Wisdom of Bravery [fun] [Bronze] [Silver] [SoW] [SoB]

[jawdirk]

Deck Helper comment: 
This deck was posted before the 1.32 game update and as a result may work very differently now.  Use at your own risk.
The SoW + reflective shield + quint combo appears in many other (fun) decks, but I am posting this because I think I have found close to the optimal deck for this strategy. It is good enough to farm bronze, and fun to play against silver. It would be good enough to farm except it is powerless against long-stalling decks and weak against pure-poison decks. It is quite fun to play because there is a lot of strategy in when to play your SoW, and when to hold them. The best thing about it is that it consistently gets the combo out (occasionally too late, but usually very fast).

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Basic strategy:
Play this deck very reactively.
If your opponent has 2+ slots open in his hand, play SoB.
If your opponent plays a weak creature, or too many strong creatures play Rewind
If your opponent plays a strong creature, play mirror/reflective shield + Quint + SoW.
Only play novas if you need the quanta or your hand is full and you have no extra shields to discard.

Advanced strategy:
Don't play reflective shield unless there is a good reason to. You might draw into mirror shield, and not have the 2 to play it.
You have one extra SoW. If your hand has more SoW than quint, you can play 2 SoW on the first creature for a boost in early damage.
Important targets for Rewind: Chrysaora, FFQ, Pharaoh, mitosis, devourer (use or lose ), skeleton (so you can SoW!).
Pumpable creatures are great targets for SoW because the AI will pump them for you after they are wise.
You may want to put an extra SoW on a deja vu because the AI will split it for you.
Against poison decks you have to wait until you are half-dead to play Purify, but other decks you should play it as soon as you are taking damage, of course.
You have to predict the damage potential of the deck you are facing. Against low-damage decks, you may have to use SoW as soon as you draw them to avoid decking out.

Matchups:
The coolest thing about this deck is there is nothing to destroy in it at all. It is even fairly resistant to quanta denial because it holds novas until they are needed.
Golden against fire/graboid/darkness rush and mono aether for obvious reasons.
Stronger than you might expect against mono green rush.
Rainbow decks with lots of weak skill creatures are challenging but fun to play against.
Healing is troublesome, but can be overcome.
Iffy against fractal.
Autoquit against most deck-out stall.

[Spielkind]

im testing that deck for plat... 4:1 so far, blackhole swarm messed me up... but i guess it has high chance to win 2 games in a row, so fpr plat grinding cards it seems to be very good!

[jmy4788]

wow very good deck
deck idea is real

[Chapuz]

Aren't SoB and quint+SoW+reflective shield an anti synergy? it needs time to let him kill himself

[Belligerence]

I would imagine the SoBe adds a bit of stability. Don't have a card you need for combo? Draw more! Could be used to give the enemy more cards to play too, thus increasing the amount of potential targets for Quint+SoW? I'm guessing that, like most decks with SoBe, using SoBe when you need it, and holding it if you don't, is the key to not decking out.

Anyway, looks pretty cool. Maybe I'll give it a try tonight.

[jawdirk]

Aren't SoB and quint+SoW+reflective shield an anti synergy? it needs time to let him kill himself

The SoB is purely to increase the likelihood of getting the combo (as Belligerence says). You only play it if you don't have the whole combo. You can also think of the AI's first big creature as the 4th card in the combo. It is worth it to play SoB to give him the big creature rather than play SoW on a small creature.

You are right that it is often better to hold the SoB or discard it. Even if it is sometimes a dead card, it pulls its weight three times when you are facing a dragon and are missing 1/3 of the combo (2/3 of the combo is useless).

[furballdn]

I question if rewind is really a good choice for control. Why not fire bolt or BB?

[jawdirk]

I question if rewind is really a good choice for control. Why not fire bolt or BB?

You might be right (I'll try it a little tonight). There are definitely a few creatures that you just want dead (pest comes to mind). Shockwave is probably better than fire bolt.

Rewind is a nasty card though. It works on everything that SoW doesn't work on. It slows the opponent's drawing. It is nasty when you rewind their dragon, thereby giving yourself an extra turn to get the combo. BB could work for this too, but you are losing a card after it wears off.

Edit: I tried it a little against silver, and BB might be good. I'm not sold on shockwave - there are too many creatures that shockwave does nothing against. The stalling power of rewind is pretty nice though. YMMV.

[furballdn]

I question if rewind is really a good choice for control. Why not fire bolt or BB?

You might be right (I'll try it a little tonight). There are definitely a few creatures that you just want dead (pest comes to mind). Shockwave is probably better than fire bolt.

Rewind is a nasty card though. It works on everything that SoW doesn't work on. It slows the opponent's drawing. It is nasty when you rewind their dragon, thereby giving yourself an extra turn to get the combo. BB could work for this too, but you are losing a card after it wears off.

RT and BB both serve the purpose of delaying a creature. In BB's case, 6 turns, while RT is a one turn block and draw denial. I like BB because it is the strongest CC in my opinion, but a 6 turn delay might not mean much to a slower deck like this. Regardless, running 4 's worth of control from 6 nova with all those shards isn't a very good idea.

-2 RT
+BB
+Shockwave

[SnoWeb]

Funilly I tried something very similar a while ago. The biggest difference is that I haven't use SoB but more control cards.

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I find that more control card is important against swarm or chrysaora based decks.
I'll try to add some SoB and come back to give my feelings.

[whatifidogetcaught?]

Spoiler for Hidden:

Funilly I tried something very similar a while ago. The biggest difference is that I haven't use SoB but more control cards.

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I find that more control card is important against swarm or chrysaora based decks.
I'll try to add some SoB and come back to give my feelings.

I tried a slight variant, (Go Go Retrovirus!) that works effectively in Platinum. Sometimes you wish you had the shard of bravery, other times you are lucky you didn't deck out =p

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This is my first truly effective Platinum farmer, so thanks for posting such awesomeness!

The more I play, the more I find the Rewinds aren't too effective as I want. I find that maybe 2 or 3 Basilisk Bloods instead are a great stall for 6 turns as opposed to just 1 turn.

[choongmyoung]

I tried a slight variant, (Go Go Retrovirus!) that works effectively in Platinum.

Good. Though, Plague will be much better.