SwallowBow (Plat)(PvP)

[Newbiecake]

Hey. A few of you may remember me as one of the veteran deckbuilders from long ago. As I promised, my leave was only for me to figure out some things in life and now I'm (kind of) back and waiting for the new War to start. Should be an interesting one, at that. Been playing around the Arena to see what's new and I've been using Swallow and a few of my old decks, to varying degrees of success. Swallow seemed to be very effective, but people have been adapting and putting crazy denials like EQ/Blackholes. Hence, I came up with this deck as a refreshing change from Swallow, but retaining its success and fun.

Spoiler for Old:

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5if 5if 5rp 5rp 5rp 5rp 6u3 6u3 6u3 6u3 6u3 6u3 6ve 6ve 6ve 6ve 6ve 71a 74b 74b 74b 74d 74d 752 752 752 77m 7hi 7hi 7hi 8pl

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5if 5lg 5rp 5rp 5rp 5rp 6u3 6u3 6u3 6u3 6u3 6u3 6ve 6ve 6ve 6ve 6ve 74b 74b 74b 74d 74d 752 752 752 77m 77m 7hi 7hi 7hi 8pl

It's made into a Rainbow so that it's geared with more tools to counter the counters to Swallow. Namely, turn 1/2 Mind Flayer and Vanadium Warden to make turn 1 SoFo from the enemy negligible. Sundials help with stalling and getting the cards you need out faster, buying you some time to set up your board lock in the early turns. This deck also isn't as susceptible to EQ and Pests as it's running on a  mark and Supernovae, giving you quanta continually eat creatures even if you don't have a quanta source. If you get Blackhole'ed after you get your first Oty out, you can still survive with SoFo/GPull and  mark for devours. Feel free to remove the second Vanadium Warden in favour for a Purify to counter SoSac/Chrysaora stalls (though this deck is already pretty  heavy), though Mind Flayers help with Chrysaoras and keeping your Otys healthy.

Spoiler for Screenie:

Have fun, and hurry up with War. We're all waiting and getting impatient!

[dragonsdemesne]

Looks like a fun deck   I'm not sure how I feel about the mind flayers, here; I'm not completely sure that they're going to do much that your otyughs can't do.  I suppose they are helpful in certain matchups, and if they didn't also take the water quanta your shards of patience use, I'd be more supportive of their inclusion.  As it is, I think you'd be better off using something else; I'm just not convinced they'll help often enough to warrant their inclusion.

You could probably sub one shield in for a flayer, and several look very good, here.  Fog would be just cheap, bone wall would synergize nicely with otyughs, but would sadly take 3 supernovas to play, as well as compete with arsenic for death quanta, and thus probably not come out fast enough most games.  Fire buckler and skull buckler might be useful, comboing with the otyughs, but they'd also have poor synergy with sundials.  Even a single wings or dimshield might work here.

The arsenic is a bit of an oddball, but it's not a terrible pick, just not really my style.  I think I'd be more likely to use discord (black holes from shard of focus would help here, although it would take a long time to get out with only 5 pendulums) or vampiric dagger for the healing.  Pulverizer might be an interesting one to try as well.  You mentioned adding purify, but I don't think you need it; you can already outlast shard of sacrifice with your shards of patience.  It could be useful as an anti-poison tool, but I think this deck has pdials beat cold even without purify.

(and yes, I remember you... mostly because when you were here before, I found out you lived in the same city as I do, and went to my old high school at the time :p)

[Newbiecake]

Oh my! Dragon! <3 You are one of my favourite people in this community lol, and my longtime competing CL rival. xD

Yeah, I ended up taking out the Arsenic for a second Vanadium Warden. I was initially worried 2 would use up too much  , but realized consistency in at least getting 1 out is more important. I've also tried Pulverize already, and it's very fun to keep destroying the wave of SoFr that keeps coming out! However, if you leave a few Damselflies alive against your GPulled SoFo, you essentially have non-stop PC anyways.

Your shield suggestions are interesting, and I may have to try them out some time. Mind Flayers/Vanadium Wardens just helped a lot in early Chrysaora/SoFo/flying Momentum'ed Titans situations (which I faced on more than one occasion lol, and have seen them go 30-1 or something crazy). The only reason I didn't use any shields is b/c I rely on GPulled SoFo a lot (which I'm almost guaranteed to get both with the help of Sundials).

Thanks for your feedback, my old partner in crime!