DeathKnyte's Dark Gold Decks

[DeathKnyte]

I started placing decks in the arena, by suggestion of a member named, omegareaper7, on the Kongregate site.

My first few decks were in the Silver arena, as my score had already bypassed the criteria for the Bronze arena.

I discovered that it was quite a challenge, to be placed in the position of trying to create a deck that might possibly beat other players, with the few cards I had in my possession at the time. I also discovered that I really enjoyed playing against my own arena decks, and was constantly tweaking them, to hopefully improve their performance.

I remember that, the most successful deck I had in the Silver arena, was a flying arsenic / bone wall type of stall, even achieving a ranking of #22 at one point, and generally receiving good revues.

Since that time, I have transitioned from using primarily the death element to the one of darkness. Therefore, my arena decks have reflected this shift, as most of my upgraded cards are comprised of cards there of.

This thread is not meant to be a reference for any "pro" type of players, as I'm still learning how to devise decks that perform well when controlled by the computer. But, for anyone else who enjoys this part of the game, maybe you will find it interesting, and/or it may give you some ideas for your own arena decks.

If anyone reading this, remembers encountering one of the decks below, I would very much appreciate any feedback on how things went, or other comments you may have.


So onto some decks, before I am forced to move on to the Platinum arena...

[DeathKnyte]

Dates Active: Around early August, 2014
Win Loss Ratio: 18-12
Top Rank: Somewhere between 40 and 60, if memory serves well.
Days Active:  6 days
Deck Points: 2x Dexterity, 5 upped cards, whatever points were left over went into Stamina.
Electrum Earned: 345


Now then; after experiencing the grind(s) through; Bronze, Silver, and PvP1 - with every other deck encountered being mono aether - I promised myself that whenever I was forced to use the aether element, it would not have any dimensional shields, immortals, or phase dragons.

So with the Orcale's mindgate card challenge, I concocted the deck below...

Hover over cards for details, click for permalink

Deck import code : [Select]

80j 623 623 623 623 4sa 4sa 4sa 5up 5up 5v2 5v2 5vi 5vi 5vi 5vi 5vi 5vi 606 606 606 606 606 61o 61o 61o 61o 61q 61q 61q 61q 61q 624 624 624 624 624 63a 63a 63a 63a 6qq 7t8 7t9 7tb 8pu

I know what you're all probably thinking - too many cards. I'm aware that this deck turned out to be a monstrosity. However I wanted it to be competitive, and figured I needed all these cards to keep it alive long enough, so that it could get 3+ mindgates up and running. What I never felt completely satisfied with, was that it sometimes lacked quanta. But I always hesitated to add even more sources to it, as I knew it was already huge in size.

It was quite the challenge to play against (at least I found it so). I played against it, at least 20 times, sometimes 25 (maybe more), each day that it was active. Even though I knew beforehand what was in it, it always managed to confound my strategy with whatever deck I used against it. Once it started firing on all cylinders, this deck was bewildering (to me any ways) and seemed to grow stronger as every turn passed. I remember winning maybe just six times, in all those plays, likely because the computer had a horrendous opening draw. I don't have any speed bow / PSN bow / Immo rush type of decks, so maybe it did not perform well against those types in the arena.

Although it's health was going down every day, and consequently it's win to loss ratio started to suffer accordingly, I left it in a full six days, as I was certain people would also have a difficult time trying to figure how to play against it.

Anyways, I kept a record of this deck (obviously, since it's posted here), because maybe I'll eventually figure some other idea on making a deck that contains shards of void (as of yet, I don't like having it placed in the dark decks I currently use).

[DeathKnyte]

Dates Active: Around early to mid August, 2014
Win Loss Ratio: Around 10-6 (maybe 12-8)
Top Rank: Don't remember. Likely 150 tops.
Days Active:  4 days
Deck Points: 2x Dexterity, 10 upped cards, whatever points were left over went into Stamina.
Electrum Earned: Not much, maybe 120?


I remember how well the flying arsenics had done in Silver arena, so when the Oracle gave me the Flying Weapon card again, this time I tried to make something with stilettos.

Hover over cards for details, click for permalink

Deck import code : [Select]

7n2 7n2 5oi 5oi 5oi 5pa 5pa 5pa 5pa 5uk 5uk 5uk 5up 5up 5up 5up 5ur 5ur 5ur 5ur 5ur 5v1 5v1 5v2 5v2 5v2 5v2 606 7t4 7t4 7t4 7t8 7tb 7um 7um 7um 8pr

It doesn't look like it has enough quanta, but it always seemed to have enough when I played against it, often having extra air left over.

The cloaks were not necessary to its primary function, but I wanted a "cloak and dagger" kind of theme to it. And it always looked cool with the Shard of Freedom effects when they came at you, from underneath the darkness of the cloak. Plus, flying stilettos don't have many hit points, so maybe some were spared from lightning or shock waves.

The offense was weak, I knew this, so had near minimum cards to keep it rolling over quickly and hopefully get the combos off in short order.

The nightmares were put in as an extra "surprise factor", and along with some steals, maybe kept people on their toes, or gave them some unexpected hand jammed full of stilettos?   

I suspect that anyone playing against this with a proven and robust deck, had no problems, but still it received more wins than losses, so kept a record for perhaps a better design in the future.

[DeathKnyte]

Dates Active: August 16 to 23, 2014
Win Loss Ratio: 34-8
Top Rank: 24
Days Active:  7 days (just turned 8 when I withdrew it)
Deck Points: 2x Dexterity, 20 upped cards, whatever points were left over went into Stamina.
Electrum Earned: Over 324 for sure, maybe in the 360 to 380 range


Picture in spoiler:

Spoiler for Hidden:

One day, I was grinding through the Platinum arena, and came across a deck that had a similar picture on the entrance screen; a Ghost of the Past card with the mark of time. So I figured it was going to be some kind of total time deck, with perhaps shards and nymphs, or something. But low and behold, when it started playing, it pulled out some dark pendulums, and I soon discovered it was some type of reverse ghostmare deck. Well, this should be a win for me, I figured, as I know how to beat that, let alone some kind of backwards version... Six turns later I was forced into a suicide discard and lost.

So then, instead of immediately exiting and going back to grinding. I stayed on the "You Lost The Game" screen, and studied how this thing had gotten me so good. I then left the arena, and attempted to reconstruct it in my deck management screen, and saved a copy of the code with some notes. Then, when the Oracle presented me with a Ghost of the Past card, I knew what I was going to do with that!

Hover over cards for details, click for permalink

Deck import code : [Select]

7qe 7qe 7qe 5ru 5ru 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rk 5rk 5rk 5rk 5rk 5t2 5v1 5v1 5v1 5v1 5v1 7n2 7q0 7q3 7q8 7t4 7t4 7t4 7t4 7t9 7t9 7t9 7t9 7t9 7um 7um 7um 7um 8ps

It should have had more upped dark pendulums, but I didn't have more at the time, so I tried to compensate with sole time ones. The ghosts themselves, are the reason for the big time quanta demands.

The steals and the lone animate weapon are my additions / modifications to it. The steals are obvious, but the potential steal + immediate fly the weapon against the player, should prove to be a little surprise. These additions will certainly make anyone leery of equipping another one soon, and maybe alter their playing strategy so that the deck can do what it does best: Jam your draw hand, suck your life, and rewind any creature you have out to further delay you.

I played near one hundred games (all told) against this deck, and it performed strongly. As can be seen in the win to loss ratio, and also where it was ranked in the picture link I posted above.

This was my most successful deck in the Gold arena yet, and I would have left it in a full 8 days, but the Oracle gave me a card that I was all excited about and, wanted to see what I could immediately do with...


Edit: Fixed picture correctly.

[DeathKnyte]

So I was all excited about this Oracle card, because it's the first nymph I ever got.

I thought that gargoyles with an earth mark would be wonderful, but in testing the nymphs hardly paid attention to them, and half the time the gargoyles wouldn't invoke their health increase.
So I figured that perhaps colossal dragons (with gravity mark) would be the answer, as that would remove a combo in the AI's thought process, but this time the nymphs preferred to liquid shadow themselves.
<groan>
Back to more testing, this time I tried with obsidian dragons, but was running into the same problems as above.  So I gave up on trying to find a creature the nymphs would tag with liquid shadow, and decided to try and balance a regular type of dark deck, while including them, with enough quanta.

Took me an hour and a bit, to finalize the deck, and when I emerged from the "Play Your Own Deck" games, I discovered that it had lost a game while I was fiddling around and adjusting it. So this deck started off with a record of 0-1, and ranked 328... 

Level 59 Health Points 1/185 Max Upgraded 20 Oracle Upgraded 3 Mark Multiplier 2X Card(s) per Turn 2X Deck Size 2X

Win:Loss 35:2 Electrum Earned 549 Rank 3 Rating 440 Age (days) 8 Thumbs Up? 26 Thumbs Down? 9

Hover over cards for details, click for permalink

Deck import code : [Select]

7to 7to 7to 5v8 5v8 5um 5um 5um 5um 5um 5um 5uo 5up 5up 5up 5up 5up 5v1 7t4 7t4 7t4 7t4 7t4 7t4 7t5 7t5 7tb 7tc 7tc 7tc 7tc 7um 7um 7um 7um 8pt

Then - it won 32 games in a row, and I saw it had reached the second position.





It stayed there, finally falling to third on the 8th day.
At 1 hit point, it surprisingly won its last two games, whereby I retired it.


It is gratifying to see that most people who lost to it, were nice enough to rate it positively. Thank you for that.

Quiet proud of achieving this rank in gold arena, as my future decks will be in the platinum arena, due to my score increase.



Note: I'd like to thank whoever made the nifty tool, with accompanying instructions, to display the; oracle card, deck stats, and deck composition. If you read this, let me know, so that I may give you a "+" reputation.



Edit: Figured hot to work with tool and display things nicer.