Guest posts by Wu_Li_Mammoth

13

General Discussion / Mulling Over the Mulligan

« on: March 19, 2010, 05:36:31 pm »

The auto-mulligan currently in testing has some notable effect on how you might chose to tune your deck. I came up with some numbers to adjust for the change.

The mulligan only draws one extra time, so while it won't pump your deck for pillars, it squares your chances of drawing none (which is good!). I've created a chart showing your chances of drawing a nil hand (no pillars) based on your deck size and pillar count:

30 Card Decks (Current->w/Mulligan)
[/li] 6 pillars  (16.4%->2.6%)[/li] 7 pillars (12.7%->1.6%)[/li] 8 pillars (8.8%->.8%)[/li] 9 pillars (5.4%->.3%)[/li] 10 pillars (4.6%->.2%)[/li][/list]
---

40 Card Decks (Current->w/Mulligan)
[/li] 6 pillars (29.1%->8.4%)[/li] 8 pillars (18.1%->3.2%)[/li] 10 pillars (9.6%->.9%)[/li] 12 pillars (6.1%->.4%)[/li] 14 pillars (2.9%-> .01%)[/li][/list]
---

50 Card decks (Current->w/Mulligan)
[/li] 10 pillars (18.7%->3.4%)[/li] 12 pillars (11.7%->1.4%)[/li] 14 pillars (8.4%->.7%%)[/li] 16 pillars (4.4%->.2%)[/li] 18 pillars (3.6%->.1%)[/li][/list]
Some things to keep in mind:

The mulligan does *not* increase your chances of drawing pillars after the opening hand. Therefore it affects decks that need very few pillars much more than high quanta decks.[/li] It only helps you draw 0 pillars less often, and it doesn't help you to get more than 1.[/li] Other cards that cost no quanta (photons, sundials, unupgraded novas, etc) count as a playable card as far as the mulligan is concerned. If you draw one of these and no pillars, you don't get a free redraw.[/li]

Adjust your deck accordingly.

Wu Li out.

14

Duo-Decks / Re: Exploding the Rainbow

« on: March 18, 2010, 06:14:21 pm »

Most of the strongest decks are powerful because you have many options as to how and when to play your cards. This same quality is what makes them tricky to play.

My advice to anyone who has tried this deck and had a hard time playing it is to play a hand full of matches where you push the deck to one extreme. For example, play 5 matches where you play every card as quickly as you can lay it down, don't destroy any creatures, and use all your lances on your opponent directly. Then play 5 matches where you lay down as few cards as possible, run heavy creature control with your fire lances, and build up a very large spike.

Exercises like this will help you to naturally and intuitively play the deck. Once you've seen how decks react to the extremes, you can feel out where on the "aggression slider" you want to be vs the different types of decks you run into in the t50.

15

Rainbow Decks / Re: Look Out Queeny, a New Diva is in Town

« on: March 14, 2010, 07:29:15 am »

I dunno, maybe i took third place in a tourney =)

(the last unupped double elim)

16

Rainbow Decks / Re: Look Out Queeny, a New Diva is in Town

« on: March 13, 2010, 09:10:40 pm »

This was a lot of fun to play with, and a couple gods are much easier. However, i think the queen turns around more matches than the nymph does, whereas the nymph is only usually useful when you're already in control of the match, with just a very small handful of exceptions.

Building up 12+ air quanta early enough in a match to control the board is not really feasible for a rainbow unless your mark is air. Maybe if i had 2 air nymphs just to increase their draw rate, i could justify changing my mark and tweaking the deck to compensate, but just 1 nymph that isn't very good against 5 or so gods is just not effective. Besides, entropy or time mark are both extremely effective against every god in *all* situations, so i think its a wash.

If i had several air nymphs, i do believe i could make a god grinder that skips certain gods, kind of like how nymphomania works, but getting several air nymphs is a long ways off.

Very fun and interesting alternative, but as puppy mentioned, its not better.

17

Deck Help / Re: Three Rush Decks

« on: March 13, 2010, 01:41:17 am »

Great decks, I'm tempted to build the first and third now.  The third looks very fun as does the first but Phase Spiders are highly susceptible to Otyughs / Rain of Fire; so the deck is a little weak.

Not once they're blessed they're not =)

18

General Discussion / More Cards! MORE CARDS!!!

« on: March 12, 2010, 10:15:39 pm »

Something about false gods just rubs me the wrong way. Maybe it's that i'm forced to fight them if i want money and score. Maybe it's that my odds of winning are more influenced by which FG comes up when i hit the "Level 6" button than every single facet of deck design and play. Or perhaps it's the fact that only one kind of deck works against them (1.5 i guess, nymphomania is ok).

Or perhaps i just bitch too much instead of focusing on what i like about the game and what keeps me playing. Who really knows? Does my aunt know?* Would it be a copy right infringement if i dressed up like the jolly green giant and walked around telling children to eat more meat? I have *no* idea.

Anyways, if i had a point to make when i took that screen shot, it's long gone. Maybe it was:

The only reason we can beat false gods is because some of their decks are poorly designed.[/li]Some of the decks are very well designed, and consequently, are basically impossible to beat.[/li]

That's it, that's all i got. I don't know if there is really a conclusion to be drawn here, i just have way less fun losing most of my matches and winning tons of money than i do winning most of my matches and making very little. Maybe i'm weird.

*No, she doesn't appear to.

19

Rainbow Decks / Re: Look Out Queeny, a New Diva is in Town

« on: March 11, 2010, 07:29:18 pm »

She comes out better in an entropy rainbow than she does in a timebow for sure. I've had a handful of games where i just randomly had lots of air quanta early on. It doesn't happen often, but how many cards can boast a freebie FG win under *any* conditions?

20

Rainbow Decks / Look Out Queeny, a New Diva is in Town

« on: March 11, 2010, 05:46:46 pm »

Hover over cards for details, click for permalink

Deck import code : [Select]

6qq 6qq 6qq 6qq 6qq 6qq 6qq 6qq 6u3 6u3 6u3 6u3 6u3 6u3 6u6 717 71b 71b 74b 74b 77f 77i 7am 7ba 7ba 7do 7gp 7ng 7q5 7q5 7q8 7q9 7q9 7q9 7t9 80h 80h 8pj

I know it's not an option for most, but i wanted to post up a small review of the Air Nymph, as a replacement for the Firefly Queen in an FG slaying rainbow.

I was fortunate enough to score one of these in the first week of the oracle, so i've had some time to play with this variation. The very short review is: totally sweet dude!

So, what are you losing exactly by dropping the firefly queen?

No renewable creature source if your boneyard gets popped.[/li]

No edible creatures against Divine Glory at all.[/li][/list] Firefly queen comes out earlier than the Nymph, and her ability is more accessible in the early game in general (you're not likely to be able to afford 3 air quanta per turn very soon after paying 9 to bring out the nymph).[/li][/list] The FFQ is far more durable without the quint.[/li][/list]
And what are we gaining with the Air Nymph?

Renewable full board damage. A properly fueled air nymph combined with a bone wall is nearly unbeatable.[/li]

She's heavy hitting and ignores most shields. The only counter to Unstable Gas is a Mirror or Jade shield. Both of which are pretty bad at blocking your druidic army, and only used by DG and Miracle, the former is hardly worth playing, the latter is a joke.[/li][/list] The air nymph uses only air quanta, so deploying and fueling her doesn't interfere with anything else you have going on. You're free to mutate and run an empathy without gumming up the deck. (the small fire quanta use has never come up)[/li][/list] In an ideal situation, the air nymph deals 5 times as much damage per turn as a FFQ. You can win matches very quickly, rather than having to rely on a mutated army that takes several turns to build up. [/li][/list]
You have a harder time with DG, a god i don't really care to play against anyways, even when my deck is designed to fight him. She's less useful against miracle, but you can often steal an air tower from miracle and blow her up before miracle even puts a jade shield in play. You'll still win even if your air nymph is a dead card.

Against rainbow, oblit, octane, and hermes, you have a very nice permanent destruction sink, in addition to your bonewalls. Against morte and incarnate, you can throw down a bone wall and go crazy, allowing him to build up massive charges on his bone wall, because you don't need to punch through it to win, skellingtons are a non-issue.

The FG decks that just pump out creatures (ferox, incarnate, paradox, elidnis, grativon, destiny, chaos lord, FFQ, scorpio) are simply destroyed by an early quinted Air Nymph, add a bonewall, and you have a full match locking combo.

Not needing to get around most shields (and in a tight rainbow you can't pack more than a steal or two, and a pulv)  speeds up your matches a very notable amount. There are occasions where the Air Nymph can provide a level of match control that the FFQ cannot (and definitely not by herself), but mostly she adds punch to the deck, and speeds up your matches, sometimes by *dozens* of rounds.

21

Rainbow Decks / Re: PuppyChow's FG Rainbow

« on: March 09, 2010, 06:32:37 am »

The Ultralite



Mark is Entropy

I like tight decks, what can i say.

22

Deck Help / Three Rush Decks

« on: March 08, 2010, 02:54:48 am »

Giant Spiders, mark is Light



This one is pretty obvious, bless the spiders, and clone them. It's nice because each card in the combo is pretty good even outside of the combo. This is the only deck that needs to be upgraded to work well. Regular phase spiders just don't pack any punch, and regular blessing is a little expensive to run on mark alone.

The Doubler, mark is Air



Dive then twin, repeat, each time the attack doubles, it only takes a couple twins to get out of control. Without upgrades, trade the damsel flies for more wind pillars.

The Nine, mark is Entropy.



Again, pretty obvious, play teh dragons nub. You'll do better over all if you save up and play at least a few at a time. In PvP, aim for a big 2 turn kill spike. With no ups, trade the 6 novas for 4 pillars and 2 parallel universes, change mark to aether.

23

Duo-Decks / Re: Exploding the Rainbow

« on: March 05, 2010, 06:16:43 pm »

With the prevalence of life-rush decks in the t50 lately, i've traded out 1 explosion for 1 firestorm.

24

Duo-Decks / Re: Exploding the Rainbow

« on: March 04, 2010, 10:57:11 pm »

Lava Golems: you're trading your ability to spike in any meaningful way (more than *halving* your main spike cards per card damage, down to 1/3 if you pack unupped golems like many do), for the chance that you will be allowed to pump up a golem to the point that it is hard to kill. It takes 4 (or 5) turns to pump a golem up to dragon attack, and if you play several, you won't have the earth quanta to pump them all up every turn. By the time your golems are doing that much damage, dragons have already won the match.

You also have to run mark of earth, and when you don't draw any towers/pillars you can get trapped in your hand, even if it's full of eaters and immolates. This can cause the deck to lose a game without provocation, something you *must* avoid in a well built deck, *especially* a grinding deck.