8th Trials - Phase 3 Community Vote [Life]

[CCCombobreaker]

Phase 3 - Community Vote

It's time to vote for your favorite Master candidate!  Every community member has one vote. You can change your vote 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 do not have any preference for who should be Master, or cannot decide between the candidates, 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 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.

mathman101's responses
dawn to dusk's responses

[dawn to dusk]

Spoiler for Worst Life Choice (vrt):

Dear cannedfoodidates,

Other than signing up for Trials, what was your worst life decision?

One day, i decided to try out Loops of Zen. That may be it... but...

I didn't get unity one time, and, to this day, i have never played Soccer Physics.

Spoiler for Synergy (ARTHANASIOS):

@DawnToDusk: Which element is Life's greatest ally and why?

i am reluctant to answer this due to it depending on a lot of variables (type of deck, meta, etc) however i would need to say that my favourite is . my favourite deck is adrenastaves and has been that way for a very long time.

Spoiler for Meaning of Life (ji412jo):

What is the meaning of life ( not life like real life, life the element)

the meaning of is to inject things into defenseless creatures to allow them to go faster and split apart when ordered to. so basically, animal cruelty.

Spoiler for Stayin' Alive (TribalTrouble):

What does it mean to be alive?

to be able to both interact and communicate with surroundings in such a fashion that it will benefit you and make your life better in some way.
not to be confused with yolo

Spoiler for Ace Ventura (Submachine):

You all know that being a life elemental comes with an instinktive love of nature and the will to protect everything that's living. As a tribute to one of the biggest elementals, would you change your avatar for 10 days to the almighty pet detective?

alrighty then

What's the name of this almighty life elemental?

see spoiler name

Caption the picture!

"You joined life trials. Alrighty then..."

What is your favorite scene from the show? Also quote if there is anything memorable that Ace said in that scene.

Having seen the movie, I must say that watching the lieutenant kiss ace Ventura makes me cringe...

Spoiler for Various Questions (theelkspeaks):

To all challengers: What do you feel is the greatest strength of the element?

the cost efficient creatures. its dragon is one of the best dragons in the game, and giant frog is one of the most efficient creatures in the game.

In a hypothetical monos-only tournament of masters, which element(s) do you believe life would fare well against?

i believe life has a chance, no matter how slim, against most, if not all elements. it just depends on mindgating as well as other aspects of a game. (eg emerald shield stall vs aether, etc)

What's the best piece of advice you could give to a brand new player who's aligned?

element specific, i would teach them about adrenaline, its hotspots, and what creatures it goes exceedingly well with.

Spoiler for Aliens (Kakerlake):

Anyway, assuming aliens came to earth, how would you react?
I'd love to read a (or more) short and fun story of what could happen and how you'd react to it.

i will answer this soon-ish

Spoiler for War (Laxadarap):

Realistically, do you think you can topple aether?

life by itself, no. life, along with other elements, yes. life by itself will need a lot of luck to beat aether by itself. other elements will be trying their hardest to beat aether as well.

Whats so new/not new this time (more important part)?

i have tons of decks in my head, as well as multiple strategies for war bidding wise and salvage wise. what i would need to say is that after last war, people will want to pummel aether into the ground. the round 8 thing in last war being removed will help a bit as well.

also, having a fresh start with a new general for life will be nice as well. i am not saying this to offend marsu in any way, and i think he was a great general, but fresh starts never hurt anyone ^^

Spoiler for Saving Organisms (Hainkarga):

Have you ever saved life of any organism ? The stranger the organism, the more intriguing.

I have, yes. Multiple times. I assisted in the aid of a dying lizard that was torn open by an animal and had its guts hanging out of the hole. We helped it, fed it, nursed it, etc. I have also saved my pet bird a couple times as well...

Don't you think you betrayed the course of evolution by saving a life ? You made the unfit survive! Do you think medicine also works against quality of genetic pool of human race by saving inferior individuals ?

I do, yes. The problem with us meddling with evolution and things like that is the fact that we have evolved ourselves which allows us to do more complicated things such as save lives with medicine and other things like that. Combine that with the fact that we show mercy to those lower than us and we assist them accordingly.

On the thought of humans, I do think it is bad in some aspects, however, in others, I do not. It shows how much we rely on others to survive, but at the same time, it shows that we are very potent in teamwork. If you were to improve the quality of the human gene pool however, you would need to cause any bogan, redneck, idiot, etc, to never breed which is something that is unreasonable.

Spoiler for Faith (Odii Odsen):

To both: I don't know much about you two. Are you going to join war as General if you win Trials? Tell me something about your war experience. Would you lead Life in an other event, too? Are you active enough for the General role?

General in war, leader in brawl, any other event I can join, etc. as a list of what I have previously done:
Life guild (remember those?)
War 7
Changed my profile background (unsure of whether this counts but whatever)
TPvP
Sacrifice
Connect 4 (took a while but I got there)
Various weekly tourneys (PvZ 1&2 for example)

I am more than active and many people can confirm that. I should be active for the next ages as well.

Spoiler for Life Hate (Frozengaia):

To all:

Life is my least favourite element. My favourite element is non-life.
I don't like life because of how it lacks with a ton of interactions with other elements, as well as itself. A lot of its cards are also very basic, with the most complex card probably being mitosis.

Infest me with your propaganda. In a three sentences, 400 characters, make life sound like the most epic element there is. Persuade me to your way of thinking.

well screw you! Life is amazing!
Whilst not being the strongest element, what it lacks in strength, it makes up for in versatility. It can be used in stalls, rushes, rainbows, domination decks, spam decks, basically, any deck. Furthermore, it has multiple cheap vital cards (adren, heal, frogs, etc) which, compared to aether (fractal, dims), death (bonewall), and so on, allows life to have a better pillar to card ratio compared to other elements.

No idea how many characters that was but whatever.

Spoiler for Changing War (Hainkarga):

So i'm going to vote for the candidate who i believe would be better at tactics but I do not wish to ask made up scenarios. Instead; say you were to decide what to do on last war's round 1. Assume you have anything you want in your vault within the rules. I'm not asking you to build all the decks, codes or anything bothersome. I'm just asking you what sort of decks (just name/description) you would use against your opponents and why.

- since life was first at that time, a rush might be expected. On the flip side, their matchups were getting them to go against some tough opponents. Adren might be good for BW, however plague is a problem. They might still go against us with a rush expecting us to not be able to retaliate. I've been toying with an Adrenastaves deck with CC in the form of EE. The damage from them would be able to compensate for the lack of it and provide CC whilst the staves provide incredible healing.
- tough CC, tough shield. OE and TStorm pose a big threat while fog is just a pain. A stall would probably be the way to go here, only because of the OE killing anything that might help them win.
- life counters water's freeze due to adren. Toadfish is evil though. And permafrost poses a threat. A frog rush with explosion and lance splash to remove pesky threats would be optimal. The ups from the gen status would help a ton.
- I rarely use earth as a main so I would have no idea what to expect. To counter adren and to soft counter mitosis, they might bring diamond shield which would be a big problem. Mitodevs would be great for this but then there's the immortal. Looking at other elements, they'd more likely use that against more important threats (fire, ent, time). I'd bring a fat mitodevs deck with maybe 4 steals for Sanc and diamond shield. It'd be a risk but there's not much I can think of.
- RT counters life. Mitosis, adren, etc. A stall is necessary. Aflabond for damage potential would be great in cast of the unlucky stall chance. Furthermore, I would add poisons/arsenic for stallbreak potential.
- I'm thinking the adrenashrieker deck I used in phase 2. Only because diamond shield > vamps and the rush potential it has is great. The problem it would have is being underquantad due to the devs but they should be fine. Emphasis on should...

Spoiler for Bidding (Farscape):

Question to all candidates (challengers and old master too):

If I apply to participate in War, would you bid on me, and max how many cards ? 

I know next to nothing about you ^^

I would firstly give priority to those who want to be in life specifically, then go on to others who would be good assets to teams depending on what the rest of the team looks like. If you have a low PvP experience, and I have others with high experience, why not? They, (and hopefully I), could teach you some things.

Maxing however would depend on my other bids and who I am looking for to bid on.

[vrt]

Dear cannedfoodidates,

Other than signing up for Trials, what was your worst life decision?

[ARTHANASIOS]

@Mathman: Name the 3 most UP Life cards and explain the reasoning behind your choice.

@DawnToDusk: Which element is Life's greatest ally and why?

@STANDIN: How do you explain your poor performance in Trials?

[MyNameIsJoey]

To all the life trialists:

What is the meaning of life ( not life like real life, life the element)

[TribalTrouble]

What does it mean to be alive?

[mathman101]

Link to Phase 1 tasks

Spoiler for Worst Life Decision(vrt):

Dear cannedfoodidates,

Other than signing up for Trials, what was your worst life decision?

My worst real life decision was one of procrastination in dealing with admissions for a post secondary education. I hummed and hawed for a bit too long and missed the deadline.
My worst elements life decision was probably a stupid mistake with adrenaline in a war match(can't remember which one), I used adren on the wrong creature and just barely lost.

Spoiler for 3 UP life cards(ARTH):

@Mathman: Name the 3 most UP Life cards and explain the reasoning behind your choice.

After taking a hard look among all the life cards both upped and unupped I first had to look at which ones were not UP in my mind: adrenaline, horned frog, emerald dragon, green nymph, empathic bond, jade shield, heal, forest spirit, and mitosis.
Then from the remaining 6 I had to pick based off of usefulness in the most predictable of a given situation, and I am going with:

Rustler/Leaf Dragon: It has low atk and hp, and is most useful in light duos. It can also be used as fodder for immos, otys/scarabs, BE, and ebonds.

Thorn Carapace/Spine Carapace: This is most useful when in larger stalls, or with lots of healing, due to the amount of time needed to kill most creatures. Also it has a higher cost then emerald shield, which means it is a little bit less likely to be put in rainbows over em. sh. due to its higher cost.

Shard of Gratitude: I see the SoG as being a bit UP because it heals for up to 5 hp per turn or 3 if non life mark. the light card sanctuary can heal up to 4 hp per turn regardless of mark and also grants safety from quanta altering and hand altering.

Spoiler for Meaning of Life(jijo):

To all the life trialists:

What is the meaning of life ( not life like real life, life the element)

The meaning of the life elements is one of beings and entities. To have creatures that are alive and healthy, or other spells or permanents that rely on the healthy beings in such ways to aid the user of life.

Spoiler for To Be Alive(Tribal):

What does it mean to be alive?

To me I think that being alive means to live, love and enjoy your life. Whether that's anything for playing online games to spending time with family and friends to working all the time, as long as you are enjoying what you do and having a good time you are alive.

Spoiler for Almighty Lifer(Sub):

To all Candidates and followers of the Green

You all know that being a life elemental comes with an instinktive love of nature and the will to protect everything that's living. As a tribute to one of the biggest elementals, would you change your avatar for 10 days to the almighty pet detective?

Double-checking worthyness:

• What's the name of this almighty life elemental?
• Caption the picture!

I want answers to both 3 of my questions.

"Allrighty Then.... pfft!"
Yes I would be willing to change my profile pic
to that of Jim Carey's Ace Ventura Pet detective,
if it helps your decision.

Spoiler for Strength of Monos and Beginners(theelk):

To all challengers: What do you feel is the greatest strength of the element?

In a hypothetical monos-only tournament of masters, which element(s) do you believe life would fare well against?

What's the best piece of advice you could give to a brand new player who's aligned?

I would say that  's greatest strength is its versatility to play in different deck types. It has healing, SoG and ebonds for stall potential, it has adrenaline and many low atack creatures for rush potential, and both frogs and heals are lower cost cards that can be splashed into rainbows well.

In a hypothetical monos only, life has no PC and very soft CC so there would be several elements that would be very hard to beat:  (dims),  (RoF,RagePots,Fire Sh.),  (wings),  (miracles, sancs).
Some that wouldn't be very hard to beat but may prove a challenge:  , and maybe  .
This leaves  , and possibly  as the easier elements for life to have a better chance to beat if we're using monos only.

The best advice I could give a new  player is not to be too rigid with deck building types. If your going for speed with adrenaline and low atk creatures theres nothing wrong with adding in 1 or 2 heals. If your going for a stall with Ebonds and low cost creatures, don't forget a few dragons to get over those damage reducing shields.

Spoiler for Aliens!(Kaker):

Funny how I still remember the 5th element when I think of green. I'll have to watch it again :O

Anyway, assuming aliens came to earth, how would you react?
I'd love to read a (or more) short and fun story of what could happen and how you'd react to it.

I think if aliens came to earth my reaction would depend how they inserted themselves into my life. If I just found out about them through the news, I might not be as amazed or surprised as if I had seen one waltzing around my home city. Also their appearance in size and shape might make a bit of a difference for my reaction, if large and vicious looking I might become partially scared but small soft and cute looking I might be more intrigued to meet them. So overall I think I would be shocked and amazed for sure, and possibly other emotions based on the many variables of their coming to earth.

Spoiler for Alien Story:

Once upon a time.... oh not that kind of story, oops.
  One day I was running to class on campus and stepped in a blue puddle of goo by accident and heard a yelp of pain. I looked down at my shoes to see what I had stepped in and started to feel a painful heat along the bottom of my foot. I tried to scrap it off but it started to project a voice into my head, and I heard it talk to me.
    "What was that for? Why did you step on me?", it asked.
I just stared blankly at it, amazed that this pile of blue goo was talking to me.
    "I come from another dimension with Fluxnars based life forms. Do you have Fluxnars here?" it asked through my mind.
I just continued to stare at it blankly still too stunned to say anything to it.
    "Ah, you must not be able to understand my communication efforts." it sighed, and then instantly vanished into thin air.
After about another 8 minutes I finally looked up and around me, realizing I may have just missed something important. I was so flustered by this occurance, that I ended up skipping class and going for a drink to clear my head.

This story is intended as a humorous possibility of an alien encounter, and should not be taken literally or as a possibility of an actual encounter.

Spoiler for Aether topple(Laxa):

Realistically, do you think you can topple aether? Whats so new/not new this time (more important part)?

Theoretically yes I believe Life can beat aether and win war, realistically I think Life can make it to the top 4 against non-aether teams as long as the other 10 elements are willing to aid us in working together to not give aether a chance at the top 4.

As for what is new, the main thing I think I could bring to war would be more organization of decks, testing, and time spent doing vault stuff that needs to been done on time and efficiently. I also understand that it would also require some good teamwork to try and get everything done to the best we can.

Spoiler for Organisms of Evolution(haink):

Have you ever saved life of any organism ? The stranger the organism, the more intriguing.

Don't you think you betrayed the course of evolution by saving a life ? You made the unfit survive! Do you think medicine also works against quality of genetic pool of human race by saving inferior individuals ?

Saving organisms can be very easy or hard to do depending on how broad of a spectrum you are looking at. In a way I would like to say yes I have saved(or at least prolonged death) many times for viruses like the common cold or flu, as sometimes I get lazy and choose not to take simple medicine or extra rest. On a more serious level though, I had the opportunity to kill a mouse and potentially save(or reduce damage) to a farm crop, but I choose to let the mouse live instead.

I understand that evolution occurs over hundreds if not thousands of years, but I don't think that by saving one life will change the course of evolution that much for the species. If I save several hundred mice from death in a given area then the balance might be swayed a bit, but it would take many more then just the one in my opinion.

Spoiler for War, Exp, and Life(Odii):

To both: I don't know much about you two. Are you going to join war as General if you win Trials? Tell me something about your war experience. Would you lead Life in an other event, too? Are you active enough for the General role?

I wait for your answers. At the moment no one of you has my vote.

I will admit that when I first signed up for trials during phase 1 my whole intent was on winning to become General for war. However after going through phase 2 and part of phase 3 now, I realize that becoming a master is more then just war and that I would like the opportunity to share with the community what Life really is if I am able to win trials. I would try to do that by leading(or at least participate in) other events that I could show the talents of Life.

For my own war experience I have participated in war 6 and 7 and was able to gain advice and knowledge from willing3 and n00b when I started, and was able to share that wisdom with my war 7 team to help out where I could.

I believe that if war was to start tomorrow morning then no I would not be active enough for the General role due to my summer job taking up 12-14 hours a day, but as war does not start until sometime in September(or possibly later) I will be back to school and will be able to stay active online for most of the day during and in between classes and can then do my best as a General for Life.

Spoiler for Life is Epic(Frozen):

To all:

Life is my least favourite element. My favourite element is non-life.
I don't like life because of how it lacks with a ton of interactions with other elements, as well as itself. A lot of its cards are also very basic, with the most complex card probably being mitosis.

Infest me with your propaganda. In a three sentences, 400 characters, make life sound like the most epic element there is. Persuade me to your way of thinking.

I'll admit this three sentence propaganda took me a bit to think of a really good answer for you, but here I go and hope you like it.

Life is the entity of beings, it is the power and ferocity that creatures emit as they pounce on the field of battle! It is the safety of a healthy and happy elemental as it heals its wounds and scars from a fight! Life is the balance of nature and all that resides in it from the smallest frog to the largest dragon, life is awesome!

I used this character counter and got 334.

Spoiler for Ace V. Fav. Scene(Sub):

I like both new avatars and the captions are also correct, so I have to ask 1 final question about Ace Ventura. x3

What is your favorite scene from the show? Also quote if there is anything memorable that Ace said in that scene.

As it has been several years since I have seen the Ace Ventura movies and I will not have time to re watch them until later this week, I am going to have to go with the one scene I can remember that always sends my laughing: The double panned sliding door "AAAAHHHHHH......Can you feel that buddy?......LOSERS!"

Spoiler for War Strategy(haink):

One of the polls i'm having hard time to choose. Both participants seem to be good choices.

So i'm going to vote for the candidate who i believe would be better at tactics but I do not wish to ask made up scenarios. Instead; say you were to decide what to do on last war's round 1. Assume you have anything you want in your vault within the rules. I'm not asking you to build all the decks, codes or anything bothersome. I'm just asking you what sort of decks (just name/description) you would use against your opponents and why.

Just a very short paragraph if you please. Thank you.

http://elementscommunity.org/forum/war/war-7-round-1/

After taking a look at that topic, I have a few ideas, but not exactly sure which would be best.

Death has the 4th largest vault and faces: 
Darkness has the 6th largest vault and faces:
Earth has the 7th largest vault and faces: 
Time has the 8th largest vault and faces:
Air has the 9th largest vault and faces: 
Water has the 10th largest vault and faces: 

Death will probably send its stronger/more powerful decks vs fire, death, air and maybe light. Possible decks for use against us might be a form of BW CC control (bonebolt/shockwall) as expecting something with adrenaline or mitosis, so a counter we could send would be either a  PUgons duo, or a  momentum dragons duo.

Darkness might send their better deck builds to deal with aether, air, and entropy. Possible decks for use against us might be something with dragons, or a form of a grabow deck, so a possible counter might be a type of healing rush like adrenastaves, or another adrenaline rush with a few heals splashed in.

Earth might send their stronger/better built decks for fire, entropy, time and possibly us. As grabows are common among team Earth, it would be better not to expect one from them but instead expect something with EQs or control. This might be where we could send our Lt. as a possibility they could then split pillars/pends upped/unupped for a better EQ defense. the deck type we send might be a life grabow itself, or maybe a version of Spirit NTs or similar water duo.

Time would probably be more worried of fire, entropy, and possibly us. So a possible better build deck might be needed to worry about. RT and Eternity are always big worries for Life b/c of adren and mito, so Time might bring something RT based. A possible way to counter this could be a spamming creatures for either a stall or a rush, either with PUs(dragons), Fractal(Frogs), or just many frogs+cocks+scorps for a potential Ebond semi-stall.

Air would be more dealing with aether, darkness, and us, and maybe death. That would mean we would really have to worry about spider-wings duos, or maybe shockwaves+EE CC duos. I think a fire duo with deflags,phoenixes and frogs, or healing, fahrenheit and bolts would be a good idea for this matchup.

Water might be targeting us, fire, aether, and maybe time as their stronger battles. So a few decks to expect could be something with ice bolts, tridents, or flooding depending on how they might be trying to counter us for(mito/adren, pillars for dragons, ebond stall). so either an adrenastaves air stall, or possibly a light stall (miracles, crusader+Staves)duo might be best here.

Spoiler for War Bid(farscape):

Question to all candidates (challengers and old master too):

If I apply to participate in War, would you bid on me, and max how many cards ? 

If you are able to show me that you will be a dedicated teammate who will help out throughout the whole war for our team then yes I would be willing to vote for you.
Currently I am unsure how much I would vote, because it might depend on votes on others as well as other Generals vote on you.

EDIT:all answers are finished. my apologies for the delay, and only finishing so close to the deadline.

[CCCombobreaker]

STANDIN makes no excuses.  He lost.  He will learn, adapt, and should he be called upon again, continue to fight without mercy.

[Submachine]

To all Candidates and followers of the Green

You all know that being a life elemental comes with an instinktive love of nature and the will to protect everything that's living. As a tribute to one of the biggest elementals, would you change your avatar for 10 days to the almighty pet detective?

Double-checking worthyness:

• What's the name of this almighty life elemental?
• Caption the picture!

I want answers to both 3 of my questions.

[theelkspeaks]

To all challengers: What do you feel is the greatest strength of the element?

In a hypothetical monos-only tournament of masters, which element(s) do you believe life would fare well against?

What's the best piece of advice you could give to a brand new player who's aligned?

[Kakerlake]

Funny how I still remember the 5th element when I think of green. I'll have to watch it again :O

Anyway, assuming aliens came to earth, how would you react?
I'd love to read a (or more) short and fun story of what could happen and how you'd react to it.

[Laxadarap]

Realistically, do you think you can topple aether? Whats so new/not new this time (more important part)?