Strategy List: Darkness

[willng3]

is yet another unpredictable element

Strengths:
-CONTROL:  Darkness specializes in control, over 4 aspects of the game.
   ~Creature Control:  Drain Life, Parasite, Liquid Shadow
   ~Permanent Control:  Steal - a nasty one it is.
   ~Quanta Denial:  Devourer
   ~Hand/Deck Control:  Let's not forget the underestimated power of Nightmare.

-Healing:  Vampires, Liquid Shadow, Drain Life, Vampire Stiletto

-Shields:  Hax Shield Dusk Mantle

-Direct Damage:  Drain Life, Voodoo Doll

-Lethal Damage Deliverance:  Black Dragon, Garoyle, Nightfall


Weaknesses:
-Creature Control:  Darkness is very reliant on creatures to do its bidding, removing the creatures from this equation leaves them with less power to use against us.

-Rainbows:  Neutralizes Devourer spam almost completely.  Also makes things less predictable for our opponent which things more difficult for them.

-Higher Defenses:  alone has little ways of defending itself from unhindered attacks.  Dusk Mantle is honestly the only semi-reliable form of defense it has.  I'm not saying we should rush here, but rather that if we negate all oncoming threats, then what's to stop us from winning?


We need to find ways to stop from being able to manipulate the cards we put into play.  Quinted Creatures, no creatures, quanta bursts (Nova / Quantum Pillars), enchanted permanents (particularly Emerald Shield, Mirror Shield, and Morning Star in this case), and also reversing manipulation would give us a serious edge.

Most likely synergies:
/ :  Control overkill.  Several different synergies which could kill us here; beware Discord.
/ :  Night fall + Skeleton spam + Vulture, Parasite.
/ :  Burrowed Devourers, Gargoyles, and then adding in Earthquakes would be a good denial deck.
/ :  Adrenaline + Devourer, Adrenaline + Vampires + Empathetic Bond (due to the gl1tch/bug).  CC is especially useful here.
/ :  More brutal control overkill.  and are nasty enough on their own, but this combo is simply nasty.
/ :  Blessed Vampires, Holy Light + Voodoo
/ :  Vampires, Flying Vamp Stilettos, could be interesting.
/ :  The addition of Reverse Times / Eternities to quanta denial is a potent stall.
/ :  Fractal Devourer, Fractal Vampires, or something more creative considering these are pretty generic.

Discuss.

[Nadrin]

I'm going up against beef, who is . What should we be expecting round 1 from darkness?

So far, base deck:

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5c2 5c2 5c2 5c2 5c2 5c2 5c4 5c7 5c7 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5lk 5lk 5oi 5oj 5oj 5oj 5oj 5ol 5ol
continue tweaking. may be short on quanta or need to avoid CC, but with 7 hp FFQ that will take a bit to dmg. hope shield will block a lot of dmg, emerald shield can avoid Siphon Life.

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5c4 5c4 5c5 5c5 5c5 5c7 5c7 5c7 5c7 5c7 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5oi 5oi 5oi 5oi 5oi 5oi 5ol 5ol 5ol
Like this build better but I feel like others may need some of those adrens/staves/OE

[Nadrin]

THORN SHIELD is a definite + w/ healing. problem will be steals

[hrmmm]

THORN SHIELD is a definite + w/ healing. problem will be steals

same with the owls -- i like your flying weapon in there

maybe a druidic staff+flying instead of a heal?

just saying this because we cant support 9 decks with e.g. 6 heals.
if we have deck suggestion asap we can also look if we can build them from our vault.

[willng3]

THORN SHIELD is a definite + w/ healing. problem will be steals

same with the owls -- i like your flying weapon in there

maybe a druidic staff+flying instead of a heal?

just saying this because we cant support 9 decks with e.g. 6 heals.
if we have deck suggestion asap we can also look if we can build them from our vault.

In this case we really want to maintain a 1:1 ratio with Flying Weapons to 1. reduce the chances of those weapons getting stolen and 2. increase the chances of us drawing more Flying Weapons.  I like hrmmm's suggestion with the Staff; perhaps packing an Adrenaline or two wouldn't be so bad in this case?

[Nadrin]

Prefer the second deck, but I can go with the first if needed. The second leans more towards CC and lots of healing

[hrmmm]

what about the  / deckout-deck?

might be risky, if they go for heavy quanta drain  / (getting afla out early enough).
but could stand against  / fractal deck (drain protection through emerald).


edit: yep willing3 -- i just wanted to put in a idea -- without any tweaking# for now

[willng3]

what about the  / deckout-deck?

might be risky, if they go for heavy quanta drain  / (getting afla out early enough).
but could stand against  / fractal deck (drain protection through emerald).

That's not a bad idea at all.  I highly doubt that a / combo would be used on the first round versus (considering a large number of the cards we use cost very little).  And us manipulating them gains us a massive advantage.  Let's try this.

[hrmmm]

just for the overview:

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52i 52i 52i 52i 52i 52i 52s 52s 52s 52s 52s 52s 5c2 5c2 5c2 5c2 5c2 5c2 5c4 5c4 5c4 5c4 5c6 5c6 5c6 5c6 5c6 5c6 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de
we might need to tweak it if other decks need bonds (8 in vault), heals(19 in vault) or emeralds (6 in vault).

darkness fight against:
  2x
  2x
 
 
 
 

[Nadrin]

 / is fine. I'd like to add a couple dragons though. Opinions?

[wizelsnarf]

I doubt they will pack many steals against us. Maybe a few but we dont have enough permanents that warrant it.

If I were darkness I would want a deck that can withstand a rush. So definitely a dusk mantle and probably drain life. They could also try a  / gargoyle + liquid shadow healing deck.

I kind of like the air decks better. Stalling with  / could be very risky if they drop 6 vampires and 6 gargoyles with liquid shadow unless you get early aflatoxin.

[hrmmm]

(...)
I kind of like the air decks better. Stalling with  / could be very risky if they drop 6 vampires and 6 gargoyles with liquid shadow unless you get early aflatoxin.

the trick on this deck is a early aflatoxin.
adrenaline the cell and theyre field is blocked pretty quick.
btw. this deck is a pure deckout-deck.

i doubt that they have the time to play 6 vamps and 6 gargoyls, if they do you need a aflatoxin adrenaline combo on your side, paired with bonds you do massive healing (23+ adrenaline x bonds).

in theory this is one of our most powerfull decks, in my sight.
of corse now would be the time to test it .