[1.603] Here Be Elemantalis!

[Sunone]

Very good ideas to use HBM.
I even tried to mix it with my DC hero desk with no success like I saw in yr games.

[FarqTheOrc]

Hiya,

Well I tried some games with 4x Here Be Monsters.

Unfortunately, I found it very situational, and to be honest it wasn't my cup of tea.

Going second vs human - if the opponent grabs the board then playing HBM on t3 wont help you (your brut is facing Puwen and Jas / Aldon) and neither will it help on t4, since you may be forced to play DMT or Sliver on t4 in order to hold the board.

Going first, I can see the strategy, but it doesn't work if:
- you don't draw a 2cc ally
- your opponent plays Blood Frenzy (Amber)
- your opponent plays bazaar (millstaker, zaladar)

Perhaps I'm doing something wrong, but I think after watching FDL's games I understand the strategy, and I've just found that HBM seems too situational.

And with 24 allies in an elementalis deck, plus 4x MC and 4x BS as auto-include, that only leaves 8 more cards for tech and I'd rather use the slots on ED, ST, Sliver and LLN.

Argually HBM is a form of card draw and I could drop the BS, but if I sac HBM instead, then I am left with no draw at all (apart from the fireball-magnet, tracker)

[FDL]

Thanks for the comments guys.

Soul reaper is nice too with all these allies and knowing this deck will rather make for long games if
the opponent fights for the board.

I rarely play healing in SE unless playing mill/stall. I just don't like it. I'd rather play a threat/removal. Any ally in the deck will soak up at least 4 damage and potentially deal some which is more useful than Reaper 99% of the time. Sure healing can save your bacon once in a while but unless a card affects the board (Soul Seeker, PotL, etc) it will rarely make the cut for me.

This isn’t a late game deck anyways. You win with a good rush and you need the ammos to support that.

Regarding allies, why not 8x 2cc allies (brut and flayer / carniboar) and 9x 3cc allies (garg, wolf, dmt)?

Hmm. Dropping a Wolf for an extra Brute might be a good idea indeed. On the other hand, I rarely hold a lot of cards in hand and topdecking a 2cc is rarely optimal. I'm already gonna have a 2 drop in 75% of my games, the seventh would raise that to 80%. I'm willing to risk a slightly weaker early game for a stronger mid game. The 2 drop is vital when going second but not as critical when going first or against Shadow.

The Carniboar (slightly tougher, almost useless late) vs Dark Flayer (more useful late game, great against Humans, useless against Shadow) debate is interesting. In the end I settled for the less risky choice.

I never thought of using HBM - it's a nice suggestion.

Instead I use Bad Santa... but only when I really have to, around turn 7 or turn 8, and if I'm holding the board it shouldnt matter too much if I give my opponent cards when I'm fishing out an MC.

Oh... and I chose Chimera over Belladonna. Why be forced to buff her to 5 health, when Chimera is already 'buffed' to 5 health, plus he can use his ability to pump his dmg? Its more important to save buff for t5 plasma, imho...

I feel Bad Santa is suited for decks that have lots of cheap/versatile cards like burn/cripples/removal/retreat. In an Elemantalis deck, the only thing you’d be fishing for is a Mind Control and while you’re at it, you’re gonna give all those cheap anti-ally tools to your opponent.

This is why I went the Bella + Sacrificial Lamb route. Any crippling effect basically becomes a very cheap +2 card advantage for me (-1 ally -1 SL +3 cards +1 cripple, almost a perfect Santa Bomb) and since they will have less cripples than I have allies, they will run out.

Bella doesn’t really need to survive to be useful (unlike Wulven Tracker). If she does, it’s pretty much gg (like Tracker) but otherwise she’s drawing resources away from other allies and keeping my hand filled which I need to apply pressure. Heck, I’d play Shadow Knight over Plasma Behemoth that would leave me even more vulnerable to Warriors and Moonstalker. (plus PB is also kind of a pseudo-draw engine with his Fireball factory…)

I’m not gonna win the long game against Lance or Zhanna (or any Hero really) so I need to hit them hard and fast and create a situation they can’t recover from quickly enough. It’s doable thanks to Bella and HBM.

nice deck, thanks for sharing.
i'm currently testing a version with
x2 Acid Jet and x1 Energy Discharge
instead of ST and LLN to bring it down to 39 cards.
Acid Jet adds much more flexibility, can be especially helpful against Zhanna
which works quite well with all of the ally power.

Acid Jet does help the “win early” game plan by taking out some draw engines and the dreaded Jeweler’s Dream. It’s a tough choice between AJ’s flexibility and LLN’s much needed draw.

Hiya,

Well I tried some games with 4x Here Be Monsters.

Unfortunately, I found it very situational, and to be honest it wasn't my cup of tea.

[…]

And with 24 allies in an elementalis deck, plus 4x MC and 4x BS as auto-include, that only leaves 8 more cards for tech and I'd rather use the slots on ED, ST, Sliver and LLN.

Argually HBM is a form of card draw and I could drop the BS, but if I sac HBM instead, then I am left with no draw at all (apart from the fireball-magnet, tracker)

Ok, I think I found the philosophical differences between the two approaches. In a “regular” deck, you’re often looking to outdraw your opponent to be able to over-power him, be more flexible and/or pull complex and rewarding combos.

In an HBM deck (this one, or my Zaladar), I’m never gonna outdraw anybody. Never. Yet I’ll win because you’ll have to spend more resources than usual to counter my threats and I’ll still be able to efficiently counter yours. Zaladar’s ability and Shadow Font allow him to efficiently clear the board and maintain it with a single weakish ally.

Elemantalis’ buffed allies do the same. It’s extremely expensive for the opponent to take out my allies while I can easily take out his. Once you add HBM to the equation, I’m delaying the point at which you will be able to play a card that will allow you to 2- or 3- for-1 me and take back the board. Not only that but you have to choose between leaving me the field and holding onto high value cards or trying to (foolishly) delay me while sacrificing your big threats. If you pick the latter I’ll win, if you choose the former, I have a window to try to deal enough damage that your better cards won’t be quick enough to counter my early advantage and I can finish you with the help of Mind Controls.

This is also why I play Bella/SK in those decks. They give me an interesting but fragile threat and more fuel so that even if you still have what it takes to deal with them there something else coming next turn.

But you’re right that HBM isn’t as valuable in every matchup. And there are some definitive weak matchup for this deck (my worst being Zhanna so far 1-3) but it can hold itself up against some of the most popular builds (3-2 vs Amber, 3-0 vs Elad, 6-2 vs Maj so far)

Anyways, I hope that made sense!

[FarqTheOrc]

FDL, thanks v. much for the discussion. Elementalis has always been "my" hero, and you and Dimo (Mr RnR) are like godfathers to me.

I've been playing some more, and I agree - drop the Soul Reaper. If it comes an opportunity to use it late in the game I've likely lost anyways.

2cc allies - yes, I'm running 8 of them. Any time I don't draw one for my t2 vs human (going first OR second) makes it a likely loss. For a long time I played brut and carniboar, but apart from the fun factor - I decided to go with brut and flayer, let me explain.

Like you say, the hardest early game is vs human. Going second, carniboar dies to Puwen. Whereas, Flayer gets Puwen down to 1 health and u can finish with Thaddeus. Brut survives puwen, and buffed brut plus DMT kills Puwen, or buff plus Sliver kills Jas / Aldon. So vs human - Brut and Flayer.

Now, versus shadow, you say Flayer is trash - DISAGREE! Let me tell you why. Imagine you're going playing vs Maj, either going first or going second where they dont play a 2cc ally. You don't have a brut in hand, so you need to play Flayer. Opponents t3 comes next, they must choose how to respond.

Naturally, your opponent will play DMT to kill the flayer. Bad? NO! The thing is - would you have rather your opponent played a Garg or DMT on t3? The garg will take a few turns to get rid of, and will be a royal PITA. I would a thousand times prefer opponent to play his DMT at this point - I will respond with a buffed garg (or bad wolf), and kill thaddeus the turn after that.

Then, going into t4 and t5, I have the board, and my tracker or PB will require alot more energy from my opponent to get rid of it that if they had a garg sitting there. Just think of your flayer as a 'useful sacrifice'.

Regarding Belladonna, I still think she is trash. Especially if your opponent has something like a garg on the board, she is useless. And there are just too many ways do easily do 2 damage - lightning bolts, wizents plus kris, etc, etc. Why waste a unit and a card for 1 free card? And besides, after playing many many games, I find the most useful point to use my buff is either t3/t4 (garg / bad wolf) or t5 (Plasma Beast). That's my experience anyways.

On Bad Santa, yes I find it extremely useful, if I am sitting on 6 resources and have a bad santa in hand and my opponent plays Aeon, I can sac up to 7 and 'fish' for a Mind Control. Works 50% of the time Oftentimes I just need to delay 1 more turn to get 3 shadow energy to buff my garg again, and this does the trick.

Plus Bad Santa can be useful to 'replenish' on t4, if u go first and take the board on t2 and t3... especially vs Gwen or Lance when u need to find an Acid Jet FAST.

Naturally I want to consider all other forms of uni-lateral draw first, and given I have 4 WT now, I cant see how shadow knight can help so much in this situation.

And sac lamb... well... firstly I think sac lamb is better for wulven and hunters when you have wotf out. Saccing a healthy card on the board (brut, garg) really delays my rush and seems counter productive. Saccing a card played from hand (say, play a brut and sac it) yields 2 new cards, hardly anything to write home about, and I wasted my t4 (could have played tracker instead). For cards that are disabled by warrior or wulven, I'd MUCH rather play ST and 'wake them up' or use ED (boom), rather than use sac lamb on them.

Maybe I'll try some more games with HBM instead of BS, and let u know how I fare.

Oh and by the way, versus warriors, I found the very best play is a t4 Severed Ties on their Blood Frenzy. I did experiement with 4 ST for a while (when I was finding alot of Ambers around 250 ranking) and eventually settled on 3. For same reason I went with 3 AJ over LLN - it can mean auto-loss vs Gwen and Zhanna and Cresendo-stalker but there are way more ambers around.

Live long,
Farq

[Buqs]

Hey Fou have you tried running feedback with this deck type? Im curious about this combination of resource destruction (on opponent) and resource acceleration (for you) and how it could all work together. Im tempted to try myself but I dont want to change my deck up just yet so I thought Id just ask

[qaz92zaq]

How do you deal with Eladwyn going second (besides apparently quite well since the only mention of her is that the deck is undefeated against it)? Between burns forcing you to use your ability and Elad's ability plus jasmines and retreat on the allies you do use it on Elad seems to be my most difficult match up. Can you please give some explanation or point me to some games that illustrate how you beat Elad? Thanks

[kazeen]

I am still learning this game. Been threw several different decks. So far i am liking this one.
I like having spark in and soul reaper.

BTW how do you link cards?

[Zhou86]

Just type the name of the card correctly and they will auto-link the card (Case sensitive).

Eg: Soul Reaper, Spark

[FDL]

I started playing this deck again in the past week and I still manage to win roughly 2/3rds of my games like before. Compared to the OP I ran -2 LLN -2 Sever Ties +2 Acid Jet +1 Energy Discharge.

This build is really a freight train going first (79% winrate overall) 4-0 over Amber, 3-0 over Zhanna, 3-1 vs Eladwen, 2-0 vs Lance, 5-1 over Maj, but a train wreck going 2nd (45% overall) 0-3 to Amber, 0-3 to Zhanna, 0-2 to Lance (still 4-2 over Maj - buffed Gargoyles for the win!).

The HBM lock as a lot do with these stats IMO. Bella is also nice going first.

How do you deal with Eladwyn going second (besides apparently quite well since the only mention of her is that the deck is undefeated against it)? Between burns forcing you to use your ability and Elad's ability plus jasmines and retreat on the allies you do use it on Elad seems to be my most difficult match up. Can you please give some explanation or point me to some games that illustrate how you beat Elad? Thanks

I haven't played vs Elad in a while but I think Elem's ability counters Elad's (and mages in general) super effective removal. Even Supernova isn't a sureshot any more. Try to keep Bella for right after Supernovas (but if Elad has saved up her SE, it's futile). Don't be afraid to buff Brutalis early to take out Puwen and Priest of the Light with help from DMT.

I'll update this when I play some more Eladwens.

I am still learning this game. Been threw several different decks. So far i am liking this one.
I like having spark in and soul reaper.

Welcome to the forums!

[qaz92zaq]

I haven't played vs Elad in a while but I think Elem's ability counters Elad's (and mages in general) super effective removal. Even Supernova isn't a sureshot any more. Try to keep Bella for right after Supernovas (but if Elad has saved up her SE, it's futile). Don't be afraid to buff Brutalis early to take out Puwen and Priest of the Light with help from DMT.

Thanks for the reply,

My main problem is if they pack 4 retreats if I buff an ally its retreated if not fireball or ls plus an ally tears apart my army forcing me to use discharge to ever get field control. I seem to be doing better now than when I first posted since I changed my deck a bit to sort of tech against elad however only faced her a handful of times since (funny since I faced her something like 6x in a row right before doing this).