Round 1 discussion

[dragonsdemesne]

I agree, since we can do infinite conversion, there is no reason not to dump pillars/pends where possible.  I haven't worked out what else we'll have to dump yet, but because of that rule, that is unequivocally the best decision to start with.

One thing I will mention, having been in two wars before (4 and 5) is that having a smaller vault isn't always a bad thing.  It means we don't have to field as many decks as other teams, and don't have to spread ourselves out as thin; we can focus on the fewer matches we have and work on those.  I've seen teams barely hang on for several rounds, and in war 4 I saw death make a really lucky comeback to win when a whole bunch of other teams happened to suicide against them all in the same round.  One round does not mean we're screwed.  It does mean we're in trouble, and will have to work harder than the rest to win, but don't count us out, yet.

[Rutarete]

I like that sentiment

[trashduke]

I agree, since we can do infinite conversion, there is no reason not to dump pillars/pends where possible.  I haven't worked out what else we'll have to dump yet, but because of that rule, that is unequivocally the best decision to start with.

One thing I will mention, having been in two wars before (4 and 5) is that having a smaller vault isn't always a bad thing.  It means we don't have to field as many decks as other teams, and don't have to spread ourselves out as thin; we can focus on the fewer matches we have and work on those.  I've seen teams barely hang on for several rounds, and in war 4 I saw death make a really lucky comeback to win when a whole bunch of other teams happened to suicide against them all in the same round.  One round does not mean we're screwed.  It does mean we're in trouble, and will have to work harder than the rest to win, but don't count us out, yet.

Thanks dragon, that perspective is helpful. This is the discard analysis I had worked up before:

Nova-pult - 9 pillars/pends
Accellerated Golems - 9 pillars/pends
Phirebolt - 9 pillars/pends

FFQ - 8 pillars/pends; here we have to choose 1 "real" card to toss (likely a Charger since we have plenty).
Nova-grabbies - 6 pends, so we'd have to choose 3 cards to lose there as well (likely 3 mercs since we have plenty).

Slo-mo immo - 6 pillars, so we'll have to find 3 other cards to drop; this one is more difficult, but we could choose 2 dragons and a Titan and would still have enough of those cards.

Anyone see any problems with that or alternatives that would be better (the slo-mo-immo in particular could go a few ways)?

[dragonsdemesne]

I'm at work so I can't see the vault, but that looks quite reasonable.  In particular, I'm wondering how many dragons we have in the vault as to your recommendation to discard 2 dragons.  I'll take a look at it later this evening when I have all the information at my disposal.

For the war bets, I think we just discard from the vault in general, but we can perhaps look at what our worst deck will be in the meta that is created by our opponent's vaults and dump that.

[trashduke]

I'm at work so I can't see the vault, but that looks quite reasonable.  In particular, I'm wondering how many dragons we have in the vault as to your recommendation to discard 2 dragons.  I'll take a look at it later this evening when I have all the information at my disposal.

For the war bets, I think we just discard from the vault in general, but we can perhaps look at what our worst deck will be in the meta that is created by our opponent's vaults and dump that.

Yeah- I think that 1 titan is fine as we have twelve left, but the two dragons might not be ideal (it would leave 4 left).  Another option would be phoenixes (leaving 7), which would only hurt if we tried to run the slo-mo-immo-rush the same time as the Phirebolt. That might be the best option. Otherwise two graviton fire eaters (leaving 4)? I think the rest of the cards would be quite useful in rainbow decks (or have good synergies like gnome rider and immo), but maybe I'm not seeing something, so please suggest alternatives for those other two cards.

For the war bets, we can just discard pillars/pends now (essentially emptying them out since we have 90 total) and then convert as needed once round 2 deck building starts and we see what we're up against and dump a deck or two as needed.... (I think we're on the same page with that, but if I'm reading the rules correctly, we have to salvage/discard at the end of round 1, and then use conversion in the following round). 

Edit - nevermind we can see who we are up against in round 2 already:
Light, Life, Time, Air, Darkness, and Water.

I'll make sure to pull together the intel on these elements.  All elements done for round 1.

[dragonsdemesne]

discard suggestions:
skyironsword: 5x gravity pillar, 4x gravity pendulum
drake xiv: 9x gravity pendulum
rutarete: 6x gravity pillar, 1x titan, 2x phoenix
captain scibra: 9x gravity pillar
trashduke: 9x gravity pendulum
dragonsdemesne: 6x gravity pendulum, 3x graviton mercenary

totals: 20x gravity pillar, 28x gravity pendulum, 1x titan, 2x phoenix, 3x graviton mercenary = 54 cards (6x9)

I don't see any reason to deviate from this plan.  Quanta discards make the most sense first, and the rest are the cards we can most spare.

We also have to discard 6x6=36 cards from the vault for the event card.

Dumping 7x gravity pillars and 29x gravity pendulums leaves us with 3 of each left in the vault for 6 quanta total.  (49 pillars/pends of gravity were used, and 48 will be discarded under this plan)

At this point, conversions will obviously be necessary for more quanta to field decks.  (marks have not been counted; we have 6 in the vault, as none were used.  I'm not sure how many our team has in total, but we'll leave this alone for now)

We used 39 gravity pillars/pends in round 1.  We will assume we will need a similar number in round 2, since we still have to field 6 decks, sadly.

Suggestions:
1) Convert 4x obsidian pillar, 2x black dragon: These are pretty narrow in terms of deckbuilding scope.  Nightmare kicks ass in grabbow so we keep that. (brings us to 12 quanta)

At this point we start having to make some real sacrifices.  Possible dumps include some of our excess black holes/chargers/mercenaries/titans/whatever else in gravity, we could dump the entire FFQ/hope module, we could dump the entire immolation module, we could dump the hammer and a few marks of gravity.  Note that if we dump things like the air quanta or immos or stone pillars or stuff, that we'll then need more gravity quanta to make up for that fact, so we'll have to work it out fairly carefully.

I'll do a more detailed analysis either tonight or tomorrow.  If someone else wants to compile what our opponents have shown in terms of vaults, we can try and figure out what's least important to keep.

[trashduke]

OK, I went ahead and put all of discards in the vault tool, so now we can just figure out conversions and put those directly in there too. I like the idea of planning our decks and then converting what we don't need/think will be as useful down the road.