The Rushed Stale [Pvp] [Unupped]

[Shylderidh]

Basic idea : start like an immo rush except you also have soul catchers, make a bone wall relatively fast, burn creatures to strengthen it, win even if the opponent largely outdammage you by the end of the game.
Alternate possibility : fail your immo rush, make a bone wall, make all your immolations behind your bone wall, and save the day even with a very bad draw.

I use variants of this deck in unupped pvp since weeks and found only a few it couldn't beat.

I rather use 33 to 36 cards versions than the 30 cards one, adding one more bone wall, one more soul catcher and 1-4 cards from this list : a sundial, a purify, a bone dragon, one or two more phoenixes, chrysaora or immolation, a forest scorpion, a vulture, a lightning or two, a poison or two.

If there are a little more bad draws and slower starts with 35 cards it's compensated by a better midgame (more chance to win against decks that don't offer you fragile creatures to burn with rain of fires) and less risk to be decked out.

The small version :

by Shylderidh

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4vh 4vh 4vj 4vj 4vj 52q 52q 52r 52r 52v 52v 52v 590 5f6 5f8 5f8 5f9 5f9 5f9 5f9 5f9 5fc 5i5 5i5 5ia 5l9 5l9 5l9 5l9 5l9 8pk

My actual favorite bigger one :

by Shylderidh

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4vh 4vh 4vj 4vj 4vj 52h 52q 52q 52r 52r 52r 52v 52v 52v 52v 590 5c8 5f6 5f8 5f8 5f9 5f9 5f9 5f9 5f9 5fc 5i5 5i5 5ia 5l9 5l9 5l9 5l9 5l9 61q 8pk

In all cases :

- only play immolations or novas if you can get something out  (don't waste too much immolations before you have soul catchers, wait a little except if you have the possibility to make a perfect first turn like arsenic and a lycanthrope and/or phoenix)

- the deflag is here to remove opponent weapon (especially to remove the annoying lobotomizer of an aether staler, or titans), not to break shields, poison is what kills enemy hidden behind shields ; you have chrysaora to continue to damage enemies behind phase shields or survive firewalls, and bone walls to outstale shield users

- the rains of fire are here to be cast after a bone wall not just to kill creatures ; only exception may be killing rustlers if opponent seem to use a life rush, or other cases of avoiding a sure death

- be carefull using chrysaoras in early game when you don't have soul catchers and immos, you may need this death quanta for the bone wall

- most dangerous opponents for this deck are life light rushes both outrushing you, healing themselves and using adrenaline to destroy a wall fast (and in the worse of the worse category those using cockatrices or dragons you can't kill with a rain of fire ; your only chance is to be able to cast a rain of fire on rustlers in very early game -and the opponent must have made the error to play all his rustlers at the same time), mono aether decks using mostly immortals (decks using more dragons are slow enough to be beaten before they break in, twin universe/fractal opponent decks will offer you creatures to burn as all yours are killable) and heavy healing based stales able to deck you out or killing with bolts ; in the average category most water decks can be annoying (they will freeze your creatures instead of killing them, not strengthening your wall ; and they usually have purify), fire queens decks are sometimes a problem (the good side : they give you a lot of flies to burn, the bad side : you will not kill the queens, so they win in the end if you don't kill their master fast enough), as well as decks using catapults or unstable gas or 6+ hp creatures and momentum (usually they are a little too slow if you have a good start, but will beat you on a bad draw) ; time using a lot of reverse time may also be annoying (keep the shrieker burrowed) but it can't reverse poison ;  in the easy category, most rush decks can do nothing against bone wall and fire rushes will even feed your soul catchers with immolations they will only win if you are not lucky enough to draw it, denial decks are weak against pilarless ones (the fractal pest is especially fun to humiliate with a rain of fire just after the fractal), entropy decks are rarely a problem (just keep an immo for your antimattered creatures), most growing creatures, flying weapons or dragon decks don't use enough creatures to destroy a wall fast and other decks will allow you to make a big wall with their smaller creatures ; and in a special ultra super easy category : the death/entropy decks with shrodinger cats, for obvious reasons

[Fireleaf]

I like the idea of soul catchers with immolation. My only suggestion would be to replace a photon or two with phoenixes.

[willng3]

I like the idea of soul catchers with immolation. My only suggestion would be to replace a photon or two with phoenixes.

I disagree.  With Soul Catchers, Photons, Novae and Immolations affecting your automulligan at the beginning of the game there's a fair chance of you not drawing Photons for several turns.  You'd also be stretching your quanta thin as the deck runs on a maximum of 33 and even 1 more Phoenix would bump that up to 31 used.

Testing this deck against AI3 shows me that the draws can be unstable and I run into several occasions where I go multiple turns of not having the necessary to play the cards using that quanta.  I also felt that the 30 card variant was generating too much .  However, PvP1 can be quite different from AI3 which makes some of these concerns irrelevant.

I think the idea's amazing and I look forward to seeing where it goes from here.

[furballdn]

Like the idea, but the quanta balance seems really wonky.

[Shylderidh]

Yep the problem of adding more phoenixes instead of photon is it increases a lot the chances of bad starts (considering you need two immo or an immo + a nova to field each phoenix or rain of fire, I'd also recommand one more nova if you add a phoenix while keeping the two rains).

In most cases, a well timed rain of fire is more usefull than a phoenix with this deck, the phoenix is mostly there to have an use for fire quanta when facing decks using immortals or too big creatures.

For death quanta it's hard to balance. If you get soul catchers early you end with huge death quanta pools and no use for it (it's why I add a bone dragon in large version), if you get chrysaoras early but no catchers in early game, it may be severely lacking.

ps : I also tested variants of this idea with other marks, but I find the death one is safer in case of a no catchers start.

But when it works the air variant is even better for keeping bone walls forever (but not as good against shielded opponents / immortals).

by Shylderidh

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4vh 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 52h 52r 52r 52r 52v 52v 52v 52v 590 5f6 5f8 5f9 5f9 5f9 5f9 5fc 5fc 5od 5od 5od 5od 5od 5od 5oh 5oi 5ol 5ol 5om 5on 8pr

(edit : better version of the air variant, more novaes and dragonflies reduce a little the chances of bad starts)

[willng3]

Yep, that new variant's a lot more consistent and seems to provide a good amount of offense and defense at the same time.  I have yet to use the Flying Weapon thus far, but other than that the deck flows extremely well.

[Shylderidh]

Flying weapon is a card I like to have against the many PC heavy decks, and I like the "play anything under 6hp it's dead" effect of having 2 bows out,  but it may be better to take a purify or one more wolf.

The idea also works rather well with other elements having CC, but death is the best to survive bad starts.

Here the versions I tested recently.


Gravity

by Shylderidh

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4vh 4vj 4vj 4vj 52h 52n 52q 52q 52r 52r 52r 52v 52v 52v 52v 55q 55q 55r 55r 55r 58t 58t 5f8 5f9 5f9 5f9 5f9 5fc 5ia 5l9 5l9 5l9 5l9 5l9 8pl

(a solid deck when the opponent has no creature control, but stand no chance against cc deck - note : the strategy is to play one otyugh with momentum and plate armors rather than trying to get the 3 out fast, you won't have the quanta to eat more than once per turn)


Fire

by Shylderidh

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4vh 4vj 4vj 4vj 52h 52q 52q 52r 52r 52r 52v 52v 52v 52v 590 5f4 5f6 5f6 5f8 5f8 5f9 5f9 5f9 5f9 5f9 5f9 5fc 5fc 5fc 5ia 5l9 5l9 5l9 5l9 8po

(more punch/phoenixes than others, but less photons can result in very bad starts)


Aether

by Shylderidh

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4vh 52h 52h 52k 52q 52r 52r 52r 52v 52v 52v 52v 52v 5f6 5f8 5f9 5f9 5f9 5f9 5f9 5fc 5fc 5ia 5l9 5l9 61p 61p 61p 61p 61p 61p 61q 61q 621 622 8pu

(keep a spark for the fractal, quint the vulture if you get the two cards early ; excellent for bone wall duration, but very bad if you are unlucky with drawing soul catchers)


Darkness voodoo and skeleton horde

by Shylderidh

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4vh 4vj 4vj 52n 52n 52n 52r 52r 52r 52v 52v 52v 52v 590 5f8 5f8 5f9 5f9 5f9 5f9 5f9 5fb 5fb 5fb 5l9 5l9 5l9 5l9 5l9 5lc 5uq 5ur 5v0 5v0 5v0 8pt

(good results against zergs of small creatures, and opponents fearing the dolls -some people always believe you have a gravity pull and a basilisk blood in your hand when they see a doll, giving you time to strengthen your wall ; but this deck is weaker than others out of that)


Darkness devourers

by Shylderidh

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4vh 4vj 4vj 52h 52q 52r 52r 52r 52v 52v 52v 52v 5f8 5f8 5f9 5f9 5f9 5f9 5f9 5fc 5l9 5l9 5l9 5l9 5l9 5ul 5um 5um 5um 5um 5um 5up 5up 5uq 5us 8pt

(rush, denial and stale in the same deck looked exciting, but didn't work that well)


Entropy

by Shylderidh

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4vj 4vj 4vj 4vk 4vk 4vk 4vk 4vp 4vp 4vp 52n 52n 52q 52q 52r 52r 52r 52v 52v 52v 52v 590 5f8 5f9 5f9 5f9 5f9 5fc 5fc 5l9 5l9 5l9 5l9 5l9 621 8pj

(very random with the pande ; quint your best creature when you can and try to have the shrieker burrowed when you use them)