ivalmian's Rainbow SpeedDeck (kills almost all FG with elem master for v1.17+)

[Rahlious]

Okay guess i'm gonna rant and rage a little bit now so if you don't want to hear me whine maybe you should pass on this post. It's been a very difficult tough go lately and i just want to throw my laptop. Just finished 150 games and i have to say... I AM NOT HAPPY. What makes me more frustrated is that i'm not sure if i can blame it on the build, bad luck, or just a mass of bad FG's.

http://elementsstatistics.comxa.com/getstatistics.php?dv=1491316809

LOL, same thing happened to me yesturday.

I usually do pretty well with Vreely's decks, but when I tried the 36 card deck yesturday things went pretty bad (32% win rate).  Got mostly hard FGs and when I finally got some easy ones, I got horrible draws.   Just goes to show how much luck can play in this game.   Some of it might have been due to the deck and or my lack of ability to use it properly, but I think it was just pure bad luck.   Maybe the deck is Jinxed... JK

I do have a little feedback on the deck.  Several times I found myself waiting around for that first Quint to show up.  Maybe swapping out a Phase Shield for a Quint might be better?

[MrBlonde]

Ouch!

Looking at your 150 game stats, part of it certainly is bad luck.  Look at your top 4 opponents (Scorpio, Morte, Seism, Rainbow) compared to me pulling Fire Queen 19 times (just keeps coming up).   Also, you have too small a sample size against some of the easier ones.   You can easily get 2 more Ferox wins, 2 more Elidnis wins, 2 more Paradox wins, and your normalized rate will go up about 5 or 6 points probably.   Paradox certainly should normalize at 85-90% or even higher.  Ferox you should be able to land 70% at least.

I was going to post that my normalized should go up but then that sounded like sour grapes. Although i guess i was whining anyways... Also 11 games against Divine Glory really sucks.

Yet another possible factor is in play style.  I did a poor job of expounding on strategy for each FG, and as I said in the initial writeup, this is a very difficult deck to play well.   And example would be the CL strategy I put in a later post.  If you were not holding your Pulvy and playing with a PA, I could easily see how your win rate would be lower. 

I do make mistakes but one i make sure i don't make is to ever play CL unprotected unless i have to. My losses against him seem to be because of my standard way of losing to him. I do love to read about strategy's though and i keep up PuppyChow's excellent writeup in a different tab and frequent yours for tips and reminders as well. Chaos Lord is one of the few that i've been able to handle better along with Octane and Graviton.

Perhaps there are other small little nuances in play that I have picked up on.  It comes down to knowing the FGs behavior down to the smallest detail.   This deck does live on the edge and I do have to leverage very small factoids I have picked up.  For instance, on Gemini, some may now know that keeping his massive dragons frozen will prevent him from duplicating them (not because he can't, because his script won't).

It is interesting you would say that Vreely because on multiple times i have had Gemini duplicate his frozen dragons. It is always late game when he does do this though. If he does do it when the dragon is frozen it's when he has 5-6 TU's and i believe it's when they are momentumed as well. This has happened to me twice when i did not have my druid out to mutate them down to size. It's not too big of a deal though since they will all still be frozen but it is in the script to duplicate them, at some point anyhow.

Finally, even over 150 games, I still think my normalized win rate is a bit inflated.  In no possible way should I be pulling 62% with Seism.  I don't know what unholy pact I made to have pulled my single PA in my first 14 cards in 6 out of 13 games.  Then in another 2 games where I didn't get the PA until card 25 or so Seism just happened to not have a quicksand?   I fully admit that my win rate on Seism should be closer to 0.40 rather than the 0.62 it shows now.   Also, I have only faced Morte 3 times in 150 games.   I picked up 2 out of 3 against him, but over 10 games or so I would guess it will be more like 40-50%.

Well this does make me feel a little better. Perhaps i really am just getting a bit unlucky. I've pulled my PA twice in my first 10 cards and the one time i had it protected my first turn he had 3 shriekers and a basalt dragon by turn 3 and threw out another one on turn 4. I think elements hates me right now. I am by no means blaming it all on bad luck and matchups though.  I am leaning towards your theory on the extra card making that minute hard to quantify difference. It's just really tough to seperate out which is which. Yesterday it just seemed that everything was working against me. Anyways i'll restart again later and hopefully things will even out.

[Vreely]

I do have a little feedback on the deck.  Several times I found myself waiting around for that first Quint to show up.  Maybe swapping out a Phase Shield for a Quint might be better?

You could be right about this.  If you're willing to test it out over a good number of games, I would be curious.  I have certainly had losses to FQ because I had to wait too long for a quint while he was threatening me with an eagles eye.  It is something that is a weak point (only 2 quints).   I'm just not sure if having only 1 phase shield is worse since getting to your defense is key.   Willing to give it a shot?

[ivalmian]

100,000th view! FTW!

well.. 10k.. not quite 100k yet

actually, looking at what happens in this thread is one of the few things I still do related to elements (and checking the oracle... so i get my nymphs in case I ever decide to play again)

BTW, what are the current stats (and card set) for the best version? I guess I better put it into the top post...

[Vreely]

BTW, what are the current stats (and card set) for the best version? I guess I better put it into the top post...

My current favorite deck is the one I posted here. (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,2156.msg35534#msg35534)  Although I may split it out into a brand new deck post rather than a variation of your deck since it is fundamentally different (uses Octopus, doesn't use Steal or druid).   I'll leave it up to you, either an official variant of yours, or I can make a new topic.

[ivalmian]

BTW, what are the current stats (and card set) for the best version? I guess I better put it into the top post...

My current favorite deck is the one I posted here. (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,2156.msg35534#msg35534)  Although I may split it out into a brand new deck post rather than a variation of your deck since it is fundamentally different (uses Octopus, doesn't use Steal or druid).   I'll leave it up to you, either an official variant of yours, or I can make a new topic.

i will add it tomorrow... unless you want to make a new post.

[Clathius]

From a statistical standpoint, at some point you are going to have to consider that you the player has improved and that some deck improvements are really player improvements.

-I personally prefer the 40 card version.   I found the 36 card version too variable.  I spent some time thinking about the win condition - that is, at what point have you secured a win?   I used to think it was getting the walls up.  Now I believe it to be once you have the card draw engine going.  In essence, the entire deck is 1 giant combo.  You need the vast majority of the deck at your disposal in order to win.  The way this is accomplished is by getting out the hourglasses.   A second or third turn Hourglass is a strong predictor of you winning that game.   Once you have 2 hourglasses in play, unless the FG has zerged you bad, you will probably win.   It only takes 2-3 turns of drawing 3 cards per turn that the deck just comes together.   So that being said, the 40 card version with 4 hour glasses has a higher chance of drawing an early hour glass and also a higher chance of getting 2 hourglasses out.   

This observation is likely why so many people were having bad luck with the 36 card version.  The deck is very feast or famine.  If you get an early hourglass with the 36 version you are golden, but the chances of you getting that early hourglass are lower.

[Vreely]

From a statistical standpoint, at some point you are going to have to consider that you the player has improved and that some deck improvements are really player improvements.

It is a good point, and you are right that I have could have simply just gotten better at playing, although its impossible to measure.

-I personally prefer the 40 card version.   I found the 36 card version too variable.  I spent some time thinking about the win condition - that is, at what point have you secured a win?   I used to think it was getting the walls up.  Now I believe it to be once you have the card draw engine going.  In essence, the entire deck is 1 giant combo.  You need the vast majority of the deck at your disposal in order to win.  The way this is accomplished is by getting out the hourglasses.   A second or third turn Hourglass is a strong predictor of you winning that game.   Once you have 2 hourglasses in play, unless the FG has zerged you bad, you will probably win.   It only takes 2-3 turns of drawing 3 cards per turn that the deck just comes together.   So that being said, the 40 card version with 4 hour glasses has a higher chance of drawing an early hour glass and also a higher chance of getting 2 hourglasses out.   

While I do not agree completely that the key of the deck is the getting the draw engine going, you are right about earlier hourglasses always being one of the keys to victory.  The draw engine feeds the key of the deck, which is getting both the defensive cards to keep you alive and the quantum to use them.   While having an early hourglass is indeed better, there is an opportunity cost of an extra dead hourglass draw after the first two.   To me, I like the "feel" of the 36 card version better, but as you point out in your first sentence, it likely just comes down to a preference.   If there is a "better" version of the deck, the difference is very marginal.   After all, this whole experiment in deck building is NOT about finding the perfect deck, instead it IS about finding the perfect deck for you.

[ivalmian]

added 36 card deck + commentary to the top post.. also, as a point of curiosity added a poll about which version of the deck people use (added them in chronological order).

[Vreely]

200 game checkpoint for the 36 card deck:
Win Rate:  0.60
Normalized Rate:  0.59
Detailed Statistics (http://elementsstatistics.comxa.com/getstatistics.php?dv=829739640)

Note:  In the last 120 games I only played Hermes a single time, and it was a win.  The average for Hermes at 200 games is 0.60 which skews the results.  A more expected average for Hermes is around 0.40, and I would expect it to converge towards that if I could get more games against him.  Based on this skew, I am guessing the actual normalized win rate for this deck will be 58% if it faces an equal amount of all FGs.

I also only played Morte one time in the past 100 games, but I lost this game to him bringing my average to 0.40, which I am guessing is close to where it should be over a large amount of games.

I have faced 13 out of 19 of the gods at least 8 times.  Only 9 of 19 have I faced 10 times.   For some reason I keep getting Fire Queen pairings (25 games out of 200 at 76%).   In other words, 200 games is still not enough to remove relevant statistical skewing, but I am getting closer.   At this rate it will take me 400 games just to get 10 matches against Hermes.

[Astaroth]

I find it odd that there's about a 3.6% chance to have a starting hand that lacks a Quantum Tower. I just had about 5 games out of 10 start like that... 

[MrBlonde]

I have faced 13 out of 19 of the gods at least 8 times.  Only 9 of 19 have I faced 10 times.   For some reason I keep getting Fire Queen pairings (25 games out of 200 at 76%).   In other words, 200 games is still not enough to remove relevant statistical skewing, but I am getting closer.   At this rate it will take me 400 games just to get 10 matches against Hermes.

I'm pretty much in the same boat as you. Getting 10 games from each FG will probably take at least 400 games for me as well (i've played 195). I have Paradox, Elidinis, and Dark Matter at 4 games and Incarnate and Ferox at 6. Ironically as soon as i changed up decks (needed a break) in 13 games i saw Incarnate 3 times. Figures.

Anyhow one thing i do know for sure in adding the Druid. It will definitely make a difference in your Divine Glory percentage. Having that extra damage and mutations in your lineup is pretty much essential in getting through her Miracles before she eats up your shields. Also the deck being 1 card longer helps. Of course this is pretty much an irrelevant improvement since IMO it really isn't worth it. Its probably better to just auto-quit against her.