Post by: Powerfrog on January 21, 2012, 09:52:28 pm
The idea of this deck is to force your enemy into screwing himself. Only play pillars until you have a photon and a nightmare. When you have your photon and nightmare, kill any opponents creatures with ice bolts. Play the photon and nightmare it on the same turn. Your opponent won't be able to believe his luck and will play those suckers down immediatley. (Ai sometimes waits a turn, which i find odd) As soon as they're down, play flooding and/or ice shield. Now everything your opponent plays will die the turn after, including immaterial creatures.
The only real counter is for the opponent to kill his own photons to make room, summon water/other type creatures which will survive, rely on his weapon or buff the photons with things such as blessing, although you'll most likely outdamage this with ease.
This currently works on the AI 100% of the time, although they sometimes wait a turn before playing photons. It also almost always works on players too :D (Until they start expecting it :P)
This is a very fun deck to play, it makes your opponent feel dumb, gives the rarely used flood a great chance to shine, and is really effective. (I've beaten a number of false gods with it.)
Heres an attempt at an upped version, again, very unpolished.
The dagger is to get EMs or counter the photons damage if you don't draw a shield fast. Unless you get a bad draw you can usually get the enemy to play photons on the 2nd or 3rd turn. With the upped shield you might not even need photons, just take out any big creatures and nightmare the first little one played. The opponent again will think you're an idiot and waste his quanta playing them. Now you flood everything else. I would recommend still using photons in the deck as many enemy decks won't have weak creatures, but if they do, and don't draw a photon, this is a good alternative.
Alright chaps, tell me what you think and more importantly, how you would improve it. I honestly think this deck has potential to be one of the greats with a little work.
Post by: Dm on January 21, 2012, 11:31:10 pm
Post by: willng3 on January 21, 2012, 11:48:55 pm
I think that this is just one of those decks that's going to end up being somewhat unstable no matter what you do with it or else you'll end up making it prone to some other weakness, but I'd have to see what everyone else can do with the deck before stating that as a fact. In other words, it looks good to me as is.
But I do have one suggestion here: Consider upgrading the Photons in the upped version and swapping the Permafrost for a Mirror Shield. Sure, it's not very good at reducing damage, but there's absolutely no way of removing it from the field and getting killed by your own Photons/RoL.
Post by: Bonestorm on January 22, 2012, 03:49:50 am
But in seriousness, some kind of waterbow might suffice, maybe even a deckouter since once it's done it's not so easy to create a large amount of creature damage. Eitherway extending the deck to a rainbow is way too combo-riffic, although fun- and thats just the deck, the strategy also relies on situation exogenous to the deck.
The unupped version at the top doesn't look unbalanced as it is for what you can hope to achieve with a strategy like this, nova would give you a few shakes of the toadfish ability and speed up nightmare, I haven't played enough to say whether the nightmare needs to come faster enough to make use of nova.
Maybe you can find a use for Shard of Patience inside this?
Post by: Powerfrog on January 22, 2012, 10:17:01 am
Upgraded photons and mirror shield is a definite improvement though, that's going in. :)
Perhaps i'll orient this deck around the arena. With double drawing and other benefits, this decks unstableness would be lessened greatly and would become almost unstoppable.
Another method i had in mind was replacing the photons/nightmares with aflatoxin. You'll need more death quanta, but you'll lower the combo requirment and need less cards in total. Skull buckler works great too as overtime any enemies will become skeletons. With 5 bone dragons you don't really need water creatures in the other spots, as long as you keep your opponents 5 creatures weak. I'm gonna work on this deck today...
Post by: Dm on January 22, 2012, 12:39:09 pm
Nothing decent, just the obvious modification of it and how the outline should be. I still think about adding another Shield.
(PS: 'Em Puffer Fishes b' un-upped, but I don't have 'em un-upped and I'm too lazy to buy them back.
Post by: Powerfrog on January 22, 2012, 02:16:04 pm
Ooops. Cells are other and thus are uneffected by flooding. The only real use of flood is to stop the enemy from putting down any creatures before the cell mutations cover the field, after the initial 5 spots are taken. (At that point anything he plays will die, and the cells will take up all room on the field and not hit through your shield)
Nothing decent, just the obvious modification of it and how the outline should be. I still think about adding another Shield.
(PS: 'Em Puffer Fishes b' un-upped, but I don't have 'em un-upped and I'm too lazy to buy them back.
Guess we're back to the nightmare photons.
(If you want to stick to death/water i'd defnatley recommend skull buckler over ice. Lot cheaper and same damage reduction.)
Post by: Dm on January 22, 2012, 07:09:58 pm
Post by: furballdn on January 22, 2012, 07:21:36 pm
I don't see your point. My use of flooding and your use of flooding in the decks are the same. I use the malignant cells to lock down the whole field, so even if I run out of water quanta or get PC'd his field is still useless. Further on, the strategy is basically the same and it's just a smaller deck over all. o.OBoth these strategies involve you using your shield. You have 1 shield in your entire deck. This means the flooded photons do 5 damage max without a shield. Cells without a shield is 23 damage. If your shield gets stolen, destroyed, or not drawn, those cells will kill you quickly. Skull buckler would be a better choice, and it'd be nice to have 2 or 3 of them in a deck that really depends on the shield.
Post by: Dm on January 22, 2012, 08:02:10 pm
I still think about adding another Shield.
Both these strategies involve you using your shield. You have 1 shield in your entire deck. This means the flooded photons do 5 damage max without a shield. Cells without a shield is 23 damage. If your shield gets stolen, destroyed, or not drawn, those cells will kill you quickly. Skull buckler would be a better choice, and it'd be nice to have 2 or 3 of them in a deck that really depends on the shield.
Post by: RRQJ on January 22, 2012, 08:46:18 pm
Post by: Chapuz on January 23, 2012, 01:11:50 pm
Post by: stinky472 on January 23, 2012, 01:53:24 pm
Post by: Powerfrog on January 23, 2012, 03:57:14 pm
Needs 6 photons and 6 Nightmares just to start in the first 2 turns, letting the oponent just flood his creatures.Yes this really would be ideal, but the deck already suffers from not having enough quanta or damage. 30 cards simply isn't enough, and any more you add is simply going to lower the chance of drawing in the first place.
Although saying that, nightmare is kind of useful to have 6 of, as it shuts down the opponents deck with water creatures (assuming he has no water quanta) while doing some damage, and upped photons could be used to fuel a few golden dragons, especially in combination with Solar Buckler. Perfecting this deck is gonna take a lot of work :P