Task 4: The DeterminedThe main strength strengths of the
element are represented by the following types of decks:
- Rainbow (Main cards: Nova, Lycanthrope)
- Denial (Main card: Discord)
- Control/Stall (Main cards: Dissipation Shield, Antimatter, Pandemonium)
- Midrange (Main cards: Discord, Abomination, Purple Dragon
The above list considers fully unupped or few upgrades. However, with upgrades increasing, the decks lose quite a bit of their strength. The Rainbows are easier to counter/outrush, Denials are no longer as effective, Control decks gain close to nothing when they're upgraded and the midrange decks are also not gaining much except for the Purple Dragon becoming 12/6 for 11
quantum (which is arguably best stats/cost distribution for dragons). Shards are also very dangerous. While upgraded Shard of Serendipity is very fun and pretty good in SNbows, it's no much to a rush and is easily completely destroyed by EQs, BHs and other denials. With that in mind, the PvP event (tournament, in this case) rules are:
- Shards and upgraded cards are allowed, but not required.
- For every element you use your deck, you must reduce the number of upgraded cards in your deck by 5 (For example, a 30 cards
/ 
duo may only use a maximum of 20 upgrades). An element is considered "used" if at least one card from that element is present in the deck (pillars, pends and mark cards do not count) - For every shard you use in your deck, you must reduce the number of upgraded cards in your deck by 3. (This rule applies for number of shard cards, not shard types. For example, using 4 Shards of Serendipity will reduce by 12, not by 3.
- In each deck you may play only 5+ cost cards OR only 5- cost cards.
- Deck size must be at least 40 cards if using 5- cost. 5+ cost may use any deck size. (To ensure that rush decks won't dominate the meta, or at least they won't be as effective)
- Discord, Earthquake, Fire Bolt, Trident, Blue Nymph, Reverse Time are banned.
Now, what kind of entropy deck could we build in this scenario? Novabows lose a lot of upgrades and flexibility, Denial just doesn't work (because Discord is just outright banned in most tournaments), Control/Stall can only use either antimatter, either pandemonium+dissipation and midrange is simply not as strong without Discord.
First question that needs to be asked is "What would others play?". The answer to that would be:
- Mono rush (5- cost, such as mono death with mummy/recluse/poison/arsenic)
- Mono midrange (5- cost, such as mono water with freeze, mono earth with BB)
- Duo CC splash (5- cost)
- Mono Air control with flying OE and other CC (5- cost)
- Mono Time with Pharaoh/Golden Nymph/Eternity (5+ cost)
- Mono Water nymphs (5+ cost)
- Mono Aether with Dragons/Dim Shield (5+ cost)
Those are some of the decks that come to my mind. Would there be a way of surviving the faster decks, but also managing to outvalue the slower decks? The answer is yes. We have a few possibilities. Next I am going to present one 5+ cost deck and a 5- cost deck.
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4sj 4sj 4sj 4sj 4sj 4sj 50u 50u 622 622 6ts 6tv 6tv 6tv 6ve 6ve 6ve 6ve 6ve 6ve 6ve 80b 80b 80b 80d 80d 80d 80d 80d 80d 8puFirst on the list is Fractal/PUgons, which can either play normally i.e. playing creatures/spells as you get them against faster decks without very good CC, like mono death, for example or it can wait for OTK by saving up to 66
quantum, 28
quantum and having 1 dragon, 3 PUs and 1 fractal in hand. (for a total of 108 damage). Usually this deck would have a weapon, Lobotomizer most likely, that would deal some damage beforehand reducing the number of cards/quantum needed, but with those rules, we can't put one in. This deck is based solely on the fact that the rest of the decks will be way more inconsistent. (5- cost decks are 40 cards and 5+ cost decks will most likely take some time to set up themselves and they also can't use PC, because most of them cost less than 5 quantum). This deck would most likely lose to something with heavy PC (like mono darknesss) or early deadly poisons, but otherwise, it should be able to do quite well.
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4ve 4ve 4ve 4ve 4vp 4vp 4vp 4vp 4vp 4vp 6ve 6ve 6ve 6ve 6ve 6ve 6ve 6ve 6ve 6ve 6ve 6ve 6ve 6ve 6ve 718 718 718 718 718 718 71a 71a 71a 71b 71b 71b 71b 71b 71b 8pkAnother deck we could try is pandwall (or pandemonium, as some like to call it), though a bit fatter than usual. It has plenty of defense through pande/BW and plenty of damage through deadly poison/arsenic/abomination. Bonewalls should be able to stop slow decks in their tracks and pande does the same to faster decks, especially when combined with a BW. In the end, no matter what the deck, the arsenics+poisons should be able to take down almost anything. Of course, this deck will almost always lose if the opponent uses a few purifies or has a lot of healing and damage that gets through BW. Of course, it is still possible to win with early arsenic due to the damage ramping up quite quickly.
Even though most of
's main archetypes were shutdown, there are always some of them left due to it being a flexible element.
