Round 2 - Strategy

[wavedash]

Essence vs. 918273645 (Gravity)

Gravity has incredibly sturdy creatures and arguably the best creature control in the game with Otyughs. Black Hole has synergy with Discord and other quanta control. Gravity has great synergy with Earth (Pulverizers, Plate Armor Otyughs), Fire (Graviton Fire Eaters), Time and Death (Momentum Scorpions).

Gravity has lots of control, so playing a rush is playing into their hands. On the other hand, they have Black Hole for denial, so a stall might not work as well as planned either. If we take 6x Fire Pendulum for our Propaganda Cards, a Miracle Stall with Deflags, Ice Bolts, Freeze, and Nymph's Tears would work well. Biggest problem would be Fractal Chargers if the Nymphs didn't come out in time to take them down quickly.A Water / Entropy deck could work, with Discord to slow them down, Antimatter to stop Chargers, Ice Shield to freeze other creatures, and some other Water creatures to kill them slowly.Wings stall loses to Fractal Chargers, but can deal with Black Hole and Otyughs. Arctic Dragons are bulky enough to dodge Otyughs, while Toadfish love being eaten.

Miniwally vs. jmdt (Fire)

A jack of all trades. Fire has incredible control in the form of Deflagration, Fire Bolt, and Fire Shield. Fire has incredible power in the form of Lava Golems and Phoenixes.

Steam Machine / Phoenix deck with Deflags for Fire Shields and Water CC seems to be the win.
Freeze-based rush decks with no permanents bar pillars will be able to out-rush and avoid pesky Deflagrations.Has used Dimensional Shields in past rounds.A Fire / Water deck could do pretty well here, with Deflags, Floodings, Purify, Steam Machines for damage, and possibly some Minor Phoenixes.They might expect us to diverge from the two strategies we presented the first round: poison and rush. Instead, offer a deck with every available form of offense delivered at once. Mark of Death, Chrysaoras, Ice Bolts, and some form of efficient creature rush all at once.  The Ice Bolts and Poison will deliver the victory over a Fire Stall, the Ice Bolts will provide control if they try to outrush us, and if they go for Dim Shields again, the Poison will win out as the Ice Bolts take out their creature-based offense.An Air / Water duo is pretty straightforward: Toadfish Infect creatures that aren't huge, Shockwave ones that are, slow everything down with Ice Shield and Arctic Squid, and Bolt to death when possible.A less predictable route to take would be to bring loads of creature control and go for either a deck out or an Ice Bolt kill.

Nilsie / bluesky vs. killsdazombies / willng3 (Life)

Life rush. Expect a duo with Fire / Darkness / Entropy for creature and permanent control, or something weird to throw us off. Bringing Ice Shields and Floodings, a Purify (scorpions), and a couple of Deflags to deal with Bonds and Thorn Carapace take care of many threats.

Life tried to stall us out with Dimensional Shields last round, and it's a mistake they won't repeat. Expect an Entropy / Life duo with Antimatters, Discord, and Elves. Against such a deck, use either Mindgate stall or Miracle stall.The combination of offense in Chrysaoras and control in Mind Flayers and Squids can simultaneously out-stall and defeat rushes.Aether / Water can slow down Life and deal steady damage through Ice Dragons.A balanced Squid / Toadfish deck takes advantage of Adrenaline does enough damage to beat stall and stop rushes.

Has used Dimensional Shields in past rounds.



RavingRabbid vs. Kael Hate (Darkness)

Devourers, Devourers, more Devourers. Creature control through Parasite, Drain Life, and Liquid Shadow. Excellent permanent control in Steal. Incredible synergy with Death through Nightfall, buffing up Deathstalkers. As of the end of round 1, has no Earthquakes.

Flooding could be very useful against any deck that attempts to spam Devourers and Dragons / Vampires, but 7 Devourers combined with Flooding's upkeep cost makes this tough,
Will Darkness try to mimic the super-effectiveness of the Earth decks that kicked our ass last round, or will they stick with their tried-and-true tricks? They might bring a Darkness / Aether deck like this one (

http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,14759.0.html).A Water / Life duo can attempt to out-rush Darkness with Green Nymphs, Adrenaline Scorpions and Crawlers, and Forest Spirits.[/list]


Unit748596 vs. Gyrodiot (Air)

Wyrm can be coupled with Light or Entropy to deal heavy damage. Fog Shield and Wings are both fantastic shields. Firefly Queen rush is an oldie but a goodie. Unstable Gas is deadly. Shockwave and Owl's Eye are both very effective creature control. Flying Weapon is a bundle of fun. As of the end of round 1, has no Unstable Gas.

Their only permanent control is one Butterfly Effect and a bunch of Steals.  Everyone is scared of Ice Shield, and I predict that means that they'll bring their Steals, which means Devourers and Black Dragons will also join the party. The appropriate response is Discord / Antimatter to slow them down to the same speed their Devourers will put us at, and to counter their dragons. No permanents, to force the Steals to clog their hands. Slight problem in that a stolen Discord would be disastrous.A Water / Time duo with Reverse Time soundly beats any Flying Weapon deck.Any sort of purely offensive deck is fairly unlikely, as Water is packed with creature control. Because Air lacks any sort of true rush, a Light stall deck with Miracles healing and Morning Stars and Ice Bolts for final blow might do it.

the dictator vs. coinich (Earth)

Earthquakes are a bitch. Shriekers hit like trucks. Stone Skin, Enchant Artifact, and Titanium Shield stall for ages. Protect Artifact is basically a necessity here.

Shockwaves and Toadfish will be able to slow down a rush and deal damage at the same time, with the occasional Wings for extra stalling.Enchant Artifact will be key in these match-ups. Tridents will bleed them dry, and a few critters will finish them. A few Squids might be useful to stop the creatures played despite the Trident.

Has used Darkness duo in past rounds.



wavedash vs. Xuru (Death)

Poison, poison everywhere. Virus / Vulture / Boneyard / Bone Wall have great synergy. Deathstalkers can be paired with Entropy, Light, or Gravity to inflict poison damage along with Poison. Skull Shield / Alfatoxin is a deadly combo, especially against an element with no permanent control. As of the end of round 1, has no permanent control, and loads of creature control.
Purify.

Using a Poison deck bypasses their Bone Wall.A Dimensional Shield / Mindgate deck with Purifies to counter Poison and provide healing covers all bases.Death's tendency to either rush or carry heavy creature control and be abused with an Ice Bolt stall variation with Deflagrations and Steam Machines.

vinvick3714 vs. xdude (Light)

Light's hardest hitter is the Pegasus, able to be boosted to extraordinarily high attack levels through buffs. As of the end of round 1, Light has no Pegasuses. Freeze and Ice Bolt completely neuters Light; they know this, so some sort of duo is expected. Miracles can out-heal Water's rather disappointing creatures.

Pillar denial through Earthquakes and Tridents counters any attempts to spam Miracles. Poison buildup also screws over any Miracle stalling.A Water / Earth deck can wipe out many pillars, inhibiting Miracle spam. Bring Earthquake and Trident with more Toadfish, Short Swords, and other offense than they can handle.  A Water / Death deck will eventually build up enough poison counters that Miracle is useless.A Water / Aether deck can stall out any attempts of offense with Dimensional Shields and throw it back twice as hard with Mindgates, or simply outstall them with Ice Bolts and even a Fractal Ice Dragon.

Has used Ice Bolt stall in past rounds.

[miniwally]

Some probably idiotic ideas I'm thinking of here but I think darkness will expect us to expect a fractal deck so won't go to anything vulnerable to flooding.

Also I'm thinking about using wings against air, if you look at a fair few of there decks they go for air pendulums to fuel some other form of deck and I doubt they'd expect it but there's a big chance it could backfire.

[wavedash]

Some probably idiotic ideas I'm thinking of here but I think darkness will expect us to expect a fractal deck so won't go to anything vulnerable to flooding.

Also I'm thinking about using wings against air, if you look at a fair few of there decks they go for air pendulums to fuel some other form of deck and I doubt they'd expect it but there's a big chance it could backfire.

All predictions have a chance of backfiring. We just have to weigh our options and see if it's worth the risk. For example, Death is probably not going to use Poison because Water has Purify, but I still think I should take some, just in case.

[Essence]

Essence vs.
has lots of control, so playing a rush is playing into their hands.  On the other hand, they have Black Hole for denial, so a stall might not work as well as planned either.  I'm thinking that, if I can convince y'all to take 6x Fire Pendulum among our Propaganda Cards, a Miracle Stall with Deflags, Ice Bolts, Freeze (maybe), and Nymphs Tears (to create Fire Nymphs for creature control if it looks like they went without any CC of their own) would work well.  Deflags to take out Discord, mostly.  Biggest problem would be Fractal Chargers if the Nymphs didn't come out in time to take them down quickly.

[Essence]

Miniwally vs.

Last round, merely got lucky against us -- RavingRabbid's deck would have beaten Dictator's opponent and vice versa; it was just good luck of the draw on their part.  That said, they're going to expect us to diverge from the two strategies we presented -- poison and rush.  I say, we instead offer a deck with every available form of offense delivered at once.  mark, Chrysaoras, Ice Bolts, and some form of efficient creature rush all at once.  The Ice Bolts and Poison will deliver the victory over a Fire Stall, the Ice Bolts will provide control if they try to outrush us, and if they go for Dim Shields again, the Poison will win out as the Ice Bolts take out their creature-based offense.



Nilsie vs.
Life tried to Dim Shield us out last round, and it's a mistake they won't repeat.  I'd expect / with Antimatters and Discord and Elves for creature control/mutation fodder.  Counter with a creature-less deck, either Mindgate Stall or Miracle Stall.


RavingRabbid vs.

The question is, will Darkness try to mimic the super-effectiveness of the decks that kicked our ass last round, or will they stick with their tried-and-true tricks?  Personally, I'd expect them to bring a / deck like this one (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,14759.0.html), it's what I'd play if I were them.  Problem is, I'm not sure how to counter.


Unit748596 vs.

Air seems tough, but they have no UGs in their Vault (as far as we know), so I don't think we have to worry about that -- which frees us up somewhat.  Their only permanent control is one BE and a bunch of Steals.  Everyone is scared of Ice Shield, and I predict that means that they'll bring their Steals, which means Devourers and Black Dragons.  The appropriate response is Discord/Antimatter to slow them down to the same speed their Devourers will put us at, and to counter their dragons.  No permanents, to force the Steals to clog their hands.


Bluesky / the dictator vs.

Will Earth reuse the same deck against us?  I think they will; everyone has learned that can't handle denial.  So, how do we build a deck to beat that one?


wavedash vs.

Death's vault shows exactly NO permanent control.  I think with that knowledge, a Dim Shield/Mindgate deck with Purifies to counter poison/provide healing (even a little builds up fast behind a Dim Shield) is going to be an easy win for us. 


vinvick3714 vs.

Light has a similar weakness to us: denial.  I say, go totally on the offensive, and bring Earthquake+Trident with as much Toadfish, Short Sword, and other offense as they can handle.  Vinvick, if you can, try to grind for more Tridents.  I'll put a Trident farm up tonight, and I'd like to humbly ask that anyone else on the t50 to so during their downtime as well.

[nilsieboy]

first of all:
against death: we can take the deck light uses to,it ruined them last war to and we already saw it works. ice bolt stall with shields can work to because htey have no perm control.

against life: i can go for the same deck as last round,discord and antimatters work good against life (and against the spirits who kills likes )

against light: we can take earthquakes but the glories will still kill us slowly like last time,same as for death. i think an ice bolt stall can do the job (otk and that's why i want a lot of shields to )

against fire: same as last round,a hard decision because they have a LOT of options.
we can try to fight back with steam machine deck from essence? phoenixes and steam machines are good against creature control,the deflag can handle stall decks and phoenixes are fast to so we can outrush fire stall.

against darkness: a hard one,they can go for denial with fractal. or a classic mono darkness wich is dangerous to. i don't know yet what to take here because they're really alround so we'd look to their vault here.

against air: permafrost for sure i think, they had a lot of flying weapons so it can slow them down (also that annoying glories wich i expect here). we already saw they like decks from another element to with splash air (pendulums and some shields or something). the problem here is,they have a lot of options with a big vault,and they can work with almost every element so luck is important here to i think.

against earth: last time they had a lot of denial against us, they can try it again but i won't be suprised if they go for something totaly different now like fractal shriekers.
fractal/stall decks might work if we split our quanta enough? (water pillars,pendulums and aether pillars)

this is not as good as the one from essence but it might help

[Essence]

against light: we can take earthquakes but the glories will still kill us slowly like last time,same as for death. i think an ice bolt stall can do the job (otk and that's why i want a lot of shields to )

Our critters can kill them faster than their glories kill us.  EQs will make sure that Miracles aren't a deal.

against fire: same as last round,a hard decision because they have a LOT of options.
we can try to fight back with steam machine deck from essence? phoenixes and steam machines are good against creature control,the deflag can handle stall decks and phoenixes are fast to so we can outrush fire stall.

Phoenixes are only fast if they're upgraded.

[the dictator]

Essence vs. Gravity

Gravity has incredibly sturdy creatures and arguably the best creature control in the game with Otyughs. Black Hole has synergy with Discord and other quanta control. Gravity has great synergy with Earth (Pulverizers, Plate Armor Otyughs), Fire (Graviton Fire Eaters), Time and Death (Momentum Scorpions).
Gravity has lots of control, so playing a rush is playing into their hands.  On the other hand, they have Black Hole for denial, so a stall might not work as well as planned either.  If we take 6x Fire Pendulum for our Propaganda Cards, a Miracle Stall with Deflags, Ice Bolts, Freeze, and Nymph's Tears would work well. Biggest problem would be Fractal Chargers if the Nymphs didn't come out in time to take them down quickly.

That might work, and it would mean we have to spend half of our bonus cards on pendulums, which I think is sad. What about taking our water-entropy deck against them, with discord to slow them down, antimatter to stop chargers, ice shield to freeze other creatures, and some water creatures to kill them slowly.

Miniwally vs. Fire

A jack of all trades. Fire has incredible control in the form of Deflagration, Fire Bolt, and Fire Shield. Fire has incredible power in the form of Lava Golems and Phoenixes.
Steam Machine / Phoenix deck with Deflags for Fire Shields and Water CC seems to be the win.
Freeze-based rush decks with no permanents bar pillars will be able to out-rush and avoid pesky Deflagrations.
Has used Dimensional Shields in past rounds.

The problem with fire is their high lot of possible strategies: last round we lost both matches, basically because we had picked the decks wrong. If I would have used RRs deck, and he had mine, we could have won both. I think we should try to predict what they will use: they know water has lots of control, and their creatures don't have very much hp's, so they will do a creatureless fire stall, a (rainbow)rush with lots of creatures, or use another element.


Nilsie vs. Life

Life rush. Expect a duo with Fire / Darkness / Entropy for creature and permanent control, or something weird to throw us off.
Bringing Ice Shields and Floodings, a Purify (scorpions), and a couple of Deflags to deal with Bonds and Thorn Carapace take care of many threats.
Has used Dimensional Shields in past rounds.

I think a fire/water deck should do pretty well here, with deflags, floodings, purify, steam machines for attack, and (a few) minor phoenixes.

RavingRabbid vs. Darkness

Devourers, Devourers, more Devourers. Creature control through Parasite, Drain Life, and Liquid Shadow. Excellent permanent control in Steal. Incredible synergy with Death through Nightfall, buffing up Deathstalkers.
Flooding could be very useful against any deck that attempts to spam Devourers and Dragons / Vampires.

The problem occurs we only have 3 floodings in our vault, and we already wanted to use some on life. I don't think we should use them here, because: if they do a devourer spam, keeping the flooding up might be very hard, but that means we can't play anything else (7 devourers is a lot, so with a flooding up, you will need 10+ quanta production).

Unit748596 vs. Air

Air has never been the most powerful element. Wyrm can be coupled with Light or Entropy to deal heavy damage. Fog Shield and Wings are both fantastic shields. Firefly Queen rush is an oldie but a goodie. Unstable Gas is deadly. Shockwave and Owl's Eye are both very effective creature control. Flying Weapon is a bundle of fun.

Taking a wings deck might work, unless they use flying weapon, but those can be handled with creature control.

Bluesky / the dictator vs. Earth

Earthquakes are a bitch. Shriekers hit like trucks. Stone Skin, Enchant Artifact, and Titanium Shield stall for ages. Protect Artifact is basically a necessity here.
Shockwaves and Toadfish will be able to slow down a rush and deal damage at the same time, with the occasional Wings for extra stalling.
Has used Darkness duo in past rounds.

EA will be a keycard in these matchups, so I think we should get one more for the propaganda bonus, that makes 4 of them, and allows us to use 2 each, with EA, we can also use trident, to bleed them dry, and a few critters to finish them. A few squids can be usefull to stop the creatures that were played, despite of the trident.

wavedash vs. Death

Poison, poison everywhere. Virus / Vulture / Boneyard / Bone Wall have great synergy. Deathstalkers can be paired with Entropy, Light, or Gravity to inflict poison damage along with Poison. Skull Shield / Alfatoxin is a deadly combo, especially against an element with no permanent control.
Purify.

I think purify might be near usefull, because they know we have it. I'm out of inspiration for this match. We could try to use their own weapon against them, and use a poison deck , that also beats bonewall, which might be expected.

vinvick3714 vs. Light

Light's hardest hitter is the Pegasus, able to be boosted to extraordinarily high attack levels through buffs. Freeze and Ice Bolt completely neuters Light; they know this, so some sort of duo is expected. Miracles can out-heal Water's rather disappointing creatures.
Pillar denial through Earthquakes and Tridents counters any attempts to spam Miracles. Poison buildup also screws over any Miracle stalling.
Has used Ice Bolt stall in past rounds.

Poison + earthquake = a trio deck, I hope you realized that, and with only water pillars and pendulums, thus impossible to make, but with trident, we won't need poison. Two possible ways to go: Either poison (with arsenic, poisons and chrysoara's) or denial (with earthquakes, trident), I would prefer the poison, because we don't have a poison deck yet, but I already have two earthquake decks listed.

[Vinvick3714]

@Essence: Thanks to Deepdown(i think) I now have 3 tridents due to the farm put up on the last couple of days. I have also created a rol/hope deck, so i've been grinding fg's, but if you think i need more, I still have a t50 grinder deck.

@the dictator: I think the poison buildup part was from chryasora's, but if you think that i should take a poison deck,  then I'd still be good with it. The problem is, if they bring miracle(which they most likely will), they could just do a miracle stall and I'd be done.

[wavedash]

A Water / Time duo (herp derp, no Time cards) with Reverse Time soundly beats any Flying Weapon deck.

Using Discord against a possible Devourer stall with Steals is suicide.


First post updated.

[Essence]

Holy shit, we've got a lot of TOUGH matches this round.  When I looked at the OP, I didn't notice that the actual opponents weren't listed.  This is going to be hard, and it's time to get REALLY out of the box.

In order of how hard the matches are going to be (hardest to easiest), I predict:

1) Vinvick vs. Xdude
2) Raving vs. Kael Hate
3) Nilsie vs. KDZ
4) Wavedash vs. Xuru
5) Miniwally vs. jmdt
6) Dictator vs. coinich
7) Unit vs. Gyrodiot
8 ) Bluesky vs. willing3
9) Me vs. Numbers.


As such, I'm going to give complete deck and strategy suggestions for every one of those matches, in the order of difficulty, so the most challenging match gets the first pick of cards, etc.

I'm also going to choose cards from the Propaganda bonus based on what I think will most help us through some of these difficult fights.


OK, everyone keeps talking about Pegasai, but our glance into the Light Vault shows zero Pegasai.  Their only permanent control comes from deflags; their only denial comes from Earthquakes (which, given the rest of their vault, only really looks good in a Stoneskin/Miracle Stall).  More importantly their only offense cards are Phoenix, Ice Bolt, Morning Star, and Dune Scorpion.

To me, that means that the only fast offense they have at all is Dune+Blessing, which is brutal, but they won't bring it against us because they know we pack Purifies.

So, how to take advantage of a slow offense without risking a loss to plural Miracles?  I think Wavedash had the answer last time, but we didn't go far enough down the path: Mindgates are the win vs. Light.  We have an advantage in that they don't know that we have Dim Shields, so they're not likely to bring mad permanent control.

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OK, here's the deal with this deck.  If you see a Mark of Time, hold your Purifies until you can start chaining Dim Shields, because Neurotoxin is a bitch.  Otherwise, play them right away because every point of damage you can heal will be helpful.  With 5 Ice Bolts in your hand, it takes 102 quanta to kill your opponent. BUT, if you can draw Fractal+Ice Dragon, you can OHK MUCH earlier by casting several Ice Bolts and then a Dragon and Fractalling it and casting 8 more copies all in one round.

In the meantime, you want to Mindgate as much as you can to copy their strategy and use it against them. I think this is our best chance of pulling this HUGE upset -- which I'd really like to see happen.

Vinvick, your assignment is to, between now and your match with Xdude, figure out how to quickly calculate IceBolt damage so you know exactly when to Bolt.


Interestingly, the Darkness Vault shows no Earthquakes, which  means a standard EQ+Devourer denial is unlikely.  They'd have to run Fractal Pests to really deny us strongly, and I don't think Kael Hate regards this match as threatening enough to warrant Fractal Pests, seeing as he's only got enough Fractals to do that once and Darkness is also facing down the Master of Fire, the former Master of Gravity, and one opponent. So, while denial is always an issue vs. Devourers, it's not going to be overwhelming. 

On the other hand, Kael Hate fought for me in the last War, and he knows my basic sense of style.  That might work against me, so I'm going to go with my second idea on the theory that KH will adequately counter my first.

They've kind of got us over a barrel because they have Quints and Phase Dragons to avoid CC, and Steals to avoid Ice Shield.  So, we're going to do something they won't see coming: a deck designed to outrush them.

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Strategy is simple: Freeze the Devourers to get enough quanta to get going.  Adrenaline a Forest Scorpion.  Use Nymphs Tears to create Green Nymphs to generate more Adrenaline.  Forest Spirits will provide big hitters that can survive a Parasite's Infection easily. This deck neatly sidesteps Antimatter by using Poison and Growth to drive the damage home, kills Bone Wall, and works through Dusk Mantle and Basilisks Blood by attacking a lot and inflicting poison. Problem cards from their Vault: Lightning (will kill Scorpions fast), Purify (they will probably bring this, but if they do, it means they're probably using a deck like KH used in Round 1, which SHOULD perish to Freeze on it's Graboids and then outrush by Spectres and Nymphs...hopefully.)

I rate this about 60/40 in our favor with this deck.  I'm also tempted to use a Propaganda Card or two to acquire Heals to use with this deck...IDK

Damn...I'm out of time for now.  That went by way too fast.  Tell me what you think of my estimations and ideas thus far, and I'll try to do more later.

[RavingRabbid]

Wavedash's deck IMHO:


6xBone Pillar (from propaganda cards.)
6xPoison
3xArsenic
5xChrysaora
6xFreeze
4xPurify

Mark: 


Unit's deck:

15xWater Pendulums
6xToadfishes
6xFreeze
3xIce Bolt