Element by Element Breakdown [WIP]

[dawn to dusk]

  Water  :
control in the form of freeze. Adren will be of great use but will be expected. Mindgating a toadfish synergy. Mitosis? Mitodragons? Ice shield is a problem though... Explosion splash?
It lacks damage though which will be of great help. This further pushes the need for toadfish. A stall will be of great use, maybe a bond stall? Afla-bond with emerald shield? TS may be a problem though

  Aether  :
Rol Hope and dims. Momentum will be of great use, maybe a chimera? Emerald shield for psions,  mito-dragons for damage, chimera for shields. Hope would only come with generals and lieutenants as the 3 ups isnt enough. Lobo is another problem.  A darkness duo should counter anything a non-lieutenant has. 6 steals ofc. Talking about mito devs in chat and thought that it would be useful. Especially seeing it being used against aether.

  Light :
Lotsa stalls, maybe rol hope. Sanc protects quanta as well. Basically, a lot of stalls... Stallbreakers are the way to go here. Light water doesnt have many synergies so we dont need to worry about purify so maybe a poison duo may work? Raging angels is a worry too... Maybe outstall the element of stalling

  Time :
Fucking RT. Mitosis, nope. Adren, nope. Forest spirit, nope. Stalling, nope. Devourers? Smart play from a devtosis may work...

  Gravity :
Kills rainbows so they are a no go. Small HP creatures are risky as well due to otyugh. They dont have PC though and GP is rarely seen as CC. Maybe a mitodragons? A cloak duo would also be fun though not that efficient X)

  Entropy :
We have to be VERY wary of dicksword. And antimatter as well. Dragons are a no go due to maxwell's demon. Sanc seems very effective here. Does that mean a stall is the best way to go? Ent doesnt have access to many stallbreakers so I think it may be quite useful.

[ARTHANASIOS]

My noobish suggestions are in the spoiler.

Spoiler for Hidden:

Water  :
control in the form of freeze. Adren will be of great use but will be expected. Mindgating a toadfish synergy. Mitosis? Mitodragons? Ice shield is a problem though... Explosion splash?
It lacks damage though which will be of great help. This further pushes the need for toadfish. A stall will be of great use, maybe a bond stall? Afla-bond with emerald shield? TS may be a problem though

Aether is very good against Water, especially Lobotomizer which is good against NT, Crysaora, Mindflayer (the irony), Toadfish's poison, Steam Machine, Arctic Squid as well as Quintessence which prevents your creatures to be targeted by either poison or freeze, it helps survive Floodings and it instantly removes freeze of an already frozen creature (this last one is very good against Ice Shield).
 * Example duo deck to use against Water:

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5bt 5bt 5bt 5bt 5bt 5bt 5bv 5bv 5bv 5bv 5bv 5bv 5c9 5c9 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 63a 63a 63a 63a 80e 80h 80h 80h 81q 81q 8pq

  Aether  :
Rol Hope and dims. Momentum will be of great use, maybe a chimera? Emerald shield for psions,  mito-dragons for damage, chimera for shields. Hope would only come with generals and lieutenants as the 3 ups isnt enough. Lobo is another problem.  A darkness duo should counter anything a non-lieutenant has. 6 steals ofc. Talking about mito devs in chat and thought that it would be useful. Especially seeing it being used against aether.

Mitodevs can be good but it needs Cloaks to function against Aether imho. Moreover, in this war even Soldier decks have 6 ups, so RoL/Hope can be encountered even like a Soldier deck. Fortunately, there is a rare type of monolife deck that can perform well against most of common Aether decks. Thorn Carapace kills RoLs, Immortals, Phase Dragons, Phase Recluses and makes TU comboes much more difficult to be performed (PUing a poisoned Recluse is risky). Jade Shield neutralizes Psions and its DR of 2 blocks much of a Fractaled army of any sort. Forest Scoprion poisons whenever a Dim is not around and offers a poor PU target for your opponent. Heal helps you survive a diffuclt situation and Jade Staff makes things even worse with its regeneration.
* Example mono to use against Aether:

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5bs 5bs 5bs 5bs 5bs 5bs 5c2 5c2 5c2 5c2 5c2 5c2 5c3 5c3 5c3 5c3 5c8 5c8 5c8 5c8 5c8 5c8 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 7ak 7ak 7al 7al 7al 7bu 8pn

  Light :
Lotsa stalls, maybe rol hope. Sanc protects quanta as well. Basically, a lot of stalls... Stallbreakers are the way to go here. Light water doesnt have many synergies so we dont need to worry about purify so maybe a poison duo may work? Raging angels is a worry too... Maybe outstall the element of stalling

Mitodragons is a quite good and powerful monolife option. However, there is a certain type of deck that really worries me and has been used by Team Light with great efficiency in the past; the Golden Dragon & PU & Dims combo! Because of this, I think we need ways to counter big creatures, nasty permanents (especially shields) and avoiding big hitters in case they with to PU us. I think a Scorpion Antimatter deck is the best choice here. Antimatter can be used to neutralize big hitters as well as allowing our adrenascorpions dealing tons of poisoning. Butterfly Effect can be used as a support card to remove any annoying permanents like Sancs or Dims or Eternities or whatever. Chaos Power can make a Scorpion more powerful and more resistant or it can be used to a hostile creature right before Antimattering it.
* Example duo deck to use against Light:

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4vn 4vn 500 5c7 5c7 5c7 5c7 5c8 5c8 5c8 5c8 5c8 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 6u2 6u2 6u7 6u8 7bu 7bu 8pj

  Time :
Fucking RT. Mitosis, nope. Adren, nope. Forest spirit, nope. Stalling, nope. Devourers? Smart play from a devtosis may work...

Time is indeed powerful. RT is bearable but Eternity is a draw locker. What about fighting time with time? Elite Deja Vu works very well with both Adrenaline and Empathic Bond and it is RT resistant after PUing itself. Moreover, a single Eternity or two ruins every typical Time stall that is based upon deckouting its opponent, let alone RTing the generally expensive Time creatures can be painful indeed. If we lose, the salvage of Elite Deja Vu won't be anything special, though salvaging more of their Eternities can be really painful at later rounds.
* Example duo deck to use against Time:

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5c2 5c2 5c6 5c6 5c7 5c7 5c7 5c7 5c7 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5ro 5ro 7aj 7q1 7q1 7q1 7q1 7q1 8ps

  Gravity :
Kills rainbows so they are a no go. Small HP creatures are risky as well due to otyugh. They dont have PC though and GP is rarely seen as CC. Maybe a mitodragons? A cloak duo would also be fun though not that efficient X)

Mitodragons isn't a good idea versus Gravity; a shield of theirs and you can't hurt them at all. Elite Cockatrice is probably the best of our creatures towards Gravy because its health of 5 allows it to both bypass Gravity Shield and not to be devoured by Elite Otyughs. RT and Mutation can be very good here. Also, if we encounter a Dischole, we can be really screwed. Adrenastaves work well here as far as I remember and even a Soldier can field it this War.

  Entropy :
We have to be VERY wary of dicksword. And antimatter as well. Dragons are a no go due to maxwell's demon. Sanc seems very effective here. Does that mean a stall is the best way to go? Ent doesnt have access to many stallbreakers so I think it may be quite useful.

Entropy is powerful and it probably has the strongest overall mono in mixed meta (mixed=both upped and unupped). They have used Pandabonium a great amount of times against us with great success, so a stall won't work because they are going to use upped Arsenics. We need a Pandabonium breaker and Elite Antlions on drugs are probably one of our best choices. Furthermore, can you imagine the expression of your opponent while witnessing his deck losing to Antlions?
*Example duo deck to use against Entropy:

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58r 5c2 5c2 5c2 5c5 5c7 5c7 5c7 5c7 5c7 5c7 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 779 779 779 779 779 77h 8pm

[Scaramanga]

   Entropy 

Why not heal and stall?
+

Together with Heal, Rustler, Drudic Staff and Miracle (?Crusader?)

   Death 

and
Adrenaline + Drudic Staff + Green Nymph

Wings work great against death rush decks and drudic staff will cover the poison stall decks. Adrenaline will make sure bonewalls go down fast.

   Gravity 

+
Oty is slower than a Forest Spirit especially with some added emergency freez in the deck. Add some scorpions if scared of gravityshield. (Bonus oty gets ill for eating scorps)

   Earth 

+
Adren will take care of Wardens and Nymphs + Heal overrun shrieker/graboid rush. Danger if we face a Titanium shield. A dragon deck will get overruned so might be good to splash with some PC? (Deflag or Steal)

[ARTHANASIOS]

I would also like to ressurect an old yet interesting post of Willng3 regarding the strengths and weaknesses of Life...

Spoiler for Hidden:

In War 2 I started a thread like this for each Element and came in 3rd place.  In War 4 I didn't start a thread like this for any Elements and we came in 12th place.  So at risk of being master of the obvious, I think these threads might actually be helpful to us.  However, while I wanted to personally point out some of the greatest weaknesses and strengths of Life, I think it will be much better if anyone else decides to start a thread like this for the other Elements.  As a newbie in War 2 doing these threads caused me to consider a great deal about the Elements we would be facing later, and it also gave me a chance to listen to and observe random pieces of information that more experienced players had to offer.  In short, it's a great learning exercise for the entire team.

Strengths
1)  Rushing ability.  Having tested various fast decks against AI3 for over a year I can tell you that unupped Mono Life is the fastest mono Element in the game that there is; upped is also extremely fast, but loses out to Fire by mere fractions of a fraction of a turn.  Frogs are practically unparalleled in rushing ability, and Adrenaline is the greatest quick damage booster in the game that there is.  Cockatrice is also a nice cheap attacker that is sturdier than the Frog but serves nearly the same purpose.  Its creatures are cheap and it also possesses Mitosis for creature spamming.

2)  Dragons.  This isn't something that you normally hear when discussing the strengths and weaknesses of Life, but it's very true.  Emerald Dragon is both extremely durable (one of the few Dragons that is NOT within Lightning KO range unupped) and relatively cheap for its stats.  Ice Dragon costs the exact same as Emerald Dragon, but has one less attack.  It's quite honestly the one card in Life's arsenal that doesn't make the entire Element roll over against any creature control-heavy deck.  Jade Dragon boasts an amazing 9 HP, but unfortunately once HP reaches over 5 or 6 it's not that impressive to have more of it.  Furthermore, the increase in cost sometimes makes Emerald Dragon a better choice anyways since it can be played faster.

3)  Stalling ability.  Though I say this is a strength, Life's ability to stall is still very limited, but it can still do it.  In conjunction with other Elements that stalling ability is increased greatly, however.  Heal is very effective at offering a quick boost in HP when needed, though this won't usually matter much if you're using it in a semi-rush.  Stalls benefit quite a bit from Heal however since it's basically up to 120 extra damage the deck can take before submitting to defeat.  When you consider this type of power in something such as a Firestall, that becomes a very big threat.  Druidic Staff is also very effective, basically serving as a Shard of Gratitude in weapon form which can oftentimes be more useful than Heal in the right situation.

4)  Duo-creation ability.  Mitosis and Adrenaline basically make any Duo deck with Life possible.  Say we salvage Hermatite Golems during a Round.  Next round we can use a Mitosis Golem/Adrena-Golem deck.  This becomes very, very useful during the later Rounds when we become stretched thin on cards to use for our decks.

Weaknesses
1)  Creature Control.  My god is this a weakness.  Aside from Emerald Dragon, anything that Life throws out is instantly destroyed by Lightning or Shockwave (unupped).  This is particularly annoying because the strongest cards (debatable) that Life possesses (Adrenaline and Mitosis) are completely destroyed by this creature control.  This also in turn makes cards like Empathetic Bond nearly useless because it can't keep creatures on the field long enough to take advantage of that healing.  This is going to be something that needs to be taken care of when considering a matchup against nearly any opponent.

2)  Shields.  While -1 and -2 damage reduction shields can be pretty annoying, the most devastating shields to Life are undoubtedly Dimensional Shield and Wings.  The only way that Life on its own can counter Dimensional Shield is to use Forest Scorpion, the amazing 1|2 powerhouse.  Under most circumstances you would be lucky to have the Scorpion attack 3 times before being blocked off completely.  Wings is also a huge problem because really the only -great- creature that can get around Wings in Life is Emerald Dragon.  While Forest Spirits can get around it and are pretty menacing later in the game, Air also has Shockwave, Unstable Gas, Owl's Eye and Thunderstorm to kill it as soon as it hits the field.  Oh and Life has absolutely no way of destroying permanents on its own; talk about balance, right?  Last War, Life saw a lot of counter play by these two shields, so I'd like to fix that issue as best as possible.

3)  Duo synergy.  It seems weird that I would list Duo creation as a strength, but synergy as a weakness.  But it's true:  While Life is able to easily create synergies with just about any Element, the diversity and strength of those synergies is lacking quite a bit.  I mean just think about it:  If all of its synergies consist of Adrenaline or Mitosis use, then just how unpredictable can you really be?  It's still the same creature spamming/rushing that can be seen in a Mono Life, just with a few tricks.  This may become an issue in the middle War stages if we're forced to create synergies based on Vault limitations; early Round victories are especially helpful in this case.

4)  Quanta generation.  This shouldn't be a problem given that nearly all of Life's cards cost next to nothing to play, and yet it is.  Discord disrupts rushes, making a deck easier to counter before it has a chance to burst damage (however I'm not really sure how the Discord nerf affects this now).  Discord breaks stalls by making the more expensive cards (Feral Bonds, Mitosis, either Shield) significantly harder to play.  Earthquake destroys Pillars and Pends and slows down just about any Life deck.  And while Entropy has Nova and Fire has Immolation to counter EQ, Life's greatest defense against that card is...Rustler.  Just about anyone could sneeze and kill that poor thing.  I ban both of these cards every single Trials for the simple reason that they're annoying as hell to deal with.