Round By Round Strategies And Suggestions

[ARTHANASIOS]

 Greetingz, team.
 I think it would be good to have a general topic to discuss in deep detail our tricks and strategies of every round and keep everything within a single place rather than several ones. Feel free to post your ideas!

-A few suggestions of mine (feel free to post yours too!):

* A human opponent is much more cunning and challenging than any AI. So, the Trainer is an extremely useful tool to check our deck ideas, but the best tactic would be testing our decks in friendly duels between us. If this is not possible due to timezones and/or limited card pools, then we should imagine the way our opponent could play his/her deck.

* When you play your game you ought to record your game. If you can't, you shoould at least take 2-3 screenshots; one in the beginning of the game, one at the moment a desynch occurs (only if a desynch happens in midgame), one right before finishing your opponent (only if you are going for a possible finishing blow), one of the victory screen (if you win) and one of the defeat screen (if you lose). Be sure to save your screenshots with their respective names and upload them at imgur or dropbox or wherever etc. etc.

* We should scan our opponents' decks. Since we are going to face the same deck at least 3 times, we should take notes of the cards being played by our opponent as well as the played copies of each individual card. Moreover, writing down the deck size of your opponent during the coin toss phase is going to greatly help you understand how your opponent's deck works as a whole.

* We shouldn't overexposure a deck strategy at earlier matches if it can avoided. For example, if our opponent doesn't know we pack Thorn Carapace in our deck and it is not essential to play it to win a certain game, it is better to just keep it in our hand rather than playing it and surprise him/her with it in the next match.

[ARTHANASIOS]

Guys, in Trainer, if an Antimattered Forest Scorpion attacks an opponent who has Wings, it does NOT bypass the wings (it neither poison nor heal the opponent). Does anyone know if this bug is intentional and/or if it appears only in Trainer (and not in a real PvP game)? I need to learn about it asap in order to avoid nasty surprises. Thank you!

[ARTHANASIOS]

I have been PMed by Acsabi for our duel. It seems he is going to be inactive at the weekend. However, I will wait for the deckbuilding phase to end before giving him a final answer.

[ARTHANASIOS]

About the discarding phase, it is a little difficult to track stuff. Problem is, every team can just discard in-element pillars/pends and then convert some of their stuff to new pillars/pends as they see fit. Actually, props to Warmasters for allowing discard-conversion strategies like this; the current War is much more interesting because of this.

EDIT: About Round 2, I suggest we give every Relic to our Grenadier to wreak as much havoc as possible.
         About our salvaging, it will be a little difficult to decide; I will give my feedback later.
         About the 9-card discarding of our Pestosis, I suggest to discard 9 Life Pendulums and later convert other cards to pends/pillars if needed.
         About the 6-card discard due to late vault, I suggest to discard another bunch of 6 Life Pends and create more Pends with coversion later.

[ARTHANASIOS]

About my match with I think a Firestall would do pretty well. However, if another member wish to use any cards I use or if the team decides to keep our firestall a secret for now I can invent a new deck to use. (I will also playtest frogtal and a few more). to be continued...

Spoiler for lifefirestall:

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5c2 5c2 5c2 5c2 5c2 5c2 5c4 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5f4 5f4 5f4 5f4 5f4 5f4 5f7 5f7 5f7 5f8 5f8 7f2 7f2 7f2 7f2 7f2 7f2 8po

Here are some results of lifefirestall against a few possible decks.

Firestall as a Player:

Spoiler for Hidden:

3-0

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5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rm 5ro 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 61t 61t 61t 61t 61t 61t 622 622 624 7q5 7q5 7q5 7q5 7q5 7qe 8pu

3-0

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5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rj 5rk 5rk 5rk 5rk 5ro 5s4 7qc 7qc 7qc 7qc 7qc 7qc 8pl

3-1

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4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rs 5s4 5s4 5s4 5s4 6u5 6u5 6u5 7dm 7dm 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7t9 8pj

3-0

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5lg 5lg 5lm 5lm 5lm 5lm 5lm 5lm 5rh 5ro 5ro 5rp 5rp 5rp 5rp 5rp 5rp 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 7k2 7k2 7k2 7q5 7q5 7q5 8pq

3-2

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4sa 4sa 4ss 4vj 4vj 4vj 5f6 5f6 5f9 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5ri 5ri 5ri 5ri 5ro 5ro 5ru 5ru 5ru 5ru 5ru 5t2 5t2 6qq 7q0 7ri 7th 7th 7th 8ps

1-3

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593 593 593 5rj 5rj 5ro 5ro 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 77g 77g 77g 77g 77g 77g 77j 77j 77j 8pm

Firestall as an AI:

Spoiler for Hidden:

1-3

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5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rm 5ro 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 61t 61t 61t 61t 61t 61t 622 622 624 7q5 7q5 7q5 7q5 7q5 7qe 8pu

3-2

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5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rj 5rk 5rk 5rk 5rk 5ro 5s4 7qc 7qc 7qc 7qc 7qc 7qc 8pl

1-3

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4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rs 5s4 5s4 5s4 5s4 6u5 6u5 6u5 7dm 7dm 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7t9 8pj

1-3

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5lg 5lg 5lm 5lm 5lm 5lm 5lm 5lm 5rh 5ro 5ro 5rp 5rp 5rp 5rp 5rp 5rp 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 7k2 7k2 7k2 7q5 7q5 7q5 8pq

1-3

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4sa 4sa 4ss 4vj 4vj 4vj 5f6 5f6 5f9 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5ri 5ri 5ri 5ri 5ro 5ro 5ru 5ru 5ru 5ru 5ru 5t2 5t2 6qq 7q0 7ri 7th 7th 7th 8ps

3-2

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593 593 593 5rj 5rj 5ro 5ro 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 77g 77g 77g 77g 77g 77g 77j 77j 77j 8pm

Spoiler for a few words about the results:

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5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rm 5ro 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 61t 61t 61t 61t 61t 61t 622 622 624 7q5 7q5 7q5 7q5 7q5 7qe 8pu

A very interesting deck which Firestall can't beat easily (despite any testing results vs the AI). You need to have both RoFs in your hand to destroy an army of Ghosts or Dragons before it kills you. Moreover, those Dims block much of Fahren's damage and you have to OTK with FireBolts. RNG is the factor that will determine the winner in this matchup. Also, pwconfirm used the same deck in Round 1 with great success and I wouldn't be surprised if he decide to field it against us.

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5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rj 5rk 5rk 5rk 5rk 5ro 5s4 7qc 7qc 7qc 7qc 7qc 7qc 8pl

Though this is a very good deck against any traditional life deck (and it may even cause trouble to Frogtal due to all the Scarab spamming), firestall beats it easily. You just have to keep your Firebolts for the Pharaohs and use RoFs to kill any Scarabs that were spammed prior to the Pharaoh's death. Heals are going to keep you alive long enough for your Fahrenheit to finish off your opponent. But if the Pharaohs manage to spam a lot of Scarabs, things can become tricky. However, I do not think Team Time is going to field the same deck twice against us.

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4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rs 5s4 5s4 5s4 5s4 6u5 6u5 6u5 7dm 7dm 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7t9 8pj

Early Discord can be really annoying, though the high quanta production of firestall may or may not handle it. It has some annoying PC and Fahren is easily stolen/destroyed. Other than that, this timebow lacks damage; if you have enough quanta to kill every nymph and the pharaoh with firebolts you have more than enough Heals to keep Discord from killing you. Anyway, this is a deck I can't encounter, since pwconfirm has only a single upped Time Nymph and this deck needs 4 to function.

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5lg 5lg 5lm 5lm 5lm 5lm 5lm 5lm 5rh 5ro 5ro 5rp 5rp 5rp 5rp 5rp 5rp 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 7k2 7k2 7k2 7q5 7q5 7q5 8pq

Despite the results, playing with and against this deck showed me one thing; firestall just can't lose against it. It just has to wait for its fire quanta to reach 75, then it plays its Emerald Shield and cast 5 Fire Bolts in order to perform an OTK.

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4sa 4sa 4ss 4vj 4vj 4vj 5f6 5f6 5f9 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5ri 5ri 5ri 5ri 5ro 5ro 5ru 5ru 5ru 5ru 5ru 5t2 5t2 6qq 7q0 7ri 7th 7th 7th 8ps

Ghostmare sometimes can hurt firestall, especially if you draw plenty of early pends. You can't keep your pends to your hand forever if you go for a firebolt & fahrenheit deck, can you? Other than that, it has some annoying PC but it is quite luck dependant. In general, I don't think Team Time is going to use this rainbow again partially due to the 9-card-discard and partially to the fact it didn't work against Team Darkness and even Kuro viewed it as a bad deck.

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593 593 593 5rj 5rj 5ro 5ro 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 77g 77g 77g 77g 77g 77g 77j 77j 77j 8pm

I either suck at playing firestall vs graboid and graboid vs firestall or I was a really unlucky person to lose both times to AI. In general, EQs really hurt firestall because it is a type of deck where you can't just keep your pillars to your hand; you have to play them all right away if you wish to be able to OTK your opponent. A Spine Carapace would also help against Graboids; it wouldn't allow them to stay burrowed forever and if they unborrow they can be taken down by RoFs or even FireBolts.

[Scaramanga]

Doesnt that firestall need to at least 50% Life?'

PS. I agree with using all relics on grenadier and discarding pends.

[mathman101]

Yes that life-firestall should be 50% in element. maybe adding 2-3 life pends should do the trick balance-wise hopefully.

and also regarding giving all the relics to the grenadier, I'm cool with giving him most of them, but I would suggest no more then 5 of our relics. As we can't win any new relics this round and we don't know what next round's  Event Card will be yet, a few relics might be good to hold onto just in case they're needed for a similar situation for next round(i.e. another really good EC card to benefit us).

and I also agree we should be discarding 18 pends/pillars this round. (they can be converted back)
- 9 from pestosis deck for loss
- 6 from vault for penalty
- 3 from vault for lost EC bet

[ARTHANASIOS]

The posted  Firestall is an experimental deck and by no means a finalised version. I am using to playtest stuff and draw conclusions while slowly giving it its final form.
Anyway, I think it is time to test a Frogtal and a Cockatral versus those decks too.

[ARTHANASIOS]

Before making the final deck decisions this round, it is good to look overall to the deck archtypes our opponents are more likely to bring. Here is my opinion and feel free to post yours too.



  FIRE

Spoiler for Hidden:

The most dangerous of our opponents! Fire performed a 5-win-streak in round 1 (much like us) and they have many powerful decks to choose from. They are very likely to put us for their Grenadier target. However, looking how they have to deal with 2 Gens this round, I think they are more likely going to use their Lieutenant, Grenadier and Relic upgrades towards their games against Team and Team .
 Still, we are their 3rd priority and Team can surely benefit if it manages to salvage some Adrens, Heals or even Staves from us (or any cards we may have; after all, everyone knows we are going to salvage from 2  duos). So, here are the decks they are more likely to field against us.

 1st Possibility (very likely): Fractix;
 Avenger is an Aether player and he knows fractal decks from head to toes. He is going to perfectly play any version of Fractix, let alone it is a very strong deck indeed. We won't be able to bypass their Dims without pain and our Thorns (which we really love to use) can't completely kill a single Minor Phoenix, let alone an army of them.

 2nd Possibility (likely): Firestall with Sancs;
 Reflective Shield can be used to perform a FireBolt OTK that can bypass our Jade Shield. Moreover, a pack of cards like Rage Elixir (goodbye Emerald Dragon!), Rain of Fire (bye bye Frogtal!), Fire Shield (farewell Adrenaline!) and even Firebolt or Red Nymph can destroy any rush or stallbreaker we may establish.

 3rd Possibility (not unlikely): Immo/nova decks;
 the reason these deadly rushes aren't higher on the list are our many Heals and Thorns in round 1 which are very good at ruining high-attack/low-health hitters. The other reason is the and Gens and Team may need a novabow or immorush to take them down.

 4th Possibility (unlikely): Phoenix-Wings duo, Deathstall, etc.;
 Those decks may or may not work against us, but the other options are more reliable versus the cardbase of .

  ENTROPY

Spoiler for Hidden:

This is a powerful element by itself and it comboes pretty well with most elements. If the fact it has some of the greatest War veterans in its ranks is frightening, the fact our respectful ex-life master Willu is sided with them makes things devastating! Very few Life tricks are unknown to Willu, if any at all. I bet Willu knows at least 10,000 ways to counter us.
 Still, we have a War to fight and we will fight till the end. Here are the decks most likely to be used to our match-up:

 1st Possibility (very likely): Grabbow;
 Willng's grabbow of round 1 includes some of the most anti-life cards. Discord, EQ, Graboid...

 2nd Possibility (likely): Pandabonium;
 Though this deck has yet to appear, it is one of Entropy's bread-and-butter deck that causes havoc versus life and Willu knows it very well.

 3rd Possibility (not unlikely): duo;
 This deck seems like a fair answer against PUgons or even Frogtal...

 4th Possibility (unlikely): duo, duo etc.;
 Those decks may or may not work against us, but the other options are more reliable versus the cardbase of .

  GRAVITY

Spoiler for Hidden:

Gravity is falsely known as a slow, useless element. Its poor performance seems to back up this theory. But we shouldn't be fooled! The 6 ups allows it to field plenty of Elite Otyughs and Elite Chargers, two deadly creatures envied by many and feared by all! Their bad results in round 1 probably means they will try to strike Team (they are facing the Gen) and maybe us, because they can use our Adrens and Heals in case of a successful salvage.
 So, here are the decks most likely to be used to our match-up:

 1st Possibility (very likely): Guardbow;
 In spite of losing, this deck is very fast and powerful. Most monos and duos I tested versus this deck were mercilessly butchered!

 2nd Possibility (likely): Chargetal with Otys;
 Since gravity has yet to reveal any Chargers or Otys, I think it kees them for now. Chargers in great numbers are powerful, the bypass any Thorns and our Heals aren't enough. Things will become even worse if Elite Otyughs are thrown into the mix (yummy Frogs, Rustlers etc.); a powerful deck which is quite difficult to counter...

 3rd Possibility (not unlikely): Titanbow;
 The best way to counter the healing of is by performing an OTK. With a good draw, this deck can be devastating. However, this deck is more likely to be used against .

 4th Possibility (unlikely): all the other decks that appeared during round 1;
 Most of them haven't performed very well. They are more likely to be converted to pillars or pends rather than be used once again...

  EARTH

Spoiler for Hidden:

Antlion OP! But seriously guys, can be ruthless against . What it lacks in lethal CC it gets to PC (Pulvy, EQ) and rush (Shrieker/Graboid), let alone its shield is the bane of Adrenaline. We either mindgate them and win or they mindgate us and we lose... Moreover, we are probably their 2nd most important target after Aether this round.
 Still, we have a War to fight and we will fight till the end. Here are the decks most likely to be used to our match-up:

 1st Possibility (very likely): Graboid domination (either Grabbow with EQ & Disco or Earth-Time duo);
 Oh dear god, please make them use this deck against non-life! Please, not against us, please...!

 2nd Possibility (likely): The Immortal Stall;
 An annoying stall which heals and/or blocks everything and deck-outs everything. We have to plan our deck well enough to avoid this menace.

 3rd Possibility (not unlikely): Grabbow with Pulvies;
 Powerful and annoying, this deck would be higher in the list if I wasn't 99% sure that Team is going to field it against either or and not against us.

 4th Possibility (unlikely): Stell Golem rush, Antliontal etc.;
 Most of these decks are good, but there are better choices against us.

DEATH

Spoiler for Hidden:

 Our rival element! It landed on 2nd place and it has a really strong and threatening team, featuring many experts and strong PvPers/Deckbuilders in general. I think Team gives the highest priority to its matches towards and , thus we must be prepared.
 Our sense of honor (and in-element, role-playing tradition) demands we break their bones and burn down their corpses till they become dust (just to make sure they won't rise once again beyond the grave!). Let's protect our forests from this decaying menace!
 Here are the decks most likely to be used in our match-up:

 1st Possibility (very likely): Any rush, especially the duo;
 It is very fast and kills our adrens, mitosis etc. Moreover, it can turn into a Pharaoh stallbreaker pretty easily and it has resistance to a possible RT deck sent by us.

 2nd Possibility (likely): Pandabonium or ParasiteWall;
 Very powerful anti-life rush decks. We must be very careful for these menaces of ...

 3rd Possibility (not unlikely): Novabow;
 It would higher in the list but I think it is more likely to be used against Team .

 4th Possibility (unlikely): Adrenastaves,Rol/Hope;
 Thorns kill them both very easily and they wait Thorns since we overused them during Round 1.

TIME

Spoiler for Hidden:

Round 1 didn't go very well for them but they still have a huge vault to draw surprises from. Their round 1 deck, in spite of losing versus our DejaVu deck, was an ingenious anti-life mono imho. They are going to try to have their vengeance for round 1's defeat but we must not let them....
 Here are the decks most likely to be used in our match-up:

 1st Possibility (very likely): Graboid duo or duo ;
 Both are very strong and good choices against us. I don't really know how to counter those, I'll just hope for the best result while facing them...

 2nd Possibility (likely): Stall;
 Good healing, fair damage reduction and amazing deck-out capabilities. We have to plan our deck well enough to avoid this menace.

 3rd Possibility (not unlikely): Ghostmare;
 Powerful and annoying as heck! Ghostmare would be higher in the list if I we hadn't used a duo, thus discouraging the general use of Ghostmare against our team.

 4th Possibility (unlikely): Pharaoh, rainbow, Nymphbow etc.;
 Most of these decks are good, but there are better choices against us. Moreover, pwconfirm lacks the Nymphs to field the Nymphbow.

[ARTHANASIOS]

About the 6-card-penalty and the 9-card-discard, I have the following suggestions:

For the 6-card-penalty, we discard:

3x Antimatter;
Powerful CC and buff in certain cases, but the Dim Shield bug makes them slightly unreliable. Moreover, it is better to discard from the vault you have already revealed to your opponents rather than the secret one.

2x Purple Nymph;
Same as Antimatter. I would had discard Butterly Effect too but we may need it in a novabow; it is our only card after all, and a reliable repeating PC which our vault lacks in general.

1x Dark Pendulum;
I think 3 Dark Pends are enough...


For the 9-card-penalty, we discard:

3x Toadfish;
I think they have already fullfilled their purpose. NTs are better for rush and we have plenty of Scorpions for poisoning. I am sad seeing them go, but oh well...

1x Mitosis;
10 Mitosis are enough...

5x Deja Vu;
Like Toadfish, they have fullfilled their purpose. Right now, we have enough cards to field a duo if needed and Deja Vus won't surprise the same team twice.

[dawn to dusk]

I say keep the antimatters. I have been recently toying with a life ent stall (andrenamatter) which should be able to surprise a few teams and maybe win a few matches.

[ARTHANASIOS]

I say keep the antimatters. I have been recently toying with a life ent stall (andrenamatter) which should be able to surprise a few teams and maybe win a few matches.

Good to hear it. Should I keep the Nymphs too? What should we sacrifice instead of the Antimatters?
EDIT: Ok, we will discard the 3 unused Aether Pends instead of the 3 Antimatters. I am editing our vault as well as the match-ups, if someone wants to do a change BEFROE the deadline, feel free to do it...