Guest posts by zhen_rogue

13

Archived Decks / Re: Untouchable Rares Deck

« on: February 07, 2010, 12:07:29 am »

Achilles heel for this deck is a Fire Buckler, just one and you're now unable to damage your opponent.
If you try this versus FGs, i'd be interested in stats. I ran a similar deck (with fire mark and explosions for permanent-control) against the FGs and lost 90% of the games due to deck-out. Just couldn't do enough damage against opponents with lots of regen, or lots of shields, or the damn Fire Buckler.

14

False Gods / Re: How long does it take you on average to take down a FG?

« on: February 06, 2010, 05:33:56 pm »

Rainbow is a complete pain - the hourglasses take a long time since 1.17 I think, and the explosions/steals are also terribly annoying.
I likewise insta-quit versus this FG.

15

Trio & Quartet / Re: Nymphomania (anti-FG) + stats

« on: February 02, 2010, 11:06:59 pm »

After spending a few days in the trainer testing the deck, I can say it IS a whole lot of fun! It certainly feels like it has a lower ratio, but the gods you CAN kill, you pretty much always do. Plus, and sorry for repeating myself, it's an extremely fun deck to play

Agreed.
The deck is a blast, and performs very well against some FGs (Gemini, Graviton), and is completely useless versus others (DivineGlory, DarkMatter).
I enjoy it much more than rainbows, and since i'm viewing success as time invested versus cards won, I don't care about insta-quitting versus the long shots.
I still think there is room for improvement, and will post any additional ideas/suggestions as I come up with them.

Right now, the weakest facet of the deck (not including DivineGlory) is early permanent and quanta control.
Explosions, steals, quicksands, pulverizers, and black holes kill me more than everything else combined.
I'm still working out a way to mitigate some of the problem, but nothing that ends up playing well yet.

16

Trio & Quartet / Re: Nymphomania (anti-FG) + stats

« on: February 02, 2010, 03:25:05 am »

Using the Mirror Shiled is indeed a great choice, with any other weapon (or lack of weapon).
The only reason I passed to the Emerald, was simply due to minimizing quanta usage.
I love the big-ass 8dmg Morning Glory, and I love that it can't be stolen/exploded.

I'm still experimenting with weapons and shields, I really like the Pulverizer/Mirror Shield combo - but you essentially can't use it versus any god that steals.
When the opponent gets a pulverizer, you're basically screwed - as this deck is very very tower-dependent.

I'm planning on trying the Long Sword/Mirror Shield combo next.
I want to test exactly how far up on the 1.18 priority list the Long Sword is for explosions, steals, and if the AI is smart enough to overwrite a stolen LS with its own, better weapon.

17

Trio & Quartet / Re: Nymphomania (anti-FG) + stats

« on: February 01, 2010, 03:31:12 am »

EDIT: I'm really liking that Emerald Shield suggestion, with or without upgrade that might help lessen the pain of the occasional bad bout of tiny monster spam. And as I just got my Morning Glory I may as well try that one in there too.

EDIT 2: Got myself in a match with Miracle using zhen's deck minus the two shards and keeping my fourth Quintessence. Miracle didn't pull out any FFQ for me to test the shield with, but just the same there was a definite difference. And I landed a second Morning Glory too, how's that?  8) Now to go find Paradox and see if he's gonna play cheap with me again today.

I tried the upped version of Emerald Shield... and while the -2 damage is very nice, it's not worth the extra 2 casting cost (now 7 total).
The main use of the shield is reflect, secondary is immaterial, and the -1 dmg is just bonus. With a casting cost of 5, you can realistically get it out early or mid-game (2 supernovas and a lucky QT, or 3 supernovas). The 7 cost meant that I had it in my hand the whole game, and was only able to cast it rarely (if ever).

I also dropped the 4th quintessence because for some reason, my "random" seed always seems to give me 3 of them by turn 5 - the 4th one was simply getting in my way as an extra card (you only need 2, and maybe only 1 for most FGs).
That's just me though, by all means use 4 if you get better draw results that way.

18

Trio & Quartet / Re: Nymphomania (anti-FG) + stats

« on: January 31, 2010, 08:25:04 pm »

Having good luck so far with this variation:


Mark of ENTROPY

I played with a lot of weapons (all of them actually), but it seems they were destroyed (or worse, stolen) more often than they actually helped me.
I ended up with the Morning Glory, it does tons of damage and can't be messed with.
Same for the non-upped Emerald Shield - got tired of several FGs fire/ice/lightning bolting me. It likewise can't be stolen or exploded, and the -1 dmg is just frosting.
Both the weapon and the shield are easy casts, don't overlap any quanta, and become available early-mid game.
I played with the sundial suggestion, but never really saw the benefit. I tried 6, then 5, then 2, then none. I also tried upped and non-upped versions, but in the end, they just used up too much space for relatively low return. They were only useful very early-game, as once you have your combo working, you don't want to pause attacks. Thus, I was left with 'dead cards'.
I added the 2 SoGs and have been very pleased thus far. They're cheap, they prolong your weak build-up stage, they counter Morte/Scorpio to an extent, and they're always useful.
I'll also defend the QTs in the deck - they're so much fun end-game to use a Tears on, and hope like hell you see a Wind or Death Nymph. My favorite is the Wind by far, cranking out Unstable Gas every turn is absolutely wonderful. Otherwise, using a Death Nymph for Alfatoxin is also very VERY handy, especially when you have the Emerald Shield up.

19

Trio & Quartet / Re: Nymphomania (anti-FG) + stats

« on: January 30, 2010, 11:46:08 pm »

Simple hypothetical situation:
-FG has a 5/5 varmint (end result = player loses 5 life/turn, FG life remains unchanged)
-Player uses Antimatter on 5/5 varmint, making it -5/5 (end result = player gains 5 life/turn, FG life remains unchanged)
-Player uses Liquid Shadow on -5/5 antimatter varmint (end result = player gains 5 life/turn, FG loses 5 life/turn)

This one. Adding vampire to an enemy creature doesn't heal you, it only EVER affects the enemy. Whether it affects them by giving them health (+ health) or draining it (+ a negative number, which is subtracting) depends on you.

Rainingblood, thank you so much for this deck. I sold off my big clunky Scaredgirl rainbow deck once it started getting trounced (between some AI changes and new gods, although it was a great deck before) and tried yours. It's pretty good, although after playing a bunch of matches with it I'd like to note a few things.

-With only two obsidian towers you're really pushing your luck if you hope to have enough darkness quantum to vampire enough opponent creatures and deal enough damage by the end of the match. I've tried dropping one Nymph's Tears (you really only need two and then they're more or less wasted rounds when you keep drawing them later, it's worth the risk of not drawing one right away) and adding a third tower, which seems to have cleaned up the problem a bit.

-Miracle is not easy at ALL unless you're very lucky and avoid the firefly queen spam. Or if you manage to get a dark nymph out in time to change the queen's skill to "vampire" so they can't spawn. Otherwise I get trounced pretty regularly, and he does still use the Miracle card at times.

-Paradox is also pretty awful, "hard to control" doesn't begin to cover the frustration of having to spend four entropy quantums a pop for little 1/1 or 2/2 monsters that swarm the board.    I've managed to win a few times, but I'd say this one is at least medium. I just can't heal/reverse enough damage using all those little beasts, if Paradox was better about duplicating buffed critters on a regular basis it would be easier to keep up.

-I feel like it's possible to get good mileage out of a weapon card with this deck, if I had a time weapon I'd give that a go. Compared to the old giant rainbow deck this one feels very unforgiving, sometimes there just aren't enough rounds in the game to wear a 200 hit point opponent down with its own monsters. Being able to drop a late-game Nymph's Tears that I don't plan to use otherwise on a water pillar and just keep reversing the critter back to my deck to buy some time would be a godsend. An Eagle Eye might be nice too, to help wear down those pesky firefly queens or Paradox's tiny opponent spam. Basically there are a lot of elements you end up with loads of quantum for with this deck that don't get used, so weapons with pricey secondary abilities aren't a real drain anymore. Pulverizer might make Ferox and Firefly Queen beatable.

Even with those quibbles I've still made a tidy profit. Awesome job.

Thanks to you and Del for the clarification on LS.

With regards to weapons:
Eternity's ability is nice on paper, but its priority for explosions/steals/etc is very very high (moreso than other weapons in my experience, though all weapons are high).
Plus, even with a time mark, I only plan on getting one or two uses out of it. I also hate that it's only 4dmg.
I'd suggest playing around with:
-Long Sword (CHEAP, guaranteed cast with universal mana requirement, 5dmg is enough to be noticeable past a jade/permafrost/diamond shield, and if it's stolen - GREAT, the AI has a non-ability weapon that might not get overwritten - the AI has a habit of NOT casting a new weapon when they already have one)
-Discord (cheap, entropy quanta, does 6 damage, could potentially screw up several FGs that have narrower quanta needs)
-Morning Glory (8 damage!, immaterial!, could be annoying to find the 5 light quanta though)

20

Trio & Quartet / Re: Nymphomania (anti-FG) + stats

« on: January 30, 2010, 09:44:12 pm »

At that point you simply use liquid shadow on the most damaging creatures, inverting their damage onto the enemy.

im confused about liquid shadow... you turn whom into vampires? and how does it damage the enemy? Sorry... usually I'm pretty quick, but I don't know what your talking about, lol.

oh, reverse, reverse. i get it. clever.

Ok, now I feel like the dumb one here.

Someone check my math:

Simple hypothetical situation:
-FG has a 5/5 varmint (end result = player loses 5 life/turn, FG life remains unchanged)
-Player uses Antimatter on 5/5 varmint, making it -5/5 (end result = player gains 5 life/turn, FG life remains unchanged)
-Player uses Liquid Shadow on -5/5 antimatter varmint (end result = player gains 5 life/turn, FG loses 5 life/turn)

Is this correct?

OR does the application of Liquid Shadow actually result in:
player gains 10 life/turn (5 for the original antimatter + 5 for the vampire "heal") and FG loses 5 life/turn (5 for the vampire "damage")

OR is it the other way around, in that:
player gains 5 life/turn (5 for the antimatter) and FG loses 10 life/turn (5 for the vampire "damage" + 5 for the reversed vampire "heal")

My head hurts.
 

21

Trio & Quartet / Re: Nymphomania (anti-FG) + stats

« on: January 30, 2010, 03:11:06 am »

Worse over all I'd be ready to agree, but then rainbow wastes a lot of time on unpredictable games, while this deck can beat 8 God's nearly 100% of the time. The point shouldn't be the overall score, but the total time invested. You simply don't fight the God's listed as impossible, focusing instead on those 8-9 that are nearly guaranteed. So in terms of real time, you actually win more games and cards faster this way (you also get more coin from the elemental masteries).

I agree with this assessment.
If there was a deck that could beat 6+ gods almost 100% of the time, I think it's a winner.
I have no qualms about sacrificing some score points to earn enough cashola to fund new decks and card improvements as they become available.
I think this deck has promise, and am anxious to see a few more ideas and results about fine-tuning it.

22

General Discussion / Re: Trainer / unlimited funds?

« on: January 24, 2010, 11:35:03 pm »

Perfect, thanks to both of you for the help.
Exactly what I needed.

23

General Discussion / Trainer / unlimited funds?

« on: January 24, 2010, 11:25:53 pm »

I know about the standard Elements trainer, but is there a way to (offline) build decks of any card (upgraded and non) with unlimited funds, to then test versus AI?
Essentially, I have a lot of deck ideas, but don't have the cash to keep building deck after deck of upgraded cards.
Furthermore, I don't want to grind cash all over again in the trainer (and if I remember right, the trainer doesn't offer the rare weapons in its bazaar).

Maybe i'm missing something in the trainer with regards to cash/weapons, or maybe there's an offline version that has the testing ability i'm after?

Thanks in advance.

24

Patch Notes and Development News / Re: Elements 1.18

« on: January 24, 2010, 09:12:38 pm »

After several refreshes, hard refreshes, and entire browser restarts, I am unable to see any new cards, FGs, or the like, even though the game still says 1.18.

Hopefully this will get to work tomorrow. Really looking forward to smashing up Paradox and Dark Matter

Try to delete cookies, that what did it for me.

Correct, clearing your cache (deleting all temporary internet files/cookies) should work like a charm.