A quest strategy question

[Chris H.]

OK, Ned Flanders is officially cheesy. 2nd turn Hellkite Overlord with an Entomb and Exhume play. d'oh. I like it. That deck won't be an automatic win for me.

Edit: Game 2, Entomb, Reanimate, Hellkite Overlord. ouch. I might have to try and put a version of this deck together.

`
Ouch, I feel the pain.

Yeah, some adjustments might be needed. I want to see how other people feel about a few of these decks. Reducing the number of killer cards by a few can help to tone a deck down.

Or, a few of the hard decks might need to be moved to the quest assignment portion and become one of the bosses. I am open to suggestions.

[friarsol]

I definitely noticed a ramp up of some of the newer decks. Especially when it was early in the campaign and I had some crappy 2/2s and 3/3s. Without much removal in an early deck, you can quickly get runover no matter how well you play. That combined with playing on very hard can lead to no new card pool, and losing credits every game.
I don't know if they necessarily need to be moved to a quest deck, just be less deadly for the early stages.

[Chris H.]

I definitely noticed a ramp up of some of the newer decks. Especially when it was early in the campaign and I had some crappy 2/2s and 3/3s. Without much removal in an early deck, you can quickly get runover no matter how well you play. That combined with playing on very hard can lead to no new card pool, and losing credits every game.
I don't know if they necessarily need to be moved to a quest deck, just be less deadly for the early stages.

`
I do not mind tuning down a few decks. I just need to know which decks (by name?) need a little work. I agree that in the early stages of a quest it can be discouraging to always lose and never gain any credits. It can also be boring to always win and never feel that you were challenged.

[timmermac]

This was against 3. I just beat it in my last match, so it's not unbeatable. Please leave it alone. Decks that aren't an automatic win are a good thing.

[Chris H.]

This was against 3. I just beat it in my last match, so it's not unbeatable. Please leave it alone. Decks that aren't an automatic win are a good thing.

`
I think that friarisol is referring to decks with a 1 or a 2 in it's name. These are the decks from the easy and the medium difficulty opponents. The hard decks with a 3 in it's name need to be a challenging. I can leave Ned Flanders 3 as it is.

[timmermac]

51-22 at the moment. Sold 2 Time Walks and an Imperial Seal and have over 25000 credits as I type this. I may merge my green and red decks into one big deck. That way I can use Kird Apes as I get them.

Edit: I'm inclined to become extremely evil and create a super-size deck with all the cards in my collection, that way I can take advantage of certain cards and mechanics I might otherwise not use. Also, it might keep my record from becoming horrendously inflated.

[Chris H.]

I am falling behind in total matches played. I have only played 66 so far. I have not yet won any expensive cards that I could sell. I have 3922 credits and hope that I can buy some dual lands at some point. My current deck looks like this:

60 Total Cards

21 Creatures
-------------
1x Akroma, Angel of Fury
1x Avatar of Fury
1x Battering Craghorn
1x Boros Guildmage
1x Calciderm
1x Cinder Pyromancer
1x Cunning Sparkmage
1x Dragonmaster Outcast
1x Fire Imp
1x Guan Yu, Sainted Warrior
1x Kranioceros
1x Lightning Elemental
1x Rakka Mar
1x Rukh Egg
1x Shivan Dragon
1x Shivan Hellkite
1x Skyknight Legionnaire
3x Tattermunge Duo
1x Viashino Fangtail

15 Spells
----------
1x Beacon of Destruction
1x Char
1x Fire Ambush
1x Fireball
1x Flame Slash
1x Heat Ray
2x Lightning Bolt
1x Seal of Fire
1x Searing Wind
2x Seething Song
2x Swords to Plowshares
1x Volcanic Geyser

24 Land
--------
1x Boros Garrison
1x Ghitu Encampment
12x Mountain
9x Plains
1x Sunhome, Fortress of the Legion

[timmermac]

54-27 now. I actually won one with the entire collection deck. I got beat by Barney Rubble. Unblockable Sovereigns of Lost Alara with Eldrazi Conscription are nasty.

[freestorageaccount]

OK, Ned Flanders is officially cheesy. 2nd turn Hellkite Overlord with an Entomb and Exhume play. d'oh. I like it. That deck won't be an automatic win for me.

Edit: Game 2, Entomb, Reanimate, Hellkite Overlord. ouch. I might have to try and put a version of this deck together.

`
Ouch, I feel the pain.

Yeah, some adjustments might be needed. I want to see how other people feel about a few of these decks. Reducing the number of killer cards by a few can help to tone a deck down.

Or, a few of the hard decks might need to be moved to the quest assignment portion and become one of the bosses. I am open to suggestions.

Stupid (not sexy) Flanders. After I opened with Dark Ritual, Entomb, and Exhume for Akroma, Angel of Wrath, he tried to follow suit with Reanimate and committed suicide! You can also steal the creature he Entomb.ed with Animate Dead or Reanimate.

I agree, anyway; some of the opponents (such as the walls one) can be difficult if you don't have a fast deck. It becomes far too easy to run over all of the decks after a while, though, and restarting the quest over and over is no fun.

Any idea when Animate Dead will be turned into an Enchant Dead Creature? Academy Rector currently likes to fetch Debtors' Knell, but she's open for other juicy targets.

[Chris H.]

Stupid (not sexy) Flanders. After I opened with Dark Ritual, Entomb, and Exhume for Akroma, Angel of Wrath, he tried to follow suit with Reanimate and committed suicide! You can also steal the creature he Entomb.ed with Animate Dead or Reanimate.

I agree, anyway; some of the opponents (such as the walls one) can be difficult if you don't have a fast deck. It becomes far too easy to run over all of the decks after a while, though, and restarting the quest over and over is no fun.

Any idea when Animate Dead will be turned into an Enchant Dead Creature? Academy Rector currently likes to fetch Debtors' Knell, but she's open for other juicy targets.

`
Sometimes the computer can really give us a hard time. We have enough cards that the computer can use that we can design a large number of AI decks. We are getting close to having 200 AI decks to face in quest mode.

I am not sure when or if someone will get around to converting Animate Dead into an aura. So much work has been done over the last year or two, yet there always seems to be so many plans on our todo list.

[timmermac]

57-31 now. Lost to Vader 3 twice. He got Battle of Wits out in all 4 games. Lucky schmuck.

[Chris H.]

I am now at 89 wins and 5 losses. I have had many close calls where I was barely able to finish off the computer. I initially sold off the U B and G cards to fund my purchases at the bazaar. It is a way to get a quick leg up so to speak.

I am not sure that I would sell off so many cards in the future. I now wish that I had the other three colors so that I could try another deck or two before I start over again.

I may take a look at the new easy decks over the next several weeks and see if any of them look like I should tone them down a wee bit.

[Sloth]

Since the Barney Rubble 1 deck seems to be too strong, I posted an easier version in the deck section.

[Chris H.]

Since the Barney Rubble 1 deck seems to be too strong, I posted an easier version in the deck section.

`
Thank you. I just merged the new version into the SVN. I made a list of decks that may or may not need a similar minor tone down:

Darrin Stephens 1
Bamm Bamm Rubble 1
Ned Flanders 1
Grampa Simpson 1
Harry Potter 1

King Arthur 1
Jack Sparrow 1
Joe Kidd 1
Magnum 1
Wilma Flintstone 1
George of the Jungle 1


The group of decks on the bottom include my Hatchling decks and a few others. I will work on these for the moment.

[timmermac]

At the moment, three quarters of the way through my first season with the 6/26 version, I'm 75-45. I'm mainly playing a deck with all of my cards, though I'll probably be selling everything with Cumulative Upkeep as soon as I get home from work. I currently have 20 life and the wall and the wolf maxed. I've got somewhere in the neighborhood of 17000 credits, thanks to winning a pair of Time Walks and a Mox Sapphire at various points. I currently don't have more than 3 of any card other than basic land at this point. I currently have 1 Beastmaster Ascension and no Doubling Seasons at this point.

Edit: I'm still keeping with the baseball thing for my record with this. It's kind of fun, and it gives me a point of reference.