8th Trials - Challenger's Entrance

[Zawadx]

TIME TO ENTER THE TRIALS
HAS RUN OUT



Please make sure you've read the Rules very carefully. Also, here are the Phase 1 Rules.

To join these Trials, post in this thread a single post containing the following information:

Spoiler for Requirements:

-Evidence of Score Requirement
-Evidence of Established Account Requirement

Spoiler for Phase 1:

Spoiler for Task 1:

-Name of Task
-Evidence of completion

Spoiler for Task 2:

-Name of Task
-Evidence of completion

Spoiler for Task 3:

-Name of Task
-Evidence of completion

Spoiler for War Bonus:

-Evidence of participation last war for the same element you are challenging (or defending as a Master)
-If you were a General, evidence of your General-ship

Spoiler for Loyalty Bonus:

-Tell us how many times you have participated in Trials for this element before
-Give us evidence of your participation in each of those trials

Remember, the Requirements to Challenge are:

• 30,000+ score in Elements
• 200+ forums posts
• Joined the forums no less than 3 months ago (at the time the clock above expires)
  

Note: In the event more there are more than four applicants for one element, priority will be given first to players with the higher Phase 1 scores and second to a combination of score/post count.

Challengers:

• SpikeSpiegel
• qwerter
• Submachine
• Kuroaitou

Master PlayerOa of is NOT defending.

[SpikeSpiegel]

Spoiler for Requirements:

-Evidence of Score Requirement:
-Evidence of Post Requirement and Established Account Requirement

Spoiler for Phase 1:

Spoiler for Beginning war training:

- Speed training - Time Trial


- Untouchable Quickness


- Strenght training - Heavy Lifting


-Strenght training - Strenght in numbers


- Endurance training - Incredible Fortitude


- Endurance training - Unwavering Will

Spoiler for Building War Golems:

http://elementscommunity.org/forum/fg-proposals/phobos-55085/

Phobos

Hover over cards for details, click for permalink

Deck import code : [Select]

7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q4 7q4 7q4 7q4 7qe 7qe 7qe 7qe 7qe 7qe 7th 7th 7th 7th 7th 7u2 7u2 7u2 7u2 7u2 8pt

Phobos, son of Aphrodite and Ares, is the personification of fear. Wherever there is a battle, Phobos will wear his armor to assist his father, the god of war, to sow fear in the hearts of enemies.

Spoiler for Being a War Reporter:

CURRENT FEATURED MEMBER:
8th Trial of Time - Phase 1
Jen-i
Old member
PvP veteran
Nice guy
Some other stuff



Let's begin this interview with a classic question: how did you find Elements the Game and why you joined our community?

I've loved CCG's forever, but card board cards were starting to get prohibitively expensive. I no longer had thousands of dollars to spend on competitive card collections. So in 2010 I googled "Free Online CCG's". I tried about 5 or 6 of them before playing Elements. I really liked the game play, but I was totally stumped at the time on how to beat FG's. I spent quite a bit of time lurking in those days, before happening upon SG's rainbow deck and finally finding an answer to FG's. Technically this is the second time I joined the forums - my original user name will remain unstated. I went back earlier this week to look at some of the posts under my original user name and was surprised to see what an idiot I was. I've lost track of forum moves, but I started a new forum name during one of those moves and I became Jen-i.


You've been here for a very long time: do you think the community or the kind of players is changed over time?

That's a tough question to answer - many of the early community values have become culture around here. And while there is occasional trolling for the most part this is a mature open-minded community. There are however some key individuals that we've lost that have never been replaced. Pillars of the community if you will. The enthusiasm, commitment and creativity they brought, now is gone. I'm not slamming our current community, there are still many people that exhibit those traits. But we now play events like War, Trials and others that these people created, it's rare now to see that scale of innovation. Although I applaud both Brawl and World Championships for capturing that spirit!


I totally agree that something is stuck in this community, but it's also true that we have some traditions to continue. In your opinion, what we (as community) need to fully restore that innovation spirit that you mentioned few seconds ago?

I'm afraid of being too honest - especially because I'm certainly not part of the solution, we need leadership and vision - and hope; those first two are in my mind the role of the Council - the last falls decidedly into Zanz's lap. When all leadership fell onto SG's shoulders it was easy to pursue a vision of what the next exciting idea was, we've now split that leadership up between the Council and Admins and I imagine it becomes much more difficult to unify that energy in a specific direction. I think I answered your question - or did I just gracefully dodge around it? Or like a drunken rhinosaurus just trample it underfoot?


You answered my question honestly and I appreciate it, the rest of the community will do the same. Still on the subject, would you ever apply for a staff position? If yes, which one?

I've considered it a few times. Probably the most likely would be War Master or Trials Overseer.


War will come most likely soon after these Trials and imho you'd be a perfect WM. Moreover you have already led team Time when I was Master and I had to leave suddenly, so you have experience as General too. Now, talking with other members too, it looks like last War hasn't been the best one so far. What do you think we need to make next War an unforgettable event?

To start with I'd abandon the auction. As much fun as it has been in the past we've had multiple occasions where it has threatened to unbalance the war. Though last was the first time it got quite so out of hand. To replace the auction I'd recommend a Draft Auction.
For each round of the Draft each General bids a number of cards from their vault, the General with the highest bid receives the first choice in the Draft that round. Ties would be broken in reverse order of the previous wars Final Standings.
(For example if in Round 1 bids 7, & bid 5, and the remaining elements don't bid. Then the draft order for that round would be. )
It would probably also be worthwhile to set team sizes so that Generals aren't forced into choosing players that are highly likely to be inactive in the final round.
I've always had a wish that event cards would provide teams with a choice each round, like a Risk-Reward proposition. The Event card from Round 6 last war was a decent example, if a little bland.
The idea of Spoils was interesting but the increased Salvage early in the war forced teams to collect large vaults of off-element cards, which makes suicides more likely. I haven't put too much thought into the idea, but I'd likely just abandon the Spoils idea for now and run an event similar to earlier wars. Perhaps with an increased tempo during the final rounds (i.e. each round take less time).


Talking now about the game, Zanz is almost on an everlasting holiday, and the game is stuck to 2012 in terms of updates. Do you think a new patch, like the 1.4, would help the game? Or EtG needs some new cards, first? Or maybe, something else?

More cards, more cards and then for good measure more cards. I'm intrigued by the concept that Zanz put forward for 1.4 but the execution doesn't leave me really anticipating its arrival. But that said I'm a veteran who owns all the cards (well I'm still missing that last upped Chimera, but that doesn't count) so I'm always looking for new toys.


I can understand well your feelings. As you just rightly said, you're a veteran and from most of the community you're considered (with right reasons) one of the best PvPer around here: there's something you wanna tell to new players that are starting to join PvP? Have you got some "secrets" or "tricks" you wanna share with the community?

I wrote something like a 12 or 15 pages article filled with references and other reading - but no one in their right mind wants to read that. (Anyone silly enough to want a read could drop me a pm - lol). The easiest thing that I think everyone is afraid of doing is to find yourself a partner or two with whom you can build decks. Someone that can tell you your idea is stupid or that you need to not be such a chicken-shit and just play the damn deck. That and persistence, lots of this game has to do with being favoured by the RNG, so you need to learn to deal with the fact that sometimes it screwed you over, and sometimes it does your opponent.


Now you're going to join trials for ; you once said to me that you like to change elements to compete on trials. There's any specific reason that made you to join ?

Yeah - I've chosen light a few times now in PvP Events (Team PvP twice & now in Sacrifice) and I've enjoyed deck building with it. I've been tinkering with war legal light decks since the end of War #7 - and have been having lots of fun playing around with deck builds.

Light has no "real" CC, nor PC. Which one do you think light misses the most?

Both true. Thematically I think CC would be a better addition to Light - some form of soft CC would augment its already strong stalling capability as well as open a few alternative deck types.  Mechanically some form of PC would be better - Light struggles to build Break decks so its only real answer to beating another stall deck is to come with a larger stall.


I know that decks usage is very situational but you just mentioned stalls, so let me ask: do you like more to play a fast deck or a stall? (Let's give to your trials opponents a chance...)

I love control decks - that's my preference; the ability to make my opponent's cards irrelevant is always my goal. That said, I'll happily play whatever deck I think gives me the edge in a match up, and if I can trick you into thinking I'm bringing FireStall and then beat you silly with an ImmoRush I've quite happy to do so


You're wicked!

No, wicked was something I learned from TStar, I occasionally play a sub-optimal deck simply because no one will see it coming - it keeps your opponent's on their toes all the time.


As i said, you're wicked! Now, please give a "PvP-veteran point of view" to the community: which card needs a buff the most and which one needs a nerf, in your opinion, and why?

I went through the card list - I had seven cards that stood out for their suckage. The worst three were: Dagger, Skeleton and Flooding. Skeleton at least has a fun Reverse Time Deck you could play with it, and Flooding sucks 98% of the time and wins games outright the other 2%. Dagger is just... (words fail me to describe its suckage)
I don't know that I've ever included a dagger or even thought about including one in a PvP deck. That alone tells you how sad a card it is.
I don't even have to look the most OP card in the game is still Fractal. When every new creature idea is weighed against the question "Does Fractal make this OP?" you know a card is influencing the meta more than is should.


Well, let's end this pleasant interview; I don't like to go onto personal info since I firmly believe that here and real life are two separate entities, and i don't like silly and useless questions like "favourite colour? favourite food?". But to end this interview in a light way I ask you: if you were an EtG creature, what you'd be and why?

Crusader - I find myself complimenting any group of which I'm a part, I have a fairly diverse skill set and I find myself irrationally drawn to hopeless causes.


Jen, thanks for your availability and good luck for your trials!

Thanks and good luck to you too!

Spoiler for Phase 2 Unlocks:

Unlocked Elements    +  + 
1 upgraded card of any type in each of your Round 2 decks (up to a maximum of 3)
3 upgraded creature cards in each of your Round 2 decks.
4 upgraded pillar/pendulum cards in each of your Round 2 decks.

Spoiler for War Bonus:

- No participation in last war.

Spoiler for Loyalty Bonus:

-I joined trial 2 times, one as challenger, one as defending Master
- 3rd Trials Final Battle as challenger: http://elementscommunity.org/forum/trial-final-battle-results/time-trial-final-xinef-vs-spikespiegel-1-5/
- 4th Trials Final Battle as defending Master: http://elementscommunity.org/forum/trial-final-battle-results/4th-trials-%28time-final%29-spikespiegel-vs-10men-thursday-0901-09-00-pm-gmt2/

Phase 1: completed

[DoubleCapitals]

Well, as much as I would like to join War first, ah well. Hope I don't get whacked too hard

Spoiler for Requirements:

-Evidence of Score Requirement

-Evidence of Established Account Requirement


First Post, December 13, 2011 (Also a day before my 13th birthday, sue me)



(+ 600+ hidden posts in Forum Games, probably)

Spoiler for Phase 1:

Spoiler for Building War Golems - Awakening:

Hover over cards for details, click for permalink

Deck import code : [Select]

7am 7am 7am 7ap 7ap 7ap 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q3 7q4 7q4 7q4 7q4 7q6 7q6 7q6 7q6 7q6 7q6 7q8 7qu 7qu 7qu 8pn

Laying dormant for years, he is finally ready unleash its true strength.

The thing about -based FGs is that it works well with many elements, and a lot of synergies have been explored before with Osiris, Lionheart, Destiny and Paradox.  also houses one of the harder False Gods, Rainbow, using Electrum Hourglass as one of its key cards.

This god uses the SoR+Mitosis combination to burst high-attacking creatures quickly at a reduced cost. While this might take a few turns to set up, it slows down the progress of the player with Reverse Time, a cheap yet effective CC card that also interferes with the drawing capability of the opponent.

Other cards:

Turtle Shield: Delays creatures and prevents them from using their abilities. Aids in stalling the player giving it more time to set the combo up.

Eternity: Reusable CC, although not as cheap as the spell card, hence only one is included.

Feral Bond: Powerful card once SoR/Mitosis card is set up.

Spoiler for Starting Your Own Little War:

http://elementscommunity.org/forum/pvp-tournaments/post-your-tournament-ideas-here/msg1147778/#msg1147778

Declaring that I would have done Being A War Reporter, but will not complete in time.

Spoiler for War Bonus:

Nope

Spoiler for Loyalty Bonus:

无 (No)

[Submachine]

Sneaky edit. Surprise!!!

Spoiler for Requirements:

Spoiler for Evidence of Score Requirement:

Level 71 can only be reached above 300k score, which is fairly above the minimum.

Spoiler for Evidence of Established Account Requirement:

For my post counter, just look on my left. <-- It shows there.

Not satisfied? Alrighty then.

Spoiler for Phase 1:

Spoiler for Task 1:

-Building War Golems

Spoiler for Hidden:

Yamata no Orochi

Hover over cards for details, click for permalink Deck import code : [Select] 7ap 7ap 7ap 7ap 7ap 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q6 7q6 7q6 7q6 7q6 7qu 7qu 7qu 7qu 7qu 8pn

Yamata no Orochi - or shortly Orochi - is a legendary 8-headed and 8-tailed Japanese dragon that was slain by the storm-god Susanoo. During Orochi's tyranny, two "Earthly Deities" were forced to give the Orochi one of their daughters every year for eight years, one to feed each head of the dragon.

Once Orochi stepped out of its cave, other heads of the same creature will quickly prey anyone who's not fast enough to react. In this case, mitosised dragons symbolize Orochi's extra heads and tails.

Strategy: The deck's main strategy is to play Mitosis on Silurian Dragons and then play Shard of Readiness on top of that. This way the damage can easily grow from 0 to 39 in 1 turn. On the next turn, not only can the AI repeat the combo on one of the dragons for an additional 26 damage, but the previous dragon will also spawn a free Silurian Dragon. This way the damage escalates from zero to 117 in 2 turns. The average ttw is 6, but it's not rare for the AI to pull off a 4 ttw win (there's a very small chance for 3 ttw-s too).

Possible Failures: Before turn 4, the AI refuses to use a SoR-d mitosis ability more than once.

Spoiler for Task 2:

-Starting My Own Little War

Spoiler for Hidden:

Weekly Tournament - Trinitro-toluol - Unupgraded
Special Rules

• Upgraded cards and shards are not allowed
• Your deck must contain at least 3 different elements
• Each used element must have at least 6 non-pillar, non-pendulum card
• Only creatures with 5 or less cost are allowed

Spoiler for possible deck choice:

Hover over cards for details, click for permalink

Deck import code : [Select]

4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vl 4vl 5om 5om 5om 5om 5om 5om 5rl 5rl 5rl 5rp 5rp 5rp 5rp 5rp 5rp 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 8pr

Spoiler for Task 3:

-Being a War Reporter

Spoiler for Hidden:

War Reporter task:


dragonsdemesne
Experienced CCG/TCG Player
League veteran
Harem owner
Creative Deckbuilder


Submachine: My first question is about your username. Why did you choose it?
dragonsdemesne: Well i like dragons and fantasy in general. I had been reading the Thomas Covenant books by Stephen Donaldson, and he uses a lot of really obscure english words. One of them was demesne, and it was fresh in my mind at the time.


Submachine: Not many people know, but you already had a lot of experience in card games before you found Elements. How much experience did you have exactly?
dragonsdemesne: I started playing Magic the Gathering when i was in grade 7, which would be 1995, so i guess quite a bit lol. The next game i think i played was Star Trek, from Decipher games, and then Netrunner and Spellfire. I've played several others as well, but those are the ones i actually own cards for.


Submachine: When you found Elements, what was your starting element and why?
dragonsdemesne: I picked life first. A friend in another game had found Elements and thought i would like it. Having had some experience with ccgs, i asked him what the rushiest elements were, with plans to grind a low level fast to get my collection going. He told me that life and fire were the fastest. I can't recall how i chose between those two, but i picked life and i was happy to find the secondary element in the starter was fire. So yeah, after a few games, i quickly ended up with the classic life rush of 6 frog 6 cockatrice 6 adrenaline 12 quanta, and it just kinda went from there. My rare quest weapon was druidic staff, for the same reason.


Submachine: When was the turning point in your Elements carreer when you became a good PvP player?
dragonsdemesne: Well i think the biggest turning point was when i learned that to win a tourney or league, you don't just need a good deck, but you also need a deck that is good in that particular ruleset. Due to my ccg experience, i was fairly good at making strong decks even early on, but it was when i learned to look at the tourney ruleset and say, no today monoaether sucks, or today fractal antlion is good. The point i'm trying to make is you have to look at the current meta, or possible decks in the environment, rather than just look at a deck that is good in a vacuum. Like a monoentropy rush with discord is good, but not when everyone is using rainbows.


Submachine: Since then, you had time to explore the game fully. How do you feel, which element is your favorite now? Also, which element do you find the strongest?
dragonsdemesne: I'm not really sure what my favourite element is, actually, but my favourite -card- is definitely mindgate though. I just love how i can make a rainbow deck with mindgates, take it into the arena, and it's a completely different game every time. And with mindgates, sometimes some extremely funny and bizarre things happen.
As for the strongest element, again, that's hard to say. All elements got strengths and weaknesses, but fire and aether are probably pretty high up there. Fire's only real weakness is a total lack of healing. Aether has the same weakness, plus no PC, but it's got a few other things fire doesn't. It also depends if we're talking about war, pvp, monos or whatever, but i think i'll leave it as fire or aether.


Submachine: You said that all elements have their own strenght and weakness, and this is where Rainbow decks come to the spotlight. If I recall correctly, you were the one who invented The Deck. Can you tell about how did you find it out?
dragonsdemesne: Well, strictly speaking, i didn't actually invent The Deck, but i do think i was one of the ones that made it famous. The first place i saw it used was in a BL. Cheesy111 used it twice against me. The first time i beat it and didn't think much of it, but the second time it completely wrecked my monoentropy, and i realized that it had potential.


Submachine: Which version do you find the most effective of it?
dragonsdemesne: It depends on the situation. Unupped, i find a light mark version with shard of divinity and miracle the best. Upgraded, i was using a time mark with more hourglasses and golden nymphs for draw power. I'm not sure if it really has a 'best' version. One key thing is to have a few different versions for league, because people start to adapt to it. Some people thought that banning larger decks would stop me (or others) from using it, but it doesn't matter what the maximum deck size is, as long as it's bigger than your opponent's deck. It does get a bit weaker when it's smaller, due to not being able to draw as crazy with hourglasses, or have as many varied cards in it, but the concept still works in any environment where you can be reasonably sure your deck is the biggest one in the match.


Submachine: Now that you mentioned leagues, let's talk about War. Tell us about your war experience.
dragonsdemesne: I was on team time in war 4, and entropy in war 5. For time my general was 10men, for entropy i am pretty sure it was Onizuka. When war 4 started i was pretty much unknown. I (and every other player on team time in war 4) went for 1 card in the auction. I really enjoyed war 4, we had a great team, both in terms of skill and in terms of just getting along great. We had a ton of fun in chat just messing around, we'd talk for an afternoon together and barely even mention Elements, which, as advice to generals, i think is way more important than it might seem at first glance.


dragonsdemesne: I remember a few anecdotes of that war. Here’s a neat bit of war history:

Spoiler for Hidden:

dragonsdemesne: In the wars now, there's a rule that when substituting, both the original player and the substitute have to be able to build the deck, but back then there was not. So there was one round, we had this big match against team earth. The round before that, they had owned me using ghostal when they put pulverizers into a grabbow. They blew up our hourglasses and then we couldn't draw enough dims to stall, and we lost our dims too. So while we were in one of our many chat brainstorming/just being silly sessions, i said something like 'damn i wish i had like 4 golden nymphs, then i could use them instead of hourglasses, and we'd roflstomp earth'. And one of our teammates (I think it was ffun) pipes up in chat with 'i have 4 golden nymphs'. So after we made sure he was serious, we then realized that we can use the event card (which said convert X cards into anything from your element, or something like that) which let us take 4 nymphs, and the sub rule didn't say I had to have them. Subs for that round were also free for some reason. So we built a 4 golden nymph deck, we let ffun sub for me, and we beat earth. They were... not happy, which is quite understandable. It was allowed by the rules at the time, but it was a rotten dirty trick and i'm quite possibly the only war player to have spectated the very same match they were being subbed in for.
Here is a link for that match: http://elementscommunity.org/forum/round-8-173/(time)-(sub)-lt-dragonsdemesne-3-(earth)-martyrx-0/
Ffun is the one who had the nymphs.

Submachine: Will you join the 8th Trials or War?
dragonsdemesne: I will join War, but i decided not to join trials. I just couldn't decide on one element i felt was my favourite, plus I like being a mercenary for hire. :p I'll just let people bid on me and see how that goes.
If there was still a team underworld i think i might've tried to become general for that though. If i had gone for trials though i think i'd have picked an underdog element, like life or gravity. Light is one that i think should be doing better than previous standings show it has, and water as well to a lesser degree.


Submachine: Your most memorable activity on this forum is The Dragon's Arena Decks. Can you tell us about it?
dragonsdemesne: I started it right when the arena came out, and there was a ton of discussion about what the best arena decks were, so i think the original point of it was kind of a diary to see which decks did well in the arena versus those that did not. At first i was doing it because i wanted to get more electrum and get the #1 spot, but after i got to the point where i no longer needed electrum, i was doing it more for fun to see what oddball or ridiculous decks i could still make work. After that thread started getting kind of long, i was worried that i was just spamming for no real useful reason, but apparently people like the thread, so i kept going.


Submachine: Which staff role would fit you the most?
dragonsdemesne: Probably deck helper or maybe card curator, but the latter only if some of the cards start getting added to the game itself.


Submachine: If you could bring back 1 member from the old days, who would it be?
dragonsdemesne: There's a few i'd like to see back. I think it would be a tossup between TStar or willng3. TStar had some ridiculous tourney/league records, and i'd love to see how he'd do in the current meta, as well as test myself against him. Will had some really great pve contributions. I -still- see willng every time i see a horned frog.


Submachine: When PvP was down, you posted this thread where you definitely rickrolled many of us:
http://elementscommunity.org/forum/humor/so-long-and-thanks-for-all-the-fish-54180/
I personally hope you will stay as long as you can. You don't plan to leave any time soon, right?
dragonsdemesne: Oh yeah hehe. No plans to leave anytime soon, so i think i'll probably be around for a long time, unless something changes drastically for the worse with Elements. Once i got trainer edition, things slowed down for me, but i started doing more pvp then, which has kept me interested.
But yeah, unless Zanz does something really horrible to us, and i doubt he will, i don't think i'm going anywhere.


Submachine: Do you have any final words for the interview?
dragonsdemesne: I don't really have anything, no.

Spoiler for War Bonus:

I only participated in War for .
The highest position I had was Lieutenant.

Spoiler for Loyalty Bonus:

This is my first take on Trials.
Therefore, I cannot give any other evidence than red herrings.

But seriously, did you check this: http://elementscommunity.org/forum/trial-of-aether/8th-trials-challenger's-entrance/msg1147475/#msg1147475
It has some additional tasks completed.

[Jen-i]

Bastardo!

[dragonsdemesne]

[PlayerOa]

Not participating, due to lack of time.

Best of luck guys - I'll follow this one!

[Kuroaitou]

 

Spoiler for Requirements:

Kuroaitou - More than 2k posts and joined in 2011.

Spoiler for Phase 1:

Spoiler for Building War Golems:

Pythia

Hover over cards for details, click for permalink

Deck import code : [Select]

7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q8 7q8 7q8 7qd 7qd 7qd 7qd 7qd 7qd 7qk 7qk 7qk 7qk 7qk 7qk 80j 80j 816 816 816 816 816 816 8pu

Pythia was also known as the Oracle of Delphi, renowned for her famous (yet highly ambiguous) prophecies that helped out the young god Apollo. However, she was not a Goddess by any means...

Main Tactics: Instead of Golden Hourglasses being used in every deck, I decided to feature the more rare (and elusive) Golden Nymph for that same purpose for both thematic and game play reasons. The nymphs deal a decent amount of damage, but more importantly, they pair up well with the Dune Scorpions to impose a minor poison tactic (as much as I hate the use of Shards of Wisdom) and other mind/copying tactics with Mind Gates.

Spoiler for Starting Your Own Little War:

Weekly Tournament - Winning Scales - Upgraded

Special Rules

• Upgraded cards are allowed, but not required
• All cards (including Shards) are allowed, but not required
• All decks built are based on the previous match's number of wins and losses. There are no restrictions for the first match, but afterward, the number of duel wins and losses against an opponent affect which set of rules applies to you for the following match. {Meta: The deck building rules in this part can always vary!}
  
  • Winning (or losing) 3-0: You cannot use any weapon or Shard for your next battle. You also cannot play any creature with higher than 9 ATK.
  • Winning (or losing) 3-1: You may only play creatures with a attack higher than/equal to HP for your next battle. Creatures that have variable HP (Shard Golems/Shard of Integrity, Scarab, Chimera, etc.) or cards that generate creatures that ignore the above rule (Nymph's Tears, Graveyard, Animate Weapon, etc.) are not allowed.
  • Winning (or losing) 3-2: You cannot play any Alchemy spells, Nymphs, or any non-pillar/non-pendulum card that generates quanta for your next battle (No Nova, Immolation, Dragonfly, etc.)

Spoiler for Potential Deck:

Suppose I hypothetically win my first battle of a tournament 3 - 1 (or alternatively, lose 1 - 3 and thus play someone for 5th place); this is a deck that I can use then in the next battle, as cliche as it is:

Hover over cards for details, click for permalink

Deck import code : [Select]

7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q8 7q8 7qe 7qe 7qe 7qe 7qe 7qe 7ri 7ri 7ri 7ri 7ri 7ri 7ri 7t8 7t9 7t9 7t9 7t9 7th 7th 7th 7th 7th 8pt

Spoiler for Entering the War Forge:

Seker (or Sokar) being a lesser 'God of Death' in Egyptian mythology.

The main idea behind Seker is basically two fold; act as a semi-PC option for selected interesting permanents, and also remove the most antagonistic buff to Time-users: Immortality. However, the fact that it affects both sides of the field breaks some synergy with its own element (Sundial and Anubis come to mind), but at the same time, also provide alternative strategies. One idea is to remove a recently 'quinted' creature from Anubis to grant it buffs before re-immortalizing it again. Another is to Reverse time creatures affected by the Shard of Wisdom buff against reflective shields so as to stop the 'stop hitting yourself' phenomenon of spell damage. And most practical players can use meta-gaming to time whether they want to break their own timed permanents early (Dim Shield) to spam these creatures on board (Fractal).

Timed permanents include: Wings, Dimensional Shield, Cloak, and Sundial. Three of the four are pretty annoying to deal with as time users, as we have to often use PC from other elements (Explosion/Steal) or Momentum to bypass such effects. Seker will remove the need to have those cards in all situations when facing other players, while also eliminating Time's most precious mid-range attacker problem (sorry Ghost of the Past, but a 4 quanta creature is still needed).

Hover over cards for details, click for permalink

Deck import code : [Select]

4ss 4vj 4vj 4vj 5lg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5ru 5ru 5ru 5rv 5rv 5rv 7q0 7q8 7qe 7qe 7qe 7ri 7th 7th 7th 8ps

Note: Blank cards are to denote the actual deck code that Seker would take place if implemented.

If I was elected general and given a chance to fight against an Aether opponent, I would actually try to use this deck at least one of them for multiple reasons; the secret use of Ghostmare via Nova surprise tactics plus an unsuspecting Mirror Shield would cause a surprise attack for Fractal users as well as stop Psion abuse in its tracks. In addition, the decent mixture of denial (via Eternity if drawn early enough and Nightmares if Nova comes through), plus the ability to mitigate, ignore, and/or remove most any type of stalling strategy (Phase Shield/Wings usage in /:aether combos, Quintessence abuse, etc.), make it a primary deck for almost any Time general to utilize... especially one with a Mark of Time.

Spoiler for Potential Phase 2 Unlocks:

• Elements unlocked/allowed for use: 
• Allows the use of:
• up to 3 upgraded creature cards
• up to 3 upgraded spell cards
• up to 3 upgraded non pillar/pendulum permanent cards
• ...in each of my Round 2 decks

Spoiler for War Bonus:

None. Did not participate last war.

Spoiler for Loyalty Bonus:

*channels Wanda Sykes* LOOK AT IT. DO YOU LIKE IT? LOOK AT IT!

http://elementscommunity.org/forum/trial-of-time/7th-trials-sign-ups-49625/msg1076762/#msg1076762

[No, seriously, click the link Zawadx; I've joined every damn trials there is. Ugh.]

PHASE 1 FINALIZED. NOW AWAITING SCORING. NO MORE EDITS AFTER THIS.

[Zawadx]

Hurray Kuro!

* Zawadx throws confetti

[dark ripper]

Hurray Kuro!

* Zawadx throws confetti

that. Awesome time trials are awesome 

[Submachine]

Now it's a party. Earlier than in aether. 8)

[ddevans96]

Kuro