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Messages - brain9h (100)

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97
Deck Compilations / Please criticize my aether deck.
« on: December 15, 2009, 10:09:28 pm »

but "proving" such a thing is 1) ridiculously complicated and 2) flies in the face of the empirical observations of myself and other players, so I can't help but look askance at this kind of declaration.)
Exactly, it is complicated. For a while I thought about the hypothetical advantages of Immortals and decided to run some numbers to check it out. What I did was plot damage done X turn X quanta generated X enemy shields (-0, -1 or -2 physical dmg reduction). To simplify I modelled pillar drawing as a real number, quanta/turn, which starts at turn 1 with an integer number [1,7]; I did not bother to plot all possible combinations of everything because after a couple of tests I saw the pattern and felt satisfied.

What I noticed as result was that a deck that only plays dragons instead of playing immortals will be even in damage at maximum after 11 turns. That's because in many scenarios of slow quanta starts, playing an early immortal 'speeds' you up, but unless you can win before 11 turns, phase dragons catch up. Actually phase dragons catch up most of the times by turn 5-6, depending on the opening, 11 turns is like a worst-case scenario

A typical game: you will have at least 6 quanta by the 3rd turn, but not 13 (let's say, end turn 1 with 4 pillars, draw a pillar, end turn, draw non-pillar); Therefore by turn 3 you could play an immortal, or you could save quanta and play a dragon later, at turn 4 or the 5; If you actually calculate you will see that it does more damage if you don't play the immortal and save for the phase dragon. Damage contribution of that single immortal played at turn 2 will be (0,0,4,4,4,4,4...) or 4*(n-2); If you delay 2 turns instead while you build quanta and play a Dragon, that dragon damage contribution will be (0,0,0,0,8,8,8,8...) or 8*(n-4), resolving 8n-32 >= 4n-8 ===> n >= 6; That means after turn 6 phase dragon is already doing more damage. After turn 6 the only way for immortals to catch up would be to play another Immortal, in which case balance starts to favor HEAVILY towards dragons because of card cost: the chance that you will draw lots of immortals in succession is small, and as quanta builds up you might as well play dragons instead. You can variate upon this scenario, and you will notice that the results doesn't change, slower starts will only increase that number to 8-11, depending on shields;

This game is statistical, which means it doesn't matter against whom you win a game, as long as your grand total of wins is a larger number. In my experience I found 3 situations where immortals have advantage, and here is why I don't bother
- Against boneyards: more cards, easier to break through, but honestly, its impractical to deck 6 immortals, the deck won't do damage, and decking only 1 or 2 immortals and hoping that them will appear early to help against the boneyard is just wishful thinking. If you want you can wishful think that your enemy will be unlucky on his draws, its the same thing. Also, even immortal is an expensive card compared to what other decks can do to break boneyard, and boneyard is balanced against them. I found to be best to build as solid base of 4-5 dragons and pack a huge punch of dmg when boneyard is down instead of relying on a quicker kill of the shield. And I have shields, so I can afford to wait.
- Against gravity shield: Don't bother losing some here. Against the AI I can win most of the times using a smart PU, but honestly, if the gravity guy is luck to drawn gravity shield early... I doubt even 2 early immortals would win you a game. An armagio alone can soak all your damage. Winning against gravity is either something you seriously plan your deck for or give up... 2 or 3 extra immortals in your deck is just hoping for the good luck to draw 6 pillars and 2 immortals in the first 8 cards... with luck like that you can do it without immortals as well.
- Against quanta denial: sometimes in the very beginning of games against denial decks you will have 6 quanta to play an immortal, but the enemy will soon start pulling out steals/EQ/devourers to keep you from ever reaching 13 to play a dragon. I recognize it would be good to have some immortals here, but honestly I think immortals slow you down so much overall that its better not work bothering for a general-purpose deck.

Where more dragons help, immensely
- Against poison: need DAMAGE
- Against FFQ+Empatic bond: need DAMAGE
- Against dissipation shield: need LOTS OF DAMAGE

:D

98
Deck Compilations / Please criticize my aether deck.
« on: December 15, 2009, 10:09:28 pm »

With no immortals in my deck hitting an enemy with gravity shield = instant loooose!

Your math is wrong.
The calculations didn't prove I would win every game. I don't bother losing some of the games against gravity shields, as long as I can win others in return

99
Deck Compilations / Please criticize my aether deck.
« on: December 15, 2009, 10:09:28 pm »

Then all you proved is that you don't bother too loose some games. Which is ok.
You did not prove that immortal is useless.
True, I should have worded my original statement better. I do believe immortals to be a liability in a mono-aether deck, it's better not to use them.

100
Deck Compilations / Please criticize my aether deck.
« on: December 15, 2009, 10:09:28 pm »
I have yesterday proved mathematically that for all matters the Immortal is a useless card. If you're counting on him to win against gravity shields (which dragons can't bypass), you're better off staying with dragons anyway, lose to gravity, and compensate your score/electrum losses elsewhere :D

My mono-aether:
Hover over cards for details, click for permalink
Deck import code : [Select]
61o 61o 61o 61o 61o 61o 61o 61o 61o 61o 61o 61o 61o 61o 61o 61o 61o 61r 61t 61t 61t 61t 61t 61t 61u 61v 61v 61v 61v 61v 8pu


My ather-life for farming lvl 3 masteries:
Hover over cards for details, click for permalink
Deck import code : [Select]
5c2 5c2 5c5 61o 61o 61o 61o 61o 61o 61o 61o 61o 61o 61o 61o 61o 61o 61o 61o 61o 61r 61t 61t 61t 61t 61t 61t 61u 61v 61v 61v 61v 61v 8pn


2-Weapons-Aether (good if you just got another rare weapon)
Standard deck, replace 1 Dragon for a Morningstar, +Mark of Light

This works well, because weapons do high damage, cost very little quanta, have special abilities and are protected from creature attack. Adding a second weapon to your aether deck will make it faster and less quanta-intensive, and you will get a VERY HIGH probability of starting out with a weapon to play, which is great, not to mention you will have an edge in pvp against other mono-aether decks.



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blarg: brain9h