (including adding in earth pendulums for my burrowers, and added in gargoyles, bc i needed something more durable and could hit harder). And although that has helped somewhat, it still hasn't fixed my problem.

I've also noticed there's ALOT of op cards in this game. The first one I noticed was of course pandemonium. Seriously, 3 quanta and it kills most of your opponent's army and gives you a bunch of clones besides? And what's this garbage with it being able to hit my burrowed creatures? I've also noticed that it can hit immortal creatures, even though they're NOT supposed to be targettable, and infact other things like rain of fire don't affect them at all! Recently though, I've had alot of other cards suddenly become insanely overpowered. Rage potion can kill most of the creatures in the game for only 3 mana, dimension shield makes your opponent completely invulnerable unless you have a shit ton of removal in your deck (and you don't have much room to begin with since running anymore than 30 cards is risky unless you got card drawing). And in my last game, I got completely owned by a pharaoh deck in the lvl 3 AI, even though it wasn't a challenge to me before. My draws aren't coming up any worse than they did before, and none of my cards seem to have been changed, nor do any of their cards (even their decks appear to be identical), but suddenly I'm helpless against decks that used to not be a challenge for me. I mean hell, the death deck is a challenge for me, though before it was just a joke. There's alot more cards that are suddenly overpowered, but there's so blooming many of them I cant even think of them all.

What happened here? this is rediculous. My old strategy which used to work wonders now barely functions at all, and I have yet to find anything that works better, infact everything I try, even other player's decks i find online, work vastly WORSE.

I've actually stopped playing the game as frequently as I did before. Yeah, I lost games before (I only recall beating the water/fire deck once, and I got bad draws in a few other games), but this is beyond rediculous. I even tried to resort to my old nymph deck, which though it worked fine for me before (sole reason i abandoned it was bc i was rendered helpless if my opponent dropped a gravity shield, dimension shield, or wings) now its just a joke. I mean seriously I even won a few pvp games with it, and now it can't even beat lvl 2.

What the hell happened? This has gotten so rediculous I'm actually thinking about just abandoning this game, I even changed my rating for the game to a single star bc this is just flat out stupid. I got good at the game, and now I struggle to beat anything. I mean one guy a few days ago actually quit the game bc it was too EASY. He certainly wouldn't be saying that NOW.

edit: Oh, forgot to post the deck I've been using. Note that before, I had only obsidian pillars and the gargoyles replaced some vampires, but besides that the deck is the same, and I made the modifications after I started losing horribly all the time.

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[arktos22]

I don't know man, all I can say is that I've had long winning streaks followed by long losing streaks before that made me frustrated and question my deck.  I know you said you won hundreds of games with EM and stuff but it could just be luck.  Try a different deck (it's more fun to switch up anyway!).

As far as OP cards:  I'm with you on hating dimensional shield.  It seems that momentum, steal, butterfly effect, psion, or deflagration are a MUST HAVE 2-3x in every deck (am I missing any?) if you want to win consistently in the arena.  If you think about it though, you would want to have permanent control in any deck anyway, so maybe it's just a matter of changing the way you play against decks with DS - play slower and save your permanent control for key moments.  Play a good shield to stop their non-psion creatures.  That said, it's overused and annoying as hell. 

Pandemonium is annoying but I find that my creatures tend to survive if they have more than about 3-4 HP to start with - and also it IS random so technically it should have an equally bad effect against their own creatures.  I don't think it should hit burrowed creatures and I actually thought it didn't, so that sucks.

Rage potion is simply not OP.  It is just a very good creature control card.  Fire being able to kill most creatures for 3 is strong, not OP.  You just have to accept that some of your creatures will get killed sometimes.

Anyway, here's hoping you stick with it, and find a way around your troubles :-).  Hopefully someone more experienced at darkness decks can give you some specific pointers.  All I can say is make sure you play a steal or two for perma-control.

[IXBlackWolfXI]

Yeah, most of pandemonium's effects are negative to everyone, except one, which gives the caster a copy of the targetted creature (just like parrallel universe), and the caster gets the copy regardless of who's creature it targetted. So basically it kills off most (if not all) of your army, and gives your opponent copies of some of the creatures that survived. There is no counter to it, and its rediculous. If your opponent plays it one time, it doesn't matter how much of a lead you have, you're going to lose that game and there's nothing you can do about it.

[treebeard xiii]

To me it just sounds like you guys have bee having rotten luck the only thing ai concerned thats changed is maybe targetting order as for dark deck the most common monodark is 6 devs, 6 dragons, 3 steals, 3 drain life and the rest for me would be quanta but with devs you could probably drop some quanta and add in stilletto and dusk shield should be sufficient. The proble with the dark deck in the op is the daage output dark can give is missing, as for nightfall you rarely need more than two in a deck if at all. Or more importantly you have sod all quanta you need 12 pillars pends minimum if you have quanta critters, if no quanta critters you need at least 13 pillars and pends.

[IXBlackWolfXI]

Its actually a modification of a deck I found online, supposedly a set of decks that are SUPPOSED to be great against lvl 3 ai and pvp. The original did have dragons in it, but I replaced them with the vampires, bc it took me way too long to get them out, and besides, most of the time they would die on the opponent's next turn anyway. The vamps cost less to play, they heal me, and their durability really isn't any better than the black dragons anyway. They're also how I was able to win most games with full health. And when I did decide I needed something with more durability and damage, I chose the gargoyles, bc they're cheaper and far more difficult to kill.

[iloveashley3]

Its actually a modification of a deck I found online, supposedly a set of decks that are SUPPOSED to be great against lvl 3 ai and pvp. The original did have dragons in it, but I replaced them with the vampires, bc it took me way too long to get them out, and besides, most of the time they would die on the opponent's next turn anyway. The vamps cost less to play, they heal me, and their durability really isn't any better than the black dragons anyway. They're also how I was able to win most games with full health. And when I did decide I needed something with more durability and damage, I chose the gargoyles, bc they're cheaper and far more difficult to kill.

you said you found it "online", the deck you found could be outdated, and there could be more recently updated, better solution decks here in the forums under either "Community Recommended Decks", or "Deck Help" and the Monos and Duos.

[IXBlackWolfXI]

Ironnically, when I looked up the site, it was infact this one!

http://elementscommunity.org/forum/tutorials/deckbuilding-101-from-noob-to-platinum-slayer/#post_darkness

I initially built the water deck (bc i started with a water deck), i earned alot of money with it, but eventually I got tired of being helpless everytime my opponent played a gravity shield, dimension shield, or wings. I added in some ice shields so I could at least stall for time until his dimension shield or wings expired. But I quickly decided that I needed a more versatile deck. I ultimately ended up going with the darkness deck, and it worked quite well. Like I said, I replaced the dragons with vampires, and I also added in nightfalls (bc someone suggested it) and I fell in love with them, since I tend to have alot of creatures in play (until the AI plays a mass removal like pandemonium or rain of fire). Interesting note btw, is that the devourers (with nightfall in play) can attack even when they're burrowed, apparently the computer rounds UP when it 'halves' a creature's attack. This page is also where I got the aether deck i mentioned. I also tried the entropy deck, didn't go so well...

I've actually been thinking about building one of the lvl 3 ai's decks (most likely the water/fire one since that one's proven to be the most annoying to me, though I'm thinking the dark/fire one may be a better choice). I was also thinking about building a pure fire deck with 12 pillars, 6 fire bolts, 6 rain of fire (or deflagration), and 6 phonixes. I tried to make one using my fire spirits, but that didn't go so well (they were just too fragile, I mean even if you have less than 10 quanta any damage spell can easily kill them).

[iloveashley3]

i would do what treebeard suggested above though, take out one nightfall, and either add in a stiletto or if you dont have that, a dusk mantle. Im guessing you have nowhere near the amount of electrum to even half upp a deck right? hmm.... if you want to further try experiments with a Mono dark deck, i would see what other dark decks are under the "Post Deck Ideas Here" section.

[Rutarete]

The vamps ... -snip- their durability really isn't any better than the black dragons anyway.

That's where you're wrong. If you look at all the CC in the game, you'll see very little of deals damage in portions of 1. This includes Unstable Gas, Fire Shield, Acceleration, Dry Spell, and poison (includes Thorn Carapace, plague, parasite, and Toadfish) [Warden is iffy]. Those are pretty much the only things a Minor Vamp can survive for one turn before it dies. That's approximately eight things. Now if you look at the dragon, with 5 hp, it can survive at least twice the number of things a minor vamp can. Add to the list from before the three bolts, Desiccation, Shockwave, Owl/Eagle's Eye, Thunderstorm, etc.

In darkness, at default the dragons have the highest hp for an attacker (accelvoodoo is not relevant here really). Sure gargoyles can have more, but with the amount of earth quanta in your deck that's not reliable - most of the time they'll just be sitting 'duck' gargoyles.

[iloveashley3]

If you are looking for a Earth/Dark deck i would highly suggest



or a viariant like that, i just made that version off the top of my head. its suppose to deny the opponent from drawing quanta, id highly recommend upping the EQ's first.


NOTE: i said i made THAT version because there is a tested, more approved version of that deck, i just cant find the link.

[IXBlackWolfXI]

@ Rutarete, Regardless, its not that hard to deal 5 damage. Even to me most dragon's aren't a problem (only exceptoins being the light and gravity dragons, since those ARE quite durable). Really the sole reason I struggle against the water/fire deck is bc it has way too many high-damage creatures, and I don't have much for removal. Often I'm forced to use my drain lifes on stuff like wyrms and fire spirits before it gets its steam engines out (and according to the internet that deck runs 5 of those damned things).

I don't really have any attatchment to mono darkness (when i first played the game years ago I started with a time deck, I believe i added in some guards and fire spirits, but besides that I didn't use darkness cards). I just use it bc I find it to be the most versatile.

I'm also thinking about making a firefly deck, possibly the one the AI uses. I was originally planning on making a pharaoh deck, I even chose eternity for my rare, but I have yet to get more than 1. And besides, I've notced that scarab and mummy decks tend to be slow. I have a functioning scarab deck, but most of the time its already down to half health by the time I start getting anything out. I've found it's a good idea to play sundials as often as I can, even early on when the opponent doesn't have much in play, bc I need to mitigate as much damage as possible, and besides taht I really need the card draw to get what I need.

And that earth/dark deck is kinda interesting, I might try it. I've tried to run earthquakes before, but they didn't work so well for me for some reason.

I've also thought about replacing my last 3 vampires with liquid shadows, since I hear those work quite well on the gargoyles, only issue is I would lose the buff if the AI used reverse time on my gargoyle (which the AI seems to do alot)

[iloveashley3]

@ Rutarete, Regardless, its not that hard to deal 5 damage. Even to me most dragon's aren't a problem (only exceptoins being the light and gravity dragons, since those ARE quite durable). Really the sole reason I struggle against the water/fire deck is bc it has way too many high-damage creatures, and I don't have much for removal. Often I'm forced to use my drain lifes on stuff like wyrms and fire spirits before it gets its steam engines out (and according to the internet that deck runs 5 of those damned things).

I don't really have any attatchment to mono darkness (when i first played the game years ago I started with a time deck, I believe i added in some guards and fire spirits, but besides that I didn't use darkness cards). I just use it bc I find it to be the most versatile.

I'm also thinking about making a firefly deck, possibly the one the AI uses. I was originally planning on making a pharaoh deck, I even chose eternity for my rare, but I have yet to get more than 1. And besides, I've notced that scarab and mummy decks tend to be slow. I have a functioning scarab deck, but most of the time its already down to half health by the time I start getting anything out. I've found it's a good idea to play sundials as often as I can, even early on when the opponent doesn't have much in play, bc I need to mitigate as much damage as possible, and besides taht I really need the card draw to get what I need.

And that earth/dark deck is kinda interesting, I might try it. I've tried to run earthquakes before, but they didn't work so well for me for some reason.

I've also thought about replacing my last 3 vampires with liquid shadows, since I hear those work quite well on the gargoyles, only issue is I would lose the buff if the AI used reverse time on my gargoyle (which the AI seems to do alot)

i just did one test against ai1,2 and 3 with the deck i posted and won them all. i might have won against the ai3 that you mentioned you had a hard time against, was it the water/fire deck with steam machines?