The Dragon's Arena Decks

[dragonsdemesne]

Yep, lifestall poison rox. I made a very similar 35 card version of that deck for gold a while back and pretty much everybody voted it up, though it had a horrible record XD. I think 35 cards is better since u get scorpions out faster + mitosis and bonds.

Yeah, it would have been a better deck without the voids/staffs/animates, but I'm as much about making fun decks in the arena now, and don't care as much about making a winning deck.  I want my decks to be able to stay in platinum for a week, but I no longer really care if it's top ten material anymore.

I'm not sure how the deck I have up now is, as I went to work right after (and can't see the stats from work) but it's pests/steals with SoV, a couple dragons, a dusk, vamp dagger, and one or two surprises   Nothing particularly imaginative, but I don't think I've put up a pest deck before, and those seem to do very well (although I usually beat them easily with rainbow control) so this is an experiment to see how some random monodarkness stuff thrown together in 2 minutes does.

I'd thought about making dark/earth or dark/fire and using quicksand or explosion for even more annoying removal, but I decided not to be THAT much of a jerk.  Maybe the next time I get a dark card I'll make raging voodoo, since I have three red nymphs.

edit: wtf the deck is 8-0 after coming home from work... do people really have that much trouble with pests?
edit: after 6 days, the deck is 61-8; the highest I saw it was 9th place.  It's probably going down from here; I'll let people farm it until it dies, unless I get a nymph first.  (haven't gotten one in a -really- long time)

[dragonsdemesne]

185hp, 30 wisdom, 2x card draw, 3x mark
Oracle Card: STEAL
wins: 70 losses: 11 rank: 11 Rating: 320 age: 7



Seriously?  This went 70-11?  But it's so... slow.  I can see it really capitalizing when the player gets bad quanta draws, with the pests and steals on your towers, but how's it supposed to win otherwise?  If you can outproduce the quanta drain, this deck has no chance :p

Today's card is burning pillar.  I think I'll do raging voodoos   I definitely don't want to do immorush because that's boring, and I already know it will do very well except against SoSa decks, and I definitely don't want to do firestall, because people hate it and it's not that good against most good arena decks.

[dragonsdemesne]

185hp, 30 wisdom, 2x card draw, 3x mark
Oracle Card: BURNING PILLAR
wins: 50 losses: 12 rank: 179 Rating: 24 age: 6



It's what Hecate could've been... Nymph power ftw!  I didn't get as many thumbs-up as I was expecting, but I guess it's only the three nymphs that makes it unusual.  Today's card is chaos seed, and I think I'm going to make a deja vu deck.

[dragonsdemesne]

200hp, 60 wisdom, 2x card draw, 2x mark
Oracle Card: CHAOS SEED
wins: 30 losses: 11 rank: 440 Rating: -88 age: 4



Another silly deck, where every single card was meant to synergize with the deja vus.  It doesn't look like it will last the day, so iI'm making a new deck; today's card is parasite.  I'm not really sure what I can do with that that hasn't been done before; if I can't think of anything, I'll just throw a bunch of SoSa/SoVs in with it for farming.

[dragonsdemesne]

How to build a successful arena deck, by dragonsdemesne:

Step 1: Spin oracle.  The card you get is mostly irrelevant, but in this case it was parasite.
Step 2: Put 24 random cards that match the element of the card you picked.  Alternately, you may use 'other' cards or form a duo/rainbow if you wish, but it is not necessary.  In this case, I chose a death/darkness duo.
Step 3: Add six Shard of Sacrifice. (the most important step, and arguably, the only important step)
Step 4: Watch what was intended to be an SoV/SoSa farm get a 32-4 record in 3 days at rank 40.
Step 5: Watch people inexplicably give you thumbs up for your sucky deck, further padding its rank.

Go Parasite deck!!!! :p  I suppose it is rather unique, as I haven't seen my idea done before, but it's really a lousy deck except for the SoSas, or so I thought.  I can't even really imagine what's losing to it, other than maybe cremation/speedbow rushes, but against platinum, I don't expect players to be using those.  Against slower, weaker decks in the lower leagues, sure, but especially now that very few low hp decks are left up in platinum unless they're really good, and the prevalence of SoSa, rush decks are a poor choice to farm platinum.

[dragonsdemesne]

200hp, 60 wisdom, 2x card draw, 2x mark
Oracle Card: PARASITE
wins: 62 losses: 11 rank: 36 Rating: 198 age: 7

I thought this was going to be mostly a farm, but not only did it do well, it got a lot of thumbs up ratings.  Parasite doesn't even synergize with SoSa, because when the poisoned creatures die, the SoSa math is thrown out of whack.  Even with SoSas, I don't see why this deck did so well, but whatever :p

Today's card is Forest spirit.  I'd been hoping for a life card, so I could make monolife with SoSa just to prove how OP it is, but forest spirit necessitates at least a duo.  I remember doing a speedbow with forest spirit already, so I'll find something else.

[dragonsdemesne]

165hp, 60 wisdom, 2x card draw, 3x mark
Oracle Card: FOREST SPIRIT
wins: 12 losses: 7 rank: 462 Rating: -139 age: 3



I took the healing/stall theme and put it with the spirits, buying them time to grow.  It seems like it should have done a little better than it did, but I still wasn't expecting much.  It is a very easy deck to counter with the right cards, which was probably the issue.  Today's card is light pillar and I know exactly what I want to do with it. (hint: SoSa abuse)

[dragonsdemesne]

200hp 60 wisdom, 2x card draw, 2x mark
Oracle Card: LIGHT PILLAR
wins: 8 losses: 6 rank: under 500 Rating: bad age: about 2

Exact stats lost because forum was down and I couldn't post.  This deck proves that it IS possible to make a bad arena deck with 6x SoSa :p  I thought it would be a tougher deck to beat than it was, but it does bend over to shields like fire buckler, dimensional shield, thorn carapace, etc.  I just really, REALLY hope that at least one of its wins came from holy flashing someone while they had SoSa up :p

Today's card is anubis, and the deck is 4-0 so far, with all 4 as thumbs up   It is a deck I've never seen before, so that likely accounts for it.

[dragonsdemesne]

anubis deck is 37-13; I'm surprised it's still active after 4 days, as I didn't check elements this long weekend, having been out of town.

[dragonsdemesne]

200hp, 60 wisdom, 2x card draw, 2x mark
Oracle Card: ANUBIS
wins: 39 losses: 14 rank: 343 Rating: -56 age: 6



Well, this anubis deck did better than I thought it would   Time rush, with bolts for control and SoSa because it's SoSa   It got a lot of thumbs ups.  Almost nobody uses anubis in the arena, and I've never seen anyone try this sort of deck, even though it's a really simple idea.

Today's card is cockatrice, which means monolife SoSa!  I hope to prove a point with that... we'll see how it does!

[Damage]

200hp 60 wisdom, 2x card draw, 2x mark
Oracle Card: LIGHT PILLAR
wins: 8 losses: 6 rank: under 500 Rating: bad age: about 2

Exact stats lost because forum was down and I couldn't post.  This deck proves that it IS possible to make a bad arena deck with 6x SoSa :p  I thought it would be a tougher deck to beat than it was, but it does bend over to shields like fire buckler, dimensional shield, thorn carapace, etc.  I just really, REALLY hope that at least one of its wins came from holy flashing someone while they had SoSa up :p

Today's card is anubis, and the deck is 4-0 so far, with all 4 as thumbs up   It is a deck I've never seen before, so that likely accounts for it.

I remember.I EM'd that one.Lulz! ^^

[dragonsdemesne]

Yeah, that monolight deck sucked pretty hard :p  Did you have a good counter to it (fireshield, dimshield, pretty much any shield) or did it just get a fail draw?  I still hope it killed somebody with holy flash vs shard of sacrifice... that would be such a horrible way to go :p  That was literally the only reason I included them.  If I'd made a trimmed down deck of 35 cards, it probably would've done better, but I also wanted decking the opponent to be a possibility with all the healing available.

To give a frame of reference for how bad that light deck was, I have a monolife deck with 6 SoSa up right now, and when I left for work this morning, it was about rank 95.  Mono LIFE.  That's how fail this light deck was; it couldn't even compete with LIFE.