Round 2 - Strategy

[Essence]

About the Water quanta in vinvick's deck: yeah, it's weird to be trying to Bolt off of Pendulums, but on the other hand, I think you really do need ALL of the Aether quanta that that deck can give in order to Mindgate successfully, so I don't know that there's any other option.  Hopefully, you'll be able to survive until the last card and thus always be able to Fractal+Dragon in addition to Bolting.

[Essence]

OK, so, Life has some decent denial in the form of Discords, some decent PC in the form of a few Deflags and a few Steals, and some decent defense in the form of Dim Shield and Antimatter.  What they don't show is any Purifies, which makes me think that Poison Stall is the way to go here.

They also have few non-creature offense cards -- a few Ice Bolts and a few Fire Bolts -- and I doubt they'll be able to stall enough to use those for an OHK.  So, if we can deny creature attacks and stack poison, we can take this one. They have Forest Spirit, which means that Wings and Antimatter aren't great options.  I think this deck is 70/30 -- if they pick something way off-center, it will fail epically, but against almost any creature-heavy deck, it should ace them.

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Basically, unless they take Thorn Carapace to ruin the Squids, or Quint a bunch of stuff, this deck WILL lock them down and WILL poison them out -- and even if they do, there's a Fractal thrown in there so that you can storm Squids for a few rounds in order to get a few to survive long enough to Freeze a few things before they drop. Alternately, Nils can upgrade 3 of the Squids to make them super-effective, but I think that fast Quints are the essence (no pun intended) of this deck.
Death looks like it's all into the spider/wings rush set this War.  Denial is a few discords and a few Quakes.  Pleasingly, there is also NO PERMANENT CONTROL here at all.  They are, however, packing mad creature control, so outrushing them with a traditional rush is going to be hard. No Purifies seen, however, so rah.

I think this is going to be pretty easy with a variant of the deck I used in Round 1.

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Possibly add a third Ice Shield just to make sure it comes out early?

Death's vault is very permanent-heavy; they had a permanent in every deck last round.  Deflags won't help much against Bone Walls, but if they're trying to stall out with Bones, kill them with Bolts.  If they're going to rush, use Bolts as CC, build up Steam Machines, and Deflag their shield in time for the kill.  It's not perfect, but it's also not what they'll expect, which is what wins in War.
Fire is a bitch.  But wouldn't you know it, there are a total of three creatures in their Vault that can survive a Shockwave. Their defenses might include Dim Shields, which is a pain in the ass, but that's what our old friend Icebolt is for!

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Pretty straightforward: Infect creatures that aren't huge, Shockwave ones that are, slow everything down with Ice Shield and Arctic Squid, and bolt to death when necessary.  (Alternately, stack 4 Squids and skip the Ice Shields to make Deflag a useless card.)  The big risk here is if they play Fire Stall, then you're kind of screwed.  But that's kind of the risk we have to take, at this point.

ALTERNATELY:  Because that strategy is kind of obvious, they might play a simple Phoenix deck (to avoid CC) packed with CC and PC in order to kill whatever we try to do.  In that case, this deck -- which will STILL lose to Fire Stall, but will cause all of their control cards to clog their hand because it has NOTHING BUT SPELLS -- will rock.

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Of course, it does require spending 6 Propaganda Cards on 4x Nova and 2x Reflective Shield, but I think those are good investments over the long run regardless.

Whaddya think?

[Essence]

Earth raped us with Denial, and they know it works.  I think the only way to keep them from doing it again is to show them that we can do it better.

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Pretty simple, no?

Air is feeling good after Round 1; let's hope they're overconfident from it.  They're going to have to fear Ice Shields and CC, so their options are Flying Titans, Flying Stars, or Darkness w/Steals.  The conundrum between no shield-defense (Titans, Steals) and no effect-defense (Stars) is really aggravating -- and the third option (outrushing them) is vulnerable to Air's excellent CC.  So, I think the answer is to take advantage of the fact that Air hasn't fielded anything like a true rush yet -- and play Miracle Stall.

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Yes, this means getting 2x Morning Star with the Propaganda cards.

Strategy is more complex than it looks -- at first, hold of on Freezing anything unless it's the only way to make it to that first Miracle.  in fact, ONLY Freeze if it looks that way unless they pop a FFQ, at which point freeze right away.  You can stand to use 1-2 Ice Bolts for CC if you have to, because the Morning Stars will deal some damage along the way.

Life again. I don't expect that they'll take this match as a hugely big challenge, so I'm hoping they don't bring the Dim Shields along on this one. My honest belief is that they'll bring Adrenaline to counter Freeze and just try to outrush us, but  that's not the only deck that this one will beat.  It does keep Miniwally from using the Antimatters vs. jmdt, though:

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Discords to slow them down, Antimatters to cancel damage, Ice Shields to make Antimatters twice as effective, and big hairy Dragons to deal damage and survive a few turns through Thorn Carapace. 


IF, however, MiniWally wants the Antimatters, here's a backup deck.

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Simple and effective -- freeze their creatures, Infect them, and beat them down w/Toadfish and Dragons.  Extra effective vs. Adrenaline because of Infect.  Secret Trick: Use Nymphs Tears to make a Nymph Queen, and then use the Queen+Squid+Toadfish to freeze+infect their new Nymphs, effectively robbing them of pillars over a long game.

OK, we're scraping the bottom of the barrel when it comes to the Vault cards here, so I'm going to get creative.  I would've expected Flying Titans, but I don't see any Flying Weapons in their vault.  They won't bring Deathstalkers because they'll expect us to have Purify in case they do.  I expect: Otyughs, Fractal Chargers, and Black Hole/Discord.    How to beat all of those at once?  You can't.  Not with what we have left.  So, I'm going to ignore the chance that they'll bring Fractal Chargers, and go with Wings.

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Toadfish will put the crimp on Otys if they find a way to get big enough to eat them in the first place; Dragons are fat and hard to munch.  Discord will get stopped by Wings, so it's not a worry once they hit.  Couple of Purifys just to gain a bit of HP while Wings is up, in case it comes down. 

[Essence]

OK, I need everyone to tell me if they have any objections to my analysis and/or proffered decks.  I'm trying to make sure we're not stuck throwing anything together at the last minute, so if you do see something wrong, please post about it ASAP.

TheDictator, as always, is the final deckbuilder, and if anyone does object, I'm leaving it to him to make a final decision on what deck someone will play.  In the meantime, miniwally, when you get the chance will you make sure that my decks are vault-valid when taken as a whole?  I know that, among other things, I didn't pay attention to Pillars and Pendulums, so they might need to be modified.


Thanks!

[wavedash]

It's pretty late, so comments will have to wait 'til tomorrow, but jesus fucking shit, great work, Essence.

First post is now beautiful. Also list tags are a pain in the ass.

[the dictator]

RoL / Hope isn't much of a threat, what with the not having Fractals. Or Hopes.

I think they have, they just haven't used them jet, just like we haven't used them yet

O, by the way, we could do a fractal crawler deck, with some mindflayers for control. Maybe against gravity.

[the dictator]

Sorry for the double post:

OK, so, Life has some decent denial in the form of Discords, some decent PC in the form of a few Deflags and a few Steals, and some decent defense in the form of Dim Shield and Antimatter.  What they don't show is any Purifies, which makes me think that Poison Stall is the way to go here.

They also have few non-creature offense cards -- a few Ice Bolts and a few Fire Bolts -- and I doubt they'll be able to stall enough to use those for an OHK.  So, if we can deny creature attacks and stack poison, we can take this one. They have Forest Spirit, which means that Wings and Antimatter aren't great options.  I think this deck is 70/30 -- if they pick something way off-center, it will fail epically, but against almost any creature-heavy deck, it should ace them.

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Basically, unless they take Thorn Carapace to ruin the Squids, or Quint a bunch of stuff, this deck WILL lock them down and WILL poison them out -- and even if they do, there's a Fractal thrown in there so that you can storm Squids for a few rounds in order to get a few to survive long enough to Freeze a few things before they drop. Alternately, Nils can upgrade 3 of the Squids to make them super-effective, but I think that fast Quints are the essence (no pun intended) of this deck.
Maybe add some ice shields, so you don't have to rely on squids that much.

Death looks like it's all into the spider/wings rush set this War.  Denial is a few discords and a few Quakes.  Pleasingly, there is also NO PERMANENT CONTROL here at all.  They are, however, packing mad creature control, so outrushing them with a traditional rush is going to be hard. No Purifies seen, however, so rah.

I think this is going to be pretty easy with a variant of the deck I used in Round 1.

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Possibly add a third Ice Shield just to make sure it comes out early?

Death's vault is very permanent-heavy; they had a permanent in every deck last round.  Deflags won't help much against Bone Walls, but if they're trying to stall out with Bones, kill them with Bolts.  If they're going to rush, use Bolts as CC, build up Steam Machines, and Deflag their shield in time for the kill.  It's not perfect, but it's also not what they'll expect, which is what wins in War.
This might work really well

Fire is a bitch.  But wouldn't you know it, there are a total of three creatures in their Vault that can survive a Shockwave. Their defenses might include Dim Shields, which is a pain in the ass, but that's what our old friend Icebolt is for!

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Pretty straightforward: Infect creatures that aren't huge, Shockwave ones that are, slow everything down with Ice Shield and Arctic Squid, and bolt to death when necessary.  (Alternately, stack 4 Squids and skip the Ice Shields to make Deflag a useless card.)  The big risk here is if they play Fire Stall, then you're kind of screwed.  But that's kind of the risk we have to take, at this point.

ALTERNATELY:  Because that strategy is kind of obvious, they might play a simple Phoenix deck (to avoid CC) packed with CC and PC in order to kill whatever we try to do.  In that case, this deck -- which will STILL lose to Fire Stall, but will cause all of their control cards to clog their hand because it has NOTHING BUT SPELLS -- will rock.

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Of course, it does require spending 6 Propaganda Cards on 4x Nova and 2x Reflective Shield, but I think those are good investments over the long run regardless.

Whaddya think?

I really like the second deck, it is beyond unexpected, so the way to go

Earth raped us with Denial, and they know it works.  I think the only way to keep them from doing it again is to show them that we can do it better.

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Pretty simple, no?
Yes, my idea too.

Air is feeling good after Round 1; let's hope they're overconfident from it.  They're going to have to fear Ice Shields and CC, so their options are Flying Titans, Flying Stars, or Darkness w/Steals.  The conundrum between no shield-defense (Titans, Steals) and no effect-defense (Stars) is really aggravating -- and the third option (outrushing them) is vulnerable to Air's excellent CC.  So, I think the answer is to take advantage of the fact that Air hasn't fielded anything like a true rush yet -- and play Miracle Stall.

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Yes, this means getting 2x Morning Star with the Propaganda cards.

Strategy is more complex than it looks -- at first, hold of on Freezing anything unless it's the only way to make it to that first Miracle.  in fact, ONLY Freeze if it looks that way unless they pop a FFQ, at which point freeze right away.  You can stand to use 1-2 Ice Bolts for CC if you have to, because the Morning Stars will deal some damage along the way.
I like this one too, water/light stall is really powerfull. Maybe add some more cards (1 miracle, 1 pendulum, or something like that), just to prevent deckout.

Life again. I don't expect that they'll take this match as a hugely big challenge, so I'm hoping they don't bring the Dim Shields along on this one. My honest belief is that they'll bring Adrenaline to counter Freeze and just try to outrush us, but  that's not the only deck that this one will beat.  It does keep Miniwally from using the Antimatters vs. jmdt, though:

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Discords to slow them down, Antimatters to cancel damage, Ice Shields to make Antimatters twice as effective, and big hairy Dragons to deal damage and survive a few turns through Thorn Carapace. 


IF, however, MiniWally wants the Antimatters, here's a backup deck.

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Simple and effective -- freeze their creatures, Infect them, and beat them down w/Toadfish and Dragons.  Extra effective vs. Adrenaline because of Infect.  Secret Trick: Use Nymphs Tears to make a Nymph Queen, and then use the Queen+Squid+Toadfish to freeze+infect their new Nymphs, effectively robbing them of pillars over a long game.
I really liked the antimatter deck for mini, so that means taking the second one, and I think that one could use some ice shields.

OK, we're scraping the bottom of the barrel when it comes to the Vault cards here, so I'm going to get creative.  I would've expected Flying Titans, but I don't see any Flying Weapons in their vault.  They won't bring Deathstalkers because they'll expect us to have Purify in case they do.  I expect: Otyughs, Fractal Chargers, and Black Hole/Discord.    How to beat all of those at once?  You can't.  Not with what we have left.  So, I'm going to ignore the chance that they'll bring Fractal Chargers, and go with Wings.

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Toadfish will put the crimp on Otys if they find a way to get big enough to eat them in the first place; Dragons are fat and hard to munch.  Discord will get stopped by Wings, so it's not a worry once they hit.  Couple of Purifys just to gain a bit of HP while Wings is up, in case it comes down. 
I really like this deck, just because I'm a huge fan of the arctic dragon , but, this deck is pretty good, if you get a right start hand, you might just overrush them .

these decks are added to the deck topic.

[wavedash]

miniwally vs jmdt - Massive CC deck:
Win through deck out, I assume?

unit vs. gyrodiot - Light Stall
Yeah, you definitely want either a larger deck or a lot more Water production. Or both.

bluesky vs. willng3 (there's actually only one "i" in his name) - Squid / Toadfish rush
Ice Shield doesn't seem too useful. You probably won't have the quanta to play it, since you're playing Toadfish and casting Freeze from the Squids a lot, which is more reliable (albeit more expensive) than Ice Shield. Two or three Squids can completely lock down a rush deck.

[nilsieboy]

well of my deck i don't think it's the best option vs life.
adrealine defeats squids
they can take heals or bonds wich will ruin my poison
i don't think i need quints,they're more afraid of our control then i am of theirs .
maybe stall deck? (or entropy again or maybe something with shield stall?)

[Essence]

Well, do you have another deck we can give you that doesn't use any of the cards that are currently in someone else's deck?