Guest posts by PhuzzY LogiK

133

Deck Help / Re: Request for advice on my rainbow deck

« on: February 25, 2010, 09:09:47 pm »

I only play this game casually, a few games every day, and after trying a few unupgraded rainbow deck versions, I finally managed to get my oty upgraded.
I seem to have terrible luck against fake gods with all of those version, even when I pick my fights, and barely ever win cards from spins.
So now, I want to make a rainbow that is solid against half bloods, but would also have a decent shot against the fake gods. If I'm going to have crappy luck on spins, then at least I want to get a few spins each day from those limited number of games I play.

I'm in pretty much the same boat right now, and I think it's best to stick with Half-Bloods at the start.  I wasn't winning much against the FGs, but I very rarely lose against Half Bloods (and almost always get EM), so that's 80 electrum per game + what I get from cards on spins (and I've gotten a few upgraded cards from Half Bloods).  If I play for an hour a day, I can upgrade a card about every 1-2 days.

First of all, upgrade your Fallen Elf ASAP.  The advantages of Improved Mutation are huge.  After that I agree that upping the Hourglasses would be a good idea.

I think decks have to be tailored to how you plan to play the game, so take what I say with a grain of salt.  Personally, I would drop out the Lava Golem, Mind Flayer, and Aflatoxin.  You can easily mutate something better than the Lava Golem (especially after upping the Elf).  The Otyugh should be eating anything your opponent puts out, so the Mind Flayer shouldn't have anything to lobotomize.  If your Oty can't eat it or there are too many, just use Eternity on it and eat it next turn.  I'm assuming the Aflatoxin was to work with the Elf and Empathic Bonds?  The boneyard, Firefly Queen, and rain of fire on enemy creatures should give you more than enough fodder.  If you get rid of the extra creatures, you could also drop Anubis and add another Quintessence instead (3 Quints, 3 Creatures).  That could ease your time problem.  If you do that, I would switch the Time Factories back out for Quantum Towers.

Regardless of creatures, I'd add in a few Dimensional Shields.  You may have an Aether Quantum crunch at the beginning (between Quints and the Shields), but they are life savers.

134

Deck Help / Re: Speed Lance Deck?

« on: February 25, 2010, 06:33:16 pm »

Mark of Light

Simple enough, I think.  Its a lance deck thats supposed to speed towards the kill.  I'm not very good with lance decks however, and I wondered if anyone had any good suggestions.

The point is to use Time to speed up your draw.  The Cremations and Deja Vus actually pay for themselves; the Cremation gives 1 Time for every time its played, and it only costs 1 Time to play a Deja Vu, so they cancel.  The Hourglasses are the real draw masters here, but the Precognitions and Sundials have their use too; the Sundials double as a shield or quick-starter late or early in the game.  The deck works; the only loss was against a FG, and I don't know if any Lance deck can really bring them down.  Usually I win playing 3-4 Lances ~120 Fire Quanta, but I'm sure an experienced player could do a bit better there playing in the margins.

I never really understood Precognition, especially in a speed deck.  If you play Precognition, you've just PAYED to draw a card that you would've drawn instead of Precognition anyway, so why not just cut out the middle man and save that Time Quantum?  Yes, you get to see your opponent's hand, but is that really going to change your strategy with this deck?  Also, it seems like adding time towers just to play a few cards adds a lot of fluff in a deck built to go fast.  For the same reason as the precognition, are the hourglasses really worth it here? 

How about this:
Mark of TIME. 

15x Burning Tower
6x Fire Lance
6x Cremation
4x Elite Deja Vu
5x Sundial (NON-upgraded)
1x Fahrenheit

37 cards total

From your post, I'm assuming you mean to save your lances until you have enough to deliver a death blow.  I see the deck running like this:

1. Play Towers and Deja Vu ASAP.  (-1 )
2. Next Turn, use Deja Vu's copy ability and Cremate them.  (-1 , +1 or +2 , +1 or +2 )
3. Play Sundial (don't play Sundials until you have to). (-1 , -1 for ability)

Rinse and repeat.

The card count is a bit high for a speed deck, but I think since so many cards are repeated you should be able to get away with it.  You won't be able to play a sundial right away, but if you want it to double as a shield, you probably don't want it out in the first 2 turns anyway.  The key draws are getting a Deja Vu and 1-2 Cremates in your first 1-2 draws.

You said you need ~120 Fire Quantum.  If you play 10 Towers and 4 Cremations, you will have a base pool of 10 + 36 = 46 Fire Quantum.  After 7-8 turns you should be sitting about where you need to be, and most of those turns should be covered by a Sundial.  If you're able to play Fahrenheit (since it works with a lot of Fire Quantum), then the opponent shouldn't be at full health so the amount of damage your Lances have to do will be less.

135

General Discussion / Re: Top 5 mistakes you see people make

« on: February 23, 2010, 09:09:03 pm »

I'm not sure when you stop becoming a noob but I still make these 3 mistakes, so maybe I'm still a noob (or I'm just in a hurry all the time)

1. Forgetting to return a card to the deck with the Eternity. I'm concentrating so much on all the improved monsters from my druid that I forget to check the card count and return a card and I deck out. I make sure that's the first thing I do now.

2. Playing cards in the wrong order. I've played firestorms to prop up a bone wall only to forget that I had a graveyard I could have played and missed out on popping up some skeletons.

3. Not noticing the quantum count. I've played a phase shield, then an oty and was going to use the quint when I realized I used up too many quantums with the phase shield. It distracted me b/c all 3 originally light up as playable.

hahaha...I'm right there with you on these.  Fortunately I'm finally learning to pay more attention, but good lord it is frustrating to lose an otherwise easy win because of things like this.

136

General Discussion / Re: Anti-Rainbow Cards

« on: February 23, 2010, 08:52:01 pm »

One of the better ideas I have seen, sort of. Although the example cards are, in respective order, under powered, over powered, and overpowered.

I don't really presume to know enough about the game to say I could make balanced cards.  I just wanted to show two things:

1. How to potentially restrict cards to just one element.  The best way I could come up with was requiring a minimum number of pillars on the table to play a card.  I suppose there could be cards that could be "Can only be played if your Mark is [Element]", which would open them to be played by Duo or adjusted Rainbow decks.  I guess "Cannot be played if more than 5 Quantum Pillars are in your possession" is also a possible condition.

2. Element restricted cards should be relatively strong.  The point is that each element has a weakness, so each element should have a strength that can be used only if you devote a chunk of your deck to that element.  For example, you said two of my cards were overpowered, but you have to consider that those two cards will only be played in decks with a time or water emphasis.  For the Unmoved Mover, even if it can remove immortal/immaterial status, the ONLY cards that element can target creatures with is Reverse Time/Eternity or Scarab (which might actually be useful then).  So it's not like you're going to be able to remove immortality and then Firestorm/Ice Bolt/Twin Universe everything.  For Water, playing something like Tidal Wave doesn't change the fact that you have a disadvantage in direct creature damage.

I think the Rainbow mindset is becoming too ingrained in this game, and even as a newer player I can see it getting boring.  My objective here was to create cards that make Mono or Duo decks more powerful, but only at the expense of also accepting their weaknesses.

Right now, "Creature Control" means throwing another Firestorm, Freeze or Oty in your deck, and "Permanent Control" means another Steal, Pulvy, or Explosion.  That's changing a whole 6 cards out of 30+, and not exactly deep strategy.  Poisoning is so weak it can be ignored for all but 1 or 2 FGs.  Why can't we build whole decks around Permanent Control?  Why isn't Fire strong enough to consistently win on Spells alone?  Right now, any decks that even come close to this are "just for fun," and anyone will tell you they don't stand a chance against FGs or Rainbow Decks.

I'll get off my soapbox now, but I think this game has a lot of potential that it's not tapping into.

137

General Discussion / Anti-Rainbow Cards

« on: February 23, 2010, 05:48:09 am »

So Kamietsu had a quote in another thread that got me thinking...

[...]Nerfing time cards means no one will ever use a mono-time deck because then it will be severely underpowered. It's not about nerfing rainbow decks, that will almost never happen because even if you try to buff mono/duo/other decks, rainbow has a good shot to use those new cards. But also changes the strategy with rainbow, which would bring a higher variety of rainbow decks.

What if cards were specifically made to buff mono/duo decks and avoid Rainbow decks?  For example, make a decently powerful card that has a condition to favor just that element:
EARTH
Stone Wall (Permanent): Stone Wall prevents all damage to you from all non-poison sources for 1 turn.  May only be played if 3 Earth pillars/towers are in your possession.

WATER
Tidal Wave (Spell): Deal 2 damage to all opponents creatures and destroy up to 2 random opponent's pillars/towers.  May only be played if 4 Water pillars/towers are in your possession.

TIME
Unmoved Mover (Creature): Sacrifice a Time pillar/tower.  Target Creature is no longer immortal or immaterial.

You get the idea.  The point is to make it so rainbow decks either cannot use the cards or would have to substantially change the way they run to do so (thus eliminating the "standard" rainbow deck).  It's really not fair that rainbow decks can take all the strengths of each of the elements and none of the weaknesses, so it would be cool to have powerful cards that exemplify each element and that rainbows couldn't use.

I'd hope this would make mono/duo-decks more appealing and add to the diversity of the game.  Thoughts?

138

General Discussion / Re: No time-counter deck

« on: February 23, 2010, 05:23:54 am »

The point is it can be easily countered in many situations, doesn't give you an "OMG because I have this card I'm going to win no matter what!", the card alone doesn't give you a huge edge against everyone, and probably a few more things I can't think of. Sure, in many situtations a certain card will give you a sever advantage other your opponent, but in another time, that card might not make your deck work as well. Such as against Miracle, there is no point to bring an enchant artifact and quintessence because Miracle has no perm/creature control. So it just takes up space in your deck.

I completely agree with you.  I just felt the earlier response was a little too dismissive. 

I can't think of a specific example right now, but hypothetically, just say there was a card that could only be effectively countered by a combination of two or three cards in the opponent's deck.  Is that card then overpowered?  Suppose enough people played it that it was reasonable to assume 40-60% of the decks you'd face would have that card.  Technically, it can be countered, but you have to add a lot of those potentially useless cards to counter it should it pop up.  So in 60-40% of games (to match the earlier assumed percentage), you've lowered your deck's efficiency needlessly just to counter a card that might have been played.  Am I making any sense?  Again, that was purely hypothetical.

Anyway, I don't mean to get off topic here.  I just thought saying "every deck has at least one counter" is a bit of a sweeping statement, because that counter might be so specialized that it's not practical.

139

Deck Help / Re: Powerful Poison Deck?

« on: February 23, 2010, 04:20:49 am »

Although, the poison I favor is the one I explained in my OP, the chrys and poison spells. I've found this to be a great synergy, but I'm not sure how this will complement in a rainbow deck. A friend of mine advised the Dark weapon. (which would replace those parasites)

I started with a very similar deck and mindset.  I don't mean to say it won't work, but I found it very ineffective against anything higher than AI3.  I ultimately decided to cut my losses and reset my account.

For starters, your Chrysaoras will not survive long against better decks.  They will be quickly targeted, and one firestorm or two thunderstorms will wipe them all out. 

Second, the poisoning process is pretty slow.  You'll probably be dead before you can build up a significant amount.  It can take up to 10+ turns to reach 20-25 poison damage.  You could have played a single dragon and done that damage in two turns.

Third, poison is just less effective against AI5 and FGs.  They have 200 HP, draw 2 cards a turn, and their Marks produce 3 quanta a turn.  They move fast and hitting them for 25 isn't going to hurt them too badly, and a lot of them have some sort of healing.

Fourth, all your poison work can be undone with a single purify.  It's never good when nearly half your deck and your whole strategy can be negated with one card.

As someone who is grinding AI5 and an occasional FG to build up my deck, I've found direct damage is the way to go.  Once you get a lot of upgraded cards, maybe you could look into poison again.  A popular alternative deck for AI3 is a speed earth deck (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,1188.0.html (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,1188.0.html)).  After AI3 most people (myself included) move into rainbow decks until you have more upgraded cards to use to level the playing field a bit.

As for weapons, most rainbow decks use Eternity (to keep from running out of cards).  I personally think the Pulverizer, Trident, or Owl's Eye are also good choices.  Just take which one suits you best.

140

General Discussion / Re: No time-counter deck

« on: February 22, 2010, 10:37:14 pm »

There is no "best" deck in Elements, every deck has at least one counter.

This is true...but almost tautologically so.  Using this criteria, the only overpowered card is one that says "Play this to instantly win the game."  Just because something can be countered doesn't mean it can't examined as overpowered.

141

General Discussion / Re: Pulverizer Haters Anon.

« on: February 22, 2010, 10:22:14 pm »

Steal.

Wow, I didn't know you could steal an enchanted Pulvy. But seriously, I never have a problem with it. Most people I duel never use it, most AI I duel never use it.

The trick is taking it before it's enchanted. 

The second trick is completely ignoring the hypothetical situation posed in the OP so your advice becomes valid. 

142

Issue Archive / Re: Lost data and cards, not due to disconnect issue

« on: February 22, 2010, 09:47:17 pm »

lost hours of grinding last nite....

no red message saying disconnect

tough loss due to me just starting to grind FGs. 5-6 upgraded cards lost.

What an appropriate username/post combination. 

143

Issue Archive / Re: Immaterial/Improved Mutation

« on: February 08, 2010, 06:33:02 am »

Chaos Lord doesn't have Phase Dragons in his deck. If a Phase Dragon of any kind appeared on his side, it was a result of mutation. A mutant has a random +X/+Y to the base creature stats and a random ability. So the Phase Dragon that appeared must have had a different ability.

Hmmm...it being the result of a mutation would answer it.  I thought he mutated it a few turns later, but I may have been mistaken and he played another creature and mutated it right after so I didn't catch it.

It would be nice to have a log of what cards were played/actions taken for the last turn or two.  There are times when things just happen and I have no idea why.  For example, a creature disappearing could be due to Reverse Time, Eternity, a failed mutation, etc.., and it's not always clear what happened, so it would be helpful to look and see "[Player X] used Eternity to reverse time on [Creature 1]" or "[Player X] plays a Reverse Time card on [Creature 1]."

144

Issue Archive / Immaterial/Improved Mutation

« on: February 08, 2010, 04:07:31 am »

I was just playing Chaos Lord in a regular game.  He played an Elite Phase Dragon and then a turn or two later played an Improved Mutation on it.  The Phase Dragon is Immaterial, but the Mutation still targeted it (you can see it gained the Gravity Pull ability).  The Dragon also lost its Immaterial status during the mutation.

That worked out for me, because then I could kill it, but I'm not sure he should have been able to target it in the first place.