It's time for action

[pikachufan2164]

Random proposal: mark is of your Oracle Card's Element. Fixed.

I welcome our new PSNbow overlords.

Also, Burning Pillar, Fire Pend, Fire Bolt, Rage Potion, Fahrenheit, Deflag, Fire Shield, Sanctuary = o hai thar Firestall
Cremation rush (via Immo, Golem, Gemfinder) would still work as they already do.

[sharkweekk]

I'm glad someone got a screencap of my brief time at #1  . I do get to be a little bit proud that I had top decks in gold and platinum leagues, even if they were fire decks. At least my decks were my own making, instead of copying someone else's. My trick was immolation rush plus lots of control to take advantage of double draw as much as possible.

The reason, I believe that fire decks do so well in platinum is the fact that they are helped so much by double draws. Their control cards are cheap and one-off type cards that are boosted by being able to keep the card advantage when used. The creatures are fragile, but when the opponent uses a control card to kill one, they are only helping the arena deck keep card advantage. If they try to use control on a stick, the fire control cards can destroy it very quickly. Add that to the AI making fewer dumb mistakes with fire, and it's no wonder fire dominates.

[gumbeh]

Cute.

I still believe the worst firestalls would be kneecapped if deck size wasn't doubled. I.E. when you buy Double Draw, you get Double Draw. Your deck size restriction goes up from 35/60 to 70/120. If you want a 120 card deck, you have to pack it with 120 cards yourself, and you can only have 6x SoG, 6x Fire Lance, and 6x Sanctuary, not 12.

The other cards which became very efficient in the AI side of the arena environment (the denial one: BH, Silence, Nightmare, EQ ...) already received a nerf (no chaining of more than 2)

When did this happen? I don't see it in the patch notes on the wiki.

[Rember]

The other cards which became very efficient in the AI side of the arena environment (the denial one: BH, Silence, Nightmare, EQ ...) already received a nerf (no chaining of more than 2)

When did this happen? I don't see it in the patch notes on the wiki.

During beta zanz introduced 'guilt' so that you can't chain any of the mentioned cards more than twice in a row without a turn or something in between. I guess you'll have to look in the 1.28 patch info thread for his post.

[gumbeh]

I wasn't able to find a zanz post mentioning it, but google showed the "Guilt" term showing up often enough here and there.

I'm gonna put up a silence / BH deck to test whether the guilt is overall or per card. I.E., can the AI do Silence, Silence, BH (silence guilt) - or must it do Silence, Silence, (guilt), BH+Silence. We'll see how it goes.

[Rember]

I wasn't able to find a zanz post mentioning it, but google showed the "Guilt" term showing up often enough here and there.

I'm gonna put up a silence / BH deck to test whether the guilt is overall or per card. I.E., can the AI do Silence, Silence, BH (silence guilt) - or must it do Silence, Silence, (guilt), BH+Silence. We'll see how it goes.

http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,27523.msg383811#msg383811

Just googled zanz's name and the aforementioned cards.

Cool experiment idea though, would be interesting to know the results since there isn't much detail about it.

[couponlady]

I don't want a nerf either. We just have to admit that some cards in the arena environment are more efficient than in the classical PvP one. Those cards (IMO: SoG, immolation and SN) remain without a good counter (in the player side of the arena environment BH happen to be too slow to be really efficient without nymph). With such counter cards a greater number of deck would be efficient against the unimaginative fire decks (immorush and fire stall). Would be left only the most efficient imaginative and hot one (which is perfectly fine). The other cards which became very efficient in the AI side of the arena environment (the denial one: BH, Silence, Nightmare, EQ ...) already received a nerf (no chaining of more than 2) and already have counter cards (sanctuary, PA etc...).

I understand what Jappert said about building deck specially efficient against fire decks. It might be a acceptable short term solution but It does not solve the problem: monotony. First not everybody reads the forum and/or is able to build such efficient decks. Second, even if you can you still have to fight a great majority of those decks.
I realized today that some people are so unimaginative that even when they don't get a fire card from the oracle, they keep the same 30 card fire deck and put five dead oracle cards to go to the 35 card limit! They might even have a more efficient deck that way that if they tried to create one from scratch (you know brainless is brainless). This should not be.

It's not just Fire decks that are the problem. A lot of times I get stuck playing against rainbow decks with lots of good cheap efficient creatures. There are many decks that use cards like Supernova. Once the opponent plays supernova I already know I probably lost game. The current #1 Gold Deck in the Arena is a Ghost of the Past Nightmare deck.  It seems like these nightmare decks have become more popular. I was playing against a dark deck earlier and realized he was playing with Nightmare's. Once the opponent played some Time Pillars/Towers  I knew I was probably going to loose. I wonder what card these people get from the Oracle? It seems like more people are making decks with Ghost of the Past and Nightmare.

Last card I got from the Oracle was a Fog Shield. I know it's not very creative but I decided to make a fire deck with Fog Shield. I figured since an upgraded Fog Shield cost only 1 it could work well with Immolation. Are the Sog's what makes the fire decks difficult to beat? Is it the Immolation's? Is it the big creatures like Fire Golem, Crimson Dragon or Fire Spirit?

[macgawel]

I don't want a nerf either. We just have to admit that some cards in the arena environment are more efficient than in the classical PvP one. Those cards (IMO: SoG, immolation and SN) remain without a good counter (in the player side of the arena environment BH happen to be too slow to be really efficient without nymph).

SoG gets some counters.

IMHO, the quanta-providers are so powerful for one reason :
They instantly give you quantum.
So the only one quantum counter - BH - is pretty useless, since it can affect quantum only at your turn.

You take quantum spells and some good - and cheap - cards and you can make a good deck.

A nerf could be to delay the quantum given, so that you can use it the turn you play your spell - at the end of your turn for exemple.

[Siweisun]

I don't want a nerf either. We just have to admit that some cards in the arena environment are more efficient than in the classical PvP one. Those cards (IMO: SoG, immolation and SN) remain without a good counter (in the player side of the arena environment BH happen to be too slow to be really efficient without nymph).

SoG gets some counters.

IMHO, the quanta-providers are so powerful for one reason :
They instantly give you quantum.
So the only one quantum counter - BH - is pretty useless, since it can affect quantum only at your turn.

You take quantum spells and some good - and cheap - cards and you can make a good deck.

A nerf could be to delay the quantum given, so that you can use it the turn you play your spell - at the end of your turn for exemple.

For quanta control, there's also pest and discord, but yes, Cremation could use a nerf. Watching the opponent play a lava destroyer and two minor pheonixes on turn one is not fun.

[Siweisun]

Hmm, entropy seems to be dominating Gold league now.

[hainkarga]

delightful

[gumbeh]

delightful

Xeno and I tried to do something about this yesterday, but we just kept running into non-fire decks.

Skimming the rankings, i got the impression that many people might be banning themselves from using fire for one reason or another. At the time, it looked like only the top 50 or so players were primarily fire, and the majority had a wider spread of elements.

Kinda neat if only a few people are still doing that crap. Only the fire fans, players who are obsessed with using the optimum strategy, or jerks, perhaps?