ffun's Platinum Deck Archive

[ffun]

I think it was about time to finally make this thread, because I wanted a place to save old decks with original, successful or stupid ideas, so I could later improve them, test them again or avoid making the same mistake twice! Besides, most times I make a deck, I have lots of thoughts about it, and I think this would be a good place to share and possibly discuss them.

Regarding my Arena deck building quirks, I usually don’t upgrade cards just for making an Arena deck. I'll try to build the decks using only upgraded cards that I already own, unless I really like the concept and think the upped cards would be crucial. This will result in 2 things: 1) you'll see lots of odd deck codes, with a mix of upped and unupped cards of the same type - sorry about that! 2) very often, the decks won't be as successful as they potentially could be (obvious examples being when I chose to use unupped poison in my BW deck and acceleration instead of overdrive in my monogravity). So, if you like an idea, feel free to test it upgraded - many of the decks did well, but I'm sure a lot of them could get a much better overall ranking with just a few more upped cards!

Whenever possible, I also want to avoid tried and true, standard decks. My aim is to make good, efficient decks, but also to try original concepts, so you'll (hopefully) never see a golem rush or a fire stall here. Sometimes the ideas will be completely new, sometime it will just be an experiment using a known concept. Sometimes it will work, sometimes not - and I'll post some of the failures as well, when I think there's something interesting to discuss about the deck, hoping for feedback to make it work (this is not a bragging thread, but rather an archive and discussion thread!).

I'll organize it like this: on the first post I'll place my current deck and my thoughts on it, and on the second post will be the actual archive, were I place old decks in spoilers. The face in the stats table is my general feeling towards that particular deck. Feel free to tell me what you like, what you don't, how you would change the decks, suggestions etc!
http://elements.alanbeam.net/code_generator.php

Oracle card: bone pillar	Stats: lv 66; 200 hp; 30 ups; 2x Mark; Double draw
Best rank: 1 (69-6 on day 7)	Current record: day 8, 75-10, rank 4 (already down)

by ffun

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52g 52g 52g 52g 52o 6rm 6rm 6rm 6rm 6rt 6rt 6rt 6rt 710 710 710 710 710 710 710 710 711 713 713 713 713 713 718 718 718 718 718 71a 71a 71a 8pq

(just guess what ?? are)

Due to War, it's been a long time since I've last updated this. I've recorded a few decks to post here when I got the time. TBH I don't have that much time right now, but I don't want to let this record die, so here we go.

Yay, my first #1 deck in Platinum:


But yes, it's a lackluster feeling because doing so with SoSa is not that great... to compensate that, the next two decks I'll put in here will be fun and somewhat original, I promise!

SoSa is pretty OP in Arena, and if you get bone pillar, poison or something of that kind in the oracle spin, it's always tempting to go with a monodeath SoSa poison deck. Of course I avoided BWs due to the AI dumbness in using it with SoSa. One funny thing is that it actually managed to get 3 or 4 wins on day 8 at 1 hp!

[ffun]

Oracle card: bone pillar	Stats: lv 62; 200 hp; 20 ups; 2x Mark; Double draw	/
Best rank: 26 (68-8 on day 5)	Final record: day 5, 70-9, rank 29

by ffun

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52g 52g 52g 52g 52g 52g 52g 52g 52g 710 710 710 52o 52o 52o 718 718 718 52q 71a 71a 52r 71b 71b 71b 71b 71b 7dm 7dm 7dm 7dm 7do 5fb 7dr 7dr 8po

When I got bone pillar, I finally had a chance to make a BW poison stall to see how it would fare in Arena. I imagined it would go pretty well considering the most common farms, as long I could control the initial rush. I decided to try fire for that, relying on rage potions for the small/medium critters and hoping the BWs would hold the rest. Fire would also give me flexibility, allowing me to add Deflagration for pesky permanents, and RoF for the eventual RoL/Hope or other critter swarms that could break the walls.

200 hp was crucial to stall long enough to kill. As you can immediately see, the deck naturally suffers from not having all the poisons upgraded but, again, I didn’t want to upgrade cards solely for Arena. I wonder if it would eventually help the deck get a few more wins.

I think the deck could still go for at least one more day, but I was pretty excited when I got GotP from the Oracle, and couldn’t pass the opportunity! Without peeking below, I’ll give you a cookie if you can guess what deck I would build around it!

Oracle card: ghost of the past	Stats: lv 63; 155 hp; 30 ups; 3x Mark; Double draw	/
Best rank: 200+ (1-0 on day 0)	Final record: day 1, 2-3, rank 300+

by ffun

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5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 5rk 5rk 5rr 5rr 5ru 5ru 7qe 7qe 7qe 7qe 5i7 5i7 7gn 5ig 5ig 5ig 7h0 7h0 7h0 8pp

If you read my previous deck post and thought GotP/Nightmare, you just lost your cookie!

You should know I wouldn’t go for something so standard, but that’s the only happiness this deck brought me…

Oh, how can I begin? I was really excited with the concept of this deck, and I was very happy to steer away from the classic nightmare combo. It’s something that wouldn’t work outside the Arena environment, because I needed that 3x mark to power the tears in order to go only with time towers (to get the Time Nymphs from tears and to have enough time quanta to constantly drop the GotPs as soon as possible and power the Nymphs ability).

In theory it was great – good hitters, a nymph about every other turn and later on the deck would really speed up with the nymph’s constant drawing. Rewind and freeze should be more than enough CC in the current golem and novabow environment. Why the Precognition instead of more rewinds or freezes? I was afraid of putting too many and having a hand clogged with CC, losing the double draw and the nymphs’ extra draws. The precogs should slim the deck and get me those CC cards when needed. I decided to go permantless to give my opponent dead PC cards. Of course, going / , I would have no PC myself. Perhaps that was the problem with this deck? I dunno. It did pretty well when I tested it against novabows, but a monoaether or RoL/hope would have no trouble against it.

Anyway, after 1 day it was failing miserably, with a  2-3 record (my worst so far). It could get a couple of matches before being dropped from Arena, but I was so frustrated I decided to put a end to its misery before that.

Oracle card: gravity pull	Stats: lv 63; 200 hp; 20 ups; 2x Mark; Double draw	/
Best rank: 29 (41-3 on day 4)	Final record: day 5, 47-6, rank 43

by ffun

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7n2 7n2 7n2 55k 55k 55k 55k 55k 55k 744 745 745 748 748 748 748 748 748 74c 74c 74c 74c 55t 55t 74d 74d 74d 562 562 562 576 576 576 576 576 8pl

I was tempted to skip this one, as gravity pull didn’t really excite me, but I was so disappointed with my previous deck performance that I wanted to put it out of its misery, so I eventually took GP and decided to try an (almost except for the AW) monogravity (OMG! An Arena monogravity with ZERO black holes! The horror!).

Flying Titans were nice of course, because they were great targets for both acceleration and GP. But I wanted to use all these GPs as CC as well, so I needed a massive creature without momentum, and since I had all these Massive Dragons from that lovely Akebono fellow, I decided to add them. I usually don’t like relying on permanents, because I  feel they will be deflagrated soon after hitting the table, but in hindsight, I wonder if a couple of Tower Shields (a la Akebono) or Trebuchet would either significantly improve its performance or make it too slow.

It would be all nice and cool to tell you it was designed and honed to perfection, but of course it was not – just check it closely… c’mon, I’m using accelerations instead of overdrives for goodness sake! Besides, I was able to beat it pretty often when testing. Honestly, I thought it would only be a placeholder after my GotP failure, until I waited for my next spin, so I was baffled to see it go 23-0 up to day 2 before someone actually had the decency of winning against it. Since it did surprisingly well, I left it over the weekend.

Oracle card: acceleration	Stats: lv 64; 180 hp; 10 ups; 3x Mark; Double draw	/
Best rank: 50 (31-2 on day 3)	Final record: day 5, I have to check!

by ffun

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5uk 5uk 5uk 5uk 5uk 5uk 5uk 5uk 5uk 5uk 5uk 5uk 5uo 5uo 7t9 7t9 7t9 7tb 7tb 5v0 5v0 5v0 5v0 7tg 7tg 55t 55t 55t 74d 562 562 562 562 74i 74i 8pl

When I finally decide to take down my monogravity, the Oracle gives me "acceleration", heh. I briefly thought about going mono again, but I decided to try something a bit different, hence the doll deck. As you can see, I actually enjoyed using GPs, so I added a few, since they work both on enemy creatures and on my dolls. Acceleration also works both for the dolls and as CC, but I think the AI only uses it as CC when there are no dolls in play.

When testing, although I won against it more than a few times, I had fun and I liked the results. The main problem was the AI sometimes going haywire when trying to use the gravity cards (sometimes it plays GP on a enemy golem and right after that it accelerates it), but from results so far it's behaving itself. I was tempted to go "permantless" again, but eventually decided to add the ducks and daggers.

Changes: at 30-2 (d3), -5 ups (2 dolls, 1 overdrive, 1 imp steal, 1 gravity force); +20 hp

I think I broke my toy with the changes - I remember it doing much worse afterwards. I did write down somewhere the final ranking and w-l record, so I'll add it when I find it - but I do remember it mostly going downhill after day 3

Oracle card: hope	Stats: lv 64; 200 hp; 20 ups; 2x Mark; Double draw	/
Best rank: 195 (5-0 on day 1)	Final record: day 1, 5-0, rank 195

by ffun

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7n2 7n2 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 7jp 7jp 7jp 7jp 7jp 7jp 7jq 7jq 7ju 7ju 7ju 5lh 5lh 7k1 5li 5li 5lk 5lk 7k4 7k4 7k4 7k5 7k5 7k6 8pq

I usually hate when I get Hope as the Oracle card (it happens a lot with me - I think its the 4th time), since essencially it's a dead draw and a dead card in hand after the 1st one, and the 10 copies will clog the AI's hand, posssibly making it loose Dexterity. So it was the 1st time I decided to use it in Arena. My first idea was to try Luci to power it up, but I was afraid the AI would be too stupid to use it correctly (play a few creatures 1st, then Luci, then get the quanta for Hope... it would probably just spam Luci without creatures in the field) [note to self: maybe next time actually test a life/light duo with Frogs/Hope/Luci to see if the AI can play it reliably]. I ended up loosing my patience and made an (almost) monolight. I know there's too much quanta there, but at least it meant playing dragons, angels and morning stars as soon as the AI drew them (again, I was afraid it would get a clogged hand with Hopes and Miracles). I know the crusaders can't target my weapons, but it was a mostly fun addition in "hope" that my opponent would use something fun I could exploit.

Even though it did quite well for the short time I left it there, I think it's mostly an unfinished work, because I made it up when I didn't have much patience, and also due to my lack of upped light cards to make the most effective build. But I decided to register it to think about it again when I get Hope from the Oracle (it's bound to happen again), and to think a bit more about strategies and solutions for when the Oracle gives you cards that tend to clog the AI hand.

Oracle card: azure dragon	Stats: lv 65; 200 hp; 20 ups; 2x Mark; Double draw	/
Best rank: 35 (51-5 on day 6)	Final record: day 6, 51-5, rank 35

by ffun

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5oc 5oc 5oc 5oc 5oc 5oc 5oc 5oc 5oc 7ms 5od 5od 5od 5od 5od 5of 5of 7mv 7mv 7mv 7n7 7n7 7n7 5oo 5oo 5op 5op 7dm 7dm 7dm 7ds 7ds 7ds 7ds 7ds 8po

Ok, it has a fire mark, but it's just a splash for birds and PC!

This one is pretty straightforward. A air deck that can drop these dragons pretty fast, with a bit of CC, PC and defense. To be honest, my first submission had rage potions instead of wings (it's a CC, and the dragons can also take if for a final assault - it gets particularly nice with blitz!), but when the deck was 26-4 I tested it some more and thought the AI was too dumb with potions + ashes (it often plays it on then and immediately turns it into a phoenix). I swapped it with Wings for a little bit of defense, and it wouldn't hurt the deck at all if stolen. Considering it went 25-1 after that, I think it was a better choice indeed.

Oracle card: earthquake	Stats: lv 65; 195 hp; 30 ups; 2x Mark; Double draw
Best rank: 27 (42-3 on day 6)	Final record: day 6, 43-4, rank 44

by ffun

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80h 80h 5og 7n6 7t9 593 77j 77j 77j 77j 6u3 6u3 6u3 6u3 6u3 6u3 6u5 6u5 6u5 6u7 6u7 74f 74f 74f 5rk 5ii 5ii 7h2 6qq 6qq 6qq 6qq 6qq 6qq 6qq 8pj

Heh, my first rainbow in Arena! One funny thing - after the deck was up, it started with a dismaying record of 1-2, and I was afraid it would be a utter failure. It's a good thing I didn't take it down, because it went 41-1 after that!

I'm not the biggest fun of denyal (I hate playing against it), but when your oracle card is earthquake, you can't go against it. Discord, BH and earthquake are almost overkill in the same deck, but they work quite well to lock the opponent (both rainbows and monos) while setting up the kill with the quinted steams. I thought the worst problem it might face would be immo decks, hence the AMs and RT. The fog, UG and steal are nice cards that can change the game and surprise the adversary when he's not expecting them.

I think this one could have gone higher, but unfortunately there were some days in the beginning when it got very few plays - I wish the number of plays weren't so random!

[Dragoon]

Woohoo. Fun and creative decks. I like your idea to dialogue.

With the Acceleration deck, I too found out that the AI tends to use double CC when one of them is soft CC. With that deck, do you feel you needed the triple Mark instead of the double Mark. I'm trying to figure out about how much quanta I can get away with just a double Mark. Right now, I'm mostly just eying it out and play-testing it. With this deck, does the AI tend to GP Dolls with Acceleration on it or or does the AI target the plain Dolls?

Your Death/Fire deck seemed a little heavy on Bone Pillars/Towers, especially since the BWs are more stall than rush. I think you could've replaced some of your Pillars with more Fire CC. On the flip side though, I also like to over-pillar a little, if I have the card space, to make sure the AI has a better chance to draw some Pillars in his opening hand. It's a tough act to balance.

I'm looking forward to your decks.

[Jappert]

I like the bonewall + CC deck! It's succesfull results make it even more fun. CC powering those walls while poison eats your HP is evil.
The overdrive + voodoo deck is cool aswell.

Nice topic overall, you made a great lay out of your decks. I'll keep an eye on it!

[ffun]

Hey, guys!

@Dragoon
Funny you asked about the triple mark, because in my first vesion I used a double mark. When testing, though, I felt it was not fast enough, since overdrives cost 4 and GPs 2. Sometimes it would drop 3 dolls and only 1 overdrive, then it would have to wait another 2 turn to play another. Maybe I shoud've gone with a single mark and pendulums instead of pillars, but I enjoy the consistent darkness and gravity output every turn.

Regarding how the AI plays GP on your own creatures, I think it plays them on the creature with the highest HP. So if you have a plain doll and a accelerated doll that already lost hp, you're probably safe and the AI will play GP on the plain doll, unless you're odd like me and uses both upped and unupped dolls (you see, that's a good thing about this thread already, since I don't have x6 upped dolls, I'll probably change the deck to use only unupped dolls to enforce the right GP target priority). It also helps using only overdrive or only acceleration. Sometimes the AI will play one over the other if you put both in your deck, such as in here... I would go with only one type if I could choose what to upgrade instead of being forced to have some accelerations and some overdrives .

As for the BW deck, after your comment I double checked my files and I'm wondering why I didn't put a bit more CC in it. In hindsight, I would definitely try it out with -pillar +rage pot. I indeed over-pillar a bit, specially with double draw - I think x2 draw helps to compensate in case you draw too many pillar. On the other hand, if your Arena deck gets too few pillars in the beginning, you risk clogging up your hand with too many cards you can't play. Worse still, in this case you effectively loose the double draw ability if you can put those cards down. That's why I usually lean towards excess pillars than the other way around in Arena.



@Jappert
Thanks for the comments, and I hope to keep trying out some fun ideas (my ign is forfun after all, since I believe we should have fun when playing this game, above all else)! I'll always support your campaign to free Arena of the same ol' fire stalls and rushes!