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6qq 6qq 6qq 6qq 6qq 6ts 6ts 6ts 6ts 6ts 6ts 6ts 6u3 6u3 6u3 6u3 6u3 6u3 6uq 6uq 6uq 6uq 6uq 6uq 712 752 77f 7gv 7q3 7t7 8pjSo I thought to myself, what are the weaknesses of my favorite shard, the shard of serendipity? I came up with these weaknesses.
1. Expensive: Needing 3 quanta of one element to then need more quanta of that same element plus plenty of quanta for other elements is hard to fund. Especially with the time restraint of your opponent trying to kill you; which brings me to the next weakness.
2. Time: After using the card it might still be a few turns before you can use the cards it provides. If you don't get cards that help you in that particular fight then you have to use another
SoSer just to have another chance of drawing what will help you; which means more time and more quanta. Which coincidentally brings me to the last weakness.
3. Consistency: Do I have to explain this one? We're talking about the entropy element here; I mean really people.
Solutions: First off, supernova, plain and simple. It gives you so much burst quanta that it is responsible for more deck creations than any other card aside from maybe
nova. It's so good that it has received multiple nerfs and people still want to nerf it; it's basically the Irelia of ETCG. But back to my point,
supernova gives you the burst quanta that both helps with the cost of
SoSer and the shards lack of speed as well. Besides
supernova, get a lot of
towers. You will need both
entropy towers for
supernova and
SoSer, and
quantum towers for everything else.
Secondly, Consistency and time can become two birds you kill with one stone, they kind of have to be if you want to fit all this in a 30 card deck. In fact becoming more consistent will help your speed out because you wont have to wait on cards as much. I should also point out that running 6
SoSer is important because they're about chance which always evens out to an average once enough trials have been tested or essientially, the more you have the greater the chance they'll give you something good. Outside of just this deck, I find that you need at least 4 to receive a useable synergy out of them and 3 if you need them to synergize with your other cards if your already running an extensive rainbow deck.
(secondly continued). Filling the rest of your deck after
SoSer, towers and
Supernovas with 6 cards that all roughly do the same thing will mean you have 6 cards that you can count on. Don't try and fill these 6 slots with the same card like 6
elite otyughs because you will only be able to play 1 of them in the time you need to with your quanta restraints. Now if you can ensure that that one card does everything you need before you play you
SoSer's then its fine, for instance 3
elite otyugh's and 3
SoF can work even though they all use the same quanta because you can decide whether you need cc or pc. I decided to make up for my loss of speed with cards that slow my opponent down by utilizing their shutdown threat level when they're in play. Basically cards that will slow an opponents deck down by forcing them to deal with that said card before they can play his or her cards.
My Six CardsUlitharid: one of the best abilities in ETCG. 3 damage is noticeable and 4 life is really nice. also its ability is easy to fund since it is of a different element than the ulitharid.
Turtle Shield: Naturally if I want to slow my opponent down no other shield single handedly is as effective as the turtle shield over the course of an entire game. the
Turtle shield also has a hidden ability most don't think about, it lobotomizes the entire enemies field for one turn, every other turn, because of this it compliments
Ulitharid very nicely.
Pulverizer: If I have a shield I should probably have a weapon.
Pulvy is often times considered the best weapon in the game and for good reason, infinite pc is clutch in a lot of games.
Shard of Focus: as a compliment to
pulvy this bad boy not only gets 3 uses of pc, is nearly impossible to kill after its initial play and can be
butterfly effected for more pc usage, but it also has a nifty slowing effect that comes from a free
black hole which might just save your life.
Bloodsucker: though fragile it can go unnoticed by teams waiting for something bigger to cc, not often, and allow for it to apply a ticking clock to all of your opponents creatures. also 3 damage is nice too.
Retro-virus: the obvious compliment to
bloodsucker as it can effect a whole field for a one time plague usage. as a side note one might cast
butterfly effect on it for more pc.
You will notice I picked cards that needed to be played before their abilities could be used so that my opponent would have to react to them. stopper cards are nice but your opponent doesn't mentally slow down because you might have one of many different pc or cc cards. Also my cards all have compliments to themselves meaning that I can count on their abilities from not just one of them incase they get taken down or I don't draw them. Another possible combo would be
Elite Otyugh and
Maxwell's demon, but I thought they might cost too much. Of course you don't have to have cards that directly compliment each other because they do roughly the same thing I just like the consistency. I also picked cards that could be played after only two uses of supernova so that I could pressure my opponent as soon as possible. By the time my opponent has recovered from my first couple of turns normally I have gotten to use 3 or 4
SoSer and I can make that turn into a win.
TL:DR, to run Serenbows you need plenty of quanta of not just entropy but all types, therefore use Supernova and plenty of towers. Fill the rest of your deck with cards you can count on to either speed your deck up or, in my case, slow your opponent down and add a stable base to build off of with the cards you receive from your shards.
Please comment and tell what you would change in my deck or what other variation you would run in SerenBow?
