To all participants in the Trials of Fire:
Imagine that after the Trials have ended, the 12 Masters are each invited to create a mono deck of their element (all cards in the deck must be fire, but the mark of the deck may be different). These 12 decks will play a best of 3 against each of the other 11 decks - each master must however stick with the same deck against all 11 opponents. Do you believe that fire can go 11-0 under these rules? Do you believe that your deckbuilding would have to make a decision between winning any 2 particular matchups? Which matchups in this tournament would you expect to be easiest and hardest, and why?
Assuming unupped, Fire would do better than most but certainly not be flawless. Its opponents are ranked below, from easiest to hardest. The deck is a typical Phoenixbolt.
Gravity - this is the easiest matchup because unupped Gravity is very slow and has difficulty killing Phoenixes. It's only chance would be to draw more Otyughs than I draw Fire Bolts, and even then it would have to have a lot of damage as well to outrush me.
Water - not as slow as Gravity, but still slow enough for me to handle fairly easily. Bolts can kill whatever they need to, whether it's Squids, Nymphs, or Dragons. Water has difficulty dealing with Phoenix and Fahren as well. Shard of Patience could be a threat, but it's probably too slow.
Darkness - only difficult if they draw a lot of early devourers. Bolt can handle Dragon, and Darkness doesn't really have much damage aside from that. Also, Liquid Shadow is not nearly as good of a counter to Phoenix as people think it is.
Time - the only thing to really worry about is Golden Nymphs, but those are probably not fast enough to outrush the Phoenixes and Fahrens. The rest of the creatures can be killed by a Bolt at 10 quanta.
Earth - the only reason Earth is so far down the list is because of Basilisk Blood, which is one of the few ways of stopping Phoenix. But as long as the Earth deck doesn't have too many Dragons, I can survive long enough by bolting Shriekers.
Light - not typically one of the better unupped Elements, but Light would be able to stall pretty well with SoD and Miracle. Plus, its Dragon is pretty difficult for Fire Bolt to kill. I'd say this matchup would be a 50/50.
Air - at this point, we're going against decks that will probably be more likely to beat us. I haven't played many games with or against SoFr Mono Air, but I feel like it would be pretty effective against a deck with 6 Fire Bolts. Phoenix and Fahren might be able to outrush it though. If Air chooses to go the Blue Nymph route, we'll probably have an advantage because we can just bolt the Nymphs.
Aether - actually one of Fire's harder matchups, even though Fire is also one of Aether's harder matchups. If Aether uses Dims, I can destroy some of them with Deflags and maybe rush with Phoenix/Fahren/Bolts for a win. But if Aether instead chooses to go the Immortal/SoW route, I won't really be able to outrush it with 6 half-dead Fire Bolts in my hand.
Entropy - an early Discord would shut down Mono Fire, and Entropy could follow up with a decent rush from Abominations and Dragons. The only possible way around this for Mono Fire would be something like Immolation Ash Eater, but that would be a bad strategy against the rest of the decks.
Death - the top spot goes to Death because of Bone Wall. It's the worst shield for Fire to go up against, by a very large margin. In fact, this might be the very best card to use against a Mono Fire. Unlike Discord, Bone Wall still has a strong effect if it isn't drawn until later in the game. Furthermore, Death has an even faster rush than Entropy, and killing its creatures only fuels the Bone Wall.
Based on these estimates, Mono Fire would probably get around 6 wins and 4 losses. I'm not really sure where you got the "11 opponents" from, since there are only 11 Elements, and obviously I'm not going to play against myself.
Poll
