Round 4 - Main Topic

[JonathanCrazyJ]

Current Vault:
This is a more accurate representation of our Vault. When we build decks, we take cards out of here, and when we finish using the cards, they go back in.
This gives us a better idea of what we actually have available to use.

Spoiler for Cards:

In Element: -in progress-

Out of Element A: -in progress-

Out of Element B: -in progress-

Matchups:
This is a list of our matches. We want to decide our decks before finalizing our salvages and discards, rather than the reverse.

5	Gen. ddevans96	bjessee
30	Basman-1453	mrpaper
23	Espithel	willng3
26	JonathanCrazyJ	AD TienzuStorm
3	Spielkind	andretimpa

Salvaging and Discarding:
This is a list of decks we need to salvage or discard cards from. We need to first accommodate the decks we want to use this round before deciding other salvages.
Cards salvaged or saved from losing decks go back into the Current Vault.

Spoiler for Salvages:

-in progress-

Spoiler for Discards:

-in progress-

Conversions/Transmutations/Penalties:
When we're done with everything else we can decide which cards we want to convert. This way we don't accidentally convert cards we might need this round.

Spoiler for Required: X:

Countdowns:
Deckbuilding: Duel phase has started
Battles: Fighting ends!

Event Card:

Notes:
Round Thread: >link<

[JonathanCrazyJ]

A Summary of R4 Opponents, and what they used against us in Previous Wars

Spoiler for Aether:

Devtal 2 - 0
Poison Dims / BoneBolt 2 - 0
Psiontal 3 - 0
PU Grabboids 2 - 0
RoL Hope 1 - 0


StallBreak: 3 (3-0)
Denial: 2 (2-0)
Domin: 2 (2-0)
Stall: 3 (3-0)


Analysis: 10-0. Whatever they bring, it's the right thing against us. If we can still run it, toadmare could be a decent option against everything except Grabbow, or we could go completely off the wall and run something that seems insane but might just work, like AM/Flooding.

Spoiler for Air:

Nightmare 0 - 1
Denial Nymphs 2 - 0
Adrennastaves 1 - 0
Wings Domin 1 - 0
Nymph Grabbow 0 - 1
LS Dragons 1 - 1
Deflag splash Wings 1 - 0
Water Domin 1 - 0
Cata Titans 0 - 1
Wise Wyrms 1 - 0


OHKO / StallBreak: 4 (4-0)
Domin: 7 (4-3)
OutHeal: 1 (1-0)


Analysis: Tough one, and not sure how much this helps because they have such a powerful set of weapons with the shards. Still, we can see that they either want to stallbreak us, or, they feel they can master us in a domin. oddly they have never tried to outright stall us with anything except wings. I wonder whether some sort of deckout stall could be the answer if we can still run it with Mass CC.

Spoiler for Life:

FrogMare 1 - 1
Forest Spirits 2 - 0
FireStall / Stallbreak 0 - 2
Devtosis 1 - 0
TitanGP 1 - 0
WingsStall 0 - 1
FractalFrog 0 - 1


OHKO / StallBreak: 4 (1-3)
Domin: 4 (3-1)
Denial: 1 (0-1)
Stall: 3 (0-3)
Rush-with-Stallbreak: 2 (1-1)


Analysis: Quite a spectrum of things here. I can see why we wanted to use SoP the first time around, but I wonder if we went with the wrong deck. Either wardens (if we can still run it) or Swallow could do an excellent job against much of this. Alternatively we could trust a domin such as grabbow.

Spoiler for Light:

Wings Domin 3 - 1
Disquake 0 - 1
PUGons 0 - 1
Rage Angels 0 - 1
Blessed Psions 0 - 1
Dune Scorps 0 - 1


OHKO / StallBreak: 2 (0-2)
Domin: 6 (3-3)
Denial: 1 (0-1)


Analysis: Wings domin is about the only thing that has worked for them. Shame we didn't do this round 2, cause we would have expected it more. I'm feeling like I might like to bring A variant of Serpentine with Dragons, or possibly a Poison Stall.

Spoiler for Gravity:

DBH 2 - 2
Bonewall Domin 0 - 1
CataTitans 0 - 2
FireBolt Domin 0 - 1
Fractal 1 - 0


OHKO / StallBreak: 3 (1-2)
Domin: 2 (0-2)
Denial: 4 (2-2)


Analysis: If they are smart they will go DBH against us again, which kinda sucks, as there's little for us to do against it.. Fire splash domin with all the explosions we have left could work very well if we keep explosions upgraded. I have a feeling that deck's knackered however. The other option is go full nymph rush with ice bolts to try to freeze Discord if it comes to that, and otherwise rush.

[Basman-1453]

What our enemies this round have used during W9

Spoiler for Entire W9 history, up to this round:

Warning: Files are in .ods (I worked 'em up with OpenOffice). If someone can GDoc these, I'll be very happy. Also, I haven't factored in salvages and discards from event cards.

zip password: casket of stars (all Team Water-related espionages are passworded with this)

Round 1
Round 2
Round 3

What's relevant with our R4

[JonathanCrazyJ]

Wow, that's excellent work Basman, good job.

I'd like to have 3 ideas from everyone for each match up, with a short explanation as to why you think it would be a good idea. That way we can pool everyone's ideas fairly quickly, and we will have back-up ideas if it turns out we can't run those decks due to discards. Feel free to organise your ideas however you like. Mine will be "First choice, Second choice, Mindgate Buster (something they might not expect)".

I will wait a while before posting my ideas to hear some of yours.

While I'm not massively comfortable editing the vault tool, it sounds as though if we organise and build the decks we want, dd will be around to simply fill in the details, so lets get on it!
Make sure yo take a good look at the information Basman and I have gathered before posting. I really think we can get a surprising win streak this round if we play our cards right.

[Basman-1453]

Aether: Currently, I've got nothing that impresses my mind, quite unfortunately. I'll edit this when I got some.

Air: I'm thinking of something that involves Desiccation (to ward off SoFree) and Mirror Shield (in case they're into Wise Wyrms again) for defense. The bad news is that both of them will need to be upgraded (well, Reflective Shields will still reflect all sort of spell damage, but it gives no resistance to physical damage), so no Unarmed Looting if it went this way. The good news, if it's any good, is that we're free to decide whatever offensive we'd like to cram into it.

Life: Another bad news with using Mirror Desiccation against Air is that we only have 4 Desiccations (and that's all we have for mass CC) and can only afford to dedicate them to one deck. A good number of Life's past deck (this War, that is) that actually spawns creatures involves swarms of cheap, rather fragile creatures. An Ice Shield might nicely delay a fraction of the creatures, but we still need to handle the creatures or outrush them (which is a questionable proposal unless they went stall). Flooding the field suddenly becomes an interesting option to consider.

Light: Most of their decks tends to be on the defensive side. Their crazy Tinkerer PsionTal (tm) notwithstanding, I'm thinking of something like Toad/OE control if we think they're taking the offensive, something with reusable PC (BE Flayer, maybe? ) if we think they'll taking the defensive, or Flood the field if we think they're trying to run RoL/Hope over us.

Gravity: From my impressions, it looks like they're fond of DiscHoles. I'm thinking of something involving Sanctuary, if we're predicting it; the big question is into what kind of deck we're putting the three Sanctuaries we have. Will we ward early Holes' impact off with Water/Light stuff at cost of early Discord disruption, or we ward early Discords with a rainbow at cost of Holes quickly able to really disrupt our quanta?

[ddevans96]

Discards and salvage need to be done first this round. It'll probably cut our viable options down to a small number of decks, choose between them.

[JonathanCrazyJ]

Discard Options

Spoiler for Vs. Death:

Hover over cards for details, click for permalink

Deck import code : [Select]

5bs 5bs 5bs 5c1 5c1 5c5 5c5 5c5 5c5 5c7 5c7 5c7 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5ig 5ig 5ig 7gu 7gu 7gu 7n2 7n2 7n2 7n2 8pp

-MUST DISCARD 15 CARDS
-Able to keep 4 cards

-Essentially, Adrenastaves is dead, so we can safely discard Staves and AW ( 8 )
-We have plenty of Toads still, these can be safely discarded ( 3 )
-We only own 2 Forest spirits, I strongly believe at least one should be saved.
-We are running low on Nymph tears, so we should save at least 2 of these.

OPTIONS:
-The only real option here to keep us with enough tears is save 3 tears and 1 spirit.

Spoiler for Vs. Fire:

Hover over cards for details, click for permalink

Deck import code : [Select]

52g 52g 52g 52g 52g 52g 52g 52q 52q 52q 542 542 542 542 542 5i5 5i5 5i5 5i5 5i5 5i5 5ig 5ig 71b 71b 71b 7h3 7h3 7h3 7h3 8pp

-MUST DISCARD 15 CARDS.
-Able to keep 3 cards.

-Boils down to what we most want to keep. Dessications, Nymph Tears or Bonewalls.
-Because we own Skull Shields in vault, we could still run a sort of Death Tinkerer build without BW, so I think it's safe to discard.
-I think that keeping at least some Mass CC is necessary. Personally I'd keep the Dessications, and Transmute some Nymph Tears from salvage when it comes to that.

OPTIONS:
-Keep 2 Tears 1 Dessication
-Keep 1 Tears 2 Dessication
-Keep 3 Dessication

Spoiler for Vs. Time:

Hover over cards for details, click for permalink

Deck import code : [Select]

5f6 5f6 5f6 5fb 5fb 5fb 5i4 5i4 5i4 5i4 5i4 5ie 5ie 5ie 5jm 5jm 5jm 5jm 7gk 7gk 7gm 7gm 7gm 7gm 7gp 7gp 7gt 7gt 7i6 7i6 8po

-MUST DISCARD 12 CARDS
-Can save 5 cards

-5 Deflags in vault. PC very importants, should only discard MAX 1 of these
-Rage Pot is something that's a sort of luxury item usually. Would be nice to save, but if we can't, we can't.
-13 Ice shields in vault, safe to discard 2 and still be able to run 2 in all decks.
-At this point, 18 Crawlers and 19 toads in vault, only 7 Dragons. Being our only creature that can get through wings is quite big IMO, so I'd save 2 dragons.

OPTIONS:
-Keep 2 Deflag, 2 Dragons, 1 Crawler (Leaves 4 Deflags, 16 Toads, 15 Crawlers)
-Keep 1 Deflag, 2 Dragons, 2 Crawlers (Leaves 3 Deflags, 16 Toads, 16 Crawlers)

Salvage Options

Spoiler for Vs. Earth:

Hover over cards for details, click for permalink

Deck import code : [Select]

55p 58o 58o 58o 58o 58o 58o 58o 58o 58o 58o 58v 58v 58v 595 595 595 59c 5aa 5aa 5aa 5aa 5aa 77a 77a 77a 77a 77a 77a 77c 8pl

-4 CARDS TO SALVAGE

-We don't really need anything here, So transmutes are an option.
-Steel Golems could be a good addition to a rush deck of sorts, or a substitute for a Grabboid in a grabbow.

OPTIONS: (imo)
-4 Golems.
-3 Golems 1 BB.
-Transmute 2 Nymph Tears.
-Transmute 2 Dessication.
-Transmute 1 Purify and 1 Dessi/Tears.

Spoiler for Vs. Entropy:

Hover over cards for details, click for permalink

Deck import code : [Select]

4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vl 4vl 4vl 50u 50u 50u 50u 50u 50u 590 590 590 590 5og 61q 6u1 6u1 6u1 74f 77j 77j 7dm 7q4 7q4 8pm

-7 CARDS TO SALVAGE

-We can really beef up our Grabbow Catalogue here. Essentially it doesn't really matter what we salvage, as it's all spare grabbow fodder. Novas are the most versatile of the salvagables, as they could be used in some other concoctions.
-Yay, we can retrieve our lost deflag!
-1 exra RT makes a playset.

OPTIONS:
-4 Nova, 2 Grabby, 1 Deflag
-3 Nova, 2 Grabby, 1 Deflag, 1 RT
-6 Nova, 1 Deflag

[ddevans96]

My preferences:

Adrenastaves: Save 2x spirit/2x tears, or 1x spirit/3x tears
Dry Bones: Save 3x chrysaora to use PDials this round, otherwise save 1x tears/2x desi or 3x desi
Fire Domin: Save 2x dragons, 3x deflag/rages

Basically what jcj said, though I think given we started with all five PC cards we can safely drop to 3 deflags, so keeping rages to keep that deck full is an option that needs strongly considered. I'd prefer to keep rages personally.

Pulvy Domin: Salvage transmute fodder, +2x Tears/Desi
Grabbow: Salvage 1x deflag, 0x/6x nova, 0x/6x support cards

At this point we need to be salvaging round by round and not stashing things for later rounds. As such I think we should salvage 6 novas if we want to use 2 nova decks this round, and support cards otherwise. Personally I'd prioritize the support like this (after deflag which is a given): Lightning > RT > BH > Fog. We have 5 graboids and 2 lycans so I'm not worried about those.

[Spielkind]

My preferences:

Adrenastaves: Save 1x spirit/3x tears
Dry Bones: Save 3x desi
Fire Domin: Save 2x dragons/3x deflag

Pulvy Domin: Salvage transmute fodder, +2x Tears/Desi (What we can!)
Grabbow: Salvage 1x deflag, 6x nova


The key is focus! Focus on mono! And grabbow. Nova essential for it. Deflag splash too good vs aether!

[JonathanCrazyJ]

Hover over cards for details, click for permalink

Deck import code : [Select]

4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 52g 52g 52g 5i5 5i5 5i5 5i5 5i5 5if 5og 5rp 5rp 5rp 5rp 5rp 5rp 710 710 710 71a 71a 7gl 7gn 7gn 8pp

This is the kind of tinkerer PDials we could run if we did 6 Nova Salvage, and didn't discard 3 Chrys

It's pretty nice actually

[JonathanCrazyJ]

OK, my take on the match-ups:

Aether

Nothing has worked in the past, but no reason not to keep trying.
1. Toadmare. Still runable, decent domin, counters fractal if we are lucky and has PC for Shields.
2. They might expect poison, but PDials could work. Prefer not though, as I'd like it for a diff matchup.
Crazy Idea: AM Flooding. Fractal multi-death, and I'd be suprised if they go for immortals.

Air

I think they will fear our mass CC (not knowing we basically have none left) but even so, their mono is still scary.
1. PDials. if we can't kill SoFr creatures, dials is the other way of stopping them from attacking. Chrys can get through wings, though if they purify splash like Fire again I might cry.
2. If we fear a wings chain, why not include our 3 silences to find a gap in a SoP deck. A Nymph rush with SoP and silence/lightning splash.
Crazy Idea: Steam Machines with Deflag and our few remaining Dry Spells. Similar idea to 2.

Life

Like I said before, SoP could work with a diff deck.
1. Swallow. It's a great deck and we have not used it yet.
2. Grabbow. Tried and tested.
Crazy Idea: I'm repeating myself, but AM Flooding again. Could really do a job against life. This isn't even that crazy an idea imo.

Light

1. Serpentine. Kill their quanta production, BBs and squids against a tall element. Use dragons to stand up against potential wings.
2. UG. Some sort of Air NT with Fog and Owl's eye. Gets through wings, stands a chance against stall etc, and I doubt we will see reflect.
Crazy Idea: Umm... AM Flooding. I really think we should use this against someone this round, and actually light looks like another perfect target.

Gravity

1. Sanc/Miracle/Glory Domin. Only have 3 sancs but could be enough.
2. Nymph rush with Fire Pillars splashed so we can get nymphs under gravity shield, and kill their 5hp creatures. Hopefully enough Pillars to get over DBH.
Crazy Idea: PDials. We tried nova before, but PDials is far less impacted by BH, as we can save Novas to play directly before Dials.

[ddevans96]

We should absolutely use AM/Flooding this round, agreed. I also think we should use some variant of PDials, whether it be with reflectives against aether, or otherwise. Worth noting we have poisons, so we can technically run a 3 chrys/3 poison version even with discarding them all from drybones.

btw I play bjessee, not Spacious - this change was made after the Main Topic was posted so I'll correct it now.

Detailed thoughts:

Aether: Deflag splash, like Spiel said, is probably our most well-rounded deck against them. We could possibly run it with a bunch of fire constructs for make up for lack of rages. I like Toadmare and PDials too but not as much.

Air: I like the idea of SoP flayers/squids with silence and lightnings here, or PDials. I'd also like toadmare with dragons here - possibility of stealing SoFr for our dragons is amusing and I'd argue worth making sure it has those dragons.

Life: I'm leaning Swallow personally, or a grabbow. Given that we have yet to use Swallow it might be the best choice. AM/flooding would work here too.

Light: Either Serpentine or AM Flooding. Both should stand a good chance against most of their decks. Air and entropy domins (btw Bas, BE steammie > BE flayer) would be solid options too.

Gravity: RT splash is my suggestion. Other than that, maybe some kind of light domin, preferrably with additional control. Maybe PDials but I'm worried that doesn't have the firepower to stand up to most of their decks. SoP flayers might be a good option here too.