Hi all

[Acacia Avenue]

Hi everyone,

I absolutely love own-deck card games (i was once a Yu-Gi-Oh player, then quit for various reasons), and I was pointed out this game from a friend of mine.

And i'm absolutely enjoing it.

Not having a guide, my playing experience has been a lot random: I started with the water deck, then upgraded it in a water/fire deck based around Steam Machine, then switched to a darkness/entropy denial (I made the mistake of taking Discord as a rare weapon from the quest) and then darkness/earth denial with earthquakes.
So far I had a nice win rate with those 2 decks against level 3, and I wanted to take a step further: reading various forum topics and wiki articles, I built a time/aether deck based on ghost of the past+ fractal with the purpose of beating False Gods. The topic didn't have the strategy, but I guessed it was about stalling with a phase shield chain, then fractaling GotP and swarming my field with them. That deck didn't work very well, since summoning a bunch of GotP wasn't enough to beat them (more than half of my GotP got annihilated in a single turn by the FG), then switched to a darkness/aether deck based around Liquid Shadow + Antimatter. That deck worked a lot better, and is also more fun than the time one. But still, My losses were a lot more than the wins so I started to think that losing electrum just for a chance to win upgraded cards wasn't worth the effort. I took a step back looking for decks to farm Half-Blood, and found myself particularly comfrotable with the mono-aether deck. Still, the electrum gain was slow to none (although I managed to win one or two upgraded cards).
Currently, I'm using the same mono aether deck to grind level 3, and I have a very high win ratio. The only ones who can beat me are the wind/life deck (he always plays hope, firefly queen + effect spam and 2 of those permanents that heal him for every creatyre VERY early, shutting down my damage) and the mono aether one (I added a couple of mind gazes in my deck, hoping they're enough to beat him). From what I saw in game and what I read in the forum, a lobotomizer seems to solve a lot of this deck's problems, but I haven't seen one so far.

Reading the newbie guide in the wiki, I should build a Hope / Ray of Light deck, grinding 9k electrum to upgrade 6 photons into RoLs, and use it to farm FGs. This sound like another blind step to me, so I don't know if I should do that.

So... any suggestions? Any guides? Any expert player willing to partially follow me?

P.S.: Sorry for eventual bad english.

[Acsabi44]

Hello, and welcome tho the game and to the forum:)

Well the best way to start killing FGs is truly the Rol/Hope deck, so I'll describe you how it works.

by Acsabi44

Hover over cards for details, click for permalink

Deck import code : [Select]

5la 5la 5lk 5lk 5lk 5lk 61o 61o 61o 61o 61o 61u 61u 61u 622 622 622 622 622 63a 63a 63a 63a 63a 63a 7jp 7jp 7jp 7jp 7jp 7jp 8pu

You only need 6 upgraded cards to make that deck work (although Lobotomizes up to 3-4 are needed as well), so you can start building the deck as soon as you have that much coins (I think the whole deck costs around 10000 with 6 RoLs)
The 6 cards you need to upgrade are the 6 Photons. Their upgraded form, called Ray of Light, has the same stats as a Photon (1|1 for zero quanta) but they have a very useful ability: Luminescence. They will give you one light quanta every turn, and they count as a light- emitting creature.  Note the synergy with Hope (which absorbs 1 damage for each light-emitting creature on your field) and also note that you need no quanta investment to play a creature that will give you 1  every turn(since RoL is free). That's why the deck needs only aether pillars(the pillar/pendulum split is because of Earthquake.)
The deck works in the following way:
1, You play your pillars/pendulums (maybe a few RoLs too, if you have many in hand)
2, Having reached 10 , you use Fractal on RoL. You should have several copies in your hand now (the more the better); play them.
3, You will gain an amount of  every turn based on the number of your RoLs.
4, Having reached 7 , you play a Hope. It will absorb 1 dmg for every RoL you have. That means if you have 8 RoLs, only creatures with attack of 9 or more can hit you. The Hope is also immaterial, which means it cannot be stollen or destroyed.
5, You continue fractaling and playing RoLs until you are safe from harm. For example, if you know that the opponent's deck contains creatures with no more than 10 attack power, then you need 10 RoLs to defend you. (Usually players play 12-13 of them to ensure a fast  accumulation)
6, When you have enough  quanta, you fractal a Golden Dragon and play the copies, inflicting severe damage in one or two turns.

The lobotomizers are needed to neutralize momentum (which ignores Hope) and dangerous abilities like devour, growth etc.
The deck has several variations. Most notably, the finisher creature varies from upped dragon to upped angel to upped crusader.

The deck fails against lots of FGs (mass CC kills your RoLs, fast quanta denial prevents you from fractaling etc.) but can win games very smoothly against others.

Hope that helps, if anything is unclear, PM me or ask here:)

[Acacia Avenue]

Thanks a lot. I'll start farming electrum to upgrade my 6 photons.
I was doubtful about them because I didn't know they are immaterial, since FG has the power to destroy at least 5 of your creatures in one turn, whatever turn it is.

About the fractal/golden dragon part: golden dragons aren't immaterial, so how can I be sure to still have them after my fractal/spamsummon combo? Maybe I should just let my RoLs poke his health then spamsummon dragons only when I'm sure I will K.O. them.

My main problem then is the lobotomizer, for what I've seen, my only way to  get it is to farm level 3 and hope to face and win against the aether one and hope to win the lobo at spin.

My current lv3 farming deck is:
15x Aether pillar
6x Immortal
4x Phase Dragon
6x Phase Shield
2x Mind Gaze

with aether mark. I know about my vulnerability against earthquakes, but I haven't seen AI3 play them enough to cripple my aether generation, so I left the pillars.
Another vulnerability I have is against shield, but again AI3 don't seem to play them often (except hope).

[Acsabi44]

photons are not immaterial but most times the AI won't waste CC on them. Fire buckler or a retrovirus is a problem tho, that's why a Rol deck fails vs. a lot of gods-
Dragons aren't immatrial either, but they have a lot of HP 
Many players play Archangels in that card slot. They are cheaper and thus, can be spammed earler. Many other players play Crusaders. They are even cheaper and can endow a lobo for nice damage. Or something the FG has. Titan, Vampire Dagger are nice choices.
The immaterial thing in the deck is the Hope. This is improtant cause most gods can destroy or steal your shields.

You can farm lobotomizers from the arena. Try bronze league. After 6 consecutive wins you can try a spin where you spin only rares. With a few tries you'll spin a lobo for sure.

If you wanna build this deck, be sure to check out a detailed FG guide for this deck. This deck fails against a lot of gods, and thus, they can be skipped, but wins fast against others. Be sure to only play the matches where you have a chance. This means you'll need a small  reserve cause you'll be losing a lot, and fast. But you'll be winning other games easily.
With ths semi-upped deck, one can earn an upgraded card or two (one is worth ~1100 ) every hour. As you upgrade and master the deck, the winrate goes up to around 5-6 upped cards an hour (this is a serious blow to your score, but never mind that).

Lastly, not mind gaze, it's called mind gate

[Acacia Avenue]

Thanks for the infos again, I think I'll start with dragons then go for the archangel version of that deck, as soon as I'll get some lobos...

...which I highly doubt, since by playing the bronze league, around the 4th consecutive victory I always face a deck with a shiny firsthand, capable to massively shut me down / swarm creatures / destroy my phase shields. I may have been very unlucky, but nonetheless I doubt I'll ever score 6 victories with my aether deck. How could I improve it? Is it fine as it is and I've just been unlucky?

[Acsabi44]

Look around the forum for shiny bronze framer decks.  (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/board,451.0.html)
Or you could just farm AI3. (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,11029.0.html)
Or, if you are not deep into your account (that is, below lessay... 500 games) you could restart it and choose a lobo as your 500 score-quest reward.

[Acacia Avenue]

Yesterday I got a lucky streak and won bronde league 6-in-a-row 2 times with my mono aether deck, while other 2 times I lost the 6th duel. I won a Morning star (why it is a sword, I don't know ) and another card I don't recall, so there's still hope ^^.

I've found out the keys are:
1) to start my shield chain not too soon, but not too late aswell, where too late means die in the next turn,
2) to prioritize immortals over dragons because 2 immortals deal the same damage while costing 1 less aether quanta,
3) to early place mind gates (thanks for the correction) against fire or dark decks to bait their deflagrate/steal and against mono aether decks,
4) to instaquit when I see an early fire shield/skull shield/thorn carapace or a very strong momentum-ed creature,
5) and this counts for every deck, to have a good start and being lucky,

I have 419 victories and 196 losses currently, in addition of 2 or 3 upgraded cards and some rares, meaning an account reset is out of question. I'll just stick with bronze league, the electrum gain is fine and, by the law of big numbers, I can't be unlucky forever (yesterday proved me wrong in fact).

A question: one of the two rare spins I did yesterday gave me a shard, that one sinergizing with light (i recognized its picture), but I can't find it among the cards in my possession.

Quick out-of-topic question: which account should I use to log into the chat? The game account, the forum account or do I have to create a third one?

[Acsabi44]

Yesterday I got a lucky streak and won bronde league 6-in-a-row 2 times with my mono aether deck, while other 2 times I lost the 6th duel. I won a Morning star (why it is a sword, I don't know ) and another card I don't recall, so there's still hope ^^.

I've found out the keys are:
1) to start my shield chain not too soon, but not too late aswell, where too late means die in the next turn, This is very true. Practice makes perfect.

2) to prioritize immortals over dragons because 2 immortals deal the same damage while costing 1 less aether quanta, I don't think so. IMO immortals are subpar., see the next point.

3) to early place mind gates (thanks for the correction) against fire or dark decks to bait their deflagrate/steal and against mono aether decks, Usually monoaether decks don't play mind gates. You might feel that Immortals are better cause you have no  to pay for the dragons, but trust me they are better. Maybe try silence instead of mindgates. But yes, if you wanna use mindgates then it is a good idea to bait out the deflagrations before playing shields.

4) to instaquit when I see an early fire shield/skull shield/thorn carapace or a very strong momentum-ed creature, Never insta-quit. You might get lucky but if you surender, you'll lost your consecutive wins.

5) and this counts for every deck, to have a good start and being lucky, Of course   Sadly, luck plays a bigger part here than in MtG, for example.

I have 419 victories and 196 losses currently, in addition of 2 or 3 upgraded cards and some rares, meaning an account reset is out of question. I'll just stick with bronze league, the electrum gain is fine and, by the law of big numbers, I can't be unlucky forever (yesterday proved me wrong in fact).

A question: one of the two rare spins I did yesterday gave me a shard, that one sinergizing with light (i recognized its picture), but I can't find it among the cards in my possession. You can find the shards among the 'other' cards section sinec they are technically 'colorless' cards despite interacting with certain elements. (this was not always the case btw)

Quick out-of-topic question: which account should I use to log into the chat? The game account, the forum account or do I have to create a third one? You can log into chat with your forum account. I encourage to do this cause chat is a very good place to hang around and ask for help.

[Acacia Avenue]

Thanks Acsabi44 for sticking with me But i partially disagree with you, and I'll explain why:

1) Agreed, nothing more said. The temptation to build a different deck is strong, but I'm resisting to it because it's better to focus on one deck and master it rather dan building a lot of decks but having only little knowledge of each.

2) I always feel like not letting my quanta unused, so whenever I have more than 6 and less than 13 quanta I always play an immortal instead of waiting 1 turn and summon the phase dragon the next one (or even second next one). If it's wrong, then I'll change my playstile.

3) I play mind gates because mono aether AI3 plays them aswell and by using them he gets 1 free dim shield for every mind gate he has if it'll be my next draw, meaning he can stall me longer than I can stall him and make me lose for deckout. The other reason is to use them as bait, otherwise they're dead draws. But when it's the case, my only chance of losing is by not having dim shields to chain, or repeatedly get them destroyed, which happens very rarely.

4) The problem is, if my opponent plays said shields on his second turn, i'll be sure I won't bring out enough damage: fire shield destroys my immortals in 3 turns and dragons in 6 (ok this still might turn out in my favor if he won't have good draws and/or I would chain my shield well enough while constantly drawing creatures); with Skull Shield my creatures will become skeletons in 1 or 2 turns, dealing then no damage (skeles are 1/1 and shield absorbs 1), plus if an opponent has a skull shield it means he can poison me aswell, and poison bypasses dim shields, so i feel valid the instaquit here; finally, thorn carapace annihilates my creatures way faster than fire shield, so, even if I manage to chain 6 shields, i will lack damage output and lose, no escape from that, which brings me to another instaquit.

5) What's MtG? Another browser card game? I'm fine with luck being a part of the game, though.

About my shard, I checked under "other" and I only have 3 quantum pillars there. I suppose it got lost in some sort of saving glitch. Eh, nevermind, I wouldn't have had an use for that card anyway.

Again sorry for some grammar/language mistake, i'm italian, and although I'm good at english I may miss something.

[XesForEyes]

if you can get 3 upgraded hourglasses from fgs i would recommend fray em, even if you dont have an upgraded miracle
imo its even better than the modded ccyb if you know who to skip and stuff

[Acsabi44]

did you have any luck with the arena?
I seem to be able to win nothing but lobotomizers. In 2 days I won like 4.

[Acacia Avenue]

Not at all, after the third loss in a row at the 5th match I gave up (the 5th one always had big luck, playing 6 or more pillars on the 1st turn and 4 creatures and/or a shield and/or massive poison on their 2nd turn). Maybe I'll try again tomorrow.

I won 3 matches against platinum, though (non consecutive). I did not have luck with spins, but the electrum gain was nice, and beating plat made me somehow proud That's easier than FGs by the way.