Elementalis - Wtzky's beginner's guide to SE Heroes v1.5!

[Wtzky]

Wtzky's beginners guide to Shadow Era heroes

There was a time when Elementalis was the top hero in the game. After a few recent nerfs, Elementalis is now finding it hard to keep up with some of the other heroes, and is on the brink of being a tier 3 hero. Luckily, he (or she if you listen to Caitlyn0) doesn’t need much to make him become stronger in the future, and for beginners buying the elemental class cards is going to be a great option as you will also have access to Zaladar!

Elementalis



Faction: Shadow
Class: Elemental
Tier: 2 – not quite weak enough to be 3
Utilisation: Utilised about right with a smattering of Elementalis players on quick match, Elementalis does not see much (if any) competitive play due to his current strength and match ups.

Pros and Cons (explanations after table):

Pros:	A lot of synergy between ability and card pool 1	Access to one of the best card pools2	Access to one of the best single ally control cards3	Very versatile 4
Cons:	No direct, early board control 5	Sparks are great – if you get them all early6

¹ I’ll cover some specifics in the combo section but let us take a general look at what works well with his ability.

Firstly, there is the weenies. Shadow allies are generally tougher than their Human counterparts at the expense of damage or abilities. For example, you have a turn 1 drop with 2 health (Firesnake), turn 2 drops with very high health but less damage (Brutalis) or defender ability which can hurt your opponent but not always kill it (Flayer) and turn 3 allies which are tough and combine well with the ping damage of a turn 4 Death Mage (Gargoyle, Bad Wolf, Medusil). These weenies are where I see Elementalis’ greatest utility of his ability. Using it to buff a Flayer makes it kill almost anything that get’s thrown its way early while keeping it alive. Using it to buff Carniboar allows it to live enough to use its self buff. Using it on Gargoyle makes him a friggen beast. Using it on Brutalis allows it to take out a lot of allies as he survives more turns. It’s even very useful for turn 4 drops such as Bella who would normally die as soon as she is played, or Chimera who now get’s to use his ability without being instantly killed the next turn as he remains on 5 health. Before anybody uses the argument “yes, but there are so many ways to counter this, such as Retreat, Crippling Blow, Captured Prey” and so forth, I’ll point out that there are also a LOT of ways to counter a Plasma Behemoth or Molten Destroyer – but that doesn’t mean you should never use them. There are also now ways to deal with some of the counters that were previously deal breakers, such as Crippling Blow and Captured Prey (Severed Ties can now remove those pesky attachments). Finally, the Shadow epic ally that does not see much play, Ogloth the Glutton, actually works quite well in an Elementalis deck, as the initial boost from Elementalis’ ability allows Oggy’s ability to become much more useful, and allows Oggy to actually hang around to use it.

Learning to use the ability at the right time and in the right circumstances is what will boost your game and allow Elementalis to be more competitive.

Next there is Ghostmaker. The new card which people seem to have forgotten works with Elementals as well as Priests. Ghostmaker has a lot of synergy with Elementalis’ ability because the ally you bring back from the dead comes on with only 1 health (Sound like a good combo with Shard of Power? Maybe?). Using Ghostmaker, Elementalis can buff his resurrected allies back to a decent health to help him to overwhelm his opponents quite easily.

Finally, we touch on heal. Perhaps the most controversial now because everyone agrees that the heal that Elementalis USED to have was much better. However, he still does quite well in this version. Conversion works really well with Elementalis’ ability for a cheap and fast heal when you really need it. If you use it in conjunction with a Brutalis that is buffed (for example), you can quickly heal 7 health for 4 resources. Givin that Brutalis tends to be ignored a lot of the time, I have found it quite easily in a lot of my games to use a buffed Brutalis to help me clear the board and then use Conversion on him to heal once I have control. This party trick also works well on crippled or captured allies and works especially well when you have a Ghostmaker down.

There is also a lot of synergy with Elementalis’ card pool in general, some of which I have touched on already.

Ghostmaker and Shard of Power work well together. Ghostmaker and Conversion work quite well together. Ghostmaker and Energy Discharge work very well together (clear the board, bring back your ally!). Soul Reaper works well with weenie decks. Dimension Ripper works well with weenie decks. The list goes on. For me, Elementalis has the greatest synergy between his card pool and his cards and ability and I always enjoy making different Elementalis decks.

² Elementals do a lot well. Let’s examine the potential:

- Board wipe: Not only a board wipe, but one that allows your allies to live. This gives you a great board advantage if you find yourself flooded by allies that you need to get rid of but want to keep your allies at hand (unlike Tidal Wave or Supernova). The other handy thing is that, unlike Supernova, it definitely kills all enemy allies
- Heal: two cards dedicated to heal, which allows for varied tactics (ie. if you use weenies, go for Soul Reaper. If you use less allies, try Conversion)
- Resource acceleration: apart from Jeweler’s dream and Stop, Thief (a bad way to get resource acceleration), Feedback is the only other resource acceleration card available. It allows for a lot of good plays; on turn 5 you can play a 2cc ally and 5cc card (mind control or ally for example or multiples of). On turn 6 you can play a 3cc card + 5cc card (or multiples of). You get the picture, it speeds up your game as opposed to your opponent.
- Access to card modifiers: Elementalis can use Bloodlust for great damage amplification, Life Infusion for added ally defence (and potentially a combo with conversion for added heal) and Shard of Power which combos well with Bloodlust.
- Access to weapons/armours: Elementalis has some pretty good choices here. Armour of Ages has the best protection of all the armours, and unlike Warriors Elementalis is not so weapon reliant and so can make good use of this armour.

³ Mind Control used to be a very overpowered card, but recent changes have balanced it out a lot more. It now works to not only destroy any ally out there but gives you damage to the opposing hero, which makes it a great single ally control card. Arguably the best in the game , it also works great as a deterrent, as people tend to hold off from playing their best allies when they think you have a Mind Control in your hand! Some people even change the way they play specifically for this card and sac their better allies more readily than they normally would. Bonus!

⁴As with Zaladar, Elementalis’ great card pool allows for some quite flexible builds. About the only thing Elementalis does not do well is a solo build, as his ability would not support this well.

⁵ One of the big problems that Elementalis faces is that his ability doesn’t have any direct board control power in the same way that some of the other top heroes do (for example Eladwen, Majiya, Lance, Zaladar and so on). With so many counters available to even buffed allies, Elementalis can get quite far behind quickly in the early to mid game, and often has no way to come back until the late game, by which time it may be too late already.

⁷You got me, I’m digging here. It really isn’t a con, but I will point out that sparks are not as great in 40 card minimum as they used to be as their strength really lies on being able to be used together. Back when the minimum deck size was 30 cards, sparks used to be fantastic (especially with Shard of Power/Bloodlust). Now though Sparks have lost a lot of their power and there are much better 1 card drops now (Kris, Brigitte Skullborn and Firesnake).

[Wtzky]

Ease of play for beginners - On a scale of 1-10 where 1 is hardest hero pick up and 10 is easiest hero to pick up:

6-8

The toughest part that beginners will have with Elementalis is focusing a deck. There are so many good cards it is easy to make the deck either too big, or too unfocused, and beginners may find themselves being put off by poor results from poorly built decks. Learning how and when to use Elementalis’ ability is also tough, and people often rush into using it too quickly without much thought. It is often better to hold off using Elementalis’ ability until really needed or it is your turn to attack.Once you have some experience with deck building (or have some from other tcg’s) though this hero is great to use.

As another point for beginners, this hero is fantastic to use as a grinding deck against the AI to earn gold. A hyper weenie rush elementalis will earn you fast gold against AI.

Good match ups:

To be fair, most match ups can be dealt with by a skilled Elementalis player with the correct build – the problem is to have a build that works on a multitude of heroes which is what is the hard part to do with Elementalis. The heroes listed have a harder time dealing with the potential onslaught of buffed weenies that Elementalis can bring however:

- Baduuru
- Banebow
- Serena
- Ter Adun

Bad match ups:

Essentially, the following can make short work of Elementalis because they are either much faster, or have better board control abilities.

- Amber
- Boris
- Gwen
- Lance
- Moonstalker
- Nishaven
- Eladwen
- Zhanna
- Jericho


Best suited style of play:

Probably best suited as an early game hero (traditionally one of the heroes used for hyper-rush styles using mostly 1cc or 2cc allies with Shard of Power and Bloodlust for very fast and very cheap damage). Can be versatile however.

Cost of creating a good deck:

Cheap – Generally you don’t need very expensive cards other than Mind Control in your decks and the starter packs for Elementals contain some decent and useable cards. You can get expensive if you start adding Dimension Rippers or Armour of Ages though.

On a side note; elemental starter packs get you the most gold when sold, so starting with an Elemental hero is not a bad way to go as you can sell the excess cards to save for your next hero.

Combos:

Here I will include some interesting/fun/good plays or combos.

Bad Santa + Dimension Ripper – one of my favourite combo’s to use. Fill up your opponent’s hand, then use Dimension Ripper for a one way steal (you need to play a cheap card to empty your hand first for those not paying attention)

Soul Reaper + Eternal Renewal – a good way to get back your extra good cards like Mind Control or Energy Discharge as it ensures your draw is not diluted by allies (and it gives you heal!)

Transference + Soul Reaper + Eternal Renewal – this is a good combo to steal lots of cards from your opponent. Use Soul Reaper to empty your graveyard once it is filled with your transference. Then use Eternal Renewal to get back your Transference for 4 extra steals (or more if you use multiple Eternal Renewals)

Bad Santa + Feedback – the essence of using Feedback successfully is draw. Using Bad Santa in your combo’s will soon net you Feedback after Feedback that you can use in quick succession.

Sacrificial Lamb + Feedback – Feedback bombs are quite tricky to pull off because you need so much draw. Sacrificial Lamb is often a very good way to get some much needed draw to pull off those Feedback bombs

Turn 5: 2cc ally + Feedback + Plasma Behemoth (or another 5cc card or another 3cc card + 2cc card)
Turn 6: 3cc ally + Feedback + Plasma Behemoth (or any other cards that you want to play for 6 resources)
Turn 8: Plasma Behemoth (or other 5cc card) + Feedback + Anything else up to 5cc (another Plasma Behemoth or Mind control?) + Feedback + Anything else up to 8cc – hard to pull off, godly when you do! Being able to play 2 Mind Control’s in a row + fill the board will allies is just… awesome.
Turn 8: Bad Santa + Any card combination up to 3cc + Feedback + Any card combination up to 5cc + Feedback + Bad Santa + Any card combination up to 4cc + Feedback + Bad Santa + Any card combination up to 4cc + Feedback + Any card combination up to 8cc – this is the ultimate Feedback bomb/combo. So many cards to play on one turn. Good luck pulling it off (when you do, it feels amazing!). Note that while it seems impossible, it isn’t and you can manage it in a number of games if you play your cards right.

Transference + Feedback – This is a really cool combo in my books. You not only steal a card from your opponents deck unilaterally, you essentially get it for free. In a loop like the big one mentioned above (or an abbreviated version), you can steal a number of cards for free and get to play them all in the one go. Handy because it not only stifles your opponent by removing his good cards from his deck, but you can flood the board with your cards.

Life Infusion + Conversion – bit of extra heal never hurt

Shard of Power + Bloodlust - best used when you have a board with a few allies and you can play both together for an amazing +4 damage. Extra effective when you have 2 or more sparks down (with 4 sparks, that is a huge 32 damage in one turn…)

Hyper weenie rush example:

Turn 1 – Spark
Turn 2 – Spark, Spark (first Spark hits for 3 damage)
Turn 3 – Shard of Power (first three Sparks now hit for 15 damage, total of 18)
Turn 4 – Hellsteed/Spark + Elementalis ability (you now have enough damage to kill off most heroes. In 4 turns)

Elementalis in the future:

Honestly does not need a whole lot to become strong. Even one more board control ability card or cheap armor could turn the tables for Elementalis and see him become a strong hero. Has some good potential for future sets to improve his strength, although any Elemental class cards that help Elementalis are likely to help Zaladar more.

Good decks to check out on the forum:

Some good decks and discussions to check out:

http://www.shadowera.com/showthread....ementalis-v1-5 – A nice deck based of BlanketEffect’s Feedback Elementalis deck, this utilises Feedback to maximise the potential of ally swarms

http://www.shadowera.com/showthread....Feedbomb-Swarm – BlanketEffect’s Feedbomb Swarm deck, utilising Feedback to get an ally swarm happening.

http://www.shadowera.com/showthread....st-Elementalis – A nice control deck from Caitlyn0

Overall Recommendation:

Not quite there yet and so not recommended to beginners in this meta. Perhaps if in the future he gets something else to help out his board control, but until then, Elementalis is more suited towards experienced players looking for something new/different.


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