Round 6: Strategy

[dragonsdemesne]

Discuss possible decks/matchups for round 6.

For most teams, particularly the bottom seven, it should be possible to determine their vault contents almost exactly, based on duels won/lost last round.  We should use this to our advantage.

[ffun]

Sorry if I'm a bit slow these next few days, but I'm working based on antihistamines and anti-inflammatories.

I would like to apologize again for my loss for both ten and the rest of the team, and I hope I can make it up next round.

Anyway, back to business, I tried to figure out the vault contents of team  in order to think on possible deck choices. They have 117 cards in vault, 61 of them being for these 2 decks:

by ffun

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5oc 5oc 5oc 5oc 5oc 5oc 5oc 5oc 5pu 5pu 5ul 5um 5um 5um 5um 5um 5um 5up 5up 5up 5uu 5uu 7mu 7mu 7mu 7mu 7mu 7mu 7td 7td 7td 8pt

by ffun

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4vd 4vd 4vf 4vl 4vl 4vn 5og 5og 5on 5on 5on 5pu 5pu 5pu 5pu 5pu 5pu 5pu 5pu 5pu 5pu 5pu 5pu 5pu 6u7 6u7 6u7 6u9 7mv 7mv 8pj

They also have 26 cards to salvage from this:
3 cards

by ffun

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52r 52r 52r 52r 5oc 5oc 5oc 5oc 5oc 5oc 5od 5oi 5oi 5oi 5oi 5oi 5ol 5ol 5ol 5ol 5pu 5pu 5pu 5pu 5pu 5pu 5pu 71a 71a 7n5 8pk

by ffun

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4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 590 590 595 595 595 5f6 5f9 5oc 5oc 5oc 5oc 5oc 5oc 5oc 5oc 5od 5of 5of 5og 5og 5ol 5p0 77g 7t9 80h 8pm

2 cards

by ffun

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5oc 5oc 5oc 5oc 5oc 5oc 5oc 5of 5oo 5oo 5oo 5oo 5oo 5oo 5pu 5pu 5pu 5pu 5pu 5pu 61t 61t 61t 61t 61t 61t 620 620 620 7mv 7mv 7mv 8pu

9 cards

by ffun

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55q 55q 55q 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rk 5rk 5rk 5rk 5rk 5rk 5ro 5ro 5rt 5rt 5rt 5rt 5rt 5rt 74a 74a 74a 8pl

by ffun

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4st 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 590 590 590 590 590 5ia 5on 5uk 5uk 5uk 5up 5up 606 606 606 606 61q 77g 7t8 7tb 7tf 7tf 7tf 8pm

That leaves 30 unkown cards. Considering cards they used on Round 4 but not on Round 5, unless they converted some of those cards in pillars/pends, they could still make:

by ffun

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55v 55v 55v 55v 55v 5oc 5oc 5oc 5oc 5oc 5of 5of 5of 5of 5of 5og 5og 5ol 5pu 5pu 5pu 5pu 5pu 5pu 5pu 5pu 5pu 745 745 7mv 8pl

by ffun

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5c5 5c5 5c5 5c7 5c7 5c7 5c8 5c8 5c9 5c9 5c9 5og 5og 5oi 5oi 5oi 5pu 5pu 5pu 5pu 5pu 5pu 5pu 5pu 5pu 5pu 5pu 7mu 7mu 7mu 8pn

by ffun

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5ll 5ll 5ll 5ll 5lm 5lm 5lm 5oi 5oi 5oi 5on 5on 5pu 5pu 5pu 5pu 5pu 5pu 5pu 5pu 5pu 5pu 7k2 7k2 7n5 7n5 7n5 7n5 7oe 7oe 7oe 8pq

Adding up to 114 known/possibly known cards out of 117. Most changes might be caused by their 9 cards salvages from their wins. I'll now try to think a bit more on their choices and suggest something. Considering we are playing vs. their general again, a repeat of last Round 5 deck is possible, since they don't have many card choices. But I'll also think on possible new decks and changes they might make.

[valuka]

i inspected what  could be left in their vault:

So they kept all from this:

by valuka

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5rg 5rk 5rk 5rk 5rk 5ru 5ru 5ru 5ru 5ru 5ru 5t2 5t2 5up 5up 5v1 5v1 5v1 5v1 5v1 606 606 606 606 606 606 606 606 7q4 7q4 7tb 8ps

They won in R5 vs    duo i think they salvage the light cards (Miracle, Sancs), all the other their rainbow deck lost. Their  fractal duo lost in R4 and R5 so i don't think they has any  cards in vault.
  has now 76 cards. From this 31 is Ghostmare, 9 is anything from last rounds salvage, from the remaining 27 is the half is  cards ( pillars, pends, etc. ), because they must have some pillars for the next turn. I can't calculate from the R4 and R5 matches, what the remaining ~ 15 cards is. But i think they can go with the ghostmare and some  duo.   

*Edit They can use this too:

by valuka

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5lm 5lm 5lm 5uk 5uk 5uk 5uk 5uk 5uo 5uo 5us 5us 5us 5us 5us 5us 606 606 606 606 606 606 606 606 606 7k2 7k6 7k6 7k6 7tb 7tb 8pq

*Edit and this too:

by valuka

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4t4 4t4 5uk 5uk 5uk 5ul 5ul 5um 5um 5um 5um 5um 5um 5uo 5uo 5uv 5uv 606 606 606 7t4 7t4 7t4 7td 7td 7tf 7tf 7um 7um 7um 8pt

Thinking now about this: ( he must hit me at least 1 time with the dagger, because the max hit of 6 DrainLife is only 96. )

by valuka

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5oo 5oo 5oo 5oo 5oo 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rk 5rk 5rm 5rm 5rm 5rm 5ro 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 7q5 7q5 7q5 8pr

[ffun]

Considering what  has, I imagine they'll play:

- 1  deck similar to Rd5
- 1  deck similar to Rd5
- 1  deck with leftover cards, salvages from lost decks (EE, Azure Dragon, Dragonfly etc.) and from our time deck (RT and Eternity)

If they have the cards left in their vault, they might try to rebuild their nymph deck by salvaging nymph, quint and immo from their lost deck and other 9 cards from the bow they defeated, but I'm not sure if it's very likely. If they do make it, I thinks it's more likely they'll play it against rather than throw a bow against us.

To the testing:
First I tried a permanentless grabow:

by ffun

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4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 590 590 590 590 590 590 5rg 5rg 5rg 5ri 5ri 5rk 5rk 5rk 5rk 5rk 5rk 5ru 5t2 5t2 5t2 7dm 80a 80a 8pm

Well, it's great agains the deck, but horrible agains the one, so scratch this.

Then I tried something like this:

by ffun

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590 590 590 594 594 594 595 595 595 595 595 595 5ro 5ro 5ro 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 77g 77g 77g 8pm

It did reasonably well against the duo (15-5) by BBing or rewinding the dragons and vamps and attacking with grabs. It's pretty tricky against the duo (13-7) because you have to keep the grabs burrowed most of the time duo to panda, maxwell and AM, but even then it can win by dmg (specially if the fog takes a bit to show up) and even deck out if the dragons are down in the deck, since it has so few dmg dealers.

Right now I'm testing Exploding Times:

by ffun

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5f6 5f6 5f6 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rk 5rk 5rk 5rk 5ro 5ro 5ro 5ru 5ru 5ru 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 7ds 7ds 7ds 8po

I have to test it a bit more, but I'm liking results so far (6-2 vs darkness and 7-0 vs entropy), so I might settle down with this (if I get more consistent results against and if it's not needed in another duel).

[inthisroom]

In view with our upcoming match with light, here's the usual deck list.

They won with these:

by inthisroom

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5la 5lk 5lk 5lk 5lm 5mq 5mq 5mq 61o 61o 61o 61o 61o 61o 61o 61o 622 622 622 622 622 7jp 7jp 7jp 7jp 7jp 7jp 7ju 808 80e 8pu

by inthisroom

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5l8 5l8 5l8 5mq 5mq 5mq 5mq 5mq 5mq 5mq 5mq 5mq 5mq 5mq 5mq 5mq 5mq 61q 61q 61r 61r 61t 61t 61t 61t 61t 622 6rk 7ju 7ju 8pu

They salvaged from those:

by inthisroom

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58r 58u 58u 58u 58u 594 594 596 5aa 5aa 5aa 5aa 5aa 5aa 5aa 61o 61o 61t 61t 61t 61t 61t 622 622 622 622 63a 77a 78q 78q 8pu

by inthisroom

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4vc 4vc 4vc 4vc 4vc 4vc 4ve 4ve 4ve 4ve 4ve 4ve 4vf 4vf 4vf 4vg 4vl 4vl 4vl 4vn 4vn 4vn 50u 50u 50u 50u 50u 6ts 6ve 6ve 8pj

And they had to discard from these:

by inthisroom

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5f6 5f6 5f6 5fc 5fc 5fc 5fc 5fc 5fc 5lh 5mq 5mq 5mq 5mq 5mq 5mq 5mq 5mq 5mq 5mq 5mq 5mq 5mq 5mq 5mq 5mq 5mq 7ju 7ju 7ju 8po

by inthisroom

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5l8 5l8 5l8 5mq 5mq 5mq 5mq 5mq 5mq 5mq 5mq 5mq 5mq 5mq 61q 61q 61q 61q 61q 61q 61r 61r 61r 61r 6rk 7ju 7ju 7ju 7ju 7ju 8pu

From the deck, they probably salvaged the cards because that's a combination they're already using, but I have no idea what cards of the mono they could include in their decks, maybe stuff to exchange for pillars.

From their discards, I have a hard time imagining them keeping somthing other than cards as one was a mono and from the other, the only cards of use might be the Deflagrations but I think it's a bit slim for them to make a duo, even though a mono with just a mark for 3 deflags might be possible.

As we are up against their Lieutenant, their deck options should be

RoL/Hope
Mono
combinations (Stall, Fractal decks)

They should have Lobo and Morning Glory as weapons and only Angels, Dragons and Photons/RoLs as creatures.

I request a / duo with Gravity Shield, a lot of Pulvies and Otyughs...

[bripod]

In my match vs Water: 72 cards in vault (30 known from Winning deck) (18 from Salv/Dis) (24 unknown)

Won with this deck (so it's In Vault):

by bripod

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5i8 5i8 5i8 5ie 5ie 5jm 5jm 5jm 5jm 5jm 5jm 5jm 5jm 5jm 5jm 5jm 5jm 5jm 5jm 5jm 61r 61r 61r 61r 61t 61t 61t 7gt 7gt 7gt 8pu

Lost with these:
Save 6

by bripod

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5i4 5i4 5i4 5i4 5i4 5i4 5i4 5i4 5i4 5i4 5i4 5i8 5i8 5i8 5i8 5jm 5rk 5rk 5rk 5rk 5rk 6rk 7gm 7gm 7gm 7gm 7gm 7gm 7gt 7i6 8ps

Save 6

by bripod

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55k 55k 576 576 5i4 5i4 5i4 5i4 5i4 5i4 5i8 5i8 5i8 5i8 5i8 5i9 5i9 5ie 5ie 5ie 5ie 5jm 5jm 5jm 745 745 745 745 74c 7gm 8pl

Save 3

by bripod

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5ib 5ib 5ie 5ie 5ie 5jm 5jm 5jm 5jm 5jm 5jm 5jm 5jm 5jm 5jm 5jm 5jm 5jm 5jm 5jm 5uo 5uo 5up 5up 5uv 5v1 5v1 7tb 7tf 7tf 8pt

Salvage from Win:
Salvage 3

by bripod

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4vh 4vh 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 50u 50u 50u 50u 50u 52q 55q 590 590 590 590 590 596 596 596 5c1 5f6 5og 61q 6u2 6u2 6u2 8pm

[10 men]

This is our vault plan for the current round:
With current salvaging we have left from our key cards:
16 RT
10 Hourglass
10 Eternity
18 GotP

With these we can make:

1 Aether stall (2 Eternity, 3 Hourglass)
1 Light stall (6 RT, 3-4 Eternity, 2-3 Hourglass)
1 Grabbow (6 RT, 0-1 Hourglass)
1 Nova-something ... maybe Poison with Sundials.
1 Earth rush - without RT, probably with BB, maybe with Short Sword instead of Eternity
1 Exploding Times - probably wants some RTs and Eternity, though we could also take Sword and upgrade more
maybe an Earth stall

that still leaves a good bunch of GotPs out there to make one or two Short Sword rushes.

[inthisroom]

As we were discussing the terrifying void our vault had become in just one round, I had a look at it and we discussed something like this, with cards that are a bit left over so far, the first version is with GotPs because that's the hitter we still posess in the largest number, the second includes Pharaohs instead to use excess quanta.
Don't think it's particularly an option for my match because RoL/Hope would probably kill it, but as our deck options seem scarce, it might be one for another match up, it's open to any improvement, of course.

With dead Pharaohs and GotP

by inthisroom

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52o 52o 52o 52o 52o 52o 52q 52q 52r 52t 52t 5rk 5rk 5ru 5ru 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 71b 71b 71b 8pk

With Pharaohs

by inthisroom

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52o 52o 52o 52o 52o 52o 52q 52q 52r 52t 52t 5rk 5rk 5rs 5rs 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 71b 71b 71b 8pk

*edit*

This version followed some of DDs suggestions and is not bad, Pends were replaced with Pillars, the BWs have been removed and replaced with Dragons and GotPs to make it some sort of rush:

by inthisroom

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52o 52o 52o 52o 52o 52o 52q 52q 52t 52t 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rm 5rm 5ru 5ru 5ru 5ru 5ru 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 8pk

[dragonsdemesne]

Okay, so going through the archives for round 5, as well as the round 4 wins, Earth has the following in their vault for sure: (unless converted)

2x enchant artifact
4x stone skin
6x fire bolt
5x rage potion
3x titanium shield
2x fahrenheit
30x earth pendulum
9x quantum pillar
12x nova
17x stone pillar
9x hematite golem
12x graboid
1x iridium warden
2x deflagration
2x fog shield
5x reverse time
2x eternity
2x lightning
1x lycanthrope
1x graviton fire eater
3x pulverizer
4x graboid
2x forest spirit
4x basilisk blood
4x steal
3x gargoyle
1x nightmare
1x vampire dagger
3x earthquake
4x dimensional shield
1x short sword
1x poison
1x purify
4x gnome rider
1x black hole
3x discord
2x shrieker
5x wings
2x flying weapon
3x owl's eye

I can also make reasonable guesses for 45 salvage cards, both from their wins and losses.  They can make a novabow easily, can make the same earth/firestall that beat us last round, can make the earth/air wings/OE that beat us in about round 1-2, earth/dark with gargoyles/steals, and if they salvage right, can make earth/aether with dimshield/parallel universe/lightning and earth/light 'the immortal'.

For the air, aether, and light duos, I'll likely need PC for various shields/sancs.  For fire and air I'll need resilient creatures, or lots of them.  I don't think earth/dark will be a problem, and don't expect to see that against me.  Against 'the immortal' I'll need either a buttload of damage, or a bunch of RT/eternity to survive deckout.  Again, due to our eternities, this might be an unlikely choice for them to use... but then, entropy did try it against us.  (and failed!)  We don't have a lot of flying creatures, so the earth/air duo might be a strong possibility, and it already worked once.  Earth/gravity for pulverizer is also a threat; that's what they used against me the last time I played Earth, and it destroyed my ghostal.

Earth's been playing a lot of stall/control decks it seems, and enough of their vault is unknown or educated guesses that it's going to be hard to predict.  On the other side of that, they probably are having the same problems with us.

A novabow with 1x improved steal + 2x explosion looks fairly nice; it would destroy pulvy (not that it would be a huge threat) and steal wings.  If I went with darkness mark, I could use more steals and the nightmares, too, but then I lose graboids.  Lycanthrope would be easy to use in that case, too.  I could also try to run a supernova-based deck; I get 6 ups + more for short swords, and I could easily use 2-3 of those.  I think I'll take a look at that and see what I can come up with.

[inthisroom]

Another deck option we came up with is the following, it's an duo that uses cards we don't necessarily use in other decks, due to the limited ups, it only includes 3 of the 4 Pandas we have.

by inthisroom

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4ve 4ve 4vf 4vl 4vl 4vl 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rm 5rm 5rm 5rm 5ru 5ru 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 6u9 6u9 6u9 8pj

As we only have 3 Discords left and they will probably be eagerly wanted, this is a rush alternative using the event card we seem likely to chose and therefore including all our Pandas:

by inthisroom

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4t4 4t4 4t4 4ve 4ve 4vf 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rm 5rm 5rm 5rm 5rm 5rm 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 6u9 6u9 6u9 6u9 7ri 7ri 7ri 7ri 7ri 8pj

[dragonsdemesne]

What about something like this for my match vs Earth?

by dragonsdemesne

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4t4 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5ro 5ro 5ru 5ru 5ru 5ru 5t2 5t2 5t2 5up 5up 5up 5v1 5v1 7q0 7q0 7q5 7q5 7q6 7q6 7ri 7ri 8pt

If they use earth/air duo, steals take their wings and owl's eyes, plus dragons hit through wings.  If they use earth/light (the immortal) I can probably just sit on eternity and deck them.  It will lose to that earth/firestall they used on us last round.  If they use earth/aether, I can take their dimshields.  The biggest trouble is that there are only two eternities, and stealing their weapon destroys it, so RT might be a better choice.  It's also very weak on CC.  If someone else besides me uses the deck, dropping 3 upgrades is doable; drop any but the hourglasses.  Hourglasses should hopefully make it so that the key cards are drawn sooner.

I tried looking at a supernova deck, but once you add in 6x supernovas, and some short swords, then 15 time cards and an entropy mark, there's basically nothing left to fill it with! :p  A novabow could still work though, and with 2x short sword or so might be a good choice, but it might be a better choice for someone else.

[dragonsdemesne]

For the death match, what about a time/air duo using wings?  We haven't used wings for awhile, so it might come as a surprise, and death has just poison and the dragon to get around it.  Combined with eternity it might work pretty well.  It might even work for entropy.

For light, we're basically expecting hope, fractal dragon/archangel, or monolight, based on itr looking at what they've got left.

We can build probably two novabows, a ghostal, and a time/light stall.  We could also try time/death or time/dark, though I don't know what their chances are.  Time/death might work against fire.  Looking at the vault, time/earth graboid (or maybe even sskin stasll?), time/entropy discord duo, exploding times, and monotime (not recommended in case we lose) are also all possible, though obviously not all of these are possible at the same time.  With the salvage from water, we might be able to come up with something interesting, like time/gravity, or time/water, which would at least have the advantage of being unexpected.

I'm still not sure which event we should take.  The decks with eternity, discord, or arsenic will have trouble using the short swords effectively.  (unless we just use them as mostly dead cards to increase ups)  Conversely, the decks with dimshield, wings, bone wall, or fog have no real use for shield.  We have more weapons than shields, but we also need more weapons than shields.  It's a tough decision.