Time to end the cheap decks

[shinto_kuji]

I beg to differ that a good balanced deck can't counter "cheap" decks. You don't necassarily need territory (although I always carry an assistless or two in team decks). Besides, it's easily overwritten. The best counter for any of the harder decks is to just play aggresive. Draw like mad for cards and assists.

And if you play a hero RA, dark meteor is one of the best cards in the game for arkz spammers. Another card that's great for arkz spammers is lock on 3. It blocks any creature guard card like NA and MC guard, and it also blocks companion.

[zimmk2vgc]

There is a nice little card I have discovered that goes nicely with cheap decks. Its called PUNCH. Brilliant against cheap HU decks. Ever thought about that?

PLus cheap decks rock, dont diss them man. You need them to do certain quests...

[Jazhara]

On 2004-07-22 02:08, zimmk2vgc wrote:
There is a nice little card I have discovered that goes nicely with cheap decks. Its called PUNCH. Brilliant against cheap HU decks. Ever thought about that?

Punch is easily stopped by Punch Guard, TP Def, Weakness and many more.

The focus of this thread is on cheap Arkz decks, only low-level Hero players / idiots spam lots of weapons.

PLus cheap decks rock, dont diss them man. You need them to do certain quests...

What you use offline doesn't bother anyone, although you never *need* a cheap deck.

That's very different to playing a 4-player vs Human game where your opponents play 7 1 pt creatures each and fill the field, blocking up the whole board and preventing any hero player from doing anything useful. Very annoying, but easily beaten with the right tactics - hence this thread.

[Capricornus]

On 2004-07-22 02:08, zimmk2vgc wrote:
There is a nice little card I have discovered that goes nicely with cheap decks. Its called PUNCH. Brilliant against cheap HU decks. Ever thought about that?

PLus cheap decks rock, dont diss them man. You need them to do certain quests...

Thx for the great advice Zimm, I never thought about using the punch card in my deck

And now on a more serious matter: cheap does not necessarily mean a spam deck (eg-> red slime deck)

[Capricornus]

Sorry Jaz, seems like we both replied to the same post within the same time -interval -> hence replying almost the same stuff to the same post

Oh lets look it positivily, at least Zimm will know the difference now between spam- and cheap decks

[Nie]

On 2004-07-22 02:08, zimmk2vgc wrote:
There is a nice little card I have discovered that goes nicely with cheap decks. Its called PUNCH. Brilliant against cheap HU decks. Ever thought about that?

PLus cheap decks rock, dont diss them man. You need them to do certain quests...

I'm not worried about Hunter spam. Last time I checked though punch doesn't help you very much with ark decks, which seem to be the majority of cheap decks. Most of my decks revolve around Kranz and his limited range.

Cheap decks rock? Most cheap decks are so non-orginal its funny, yet each one claims he or she invented it. I don't know what quests you need to use "cheap" decks since a doorknob has more intellengce than a COM.

Anyways back on topic. I'd just like to know what people run into the most when it comes to these decks. I'm working on idea's right now. What we really need isn't an entire deck based around countering these decks.


Just a few simple cards we all can add to our regular decks to rid them of exsistance. With smiles decks your odds of getting an terroitory before they get their smiles out are very slim. The cave winds end very quickly then the set over the terrotory will occur. Then the smiles will come. So you'd have to get the assist after they set a Cave Wind for it to be any use, and by then they have the enough smiles to buy enough time for a Cave Wind to wear off.

Even if you can pull this off, if you're not ark, it will be very hard to get to these people, since the endless AB Guards.

Even though ST has downgraded these smiles they are still a huge threat. In tournies time kills more than anything. All they have to do is not get hit. Which is easy when you have smiles and AB Guards floating around. Even if you have tornadoes or quakes most of them use Rufina giving them 50 total hp.

My solution is effects that do not change even with guards and assists. I use (as I think I mentioned in a prevouis post. Maybe.) hp/ap swappers.
With minor death or heavy blow you can easly work your way up to the SC. I recently came across Hand Break and it has proved very useful in these attempts thanks to the carnage unincline.

A huge task for anybody. They

[Dr_Tokugawa]

Ugh.

Guys, the entire landscape will change when they update the cards.

Don't go through all the hassle of wondering why you lose all the time to the same deck when that type of deck will be nerfed within a month or two.

[Nie]

On 2004-07-22 17:51, Dr_Tokugawa wrote:
Ugh.

Guys, the entire landscape will change when they update the cards.

Don't go through all the hassle of wondering why you lose all the time to the same deck when that type of deck will be nerfed within a month or two.

Sorry I don't put any faith in ST. And I don't plan of losing to a deck I could possibly beat. If anything it's more annoying waiting and losing than it is atleast trying to do anything.

[Dr_Tokugawa]

See, the problem I have with this thread is this: These decks can be beaten. Very easily.

It's one of two things: You either don't have the cards to make imaginative decks, and only play HS weapons-with-shields-and-Split-Boosts decks, or you're just not that good of a player.

Think of it this way: If you face a Machine deck, stay away from an edge. Mobility will mean you can eventually get to them, provided you're intelligent enough to manuever through the monsters. If you face a Vivi deck with Charity/DF, throw up an Assist in its place, or I use Assist Vanish if there's no assists in my deck. If someone tries an EXP Decoy deck, I use Penetrate with a big weapon. I throw Aegis Guards in my deck b/c there's a lot of people who try Megid, or Soul Eaters, or Harisens. When they see that, they're surprised. Why? Because no one puts that in, yet it works against quite a few decks. And if it's useless? I discard it. Simple.

This is not a flame, but a truth. If you build a deck to counter specifically something that has pissed you off in the past, you'll get burned 90% of the time, because you'll sacrifice essential cards that should be in your deck for "situational" cards, or cards that are useful for a fraction of occurences. I've played collectable card games for over 10 years now, some professionally where I've gained prizes for competing in tournaments on world levels. I know a thing or two about flavours of the week. Besides, you come up with a golden way to beat a winning strategy, there will be another, better, so-called "cheaper" strategy that will pound you 9 times out of 10.

Best bet: Use this time to come up with a deck that wins against ANYTHING that gets thrown at it. That will make the difference between being a mediocre player, and being a skillful player.


<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Dr_Tokugawa on 2004-07-24 21:34 ]</font>

[Jazhara]

People seem to have lost the point of this thread somewhere... The tips at the start relate to one or two cards you can throw into any deck to help with cheap opponents, that also have uses against other decks. Choose ones appropriate to your pack / team / deck and add if you wish.

No-one enters tourneys with specific counter-decks unless they know their opponents very well, hence counter-deck strategies are useless. 1-3 helpful cards in a well-balanced deck is the only way (IMHO).

On 2004-07-24 21:30, Dr_Tokugawa wrote:
If you face a Vivi deck with Charity/DF, throw up an Assist in its place, or I use Assist Vanish if there's no assists in my deck.

As described in the sixth post...

On 2004-07-24 21:30, Dr_Tokugawa wrote:
Think of it this way: If you face a Machine deck, stay away from an edge. Mobility will mean you can eventually get to them, provided you're intelligent enough to manuever through the monsters.

That's not enough on its own - the Arkz players simply put more 1 point creatures down on their turn, and don't attack with any they need for blocking to prevent defence damage. Movement isn't the main problem, it's dealing with large damage from cheap creatures (unblockable in the case of Gilchich, area-effect for Recons) due to AP boosting assists (Mine Brightness, March of the Meek). Fly can help on medium / large maps, but Assist Vanish / Assistless are more reliable.

Again, all as described in the sixth post...