Guest posts by Ekki

49

FG Proposals / Re: Machine

« on: November 24, 2011, 07:19:25 pm »

Unfortunately, FG's can't have Shards. I don't remember why right now, but believe me that it was a good argument. Sorry to be the party screwer

50

Archived Decks / Re: Scarab Deck Without Time Towers - Say What?

« on: November 24, 2011, 06:31:48 pm »

Note: Izaya isn't using my deck. (S)he's using mark..

Huh, I felt like something was different. Anyways, for some reason I thought it had and quanta production. I guess the theoric breakdown wasn't altered by that, but maybe it made it slightly easier.

Having more forum posts than me doesn't mean you know how to play a deck better than me that I've been using for a while. I've been playing various card games and video games in general for years, and hate to toot my own horn, but I'm rather good at playing them and very good at math.

Well, experience in another card games is as worthy as forum experience, since it only gives theoric advantage (but the forums do it under the same rules as the practice). You have your point, but having a crapload more of forum posts make someone worthy of "respect", to call it somehow.
I personally don't feel better or whatever, I was just defending what I see as true (and I will keep doing that), dunno if that hurted you but sorry.


Now, I'll like this part

Anyway, her'es just a list of a few things I found with your opinions on FG battles:

Decay - The AI tends to use Lobo and Siphon on Scarabs, and usually doesn't even seem to care if they kill the Scarab or not with Siphon (and there's usually not a "follow-up" Siphon if they don't). With at least 1 new Scarab a turn, there's no way this is ever a problem. I think we more or less agree here, I just rated it medium because I never tried the deck. Lobo shouldn't hurt too much because Pests are small.

Destiny - My deck can be semi-immune to RT spam, by not using RT myself. The AI doesn't want to RT a Mummy. but you CAN'T win with only 6 Mummies, mostly because you need the Scarabs, and you CAN'T just rush ANY FG

Divine Glory This deck hits hard enough late-game that decking out isn't an issue. Even a full field of Pharoahs and Scarabs with no Mummies that have never devoured anything hurts over 1/3 of their max HP per turn. It's not hard to hit 1/2 if needed. The problem is that being a 30 card deck, what you're saying is pretty hard to believe, mostly since Scarabs start with 2 attack, and Divine Glory is the god with most Miracles, at 12. But I guess I'll know this once I try the deck.

Elidnis - The AI seems to ALWAYS use TU on a Scarab, probably thinking it'll retain the high HP. It doesn't. It's easily nomnomed by any of my Scarabs. Also, immortal creatures are not a problem, really. decks are weak. I just nomnom my own scarabs until I draw Chimrea, then instawin.Yeah, unfortunately Quints hurt, not to mention a quinted ulitharid, and I guess this one just isn't easy.

Gemini Lobo and TU aren't really a problem, as I said before. Targetting the highest-HP scarab each turn iwth that is pretty fail. The same as against Decay, I think

Graviton - Gravity Shields are problematic, but you just have to be smart. Mummies can always get through (unless he raises their HP). Just keep 5 Scarabs, 1 of which has higher HP to nomnom things. Nomnom your own free scarab each round to keep the bone wall up and the HP rising if he has nothing to nomnom for you. As said before, Mummies can't win this game, not to mention they are Otyugh food, as well as any scarab with less than 5 hp, and that's if he doesn't Momentum his Oty, then you're dead. As I said, it's possible

Hecate - The AI sucks at decks with Voodoo dolls. Period. Plus, they can be RT'ed if necessary but it's not a problem. As said by Baily, the AI is getting smarter. He mostly has 14-hp'd dolls with 6 attack, and 4 RT's won't kill his 12 Rage Pots. Rushing should be a problem against him

Hermes - You do realize Scarabs' HP goes up by at least 1 every turn, right? That shield only hurts one. As you said, the golems start with 1 HP. So...what's the problem? O.o Do you realise he's one of the hardest gods? Well, he has a -TON- of CC, other than Fire Shield. It was only one of the hell of CC he has, and I put it there just because it's the one that would slow you down the most. And any (pretty common) 1st turn golem will overgrow your scarabs and rush you pretty paifully. I said it's Medium, which is pretty impressive, so it was actually more like a compliment. Nothing to be ashamed about, most nearly all decks just skip him.

Incarnate - You do realize Scarabs' HP goes up by at least 1 every turn, right? 1 Retrovirus is n't a problem. The 2nd one comes too late to help. Win. As said before, the fact that I stated only one form of CC doesn't mean it is the only one. He also has bloodsuckers and bonewalls if you eat too much. But I still said he's easy.

Jezebel - Scarabs don't need to nomnom the enemy. They can nom each other if the Bone Wall needs it. That wasn't the only problem. A green nymph would kill your bonewalls; an EARLY red one, any scarab is dead; a grey one, aflatoxine your scarabs to death; a Black one would vamp your Pharao's (AI do target them there); a Purp one would just deny any attack; Brown one (the earth one) will just BB your Pharao's (if it's so stupid to BB a Devouring creature after a Spammer, then the AI is just wrong and should be fixed); just to mention some problems behind that cloaks.

Lionheart - Again, Mummyrush. Again, you CANT just rush ANY FG, period. If that was true, a simple Mummyrush would just pwn Lionheart. I dare you to try to do that.

Miracle - Do I need to explain why this isn't a problem? I'm starting to feel like this is redundant... I don't see how can you outrush him when a 2 def shield is mostly out before his miracles are out. You can't claim that "1/2, 1/3 of his hp" damage here.

Morte - He feeds my Bone Walls to make me invincible, basically. Just nomnom Condors before they get too high. And, this is why I added Purify, but I admit it's a much lower winrate without one. Didn't see that purify, nor the "I modified the deck" comment. Anyways, one or two Purifies can still let you die if they are between the last 15 cards, which is pretty much possible, and any more than that will, in most cases, uselessly clog your hand. He feeds your bonewalls only with his Retroviruses, so I don't see the difference with Incarnate.

Neptune - Flooding = Gravity Shield, give or take a few details. Same general strategy though. And...Chimera/Titan. You say you can beat him after Flooding? I want to see that. Disclaimer: Mummies aren't useful here, see Neptune's deck. Also, Eagle's Eye would damage your Scarabs more than what you could grow them. I don't see your way of winning.

Obliterator - Diamond Shield is a main reason I want to add Steal/Deflag if I get rid of my cards...but yeah, is definitely my biggest weakness. So here we do agree??

Scorpio - Yeah, that's why I added Purify. But venomous creatures aren't a problem. Plenty of Scarabs. By the way, octopi is with 1 'i', and the plural of virus is viruses (I think). Just a random thought. As far as I can recall, radii is the only word that ends in 2 i's (skiing has 2 i's, but for a totally unrelated reason and it's in the middle...). Dunno, I guess saying Octopii is like saying, huh, "dunno"... Anyways, back to the deck. This one has too many poison, I just don't think you can possibly outdamage that, unless you have a godly draw and somehow chain enough Bonewalls to survive. Even then, you could die to his 10 Deadly Poisons.

Note: If I didn't reply to your overview of a FG, then I pretty much thoguht you were right, whether it be negative or positive.

Huh, enjoyed that
Anyways, I guess I will try not to comment anymore mainly because I haven't tried the deck. I'll try it a couple of times against every god to see how it does.

Sidenote:

Oh and my testing was vs the ingame AI not trainer.

What, so the AI is different in trainer than in the in-game AI? Could it be because Zanz try newer versions' AI's there?

51

Card Ideas and Art / Re: Time-travelling Assassin | Time-travelling Assassin

« on: November 24, 2011, 02:28:11 pm »

Why I don´t want to see this creature implemented:
-Discard creatures is quite similar to an instant kill card, which kills creatures regardless of HP. This kind of card shall not exist. (Freeze + Shockwave is a duo 2 card combo)
Here, the creatures are killed, before they are even on the field, the Assasin is very cheap, used en masse, they are probably quite unstoppable.
- I still like the idea of a "save hand", and the card is quite unfun for me.

Huh, never knew why I didn't like the idea until now... So yeah, and you can even insta-kill immortal creatures, since they aren't immortal in your hand. Not to mention its synergy with RT and the fact that it's quite cheap.

52

Half Bloods / Re: Does anyone care...?

« on: November 24, 2011, 03:54:39 am »

Half-Bloods have their own little niche, but they are completely overshadowed by the Forums at what they do. For those that don't use the forums, they work well enough; for us forumites who obsess over every last electrum, HBs still have the best afk grinders, so that's something.

Part of my post died during the editing process, it seems..

Heh, well, let's see... IDK what you mean by the Forums overshadowing HB's niche, but I think the important part is that HB's have the best afk grinders, hope I'm right. I don't know any HB grinder other than regular Mono Aether (and it isn't that good), but I do know Mono Life Frog rush and Mono Death Mummy rush, both for AI3, both really simple to use, and quite very effective against AI3. HB's would take more time (dunno if double or so) and give cards more rarely in the spins, not to mention with a lower win rate. I don't see your point, although I'd like to know what you mean, maybe with an example... (yeah, I'm THAT dumb)

53

Forum Game Archive / Re: Where in the World is Zanzarino? by Legit

« on: November 24, 2011, 03:39:25 am »

Hello to Ekki, Onizuka and RootRanger and good luck to team 1, may the force be with you all 

Oh, noez, now they know who are on our team!! Good job Izaya ¬¬

I don't know whether your joking or not but it says the teams on the second post ^ ^'

lol I'm jk, and even if that wasn't there, there are only 2 teams so...

54

Forum Game Archive / Re: Where in the World is Zanzarino? by Legit

« on: November 24, 2011, 02:56:45 am »

Hello to Ekki, Onizuka and RootRanger and good luck to team 1, may the force be with you all 

Oh, noez, now they know who are on our team!! Good job Izaya ¬¬

55

Tech Talk / Re: Ok... wha???

« on: November 24, 2011, 12:26:30 am »

Wow, that's weird... Also, if you look the source code of that part, it just looks normal (although there is something different like a number missing I think), so no subliminal encrypted message there

56

Off-Topic Discussions / Re: The Official Member Pictures Thread

« on: November 24, 2011, 12:18:49 am »

I'm nervous to post, I don't see much girls here lol

That's because all the girls are either nervous or disguised as boys.
True story.

Guy
In
Real
Life
There are no girls on the internet!

False. I know an actual female in real life that goes on this very forum.

Yeah, that's what everybody says

57

Half Bloods / Re: Does anyone care...?

« on: November 23, 2011, 11:36:40 pm »

First of all, I'd like to add that HBs' decks aren't random. They're 144 different rigged decks. They're a lot, and it looks like random cards, but it ain't.

Half bloods are just "worse than" in every single aspect (now even more with the upcoming of Arena).
- They're worse than FG's in the rewards, for they have, half -or less- upped decks. So in the spins you have to match the 3 spins between a DOUBLE amount of cards. This also makes even the unupped cards harder to get from them. The solution to this would be either making the spins be 2/3 of unupped and 1/3 of upped; or making any kind of card be either fully upped or unnupped (like 6xWerewolf -upped- 4xAntimatter -unupped-, etc, not 3xWerefolf, 3xLycan, 2xUpped AM, 2xUnupped AM), this would lead to simpler spins, but would also mean a total rework of all 144 Half Bloods. They also suck at being predictable, so you can't make so easily a reliable HB deck, being easier to farm FG's.
- Even though being 144 decks, they're now worse than Arena in that they're less random....

[snip]

...Huh, I don't see how to fix all this, or what niche could HB's occupy, but I guess the upped/unupped cards thing should be solved, for it's the easier solution. I personally prefer the most complicated one, of making every set of cards either upped or unupped, but the other option could work too.

Here is a thread about Half-Blood deck composition that you may be interested in. (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,23323.0.html) You are right in saying that their decks are not totally random, but their decks are not totally static either. Also, their Wiki article (http://elementscommunity.org/wiki/pve/half-blood/).

Huh, I was pretty sure this was that way... Well, I guess we can forget about that point altogether. It's pretty weird the fact that they are so random. I mean, you could get a totally crappy deck out of that.

Half-Bloods have their own little niche, but they are completely overshadowed by the Forums at what they do. For those that don't use the forums, they work well enough; for us forumites who obsess over every last

I don't totally understand what you mean here. Actually, I don't get what you're saying, sorry what do you mean?

58

Forum Game Archive / Re: Where in the World is Zanzarino? by Legit

« on: November 23, 2011, 07:46:57 pm »

It's just so easy to die, though :/

True. A good advice is to be extremely careful. I mean, it's not like you'll have many chances of an assassin finding you, mostly since he'll have to have the clue AND be in the same region as you. So play easy.

59

Archived Decks / Re: Scarab Deck Without Time Towers - Say What?

« on: November 23, 2011, 06:40:29 pm »

Wow, nice Izaya

I really do think my win rate could have been higher if I knew how to use it better, I doubt 35% better, but who knows? I would be nice if tiamats4esgares elaborated on his results, though.

Unfortunately, I doubt it is THAT good, although I reckon SoR/Pharaoh combo is pretty badass and it may have FG grinding potential.

Now god-by-god theoric breakdown
Akebono. Chimera and big creatures (bigger than a full field of Scarabs) with Acceleration. Even 2 Momentums (you can have bad luck).
Chaos Lord. Mutations on SoR'd Pharaohs, I guess it's possible though.
Dark Matter. Possible with a very improbable SoR'd Pharaoh on turn 1, that can be GP'd and killed anyways. And his Otys are pretty badass so he could just eat your Scarabs before they grow.
Decay. I guess you can win against him because the combo relies on cards, not on initial quanta, and Pests have 4 hp (5 with Eclipse out). Lobo would kill you, though, and he can Siphon your first SoR'd pharaoh to death. I guess the easier one yet.
Destiny. RT spam while you have little quanta production? 'Nuff said. Skipping him sounds good, but the AI being stupid could save you.
Divine Glory. Nothing to eat? I guess you'll be outrushed pretty often, and if you manage to lock him down you'll be decked out by his Miracles. Skip this one too.
Dream Catcher. Some badass CC against your Pharaohs, Quintessence and Purple Nymph should hurt here, specially if paired. Possible though.
Elidnis. An early Ulitharid would kill this deck. Also he has Quint, Phase Dragons and a lot of Congeals and TU's to mess up with you. Sounds possible nontheless.
Eternal Phoenix. Some early CC could hurt you, but it's possible, mostly since his creatures are small.
Ferox. If you manage to outrush his creature spam with Scarabs, you should be OK, otherwise, you may be rushed more than just once.
Fire Queen. Flying Eagle's Eye and creature spam should hurt here, but I guess it's still possible if you NOM his fireflies faster than how they're spammed.
Gemini. Lobotomizer is bad. TU spam too. And his momentums doesn't help, but as his Phase Recluses are small, I guess you can NOMrush him.
Graviton. Gravity shield is auto-quit. Also an early strong-enough Oty. I guess it's possible though.
Hecate. Vodoos hurt even behind your Bone Walls, but not that much. They also mostly have high health, so it should be difficult to get to them before you're at critical health. Possible too.
Hermes. So much CC is bad for your health. And if you're enoughly unlucky to get an early Fire Shield out, I guess it's pretty much over. Lava Destroyers start with 1 hp, so I guess this one is surprisingly possible.
Incarnate. As shown, possible, I guess retrovirus would hurt this a bit. Even though that, I see it quite easy.
Jezebel. Cloak chains are bad for Scarabs' hunger. Also some nymphs. And Permafrost shield will much likely stop you from any rush if you're unlucky enough. Possible if you get the right cards and play them smartly.
Lionheart. An early Eternity would shut this off right from the roots. Also quinted guys. But as seen, you can survive to that. Maybe the AI is stupid enough as to not RT your SoR'd Pharaohs.
Miracle. Miracle chains tend to deck you out. He also has Jade Shield so I guess you won't be able to kill him late-game.
Morte. Poison is bad. Also his condors benefit from your death triggers. And he has quite many Plagues and Retrovirii. I guess you could outrush him?
Neptune. Who said Flooding was UP? Also, Permafrost by itself hurts you enough. Skipping sounds good here.
Obliterator. Diamond shield is bad. Burrowed creatures too. 12 hp Dragons early game are a pain. He has Gravity force for big creatures and Momentum for your Bone Walls. I guess you'd have to be quick here or die to his rush.
Octane. Lots of UG's, lots of flying renewable CC, and a Fire Shield just in case. I guess this one is out of range. By the time you hit his 50 hp's, he'll most certainly have 4-5 UG's in play and you'll have less than 100 hp.
Osiris (Daddy Osiris as I like to call him). I guess you can outrush his Scarabs, but an early Eternity and his Turtle Shield makes this deck look in a hurry. Possible with a good hand and without that pesky Eternity early game.
Paradox. He likes big creatures and TU spam, but if you eat the small ones your Bone Walls will be OK. Sounds easy.
Rainbow. He has... Like, err, he has a lot of stuff. Even Miracles. Eagle's Eye and the rest of CC there will slow you down, while he mindlessly spams creatures that, if not killed, grow or burrow. Like always, hard, but possible.
Scorpio. I don't think you could outrush his poison. Also, 50% of his creatures are venomous (poison if eaten), and he has both Arctic Octopii and Ulitharids. Both are a pain for this deck.
Seism. Forget about Quicksands, but also about re-using your RT'd creatures. He can burrow any early Shrieker and the rest of the creatures are 9/12 hp'd. Still possible.
Serket. Posion+Cloak? Ouch. Also, Adrenaline (Green Nymphs) would kill your Bone Walls quite easy.
Disclaimer. This is just theoric, and still not approved by neither the deck-testers nor the deck-maker. So just rejoice in the theorical difficulties and my useless ratings.

So, no more gods. I think any of them by itself would be an 85% win rate to this deck. Maybe Incarnate and Paradox, but they're widely recognised as the weakest gods.
I like how this deck looks good against Hermes, though, so I'll be waiting for some reliable stats and then I may try it myself

I don't see what everyone's problem is, I played 9001 FGs with this deck and got 113% win rate.

You are unlucky, I got 1337% win rate.

Don't be mean guys :\

Huh, I agree that being mean is not OK, anyways, but when you see that a Jr. Member tells to a group of vets that they don't know how to use his deck, while claiming a highly unlikely win rate (I personally see it mathematically impossible) against FG's without showing proof... well, it hurts your eyes.
Hope we can forget about that and give this cool deck some real stats, since I now see its potential.

60

Archived Decks / Re: Poisovoid

« on: November 23, 2011, 05:20:24 pm »

Note entirely, it can still neutralize half the damage potential.

How is that? Remember that SoV's stack (I didn't know this until I tried this deck )