Serendipity Deck "Over 42 cards" or "Surprise the AI" [FG]

[ooli]

update7/7: with 100 fight

deck	Over 42 cards
players	Ooli

version	1,32		win-rate	36%
$ track ?	disabled		win-rate (n)	n.a.
games	100		Score/h	n.a.
win-loss-(EM)	36-64-( 8 )		Score/h (n)	n.a.
time (h:m:s)	n.a.		FGei[c]*	n.a.
min/game	n.a.		FGei[cn]*	n.a.

      Statmasta™realtec                                                               


I played Elements since scrarcrowgirl posted his first rainbow FG farmer.
I play irregularly. There's a reason: I play a few days, Test some new cards, Enjoy the game.
And , after a while , I got really frustrated with how the AI cheats:The AI know your card. It even know the card you will draw and anticipate to screw you.

So here come the "Over 42 cards" deck. Or "surprise the AI":

Spoiler for Hidden:

Hover over cards for details, click for permalink

Deck import code : [Select]

50a 50a 52n 52n 623 6qq 6qq 6qq 6qq 6qq 6qq 6qq 6ts 6u3 6u3 6u3 6u3 6u3 6u7 6uq 6uq 6uq 6uq 71b 74b 77f 7am 7gv 7q5 7t9 8pj

Serendipity shard is, IMHO an underrated shard (compared to SoFocus, or SoSacrifice). It allow more cards in your deck , meaning more creatures essentially.
With more creature , you can throw them without too much concern about creature control. You just lost a Otyugh , no problem: you 'll probably get another soon, or a  more useful card.
Instead of being scared, you can play with a bit of carelessness.

But that's not the  important idea.
 Out of 20 fight  (I decided for a small number and begin recording fights, once I saw it did pretty well against FG) it win 10.

50% win rate without skipping.

The sample is very short and it need far more testing.
But the point is: without having new trick, the deck did pretty well (and with some un-upgraded cards)
IMO it 's because Serendipity Shard (and MindGate may be) are the only way to fool the AI.
 The others cards, were just some OP stuff (Otyiugh,Ulitharid, Hourglass); And some Bonewall and Boneyard and Feral bond, on the assumption that a lot of creature will be killed by the FG and could as well feed some defense. And the Mindgate on the idea to have "surprise" card, the AI wont know you will have when it plays its turn.

I bet you can come up with something better. I just want to draw the attention on the hidden power of SoSerendipity.

Remember old FG-farmer:
 RoL Hope was awesome, then the AI was changed to target RoL when an Hope shield was in play.
The Voodoo Doll deck was awesome, then the AI stopped targeting mindlessly Voodoo Doll, etc ...

Actually the AI never target your Malignant Cell (allowing the actual Aflatoxin/SoPatience decks to shine) . That will be corrected once Zanzarino put his mind on it. With SoSerendipity the AI cannot anticipate what you will play. And never will.

My point is. SoSerendipity are the only way you can be sure the AI wont know what you have next.
So the AI will make more mistake, and every FG-farmer rely on tricking the AI one way or the other.



God by god:

Spoiler for god by god:

score/h	FGei(c)	Statmasta™realtec	wins	losses	skips	EM/Wins
n.a.    n.a.    n.a.    n.a.    n.a.    n.a.    n.a.    n.a.    n.a.    n.a.    n.a.    n.a.    n.a.    n.a.       n.a.    n.a.    n.a.    n.a.    n.a.    n.a.    n.a.    n.a.    n.a.    n.a.    n.a.    n.a.    n.a.    n.a.    n.a.	n.a.    n.a.    n.a.    n.a.    n.a.    n.a.    n.a.    n.a.    n.a.    n.a.    n.a.    n.a.    n.a.    n.a.       n.a.    n.a.    n.a.    n.a.    n.a.    n.a.    n.a.    n.a.    n.a.    n.a.    n.a.    n.a.    n.a.    n.a.    n.a.	Akebono Chaos Lord Dark Matter Decay Destiny Divine Glory Dream Catcher Elidnis Eternal Phoenix Ferox Fire Queen Gemini Graviton Hecate Hermes Incarnate Jezebel Lionheart Miracle Morte Neptune Obliterator Octane Osiris Paradox Rainbow Scorpio Seism Serket	0    2    0    0    6     0    0    2    0    1    1    3    1    3    1    0    1    1    4    1    1    0    2    0    3    1    1    0    1	2     0     1     5     3      4     1     0     5     5     2     1     2     5     3     1     4     2     2     0     2     2     1     4     2     3     0     1     1	0    0    0    0    0    0    0    0    0    0    0    0    0    0    0    0    0    0    0    0    0    0    0    0    0    0    0    0    0	0      1      0      0      1      0      0      0      0      1      0      0      0      0      0      0      0      0      2      0      1      0      0      0      1      1      0      0      0

[eaglgenes101]

That is one interesting way to make use of Sose. Most decks that need a lot of cards use rather big decks and hourglasses to speed through them. The last time I saw this sort of epicness was when a newbie called Jashin (who is unfortunately not on the forums anymore) released a deck that was a rainbow control, except it was more successful at farming FG's because it had 2 less hourglassses. Think about that. Almost no veteran would consider doing such a thing to a rainbow control.

And while you're at it, I stocked a voodoo deck with tons of drawpower from SoBe and made it practical again.

[treebeard xiii]

sose is not underrated people just don't seem to trust it for some reason everyone can notice that the card is good but aren't willing to trust in the sose it caan be used very competitively if supported by the right cards i have dabbled in many a sose deck but never built one good enough to kill fgs, and this i can't help feeling may suffer the same problem as all my other attempts sose is your damage source basically which is where it suffers most as the options of damage are to wide you may get 10 out of twenty games where it givs you exactly what you need and then the next 20 or thirty games it gives you the cards you need in the wrong matches. I would say it would be a worthwhile investment if by 50 games it still has a 50% win ratio but at least someone is trying to bring sose into an fg killer and i salute you as it is an achievement i wish to see come to light within my time as a member of this community. I look forward to seeing futher stats and would be willing to help you make them if you'd like.

[Gandora]

I somehow miss the stall breaker. How about an elite queen instead of antimatter? it has high hp, helps with bond, increases skeletons and bonewall with oty.

[Keeps]

I looked at the FG list, and figure the ending percentage will be around 33%-40% roughly in my head (I've tested against the FGs too much recently I think to do that kind of prediction).  You have several still that would run over this deck at of the mix not tested.

That being said, I liked the deck, and Gandora, you don't have much time with the elite queen unless it's an early play early, you aren't going for a stall, the antimatter is more useful, but even more useful than the antimatter is a purify for when facing Gold

That being said it reminds me of a first AI4 speedbow I created with SoSas, which reminds me over a solid Gold Grinder someone else came up with that I enjoyed for a while.  That being said, I wanted to try this in Gold and got good results, except against mono-aether.  Mixed results, and found Silver to be more consistent. 

Hover over cards for details, click for permalink

Deck import code : [Select]

52n 52n 6qq 6qq 6qq 6qq 6qq 6qq 6qq 6ts 6u3 6u3 6u3 6u3 6u3 6uq 6uq 6uq 6uq 6uq 6uq 71b 74b 77f 7am 7gq 7gv 7q5 7t9 80j 8pj

[ooli]

You're spot on with your prediction: 36% win rate against FG after 100 fight. (I updated the stat, and God by god breakdown in the first post.)

I made a few mistake, I was sometime lucky, I forgot to count some EM. Nevermind, it seems a fair number.

I dont recommend the deck in Arena. In arena you need purify, mirror shield, and this deck mostly based on CC will have hard time agains the draw, quanta denial, or the lot of Shard of Freedom all around.

treebeard xiii: You're right SoSer can give you some good stuff, then bad stuff. The point of testing was to know, if, on average, it give more good cards, so you win more often than not. My point is you have 42 cards, in a 30 cards deck. Those 12 cards in bonus cannot be totally bad.

Some remark on the deck:
The quanta you end up missing are mostly Grav (Otyuh and pulvy of course) and a Aether (Ulitharid and mindgate) and Entropy, when you get high cost card via SoSer. Nothing you can really do about it. Stealing a Grav/aether/entropy pillar is mostly the best solution :]

Mindgate is not that great of a card, it's main use, for me, was to know what the AI will get next turn, and it's not too useful either. So a decent deck should probably get rid of it.

I'm not totally convinced of hourglass here. You get your cards early mostly  via SoSer. And I had a few deckout caused by heavy hourglass use.

You end up having far more weapon than you can use. Having an animate weapon may help.

Your main resource here are the skelies. The AI dont target boneyard that much, nor does it kill them too often. With Improved mutation and fallen elf you get often  from SoSer you can turn them into something worthy. Even a rewind can help. The feral bond is probably the most life saving permanent in the deck.



Some tips:
I usually play my creature right on, except when I have a boneyard, or bond so I wait till I can play that first when FG has CC. If it has PC I try to play most of the permanent at the same time, so one can last a few turn.

I play SoSer when I have a 3 cards rooms. Or desperately need something, anything :]
 Avoid playing them when you have no room, cause the 1st card it give is always Entropy, and you probably dont have the quanta to use it anyway.

Antimatter is a great way to have the AI kill its own annoying critter.

[Higurashi]

Very similar to my SoSe HB killer. I think my Arena variant might work better than that one though. If something can beat Gold and Plat, it can usually beat FG's with decent success (40-ish%). They always keep it fresh, eh? :>
Using Boneyard and Bond is interesting, but mostly I'm interested in the synergy with Mutation. I'd even go so far as to pack a Druid to make sure I get one. The fun factor kinda soars with that. I'd also pack a Phase Shield in place of Mindgate.

Since my Arena mod uses SoFo+GF, I'll also try that for FG's.

[eaglgenes101]

Most FG killers are designed to be focused so you can skip gods you can't beat and speed through the ones you can. Now how do you add focus to this deck?

[Keeps]

Most FG killers are designed to be focused so you can skip gods you can't beat and speed through the ones you can. Now how do you add focus to this deck?

Although that is true.  I've never agreed with the method myself.  It's why I built malignant balls.  However, a constant grind is not for me either.  It's why I probably still don't have all the cards upped yet either.   None the less, I prefer to not skip my games, part of my personality is the never give up, always fight on mentality and so the idea of skips does not settle well with me.

I think, ooli, would grow by understanding that this game is:
In general the stategy of the type of deck wins out in general:  (For example, this deck does very well against Ghostmare but not so well against Mono Aether)
In PVP is all about the quickest kill with the least number of counters or ability to counter those counters on a macro level.
In PVE, it's about 'tricking' the AI to give you that edge.

He thinks the AI is cheating, but it's we who are cheating the AI.  We know the cards the AI has, it does not know the cards we have.  We know how the the AI will play it's cards, it does not know that about us.  Why do you think OTK is so effective in the players hands, but not the AI.    When I posted malignant balls, most people were only getting 30 to 40% win, CuCN got a 64% wr, I still average 70% and that's including things like skips.  What's the difference, it's knowing how to trick the AI.  We if anything are cheating against it.  We can learn exactly how the AI will play what cards. The result is the AI needs buffs in order to compete against us.  That's why it gets more health, more mark, more cards, and more draw power.

Serendipity isn't giving him the edge he thinks it is and that's why it falls in the realm of beats the AI 1/3rd of the time like hundreds of other decks.  You are sacrificing some of your control for 12 additional random cards that may or may not provide you a solution.

The thing I like about this deck is it has two flavors built in of decks I liked in the past.  It's these cards that provide the win most of the time, and the random other cards that give you a small percentage chance of winning over the base.  It gives the edge of randomness over the edge of randomness of arena.  It turns out to do well against Silver.  It's not strong enough for Gold, and certain not against FGs.

Regardless, I prefer someone trying to think out of the box, again, it's how my Big Balls and Malignant Balls both got built.  So keep on trying ooli.

[eaglgenes101]

And , after a while , I got really frustrated with how the AI cheats:The AI know your card. It even know the card you will draw and anticipate to screw you.

...

Actually the AI never target your Malignant Cell (allowing the actual Aflatoxin/SoPatience decks to shine) . That will be corrected once Zanzarino put his mind on it. With SoSerendipity the AI cannot anticipate what you will play. And never will.

My point is. SoSerendipity are the only way you can be sure the AI wont know what you have next.
So the AI will make more mistake, and every FG-farmer rely on tricking the AI one way or the other.

It may be your feels during a loss against an FG that's misleading you.

You can find what decks the FG's are carrying in a thread in the FG section.