Phase 4 - Final Battle TIME

[PuppyChow]

I HAD made a big essay about each battle with the deck I used...

And then my laptop battery died.

So I'll redo it later. But not right now. I'm kinda depressed. An hour down the drain...

[Xinef]

I'll avenge your battery, Puppy!
I'll find the one who used aflatoxin on it!

Still, it's always good to either post your longer posts before they are ready and then edit them step by step, or write anything longer in a text editor and only post it when ready... at least that's what I do when I have no trust in the textbox on the forum, no trust in my internet connection, no trust in my own sanity or when I'm afraid someone might delete my post accidentally

[PuppyChow]

Then I have to go through and bold things myself versus as I go, and it's much easier to use the deck picture thingy. Anyway, here we go...

First, off, here are all the decks* I used:

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I wanted to do kinda the inverse of a earth/time control deck. Went with silurians for damage and relied on the quicksand/rewind combo for control. Not really much else to say; it seems like a very solid deck in my opinion and I would actually play it fully upgraded when not in a match where half time cards are required.

  / / / (animate >_>)
Deck: http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,1248.0.html

The variation used in the match was, of course, mostly unupped. Also didn't use PU or the dials in an attempt to slim it down. Looking back, I may have been at a disadvantage here due to my deck's size making the ratio of upped to unupped worse for me than him. It's also the kind of deck that to really work well needs to be fully upped and I should have realized that.

For further information about the deck, read the freakin' topic .

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Throughout these games I tried to use unique decks to display Time's versatility. At times I think I got so focused on making a different deck that I didn't focus enough on winning (as evidenced by my record...). This deck may not be the best, but I thought it would work since time has no permanent control and the likelihood of Xinef taking perm control in his last 15 cards was low in my opinion. Then, this deck was basically supposed to be a surprise attack deck. Wait until the very last turn, play the two dragons, then fractal one and play eight more for a total of ten dragons. That's a total of 130 damage.

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Why did I run it? Because time relies on a few big permanents: turtle shield, eternity, and hourglass. If you can take those away, you have a good chance of winning. That, and aether (one of time's big synergies) also relies much on phase shields. I used this deck (or a small variation on the numbers of each card) twice.

  / (Immolation)

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I was looking for a good and unique deck; I wanted to show exactly why I was a master. So here we go. This deck actually worked out pretty good. It was fast (elite deja vus can build up fast, and then the phoenixes start coming in and are hard to get rid of), and had control (explosions/rage potions). That, and the precognitions made bad draws unlikely, and you still have a rather good chance of drawing at least one time tower due to auto mulligan (but cremations *can* sometimes mess that up).

Looking back, in this matchup lava golems may have been a better choice due to the quanta from immolation supplying earth and the only creature control threat really being rewind. Phoenixes can't deal with rewind very well, and lava golems are cheaper.

I won one game and lost one with this deck (or a variation of it).

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Again, I wanted to do something never done before. Time/Water is never really considered a great deck, but the synergy between turtle shield and congeal is actually present. Congeal stops creatures for four turns, and creatures that AREN'T congealed only work every other turn. Seemed pretty good to me. In fact, it still sort of does. Then I had the devonian dragons to do the damage.

As to permafrost shield, that defeats the purpose because then I couldn't use turtle shield, and I didn't anticipate having so much water quantum that ice bolt would have been effective; I normally draw an octopus or two and use all the water quantum I get.

*Or the gist of the decks I used. I can't remember the exact builds.



First Battle:
---Deck Used:  /
---Result: Lost
-------Excuse: He got lucky . On the second to last turn he drew the gravity pillar he needed to be able to replay an elite charger so he would win the last turn. If he hadn't, I would have won.

Second Battle:
---Deck Used:  / / / (animates)
---Result: Lost
-------Excuse: He was using deja vus with a time mark. No matter how many pillars I quicksand or how many deja vus I rewind, he would always be able to replay them (and they would have their ability back...). So basically his deck was a perfect counter. If he had used, for instance, a dragon rush, I would have won.

Third Battle:
---Deck Used:  /
---Result: Lost
-------Excuse: Of course the one time I gambled on him NOT using perm control, he does. Figures. If he hadn't, I had a chance. He had 5 scarabs out and a fog shield, so if I had pulled of the fractal combo on my second to last turn I probably wouldn't have killed him due to the shield, but I would have come close enough to finish him the next turn with the 4 remaining dragons (5 scarabs + 1 rewind maybe?). Sadly the steals and explosions screwed me up.

Fourth Battle:
---Deck Used:  /
---Result: Won
-------Excuse: Well he was relying on lots of permanents; I had lots of explosions. Was rather a lopsided battle.

Fifth Battle:
---Deck Used:  /
---Result: Won
-------Excuse: His Eternity was the last card in his deck . By all rights he should have won; his earthquakes cramped my time production horribly.

Sixth Battle:
---Deck Used:  / (immolation)
---Result: Lost
-------Excuse: Again, he got lucky. He played two chargers relatively fast; I was able to kill one. Then I had 41 health on the second to last turn and he had two chargers out. He drew another so was able to do 21 damage each turn for a total of 42 damage, killing me the turn before I killed him. If he hadn't, he would have done at most 21+14 damage, or 35. I would have won. Also, I don't think I drew any phoenixes at all. If I had, despite the rewind in his hand, I may have won anyway.

Seventh Battle:
---Deck Used:  / (immolation)
---Result: Won
-------Excuse: I had good damage this time even if my control was of relatively little use (hourglasses and turtle shields only). Enough to power through a miracle; I think my deck was basically a perfect counter.

Eighth Battle:
---Deck Used:  /
---Result: Won
-------Excuse: Turtle shield saved me in this battle long enough for my dragons to do the damage. The fact that one dragon was a Devonian dragon instead of a Silurian also helped; scarabs couldn't get to it .

Ninth Battle:
---Deck Used:  /
---Result: Lost
-------Excuse: Earthquakes screwed over my dragons, and I drew no octopi so I could only hold off the shriekers so long. Even if I HAD drawn an octopi I would have lost due to no time quantum, and he had an eternity early on to rewind it anyway and then I would have been in an eternity lock. So basically, he got a good draw, I got a bad one, and his deck was a good counter anyway. If he hadn't used earthquakes or an eternity, who knows what would have happened.

[Xinef]

Great summary, thanks for sharing. I especially like the deck, when I was trying to design some decks myself I always decided creatures are too vulnerable to rewind and I did not think about using cremation with deja vu... on the other hand I thought splashing for deflags only would not be versatile enough... but it seems your deck might be quite good actually.

I have a few comments though:

Second Battle:
---Deck Used:  / / / (animates)
---Result: Lost
-------Excuse: He was using deja vus with a time mark. No matter how many pillars I quicksand or how many deja vus I rewind, he would always be able to replay them (and they would have their ability back...). So basically his deck was a perfect counter. If he had used, for instance, a dragon rush, I would have won.

In fact you were able to rewind 2 of my deja vus while I had a production of 1 each turn AND I was unable to use hourglass and deja vu ability for the same quanta reason, so you could easily leave me with 1 deja vu and your damage was still greater than my healing. If only you had a phase shield you would have won.

Third Battle:
---Deck Used:  /
---Result: Lost
-------Excuse: Of course the one time I gambled on him NOT using perm control, he does. Figures. If he hadn't, I had a chance. He had 5 scarabs out and a fog shield, so if I had pulled of the fractal combo on my second to last turn I probably wouldn't have killed him due to the shield, but I would have come close enough to finish him the next turn with the 4 remaining dragons (5 scarabs + 1 rewind maybe?). Sadly the steals and explosions screwed me up.

You never had enough quanta to play 10 dragons. The turn I stole your shield you had 94 quanta, enough for 7 dragons. I had 5 scarabs then. By the time you could gather 120 I'd have 8 scarabs probably. Your only chance would be if I was very unlucky with fog shield.

As a side note, your deck was not at all original or a surprise, very similar decks were used by me and Kale Hate in the trial battles so I designed at least some of my decks with aim to counter that strategy. Chargers, deflag/steal/momentum/fog shield, earthquakes, phase shields, sundials + scarabs + miracle, all these were designed to have a chance against such a deck

Fifth Battle:
---Deck Used:  /
---Result: Won
-------Excuse: His Eternity was the last card in his deck . By all rights he should have won; his earthquakes cramped my time production horribly.

I'm not sure if I would win this game if eternity was second to last
You had enough quanta to play 2 dragons, I had a procrastination and no other way to harm your dragons (eternity would have to bump a shrieker). If only you had enough phase shields to last 6-7 more turns I guess you would play 3 or 4 dragons and finish me through procrastination.

Ninth Battle:
---Deck Used:  /
---Result: Lost
-------Excuse: Earthquakes screwed over my dragons, and I drew no octopi so I could only hold off the shriekers so long. Even if I HAD drawn an octopi I would have lost due to no time quantum, and he had an eternity early on to rewind it anyway and then I would have been in an eternity lock. So basically, he got a good draw, I got a bad one, and his deck was a good counter anyway. If he hadn't used earthquakes or an eternity, who knows what would have happened.

If you had drawn some dragons I'd rewind them with eternity, on the other hand octopi/procrastination/congeals would not harm graboids too much because of the very fact they deal 10 damage before being congealed so with 5 graboids I could deal 50 damage (+10 from the graboid stage) no matter your congeals. Procrastination would slow the whole process by 1 turn. Thus I only had to deal 40 damage with eternity and burrowed graboids, but of course unburrowing them earlier did not hurt me much either.

I just guess there are better decks... simply no one has designed them yet

[PuppyChow]

If you had drawn some dragons I'd rewind them with eternity, on the other hand octopi/procrastination/congeals would not harm graboids too much because of the very fact they deal 10 damage before being congealed so with 5 graboids I could deal 50 damage (+10 from the graboid stage) no matter your congeals. Procrastination would slow the whole process by 1 turn. Thus I only had to deal 40 damage with eternity and burrowed graboids, but of course unburrowing them earlier did not hurt me much either.

Hence, why I said your deck was a perfect counter. You drawing the eternity early constitutes a good draw, since you only had one in the deck anyway. And you drew all three earthquakes early too, which really hindered me. Here's what ideally would have happened, if you had drawn no eternity and no earthquakes:

Doing 40 damage with eternity and burrowed graboids would take 8 turns against procrastination, and that's assuming you played 5 graboids and an eternity on the first turn. Which you wouldn't, and it would probably take more like 14 or 15 turns to do so.

Meanwhile, I would have congeals in hand and an octopi on the field to congeal any shriekers you decide to evolve. So you CAN'T do it before you do 40 damage.

Now, I would have dragons hitting you (let's say you draw a procrastination). With 4 dragons, it would take 5 turns to do 100 damage. Of course I wouldn't have all four at once; let's say it takes me 11 turns.

I win, if you draw no earthquakes or eternity. That's the difference. Your draw which had needed earthquakes and then an early eternity was what did me in, and the fact that your deck even had those made it a good counter, and my draw was rather bad anyway.\


As to there being better water/time decks out there, I actually think my deck is pretty good. It just loses to decks with quicksand.

[Xinef]

Yes, you are probably right... still it would only take 5 turns for 5 graboids + eternity to do 40 damage against procrastination.
14+4+14+4+14= 50

Now, assuming I draw no earthquakes and no eternity, I'd probably have a number of graboids and maybe rewinds in my hand. Or hourglasses, or a turtle shield. Hell, I even had one dragon there in case I had some spare quanta.

You had no time mark and only 10 time pillars/towers so playing those dragons would take you some time, especially considering you play a turtle shield earlier, and assuming you play no hourglasses. If I had rewinds rather than eternity, it would slow you down considerably with your little production even without it being quaked.

Now, by the time you kill me I'd probably finally draw those earthquakes and eternity and... and.. win this imaginary 'what would happen if' battle

Lol, fighting imaginary battles made on strange assumptions is fun, isn't it?

[PuppyChow]

Maybe. The thing is, who knows? . Overall your deck was a good counter.

[Scaredgirl]

Topic Locked!