Guest posts by nolf

25

False Gods / Re: Most humiliating FG defeats

« on: October 10, 2011, 09:09:27 pm »

Not really humiliating... but I finally got my second lobotomizer today (hooray) and together with my four upped RoL decided to give my first RoL/Hope deck a try. After a few warmup games against AI3 I took on my first false god. Took a lot of damage until I finally got my shield up, fractalled the ray of light again, shield at 13, 14, dealing some damage as well, no dragon in sight... and then Destiny played a reverse time on a RoL every turn and chaos powered a damn firefly she hatched early on up to 21/19 and slowly but surely she took the lead again and there was nothing I could do. If only I had a dragon out, but with the reverse time, it just wasn't meant to be...

26

Gold League Decks / Re: What deck did you submit today? ( Gold )

« on: October 10, 2011, 07:44:28 am »

Nolf: My arena decks usually fail too. I think the best I ever did was 17-6 and usually I'm out by the next day. But congrats on your success! (Even with mono fire, lol.)

After two days it's 19-2! Yeah! Sorry it's mono fire. I spent 4 points for upgraded cards, so one minor phoenix ("from Oracle") my only upgraded Fahrenheit, one Cremation and my only two (upgraded) shards (1 SoD, 1 SoG).

My whole elements story basically goes like this: I was given life cards and spent ages turning it into a decent AI3 grinder without even consulting the forum, of course lots of dragons and heals, only once I read the forums I realised there are better and faster ways. The little money I made I spent upgrading my druidic staff and Carapace. Without the Arena (and Grabbix) and Liquid Antimatter I'd still be there. The jump from Elder to Half-Blood is far too steep imho, I'm not sure I ever won a game. And T50 I also stood little chance against. I had to spend all the electrum I had to build Grabbix and Liquid Antimatter and for many elements I only have the cards I won in the meantime and I'm still missing plenty.

When the Arena was introduced (or rather, I took note of it) from all my AI3 grinding I was already level 25-ish. There, I had some decks that got into the top 20 - never spending points on upgraded cards cause I had so few, makes more sense to spend the points elsewhere, methinks. But that's not good enough for the gold league, plus even if the deck wins more games then it loses it can still drop out of the top 500 quickly. And now success, but it does feel a bit cheap, even I know by now that fire is rather overpowered. But apart from my original life it's the only element I actually know a little about.

27

Duo-Decks / Re: Unupped fg farmer! Liquid Antimatter 1.28

« on: October 09, 2011, 08:42:15 pm »

It's all covered in the opening post, some gods you have to quit against right away. And against most of them you'll need a little luck. But considering it's unupped, without rares, it's amazing. Tonight I managed to beat Dark Matter twice in a row, Paradox, Incarnate and even Seism. It is right of theonlyrealbeef to recommend skipping Seism, the quicksands make it extremely tough. I never had the quanta to play a shield, HP dropped to 20 real quick and I just got out the cards in time.

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Gold League Decks / Re: What deck did you submit today? ( Gold )

« on: October 09, 2011, 08:18:46 am »

Oracle yesterday chose Phoenix so I went with a pretty boring mono fire deck, I always just throw in the few cards I have (for some elements I still don't even possess any towers). I tested it a couple of times and it seemed to work well enough. Directly afterwards I tried grinding the gold league with what still works best for me, Grabbix with only Immos and Graboids upgraded, I don't have the upgraded cards for a good real upgraded deck - and faced my own deck and beat it! So it was 0-1 and I thought, ah well, like all my decks so far since I moved into the gold league it will drop out of the top 500 immediately. But I checked this morning and it's now 8-1! So none of you sorry losers managed to beat the deck.

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Duo-Decks / Re: Unupped fg farmer! Liquid Antimatter 1.28

« on: October 04, 2011, 04:46:37 pm »

Here's my humble opinion (after maybe 50 "full" games with this deck): I can't see it helping much. You're extremely dependent on both the combo cards, so using a deck with more than 30 cards increases the risk of not getting them (and sadly, even with 30 cards it happens often enough). Against the high attack/HP creatures this deck is best against, the shields are more important than a dagger, and the combo more powerful (sweet if you get the right hand and Akebono, you have creatures that heal you and damage him 20ish HP per turn).  Plus what patchx said, of course. Add one if you like and see if it helps you. Could also consider the unupgraded version because of the quanta cost.

Chaos power - as theonlyrealbeef shows in his upgraded version - is a better addition.

Edit: Yet another loss against Obliterator without even damaging him. I'd upgrade him to medium at least. Like Akebono, you really need a good draw because he gets out his creatures and his weapon really fast, the latter destroys your shield (so don't even bother) or even your pendulums which can also be fatal. So hope for two antimatters early on and then hope he plays dragons and not just shriekers or two antimatters and liquid shadows for those pesky shriekers.

Another edit, another loss against Obliterator. Damnit. Started so well with the combo on a momentumed dragon, but wouldn't draw another antimatter (had 13 pendulums instead...). But wins vs. Akebono (drew an antimatter at the last chance and turned it around), Destiny (also a tough fight), Miracle (who didn't have any miracles) and even Hermes (perfect draw on both sides).

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Duo-Decks / Re: Unupped fg farmer! Liquid Antimatter 1.28

« on: October 02, 2011, 07:24:24 pm »

I'd like to point out that I don't find Obliterator easy with this deck, I'd say I lost 8 out of 8 games. Lots of unlucky draws, granted, but he does get a number of creatures and his weapon out quickly. Even antimattering two dragons doesn't put you on the safe side with, say, three burrowed shiekers, one out in the open and his pulverizer, because that also means no shields for you. You might end up having to use the combo on a shrieker and he doesn't last long...

In general I wish it was a slightly more reliable deck. So many games could have gone my way if only I had the right cards. Great deck nonetheless, and wins are very satisfying.

nice deck. takes too much brain power for me to use;/

If you're not joking - and the poster beforehand seemed to have troubles as well - let me enlighten you, it's a very straightforward deck, only four different cards. You (nearly) never want to play a liquid shadow without antimattering at the same time otherwise the creature will just heal the opponent. Do antimatter creatures first (see tactics for individual FGs in the thread opener) to heal you. Don't do it with creatures that can grow - like forest spirits - because, say, it's at 8/9 and you antimatter it to -8/9 (healing you for 8 ), each time it grows by +2/+2 you "lose" healing (so it goes to -6/11 and then -4/13 and so on) and even worse, you lose the potential damage of the liquid shadow later on. Sometimes it cannot be avoided just to stay alive and sometimes you'll have to liquid shadow creatures so they lose their special power, like druids (or even otyughs), which will otherwise attack the other creatures you use the combo on.

In general, you'll want to play both antimatter and liquid shadow on the same turn. Which is especially true for creatures with lots of HP like massive dragons, 30 HP, that's theoretically 30 turns of healing and damaging the opponent. The less HP (and the more attacking power), the better it usually is to only antimatter a creature at first. As theonlyrealbeef recommends, this is true for Neptune, for example. He's got arctic dragons (13/5) and crawlers (6/6). If you you the combo too soon and he gets out lots of creatures, you lose the healing power after 5 or 6 turns because the creatures die and your health might be in danger. In this case you can use all your six antimatters first, healing you the whole time without damaging him. And wait with the liquid shadows until you are down to a few cards. Two dragons and four crawlers, for example, would then damage him 50 HP per turn and he's done in four turns. Last time I played Neptune he didn't get out any dragons and so I lost (by deck out, health was fine).

I also added one upgraded card I got at some point - chaos power. It's quite useful to use before the rest of the combo, because it grants a random improvement to both attack and defence which is exactly what you want and it only costs 1 entropy quantum.

31

Archived Decks / Re: Grabbix

« on: October 02, 2011, 09:46:37 am »

I'm still short on upped cards and thus have to stick to mostly unupped decks and I keep returning to Grabbix. It's got so much going for it:

1. It's extremely fast. I enjoy epic matches, but since Elements involves so much grinding to make money and gain cards, speed is (in)valuable.

2. Since I only have two (quantum) towers, a deck like this is the only one that allows me to play creatures and deal damage on the first turn.

3. With good draws it's possible to get out 20+ damage by the second turn (and kept unchecked a ton of damage soon after).

4. Relying only on the mark, novas and immolations for quanta, it doesn't care about earthquakes, devourers and discords aren't much trouble and even black holes aren't game stoppers.

5. I usually play a 32 card version with a fog shield (and deflag, see 8.) but if I expect steals I don't bother playing my weapon and shield, neither are necessary to win.

6. Phoenixes are tough to kill.

7. In general, having a lot of fairly powerful creatures out (Phoenixes and Shriekers) means even Maxwell's demons or otys aren't much of a threat... burrow shriekers if you must, otherwise just keep them out.

8. Upgrading: Obviously, cremations are really helpful, I now have 5 of them. Which allows me to add at least one deflagration which is nice to have for an annoying shield (fire or dim, theoretically thorn carapace). Elite graboids are better, too, obviously.

9. Weaknesses: Sure, plenty of them - depending on the draws. The good news is, especially with the upgrades, it's not bad for farming silver and even gold league because there's always the chance the draw goes well for you and badly for the opponent and it's all over in 6 or 7 turns. The bad news - it's not consistent enough to win six in a row in bronze for a special spin and there are "safer" options for AI3. Grabbix's nightmare is obviously... nightmare. But who doesn't hate nightmare? Oh, and the unholy shield, which fortunately not many people use. The fewer HP a creature has, the bigger the chances of being turned into a skeleton, so it's the perfect counter for phoenixes.

My humble summary: Speed is probably your best bet in the arena, where opponents have more HP, upgraded cards and so on. And speed is good anyway unless you want to waste the whole day playing Elements. And considering the setup it has surprisingly few weaknesses. And it's flexible, too. I've played with a vampire dagger, a nightmare, a purify... take out one or two cards and add others instead.

32

Chaos Lord / Re: Oracle : Chaos Lord

« on: October 02, 2011, 08:29:37 am »

Only tried this deck once so far and didn't get anywhere - early discord for the chaos lord, no mind flayer in sight for me, first RoL he mutated got the freeze ability... maybe next time.

33

Morte / Re: Oracle : Morte

« on: September 27, 2011, 07:57:10 am »

Obviously. I had to draw too many cards until I could get the first nymph out. As luck would have it, I got Morte again today and I swapped one hourglass for a fourth air pendulum (yesterday's problem) and won this time with plenty of cards to spare.  Maybe something to consider for your deck? Somebody reported the problem of bringing out too many hourglasses anyway not leaving enough spots for the unstable gases. Anyway, many thanks for the deck, I finally even got a card from beating a false god, has been absolutely ages.

34

Morte / Re: Oracle : Morte

« on: September 26, 2011, 08:49:35 am »

Nice idea, I was short one card, deckout, damn.

35

Lionheart / Re: Oracle : Lionheart

« on: September 23, 2011, 08:07:59 am »

Nice EM win with the darkness/gravity shield deck. Worked like a charm, thanks.

/rant start Can't remember the last time I got a card, though... even on the special spins grinding the bronze league I hardly ever end up with a card and farming false gods I've probably not seen a card the last 10 wins or so. I've now got an arena level of 43 - and as it happens exactly 43 upgraded cards (plus one whopping nymph) all over the place (like one ray of light for the eventual RoL/hope deck, for which I also still need two lobotomizers). Drop rates have not been kind to me. Embarrassing to put up a deck for the gold league, at least I never have to spend many points on wisdom... /rant end.

36

Incarnate / Re: Oracle : Incarnate

« on: September 22, 2011, 04:11:49 pm »

Had all the cards for Arondights deck, won with EM, yeah. Health dropped fairly low early on, I was getting worried, but got it all set up in time. Great deck,, has a counter for all the threats, destroy for the graveyards, demons to deal with the poison creatures and of course antimatter for the vampires, knew the power of that from the deck liquid antimatter. Thanks!