Long story short, I started playing around February after a fellow student told me about the game. I've been playing some MtG before (a casual Slivers deck, not very competitive), as well as some other computer-based trading card games (Etherlords, and PC-emulated Pokemon TCG, and some flash TCGs as well), so I was eager to try yet another one.
I even designed a number of TCGs myself, although I didn't finish any of these. One was a kind of StarCraft TCG, and the other one that I am going to finish one day has fantasy settings. I might also try designing a ninja-based one (or a feudal-Japan-based one, to be exact)
Anyway, back on Elements. My favorite element is crystal, but since there is no crystal element in Elements, I decided to look for the closest one. Earth looked like a good candidate, so my account started as an earth based, and if I recall right I took Pulverizer as my reward for quests. Still, I was disappointed by earth, since it wasn't as defensive as I'd imagined, and didn't offer many control based decks at that time. I generally prefer playing control and stalling, so I decided to look for other possibilities. I remember being fascinated by the fact quantum pillars offered 3 times more quanta, and dissipation shields blocking tons of damage. I remember how I designed rainbow decks that tried the most impossible combos, like quinted adrenalined momentumed malignant cells producing fodder for a quinted fallen druid. I guess that deck was my first post on these forums.
So... that was my rainbow era, although at that time Eternity was already one of my favorite cards, and I always though that scarabs are more awesome than otyughs. I guess the fact Time was so important in rainbows also strengthened my affinity to it.
Looking back at my historical posts, it also seems that I was involved in some discussions about immortality, Anubises and stuff. Generally discussions about how immortality should be different from etherealness, which should be different from being untargetable.
At that time, I was also under impression that Time is a good element for starters, since they can use Time mark graboid decks for AI3 grinding, as well as top50, and then switch to rainbow anti-FG without having to change marks. Yes, that was before mark-changing became free.
Anyway, I guess it all changed when the first Trials started. I noticed that the Time trials had few contestants, and so I joined just for fun. I didn't hope to win. I did like Time quite a bit then, mostly because of Scarabs (I designed a blessed scarabs deck back then) and because of Eternity, but I also like the defensive, control and stall based nature of Time decks.
During the trials, we had some tasks to do which made me do some more research into Time cards, and I had to design a ton of decks for the final duel with Puppychow, which I spent a lot of Time preparing for. I'm quite surprised I won because I didn't have any PvP experience, but somehow I managed to do it.
Somewhere along those times, I also designed a Pharaoh based anti-FG deck. I was thrilled by the idea of scarab-generating creature, as it could replace FFQ, Otyugh and Fallen Druid. That deck was half rainbow, half time, and I'm still using a slightly modified version of it when I fight False Gods. The winning percentage was around 50% back then, and is still nowadays.
Anyway, after beating Puppychow I became the Master of Time, so I guess that's roughly the time I fully realized how much my affinity to Time has grown during all this time. I played in the first war, finally recognized as a skilled PvPer, even though I still lacked experience. (I never played in Tournaments, if anyone is interested
, and I don't remember the last Time I hit the PvP button)
So, even though my passion for playing Elements has dwindled since then, I only participated in 2 wars, 2 trials and one 'Elements Birthday' action, not doing much else, I still love scarabs.
Scarabs FTW!
