The Dragon's Arena Decks

[Laxadarap]

Never seen silenced Pugons before? Or just never in arena?

[dragonsdemesne]

200 hp, 60 wisdom, 2x card draw, 2x mark
Oracle Card: TOADFISH
wins: 23 losses: 8 rank: >500 Rating: -102 Age: 3



10/23 thumbs up

As you can see, the entire deck was built around the awesomeness of UNSTOPPABLE PUFFERFISH :p  I was pretty happy when after the first time I checked on it, it was 5-0 with several thumbs ups, but sadly it wasn't able to maintain such a record.

Today's card is solar shield.  That's a pretty awful one to have so many copies with, unfortunately.  I'm going to try something extremely silly and crazy with this one... :p  It probably won't win any games, but it'll be unique for sure...

[dragonsdemesne]

200 hp, 60 wisdom, 2x card draw, 2x mark
Oracle Card: SOLAR SHIELD
wins: 1 losses: 3 rank: >500 Rating: -106 Age: 1

1/1 thumbs up.  (well, for this deck, I should hope so! :p)



A very weird PSNbow built around the synergy between generating malignant cells and them feeding solar buckler.  Then I tried to make sure that the other elements each had something to do with their supernova quanta.  Also, I started this game in March 2010, closing in on two years in this game, and this is the the very first time I have ever used aflatoxin in any deck of any kind.  It gets my vote for worst card in the game.  (yes, I do think flooding is better, and I have very rarely actually use flooding)

Today's card is Parasite.  I am pretty sure I did a death duo with shard of sacrifice with that once; I'll check my history and find something new.

[dragonsdemesne]

180hp, 60 wisdom, 2x card draw, 3x mark
Oracle Card: PARASITE
wins: 4 losses: 4 rank: >500 Rating: -125 age: 1



1/4 thumbs ups

This time, I decided to go for more of a thematic deck, and built around the creature poison ability.  I figured that skull bucklers and graveyards would benefit each other, as well as from the creatures dying to infect.  Note the inclusion of aflatoxin for two decks in a row! :p  Of course it didn't do very well, as it's a silly deck, but remarkably it still pulled off a 50% win rate.

Today's card is chrysaora.  I've had that one a few times before, and even built a #1 rank deck with that using SoSa and the usual poison crap.  I'd like to do something slightly different with it, though, and I have an idea... I've always wanted to try fractal physalias, so I'll see if I can find a build for that that I like.

edit: because deck images help

[dragonsdemesne]

180hp, 60 wisdom, 2x card draw, 3x mark
Oracle Card: PARASITE
wins: 25 losses: 9 rank: >500 Rating: -107 age: 3

9/25 thumbs ups



The first time I checked on this deck, it was 6-0 with 5 thumbs up, so I really thought I'd hit on a winner, but it wasn't able to maintain that kind of momentum.  I deliberately way overquantaed the deck because I wanted the AI to empty its hand as quick as possible for the fractals, so it was an attempt to compromise for AI stupidity.  The deck did alright, but it's getting harder for anything creative to be competitive, because platinum is becoming very crowded with players.  When I first got into platinum, I don't think there were more than like 600 people there, and even the dumbest of decks would last 6+ days with a record far worse than this one had, but now I've seen rank as low as the 800s, so at any given time, over a third of the people in platinum (at least) have their decks knocked out.

Anyway, today's card is shrieker.  I have a rather funny idea to do with that one.  It'll probably actually be a half-decent deck, but the best part is the epic name I'll have for it.  It shall be known as 'silent shriekers'.  I'll let you infer the deck from that.

[dragonsdemesne]

200 hp, 60 wisdom, 2x card draw, 2x mark
Oracle Card: SHRIEKER
wins: 36 losses: 12 rank: >500 Rating: -108 Age: 8

thumbs up: 11/36



I call my creation 'silent shriekers', and built it solely because of the amusing juxtaposition between the two cards :p  Dirk was used instead of longsword because AI plays permanents before spells, and if longsword took 1 when there was 2 available from the double mark, it would break the silence chain.  Also, dirk is just rofl :p  I can't help but think if more people had realized that rather comical juxtaposition, it might've gotten more thumbs-ups, but oh well

Today's card is arsenic.  It might be fairly hard to build something creative with that.  People hate poison decks, and most of the next most obvious choices aren't that creative, either, like crusader arsenics or flying eclipsed arsenics or whatever.  I'll see what I can come up with...

[dragonsdemesne]

200 hp, 60 wisdom, 2x card draw, 2x mark
Oracle Card: ARSENIC
wins: 11 losses: 5 rank: ??? Rating: -111 Age: 2

thumbs up: 1/11 (wtf...?)



Not being sure what to do with arsenic, I came up with basically a light stall, with a bit of a twist, throwing in a few dragons to use the excess quanta.  Despite this being a somewhat creative way of using arsenic, it only got one thumb up total.  I'm not sure what my deck's arena rank is, as it has been saying NaN the whole time it's been up, but based on the rating, it's probably dropped out of platinum or very darned close.  I really thought this would get more thumbs ups than it did.  I didn't even use any shards... :p  Ah well, win some, lose some.

Today's card is hematite golem.  I think I had that once before and did a fire duo, but I'll check my history and find something new to do with it.
edit: Seems I only had hematite golem once, and did a weird speedbow using earth towers with it.  My first instinct was to use rage potion/red nymphs, but that's actually rather overdone, so I'll do something else.

[dragonsdemesne]

180hp, 60 wisdom, 2x card draw, 3x mark
Oracle Card: HEMATITE GOLEM
wins: 10 losses: 5 rank: >500 Rating: -102 age: 2

4/10 thumbs up



Overdriven steel golems with a bunch of denial.  I thought it might do a little better than it did, but I suppose it bends over to splat/poison dials.  It's surprising how scary an overdriven golem can get sometimes

Today's card is scarab.  I'm not yet sure what I'll do with that, but since it's rarely actually used, almost anything I do should be fairly new :p  I think I did a speedbow with it once, and that's what people usually do with it anyway, so that's out.

[dragonsdemesne]

200 hp, 60 wisdom, 2x card draw, 2x mark
Oracle Card: SCARAB
wins: 28 losses: 9 rank: >500 Rating: -109 Age: 3

11/28 thumbs up



I didn't think this was too imaginative, but I guess it didn't do too badly compared to some; it managaed about average for thumbs up,which was more than I expected, actually.  Mostly monotime, with a few things to use the gravity quanta on; black holes from SoF, trebs for large scarabs to get around shields, and one pimp ass foil chimera, ostensibly for the same reason, but more to show off with :p

Today's card is poison.  That's a favourite for #1 decks, but I want something far more interesting than monodeath or poison dials or physalia poison.  I also see quite a lot of novabows, particularly in the lower leagues, that use poison to good effect.  I'm thinking I'll try something different than all of these...

[dragonsdemesne]

200 hp, 60 wisdom, 2x card draw, 2x mark
Oracle Card: POISON
wins: 23 losses: 9 rank: >500 Rating: -106 Age: 3

9/23 thumbs up



I didn't want to do the 'standard' decks with poison, so I went with good old 'suddenly firestall', only with death :p  I figured the red nymphs and bone walls would produce some fun synergy, and with all of the CC in the deck, the bone walls and graveyards should build up fairly nicely.  It didn't do all that well, and apparently nobody really liked it much, either. 

Today's card is stone pillar.  I am going to build a shard golem deck with this one.  In the past, I tried this once, and it failed miserably, but that was because the AI did not know what order to play the shards.  This time, however, since the shards are elemental and not colourless, I can simply deny the AI the quanta of the 'wrong' shards to play :p  It will mean that I will have to use a different selection of shards than a human might, but I'm hoping the idea will still be sound.  If worst comes to worst, at least it will be a shard farm for you all

edit: Yikes... after a bunch of playtesting vs my Sosebow, this deck is a beast :p  It's getting like 5-6 TTW most of the time, and I haven't beaten it in like 8 games.  Even when SoSe gave me a gravity shield, I still lost.

[dragonsdemesne]

200 hp, 60 wisdom, 2x card draw, 2x mark
Oracle Card: POISON
wins: 24 losses: 8 rank: >500 Rating: -119 Age: 4

10/24 thumbs up



I was expecting a lot more from this deck.  I playtested it quite a few times, and I thought it was really good.  I also thought it was a new idea, so I'm surprised that it didn't do better in the thumbs up department as well.  Decks relying on SoSa should have suffered from silence, and I figured that was the card this deck most feared, but I suppose that the AI wouldn't have timed it right; still, even just randomly playing silences should have caught at least some of those people.  A stall with lots of healing/turn like Sanc/SoG could've won, assuming that it got the chance to set up through quicksand/silence.  If anyone faced this and beat it, or can spot any reason it might've failed, let me know   Oh, and I should mention that I deliberately did not include any darkness quanta; I wanted the shards of void to be part of the shard golem, not to be played.  The idea was to try and get a vampiric golem.  Even if it didn't get vampiric, the golems would get devourer with a void shard, and that adds to the denial factor as well.

Today's card is auburn nymph.  I haven't spun a nymph in what seems forever.  I'll try to find something interesting to do with that.
edit: I decided not to try :p  I threw together all the cards currently in my signature and then filled the rest with quantum towers.  Enjoy the relics!  It probably won't win any games, but I'm hoping at least it'll look stylish!

[dragonsdemesne]

200 hp, 30 wisdom, 2x card draw, 3x mark
Oracle Card: AUBURN NYMPH
wins: 1 losses: 3 rank: >500 Rating: -110 Age: 0

1/1 thumbs up



No attempt was made to do any kind of balancing of any sort other than to pick the deck mark of the most quanta-intensive nymph.  (purple costs 9 and 4 to activate, auburn costs 8 and 3)  The deck looks really pimp, but it's not very good :p  Chimera is foil (spins as relic) which is why it was included.  1 purple nymph is upgraded because I have 7, and one aether nymph is upgraded because I was a n00b at the time I got that one and upped it before I played in pvp events.

I'll edit this post once I know what tomorrow's card is.

edit: it's antimatter