Mono Life, Mono Aether, or Grab/Shriek Rush?

[xKelevra]

I'm wondering which deck would be more effective against AI5 unupgraded. I have the Graboid/Shrieker Rush deck unupped right now and it's doing okay. Would Mono Life or Aether do better?

[Baily18]

Mono aether would. Just try it out

[icybraker]

Mono-Life and Shrieker Spam are both solely aggressive decks; they concentrate on fast damage for cheap. This plan won't usually work against LVL5; they have 2 times more life than you do and a fair amount of attack. Mono-Aether has a fair amount of damage, as well as delivering defense. Mono-Aether is the way to go

[Tea is good]

Gonna say Mono aether. They don't seem to field enough creatures to actually do much damage, and if you have immortal creatures they can't do much of anything. For the rare times when their damage actually goes above 20 per turn, you have Phase shields. 5 damage to a creature is as much as you really need, if you want to add lightning and those pesky creatures with abilities can be loboed.

[xKelevra]

Thanks for the fast feedback

How would mono aether do against T50? I'm 4 rares away from my ideal FG deck and I intend to farm T50. Also, which one is fastest vs. AI3?

[Essence]

Mono-Aether is crap against t50; too many Steals, Deflags, and Pulverizers to ruin your immaculate Dimensional Shields.

If you want to farm t50, try a simple Shrieker Rush: 6 Graboids, 6 Shriekers, 2 Long Swords, and 16 Stone Pillars, with Time Mark.  It's not perfect, but it's cheap and effective.

[icybraker]

For both AI3 and T50, you want SPEED; that's the ONLY thing you need. Other strategies against these guys include quantum denial and full control decks, but although these decks are very sound and win quite often, they are not even half as fast as speed decks.

Essence's Shrieker deck works perfectly; a speed Mono-Fire will also work fine, you'll find plenty of those searching the forum. Another great deck speed deck to try is Speed Poison.

[pikachufan2164]

Speed Poison doesn't work too well unupgraded against the top 50 -- there are too many ways of healing off the poison damage, and you can't lay down the poison quickly enough to overtake their healing.

Gravity/Earth denial (Earthquake, Black Hole, Sapphire Charger, etc.) works quite well against Rainbows, and moderately well against other decks.

I haven't tried Dark/Earth denial yet, but it might work unupgraded.

[xKelevra]

Ah. What's a denial? :x I haven't been playing for too long. >_<

[icybraker]

Denial is a style of deck focused on "denying" your opponent of certain critical aspects of the game, usually quanta.

For example, Darkness / Earth denial focuses on using Devourers to drain the opponent of quanta, as well as using Earthquakes to destroy pillars.

[xKelevra]

oic. So what would be the generic number of cards I would have? (i.e. X pillar A, Y pillar B, Z creature A, etc)

[pikachufan2164]

oic. So what would be the generic number of cards I would have? (i.e. X pillar A, Y pillar B, Z creature A, etc)

That would really depend on your style of playing, and the deck in question.

For example, a Shrieker Rush deck would almost always be Time mark with 6 Graboids. Some people might choose to run 6 Shriekers, others might go with fewer. Supporting cards could include some combination of Quicksands, Rewinds, or Precognitions -- Quicksand for more denial, Rewind for more creature control, Precognition for more card drawing.