Weekly Featured Cards poll - Other

[icybraker]

Pepo's gone? D:

Oh, and Staff all the way. Flying adrenalined staves are pretty intimidating.

[Higurashi]

Nah, just a bit inactive right now. Lotsa IRL werk.

[Korugar]

Woah, wait, Icybraker? Woohoo!

[xdude]

Spine ftw. One of the better shields.

[Kuroaitou]

Pepo's gone? D:

Oh, and Staff all the way. Flying adrenalined staves are pretty intimidating.

Agreed on the latter statement, but the first one regarding pepo is false. She's still here, floating in the clouds. :3

...and oh my god. Icybraker has returned!

[Chaotic Elitist]

It's sad that the Rustler is beating what I consider to be one of the best nymphs in the game. Go Life Nymph. D:

[Kuroaitou]

Here's the article for Rustler | Leaf Dragon. With SG being missing, I thought I could wait for Pulverizer to be put up into the Featured Card article 'box', but it's okay.

MAJOR credit to Pepokish; I (Kuroaitou) actually didn't write much of this article, as pepokish had done an already fantastic job with the wiki information on this guy already. I made a few tweaks here and there (mostly the small intro/SoR/conclusion paragraphs, and the tibit on Ray of Light), but for the most part, its really pepokish's work. Thank you and <3 to pepo! ^_^

As one of the most adorable Life creatures, the Rustler (and its upgrade, Leaf Dragon), can convert quanta into quanta repeatedly in a turn, making it one of the most efficient quanta transformers in the game.

The Rustler opens up many windows of opportunity for Life-Light synergy. It can serve many purposes, from being a simple way to balance extra quanta, to being the absolute lynchpin of a deck. Rustlers work by giving 2 quanta per 1 quanta upon activating its ‘Photosynthesis’ ability, and the player can use this ability more than once every turn, which is particularly important for this card.

One special thing to note is that Shard of Readiness (a rare 'Other' card obtained by donating to the game) will allow a player to generate 2 quanta for free if the spell is used on a Rustler or Leaf Dragon, but it will prevent the player from activating the skill multiple times. This is to prevent situations where players can generate near-infinite amounts of quanta without any other requirement, and would throw off game-balance if it could.

Rustlers are a great way to quickly gain a lot of life quanta. They work quite nicely with unupgraded Fireflies, as fireflies produce light quanta, which can be turned back into life quanta by the Rustlers. One excellent example of this is a basic variation on the Firefly Queen Deck. As the Rustler transforms the quanta emitted from the Fireflies into quanta, the Firefly Queen uses the same quanta to produce additional Fireflies on the field. Sadly with only 1 HP, the Rustler is fairly weak in comparison to many other creatures, making it vulnerable in those deck archetypes to strong CC. However, the upgraded version (the Leaf Dragon) has a total of 3 HP. Though this +2 HP may not seem like much, it certainly makes a difference against certain CC cards such as Plague and Thunderstorm, which will oftentimes kill a Rustler upon being played. With the addition of Blessing (another Light card), Leaf Dragons and Rustlers become much more stable, and can become decent attackers as well as impressive quanta-exchangers.

By the same token, Rays of Light (the upgraded form of Photon) also works well with the Rustlers – as ‘free-costing’ cards, Rays of Light can be played at any time, and also generate quanta each turn similar to the Firefly. While the Rays of Light are weaker than the Fireflies (1|1 (Ray of Light) vs. 3|2 (Firefly) in regards to Attack & HP ratios), many consider the two cards to be an effective strategy of gaining additional quanta faster, and are another combo that demonstrates the synergy between the Life and Light elements.

Finally the Rustler also works well in combination with Miracle. Because Miracle requires a lot of quanta quickly, you may often find yourself with much more light quanta then you actually need. All of the excess quanta will typically go to waste, as Miracle consumes all leftover quanta after played. The addition of a Rustler will end this dilemma, by turning your extra light quanta into life quanta, which can then be used to quickly turn out dragons, adrenaline-affected frogs, etc. Thus, if you are generating excessive amounts of quanta to play expensive Light cards like Miracle, Rustlers become perfect for calculating and transforming quanta to ensure that nothing is squandered.

Because quanta can be a scarce and difficult resource to accumulate throughout matches, cards like Rustler can be wonderful to have as a back-up plan to strategize your quanta, and should never be overlooked in regards to the Life-Light synergy.

Quick Facts:
Rustler's ability, 'Photosynthesis', exchanges 1 for 2 upon activation.
Rustler’s ability can be used more than once per turn.
Shard of Readiness can remove the activation cost of the Rustler's skill, but it will prevent the player from using the skill multiple times.

Use This Card Together With:
Firefly Queen | Elite Queen
Blessing | Blessing
Miracle | Improved Miracle

Decks Using This Card:
Hope + Unupgraded FFQ (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,4026.0.html)
The Creation of Life (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,9542.0.html)
Pepoker (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,15361.0.html)

(Note: I know there are no decks in the above that use Miracle, but whatever)

Fire polls will be up soon.

[TheIdioticIdiot]

come on ppl!!!
vote for RoF/firestorm
it's the single best CC (if your opponent has a lot of creatures out)

[Jappert]

There isn't much to know about firestorm really, it kills creatures. Period.

I'm much more interested in different Rage pot/Fire Nymph tactics.

[Higurashi]

The multitude of uses for Firestorm are the most prominent in a stallbow, where it's used to fuel Bone Wall, get you Skeletons from Bone/Graveyard to mutate, and for Otyugh to devour, as well as lower the HP of the enemy creatures so that your Otyugh can devour them as well. It's also an excellent counter to many Fractal decks. There are many uses for it for sure, but Rage Potion is a more interesting card in that it can be used as a buff as well.

Notably, as a side note, it was quite exciting to watch the Master's Tourney duel between kevkev and xdude, where a Fire Buckler and Fire Nymphs were able to kill off even Archangels, solely because kev had upped those Nymphs.

[Jappert]

Yeah I have all of my nymphs (including that one fire nymph) upgraded aswell, wich could have been a mistake I read elsewhere. In the decks where I use it I mainly rage my own nymph and fire queen, but buffing it might decrease the overall opportunities to use it at all (as a buff), I'd like to read about that if rage pot or fire nymph turn out on top. To upgrade or not to upgrade.

And you're obviously right about the firestorm, but my vote stays

[TheIdioticIdiot]

Yeah I have all of my nymphs (including that one fire nymph) upgraded aswell, wich could have been a mistake I read elsewhere. In the decks where I use it I mainly rage my own nymph and fire queen, but buffing it might decrease the overall opportunities to use it at all (as a buff), I'd like to read about that if rage pot or fire nymph turn out on top. To upgrade or not to upgrade.

And you're obviously right about the firestorm, but my vote stays

upping nymphs is a mistake if you participate in PvP events regularly, since you don't, it's not a mistake