Pillar / Pend Split: How helpful is it?

[Shantu]

I'm not sure if this helps, but I found a strange thing.
I had a duo deck with a pillar/pendulum split like this: 1-1/13. 1 pillar and 1 pendulum from the first element, and 13 pends from the second element. Usually, I drew only 2-3 pends in the first round, which was definitely not enough to get the deck started up.

Then my brother had a look at it, and tweaked the pillars a bit: 3/3-7. 3 pillars from the first element, 3 pillars and 8 pends from the second element. I must say that it has been working wonderfully since that, I am getting a *lot* better draws. Note that there is 1 less pend in the second version, and it still works a lot better.

[kiraice]

@Shantu

That is because pendulum always switch marks every turns. And lots pendulum means you usually have either more or less than needs at a specific timing. Which results a slowly start until those exceeded quantas catch up timing.

For example. You have 4 pendulum ( / ) and 1 Fire Spirit (Cost 2 ). You may need 3 turns to summon it, just because in that first turn end you have 4 without any . Compared to 2 pillars for each. Only in turn 2 you can summon a Fire Spirit, and in the turn 3 added two damages for it. It seems very different, doesn't it? This creates 0-2 difference in turn 3, and 2 for each rounds later.

If there are totally 8 turns, end will result 12 damages difference in my example. Which shows pendulum may screw your plan. But this won't ever happen in a mono deck.

[Daytripper]

The EQ protection isn't the only use of the pendulums. The EQ protection really applies to an on mark mono. If you're running a 2 pillar/2 pendulum duo as mentioned, I guess it looks like this:

Mark of air

Air pillar = air
air pendulum = air
Fire pillar = fire
Fire pendulum = half/half

This is a small duo, the same thing you would accomplish with air pillars + air pendulums and mark of fire. However if you keep the numbers even, it will have vastly more air quanta. I'm not saying that is bad, since these duo's already work best. Of course that's assuming you already have more air cards. A simple traditional split (7-8 air and 7-8 fire pillars) for a total of around 15, counting the mark, doesn't really flow very nicely. It takes a few more turns to play either element, or you need vastly more pillars. This is, assuming the air/fire cards are absolutely even.

I think this has some relevance to shantu's example also. I don't know what the mark was, but it seems the distribution was really off. With 5 or 6 pendulums and the mark, you can usually play some small side element cards early. The pendulums shouldn't be overestimated. You will mostly have 1,5 or 2 quanta production per turn. If you consider all that, the pendulums can really make a small duo flow. Of course this is a different issue from the EQ problem. Normally duo's are quite vulnerable to the EQ's, since you could lose one whole element. The 4 way split solves that, if you have all those pendulums that is. 

[ratcharmer]

First off, I'm sure ddevans is well aware that there are other uses for pendulums besides earthquake protection, he's simply trying to focus on that aspect of it.

Secondly, the preliminary results of testing splitting pillars.pendulums versus EQ are in.

So far, splitting into pillars & pendulums doesn't seem to make any difference in the upped environment, this should be taken with a grain of salt however, as the results also show that EQ has very little effect versus USEM to begin with. I'll test it later versus a non-upgraded deck.

More details on the results will be posted here:
http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,21568.0.html

[funerallaughter]

Am I going about this wrong? I thought the split was for when your mark was the same as your pillar/pends?

[GG]

Regardless of how helpful, it is certainly true that it is NOT unhelpful to use the split. So why bother thinking about it?

[burne]

Except rainbows, I can't see no deck that  don't deserve at least one pendulum. *

Even with the duo ones which are supposed to be mark powered, just think about how devourers destroy them.

With duo ones that uses equally two quanta source, starting draw with only one type of pillar can mean a defeat.



*edit: I forgot about pillarless deck