Chaos Lord is the big problem though. What makes Chaos Lord difficult is that he has steals so if you don't get your Pulvy early and protect it i am leery to play it. I'm not sure if Discord is a higher priority then Pulvy so i pretty much won't play it unless i absolutely have to unprotected because if that gets stolen forget about the game. Because of this i think Chaos Lord is the weakest link of the FG's concerning increased time. That dis shield can be a total pain.
I agree with you completely that Chaos Lord is a weak link of my build. However, I am learning to deal with him. You do not need an early Pulvy, but you do need it protected. Once you get it protected, the game is quickly yours. If you get it late (only 4 cards left or so), then typically your board is already setup full of fireflies and skeletons and you have a massive bone wall protecting you. Then play the Pulvy, protect it, and next turn knock down his shield and hit him for 80 damage or so. 2 more turns of this and he's dead.
So I draw aggressively until I get the Pulvy + PA in hand. At this point, if I have at least 18 or so left in the draw deck & the Eternity in hand I will actually play an Eternity unprotected first and try to use it to bounce a few of his beefy mutations that he cannot recast, or one that he burned all his chaos powers on. Eventually the Eternity either is stolen, or I no longer need it, then I'll replace it with the Pulvy to rip down his dis shields. I ignore Discord. I rarely makes it through my shield except in the early game sometimes. If the Pulvy is in hand, but I cannot find the protect yet AND my board is setup with a bunch of firepower, then I will take a chance and play it unprotected. Typically he has burned all his steals by now. He can draw one of course, but so far I have gotten lucky. Usually I only need it around for a 3 turns of destroying the dis shield.
Where the long game comes in is when the Pulvy is in the final 2 cards. Draw it on 2 & play it, use it on 1 then I am forced to play the Eternity w/ protect and snuggle in for 20 rounds of dis shield protection (assuming he replaces it). If you get the Pulvy on the 3rd to last card, I am typically OK. Draw on 3 & play w/ PA, use it on 2 & nail him, use it on 1 and nail him, use it on 0 and finish him.
Pulvy will be in the final 2 cards only 1 out of every 18 games against him, and in that 1 game you have a 20% chance to lose to him before you even notice its buried (die to an early rush). This means you only have a
4.4% chance of hitting the hell game with CL on each matchup against CL. This is bearable.
Take the calculation with a grain of salt, because there are many variables. For instance, there is an extraneous case where you draw both your graveyard & queen in the final 10 cards so you cannot setup the board to kill him in 3 turns. In this case you need the Pulvy a turn earlier, and my calculation does not include it. Then to throw another wrench into it, he typically mutates my secondary Oty & my Octopus; sometimes into a very useful base creature that is subsequently rewound for me to play again and reap the benefits. Sometimes he doesn't have 3 dis shields in hand. Sometimes I have to use a quint on an octopus to keep me alive early... you get the point. Math can only take one so far in a complex game such as this.
All of this adds up to:
Its not as bad as you think. Yes, I have been caught in a lockdown game with him (2 at the most), but 1 or 2 games out of 133 total games played is not going to ruin my day.
Now... you want to talk about Elidnis? I think that is actually my weakest link. I have no answer for a later game Pulvy and a bunch of bonds and immortal creatures that slowly tear down my bone wall while he remains virtually untouchable behind a jade shield and 40 points of healing each turn. So far in the 5 games I have caught against Elidnis, only 1 had a late Pulvy, and in that one I was lucky that he never drew a jade shield before I took him out.
