Deck Concepts

[phaedrus]

Here is the deck that I  like vs. Aether. Its also built to have a chance vs earth/fire based stalls. The question there being whether it will generate enough time quanta to stall long enough with eternity... It would have a much better shot with upped eternity.

by phaedrus

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The modification for when it takes on other expensive decks

by phaedrus

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Right now something I'm worried about is that EQs wreck more of our decks than I'm comfortable with.
What are our options there? Early discord?

Side note, lets maybe open up a strategy thread soon? I've forgotten who our strategist is (sry).

[LongDono]

Few things,

I am for Phaedrus's mod of Ait's mod of the trap deck . the warden are great for the elf. although the pande option is also a good one.

Aether is tough with the rush/ stall option or rush while stalling with shields. Looking at the every deck aether has used either a gravity or thorn carapace would be highly benificial. but also looking at the deck only 1 have the capability of doing >90 damage a turn. in general without the 3 TU decks, damage potential remains at around 50. It might be risky but what about decking aether out with mass healing? using life, bonds, flying staves, sanctuary? they have used 1 deck over ~35 cards which I am pretty sure wont be used against us. kinda risky but it might be worth a deck test or too.

ran out of time i will comment more later but everything looks great

Great idea, Sevs. We may play aether more than once so we can probably try more than one strategy, but perhaps this should be one of the first; seems like you have them pegged.
I dont like the idea of deckout vs Aether. We need to mix decks up, if they counter it then the deck dies in round 6. ( when they know it is coming )

[ShiningSword]

Here is the deck that I  like vs. Aether. Its also built to have a chance vs earth/fire based stalls. The question there being whether it will generate enough time quanta to stall long enough with eternity... It would have a much better shot with upped eternity.

by ShiningSword

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4sa 4sa 4sa 4sa 4sa 4sa 4sa 4sa 4sa 4sa 4sa 4sa 4sa 4vh 55u 593 593 593 5c6 5c6 5lm 5lm 5lm 5ro 5um 5um 5um 622 622 622 8pu

The modification for when it takes on other expensive decks

by ShiningSword

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4sa 4sa 4sa 4sa 4sa 4sa 4sa 4sa 4sa 4sa 4sa 4sa 4sa 4vh 55u 593 593 593 5c6 5c6 5lm 5rk 5rk 5rk 5um 5um 5um 622 622 622 8pu

Right now something I'm worried about is that EQs wreck more of our decks than I'm comfortable with.
What are our options there? Early discord?

Side note, lets maybe open up a strategy thread soon? I've forgotten who our strategist is (sry).

I bet 30 cards they are expecting exactly that.
They wont try to stall on us, they will send something that is fast and can put up with denial.
Im convinced a defencive deck which shield penetration and CC resiliance is the way to go. Can we make a list of what can fulfill this guidelines? I would say we take 3 decks with a good fulfilling of the guidelines and that are also effective in multiple matchups, just to be sure we have them all in check.

[LifeLockable]

Here is the deck that I  like vs. Aether. Its also built to have a chance vs earth/fire based stalls. The question there being whether it will generate enough time quanta to stall long enough with eternity... It would have a much better shot with upped eternity.

by LifeLockable

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The modification for when it takes on other expensive decks

by LifeLockable

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4sa 4sa 4sa 4sa 4sa 4sa 4sa 4sa 4sa 4sa 4sa 4sa 4sa 4vh 55u 593 593 593 5c6 5c6 5lm 5rk 5rk 5rk 5um 5um 5um 622 622 622 8pu

Right now something I'm worried about is that EQs wreck more of our decks than I'm comfortable with.
What are our options there? Early discord?

Side note, lets maybe open up a strategy thread soon? I've forgotten who our strategist is (sry).

I bet 30 cards they are expecting exactly that.
They wont try to stall on us, they will send something that is fast and can put up with denial.
Im convinced a defencive deck which shield penetration and CC resiliance is the way to go. Can we make a list of what can fulfill this guidelines? I would say we take 3 decks with a good fulfilling of the guidelines and that are also effective in multiple matchups, just to be sure we have them all in check.

maybe pair wings and phase shields? and have some immortals+ phase dragons in it as well for damage

[phaedrus]

@Long and Shining
Ya I agree that we have to mix it up and that eternity maybe isn't the best option.
I'm going to stick to my guns that a deck like that is worth packing though.
With the eternity maybe being worth the vault space as something to bring in round 6 or 7 if the deck makes it that far?

Please do build a couple decks that you think will work shining.

[Aitvaras]

About discord I think some testing will show the difference is not very big. Pendulums are barely faster (sometimes slower), just more reliable. Flying weapon was already in the original deck, I personaly dont mind removing it but I think it's quite good since we pack 3 weapons in 30 cards and for the 1 air quanta the effect is pritty strong.

The hourglasses I think are good because they help get either cc or creatures.
their is enought and strong enought creatures and cc in the deck. the hourglasses help get either so they count as both sortof.
and time quanta generation is suffecient but imo not over the top.

Fallen elf is actualy not so terrible even if its abbility isnt getting used. its not to expansive and the quanta type is otherwise unused. He is more like simple damage and a bonus backup situational card when the opponent doesnt use creatures or something. Putting in 2 Iridium Wardens however is a fine way to make him more usefull. Good going there Phaedrus

I will stop about these decks now.

[LongDono]

Ok guys I am busy today.
So what can most of us agree on for decks? Those cards with a few extras will be in the vault for sure.

[ShiningSword]

@Long and Shining
Ya I agree that we have to mix it up and that eternity maybe isn't the best option.
I'm going to stick to my guns that a deck like that is worth packing though.
With the eternity maybe being worth the vault space as something to bring in round 6 or 7 if the deck makes it that far?

Please do build a couple decks that you think will work shining.

A solid deck against non immortals and fractal is pandebonium, so i will make a take on it(something like this was posted before, so my deck might look like that):

by ShiningSword

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4vi 4vi 4vi 4vn 4vn 4vn 4vp 4vp 4vp 50u 50u 50u 50u 50u 50u 50u 50u 50u 50u 50u 50u 50u 50u 50u 52h 52h 52o 52o 52o 52p 52p 52p 52q 52q 52q 52r 52r 52r 8pk

Plague to replace missing pande, antimatter for extra stall potential(in case normal CC/walls dont get out). An LT could add stalkers and use CP to buff them, for poison damage. That pair of dragons are there to help punching through the worst situations.
Then you have this anti immortal experiment, which needs testing but could be very effective:

by ShiningSword

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I splash poison off the mark in a life deck. Thorns are great against immortals, bonds and heals help holding up against aether's low damage. Scorps serve as extra poison damage. Mitosis, if they dont have Lobos, can help the bonds go up fast.
Mitosis is the weak spot of the deck, as aether is the element of Lobotomiser, but as it also has limited damage output you might be able to survive without getting your bonds filled up(only with 4 scorps and all the bonds you can block 1 and half dragon damage).
Most mono aether are 30 cards(to make it reliable) so you could deck them out if it gets to that.
Failling to draw a thorn is the worst thing that can happen to the deck.

Your deck is good, but i believe that many posted denials outclass it(by using discords and having more damage, mainly, although your denial seems to have a focus on devourer lock and deckout, that single non PAed eternity just scares me off)
Dont get offended but i dont feel like making that kind of gamble with our scarce cards(if they happen to bottom deck an explosion they will use it on eternity, and for the second duel of the match they will have one PC card reserved for eternity, and your eternity can always bottom deck as well).

[phaedrus]

@ shining
Both your decks scare me a bit because they are greater than 30 cards, and in my opinion our extra vault space will be best used to give versatility to our rainbows.
However, I don't think they necessarily lose that much if they're trimmed down to 30.
The panda deck doesn't do well with antimatter I don't think because of panda and plague. Its an expensive card to use just to have your other cards kill the creature. I guess anti could be saved and played after pandas, but its still got me a bit sketched out.

I'm not sure the life deck could go multiple rounds. I'll do some testing with it.

The single eternity in that denial deck is safe because we wouldn't play it until the devo lock is already set.
On second thought though I don't like that variation because it actually kinda sucks as a stall buster... also I forgot about earth stall's sancs.
The DOTKiller is going to be the better way to go if we think we're going to face a stall.

@Ait,
I'll do more testing with the discord deck.

@Sevs/whoever
a) Do we even want a poison based deck?
b) Why?
c) How could we make toadfish available in the vault so that the whole Gen./Lt. vs. non Gen./Lt. thing could be solved?

Right now my answers are
a) No
b) Partially because of the pufferfish problem. At the moment I haven't tested the decks that use it enough to know if they can survive without. The poison splashed life deck with scorps is the best/simplest option that I see except for the lack of PC and the susceptibility to shielding.
c) I just don't know.

[Sevs]

so i was testing a bunch of deck last night to try and mass heal, but i kept going back to something more along the lines of what phaedrus has, to give it better chances, i would actually instead want to use 2 deflags instead fo the eternity, with the dev lock and fractal graviton fire eaters, 2 deflags would give the win instead of trying to out stall them in hope you have enough time quanta. deflags also help against sanctuary.

I noted after posting the pufferfish thing that they are not needed(can use frogs), although if you choose to use them they are one of the best water creatures in rainbows, but the altered version would look more like

by Sevs

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feel free to tweak it.

At SS,
the first deck is pretty easily outrushed because the combo is harder to get when the deck is bigger. especially with only 3 of each card
as for the 2nd, it only has 3 creatures, with any creature control (lightning& lobo), the damage is reduced to 3 poisons and an arsenic.

If we expect immortals, would we use a gravity shield, blocks dragons but not immoratals but 4 damage is not much. if they go for TU, (their decks have TUd other dragons, owls eye, and graboids) should we carry 3 BB's and 3 plate armors. also with the Gravity/earth duo pulverizer takes away any fear of shields. kinda weird but you never know, *scurries off to test some more*

[LongDono]

Tier 1
Graboid/GotP, Scramble shriker, and trapbow should be tweaked with a couple optional cards and put in the vault. ( like 3 cards each..... for now. ) So lets add those 90 cards total and then 9 more cards, 3 for each deck.

What should eb those 9 cards?
Tier 2
Next tier is Ak, Air/death, rainbow rush, dragon OTK. Lets only talk about these decks for now.
Are there other decks? ( I know yes, reply to this and post them. ) Air/death can be splashed into other decks easy and well duh rainbow rush too. AK is looking good but I think the Dragon OTK can be countered too easy and can not be splashed into other decks that well.

[phaedrus]

@Sevs
Ya that deck is worth further testing I think.
Its not at the top of my list of priorities though so it might be a while before I can give an opinion.
Toadfish do fit well into bows.

Speaking of which, we don't have any more generic bows really at the moment.
We have the discord/shrieker deck, the DOT bow, and the trap deck... which don't interact very well.
I think we need to build a solid, balanced rainbow deck that doesn't rely on denial and is flexible.
Ak's is an option, but I think we can do better.

@Long/everyone
Air/death is definitely on we should be talking more about.
I want to take it because its great vs EQ decks and can hold its own in other situations too.

by phaedrus

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As for the OTK deck, I think its important to remember that we're basically going to pack 9 decks + tweaks. So even if we don't think there is a worthwhile matchup for it in round 5, we can bring it in round 6. Maybe it could be counterred then in round seven, but also maybe not (if we're smart with our matchups).

I don't know if the +3 per deck for tweaks idea is necessary for every deck. I don't know what I would do to tweak the grab/gotp deck for example. In my opinion the tweaks should pretty much just be for rainbow decks. Things like purify, deflag, fog, quint, etc.