Scarab Scavengers

[Ellimint]

This is a hard deck to play against False Gods UNUPGRADED.

[Scaredgirl]

Now that Sundials always last 2 turns even if you haste, do you think all four Bone Walls are still needed? Also, this is indeed better with Miracle and another armor; Miracle isn't often used due to each Sundial eating 2 light quanta, but it still is a lifesaver a lot of the time, and the armor usually makes it much faster, to the point where one might consider even using four of them; you have literally no other use for Earth after all.

Also, this is a fun deck for competitive play...er, PvP, but one thing concerns me: this deck is way, way too vulnerable to decking out, creature damage, or decks with simple healing when done by an actual player, because real players don't throw every single low-HP creature they get onto the field when they first see Scarabs. That's ignoring the obvious problems with mono-aether and Anubis, but I don't think you mean to make this a counter-all with an identity crisis. I'm well aware this is more anti-gods than anything but you seem to be clever enough to make a PvP variation of this.

Scarabs and parallel universe are your only attacking methods in the deck. You only have three of the latter and the high play cost generally limits then to mid-late game. If your opponent holds, say, a simple Rain of Fire, that forces you to save up at least 4 scarabs and an Armor; even if you play a scarab earlier with armor, it becomes the only creature on your side with not enough HP for a head start on eating. But here's the thing: the odds of having 4 scarabs after even TWENTY-FIVE cards in your 43-card deck is only ~80%; in other worlds you are entering the point of desperation about 20% of the time because you don't have any damage being dealt, permanent creature control (sundials this late would almost guarantee decking yourself) or healing.* So that leaves you with only 15-20 turns to do 100 damage with base 2 or 3 attack creatures, through healing, creature damage, reverse time, and so on; the AI is a total idiot and feeds your scarabs everything it can, but a player can just react to this and stop playing creatures until he gets creature damage cards, put up a couple shields (if they have more than one shield and one weapon you are generally screwed with only two steals) and sit there until you lose; this doesn't require a lot of deck specialization either. If they have Miracle you have no chance.

*You want to calculate this yourself? It's a hypergeometric distribution. Go here (http://stattrek.com/Lesson2/Hypergeometric.aspx?Tutorial=Stat) and have fun, remember to add the chance of getting 5 or 6 scarabs too because I forgot to do that the first time.

So can you make this a bit faster for PvP you think? There's a lot less emphasis on stalling in the first few turns there so that could change how you need to structure it. You could probably get away with fewer Bone Walls, maybe 2 Bone Walls would probably cut it, perhaps drop a Bond, maybe work in a weapon as well; I can see Owl's Eye working fairly well with this as the deck uses no Air and it gives tougher creatures a delicious zesty -3 HP garnish that makes them oh-so-edible by your scarabs, and there's no need to play it if you believe your opponent plans to use Steal.

Good post.

You are right about Bone Walls. There's no need for 4 especially when Bone Wall gets bigger and bigger once Scarabs start eating. Right now I'm playing with 3 Bone Walls and 3 Heavy Armors which I think works the best.

You are also right about Eagle's Eye. It's perfect for this deck because it uses Air and helps Scarabs eat. I have that one too.

I really should update that picture. That version over there is an old one where I purposedly wanted to remove all "extra" cards and concentrate on Scarabs. That was a dumb thing to do because if you have a card that would make a deck better, it might be a good idea to take it 

Like you said this is more anti-God deck than anything else. I haven't really been thinking about a PvP variation. I'm usually all about PvP in games but for some reason in this one I like to fight False Gods Maybe it's because PvP is too slow.. I don't know. I have played this deck in PvP and won every time but those were against non-upgraded decks so that's not fair.

What you say about decking out is also true. There is a high risk of doing that. But against Gods it's not as bad as you'd think if you know the right strategy, on other words if you know where to use Parallel Universe. For example if you use Parallel Universe to duplicate Miracle's Light Dragons (possibly buffed up) you will never deck out even if he uses 4 Improved Miracles.

You talked about having to wait for 4 Scarabs to show up. No need for that. You can usually start your attack if you have..

- 4 Scarabs
- 1 Scarab + Heavy Armor
- 2 Scarabs + 2 Heavy Armor
- 3 Scarabs + Parallel Universe

These are the most common situations and the probability of at least ONE of these happening early in the game is relatively high.

p.s. thanks for the link to Hypergeometric Calculator. It's pretty awesome

[RoKetha]

p.s. thanks for the link to Hypergeometric Calculator. It's pretty awesome

Hypergeometic... calculator...?

*scrolls down farther on the page*

How the hell did I not see this? I only went as far as the formula.

Wow... I wasted so much time with Windows Calculator and goofed up anyway. Think that 80% should be 50% because I mistakenly calculated ₆C₄ as 30 instead of 15.

Edit: I'm playing this deck completely unupgraded and I've beaten Miracle and Gemini so far, both with mastery, yet to win any cards though. I picked Eternity as my weapon and it's a huge help in the late-game against the gods that don't attack permanents. Stops me from decking for a long time (though not forever, since you have to pay 5 quanta a turn) and makes it far less scary when your own 8/31 scarab gets duplicated, though Owl's Eye works there too.

Scorpio just seems absolutely impossible with this deck unupgraded though, even with Miracle, because you can't stall him at all.  I normally end up with 8 poison or so by the end of his second turn. Upgraded might be a little different since you can play cards on your first turn. I did manage to lock Rainbow down twice which was cool, though I lost by decking since I didn't have Eternity that time, I was forced to draw quickly to keep up, and he Miracle'd... Rainbow is just a jackass like that.

[Nihilus]

Hi ScaredGirl
Did u already consider using chaos blessing instead of heavy armor?

[Scaredgirl]

Hi ScaredGirl
Did u already consider using chaos blessing instead of heavy armor?

Yeah I had 2 of those in beta version. I didn't like it because it's random and might give more attack then defense. With Heavy Armor you always get that 6 defense which is good for Scarabs.

If someone wants to make this deck bigger, Chaos Blessing is a good choice. Or maybe something else from Entropy or Water.

[Genomax]

Tried this deck out, completely unupgraded. Won every single game in PvP and Level 3. Then, I took it to the False Gods, and was pitted against Chaos Lord. Here was my final result:

(http://www.mypicx.com/uploadimg/1586845447_09022009_1.bmp)

Props to Scaredgirl for this wonderfully fun deck, it's awesome
I was really lucky, his mutations kept going wrong. First he mutated my scarab into an arctic squid with mutate, then I used that to mutate one of my scarabs into a graboid with destroy. Steal took care of two of his shields, and destroy took care of the last one. Empathic Bond slowed down the poison for a while, until he stole it.

Almost lost the game because I forgot about my graboid though >.<

[Scaredgirl]

Props to Scaredgirl for this wonderfully fun deck, it's awesome
I was really lucky, his mutations kept going wrong. First he mutated my scarab into an arctic squid with mutate, then I used that to mutate one of my scarabs into a graboid with destroy. Steal took care of two of his shields, and destroy took care of the last one. Empathic Bond slowed down the poison for a while, until he stole it.

Almost lost the game because I forgot about my graboid though >.<

Thanks. Yeah, Scarabs can be fun. It's awesome when you get 5+ of them on the table and they just eat everything.

[thearchduke]

I've added a Poseidon and two Eagle's Eyes to the deck.  I find they help a lot in different situations.  The Eagle's Eyes have been discussed previously but the Poseidon is nice for using water and earth quanta, which you have too much of in this deck anyway.  THe problem is that as a god-farming deck, the Poseidon is next to useless in the late game and it takes a lot of quanta which makes it hard to use early.  Still, when you get Poseidon and at least three or four pillars in your opening hand, plus maybe a sundial or two, this deck is unstoppable.  It's actually embarassing how unprepared the god decks are for this contingency.  I suppose pulverizers would also work, but there you're using the same gravity quanta that the scarabs need, thus the poseidon. 

In particular, this is especially effective against Firefly Queen (take out her Life Q first, stop the fireflies, then the the Air, stop the queens, by this point your scarabs should be eating).
 
It helps with the chaos lord since I frequently find his dissipation shields difficult to steal sometimes and taking away his quantam pillars makes running through his quanta quicker.

Hermes has a very hard time getting his attackers on the board and then buffed without his Fire and Gravity Pillars.

EDIT: If you take out all of Miracle's Light Pillars, it's very likely the AI will spend all its white on Dragons instead of Miracles, makes beating it SO MUCH easier.

It doesn't help much with Seism.  How the hell do you beat that deck, anyway?

[Evil Hamster]

It doesn't help much with Seism.  How the hell do you beat that deck, anyway?

Protect artifact your pillars and keep your shields up. Don't know if that's possible with this deck...

[2weiX]

I have to Scarab decks, mostly unupgraded.

one is very very fast and i used it to grind level 3 AIs:



the other one fares very well in PVP.

I am constantly moving thunderstorm in and out of the deck, since sometimes it's just pure awesome (killing 20 skeletons FTW) and sometimes (eg vs mono-aether) its just dumb. the jury is still  out on this one, but i THINK i would like to include it. i call this deck the SCARAB TOOLBOX.
firebolt is an a+ game-finisher that usually hits them out of nowhere. kaPLOOW.

the deflagration is nice to time your last wave. play a dial, build your men, deflag the dial and rush in.

i am in the process of upping the pillars to towers.

this last deck has a version that is awesome to grind level3 with mastery nearly all the time, with the following adjustments: w
-1 thunderstorm
-1 deflagration
+2 pillars
+1 steal
+3 bonds
+2 boneyards

hile it's a bit slower, i am able to stall and then play mass scarabs, kill kritters, get skeletons, gain life etc.

[yahoo123]

How is this deck going to deal with gravity shields?And Colossal drags of gemini? even if you can get a scaraab large enough, you wont be in time

[midg3333]

How is this deck going to deal with gravity shields?And Colossal drags of gemini? even if you can get a scaraab large enough, you wont be in time

steals can take ot gravity shield. As for gemini... sundials prevent the dragons from attacking, and with enough feral bonds and creatures i suppose you could heal quite a lot every turn... but with an eternity or 2 in the deck, it could deal with gemini and decking out...