12th Trials - Phase 3: Community Vote

[worldwideweb3]

Phase 3 - Community Vote

It's time to vote for your favorite Master candidate!  Every community member may vote on only one candidate. You can change your vote(s) at any time as long as there is still time on the clock.

Vote based on who you think would make the best Master of that element. Do not vote based on who is the best player or who you know personally. Try to pick someone who you think would help the community the most as THE representative for their element.  If you believe none of the Trialists should be Master, please select the "None Worthy" option. 

To help you make the best decision possible, feel free to ask the candidates questions.  Both challengers and defending Masters ought to answer the questions in this thread (and in the General questions thread) to help the voters make the best possible choice.  Please put all your answers in a single post (employing spoiler tags is recommended).  Also, challengers should include in that post a link to your Phase 1 submission post.


Questions and answers may begin now that this topic is posted.
Voting will begin when the polls are up at the official start of Phase 3.
Phase 3 ends when poll expires.

[MyNameIsJoey]

If you could choose who will face you as STANDIN for the final battle, who would it be, and why?

I'd like it if you chose both an old community member that doesn't come around anymore and someone currently active in the community

[InsignificantWeeaboo]

EDIT: Here's my Phase 1 submission.

Sure, my PvP abilities are lacking. Sure, I don't have much experience with PvP. Sure, I've made a couple of mistakes here and there. Sure, I might not be able to live up to previous Masters of Gravity. I'm no Ginyu, nor am I Laxadarap. But what I am, is motivated. Motivated to leave the element of Gravity with a Master; after all, no element should have to go an entire year without one. Even though STANDINs can lead an element's team into War, it's just not the same. It doesn't feel right to have someone fill in for such an important role without being able to show that they can do it.

Not to mention, I do have my own share of achievements and strengths. I'm a creative person, the two competition icons to your left can testify to that. I can see potential in lesser used cards and use them effectively. I do my research and make sure I understand any rule set possible. Not only that, I can give and take constructive criticism.

All I ask is for you to believe in me. After all, even the smallest rock can make the biggest of enemies fall to the ground. If I do become Master of Gravity, I hope to match the expectations of those who think I am worthy and subvert the expectations of those who don't. Below are the answers to questions I have been asked during this phase.

I may be insignificant now, but I will leave my mark on this community.

Spoiler for Answers:

Spoiler for ji412jo #1:

What is your definition of Leadership

I believe an effective leader can adapt to any situation, be able to work with all types of people, and find a solution to a problem that suits everyone in the team.

Spoiler for ji412jo #2:

If you could choose who will face you as STANDIN for the final battle, who would it be, and why?

I'd like it if you chose both an old community member that doesn't come around anymore and someone currently active in the community

For an old community member, I'd like to duel against Laxadarap for the final battle. They were one of the generals who got Team Gravity close to winning war, and I've heard they were able to succeed in covering Gravity's weakness of being slow to play with.

As for someone currently active, I would like to have a rematch against kaempfer13, had he not been trialing for Master of Time. He was the STANDIN last Trials, and proved to be a formidable asset in Team Gravity back in War #10.

Spoiler for shockcannon:

[snip]
What things do you attribute to not being able to win more than 1 game in any of your phase 2 match ups? (include to what degree RNG hurt you if you felt RNG hurt you more than helped you over the course of all of your games)

In a hypothetical scenario, you have lost your phase 4 match to STANDIN with the result being 2-5. List the top two (or just one) reasons why YOU lost.

1. There are a couple of things. The most obvious one is the 1 Pillar/Pend starts that RNG likes to give to me (among other unlucky things), but the main reason why I wasn't able to win more than one game during my matchups is getting hard countered by the opponent's decks. For example, Game 2 of my match against you, shockcannon. While Graviton Guards have decent HP, a big enough swarm of Scarabs can devour any sized platoon of Guards; the fact that SoR increases the productivity of Pharaohs means that the Scarab swarm gets even larger. Another reason for my losses would also have to be the lack of speed in my decks. After all, most of my decks in Phase 2 rely on 2-3 card combos that are generally hard to bring out in the early game.

2. I think one of the main reasons why I hypothetically lost my Phase 4 match against STANDIN was/would be lack of efficiency in my decks. Like I mentioned above, my decks lack in speed. I would expect the STANDIN to know how to make a faster Gravity-based rush than I would have or slow my decks down even further. The other reason would probably be mistakes in my bans against my opponent. From what I've heard about Phase 4, bans are the thing that can potentially decide the winner of the game; if one player picks out the right cards to ban against their opponent, the tables are turned to their favor.

Spoiler for Manuel:

u talked about things like pvp skills, creativity and people that should believe in yourself, taking only few words about war and how much is unfair having a standin general (which isn't true, at all)

most of new players didn't understand that become master of an element doesn't mean having a fancy title, it means BE THE GENERAL FOR THE NEXT WAR
in war the most important thing is the endurance: being active AT LEAST 8 weeks (if u get eliminated before it u failed) and
before war even starts, there is a thing called auction, where players can ban up to 3 elements: how will u feel if 50% of players will ban gravity because they don't trust u?

are u really sure on what are u doing or u wanna give up?

Good questions. It would certainly be justified for people to not trust in me, due to me still being a greenhorn and having never fought in War. It would certainly be a severe blow to my pride, though. Nonetheless, I'll have to be ready to make do with the 50% or less that don't ban Gravity.

I've gotten this far into Trials now. There's no turning back. Best I can do is catch myself with my hands if I fall.

Spoiler for worldwideweb3:

Gravity has the potential to get to the top (shown by 2nd and 4th positions recently). Realistically, where do you think you can take gravity in war, considering it's your first.

Realistically, I'd be lucky to get into the middle 4 let alone win the whole thing. That doesn't mean I won't try, though.

Spoiler for Basman-1453:

For everyone that Trials for their favourite element:

• If you end up not becoming a Master for your favourite element, will you consider an approach from WMs to General your second-fave/third-fave/what-have-you element? (Quite unlikely, but hey )
  

[snip]

Probably not. Not because I'm unable to use the other elements efficiently (probably), but because I need to experience being a General first, or see one in action. I do have a general idea of what it's like to General, though.

Spoiler for ARTHANASIOS:

Will you participate in the next Brawl under the flag of your trialing element?

Wait, does Brawl still have associations with Elements anymore? Either way, I'm down to participate in Brawl.

Spoiler for Kalinuial:

1. Which element do you consider the anti-you?  Which ones rubs you the wrong way or resonates least with you personally?  Please help us understand why this is the case.

2.  Name two previous/current masters (you can include yourself if you wish) who you respect and have been excellent trialists, generals, and representatives of their element.  What traits do these two individuals share?  How are they different?
[snip]

1. I tend to see myself as someone who tries to control everything in their life, while staying calm and collected. While Entropy seems like it would be my counterpart element due to it's random nature, I actually think Fire is the element that represents my anti version of myself. Fire generally focuses on moving quickly, and can become a devastating force if not controlled. It's weaker creatures means that one wrong move can generally make everything go south, or at least make it hard to recover.

2. I haven't seen many masters in action, though I respect JonathanCrazyJ and Ginyu. Each one of them knows how to use their respective element effectively, and has been able to cover their element's weaknesses. (Ginyu with his Gravity/Death rush, and JCJ with his Shipwreckers.) As for differences, Ginyu seems to be able to work with any element as shown by his performances in Team Aether, Gravity, and Water respectively. As for JCJ, I've only seen him play with Water so far.

Spoiler for DoubleCapitals:

Pose any trialist a targeted question (ie. specific to them). You may link it if you have already done so.

Already done for 3 trialists: Here, here, and here.

Spoiler for SpikeSpiegel:

[snip]
explain what's the strenght and weakness of your Element, and, if you had the chance to add just one card (creature, spell, PC, CC, etc...) to your Element, what would it be and why?
[snip again]

The strength of Gravity is it's versatility and durability. Take the card Overdrive, for example. It can be used to turn one of your creatures into a powerful growth creature, kill a weak creature, or lobotomize a creature with a powerful skill. Overdrive is also effective with high HP creatures, which Gravity has plenty of. It's weaknesses are that it's expensive, slow, and preforms weaker than most elements when unupped. If I could add a card to the game, I would probably add a cheap creature with high ATK to cover this weakness a little bit. Maybe another spider/recluse?

Spoiler for Aves:

Hover over cards for details, click for permalink

Deck import code : [Select]

576 576 576 576 576 576 576 576 576 576 576 576 5lk 5lk 5lk 5lk 622 622 622 622 75m 75m 745 745 7jp 7jp 7jp 7jp 7jp 7jp 8pu

This was my favorite contribution to Team Gravity in the last War. We got 11th place.

Would you agree with its inclusion into a War vault? If so, what value does it add? If not, then what weaknesses disqualify it?

I'll give both strengths and weaknesses, some possible mods, and then a final verdict.

For it's strengths, it gives Gravity some of the stalling power it wouldn't normally have when it's on it's own. It's not exactly speedy, but if done correctly it slows down the opponent enough to give Gravity some more time to think. Compared to a regular RoL Hope, it's much easier to burst damage due to the Elite Charger's decent 7 ATK stat and its built in momentum.

As for weaknesses, the most obvious one is mass CC. The most obvious reason is that it completely derails the strategy by killing all of the RoLs on the field, but the other reason is that it's fairly easy to splash it into your deck. (Ex. One Supernova can power an upped Lightning Storm.) Another weakness is that it has no way of preventing bypass damage, whether it be growth creatures, momentum, spell damage, or anything similar. It's also a combo that generally clutters the deck, giving less room for Fractalled copies, and can be inconsistent at times.

A couple of things I would consider adding would be Gravity Force or a Lobotomizer. The Lobotomizer is a staple weapon in any RoL Hope deck, as it can remove growth abilities or momentum. This prevents more damage from leaking through the Hope and into your health bar. While Gravity Force might not be optimal, it can serve as a way to get rid of pesky creatures when Lobotomizers aren't able to be used. In the rare case of needing to deckout the opponent, I think it could be possible to make this deck a 31 card deck.

Overall, I would highly recommend including it in a Vault build. It's a pretty solid deck, and it does its job well. However, it could be expensive buying all of the necessary cards to build it; despite that, it's also easy to salvage from other opponents for it.

Spoiler for Zyardran:

Forwarded from Zyar over on Discord:

"What are you plans if you become master?"

First of all, I plan to General for War. Secondly, I plan to prepare myself to fail miserably. Some other plans include possibly leading a Gravity themed team into Brawl and  making the formatting of the Gravity card section more standard.

Spoiler for andretimpa:

One of your teammates got matched up with team  and suggests using this deck (implying he'll be lieutenant).

Hover over cards for details, click for permalink

Deck import code : [Select]

55k 55k 55k 55k 55k 55k 55k 55k 55s 5lk 5lk 5lk 5oc 5oj 5oj 5oj 5oj 5pu 745 745 745 74f 74f 74f 7ms 7ms 7oe 7oe 7oe 7oe 8pn

what's your reaction?

Depends on what Team has used in their decks already. The main strengths of this deck are that it counters decks that rely on Bone Wall, it can completely block huge amounts of damage, and that it has a huge damage output. My main worries would be SoSac and Thunderstorm, since they can easily counter this deck. One takes advantage of the many creatures to heal itself, while the other can kill an entire field of Hope fodder. One thunderstorm is also enough to significantly boost the damage output of a single Vulture, assuming that the field was full of Fireflies. Another one of my worries would be any form of PDials, since there's no way to stop poison and Sundials stops everything in its tracks.

I would give the teammate the go ahead to use the deck; but I would also advise the user of the deck to be careful, and possibly add a couple of Sundials in case of SoSac.

[shockcannon]

I am going to ask two questions. I care at least as much (if not more) about being able to sense an honest and earnest answer to my questions as I care about the actual answer itself.

What things do you attribute to not being able to win more than 1 game in any of your phase 2 match ups? (include to what degree RNG hurt you if you felt RNG hurt you more than helped you over the course of all of your games)

In a hypothetical scenario, you have lost your phase 4 match to STANDIN with the result being 2-5. List the top two (or just one) reasons why YOU lost.

[Manuel]

u talked about things like pvp skills, creativity and people that should believe in yourself, taking only few words about war and how much is unfair having a standin general (which isn't true, at all)

most of new players didn't understand that become master of an element doesn't mean having a fancy title, it means BE THE GENERAL FOR THE NEXT WAR
in war the most important thing is the endurance: being active AT LEAST 8 weeks (if u get eliminated before it u failed) and
before war even starts, there is a thing called auction, where players can ban up to 3 elements: how will u feel if 50% of players will ban gravity because they don't trust u?

are u really sure on what are u doing or u wanna give up?

[worldwideweb3]

Gravity has the potential to get to the top (shown by 2nd and 4th positions recently). Realistically, where do you think you can take gravity in war, considering it's your first.

[Aves]

Hover over cards for details, click for permalink

Deck import code : [Select]

576 576 576 576 576 576 576 576 576 576 576 576 5lk 5lk 5lk 5lk 622 622 622 622 75m 75m 745 745 7jp 7jp 7jp 7jp 7jp 7jp 8pu

This was my favorite contribution to Team Gravity in the last War. We got 11th place.

Would you agree with its inclusion into a War vault? If so, what value does it add? If not, then what weaknesses disqualify it?

[Manuel]

I've gotten this far into Trials now

u consider "this far" playing only 4 matches? u are supposed to follow 4 matches/week in war

[InsignificantWeeaboo]

u consider "this far" playing only 4 matches? u are supposed to follow 4 matches/week in war

What I meant is that I'm already in Phase 3. At this rate, no point in forfeiting.

[andretimpa]

One of your teammates got matched up with team  and suggests using this deck (implying he'll be lieutenant).

Hover over cards for details, click for permalink

Deck import code : [Select]

55k 55k 55k 55k 55k 55k 55k 55k 55s 5lk 5lk 5lk 5oc 5oj 5oj 5oj 5oj 5pu 745 745 745 74f 74f 74f 7ms 7ms 7oe 7oe 7oe 7oe 8pn

what's your reaction?

[InsignificantWeeaboo]

Saw this coming, but still glad 40% of people actually voted for me.

Thanks to those who did vote, and I hope to prove the other 60% wrong.