Lastmerlins platinum journey

[Lastmerlin]

Well, I am arrived in platinum now - as expected.

Sadly I feel nowhere like a competent deckbuilder yet. Hence I have decided to make my own deck thread. In contrast to most other other platinum threads its not intended mainly for presentation but rather for getting feedback on style and efficiency and recommendations for improvement. Please dont hesitate to give some tips

My objectives for deckbuilding:

• Some core idea for every deck
• The core idea should really work (and as good as possible)
• Acceptable success rate
• I will mostly not aim at max efficiency! Occasionaly trying for a 90% winrate is ok, but too much such decks make the arena pointless overall.

First deck cards is alright a spectactular start - my first nymph overall (after 4 months of waiting). And even one of the nasty ones . So the concept is simple: Try to get Gravity nymph + SoR and cast a free black hole every turn!

Level 60 Health Points 138/170 Max Upgraded 30 Oracle Upgraded 4 Mark Multiplier 2X Card(s) per Turn 2X Deck Size 2X

Win:Loss 15:7 Electrum Earned 420 Rank 523 Rating -159 Age (days) 5 Thumbs Up? 20 Thumbs Down? -5

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74o 74o 74o 74o 568 4vl 5ia 5ia 5og 5v2 621 6u3 6u3 6u3 6u3 6u3 6u5 6u5 719 744 744 744 744 744 744 744 745 745 745 745 745 77d 77d 7dm 7dm 7qu 7qu 8pj

I have no idea, why the thumbs up ratio is messed up. I am very sure that I did not reach top10. Its a bit sad, because I would really like to know if players liked it. Standard discord and black hole gets (and deserves) hate only.

Next card will be as good as the previous one - because I got my second nymph after less than one week of waiting :O

[ddevans96]

Congrats on the nymphs!

Judging by the high amount of electrum shown, I'd assume that you had some electrum stored up from previous decks. Electrum is used for the thumbs calculations both manually and by the tool, since a thumbs up doubles the electrum gain. Claim electrum before submitting a new deck to get an accurate calculation for it.

[Lastmerlin]

Next card was light nymph. To use their skill, you need a lot of creatures without any skill. After testing a bit with skeletons and other stuff, I decided to go for Deja Vu - two plain creatures for each card on your hand for 2 seems a good trade. To use the light quantum, hope shield and several other defensive cards are added. The final result:

Level 60 Health Points 138/170 Max Upgraded 30 Oracle Upgraded 4 Mark Multiplier 2X Card(s) per Turn 2X Deck Size 2X

Win:Loss 7:6 Electrum Earned 96 Rank 520 Rating -176 Age (days) 5 Thumbs Up? 1 Thumbs Down? 6

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7kc 7kc 7kc 7kc 5ls 5lk 5lk 5lk 5lm 5lm 5rh 5rh 5rk 5ro 7jo 7jo 7jo 7jo 7jo 7jp 7jp 7jp 7jp 7jp 7jp 7k2 7k2 7k6 7k6 7km 7km 7la 7la 7q1 7q1 7q1 7q1 7q4 7q4 7q8 8ps

Apparently it sucked . Any tips for improvement?
Some things I noticed already at testing (and changes I did not like):
- Its more of a rush than I expected. Mass Deja Vu does more damage that I thought and these nymphs are not as weak as some of their sisters. Swapping the defensive stuff (partially) for blessing might help - but I did not like that because this goes towards a copy of the Fake God Paradow. Adding TU or Fractal would surely work for the same version.
- The AI is very reluctant at using the nymph ability - this is really sad because it often fails to use the combo this way - why that?
- mass CC kills this obviously - I dont see any way to fix this.

Last thing that made me sad is that apparently everybody hated it. In my opinion its not the most annoying or boring idea you can come up with.

Well next card is Nova. So much possibilities. Lets see, if I can find something that is not massively overused.

[styx0009]

 To fight against Swallow with light&time duo, you need more Rewind and Morning glory. A few Eternites might deleted by Shard of focus before using their ability(it also consume a lot of time qunta). Here is my suggestion : -2Eternity, +2Rewind, -4Sanctuary, +2Morning glory, +1Animate weapon

[Lastmerlin]

Concept this time was simple: Collect the cheaper flyers from each element into a rainbow and power it by SoFree. I mixed a few smaller additional synergies like blessing + Deja Vu /Pegasus or Condor/CC, no idea if this improved the deck. Overall, it was very successful. Sadly players disliked it, no idea why. Perhaps because Sofree is just overpowered and annoying. Its not the most creative idea either, but my light/time was better in this regard and got only dislikes as well. Whatever.

Only question I ask is: Are these quantum towers good for something? All decks of this type I saw had these towers, but somehow I believe with double mark, the deck could do without. Did not dare to take them out at the end .

Level 60 Health Points 1/170 Max Upgraded 30 Oracle Upgraded 4 Mark Multiplier 2X Card(s) per Turn 2X Deck Size 2X

Win:Loss 36:10 Electrum Earned 516 Rank 375 Rating -56 Age (days) 8 Thumbs Up? 7 Thumbs Down? 29

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6u3 6u3 6u3 6u3 4vj 5c1 5pa 61q 625 6qq 6qq 6qq 6qq 6tt 6u2 6u2 6u3 6u9 714 719 7ah 7dj 7gq 7gq 7jr 7jv 7nq 7nq 7nq 7nq 7q1 7q1 7q1 7tf 80a 8pj

Next card is black dragon. Not so many options here...

[Aves]

Having only 6/35 of your cards being quanta producers would make your deck very very dependent on drawing those supernovae in time, and would slow down the speed of your deck. Those QTs provide some extra breathing space for producing the quanta you need. As for dislikes, speedbow is a very popular deck archetype.

Black dragon is nice!

[Lastmerlin]

Well I did not know what to do interesting with a huge creature without any special skills. So I settled for mono dark - with the advantage that I could build it within minutes.
Review of the result: The efficiency of mono dark is scary. I saw it at 30-2 somewhere - and I was even to greedy to upgrade any towers. Players hated it - and I cant blame them. I would downvote this deck as well. In fact, I am quite surprised it got any upvotes after all, same ratio as my previous freedom rainbow. I have a clear opinion which is more interesting - apparently other players not :O .

This time my question is: What are interesting combos with such a dragon? Best idea I could come up with was copy it via TU, but this is hardly better than mono.

Level 61 Health Points 1/175 Max Upgraded 30 Oracle Upgraded 4 Mark Multiplier 2X Card(s) per Turn 2X Deck Size 2X

Win:Loss 42:14 Electrum Earned 600 Rank 424 Rating -154 Age (days) 8 Thumbs Up? 8 Thumbs Down? 34

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7t5 7t5 7t5 7t5 5ul 5uk 5uk 5uk 5uk 5uk 5uk 5uk 5uk 5uk 5uk 5uk 7t6 7t6 7t6 7t6 7t6 7t6 7t9 7t9 7t9 7ta 7ta 7tb 7tb 7td 7td 7td 7tf 7u2 7u2 8pt

Next one is dark pendulum

[Lastmerlin]

I wanted to use my pile of upgraded void shards this time and made a dark/life stall that has the shards as (almost) sole damage source. Of course AI is stupid and plays the drains before being able to kill, but apart from that it worked really nice. It also got some solid rate of likes despite using pests (which many people hat, me included). Any comments?

Level 61 Health Points 47/175 Max Upgraded 30 Oracle Upgraded 4 Mark Multiplier 2X Card(s) per Turn 2X Deck Size 2X

Win:Loss 38:16 Electrum Earned 624 Rank 390 Rating -94 Age (days) 7 Thumbs Up? 14 Thumbs Down? 24

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7um 7um 7um 7um 606 5cq 5cq 5cq 5cq 5vi 7am 7am 7ba 7ba 7t4 7t4 7t6 7t6 7t6 7t6 7t6 7t6 7t8 7t9 7t9 7tb 7tb 7tc 7tc 7tc 7u2 7u2 7u2 7u2 7u2 8pn

Next card: Gravity pillar.

[Lastmerlin]

I looked at the gravity cards (and which ones I had upgraded) and decided to group the deck around fire eater. To make a difference from graviton, I decided to fuel them with SoR instead of fire and make it a gravity/time duo. As the strategy turned out to be really slow, the rest of the cards are control and stalling stuff.

Result: Deck seems to be rather weak and did some crazy turns. Started with 4-4 and I thought it will drop out within three days, then got up to 17-5 and then lost again to 18-14. Any good rush, reverse time, SoSac any various other things kill it, but at the end it was a fair challenge.

Most notable result: The downvotes. Not writing UP/down votes it justified, because it got 100% hate. I have not idea why. Its not the most versatile or creative strategy, that clear. But even the most boring monos or almost 100% copies of fake gods tend to get 10-20% thumbs up (See my darkness mono). I guess that a few players are very benevolent and upvotes almost everything. Almost. Any tips what was soo bad here?

Level 61 Health Points 1/175 Max Upgraded 30 Oracle Upgraded 4 Mark Multiplier 2X Card(s) per Turn 2X Deck Size 2X

Win:Loss 21:15 Electrum Earned 252 Rank 492 Rating -163 Age (days) 8 Thumbs Up? 0 Thumbs Down? 21

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744 744 744 744 55k 55o 55o 55s 55s 744 744 744 744 74a 74a 74a 74e 74e 74e 74e 74e 74e 752 752 752 7q4 7q4 7q4 7q4 7qu 7qu 7qu 7qu 7qu 7qu 8ps

Next cards: Unstable Gas. I wont even try to do something surprising here. Perhaps I can start a streak.

[Lastmerlin]

Got a massive direkt damage spell - decided to group it with 12 other direkt damage spells. Went really well, best I saw was rank 17. I expected players to hate this completely, but it got some 20-30% thumbs up constantly. Thats at least better than the last one... I reiterate: I have no idea what players want :O

Level 61 Health Points 1/175 Max Upgraded 30 Oracle Upgraded 4 Mark Multiplier 2X Card(s) per Turn 2X Deck Size 2X

Win:Loss 52:20 Electrum Earned 804 Rank 48 Rating 255 Age (days) 9 Thumbs Up? 15 Thumbs Down? 37

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7n6 7n6 7n6 7n6 5om 5om 5pu 5pu 5pu 5pu 7dk 7dk 7dk 7dk 7dk 7dk 7dm 7dm 7dm 7dm 7dn 7dn 7ms 7ms 7ms 7ms 7n7 7n7 7n7 7n7 7n7 7n7 7oe 7oe 7oe 8po

Next: Voodoo doll.

[Lastmerlin]

I forgot to post the voodoo deck. Now: poison stall with fire. Very successful in each regard :O

Level 61 Health Points 1/175 Max Upgraded 30 Oracle Upgraded 4 Mark Multiplier 2X Card(s) per Turn 2X Deck Size 2X

Win:Loss 33:24 Electrum Earned 576 Rank 555 Rating -138 Age (days) 11 Thumbs Up? 15 Thumbs Down? 18

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72i 72i 72i 72i 542 52g 52g 52g 52g 710 710 718 718 718 718 718 718 719 71a 71a 71a 71b 71b 71b 7dk 7dk 7dk 7dk 7dk 7dk 7dm 7dm 7do 7n2 7n2 8po

Next: Aflatoxin 

[Lastmerlin]

I had no real idea what to do with this one. AI will surely play Afla on an enemy creature - so we are giving the enemy a bunch of cells. I thought about Skull Shield to negate the damage but ultimately used Sosac to turn the damage to healing. Add int bone wall to deceive the enemy to put out own creatures and poison for the damage. But honestly, it felt rather like slapping together death cards rather randomly. I am not really sure if bonewall isn rather an antisynergy here. And its really boring and got its deserved majority of downvotes.

Main surprise: This went 11-0 before it started loosing. Woot  - why is this so strong. Other story: As soon as Hp was reduced it started loosing rapidly.

I'd like any tips: Is this combination good for anything, and what could you add to it? And what else can you do with Aflatoxin in arena?

Level 61 Health Points 111/175 Max Upgraded 30 Oracle Upgraded 4 Mark Multiplier 2X Card(s) per Turn 2X Deck Size 2X

Win:Loss 16:6 Electrum Earned 228 Rank 552 Rating -194 Age (days) 6 Thumbs Up? 3 Thumbs Down? 13

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71c 71c 71c 71c 52s 52g 52g 52g 52g 710 710 710 710 710 710 718 718 718 718 718 718 71a 71a 71a 71b 71b 71b 71b 71u 71u 71u 71u 71u 7n2 7n2 8pk

Next: Flooding :O