| Noctilucus | 2010-09-06 09:22:13 |
Currently working on a water-earth deck, built around 2 principles: use opponents' creatures against them and get several earth elementals out for the finishing touch (or blow)
The current setup I have in mind:
merfolk shaman: price 75
halfling settlers: price 25 (never used it before but now I absolutely love this)
clone: price 45
storm ritual: price 5
polymorph: price 45
call to fittest: price 10
merfolk hunter: price 35
clay golem: price 10
master healer: price 25
earth elemental: price 80
natural hunger: price 200
Total: 1375 MP
A previous version didn't include natural hunger and came in around 1000 MP.
With more MP I would probably include mind master and/or some air cards (e.g. phantom warrior, call to thunder)
Any thoughts? Any similar setups you've played with and want to share?
| Dreamteam67 | 2011-01-15 13:22:40 |
Not sure if I understand the composition correctly, but without free cards and using three copies of each, the deck you describe costs closer to 1850. And that’s without the Mind Master! It’s always hard to judge these mid-power decks, since they often seek to benefit from available “freebie” cards. For what its worth, my two cents:
Some of the things I think about when I consider a deck:
Creature removal- Polymorph works great for taking out key enemy creatures, but has the downside that the enemy gains a card when you play it, so you won’t want to over use it. Imo storm ritual is mediocre at best and generally only makes it into my decks because of its low cost. There are better mass-damage spells (albeit more expensive) available to both Water and Earth. Why not use them instead?
Card generation/Creature summoning- None. Without the Mind Master, it looks like this deck relies upon luck of the draw @ 1 card/turn. Not good.
Healing- Master Healer can handle 1 troop/turn. This is usually adequate as long as you are not fighting a large group of heavy hitters. If the Hunter is using its special ability, then anticipate either healing it each turn or loosing it. The deck includes Earth, but no possibilities for player to gain life?
Mana Gain- I assume you intend to use the Halfling Settlers each turn to generate a “free” discard. Remember though that this requires an open creature slot and the AP to spend. Are you going to have enough mana to do so AND deploy other cards? Looks like about a 9% chance that any new card draw will be a Shaman. So my guess is that you will get a quick jump to 3 AP on turn 1, then have a steady 1 AP/turn gain thereafter from the Settler discard. Overall, you are investing almost 700 points of your deck cost into this aspect alone, and I am not sure it is worth it.
Spell Protection- Well, we are using water after all, but chose not to include the Spellbreaker or Astral Guard?
Auto Damage- If you have lots of elementals, then using Natural Hunger is definitely a great way to go for the jugular. A very expensive card though. My suggestion would be to include one copy in the deck, and summon it with the MindM when you need it.
Creature Power- For such a pricey deck, imo it seems to include a lot of under-weight creatures. The Hunter is pretty lame unless used in combination with the Elf Defender, since otherwise he wounds himself to 50% health when using his special ability. So if you are just looking for something to mount a quick defense to hold till you can deploy your Earth Elementals, probably the Ice Guard or Ice Golem or the Venomous Spider for ranged attacks will work better.
Overall Deck Analysis- I guess relying on Clone and Call to Fittest to summon a critical mass of Elementals could work, but the question is will the natural luck-of-the-draw 1 card/turn be enough to allow you to do so. My guess is no. I think you definitely need the Mind Master or Elven King or some other summoner or card-generating cards to make this deck work. Deploying the Halfling Settlers will tie up a lot of mana each turn, thereby making it tough to deploy any other forces. Earliest turn to be able to deploy an Elemental is probably turn 5, assuming you have one in your hand by then. Modified by Dreamteam67 on 2011-01-17 00:21:13 | Dreamteam67 | 2011-01-15 19:17:52 |
Here is my take of a Water only deck that costs 1084 MP based around summoning and cloning. Using only 1 element means all cards are at a 10% discount, which helps a bit till you can get some freebies.
1x Mind Master (summon any card)
1x Water Elemental (thug + gain AP)
1x United Mind (gain LOTS of AP)
1x Merfolk Spellbreaker (spell protection)
1x Merfolk Duplicator (gain creature)
1x Astral Collapse (mass damage)
3x Clone (gain creature)
3x Steal Essence (gain creature)
3x Materialize (choose any card)
3x Call to Fittest (choose any creature)
3x Ice Golem (spell resisting early thug)
3x Ice Guard (damage control)
3x Astral Chaneller (gain AP)
2x Justice (thug removal)
2x Storm Ritual (mass damage + gain AP)
While the deck has a slower start than the one you list, between the Astral Channeller, United Mind, Storm Ritual, and Water Elemental there is plenty of opportunity for lots of AP gain. You've got 6 cards that can copy enemy creatures plus the Duplicator. Materialize and Call to fittest should guarantee that you have plenty of access to whatever cards you need. The deck still lacks early card generation, but hopefully the Astral Channeller and Ice creatures will speed things up to get to a Mind Master or Duplicator quickly.
Loosing the Mind Master and exchanging the Water Elemental for Ice Elemental drops the price to around 855 MP, making it affordable even without freebies.
If I was going to add any Earth, the first thing would be 3x Nature Ritual for a bit of mass healing. Modified by Dreamteam67 on 2011-01-17 00:22:51 | trevor kuehn | 2011-01-16 23:06:21 |
this is sucks
| Dreamteam67 | 2011-01-16 23:15:40 |
I don't see any suggestions from you anywhere in the forums, trevor. Feel free to enlighten us with your own awesome ideas. I'll help with your English if you don't feel comfortable with it.
And btw it doesn't suck. I do very well with an even simpler but similar deck, although single element decks usually have some exploitable weakness. Modified by Dreamteam67 on 2011-01-17 00:18:23 | 
