Guest posts by Zubon

25

Rainbow Decks / Re: MrSexington's "Dune Scorpion Rainbow [Anti-FG]" (Version 1.01)

« on: August 22, 2010, 05:36:06 pm »

5 more games, up to 6-9, still losing but more promising.  I really wanted to try it against Rainbow, queen of Electrum Hourglasses.  When the combo comes early, it works brilliantly; when it comes late, the game is just a matter of seeing if you have enough healing to lose by decking out.  So far, it has done well against Destiny and Ferox, okay against Seism, and lost to everyone else.

It struck me that this is definitely not a grinding deck.  When it does win, it is a LONG game, and you are note very active unless you have an early Mindgate with the quanta to run it.  OTOH, if you play while mostly AFK, occasionally alt-tabbing over to hit space, this is a very low-maintenance deck.

• Decay 0 (1 tower in the opening hand, next one was card #15.  Permanents were stolen as they hit the board, but he ran out before the Mindgates came.  DS/Unstoppable combo came at card #19.  It would have been close if Decay's deck did not have Siphon Life, but then that's like saying it would have been close if it did not have Pest or Fractal.)
• Ferox 1 (Good opening quanta.  DS/Unstoppable came at card #13, and Ferox's third Feral Bond came out the next turn.  First Pulverizer was card #15.  First Permafrost Shield was card #20.  That was the first turn Ferox ended with less than 200 health.  First Mindgate was card #25.  Once I destroyed ~8 Feral Bonds, Ferox went down quickly.)
• Seism 1 (1 tower in the opening hand, another on turn 3, no Quicksands for several turns after that.  Permafrost Shield was card #15.  Both Unstoppables in the opening hand, first DS was card #24.  I won by the grace of Rewind, since I had enough time quanta to keep re-casting the DS.  If the game had been 1 turn longer, I would have run out of hit points, and I had 0 cards left.)
• Ferox 1 (Ferox never ended a turn with any cards in hand, including the opening hand.  Go Ferox!  I opened with DS/Unstoppable, so it was mostly a matter of waiting to cast it on turn 3 and then staying alive.  It took 11 turns for a Quantum Tower to generate the 1 water quantum I needed for the Permafrost Shield after 3 Supernovas.  Pulverizer also came out that turn.  Ferox had only 1 Feral Bond until his hit points went yellow, but lots of dragons.)
• Destiny 1 (We both had weak opening hands with few towers, and his first two eggs were Ray of Light and Bloodsucker.  DS/Unstoppable at card #12.  Again, enemy Electrum Hourglass ftw.  Free Chaos Power from Mindgate = easy to re-cast Dune Scorpions.  Ended with 49 poison, and I still had 13 cards.)

26

Rainbow Decks / Re: MrSexington's "Dune Scorpion Rainbow [Anti-FG]" (Version 1.01)

« on: August 22, 2010, 04:47:04 pm »

Tried this for 10 games today, went 2-8 with one that I lost by only one turn.  It seems very vulnerable to poor early draws, and I frequently had few to no towers.  It is also fully dependent on a combo with only two copies of each card in the deck, so in half the games I never completed the combo or got it in my last 10 cards.

• Seism 1 (Easy win.  He had few enough lands that I could keep them destroyed.)
• Gemini 0 (He used Twin Universe 7 times in one turn on a Momentumed Phase Recluse, after I had already used both Improved Antimatters.  Lost by 1 turn, as the poison from that would have gotten thim.)
• Chaos Lord 0 (He got a mutant with steal on turn 2.  With a turn 1 Discord, it took 5 turns to get enough entropy to Supernova.  By then, his second mutant had destroy.  Never drew a scorpion.)
• Incarnate 0 (1 tower and 1 Supernova in my first 13 cards.  The first tower never generated a time quantum.  20 cards in before any tower generated a water quantum.)
• Graviton 0 (No Pulverizer lasted 2 rounds.  1st scorpion was card #20, no time for poison to work.  The Improved Antimatter kept me alive, but that is a long time to sit there doing 0 damage.  Mindgate is useless when every creature has fewer hp than the 3 Unstoppable Elite Otyughs already in play.  1st Permafrost Shield was card 25.  The 2nd Unstoppable never came.  He ended with 17 poison.)
• Destiny 0 (Turn 2 Elite Phase Dragon, turn 3 Massive Dragon.  Healing kept me alive a long time, but never drew an Unstoppable.)
• Elidnis 0 (Got the DS/Unstoppable combo at turn 10.  It got its one hit in before being lobotomized.  Never drew a wall.)
• Destiny 1 (Destiny had weak Fate Eggs early on: Physalia and Retrovirus with no Supernova for ~8 turns.  My Permafrost Shield went up on turn 3, DS/Unstoppable on turn 4.  He didn't rewind it for ~6 turns despite an Eternity and at least one Rewind in hand -- AI weakness.  His 5 Electrum Hourglasses killed him faster than anything I ever did versus a FG.  Please. keep drawing more Towers in the mid-game.  Ended with 47 poison.)
• Octane 0 (Decked out.  Weak initial draw, as has happened most games.  First Scorpion was card #22.  No time for poison to work.)
• Graviton 0 (No towers or Supernova in initial hand.  Drew Supernovas on turns 3, 4 & 6.  First tower was card #17.  Died 18 cards in without ever drawing Unstoppable; had both DS in hand.)

10 games is not statistically significant, especially with my luck lately, but I spent most of the games sitting there watching the computer play.  The only two winning games were when the computer had a poor draw.

27

False Gods / Re: Most humiliating FG defeats

« on: August 22, 2010, 10:32:19 am »

On the positive side, here is the end of a LONG game against Elidnis.  You may not be able to tell, but this is the turn before an EM victory.
(http://imageplay.net/)
Both my Pulverizers were in my last 5 cards, while my Eternity was in my opening hand.  I stole one of the Feral Bonds early on, but I had no way of dealing with the others without decking out.  The other 5 I have?  Mind Gate.  The one still in my hand?  I had not realized you could cap out on permanents in play, but I hit that cap.  Note also the 47/41 Lava Destroyer on my side and the 40/41 Forest Spectre on his side, both Quintessed.

The Purple Nymph is really what made this one work; you can also see a 0/37 Spectre, a -8/35, 2/39, -8/41...  Really, if Elidnis had stopped playing creatures after the Quintessed Spectre, except for flayers and frogs, I could not have survived.

28

False Gods / Re: Most humiliating FG defeats

« on: August 22, 2010, 10:26:47 am »

Back to back games today, using my modified "CC? Why bother?":
Decay: 2 towers in the first 23 cards.
Elidnis: 0 towers in the first 16 cards, died before seeing how deeply the 3rd one was buried.
Sorry, I couldn't bear to save a picture of either.

I sometimes think of tracking these.  I just had another two with no second tower and the second tower the turn before I died.  Advice I have received on why Eternal Phoenix is easy with CCYB is funny: just don't have him destroy your shield.  EP's deck has 8 Explosions.

Here's another good one: 18 cards of a 37-card deck against Gemini, never drew a tower.

(http://imageplay.net/)

29

Rainbow Decks / Re: (1.24) CC? Why bother?

« on: August 22, 2010, 10:14:33 am »

edit: wait a minute....mindgate doesnt stop deckout

But Eternity does, which you could also fit in.  Mindgate has been a mix for me: sometimes devastatingly awesome, sometimes completely useless.  It seems to be useless when I most need it and awesome when I already have the advantage.  I'm considering taking it back out.  It's horrible when Rainbow steals it (and everything else, because Rainbow seems to somehow start with a hand of 6 Quantum Towers, 4 Explosions, and 4 Steals  ).

30

False Gods / Re: Most humiliating FG defeats

« on: August 22, 2010, 03:07:02 am »

Back to back games today, using my modified "CC? Why bother?":
Decay: 2 towers in the first 23 cards.
Elidnis: 0 towers in the first 16 cards, died before seeing how deeply the 3rd one was buried.
Sorry, I couldn't bear to save a picture of either.

I sometimes think of tracking these.  I just had another two with no second tower and the second tower the turn before I died.  Advice I have received on why Eternal Phoenix is easy with CCYB is funny: just don't have him destroy your shield.  EP's deck has 8 Explosions.

31

General Discussion / Re: Oracle be holdin' out on meh!

« on: August 21, 2010, 04:08:04 pm »

If you mean the oracle tells you which fg you are going to fight next but didn't, the reason is maybe you fight another ai or log out and log in as that will reset the fg.

No, s/he means that the Oracle has not been listing a FG.  It has been at least two weeks since the Oracle has said anything other than "--" as a FG for me.

32

Rainbow Decks / Re: (1.24) CC? Why bother?

« on: August 17, 2010, 12:26:14 am »

Have there been any relevant AI changes with respect to this deck?  I think I have just been having horrible luck, the "1 pillar in your first 20 cards for three games in a row" kind of luck, because my wins have fallen to ~35% since the latest update.

33

General Discussion / Re: Things I've learned while playing Elements...

« on: August 15, 2010, 03:38:13 pm »

Your understanding of the range of normal randomization becomes astounding.  Given enough chances, every possible perverse event will happen.  I have had quite a few entire games in which I never drew a tower.  On that "one quantum you need" point, I have seen the 1/12 chance fail to happen on over 50 trials.  I have seen a deck with 6 of something draw none with 7 cards left in the stack, and you have no idea how comforted I was to see someone's story that I was not the only one.

34

Rainbow Decks / Re: (1.24) CC? Why bother?

« on: August 07, 2010, 04:51:10 am »

When I got my first EM victory over Seism, using Fractal on one of his gnomes to deal most of the damage (ha, Rewind those!), I thought it was my favorite Elements game ever.  Then I decided that I had never used Miracle to save myself, only to increase electrum gains by using it on my last turn, so I swapped it and an Antimatter out for a Purple Nymph and another Quintessence.  This led to my new favorite: using the Nymph to reverse Morte's Vampires.  There is not much better than getting an EM victory with the False God dealing most of the damage to itself.

35

Octane / Re: From Oracle to Octane, no rares or upgraded cards

« on: July 29, 2010, 10:43:37 pm »

He destroyed my two Entropy Pillars, and I did not live long enough to draw a third one despite using 3 Heals.  Yay random number generator.

36

General Discussion / Re: Stories of Bizarre

« on: July 27, 2010, 12:40:23 am »

when the AI does something stupid(like pulverizez an hourglass, instead of a threathening permanent)

I'm pretty sure that Hourglasses get top priority in destruction/theft.

Ah yes, the 0/* immaterial creatures.  Vicious, evil random number generator.

My latest bit of bizarre was my last game: I never drew a single tower.  With a towerless deck, that would make sense, but...  The SoGs let me get half way through my deck before the FG finished me.