Not sure till where yet since I will complete this article while I keep playing it.
Want to say from the start that this self experience and guide try might not be the best, therefor I welcome any ideas, criticism and hope that all water lovers will help me with this.
Ok, starting with the deck. The deck I am using should be available after the first three quests, so extremely cheap to start over:
Hover over cards for details, click for permalink
5i4 5i4 5i4 5i4 5i4 5i4 5i4 5i4 5i4 5i4 5i4 5i4 5i4 5i6 5i6 5i6 5i6 5i8 5i8 5i8 5i8 5i9 5i9 5id 5ie 5ie 5ie 5ie 5ie 5ie 8pp
After a few won matches you will be able to switch to this deck (thanks for suggestions):
Deck overview :
- Win rate for 50 matches 80% (add +/- 2% if you want taking into account exces of luck or personal mistakes)
Pros:
- Quite fast (when it wins), between 7-9 turns.
- Offers options of safe play against Otyugh, Scarabs, even against poison effects on creatures (your own creatures will survive long enough to finish opponent off), and also agains mass effect spells like Plague and Rain of Fire.
Cons:
- Opened to creature control due to the high quanta cost of creatures. Basically this can be half countered by playing the toadfishes first against opponents that can throw up freeze, basilisk blood and other such thing. Depending on what opponent has to play this can go very wrong. And with that we go to con. no. 2
- Long fights usually finish as lost fights, mainly due to the fact that even you are rushed, even shields will come into play more often. Shields like Dimension shield, Procrastination, can completely ruin you.
-
Completely useless in Arena.Hover over cards for details, click for permalink
4t4 5i4 5i4 5i4 5i4 5i4 5i4 5i4 5i8 5i8 5i8 5i8 5i9 5i9 5id 5id 5id 5id 5ie 5ie 5ie 5ie 5ie 5ie 5jm 5jm 5jm 5jm 5jm 5jm 8pp(ok, not so quick but still )
Pillars 13/30 means that you will most of the time start with 3 pillars. You can check this in excel by using
HYPGEOMDIST function, or simply calculate like this: 13/30 means 43% of the deck beeing pillars, 43% of 8 means 3-4 pillars.
As a normal win takes on average 8 turns I will show you the numbers for 8 turns and for 10 turns, after 10 things probably got already complicated and shields involved. This numbers takes into account the idea that you play your creatures as soon as you get them and that you have at least one creature to play per turn.
Quanta gathering will happen like this:
| Turn | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 |
| Pillars | 4 | 4 | 4 | 5 | 5 | 6 | 6 | 7 | 7 | 8 |
| Quanta generated | 5 | 10 | 15 | 21 | 27 | 34 | 41 | 49 | 57 | 66 |
Looking at quanta generated table, we will follow up the best 2 creatuers in terms of damage, dragons and toadfishes.
- 1 dragon, playable in round 3 will do 54 damage till round 8 and 72 till round 10.
- 2 dragons, playable in round 3 and 5, will do 90 damage till round 8 and 126 till round 10.
- 3 dragons, playable in round 3, 5 and 7, will do 108 damage till round 8 and 162 till round 10.
Already an overkill at round 8.- 1 toadfish, playable in round 2 will do 42 damage till round 8 and 54 till round 10.
- 2 toadfishes, playable in round 2 and 3 will do 78 damage till round 8 and 102 till round 10.
Better then 1 dragon at same quanta cost.- 3 toadfishes, playable in round 2,3 and 4, will do 108 damage till round 8 and 144 till round 10.
- 4 toadfishes, playable in round 2,3,4 and 5, will kill opponent in
round 6 !
- 1 dragon, 1 toadfish (in this order), playable in rounds 2 and 3, will do 84 damage till round 8 and 114 till round 10.
- 1 toadfish, 1 dragon (in this order), playable in rounds 1 and 3, will do 87 damage till round 8 and 117 till round 10.
The idea after all this is, if you have no real concerns about your creatures beeing killed, always play toadfishes first.
If you end up with for example 12 quanta and have the option to play any of the 2 creatures and in the next hand you'll be able to play the second creature also, yes, the one you want is the dragon.
If you are uncertain if the opponent can effect somehow your creatures things split:
- play toadfish against time, water, earth you will have an easy oportunity to replay the card at low cost in case of a reverse time, or a minor loss of damage in case of freeze or basilisk blood.
- play dragon against poisons, air, fire, against anything that can not kill your creature in one shot.
With the deck ready we go to AI3 grinding.
While AI3 is rather simple I will post a couple of advices that I hope anyone will find usefull. (Again, if I am wrong feel free to poke me):
- Against
darkness try avoid using shields, a steal at the wrong time can turn the game against you. Also, if not really needed, keep an ice bolt ready and if possible keep quanta above 10. You’ll probably need to kill a devourer or a vampire that way. Also same usage for locking a vampire stilet for a certain time.
- Against
fire/water you have two options. If he is starting with steam machine right away best is to try kill it. That will require 20 quanta and an ice bolt. The other option is to try rush it and hope that your ice bolt just freezes his creatures. Also playing a shield fast can really help. Yet, many times the shield is not reliable and turns to be a waste of quanta, compared to a deflagration.
- Against
entropy/darkness(voodoo dolls) things are not that bad, but unexpected can happen anytime against it. Mainly all damage is indirect, so being rushed should not be a concern. I would keep quanta above 30 to prevent being surprised by dragons. In rest avoid to play all creatures at once. Play first toadfishes since they have a better chance to survive a pandemonium. You should play the crawlers exactly after a pandemonium so you can hope them to stay in action for more then 1 turn.
- Against
fire/darkness (voodoo dolls) you should expect lots of rage potions. Best is to play the crawlers first, make him waste his rage potions. Shields again are not reliable, but you can try one when he is all decked out. You should try finish him before he does if you have the chance of a rush, since this is not really a rush deck. If he has phoenixes, don’t hold back for using ice bolt on them, sometimes getting his damage down for a round will win you the match.
- Against
Time/Gravity. From the moment you see gravity in you can only expect Pharaoh/Scarab deck. Don’t rush decking out against it, instead build some quanta. You will need A LOT of quanta to kill his pharaohs. On the other hand the 2 damage per scarab is really not scary, so if he can’t make use of pharaohs he is dead. Another bad thing for decking out is that he can card lock you with reverse time. That means that you will never get that card you desperately need, you’ll keep getting a creature that can’t do anything against him. On the other hand here shields are your best friends since he can’t touch them. His shield (Procrastination) can be extremely annoying also, but if you deck out late enough, you need only a few turns for a win. Also, if you didn’t made use of all ice bolts, you’ll already have quite some direct damage from those.
- Against
Death/Entropy. You can expect a couple if things here. Main ones are plague and Bone Wall. One tells you not to deck all creatures at once, the other will slow you down like hell if you don’t deck out. The choice is kind of hard to make, tho usually is best to take in calculation how big hits are u taking. If he decked 1-2 creatures (less then 10 damage)and is early in the match is best if you don’t rush on it. If is late game and plague will never have the chance to finish off your creatures before the end of the game, go all out. Again, Ice shield is your best friend here, no harm on shields. Ice bolts should be used, on early game time, on Arsenic, to try lock it for a time, or on creatures (dragons, abominations) later in game.
- Against
Time/Light. This mainly mean neurotoxin, which is really bad. If you have the chance, kill scorpions asap. That will leave him blessing the déjà vu, which is much much better. If he makes a really good start you’ll find yourself locked in sundials and reverse time. Practically you have no defense on this deck if scorpions and blesses come at the same time. Once if managed to toxin you the only thing you can hope is kill him before toxin kills you. Depending on how many pillars you already used you will win or not. If you need more pillars usually this will be a loss.
- Against
Gravity . This is a rush test, mainly because he can use momentum, so no shields, and also he will use Armagio to delay you. If the game take too long there is also the risk to get a nasty chimera (that if he is already using momentum on all creatures). The only thing he can do to slow you down in your rush is gravity pull, tho that will not happen more then once or twice, so go for it and deck out fast.
- Against
Light/Air. When you see this combination you will expect for wyrms, pegasus, crusaders and bless. Try kill pegasus as fast as possible, one ice blast is enough. I recommend a rush on this since fog shields will get in the picture eventually, so you need to take advantage on the early inflicted damage. He might use a couple of shockwave but should not be a very big problem. Things can get complicated a lot if he plays an owl's eye and have crusaders on, or playing an unexpected miracle. Good thing is almost all time the "sniper" will target your Toadfish which will survive one shot.
- Against
Life/Air , meaning Firefly Queen. Basically another rush, the main thing is preventing the queens multiply, cause multiply means nasty heal if you add Emphatic Bond. Since we are not able to destroy those we must use "birth control". Failing to do so will most probably lead to a loss. While it might look bad to just wait for quanta I assure you that letting 1-2 fireflies instead trying to freeze the wueens with less quanta and risk a fail is a much better option. Even with 4 fireflies up, if you manage to kill the queens that will assure that the healing recieved by him will not be constantly growing.
***
SYNERGIES ***
1. Life synergy (Forest Spirit) :
http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,33509.new.html#new (
http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,33509.new.html#new)
Will come up with more soon ...
