Statistics on 43 Rainbow God Deck - 80% win rate

[vice123]

Update.

 Latest change I made was to take out a Firestorm and put in a 3rd Oty. Pic follows.



 And here are the stats for the games I played with this deck and the one with 3 storms and 2 otys (I made the swap mid-recording):

God           | win | loss |  %
Chaos Lord   12     0     100.00
Fire Queen   18     1     94.74
Gemini         12     0     100.00
Graviton        8     2     80.00
Hermes        12     6     66.67
Incarnate     27     1     96.43
Miracle          8     1     88.89
Morte          12     4     75.00
Rainbow        9     2     81.82
Scorpio         8     7     53.33
Seism         15    10     60.00

total:        141    34     80.57
average win/loss%: 81.53

 Statistically the data is insufficient to say which modification is better, but it is my feeling that the latest deck is a bit faster and a bit better overall.

 Note the 1 loss vs FQ, Incarnate and Miracle each. Those were rather unfortunate combination of bad draws and my mistakes due to my eagerness to win faster. The average would be around 83% counting those out.
 Scorpio seems hardest to beat, though games with him are quick and interesting. Seism as usual is a long and boring grind with uncertain outcome. Hermes is also troublesome with his countless explosions and bolts.
 Chaos Lord, Fire Queen, Incarnate, Miracle and Gemini are no trouble at all.
 
 I am still looking to improve the deck or go for a fundamentally new build if I find a better one.

[foyle]

Vice123,
Thanks for posting these, I tried this last night and had similar success to what you are reporting (though of course played many less games).
I like this deck, I think it may be my favorite God Farming deck so far.  I actually lost to Miracle once but it was just a strange draw where I got no sundials before his dragons could kill me.  Other than that I basically only lost to Seism, though he generally rocked me (I think I went 1 for 4 or 1 for 5).  Losing a lot to Seism seems fairly unavoidable though, and even adding a protect artificat is only going to help in the 1/3 of the games when you can draw it early.  Your deck seems fairly fast too though (although there is no Eternity I had no problem with running out of cards and usually didn't even have to slow my drawing down except perhaps against Miracle), which is nice and you will usually win with elemental mastery.
Playing this deck (or just looking at it) you will notice there is a huge constraint on Gravity and Life quantums.  Although it can seem annoying when its happening (very often you have to choose between Pulverizing a permanent or eating a creature, or creating a firefly or mutating something) in my experience it did not really lead to losses (I guess if you are able to get an Otugyh and Pulverizer out in the first place, you are probably in control and likely going to win even if you can't use both every turn).  There are also a couple quantums that aren't used at all, however I can't imagine many tweaks that could make it better (I like the size of the deck and wouldn't really want to add more cards).  One thing that I might try, and I'm not sure if you have already or not, is replace the 3rd Otugyh with a Parallel Universe.  Aether is not used by anything, and with the constraints on Gravity, in many games I only cast 1 of the Otugyhs to begin with and keep all the rest in my hand.  However, this would of course would lower your chance to draw an Otugyh, and one of the things I really like about this deck is you usually get one very early on which prevents the god from amassing a huge army before you draw one (this is especially nice vs Scorpio who I ended up beating probably 4 out of 5 times or so).  Alternatively I would also like to try it with the PU added and nothing taken out and see if it messes with the balance.  If there were some way you could do Mark Gravity that would be nice, but I don't think it would work with Supernovas and I don't think it would be worth it to downgrade to regular Novas just for that (then your Life quanta would be even more rare, and with not that many towers in the deck the Supernovas seem pretty critical in the early part of the game).

Anyway I am just rambling, there are my random thoughts on the deck and thanks for posting it, it works great!

[vice123]

 Thanks for the constructive post, Foyle.
 Though you seem to have played only a few games with the deck you have understood it's strengths and weaknesses. The deck is heavy on 2 elements - gravity and life, but I wouldn't do much to change the current balance. The 3 otys mean I will get one early, as most games I find myself waiting for an oty before I stop chaining dials and open the offensive. Deciding what to use your grav quanta for is what makes a good player. For example, a lot of seism games I find myself saving gravity to eat unburrowed graboids and not waste it on gemfinders. I also try not to get the oty over 3 attack (if possible) because it will be rewinded by the AI along with the flies when the rewind bomb drops. Same with green mana - deciding whether to use it on bond, mutate or flies is key to winning some games. Changing mark seems unreasonable as supernovas are too good to drop.
 Adding cards from the 2 unused colors (water and aether) has crossed my mind many times. I've tried ulits and PU. Though extra units come in handy vs most gods (especially rainbow), they come at the cost of card space or a smaller chance to draw an early oty. I wouldn't make the deck any bigger concerning there can be only 6 dials and you need them to survive.
 The deck could use some improvement against seism, morte, rainbow and hermes. What comes to mind is a 3rd bone wall, extra units or PU. PA seems a good choice for seism and deflaggers but I don't feel its worth the space.
 If you make a tweak and find it works better please post it!

[vice123]

I had the day off so I decided to play some more games. This is the score continued from my last update to a total of 250 games played.
No changes to the deck since the last update - http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,489.msg6966#msg6966 (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,489.msg6966#msg6966)

God           | win | loss |  %
Chaos Lord   19     0     100.00
Fire Queen   25     2     92.59
Gemini         20     0     100.00
Graviton        8     2     80.00
Hermes        15     8     65.22
Incarnate     38     1     97.44
Miracle         14     1     93.33
Morte          13     6     68.42
Rainbow       16     6     72.73
Scorpio        17     9     65.38
Seism          19    11     63.33

total:        204    46     81.60
average win/loss%: 81.68

I need to get a few more graviton fights to make his score more accurate - I haven't seen him recently. The average % has been going up and down between 81 and 82, I doubt there will be any significant changes in the future.

[turin]

Seems a very good deck, problem is that a bigger (48-50 card) deck can give you more card variety, leaving you the chance to use an eternity and miracle: this improves your games against scrorpio, rainbow and morte (that have very low winning %) not slowening you too much.

[foyle]

I think I agree its better to keep 3 Otyugh's just so you draw one faster.  I actually had a game last night where ALL 3 Otyugh's were my last 3 cards of the deck.  Since I had no eternity I was kind of freaking out, but somehow I won (I forget which God it was now... was not Miracle or Incarnate, I think it was Chaos Lord or Morte).  Since Otyugh is a main part of this deck I was impressed that the deck was still versatile enough to win without it (my Fallen Druids did not mutate my fireflies with any creature-controlling abilities either).  Basically the fact that I had 2 rain of fires for creature control and supplying my bonewall allowed me to win without the Otyugh.  But in any case, it is not an experience I want to increase by having only 2 Otyugh's.  And with 3 you usually get one by the time you have 4 Gravity Quantum which is a great help in staying in control and speeding up the game.
Thanks for the tips regarding Seism.  I had not noticed exactly at what point he rewinded the Otyugh, so I will try to keep him from growing that big (then again, if in a Seism game I am able to eat more than 3 creatures to begin with it probably means I've gotten enough quantums to win).  I had also not thought of not eating his gnomes, perhaps I will try that.
I did try one variation where I just kept all the same cards and added one PU.  Once I made this change I played about 5 games, and for 3 of them I got absolutely terrible draws and lost (I lost to MIRACLE and INCARNATE in back to back games!).  In both I just had strange draws where ~20 cards into my deck I still had not drawn sundials or creature control (Otyugh/firestorm or even a druid I think).  In all the games I had a PU in my hand which was doing me no good (I could PU Miracle's 18/18 dragon but that won't make him kill me any slower).  I couldn't help but think, "if only this PU wasn't in my deck I very well may have drawn that sundial on my last turn."  And then even in the games I won, the PU was never that useful.  Since there are multiple copies of all creatures in the deck, you usually don't need to PU your own that badly.  PU-ing some 15/15 thing is always nice, but it almost never wins the game for me.  So I decided since adding a PU a) expands your deck even bigger when the number of towers you have already is walking a thin line, b) will very rarely be the difference between a winning and losing game vs the AI and c) this deck is already reasonably fast as far as false gods go, it didn't seem worth it.  And there aren't really any cards I would want to take out.  I like the number of firestorms, Otyugh, Hourglasses in there for sure... I also would not want to take out a Fallen Druid since having only 1 with them being so easy to kill is annoying.  And Druids are also great for speeding the game up.  If you wanted to replace a card for the PU I would probably go for a FFQ, but I don't think it would end up being worth it (with only 1 FFQ you would often not draw it until late game, which could slow some games down considerably since the fireflies are basically your only unit with any attack power aside from mutations)

I'm not sure how many games I've played with it so far (too many considering its only been a couple days!), but I'm still lovin it.  Rainbow and Hermes I have not found to be too bad, though they can occassionally win.  Really though it seems like going into each game I expect to basically always win, unless I am facing Seism who I lose to more than I beat.  But I'd rather just lose those games against Seism than change the deck around and add cards that are more or less useless against other gods.  

If on the rare chance I try some variation that does work, I will let you know!  Maxwell's demon is another one that I would be interested in trying to fit in if possible since the mark is Entropy, but like PU it may just prove to not be vital enough to warrant adding.  With the rain of fire's the Demon would work great and may be nice at killing some of Seism/Rainbow/Herme's creatures that are too big to eat normally (they are also still just as useful after suffering an opponents rain of fire, which is nice as well).  The demon is perhaps one that an Otyugh could be replaced with since it serves basically the same purpose.  Disadvantages are if you happened to start with 2 Druids and a Demon in your hand, it would probably take quite some time to play them all.  Though then again Druids usually aren't that useful in the first few turns of the game anyway.  I think I will try that next time (replace 1 Otyugh with 1 Demon) and see how it goes.

[foyle]

Seems a very good deck, problem is that a bigger (48-50 card) deck can give you more card variety, leaving you the chance to use an eternity and miracle: this improves your games against scrorpio, rainbow and morte (that have very low winning %) not slowening you too much.

I think more card variety is worse though... what I like about this deck is that it is fairly reliable what cards you will have, yet unlike the super small decks (which, being smaller, are even more reliable) you have a backup copy of each creature so its not too bad if the god kills one.  Eternity you really don't need, I guess it is sometimes nice to rewind the opponents card but even at 43 cards this deck really never needs to rewind your own cards.  In fact even without the Eternity I basically always continue to draw cards as fast as possible until I'm down to about 7 or 8 cards (except vs Miracle, who I usually stop at 15 cards unless I have been able to destroy his light towers by then), and it has never been a problem.  By that time you should have enough damage on the table to kill the god within 3 turns.  I have decked out only once, and it was when Rainbow drew a miracle on his last turn before dying (he had no cards in his hand prior to the turn).  You could stop drawing a little earlier than me as well without much impact if you really wanted to be sure you didn't deck out. 
As for Miracle, there are some very rare occassions it would help, but to add it you would need to change a lot about this deck.  First of all you won't have enough light quanta as it is to ever cast it, so you would need a lot more towers or unupgraded sundials or both.  And having the sundials be free to cast is very useful in common situations for me (example, with the low number of towers, on turn 2 it is not too rare to have 1 entropy quanta, one or more supernovas, and no cards you can play other than sundial.  It is very nice to play a free sundial, knowing that the next turn you can use your supernova(s), which will supply enough quanta to use the sundials card draw.  I also don't think Miracle is that good, even against Scorpio... drawing a Feral Bond is usually better.  Scorpio really hasn't been that bad for me so far with this deck, since it usually doesn't take you too long to draw some combination of otyughs/firestorms/pulverizer that you need to keep him under control, and with 2 boneyards, 2 queens and 2 feral bonds in the medium-sized deck, you can usually quickly build up enough creatures to out heal his poison.

[vice123]

 To give a quick reply to turin - I wouldn't get a bigger deck for 2 reasons - it becomes more unpredictable and the chance to draw a supernova or a dial are smaller. Currently novas and dials are a bit over 1 in 7 cards, which I think is the magic number since your hand holds 7 cards (and you draw an 8th card which I like to think makes up for having a bit over 42 cards).

 I am generally not a fan of putting single copies of a card in the deck. That was the idea when I made it - no eternity but 2+ copies of each card. If you have only 1 you will have it in the last 10 cards of the deck every 4th game, which isn't reliable at all.
 I do like the idea of another entropy card, because this is the deck's mark. Having druids on the table is a winner vs seism, not only because you get uber mutants but also because you can quickly replay rewinded druids due to entropy mark. Same with water and aether mutants since those are unused colors.
 Some day I should write tips on beating all gods with the deck, since experience is one thing that makes me win so often. Just basic stuff like when to play the dials, how to avoid fire storms and plagues or trigger them intentionally to clear the way, the order in which the AI targets units, what and when to steal, etc.

[foyle]

it looks like we have the same reasons for liking the deck (small enough to be fairly reliable, and multiple copies of cards).

Having said that, the Maxwell's demon may be an exception to this because you never really need to rely on it.  It and the Otyugh's are basically serving the same purpose, the Demon just uses a different quantum (and the one you have marked) to do it so it could ease up the gravity quantum usage a bit.  The demon would be nice for seism since you could kill the pesky 9/11 guys after a firestorm, who are the only real threat if you are able to get his shield.  You could also get any of his unborrowed guys, and you usually have a bunch of extra entropy vs Seism since the pace is usually slow against him. 
However there are certainly some disadvantages to the Demon, so I am not saying it is better to include him I just want to try it out.  One notable problem is that in the first few turns you will often actually have less Entropy quantum than gravity due to the super novas, so you wouldn't be able to get the Demon out on turns 1 or 2 like you can sometimes do with the Otugyh. 

[turin]

Well, the reason i like to have 3-4 card more are:

Miracle: very useful against high damage dealers. Especially with hermes, when you are getting the right of the situation, to avoid a bolt kill. Against poison can be an ultimate defence or a mastery garant

Eternity: very good against morte and scorpio, saving creatures from poison, freeze, lobotomize, bolts' damage. Has a great sinergy with druid against duo decks, rewinding enemy creatures after mutating them (and even against rainbow/chaos, because rewinded mutants get only the unupgraded card abilities). Plus, with druid you can get stealing/destroying mutants making pulv useless.

Phase shield: a pair of these can be incredibly useful against morte/scorpio/miracle/ffq

But these cards dont fit in this 43 card deck, but in time marked decks with heavy hastening, so, not wanting to change topic:

bigger decks are slower, and even if more thought, probably this wont change more than a 1-2% of win/loss ratio. I'll do statistics on mine to compare!

[vice123]

 Turin - those are all great cards (except for phase shield, which is not only inferior to bonewall but also obsolete since dials), but it's hard to find place in the deck for them and still be able to reliably draw what you need early in the game.
 I've given the deck some more thought, both cause it's getting a bit boring and because I want to make it even better if possible. This is probably what I'll be playing with for a couple of days:

Note: image updated.



 I've played about 70 games with it so far and it's doing great. Seism fights have improved significantly, I always have mana to use mutation and most times even to replay rewinded creatures from other elements. Rainbow seems a bit harder though, at least until I can get a few strong mutants to tank his spells.
 What would be a great addition to the deck are a couple of twin universes. I could use them to copy a powerful creature to tank spells or just copy my own strong mutants to make games quicker. Space is scarce as always, though.

[zakal]

I have been using this deck for a couple days but with 2 Otys.  I went back and forth between substituting an Anubis and an Octopus for the open spot.  Anubis simply takes too much time quanta in my opinion, but the Octopus has come in REALLY handy in quite a few games.  Particularly vs decks with momentum.  Generally I agree on the two of each card to make them reliable thing, but I only have one Octopus, so I haven't been able to test that. 

I have also played around with adding a Twin Universe.  This card is one that does OK with only 1 copy I think.  I usually find it more useful in late game anyway when there is some big scary thing with growth the AI has prepared for me.