Introduction of Jen-iHi I'm Jen-i
I have no idea why I have a girls name either - while you may have been surprised to discover that I was male - I was surprised to discover that my name was Jenni - I always pronounced it "Gen-Eye". So the girly moniker was a little unintentional - it only really causes me problems in random PvP however where I pretty consistently have players try to pick me up. And while that might be awkward for some - I just find it hilarious.
The other important thing to notice - I am a firm believer in the inferiority of the 'dash' - you'll find me abusing it throughout my posts, if that's really a problem for you - if you are a dashophile, I'm sorry - get over it - they aren't worth your time - your effort - or your money - stop trying to protect the poor little dash from my abuse - its just getting what it deserves.
Why Vote for Me In all honesty, I do have to say I trials has been everything I hoped it would be. I choose entropy not because I love it above all elements, I honestly don't have a favorite element at all, instead I chose entropy because I was excited about the competition I would be facing. TStar is well known for his tourney wins, his BL victories and his role with
in the last war. MatrimKK is less well known, but has two tourney wins under his belt and I knew him to be a mature, responsible and active member of this community. I did not expect that T and I would be playing catch up with you Mat, so congratulations on how well you've done so far. The choice before you is simple, who among the four of us will make the best master of
for the next war?
A Comparison of your ChoicesChoice #1: An Expected Choice TStar is an excellent tourney and BL player, amazingly active on both chat and the forums. His ability to predict and better to manipulate his opponent's deck choices in BL is outstanding. TStar would make an excellent face for the element of change. With his shard he attempted to bring a new face of entropy to light and with his deck help he proved his work ethic and value as a tutor to newer players. As a general I believe T would do a good job, just not a great one. The war metagame requires a different skill set then league play does, predicting your opponent's deck is good in league play, manipulating their deck choice is far superior (and I believe that is where TStar excells) the problem is that this skill has no equivalent in War. War is about deck prediction and building well rounded powerful decks from the detritus left in your vault.
Choice #2: An Unexpected Lead MatrimKK has demonstrated his unupped PvP skill in tournies, events and the last piece of the BL season. War experience is not essential for a master, however historically master's without war experience have suffered as a result. Mat may be an exception to this trend, but it is a gamble with the fate of Entropy in the next war.
@Jen
I noticed my section of your post was a bit lacking in walls of text. If your only argument as to my qualifications is that I'm too high a gamble to trust with war, I counter this point with the success of Higs and Naps. Both of whom led their teams to great levels of success in their first term as Master. I plan to make up for my lack of experience in war not only with my talents, but with the collective experience and talent of Team
To further answer your question Mattrim let me provide a wall of text:
The role of General begins before secret sections are opened - it starts with the recruitment of talent to help you in war - and while you certainly know people, it is difficult without prior war experience to know exactly what skill set of people you need to be recruiting to assist you. More importantly your leadership is untried - I know that the only way to reveal your leadership skill is to put it into practice but their are smaller venues to prove that. I do believe from the little I know you that you have the ability to lead - but I have yet to see that proven, a vote for you is a gamble because that leadership is unproven.
Beyond just team selection and leadership, it is true that you can recruit war vets to your cause, however the recruitment of war veterans can prove to be costly, which can significantly limit your initial vault, putting you behind even before the war begins.
As to my comment about War Experience - I was talking about war experience not experience as a General - although that is certainly something to consider. Between the last 2 wars only 4 Masters/Generals have ever been trusted with the responsibility of leading an element without prior war experience. And while Higs certainly excelled in her first experience in war I believe she is an exception to the rule as opposed to the norm.
Beyond your lack of experience it is hard for me to pick out negatives, mainly because I don't know you well enough to point them out. From what I have seen you are an excellent PvP player, one that has the makings of a good master, but even if I weren't in trials I would be hard pressed to vote for you because of your lack of war experience.
But good luck, and may the best candidate go on to crush Zeru.
Choice #3: The Status Quo Zeru has proven his skills as a master and a general in 3 wars now and is a formidable opponent, but if his efforts in these trials are any indication he has lost the drive to keep this role. Further in my estimation he is becoming less and less active in chat and on the forums, the places where a Master, the face of their element, needs to be seen to promote their side. And finally entropy is about change, it is time for entropy to have a new face; to renew itself under another master.
Choice #4: The Right Choice Three tourney wins and 2 3rd place finishes in Champion's League play, while not exceptional, prove the consistency of my PvP skills. The finish to this last league should prove my integrity as well. With less than 24 hours remaining I was in second place (possibly first I can't remember exactly), all I had to do to remain there was to refuse matches, but I had been championing the cause of never refusing matches. I stuck to my cause and lost the place, the RNG can be a hateful mistress at times. I too am active in chat and on the forums, I have read nearly every on-topic thread and some days feel like I live in chat; as master that would only grow.
But more important than PvP skills or activity however is the experience I bring to the table as a general. I was general of
for the conclusion of this last war. Simply looking at the standings does not tell the whole story, we rank higher than we might due to a fortuitous bye that allowed us to pass
, but when I took over leadership of the element we were on the verge of following
into the abyss, instead of 11th we ended up in 7th.
Conclusion: Each of the 4 of us has proven our PvP skill, each of the three challengers is active in chat and on the forums. Only two of us have the war leadership experience that entropy needs. And one of those is the current master, who by his lack of participation in these trials, is proving unable or unwilling to continue as leader of this great element.
Regardless of the outcome of this vote - Thank you all for your involvement. Zeru, thank you for setting Entropy on such a great footing, my challengers for the respect and enjoyment of these trials, and my voters for your support. Until next time everyone just smile for me!
Your Questions Are AnsweredQ. (Fill in the blank)Entropy, while random, is not RNG-based for me because… __________.”
...because RNG (Random Number God) should be your buddy, not your enemy, as a being of
.
Hi Kuro thanks for the question.
It is essential to me that Entropy is RNG based, my luck at this game is streaky, long periods of horrid luck followed by short bursts of accomplishing the impossible. The only way to overcome this cycle is with huge sample sets, entropy provides a way of allowing the RNG to do both within the space of a match. A truly awful draw can be made up for by an unbelievable pandemonium that wipes the enemy field entirely. An inability to draw a solid attacker can be covered by a wonderful mutation. And an opponent's perfect draw can be decimated by a lucky discord. The RNG nature of entropy is key to allowing the RNG enough control over each match to let things balance out.
Hey
Teammate!
Q: did you ever consider that Nova gives an unfair advantage to entropy in war? and why? Do you think that Nova and Supernova are balanced cards? and why?
Great question - Yes I've though about this a lot, specifically every time we faced entropy during the last war. And more I thought about the fact that no one wanted to play nova's against
, because nova decks are so vulnerable to reverse time. It was frustrating to consistently be looking for another nova from salvage for the entire course of the war and to almost never find one.
To answer the question does nova give entropy an unfair advantage, no I don't think so. It may give some teams a disadvantage because it can be harder to salvage for them, but beginning with 24 as opposed to 12 should be no great advantage. You asked about Supernova as well, I love the card, I truly do, but my experience in almost 250 league matches is that any deck built around SN is at the mercy of the RNG, it excells with a good draw and falls on its face with a bad one. And those bad draws are certainly statistically significant.
Entropy, the element of chaos, owns the card Nova. Why does that make sense? Explain.
It is actually really very simple - Mutants. Mutants are piles and piles of fun to play with, the old SG FG deck proved that beyond a shadow of a doubt. But they are just pretty colours without the quanta to use them, QP's force you into more of a rainbow deck and add additional problems with quanta production. Nova's feed our lovely mutants allowing them to dive and destroy and devourer their way to victory.
So Entropy is full of CC and discord - here's a deck that tries to use neither of them. Sure it has weaknesses but vampiric werewolves should drive the Twilight crowd to distraction. And the deck works, is capable of EM's and is fun to play. In fact I'm going to go play it in PvP2 right now and probably get picked up again lol.
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Great question Bhlewos - it says something about the power of a card when it's the only
card for which I don't have a single copy - and one of only 2 for which I don't have 6. The cat is a fantastic idea and I loved it the moment I first saw it. I think it captures the scientific part of
very well and makes me laugh. However the card is certainly underpowered - not due to the nature of the effect itself but due to the lack of cards that it can power. Bonewall, Boneyard, Soul Catcher & Condor are all interesting cards in their own right, but either they are too slow for the rush nature of the current open meta-game or they don't help you win. You could easily build a deck that uses cats to power Bonewalls, but unless you plan to win by deck out you struggle to fit damage into the deck, or you could build a deck that uses cats to power Condors, but then you lack defense and get overwhelmed by rush cards. I've tried to balance it - and I think it is near impossible to get this fast enough to be competitive.
There remains a niche that the cat can fill, it becomes in element - mutation or immolation fodder, which is important in PvP events such as war, trials and some tournies that have certain deck restrictions. It also makes for a fun deck - check out these threads:
a) Super Condors (
http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,28205.0.html)
b) Schrodinger's Pet Vulture (
http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,27732.0.html)
However as a general card I don't think we'll see it in a competitive build.
Hey dictator,
I don't really have a favorite deck - I like playing lots of different things - I may be a little ADHD in the fact that I change what I'm playing so often. Truth is my favorite deck is the one I'm currently winning with (i.e. whatever deck I loaded that is winning that day) the deck could be a lucky piece of garbage I built myself, a personal CL deck of which I'm proud or a popular deck off the forums (not too many of those ones as I don't actually look at forum decks all that often). The opposite is also true of me - my least favorite deck is the one I'm currently losing with. The deck I used in phase 1 of the trials goes through hot and cold streaks I love it when its on and curse it when its losing.
I merged the deck requests guys - I liked it better this way. It seems I'm on a pestal kick right now.
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1st turn Discord just makes Pestal soo much nastier
Hmm - it appears as if my card commentary has vanished into the void.
I love the card idea Jenkar - I'm not entirely sure it could be implemented as is, I'm not sure how the passive ability layering works. But the concept is really cool - the reason I put it in the above deck is that allowing the opponent to control what creature enters play is a dangerous idea - buy using it in a creature based denial deck you gain control over what the creature becomes. I suppose the other possibility is to use either Mitosis or Fractal to generate a continuous stream of creatures to maintain the attackers that you want. All in all it a great idea - it might be overpowered in a discord gravy nymph combo - but that's dangerous enough already - you could potentially lock the entire field. At its heart any card that you want to fractal is worth copying with this - and many more powerful creatures as well. In an upped mono it might even be fast enough to deter an immorush from swarming you if you can get a could in play on the first turn.
Q: what element would you consider to work with entropy the best ?
That depends - entropy is completely lacking in non-creature damage sources and has some of the best mass CC in the game in pandemonium - that combination makes
a natural partner of
- Death thrives on the fuel that CC creates. At a less competitive level Maxwell's Demon, Schrodinger's Cat, Chaos Seed, Fallen Elf & Mutation are all potential causes of CC - again supporting the
connection.
However entropy also has a solid connection thru its denial cards to both
and
- Discord EQ and Discord Devourer decks can be crippling against many opponents, in the case of
nova also supports the use of Graboids - and while nova Grabby decks are overused it's because of their general effectiveness that this is the case. With Darkness you see a natural connection again with lycans - which can easily be partnered with CP and Liquid Shadow to make a fast damage and healing creature.
In truth the use of nova opens
up to partner with any and every element - you see this quite often in organized PvP play - that's why nova gets banned so often from tournies. Outside of nova I'd say the strongest 2 connections are
and
. While the BH combo with Discord is often played it is really the only solid connection between the two elements and while Fallen Elf/Druid uses
quanta that doesn't form the basis for a deeper connection (although mutation decks sure are fun when they work).
What does entropy mean to you, and how does this meaning relate to some of entropy's cards?
Entropy is the element of chaos - that means both random and transformative; Entropy is about sudden unexpected change. You see this in almost every card in entropy's collection.
Fallen Elf/Druid & Mutation | The transformation is explicitly seen in the creation of mutants from otherwise standard cards |
Lycan/Werewolf | The transformation is implied in the creature itself; man becomes wolf |
Abomination/ Microabomination | The transformation is not seen in the individual cards - but in the surprising transformation that takes place with the upgraded form |
Dissipation Shield/Field | The shield transforms your quanta production into hit points |
Antimatter/ Purple Nymph | These cards transform a threat into a help; a dangerous enemy creature becomes an ally |
Butterfly Effect | The spells transforms a creature - giving it one of the most dangerous mutant abilities in the game |
Nova/Supernova | Nova creates quanta from nothing and SN converts 2 into 2 of everything - in addition these cards transform entropy itself, allowing for many more options that most mono or duo decks could ever consider |
Maxwell's Demon | Like antimatter this card transforms a creatures great strength into a weakness - while antimatter uses that weakness to your benefit Maxwell's Demon uses it to the destruction of itself |
Chaos Seed/ Power, Pandemonium, Discord, Fallen Elf/Druid, Mutation | Each of these cards exhibits both the random nature and transformative power of entropy |
Schrodinger's Cat | While the card is explicitly neither random nor transformative the scientific principle for which its named fits nicely into entropy's theme |
Purple Dragon | Other than the purple colour there is no connection to - that's too bad, I wish it had a little piece of flavour. Perhaps giving one of your creatures at random a small stat bonus - or generating random quanta when it enters play |
How important is community (both keeping existing players and attracting new ones) to you? How much influence do you think Masters have in effecting community and how do you think you could contribute if you were to be Master?
Numbers are nice Bootza - but I'd rather have quality over quantity any day of the week. The best option of course is how to get both - how do you attract lots of quality players, not just in PvP skill but also good, contributing members to join this community. In large part we have only some small control over Elements itself which is the primary draw for people to the community - however I can't tell you how many times I've heard player say, I came for the game, I stayed for the community. I think this is completely true - how do I contribute to the community, I can't tell you I do it through posting on the forums, but I can certainly say I do it in chat. I am consistently welcoming new players to chat, attempting to smooth any ruffled feathers when a new member bumps into one of our local porcupines, and helping them get acclimated to both the game, PvP, farming and the forums. I've made an effort the last month - and will continue to try to improve on it to welcome new members in the new members threads.
Design 3 new cards to keep entropy competitive without having access to Nova, Discord and Antimatter.
Alchemy Set - A combo breakerAnti-matter is an exceptional card despite its high cost - it works as both CC and as healing. I needed to choose one place to focus my attention, Entropy has lots of other CC available to it, but no other form of healing, and I liked the feel of Anti-matter - a card that serves two purposes. I'm opening up a new form of denial with the card and still maintaining the ability to heal. It may feel like the cost is too cheap when you get multiples in play, however the healing will distrupt your deck quiet quickly.
Arbitrary Payment - And thus dies rainbow: Deal with it!Nova serves so many purposes in decks - I decided to let the rainbow nature of nova die - I would assume the pusher great lawnmower in the sky aimed his machine in its direction because of it. The two problems that now present themselves are: a) the ability to pay for mutant abilities (I will assume for now that QT and SoR can handle those duties) b) the acceleration that nova provides a deck. I decided to focus this card on acceleration.
Amnesia - The new face of denialDiscord is the one form of quanta denial available to entropy - losing it removes an entire deck type. This weapon allows a similar feel with an entirely new mechanic. It retains synergy with Black Hole, Earthquake and Devourer, as well as opening synergy with Rewind, and GotP+Nightmare.
Q1 - If you had to fight against someone that could use any card, from any element, upped or unupped, and you are allowed only to use mono entropy (unupped or upped), what would you bring?
Q2 - What atributes would you consider the most important when selecting team members for war?
A1 - Really simply a mutation deck - life marked nova powered and hope to get some lucky mutants. At least if I know my opponent is competent - it is too simple to counter most other decks - its really hard to know what you're getting with a mutation deck.
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A2 - Activity - Activity - Activity - Personable - Activity - Deck Building Skill - Activity - Organized - Googledocs Skillz - Activity - PvP Skillz - Activity - Activity
And I probably underrated activity and overrated personality and deck building skill
This is a favourite among my card ideas, and has reached the Armory.
| |
NAME: | Prismatic Field
| ELEMENT: | Entropy
| COST: | 5
| TYPE: | Permanent (Shield)
| ATK|HP: | | TEXT: | Shield: Attacking creatures take the effects of a random shield.
|
| NAME: | Prismatic Wall
| ELEMENT: | Entropy
| COST: | 4
| TYPE: | Permanent (Shield)
| ATK|HP: | | TEXT: | Shield: Attacking creatures take the effects of a random improved shield.
|
|
ART: | http://www.sxc.hu/photo/753065
| IDEA: | EvaRia
| NOTES: | Each attack gets a different random effect. The effects don't happen automatically, chance effects still have their respective chances of working. For example, an attacking creature gets the Permafrost Shield effect, 2 damage is reduced, but the freeze chance doesn't occur and the creature isn't frozen, while another creature takes Turtle Shield and gets delayed, etc. etc. It might be a bit difficult to code, but would be a VERY fun shield to play =D
| SERIES: | |
|
How would this card affect Entropy?
How would this card affect the other elements?
I'm intrigued by the card - and you're right Eva it does look like a VERY fun shield to play. Unfortunately looks can be deceiving - the usefulness of this shield depends on the shields in its effect list - with the full list of shields its effects are as follows:
Effect on Damage:- 30% Will Block the Damage Entirely
- 30% Will Reduce the Damage by 1 or 2
- 40% Will Not change the Damage at all
Secondary Effects:- 20% Some form of CC
- 6% Lose some random quanta
- 6% Gain 1 quanta
- 6% Destroy the shield
Using all the shield effects - the shield is an interesting addition to entropy - but is less effective than many other shields - Many shields gain their power through repeated use (look at the CC shields or Solar Buckler) while others have their primary effect outside of the attack phase (Reflective, Emerald, Bonewall). As a result, as the card is written, I don't see it having a significant impact on either entropy or the other elements. With a shorted list of possible shield effects that could change - although it would depend greatly on the shields chosen.
1) | Dissipation Shield | 100% Block | Lose Quanta |
2) | Bonewall | 100% Block | Destroy Shield |
3) | Skull Shield | DR 1 | ~45% CC |
4) | Duck Mantle | 50% Block | |
5) | Fire Shield | 0% Block | 100% CC (-1HP) |
6) | Gravy Shield | 40% Block | |
7) | Tit Shield | DR 2 | |
8 ) | Thorn Carapace | 0% Block | 75% CC |
9) | Emerald Shield | DR 1 | |
10) | Solar Buckler | DR 1 | Gain 1 quanta |
11) | Reflective Shield | 0% Block | |
12) | Hope | 0% Block | |
13) | Fog | 40% Block | |
14) | Wings | 70% Block | |
15) | Ice Shield | DR 1 | 30% CC |
16) | Procrastination | 0% Block | 100% CC |
17) | Dimensional Shield | 100% Block | |