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  1. #21
    Senior Member shannong's Avatar
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    This deck might well be strong against the current metagame decks at the upper end. But it's not a be-all-end-all deck. Try playing about 8 games against the AI deck for Ter Adun. Watch why he beats you. And he will beat you, I'm guessing at least 50% of the time even when you know exactly what to do against him.

    If this deck becomes popular in the 300s metagame (or higher) because Calmdown said it was uber, those of you looking for the meta counter for this can take some cues from the way that AI Ter Adun is built and played.

    I haven't test played a Bow-based deck yet that convinces me anything other than Bow decks are generally flawed. This is certainly the most robust but none of them feel adaptive enough to deal with the overall metagame in the 300s and up.
    Last edited by shannong; 03-31-2011 at 06:11 PM.

  2. #22
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    Now 4-1 with this deck. Lost to Bombazza (513) playing an Elemental mill deck. He went first and hit me with 3 straight Here Be Monsters. When I finally got a bow w/ Night Prowler out he had an Armor of the Ages.

    Resource denial seems to hurt this deck a lot. I want to be at 7 resources to cast Night Prowler and Retreat on the same turn, but that's often difficult with all the Sandras around.

    Overall I like the deck and will continue to play it for a while.
    Last edited by Red5; 03-31-2011 at 06:12 PM.

  3. #23
    1.26 LE4GUE Champion Hatts's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by shannong View Post
    This deck might well be strong against the current metagame decks at the upper end. But it's not a be-all-end-all deck. Try playing about 8 games against the AI deck for Ter Adun. Watch why he beats you. And he will beat you, I'm guessing at least 50% of the time even when you know exactly what to do against him.
    When I was first building this deck over the past few days I played almost exclusively against ter adun for playtesting... The matches were certainly closer, but I never lost one.

    Item destruction hurts this deck, but half your deck is items. Ter Adun can only destroy 1 every 4 turns, you'd need to include shield bashes and shrieks as well.

    That said I'd love to see Ter Adun played more, I think I have seen him in PVP once.

  4. #24
    Senior Member shannong's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Hatts View Post
    When I was first building this deck over the past few days I played almost exclusively against ter adun for playtesting... The matches were certainly closer, but I never lost one.

    Item destruction hurts this deck, but half your deck is items. Ter Adun can only destroy 1 every 4 turns, you'd need to include shield bashes and shrieks as well.

    That said I'd love to see Ter Adun played more, I think I have seen him in PVP once.
    Well, maybe I just had a series of weaker early draws for me and strong early draws for the AI. Certain the games I won were landslides. But the games I lost were due to more than just his innate item destro ability. Between his ability to plant LOTS of 1-, 2-, or 3-cost shadow weenies, most of whom have a base 4 life (or better in the case of Gargoyle and Bad Wolf) and then quickly back them up with War Banner (often on his turn 3) + Reinforced Armor + Crippling Blow, which forces you to expend most of your offensive effort in the early game trying to stem his damage rush at high cost to your own allies and bows. (I tried a few times just focusing my own swarm on rushing him with as much damage as possible, but his swarm can usually win that damage race so it's a losing proposition for Victor.

    Your Bows help to stem the tide, but not nearly enough, and you end up burning through your bows to mitigate his creature rush as well as losing one or two to his native ability. Then by early mid game, he's dropping Blood Lusts (if he hasn't already in earlier turns), and he's dropping bigger shadow allies into the mix, as well as cloaking himself with Enrage and Rampage, and giving himself significant card advantage with Blood Frenzy.

    Between his War Banner and some Extra Sharps and Blood Lusts and Valiant Defenders, he can pretty easily overwhelm your allies on the board, keep most of his allies alive, and therefore force you to burn up your bows just trying to thin out his swarm. Night Prowler is nearly useless because you can rarely clear all of his allies off the board long enough. And Retreat only slows his rush but not in a decisive tempo-favorable way, IMO, because you can never build up a swarm to beat his swarm unless you get lucky and he's unlucky. Retreat IMO is only a winning move against big fatties. His main path to victory is turning tough weenies into almost-fatties, so if you bounce one of them back it's no biggie because he'll lay it down again next turn along with another weenie, and now you have twice the trouble to deal with. Retreat as a tempo move only works if you can use that tempo to build a stronger "first strike" force that can thin out your opponent's force. This deck can't muster enough first-strike damage, IMO.

    As for item destruction, you could swap out his four HBMs (which don't hurt this Victor Deck much) for 4 Smashing Blows. No need to even mess with Shrieks. Honestly, I think an adaptation of the basic Ter Adun AI deck swapping 4x Smashing Blow in for the HBM would own this Victor deck more often than not.

    ... or... maybe I just suck as a player. ^.^ As Calmdown notes in his OP, this deck presents you with some tough decisions. I always felt like there was no obvious or "good" sac choice in any move of the 8 games I played against Ter Adun (I went straight to him to get a feel for this deck). Give up allies or retreats to keep your bows at the ready? You lose to his swarm. Give up bows to keep retreats and allies at the ready? You slow down his swarm for a little bit, but then when you really need bows to keep pushing back, you run out of bows. The only obvious sac after a few games were the Night Prowlers. Give up retreats and night prowlers to save as many of your allies and bows as possible? That was the most promising course, but if he got to mid game and started dumping plasmabs on you, things would quickly turn in his overwhelming favor. I'd lose too much taking one plasmab down just to have another show up in the next turn or two. Give up only allies to save everything else? Not enough damage output take down his swarm fast enough just from bows, and the retreats didn't really give you any significant tempo advantage.
    Last edited by shannong; 03-31-2011 at 07:29 PM.

  5. #25
    Member beeroy's Avatar
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    looks good might give it a run, first time i played this game 1.23 i picked hunter and was confused what victor's ability was then i found out you need to have a weapon lolnoobme.

  6. #26
    Senior Member Calmdown's Avatar
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    You shouldn't be running Rapid Fire. It's far too slow and doesn't add any card advantage to your deck.

    Also, there is literally nothing you can cut. At best I would simply straight up add 1 Rapid Fire to the deck and remove nothing.

    Quote Originally Posted by shannong View Post
    This deck might well be strong against the current metagame decks at the upper end. But it's not a be-all-end-all deck. Try playing about 8 games against the AI deck for Ter Adun. Watch why he beats you. And he will beat you, I'm guessing at least 50% of the time even when you know exactly what to do against him.

    If this deck becomes popular in the 300s metagame (or higher) because Calmdown said it was uber, those of you looking for the meta counter for this can take some cues from the way that AI Ter Adun is built and played.

    I haven't test played a Bow-based deck yet that convinces me anything other than Bow decks are generally flawed. This is certainly the most robust but none of them feel adaptive enough to deal with the overall metagame in the 300s and up.
    Ter Adun doesn't particularly beat this any more than anything else. It doesn't really care if you eat its items, even if you run Ter + 4 smashing blow you still dont have enough to deal with the board control. That said, if Ter Adun had a btter card pool he obviously would give it a rough time, but we're not talking about fantasy land, we're talking about here and now.
    Last edited by Calmdown; 03-31-2011 at 07:28 PM.
    Calmdown * Shadow Era Designer * Logan Stonebreaker & Brutal Minotaur Fan Club

  7. #27
    Senior Member shannong's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Calmdown View Post
    Ter Adun doesn't particularly beat this any more than anything else. It doesn't really care if you eat its items, even if you run Ter + 4 smashing blow you still dont have enough to deal with the board control. That said, if Ter Adun had a btter card pool he obviously would give it a rough time, but we're not talking about fantasy land, we're talking about here and now.
    Okay, I get it now. The following play tip will help anyone struggling with the deck concept like I was. Thanks for reiterating "board control" one more time, Calmdown. That's the reminder I needed.

    Tip 1: Your number one goal against an ally-based deck in the early game is creating a large enough ally force of your own that you can eliminate everything your opponent brings out. This means using your early retreats to bounce even weenies back to give you time to bring out one more ally of your own, and it also means using your early bow attacks to burn opposing allies off the board. Don't even think about hitting the other hero directly unless there are zero opposing allies on the board.

    Tip 2: Use your bow attack as the first attack on opposing allies with large health. Your hero is the buffer to absorb their counter attack so that your own allies will win via first strike and take no damage themselves. This is the main engine by which you gain board control (meaning they have no allies and you have a crap ton and can eviscerate any new ally they plunk down like a swarm of piranha).

    Tip 3: If you can save 1x Night Prowler until after you've gained Board Control, try to do so because it will then become an additional force in your favor.

    Tip 4: Don't even think about the timing of Ter Adun's innate ability. Use a bow at every opportunity to fuel the engine that is explained in Tip #2.

  8. #28
    Senior Member Calmdown's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by shannong View Post
    Okay, I get it now. The following play tip will help anyone struggling with the deck concept like I was. Thanks for reiterating "board control" one more time, Calmdown. That's the reminder I needed.

    Tip 1: Your number one goal against an ally-based deck in the early game is creating a large enough ally force of your own that you can eliminate everything your opponent brings out. This means using your early retreats to bounce even weenies back to give you time to bring out one more ally of your own, and it also means using your early bow attacks to burn opposing allies off the board. Don't even think about hitting the other hero directly unless there are zero opposing allies on the board.

    Tip 2: Use your bow attack as the first attack on opposing allies with large health. Your hero is the buffer to absorb their counter attack so that your own allies will win via first strike and take no damage themselves. This is the main engine by which you gain board control (meaning they have no allies and you have a crap ton and can eviscerate any new ally they plunk down like a swarm of piranha).

    Tip 3: If you can save 1x Night Prowler until after you've gained Board Control, try to do so because it will then become an additional force in your favor.

    Tip 4: Don't even think about the timing of Ter Adun's innate ability. Use a bow at every opportunity to fuel the engine that is explained in Tip #2.
    Now you're getting it
    Calmdown * Shadow Era Designer * Logan Stonebreaker & Brutal Minotaur Fan Club

  9. #29
    1.26 LE4GUE Champion Hatts's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by shannong View Post
    Okay, I get it now. The following play tip will help anyone struggling with the deck concept like I was. Thanks for reiterating "board control" one more time, Calmdown. That's the reminder I needed.

    Tip 1: Your number one goal against an ally-based deck in the early game is creating a large enough ally force of your own that you can eliminate everything your opponent brings out. This means using your early retreats to bounce even weenies back to give you time to bring out one more ally of your own, and it also means using your early bow attacks to burn opposing allies off the board. Don't even think about hitting the other hero directly unless there are zero opposing allies on the board.

    Tip 2: Use your bow attack as the first attack on opposing allies with large health. Your hero is the buffer to absorb their counter attack so that your own allies will win via first strike and take no damage themselves. This is the main engine by which you gain board control (meaning they have no allies and you have a crap ton and can eviscerate any new ally they plunk down like a swarm of piranha).

    Tip 3: If you can save 1x Night Prowler until after you've gained Board Control, try to do so because it will then become an additional force in your favor.

    Tip 4: Don't even think about the timing of Ter Adun's innate ability. Use a bow at every opportunity to fuel the engine that is explained in Tip #2.
    You should be using your bow every turn, unless you have night prowler up and the other player doesn't have any cards left. Once you've cleared most of the opponents allies from the board, you can switch around to using your allies to do the first damage, and healing up with soulseeker.

    Ideally you want to get to a state where you have 1 or more ally on the board, and no enemies before you cast night prowler. At that point, you can pretty much steal a card a turn unless they have a weapon of their own.

    It's good general advice to always attack allies before you attack the hero, it's a very rare occasion where you'd want to do it the other way around.

  10. #30
    Senior Member BadKarma's Avatar
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    Calmdown is spoiling fun. Bleh. These forums are supposed to whine about the meta and to build against it, not to educate about solutions. Oh, and Night Prowler is an ugly lock: bad for your karma, don't use it.

    Btw, Aeon saved my butt a couple of times and Rapid Fire with prowler helps taking control back in a Zaladar way. My experience is that 8 bows is enough, but I am also running a couple of big hitters so Oath is not a big need. But I will try out Calmdown's version as it seems the gains outweight what I liked in my ranger deck.
    BadKarma - Apathetic Carebear of A1 - Eating your rating since 1923
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