Vault preparation

[inthisroom]

Currently trying DD's "Tickled to death" deck.

by inthisroom

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4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 52o 52o 52o 52o 52o 52o 5rk 5rk 5rk 5rk 5rp 5rp 5rp 5rp 5rp 5rp 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 6u5 6u5 6u5 8pj

*Edit Stats*
AI3
W 14 / L 6
TTW 13.2

Even though it can be a lot of fun to play, it definitely suffers from lack of damage. As you got 1 Nova per Poison, you often have to wait for damage to accumulate and the slightest healing becomes a problem that can lead to loss or deck-out, the losses were fittingly taken from Rainbows (with PC) and healing decks (Life, FFQ, etc...), one loss was due to bad draw.

[ffun]

This leads to the actual Dune Scorpion deck:

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

You need to get a little lucky here to draw both parts fast, but when you do the deck is very strong. Even if the opponent doesn't have targets for RT.

90% win rate (18-2) - 10.94 TTW
It started 1-2 in the test, so I was worried about stability, but after that is went straight 17-0, though some wins were very close. Of course, it works much better against the AI, since it is dumb enough to play a critter again everytime you rewind it. It is indeed crucial to get the combo very, very soon, and even then, if you get only one scorpion or if it gets killed very fast, it might be too slow (specially against a real player it wouldn't pile up poison as fast, since they would play smarter).

I would say I enjoy an Entropy version a bit better, since Discord/RT/Dunes are very annoying, but that has the problem of needing 6 ups. OTOH, in this version it's very sweet when you get the 3 pillar/1 scorpion/1 unstopable ideal draw and, even if you don't, it still gets through any shield. Sometimes I felt a bit too close to loosing while trying to accumulate poison, but overall it's a very strong dune option.

[valuka]

One more deck idea:

burininDejas

by valuka

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5f6 5f6 5f9 5f9 5f9 5fb 5fc 5fc 5fc 5fc 5fc 5fc 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rh 5rh 5rh 5rh 5rh 5rh 5rj 5rj 5rk 5rk 5rk 5rk 7dp 7dp 7dp 8ps

[dragonsdemesne]

Should we get a couple reflective shields in the vault?  That would be a great firestall counter, and can be splashed easily with novas or marks.  Unfortunately, unless upgraded it's a dead card otherwise.

[TheManuz]

Isn't the emerald shield better? If you're using it against stall, you can wait 5 turns to gain using only quanta.
And this also works unupped.

[ffun]

Unless we had a viable Time/Life deck, I would take reflective shield over emerald, since it could be played out of novas or immos, so we wouldn't have to commit the mark only for it.

But I'm not sure it's worth taking either of the shields for this sole purpose - we would have to correctly predict the firestall and even then sometimes the deck takes a reflective shield exactly to counter our own shield. If addding one can greatly improve the win % of one of our decks against it, fine... otherwise I would rather still try to come up with some deck that has a resonable chance against firestall. I think the 1st fractal scarab deck I posted might work with some tweaking, and it could still be used against other decks.

[dragonsdemesne]

Hmm... I think ffun has some good points.  Scratch the reflective shield idea.  I'm expecting any firestalls we meet to have light for sancs anyway, so them using reflective shield as a counter to our reflective shield would be easy.

For being opposing firestalls, I think that the time/fire deck near the beginning of the post (the one with minor phoenixes as the 3 ups) would do pretty good.  The time/light stall one might work, too, but I haven't tested either.  Scarabs could work also, since they will have good hp if we can get a bunch out at once via fractal.

Has anyone tried making a time/fire version of firestall?  I saw an interesting one in gold arena earlier today.  It used fire for the fire lances/fahrenheits/fire shield and then time for hourglasses and gotps.  (and golden nymphs, but that's not really an option for us)  It did well enough that it managed to beat me even though I had a red nymph that I quinted from the oracle; it drew so many threats that I couldn't kill them fast enough.

edit: Oh yeah, I wanted to ask about the titanium/diamond shields; should we get a couple of those?

[TheManuz]

I agree on ffun observations. I'm not sure about titanium shields, maybe we can add more procrastination? They effectively reduce damage by 50% and blocks abilities too.

[inthisroom]

Tested 10 men's Pharaoh farm.

by inthisroom

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5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rq 5rq 5rq 5rs 5rs 5rs 5rs 5rs 5rs 7q0 7q0 7q0 8pl

AI 3
W 11 / L 9
TTW 10.9

It's fast and efficient once it gets going, but - as 10 men stated when he posted the deck already - it suffered a lot vs AI 3, heavy CC and shields hit it hard.
I would personally switch two or three pillars for time pends because it lost a few games for lack of devour-quanta vs swarm decks.

[dragonsdemesne]

What deck are the 6 stone skins in the vault for?  I could maybe see using those in an earth/time stall or something, like against firestall.  Stoneskin will heal more than a fire bolt can do.

[dragonsdemesne]

Okay, so I was looking at those stone skins in the vault, and trying to think of a good deck that would use them.  How about something like this:

deck name: Welcome to The Rock.

by dragonsdemesne

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592 592 593 593 593 594 594 594 594 594 594 596 596 596 5rj 5rj 5rl 5rl 5ro 5ro 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 8pm

I played it against a halfblood to test and I would have beat it if it hadn't used mindgate to get my eternity and time pends :p  The idea is to just sit there and take everything your opponent dishes out, mitigating it where possible with procrastination shield and the wardens.  Earthquake slows down the opponent (though I think maybe this could be removed? not sure if it's worth it)  and Eternity is used to rewind a warden to avoid deckout, and the primary win condition is decking out the opponent.  Hourglasses speed through the deck, stoneskins keep your ass alive, and the enchant artifacts are for either eternity and procrastination vs permanent control, or the pendulums vs earthquakes.  Save a warden for eternity deckout prevention if against creature control.  Use eternity on opponent's creatures sparingly, as doing so gives them more turns before deckout; best done on things like evolved shriekers or stuff played off immo/nova, otherwise I wouldn't rewind any opponent's creatures unless you need to do so to survive.

One problem I did find with the quanta balance is that in the early game, you need time quanta pretty badly, to get the hourglasses and procrastination out, but later on in the game, you don't need it very much at all.  Using towers would help the early game, but might harm it in the late game where you need lots of earth for stoneskins.

Except for the wardens, we already have everything we need for this deck in the vault.  For the upgrades, either the hourglasses or procrastinations are probably best, to save on early game time quanta.

[dragonsdemesne]

Here's another deck.  I was thinking about how anubis is actually really hard to kill, because it has 8hp.  The result of this cogitation is the following deck:

deck name: A-n00b-is

by dragonsdemesne

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5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rl 5rl 5rn 5rn 5rn 5rn 5ru 5ru 5ru 5ru 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 61q 61q 61q 61q 622 8pu

Attack, and keep attacking :p  Quint everything, throw lightning around like Zeus himself.  Fractal is for vs stalls; fractal a ghost in the endgame and go nuts.  The deck would very likely benefit from shields, but I wasn't sure what to take out.  This should do fairly well against decks with heavy creature control.

halfblood pwnage:

oh yeah umm for upgrades... not sure.  There's more than enough aether quanta, so anubis doesn't need it.  Maybe ghosts for bigger attackers, or hourglasses.