So here's what I've been using to farm FG's lately. It's not fast, it's not the best, but I enjoy it and that's what counts, right?
I came up with this via my own tinkering, obviously it's got some of the core of the omnipresent anti-FG rainbows, and upon reviewing the forums I see it is similar to decks by
Qohelet (
http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,6486.0.html) and
sSethia (
http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,7023.0.html), but I still felt it was different enough to merit its own thread.
Currently I'm running 75-146, so about a 34% win rate (with 44 Elemental Masteries) which I find to be pretty acceptable.
Here's the deck:
Hover over cards for details, click for permalink
52n 5fk 6qq 6qq 6qq 6qq 6qq 6qq 6qq 6qq 6qq 6qq 6qq 6qq 6qq 6qq 6qq 6qq 6qq 6qq 6qq 6qq 6qq 6qq 6u6 6u6 71b 74b 74b 77i 77i 77i 7am 7ba 7ba 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q5 7q5 7q5 7q5 7q5 7q5 7q7 7q7 7q8 7q9 7q9 7q9 7t8 80d 80d 80d 80h 80h 80h 8psObviously the strat is draw into Quint'd control, then win with Quint'd mutants.
Other basic strat points:
- Sundials are all about timing. Sometimes you need to burn them early, sometimes it's best to save them to compliment your Bone Walls.
- The Quints are there because any FG with creature control has the potential to nuke your Anub before it can act, plus I will burn an early Quint on an Oty to do creature control.
- If I know I'm playing a heavy permanent destroyer, I'll use my first Protect Art on an Hourglass to make sure I can keep drawing. Outside of that I always make sure to Protect my Eternity and Boneyard.
- The Dusk Shield is a last-ditch emergency card. Since nothing else uses Death quanta, and it's relatively cheap, I use it to stall while praying to draw something to save me -- or if at the end of the match I haven't managed to get a huge Bone Wall going I'll use it to reduce incoming damage so that the regen cards can keep me alive.
- The Red Nymph is dual purpose, to nuke enemy creatures (especially poisonous Oty-killers!), and to buff up mutants. It does make a big difference, but if you don't have one it can be replaced with another copy of anything else in the deck.
- I usually stop once I've got 4 Hourglasses out, to leave space for other permanents especially if I get a mutant with steal. But if I'm desperate I'll play as many as I can in order to try to draw my salvation.
But wait -- 60 cards? Isn't this horribly succeptible to bad draws?
The answer is, absolutely. Any time I don't get an early hourglass, or vs some FG's an early Quint'd Oty, I'm dead meat. I've found having too many pillars is not a big setback, that's why there's 28 pillars in this deck -- I very rarely get a super low pillar draw. I'd say maybe 20% of my losses are due to bad draws (no Hourglasses in first 10 cards, no shields in first 20). I figure that just comes with the territory of a 60 card deck.
So how does it stack up against the FG's?
Decent (~50%+ chance) = 9/24
- Chaos Lord, Destiny, Elidnis, Ferox, Fire Queen, Incarnate, Miracle, Neptune, Paradox
Hard (~25% chance) = 6/24
- Decay, Eternal Phoenix, Gemini, Morte, Osiris, Seism
Pure Luck (~10% chance) = 5/24
- Dark Matter, Divine Glory, Hermes, Obliterator, Octane
Nigh Impossible (~1% chance) = 4/24
- Dream Catcher, Graviton, Rainbow, Scorpio
Detailed stats:
75-146 :: 34% wins in 221 games :: 44 EM's (59% of wins; 20% of total games)
2-2 Chaos Lord
1-5 Dark Matter
2-5 Decay
5-2 Destiny
1-5 Divine Glory
0-12 Dream Catcher
5-4 Elidnis
2-4 Eternal Phoenix
4-5 Ferox
8-9 Fire Queen
4-6 Gemini
0-7 Graviton
1-3 Hermes
6-7 Incarnate
5-5 Miracle
3-8 Morte
7-2 Neptune
3-9 Obliterator
1-7 Octane
4-7 Osiris
5-4 Paradox
0-7 Rainbow
5-9 Seism
1-12 Scorpio
