Recently stepped up to Platinum, thought I'd post up the first deck that I submitted that did ok (11 - 3 after one day).
It's kind of blunt and obvious, but I guess that's why it works. Oracle card was the Seraph, ran with 2X card draw, 2X mark, 30 upgraded cards, rest into life points. Feedback or advice gladly taken...
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Thanks for the suggestion, dragonsdemesne.
Fire isn't one of my favorite elements, but it's been what works for me so far in my first few platinum decks.
When the Oracle gave me fire pendulum, I first tried to build a fire/water deck, one of my favorite combinations for fun play, but testing my mono-dark deck against it proved it was pretty terrible. Fortunately I had time to rebuild with gravity/fire before taking any matches, and the result has gone 6 wins vs 1 loss in the first day :
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2X draw, 2X mark, 30 upgraded, 175hp.
Here's the latest deck that I put in that did ok; 9 wins 3 losses after 1 day.
Given Liquid Shadow, it would have been more fun to go with Antimatter, but I didn't trust the AI to be able to play it well. Before going with this obvious route (liquid shadow + voodoo doll + rage elixir), I first experimented with Dark / Gravity (big creatures that won't be quickly killed by liquid shadow) but I couldn't get anything that was fast enough to be reliable.
2X draw, 2X mark, 30 upgraded, 175 hp, Oracle card is Liquid Shadow.
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Finally an ok deck that's not a Fire quanta deck. I'd been wanting to do a poison deck in the arena for a while, but the Oracle hadn't been cooperating. Oracle gave me Virus / Retrovirus, not a perfect match for poison, but I figured I'd go with it. So far it's 8-1 after one day, probably my best one-day so far with Platinum.
Oracle : Virus / Retrovirus
Draw : 2x
Mark : 2x
Upgraded : 30
Life : 175
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Oracle gave me the Emerald Tower. I decided upon a pretty standard flying, multi-attacking Druidic Staff deck. Added a splash of poison and momentum.
Double draw, 2X mark (definitely a waste, 1X would have been fine), full upgrades (perhaps a waste, because I wanted un-upgraded Druidic Staffs for Adrenaline, and I don't have many upped Scorpions or Adrenaline), 165 hp.
Record is 18-4 so far, surprises me that it's winning so much because in my testing, a deck with good creature control can generally beat it. I'd imagine that some of the victories are coming from decking the opponent : a flying, adrenalined staff can generate a lot of life but not all that much damage.
EDIT : Image below is wrong, there is really 1 more Druidic Staff, and 1 less Animate Weapon, but I don't feel like going back to the trainer to rebuild...
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My apologies, everyone - the Oracle gave me Nightmare as my card yesterday.
I hate playing against these, but it seemed like the best thing I could build with what I was given. Record is 9-0 after a day. Edit : 32-3 after 4 days now.
Some Nightmare decks also use pillar destruction, but I decided to keep it as tight and focused as I could - dusk, rewind, eternity, and steal to slow down and disrupt, and then maximizing the Nightmare / Ghost of the Past combo with 6X each in a 35 card deck. I don't have any upgraded Ghosts but it didn't seem to matter.
180 hp, 30 upgraded cards, 2X mark, double draw.
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Best deck I've put up in a while, just the strongest Dark cards with a splash of earth for quanta destruction (strong against shard of sacrifice decks, in conjunction with Pest, and steal - which the AI will often use against quanta) and basilisk blood to shut down creatures. I think it's a good example of how to build decks differently for the AI vs for a player. In player decks, it's popular to use the splash color as the mark type, but with the strong quanta generation that a 3X mark gives, you want to use it for your main color; in fact it lets you get away with running less quanta than you might otherwise use. And where just splashing 2 of a card in a regular player deck may not have it come up very often, the double draw makes a huge difference in how often it will come up.
133 life, 60 upgraded, 3X mark, double draw; Oracle card was Obsidian Dragon. So far it's 15-0.
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