Fire Queen
Fire Queen has 2 copies of each of the following cards :
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| Mark:3Air |
| Creature control: 6Fire Lance, 6Eagle's Eye |
| Permanent control: None |
Strategy
Fire Queen's setup is one of the most unreliable, so almost any halfway decent deck may win occasionally. Winning consistently can be difficult, though, between Fire Queen's sheer damage output and healing.
Shutting down the firefly swarm is difficult due to the sheer number of queens, coupled with the fact that they're pretty tough to kill with direct damage. Spells don't work very well as you probably won't draw enough of them to deal with all the queens that appear, and any creatures with repeatable abilities you bring out are liable to be sniped by Eagle's Eye. Lobotomizer is your best bet, although Mind Flayer will work too if you can get it quinted quickly.
Alternately, taking out the emerald tower stack can slow the swarm down severely if you get earthquakes out early enough.
Many shields work well against Fire Queen, but watch out for Fire Lance. Ice Shield is spectacular (especially upgraded), but good luck building a strong enough deck around it. Titanium Shield is good too (the upgraded version is ridiculous if you get it out fast enough). Fire Shield could be handy but you'll need lots of healing or else really, really fast killing potential. Dimensional Shield is great, but with Fire Queen's huge healing you may find yourself running out of shields quite frequently.
Mono-aether with lobotomizer is strong here, but will take luck getting everything you need. Upgraded earth/time has a lot of potential, but would be expensive to set up (regular earth/time does okay but isn't super reliable).
The best counter-strategies are fast OTK's, control strategies, and denial strategies. The key to this deck is really the empathic bonds, because even if you can damage Fire Queen, this deck has much more healing potential. So unless aether can lobo all the FFQ early, aether loses out. And if you can destroy/steal empathic bonds, then they have no way of healing back your damage. Or if you can eat up/destroy all their fire flies, then they have no way of healing back your damage (no creatures). Alternatively, you could take out all of the damage in 1 shot so Fire Queen doesn't have a chance to heal.
Otyugh decks are definitely workable but seem very heavily reliant on luck; multiple queens can appear very rapidly so you'll have to get otyughs (multiple is a must) out fast, and Fire Queen has plenty of creature damage to cripple or kill the otyughs that you do get out. Leaving queens alive means letting it Fire Lance your stuff, eating queens means your otyughs don't have a reliable source of growth. Even with plenty of otyugh food your damage output will be low; between weapon damage, and the little bit of damage/healing provided every time a queen comes out, trying to outdamage Fire Queen with an otyugh deck is going to be problematic. Tossing in dragons may help with damage output at the risk of slowing down your setup, but you'll still need solid defense/healing.
Mono-gravity is the best way to get your otyughs out quickly. Momentum can build otyughs up a little faster and Gravity Pull helps you take down queens and animated weapons, but your damage output will be low and you'll still take plenty of damage. Gravity Shields and Armagios will help cut down incoming damage, but even if you manage to stay alive you'll probably deck out before doing enough damage; you can throw in Colossal Dragons for a bit more damage output, but with all these big cards in your deck your setup is going to be harder.
Gravity/earth seems appealing because of the combo of earthquake to shut down life towers + plate armor to rapidly boost otyughs to queen-munching levels (and you can throw in Titanium Shield to severely cut queen/firefly damage, good luck getting it out fast though). You still have damage output problems.
Gravity/fire fixes these weaknesses, with deflagration to destroy weapons and a couple of fire eaters to ramp up your damage output, but without plate armor it has a harder time culling queens and it lacks damage reduction so you lose health in a hurry.
Gravity/light may work--blessing boosts otyughs quickly like armor and also boosts your damage output, angels can heal off damage done to otyughs, and Miracle erases whatever damage gets through--but you'll definitely want some upgrades as you're going to be fairly strapped for quantum (luckily you can win Improved Miracles and Improved Blessings fairly easily off of Miracle). You also have a serious shortage of damage output, so you'll have to include some dragons, but getting them out quickly is going to be tough.
Gravity/rainbow may work well as it can combine all of the above, but rainbow decks are not good for fast, reliable setups. Upgraded quantum pillars may be mandatory for the rainbow approach here.
Another FG where an early Electrocutor is a killer, Hope deck can beat Fire Queen easily. The usual precaution of keeping one copy of the creature you play in your hand is basically all there is to her. If you use Archangels, you can play them to make them the target of spells and skills instead of RoL's and then heal them, but she will often be able to take them down in one turn if you have let her get Fire quanta due to Fire Lances and Eagle's Eye sniper skill. If you let that happen too soon, you might not be able to do enough damage.
This is also another FG where strategically using SoSacs to limit healing helps. Try to play them early before Fire Queen has many creatures out but after she has gotten enough quanta for CC. It's a hard match either way.
Healing and burst damage are a pain, but Voodoo Bravery can beat Fire Queen.
Oracle Counter
The best known counter to Fire Queen is a dragonbow. Pulverizer is used to smash Feral Bonds, and Cloaks hide your dragons.
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The old timebow is also very efficient and has a great EM rate.
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When Fire Queen's board is full of Fireflies and you have enough quanta and required cards, play all excess Dim Shields and Hourglasses in your hand. Play Shockwaves on two different 7-HP creatures, play a Vulture, Fractal it, then play Rain of Fire and Sky Blitz to OTK Fire Queen.
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