After a year long beta the digital card game from Bethesda and Direwolf has finally launched. It is set in the Elder Scrolls universe, featuring all the various races and lore (important historical characters and events). It's aimed at a competitive audience, with much less RNG and more mature theme than Heartstone or Eternals.
Some of the unique features are PvE content - starting with 20 mission solo campaign serving as a tutorial for the game, during which you'll learn the ropes and build your first 6 or 7 starter decks (your choices during the campaign influence which cards you get, which is a nice touch). There are more campaigns coming in the future. There's also a solo arena, which you should hit after the campaign, where you can battle AI opponents to extend your collection (it has some nice rewards) and see how some combos and deck archetypes work. You can also play practice games vs AI and craft cards you need (disassemble those you don't need or have extra copies of and use arena/practice/pvp rewards for crafting).
For PvP there are arenas, casual and ranked play (I advise against going into ranked early on. It's not possible to farm noobs in this game like in Heartstone, it's damn hard). Ladder is reset every month, with people dropping in ranks to previous "breakpoints", ensuring a healthy meta and constant struggle.
In the future they plan on releasing structured in-game tournaments, spectator mode and so on.
The game is completely free to play, with the ability to buy extra booster packs (no need for that since arena rewards are decent enough to build your collection quickly - especially in pvp arena, but that's hard).
I've been playing this game since January and I've been having a blast so far. Managed to reach rank 2 in the ladder (you start at rank 12 and can go up to legend, which is rank 0) and gather about 94% of the core collection since then (could have 100% but I'm a sucker for foils and instead of getting cards I don't have I spend a lot of crafting resources on getting premium versions of the cards I like).
I really don't like their art direction. Though I guess it might grow on you as you play. Considering there are 4 games launching in a small window in this genre right now I think that is a big strike against it.
So less rng than heartstone? By how much? Not that i know the number on luck in Heartstone. So when attacking the hero, occasionally that leaves that player to draw a card. Is that what is less luck in this game?
Looks very similar to heartstone? Unless the lanes differ alot?
On March 11 2017 06:01 Foxxan wrote: So less rng than heartstone? By how much? Not that i know the number on luck in Heartstone. So when attacking the hero, occasionally that leaves that player to draw a card. Is that what is less luck in this game?
Looks very similar to heartstone? Unless the lanes differ alot?
Less RNG in a sense that it's more manageable and not game breaking (think Yogg-Saron, how do you play around that?). There's only a handful of cards that have random effects and those effects are rather limited in scope. It's generally more friendly for competitive players, since your deck composition and skill play much higher role than in many other games (you don't really have decks that basically play themselves or RNG to the point where it doesn't really matter what you do).
The lanes are different in that in the shadow lane (right one) creatures can't be attacked for a turn. Creatures also can't attack between the lanes (with 1 exception), which gives it more strategic depth. There are also Chaos Arenas each month, where you have plenty of different lane effects. This shows that's there's plenty of possibilities here and they might introduce some new stuff later on (the game just launched).
The card drawing as you get hit is a form of comeback mechanic and also increases the strategizing part, since when you draw a card this way you might be able to play it immediately for free (prophecy cards), which can drastically change the board (removing a creature or dealing damage to the player or putting a big creature on the table for example) so you have to play around it.
I've been playing card games competitively for over 20 years now (M:tG, Doom Trooper, Netrunner, CoC, V:tES, Doomtown among others) and this is the first digital CCG that has engaged me properly.
I think ESL has much less rng like ragnaros, implosion or knife juggler but the whole prophecy system seems extremly broken theoretically. Would be interesting to hear from somebody that plays more. Eternal, from the same company, is one of the closest games to magic, with a really generous f2p system.
Just started, playing through story mode. I am always intrigued by stall decks but in most games they tend to underperform. Still early on and havent seen much but so far there is a lot of +health cards and cards that act on that, and then there is the smuggler deck you get in chapter 8 that has some cool magicka gain (but the lethality seems gimicky because u give up stats for the lethality thing which is situational, so I swap them out).
Anyone who has seen some more cards seen any synergies that might fit the long game / removal style? (I got a purple rarity support card that gives all dwemer guard and 0/3, which seems storng, but i have no dwemer yet =[).
On March 11 2017 06:01 Foxxan wrote: So less rng than heartstone? By how much? Not that i know the number on luck in Heartstone. So when attacking the hero, occasionally that leaves that player to draw a card. Is that what is less luck in this game?
Looks very similar to heartstone? Unless the lanes differ alot?
Less RNG in a sense that it's more manageable and not game breaking (think Yogg-Saron, how do you play around that?). There's only a handful of cards that have random effects and those effects are rather limited in scope. It's generally more friendly for competitive players, since your deck composition and skill play much higher role than in many other games (you don't really have decks that basically play themselves or RNG to the point where it doesn't really matter what you do).
The lanes are different in that in the shadow lane (right one) creatures can't be attacked for a turn. Creatures also can't attack between the lanes (with 1 exception), which gives it more strategic depth. There are also Chaos Arenas each month, where you have plenty of different lane effects. This shows that's there's plenty of possibilities here and they might introduce some new stuff later on (the game just launched).
The card drawing as you get hit is a form of comeback mechanic and also increases the strategizing part, since when you draw a card this way you might be able to play it immediately for free (prophecy cards), which can drastically change the board (removing a creature or dealing damage to the player or putting a big creature on the table for example) so you have to play around it.
I've been playing card games competitively for over 20 years now (M:tG, Doom Trooper, Netrunner, CoC, V:tES, Doomtown among others) and this is the first digital CCG that has engaged me properly.
Ah ok. Thanks for the insight. Sounds promising actually and i will actually try it now after seeing this. I have always liked cardgames but not cardgames with to much luck involved.
On March 11 2017 07:26 Kickstart wrote: Just started, playing through story mode. I am always intrigued by stall decks but in most games they tend to underperform. Still early on and havent seen much but so far there is a lot of +health cards and cards that act on that, and then there is the smuggler deck you get in chapter 8 that has some cool magicka gain (but the lethality seems gimicky because u give up stats for the lethality thing which is situational, so I swap them out).
Anyone who has seen some more cards seen any synergies that might fit the long game / removal style? (I got a purple rarity support card that gives all dwemer guard and 0/3, which seems storng, but i have no dwemer yet =[).
Some tips for the beginning:
- do not do any crafting or other activities before you finish the campaign (I guess you can start solo arenas or do some practice games before finishing the last chapter since it's pretty hard and can take you several attempts to beat it) - do not spend gold on booster packs, 1 pack is 100 gold, 1 arena is 150 and the least you can get from it is 1 pack, some gold and some gems, from 5+ wins in the arena you get 2 packs and some extra cards gold and gems. Clearing up arena gives really nice rewards (pvp arena has better rewards than solo arena but is a lot harder). - health-gain cards seem really strong in the beginning, but are actually pretty weak and barely, if ever, see any play in constructed (notable exceptions would be a couple of creatures with drain and snake tooth necklace). That's because with those cards you're wasting your magicka on upping your health a bit, which usually doesn't change your situation at all, especially if you're behind on the board. Board control is king.
Now, for your concerns and some deck archetype knowledge:
Control decks
Those usually want to get to the late game. Most likely they won't be attacking you at all (until they take over the board with their clears and end-game 9+ magica cost creatures and kill you in a single turn) and will rely on stalling and removal to get to the later stages of the game. Typical control decks include: - control mage (willpower/intelligence - yellow/blue): blue is the color of some of the best cards out there, most notably great aoe removal, direct damage spells and a lot of reach (ability to hit your opponent ignoring his creatures) - control monk (willpower/agility - yellow/green): sacrifices some of the AoE and reach for more single-target removal and potential of getting high-end creatures earlier (thieves guild recruit). Much worse than control mage in my opinion - control spellsword (willpower/endurance - yellow/purple): the pinnacle of control decks with the best late game tools in the game. Has a harder time against aggressive decks than control mage due to lack of AoE removal, but come lategame it's a powerhouse. - ramp scout (agility/endurance - green/purple): this deck gets to late game sooner than others due to all the ramping effects. Struggles against multiple creatures, sporting but a single AoE removal but is really fun to play (and not fun to play against).
Midrange decks
These decks usually top out they magica curve around 7-8, being able to switch their playstyle by controlling aggro decks and out-pacing the control decks. Typical examples include:
- midrange sorcerer (intelligence/endurance - blue/purple): with some of the best value creatures you can play on the curve this deck is a solid contender against any opposition, being able to slug it out against anyone and come on top due to superior creatures and wards. - midrange archer (agility/strength - green/red): more aggressive than sorcerer, this deck has better removal and thrives on getting ahead early to seal the deal with 6 cost cards that trigger off of having more health than your opponent. - token spellsword (willpower/endurance - yellow/purple): this deck is based on creating plenty of creatures out of thin air, thus trading favorably most of the time until it overwhelms you with numbers (or a 30/30 flesh atronach). - orc warrior (strength/endurance - red/purple): orcs, orcs everywhere. A rather aggressive deck featuring lots and lots of orcs, which make other orcs stronger (consider MtG slivers). Orcs being rather strong and tough to begin with, this deck can get out of control really fast. - crusader (willpower/strength - yellow/red): a fairly aggressive deck featuring plenty of abilities that trigger off of breaking enemy runes.
Aggro decks
Now, those don't really think much ahead. Their only goal is to seal the deal as soon as possible, before their opponent can stabilize and kill them with superior creatures and AoE removal.
- battlemage (intelligence/strength - blue/red): those come in a thousand forms, ranging from ultra aggro prophecy, through Merric combo to Wisp Mother OTK combo. Prepare to meet plenty of those on the ladder, since it's one of the hottest combinations for some time now. - pilfer monk (willpower/agility - yellow/green): this deck has lost a lot of favor in recent months but remains one of my favorite decks to play (after I finally figured out how to build an effective one, which took some time). It's a very explosive deck featuring plenty of small creatures that get stronger as they attack your opponent. Getting them there is the trick, so those decks usually feature a lot of movement sheananigans and other nasty surprises (no one expects 3 2/2 creatures to deal 15+ damage in a single turn). I've had more wins than losses with this deck at rank 2 so it's definitely viable, just not consistent enough to be considered the top contender. - assassin (intelligence/agility - blue/green): another not very popular combo, comes in a lot of varieties, from tempo mastermind decks (with creatures that have triggered abilities when they die) to aggressive decks using a lot of spells to kill you.
Anyway, in the beginning you shouldn't really focus on building any of the top tier decks since they usually consist of plenty of epic and legendary cards.
In the beginning I'd advise you to focus on building an orc deck and/or an action mage deck. Both are great in casual play, which you can use to get some experience, level up and get gold going for the arenas and don't require that many legendaries (in orc deck you only really need 2, 5 to 8 when building a version at ranks 5- on ladder). Other good choices could be mono blue or mono red aggro decks. Mono blue simply outvalues the opponent by having a lot of reach and cycling, thus always having a hand advantage and red is simply too aggressive for many of the decks to handle.
Of course, you can simply build whatever you fancy since ultimately practically everything is playable in this game, even at higher ranks. There are some cards that are sub par of course, but that's not a detriment to the game.
I strongly suggest everyone to watch "From Loser to Legend" series by Justin Larson, where he explains some core mechanics and concepts in the game and gives advice on starting your collection (note however, that his list of top cards to craft is a bit outdated, if you need one, I can post it). https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLRt6g0qtMDrY35g15a-aGAyvhYyoH96Gz
Went through story then all the starter dailies. Beat the solo arena first time, then did 4 MP arenas. Went 2-3, 5-3, 5-3, 3-3. Not too bad I guess.
What is the quickest way to get gold? The blue/purple deck I want to run uses Gardener of Swords but I cant get that card without spending $10 or getting 1500 gold. Kinda lame :@!
edit: This is the deck I was trying to build. Are there any adjustments to be made since that was posted? And, which cards do I begin crafting? I was thinking craft down the purple rarity because I have breton chosen as my avatar so I can get those legenderies when I level enough.
On March 11 2017 19:31 Kickstart wrote: Went through story then all the starter dailies. Beat the solo arena first time, then did 4 MP arenas. Went 2-3, 5-3, 5-3, 3-3. Not too bad I guess.
What is the quickest way to get gold? The blue/purple deck I want to run uses Gardener of Swords but I cant get that card without spending $10 or getting 1500 gold. Kinda lame :@!
edit: This is the deck I was trying to build. Are there any adjustments to be made since that was posted? And, which cards do I begin crafting? I was thinking craft down the purple rarity because I have breton chosen as my avatar so I can get those legenderies when I level enough.
With breton avatar you have a chance for High King Emeric or Supreme Atromancer at levels 24 and 32 (you'll also be able to upgrade your Expert Atromancer to Supreme Atromancer at level 42 or something). Crafting Gardener of Swords is easy. It's rare so it only costs 300 gems to get 3 copies of it. Here's the list of top priorities to get in blue and purple (cards you'll use in more than 1 deck):
Legend
nothing - common (50 gems/card)
* - rare (100 gems/card)
** - epic (400 gems/card)
*** - legendary (1200 gems/card)
Intelligence (in order of increasing magicka cost)
Firebolt
Shrieking Harpy *
Wardcrafter *
Camlorn Sentinel
Cunning Ally
Daggerfall Mage ***
Mace of Encumbrance *
Lightning Bolt
Supreme Atromancer ***
Intelligence (specific to certain decks)
Skilled Blacksmith *
Gardener of Swords *
Elusive Schemer *
Master of Arms **
Fate Weaver *
Ice Storm **
Endurance
Windkeep Spellsword
Haunting Spirit *
Young Mammoth *
Preserver of the Root **
Shadowfen Priest **
Night Shadow **
Nahagliiv ***
Endurance (specific to certain decks)
Iliac Sorcerer **
Hist Grove **
Tree Minder
Blood Magic Lord ***
With those lists you can't go wrong crafting anything in the non-specific lists since you'll be using those cards a lot (the best cards in the color, used practically every time your deck involves said color).
So I got a shiny legendary from a pack, green 6 cost cat thing (quiinran burglar or something, the pilfer +6/6 one), I'm temped to get soul gems from it and get Nahagliv or something that I would use in my current deck. Is the burglar good enough that I should keep it or get another legendary for my deck?
Edit: Just hit 24 and got high king emeric to put in, kind of nice. Not getting the supreme atromancer upgrade until level 40 is really annoying though because there have been several situations where the damage would have won me the game. Maybe I should keep that one in till 40 but get a supreme atromancer as well, having one of each. Doing an item sorcerer build so supreme atromancer is more of a priority than nahagliv I guess? (daggerfall mage's probably are as well).
On March 15 2017 08:43 Kickstart wrote: So I got a shiny legendary from a pack, green 6 cost cat thing (quiinran burglar or something, the pilfer +6/6 one), I'm temped to get soul gems from it and get Nahagliv or something that I would use in my current deck. Is the burglar good enough that I should keep it or get another legendary for my deck?
Edit: Just hit 24 and got high king emeric to put in, kind of nice. Not getting the supreme atromancer upgrade until level 40 is really annoying though because there have been several situations where the damage would have won me the game. Maybe I should keep that one in till 40 but get a supreme atromancer as well, having one of each. Doing an item sorcerer build so supreme atromancer is more of a priority than nahagliv I guess? (daggerfall mage's probably are as well).
You'll get another shot at supreme atromancer at level 32 (if you're a breton you get a chance to get one of emeric, daggerfall or supreme at levels 24 and 32). Don't go for item sorcerer out of the bat. You need like 8 legendaries for that deck and plenty of epics. In general it's hard to build a ladder-worthy sorcerer without 3x daggerfall (it and supreme atromancer are like must have blue cards in competitive scene). You could opt for a more budget mid-range sorcerer to get you going or something (although you could easily do that with budget action mage too).
Example deck: 3x Firebolt 3x Dragontail Savior 3x Shrieking Harpy 3x Wardcrafter 3x Wind Keep Spellsword 3x Camlorn Sentinel 3x Cunning Ally 3x Haunting Spirit 3x Mace of Encumbrance 3x Young Mammoth 3x Archein Elite 3x Dres Renegade 3x Lightning Bolt 3x Royal Sage 3x Shadowfen Priest 3x Black Worm Necromancer 1x High King Emeric 1x Nahagliiv
This is like the cheapest sorcerer that has some potential (7200 gems total to craft this deck from scratch). You can build on from that as your collection grows, especially that it features some of the most used cards in both colors. In the beginning there's really no point in looking at the top meta decks since most of them cost 16k+ gems to craft and usually include 5+ legendaries.
Speaking of Quin'Rawl Burglar: in my personal opinion you can soul trap it. It's an extremely powerful card (if you can answer it when it shows up - you're good, if you can't - you lost the game) but I've found myself not using it at all recently, even in pilfer decks.
Just started playing a couple days ago and I am enjoying it so far. I find it has similarities to magic which I like and have played casually for many years. I can see how they can really expand the card base for the better I think. (5 colors, similar creature powers)
I'm deciding to play it free for now. Building up coins to buy the madhouse collection.
The ladder is fun to test deck ideas. I am finding it frustrating to play people with better cards I do not have that simply win, however I get I have to build up to those cards myself. My decks tend to play fast right now and fizzle out before killing my opponent then slowly losing to a comeback which just sucks. I noticed there are few or no legendary cards that are cheap cost for fast decks. I need to collect the better cards and then judge this again I think my cards just suck right now for what I want to do.
What are people's opinions on the rune draw system? I think it is cool but almost too helpful sometimes if you smash your opponent early. Losing nearly every game right now to having played all my cards while my opponent sits and chooses from 5+ to beat me after I take away all their runes and they sit around 5-15 health.
edit: I think I'm realizing my cards stink or I don't have 3 of what I need. Collecting multiples and better cards could take some time if you don't buy packs. Decks that beat me just feel better constructed and more consistent with full play sets of almost each card I'm sure. I have tons of decks I want to make but will not be at their best until I have play sets of basically everything. grinding games win or lose to just level up atm.
In the beginning you should be grinding practice mode on expert for gems (15 gems/win) which can boost your crafting speed and casual games/dailies for enough money to get you into arena (which nets you at least one pack and some gold).
If you're not sure what deck to aim for in the beginning, you can never go wrong with orcs since it's the simplest build possible (just get every orc you can get your hands on and put them in the deck).
Chaos arena has been terrible for me. Before this weekend event I went 7 win runs in 2 out of 3 versus arenas (first one with no losses)! Some of them really dick you, like the random animal one. Though to be fair in one match my first 2 creatures both turned into swamp leviathans......
On March 19 2017 20:56 Kickstart wrote: Chaos arena has been terrible for me. Before this weekend event I went 7 win runs in 2 out of 3 versus arenas (first one with no losses)! Some of them really dick you, like the random animal one. Though to be fair in one match my first 2 creatures both turned into swamp leviathans......
Chaos arena is just for kicks. Pure RNG most of the time. Willpower is awesome in there since it has plenty of cards that spawn multiple creatures in a lane or a creature in each lane.
I hate chaos arena, it seems that my opponent always gets the better rolls
I've been playing this since January, but have mostly played arena and have not climbed ranked constructed like OP. I've been interested in aggro, since the idea is that with two lanes it's harder for the opponent to control the board with creatures. Also one of the lanes is a shadow lane. Due to wanting to play aggro, the color combinations I've played most are blue/red, green/red, blue/green, and red/yellow in order of frequency. At first I thought that the prophecy system was too strong / not the best design, but I changed my mind after realizing that they actually don't gain a card when they hit a prophecy. They only get to play it for free, which is a mana/tempo gain.
Finally, after 3 months of playing this game I've reached Legend. Unfortunately I did it at the very end of the season, but I believe I can do better next month.
On March 30 2017 14:59 Manit0u wrote: Finally, after 3 months of playing this game I've reached Legend. Unfortunately I did it at the very end of the season, but I believe I can do better next month.
Grats. I noticed after the reset I was rank 9 or something, but don't we start at 12? Do you know if the rank is maintained some each season or did I just see it after I leveled up again.
I am still filling out my collection, but I have a majority of the cards now and my decks are much more fun to play. Once you build a bit of a gold base you can play arenas more or less free if you do the dailies for gold which are simple.
One thing I am still getting used to is the crazy comeback potential that can happen either from the rune loss or simply good card synergy. I have won and lost many games where I or my opponent sits at 1-2hp and pulls off a combo for the win. It is nice when you are the one combo-ing.
On March 30 2017 14:59 Manit0u wrote: Finally, after 3 months of playing this game I've reached Legend. Unfortunately I did it at the very end of the season, but I believe I can do better next month.
Grats. I noticed after the reset I was rank 9 or something, but don't we start at 12? Do you know if the rank is maintained some each season or did I just see it after I leveled up again.
I am still filling out my collection, but I have a majority of the cards now and my decks are much more fun to play. Once you build a bit of a gold base you can play arenas more or less free if you do the dailies for gold which are simple.
One thing I am still getting used to is the crazy comeback potential that can happen either from the rune loss or simply good card synergy. I have won and lost many games where I or my opponent sits at 1-2hp and pulls off a combo for the win. It is nice when you are the one combo-ing.
After the reset you drop to the lower milestone rank (9 drops to 12, 5-8 drop to 9, L, 1-4 drop to 5).
I'm super hyped about the Fall of the Dark Brotherhood now. The story is pretty cool and I like how they've made it even more interesting with not just branching but also some logical choices (you get some info and based on it you have to accuse the traitor, choosing from several people), definitely not something I was expecting from a card game.
Huge fan of this game. I wish more people on TL were excited about it. It's better than Hearthstone by a mile and doesn't cost a bunch of money to get into.
I recently bought Fall of the Dark Brotherhood and it's really good. A lot of replayability there with different story arcs and mission choices; you also get titles depending on what you do, which is a nice touch for completionists. The narrative itself isn't amazing but not terrible. With a normal and hard mode it's worth every penny, imo.
As for the cards themselves, I love them. I came late into the May season at rank 9 (late as in two days ago, lol) and managed to get to rank 5 before closing out last night. Thematically it really feels like your piloting a bunch of assassins.
Add me! I'm UnsungRuin. Let's play some games and create our own little community. Hopefully they'll add clan support at some point.
On June 03 2017 20:14 bardtown wrote: Why would you release for PC, Mac, Android and not Linux?
I was upset about that. AFAIK there was a problem with Bethesda.net Launcher not working on Linux. Steam works just fine so I hope that it'll work there too. Will check this out around 17th (when Debian 9 is released and I finally get my comp working as I want it to).
So I've been playing this game since this thread was posted (thank you OP! they market it so poorly I don't think I'd ever have found the game otherwise!) and I'm thoroughly enjoying it. I've put a significant amount of money into the game, but you definitely don't need to. I figured I didn't mind buying Pokemon cards back in the day, so why, now that I actually have money and income, wouldn't I spend some on this game too?
For those who don't want to spend money: arena is your domain. I recommend using the versus battle only to get enough gold at first to buy an event ticket, and then try to just play arena as the rewards are better there (although it can be immensely frustrating as well). http://tsunderedev.moe/TierList/ is a great resource for a beginner in the arena: just click the icons to filter for the colours your arena class is, then use the website to guide the cards you choose out of the 3 random choices. As you flesh out your 30-card arena deck pay attention to how many cards per cost you have, and start to lean towards the options you don't have to develop a healthy curve. So for example if you're presented with three cards which cost 2, 3, and 4, and you already have a lot of 4-cost cards, it might make sense to choose one of the 2s or 3s instead, even if according to the arena tier website one of those is technically inferior (unless it's one of the worst cards according to the tier guide).
Next: crafting is a free to play player's best friend. https://betweenthelanes.net/2017/06/03/pdmds-beginners-guide-to-legends/ is an okay guide, and the crafting/soul trapping section in it is okay (and there are others out there). Basically, as you get a feel for how each class (colour combination) works, and start to learn through practice (and remember if you hit the soulforge button in your collection you can read up on every single card even if you don't have them) what each card does, you'll get a sense for what you enjoy playing and what cards are essential for any particular class (or even just colour, for that matter).
If you don't want to spend money, I recommend soultrapping (destroying for 1/3rd value) cards that either are objectively bad, aren't in the colour(s) you want to play, and/or don't interest you for the time being. Over enough time you'll get every card back anyway, but diving into the ladder with a deck sorely lacking in good (not always the rarest) cards is going to be painful. So you can jumpstart your collection for a certain class, colour, or even specific deck by soul-trapping other cards and crafting the specific cards you're interested in. Arena will give you a good number of packs and soul gems as is (reinvest the gold into the arena, and save up the excess for Dark Brotherhood and Madhouse expansions) for this purpose.
Another great way to build your collection from the start, in addition to (or instead of, if you're squeamish about hindering your collection rate) soultrapping cards is farming the ai. Defeating the expert ai will give you 15 soul gems, and you can earn 300 soulgems a day (20 wins) through this method. You can construct a cheap deck (mono red aggro or anything very high in prophecies has a decent chance) for the purpose of defeating the expert ai for soul gems. If your deck is well suited for the task it should take about an hour per day to accomplish this. I'm guessing most people on this forum play starcraft, league, or dota, and are comfortable playing hour-long games and/or grinding and mass-practicing, so this shouldn't bore you. This method, which admittedly is a little tedious, is hands-down the most effective way to get soulgems for crafting cards.
I recommend against crafting legendaries early on, as they're expensive and don't individually make a deck good. Epic cards tend to offer more bang for their soulgem cost, and you can get the 3 copies you need to have a decent draw-rate to actually be able to use your new card for the price of a single legendary.
I wanted to say more, but I'm running out of time and have to go to work, so I'm gonna just dump some good resources:
https://www.reddit.com/r/elderscrollslegends/ if something interesting happens with the game or in the community, it'll show up here. Also there are game developers who post here and clearly pay attention to people's complaints and communicate patch changes decisions, etc. https://betweenthelanes.net/ good resource with many guides by reputable top players https://www.legends-decks.com/ good resource with guides (although many are old and their tier lists aren't completely accurate anymore, but can still be an effective benchmark for a newer player). Most importantly this site allows you to (by hand, but it gets easier once you update it as you get new cards) report your entire collection so that you can compare your collection to other peoples' decks to see what you're missing and to get stats about your collection that the in-game collection doesn't show. Additionally you can upload your decks here to visualize them easily (in-game ui sucks honestly), show them to other people to inspire them or get feedback, and you can view other peoples' decks (such as the top ranked players).
Oh, and FYI: if you install the game on Steam and play it through Steam at least once before the 14th of this month you'll get 5 free booster packs.
Also any purchases you make after launching through steam will be split between Direwolf-Bethesda and Steam, so if you want to support the company that made the game more make all of your purchases in-client after launching from Bethesda's launcher.
Thanks for all the great resources! Awesome stuff. It also boggles my mind how poorly ESL is advertised. Hopefully being on Steam will give it a shot in the arm.
Have you guys played around with last month's reward card, Protector of the Mane? It's pretty rad. It has crazy good synergy with Bruma Profiteer and Leafwater Blessing. I actually just got The Immortal title (having over 100 health at the end of a game) using it. Here's the deck I'm using; I'm currently only rank 5 and am planning on switching it up. It's a control deck and can get pretty exhausting strategically due to every game going long. It's also frustrating against super aggro decks / Mundus bullshit (I hate Mundus).
There's also a strong case for Green-Touched Spriggan in this deck, but I only have 1 of them so it's not worth it for me. Let me know your thoughts! Also what decks are you guys running right now?
https://www.legends-decks.com/deck/10308/ayrenn-control https://www.legends-decks.com/deck/10014/cicero-rage These are the decks I used to get rank 5 last season. Both are control decks. If I'm running a control deck without red or purple for belligerent giant or shadowfen priest respectively I always include 1-2 vicious dreughs for support removal. There's nothing better than saving one in your hand to rain on their parade when they finally draw the support they've been waiting for all game.
I've also been using my variation of bradfordlee's altar assassin deck, but I don't have it uploaded atm. I think he uses a very different version now. I need to reevaluate my version too since snake necklace apparently no longer combos with last gasp effects. Not sure if that messes up the deck or not, since it was so nice to snake necklace suicide an indorill archmage via cruel firebloom or altar resummon. Other than the weakness of the deck being weak if it takes too long to draw an altar (or if it gets removed) it also sucks that vicious dreugh is inviable since altar potentially removes control over its timing. The deck is really fun and versatile though.
Here's a deck I used to get to legend previously and rank 2 in May (didn't have enough time to grind to legend) for anyone interested. It's a really fun and stable deck. It's biggest advantage is that it doesn't really have bad matchups - you can play aggro against control decks and control against aggro decks (racing is always an option too).
Not sure if you guys heard, but the Heroes of Skyrim expansion is dropping on the 29th! They previewed some cards on Twitter and they look really cool.
I hope I'll be able to find some time to grind this month. Didn't even leave rank 5 yet and it takes about a week to get to legend for me, sometimes more...
What's the best way to spend gold? I guess saving 500 for a deck is better than spending little bits on basic packs. But should I save 1500 for the special cards?
Just started playing and the game's pretty fun so far. Got max wins first run in both solo and versus arena ^^. What's the best way to gain levels? I want to get level 40 to upgrade my Supreme Atromancer before hitting ranked.
The best way to spend gold is to 1. Get the madhouse collection/other sets 2. Run arenas 3. If you have too much of it, you can buy some packs (just remember to keep ~300 on you at all times for arenas)
The best way to gain levels is to play arenas and ranked (you can go at it even without legendaries, check out the budgetify series on YouTube by Christian Van Hoose and Justin Larson).
I haven't been playing much since I hit 100% on my collection (technically Legends-Decks tells me I'm at 97% by card completion and only 92% by soul-gems, with 35k more soulgems to go...), but this has remained my favourite, strongest, and most consistent deck for ladder for a while now.
A somewhat in-depth explanation of the deck is on the Legends-Decks page, but suffice it to say the deck uses Supports and Support-synergy cards inside a Control Mage archetype to find infinite value and resources to defeat anything your opponent can throw at you. The ways that the deck differs from other Control Mage decks allow it to better endure the decks they are normally weak to. The extra regen from Elixir of Vitality does a great job of helping stabilization against aggressive decks. Depending on which supports you find and which you can keep in play, Vaermina can give you powerful answers against ramp decks, Wabbajack can remove threats from the game, such as Paarthurnax or Alduin which ramp decks often try to recycle via Soul Tear, Goldbrand can quickly start 1shotting even the scariest cards, Winterhold can give you novel answers to any situation, and with a Cauldron Keeper in play you can do all of these things twice per turn.
I'm late to the game, but is there a tier list for deck combinations in terms of attribute combination?
I've been playing Alduins Apocalypse out of sloth, just the generic, pre built deck with decent results in casual. The combination per legends deck is spellsword but I'm not super well versed.
I have an... assassin deck I think it is that I've been tinkering with, but I'm not sure if it has come out that one combination of strength and X is best.
On October 18 2017 21:07 ThomasjServo wrote: I'm late to the game, but is there a tier list for deck combinations in terms of attribute combination?
I've been playing Alduins Apocalypse out of sloth, just the generic, pre built deck with decent results in casual. The combination per legends deck is spellsword but I'm not super well versed.
I have an... assassin deck I think it is that I've been tinkering with, but I'm not sure if it has come out that one combination of strength and X is best.
I don't understand the question. Every class is viable right now. There's always going to be a flavour of the month, but with a sufficiently complete collection you can run any class with any archetype you want, provided you employ a good curve and have answers to most common threats.
If you post your deck I can give feedback on it. How's your collection looking right now? I can try to give answers relative to how many epics and legendaries you have. The fastest and slowest decks usually benefit from the more expensive (rarer) cards, but you can make some very effective midrange decks with cheap cards.
On October 18 2017 21:07 ThomasjServo wrote: I'm late to the game, but is there a tier list for deck combinations in terms of attribute combination?
I've been playing Alduins Apocalypse out of sloth, just the generic, pre built deck with decent results in casual. The combination per legends deck is spellsword but I'm not super well versed.
I have an... assassin deck I think it is that I've been tinkering with, but I'm not sure if it has come out that one combination of strength and X is best.
I don't understand the question. Every class is viable right now. There's always going to be a flavour of the month, but with a sufficiently complete collection you can run any class with any archetype you want, provided you employ a good curve and have answers to most common threats.
If you post your deck I can give feedback on it. How's your collection looking right now? I can try to give answers relative to how many epics and legendaries you have. The fastest and slowest decks usually benefit from the more expensive (rarer) cards, but you can make some very effective midrange decks with cheap cards.
Sorry about the delay, My collection is piss poor in all likeliness. I have been playing with a stock 500g Aduin deck and some goofy stuff I copied from Legends Decks with similar cost substitutions where my collection failed me for the most part.
I've also be playing arena against the PC with mixed success.
I was just curious if there was one class that had seemingly eeked out a higher win rate at the moment I could focus on.
In the beginning focus on creating a budget deck that will carry you through early stuff. You can view CVH's channel on YouTube for a section on budget decks.
I'm starting to hate the draw/prophecy mechanic. It's so damn random and the more random the worse... I can't count the games I have won/lost due to pure luck when destroying the runes. I also feel it favours aggro decks a lot while control decks suffer, which makes me a sad man as someone who likes to play control.
I had the most success with control/ramp decks Prophecies aren't as random as you think. You can control it (there's a reason why people are creating prophecy heavy decks).
I don't think you can't "control" it. It's still random after all. You can, however, reduce the random factor by a lot, I'm aware of that. There is still the draw mechanic though. If you play control vs aggro you are bound to eat quite a bit of damage early on if you don't have all the answers you need immediately. In MTG I could bring a game into full control at 5 HP. In TES:Legends you often end up dying after taking "control" because there are no counters, limited amount of creatures on the board and equally important the draw mechanic. You basically have to wait until you get enough on the board to kill him in one swipe because they probably still have ~5 runes. But that also gives them time to draw a card each round and maybe draw board cleaner or direct damage.
I also have the most success with control decks but that's because I suck at aggro. It's not my style so I often make mistakes I wouldn't make with a control deck. I also lack some of the more powerful mid-/lategame board cleaners because I'm rather new to the game.
Heh, I've devised a deck that's the king of control. It's biggest weakness is that it often generates too much of a card advantage (especially against more aggressive decks) and tends to overdraw at times. Anyway, I love the idea of beating enemies with their own cards...
Late game secured (notice how I have 4 Manticoras and an Odhaviing, 1 manti and oda are from my opponent's deck)
On February 04 2018 13:23 Miragee wrote: lol, that hand. o.O What are you doing against aggressive decks that don't have board clears like that?
With aggro/midrange decks it's a toss-up (like with any other control deck) - either they curve out and manage to dismantle you before the late game comes or you stabilize and control the board until victory.
This particular deck is even more fragile against aggro than other control decks since it's designed to fight primarily other control decks (you steal their cards and outvalue them late). It's pretty dope though. I've recently fought against crazy altar assassin with this, survived Journey into 2x Tullius' Conscription but had to fold after that as I was 1 damage short of lethal
On February 04 2018 13:23 Miragee wrote: lol, that hand. o.O What are you doing against aggressive decks that don't have board clears like that?
With aggro/midrange decks it's a toss-up (like with any other control deck) - either they curve out and manage to dismantle you before the late game comes or you stabilize and control the board until victory.
This particular deck is even more fragile against aggro than other control decks since it's designed to fight primarily other control decks (you steal their cards and outvalue them late). It's pretty dope though. I've recently fought against crazy altar assassin with this, survived Journey into 2x Tullius' Conscription but had to fold after that as I was 1 damage short of lethal
Sounds like a deck I would lose to.
I managed to get to Legend rank for my first time since I started playing back in october last year. Have been playing a blue/white control deck for the past two months now. Last month I made some changes and it works very well for me now. I win vs most other control decks but sometimes I run into trouble when I only draw shit for rounds on end and lose board control vs them (drawing 0-3 mana cards 7-10 rounds in a row is pretty unfortunate...). It doesn't happen often though. Also made it to rank 4 again on day 1. That's something new, it was a pain in the ass the months before.
In the meanwhile I'm constructing a few other decks. I want to make green/purple control work but I'm short of quite a few cards I fancy. Will see how that works out.
On February 04 2018 13:23 Miragee wrote: lol, that hand. o.O What are you doing against aggressive decks that don't have board clears like that?
With aggro/midrange decks it's a toss-up (like with any other control deck) - either they curve out and manage to dismantle you before the late game comes or you stabilize and control the board until victory.
This particular deck is even more fragile against aggro than other control decks since it's designed to fight primarily other control decks (you steal their cards and outvalue them late). It's pretty dope though. I've recently fought against crazy altar assassin with this, survived Journey into 2x Tullius' Conscription but had to fold after that as I was 1 damage short of lethal
Sounds like a deck I would lose to.
I managed to get to Legend rank for my first time since I started playing back in october last year. Have been playing a blue/white control deck for the past two months now. Last month I made some changes and it works very well for me now. I win vs most other control decks but sometimes I run into trouble when I only draw shit for rounds on end and lose board control vs them (drawing 0-3 mana cards 7-10 rounds in a row is pretty unfortunate...). It doesn't happen often though. Also made it to rank 4 again on day 1. That's something new, it was a pain in the ass the months before.
In the meanwhile I'm constructing a few other decks. I want to make green/purple control work but I'm short of quite a few cards I fancy. Will see how that works out.
For control scout the primary cards you need are ramp cards, Red Bramman, Tazkad, the Packmaster, 3x Eclipse Baroness, 3x Blood Magic Lord. That's pretty much it when it comes to more expensive cards (Baroness isn't expensive since you get her from Dark Brotherhood campaign).
For anyone interested, here's the most recent version of my control mage deck that's been working out really well for me:
I really like fighting against other control mages, it's so much fun!
1. You use Miraak to steal something from them 2. They use Miraak to steal your Miraak 3. You Arrest one of their Miraaks 4. You Doppelganger into Miraak to steal the other Miraak 5. Congratulations, you now have 3 Miraaks in play!
https://www.legends-decks.com/deck/17161/vaermina-control This is my deck I was using about half a year ago. I stopped using it for a while because when I returned to the game I had to learn about the Forgotten Hero set and explore new ways to use the Clockwork City cards. Also it seemed like there was too much support removal going around. However when the Grand Melee started I realized I didn't have a deck I had greater confidence in, so I ran this and went 9-3, which I'm pretty happy about.
https://www.legends-decks.com/deck/28241/laaneth-control This is a newer deck which is somewhat similar to yours. I like Fabricate and Blackmail because I can fit them into turns where I can't or don't want to use all my mana. I don't have as much control over the result as cards like Riften Pickpocket or Doppelganger, but I feel like they're safer to fit into the deck because of their low cost. This deck was working pretty well for me in ladder last season. I'm considering swapping out Revealing the Unseen for Reverberating Strike.
In your deck is Nahkriin just there for the lulz that happens if he sticks and you can Doppelganger him?
I love Elusive Schemer, but I've phased him out of non-altar decks because I think he's too slow in games against aggro or midrange. He's even becoming less effective against willpower control decks thanks to Cast Into Time.
I love Thieves Guild Shadowfoot, but I go back and forth on whether I think she's worth including or not. Sometimes I'll replace Daggerfall Mage with her. I go back and forth on Daggerfall Mage as well-- sometimes I think she's worthless sometimes I think she's great. She just feels so slow to me. There are so many great 3 cost cards now, especially in Intelligence, and many have an immediate effect.
Riften Pickpocket is a really cool card, but I've never felt like I had room to spare for her.
Doppelganger is really cool and I definitely haven't explored the card enough to know if I can make room in more decks for him or not. The 5 cost slot is pretty heavily contested and busy as is, especially with Cast Into Time now available. I did however make a ramp sorceror deck that uses him. It's nice in ramp decks because those tend to have more individually powerful cards with a curve favouring more higher cost cards, so you have more things worth cloning and have the extra mana to use him without any tempo loss.
On February 04 2018 13:23 Miragee wrote: lol, that hand. o.O What are you doing against aggressive decks that don't have board clears like that?
With aggro/midrange decks it's a toss-up (like with any other control deck) - either they curve out and manage to dismantle you before the late game comes or you stabilize and control the board until victory.
This particular deck is even more fragile against aggro than other control decks since it's designed to fight primarily other control decks (you steal their cards and outvalue them late). It's pretty dope though. I've recently fought against crazy altar assassin with this, survived Journey into 2x Tullius' Conscription but had to fold after that as I was 1 damage short of lethal
Sounds like a deck I would lose to.
I managed to get to Legend rank for my first time since I started playing back in october last year. Have been playing a blue/white control deck for the past two months now. Last month I made some changes and it works very well for me now. I win vs most other control decks but sometimes I run into trouble when I only draw shit for rounds on end and lose board control vs them (drawing 0-3 mana cards 7-10 rounds in a row is pretty unfortunate...). It doesn't happen often though. Also made it to rank 4 again on day 1. That's something new, it was a pain in the ass the months before.
In the meanwhile I'm constructing a few other decks. I want to make green/purple control work but I'm short of quite a few cards I fancy. Will see how that works out.
For control scout the primary cards you need are ramp cards, Red Bramman, Tazkad, the Packmaster, 3x Eclipse Baroness, 3x Blood Magic Lord. That's pretty much it when it comes to more expensive cards (Baroness isn't expensive since you get her from Dark Brotherhood campaign).
I actually almost never see Blood Magic Lord anymore. If I do see it it's often a 1x. Skeletal Dragon has largely eclipsed him, especially thanks to Soul Tear spam.
Additionally I see less and less ramp scouts-- even those running control seem to favour shout packages using Word Wall, Greybeard Mentor, 3x of each shout, Shearpoint Dragon, and of course Paarthurnax.
Lucky you. I was fearing there would be too many midrange sorcerers and warriors in the grand melee (and there were quite a few) so I ran with midrange monk and went measly 6-6
As to some of the deliberations: Nahkriin - I find him really useful, he is great card draw late in the game, you get big body and can sometimes get 0 cost mantikora (that you don't have to use right away). Especially useful with my greedy lineup Schemer is kinda meh, but it's reliable card draw. Daggerfall can be really lacklustre but I find her really good when fighting for the board early on. Shadowfoot is the best. Never disappoints. Pickpocket I'd run more copies of if I could fit her in. The amount of information she gives you is amazing (revealing 3 cards from opponent's deck). I get a lot of mileage out of her, especially against other control decks. Doppelganger is the latest addition, I've included him in place of Dark Rebirth/A Night to Remember/Winterhold Illusionist. It's great to get the summon effect again and another body to boot. Much less useful if you're not heavy on summon effects in my opinion.
And for the lulz and real greed, check out the Summoning Sickness deck I was running with for the magicka surge event:
No one knew what was going on I tried it with Doppelganger and with this 6 cost neutral card that triggers all summon effects (not as good since I usually had only 1-2 creatures on the board at the same time). Might be hilarious if I run them both. Mantikora, next turn Doppelganger and trigger all summons
On March 05 2018 08:11 Manit0u wrote: Lucky you. I was fearing there would be too many midrange sorcerers and warriors in the grand melee (and there were quite a few) so I ran with midrange monk and went measly 6-6
As to some of the deliberations: Nahkriin - I find him really useful, he is great card draw late in the game, you get big body and can sometimes get 0 cost manticora (that you don't have to use right away). Especially useful with my greedy lineup Schemer is kinda meh, but it's reliable card draw. Daggerfall can be really lacklustre but I find her really good when fighting for the board early on. Shadowfoot is the best. Never disappoints. Pickpocket I'd run more copies of if I could fit her in. The amount of information she gives you is amazing (revealing 3 cards from opponent's deck). I get a lot of mileage out of her, especially against other control decks. Doppelganger is the latest addition, I've included him in place of Dark Rebirth/A Night to Remember/Winterhold Illusionist. It's great to get the summon effect again and another body to boot. Much less useful if you're not heavy on summon effects in my opinion.
And for the lulz and real greed, check out the Summoning Sickness deck I was running with for the magicka surge event:
No one knew what was going on I tried it with Doppelganger and with this 6 cost neutral card that triggers all summon effects (not as good since I usually had only 1-2 creatures on the board at the same time). Might be hilarious if I run them both. Mantikora, next turn Doppelganger and trigger all summons
That deck is very similar to mine. I use more guards though. I also went over the 50 card limit. Still not happy with some things. 3 Illusionists kind of seem to much. Even though they can be very useful with basically every creature in my deck, sometimes I end up with 3 of them on my hand + dark rebirth and night to remember but no card to use them on and then what? :D Usually only happens against other control decks so I can just sit it out but still...
What site do you use to make those images? Just screenshot and upload?
Still needs some refinement. Thinking about dropping Black Dragon but he kind of served me well because people tend to overreact when he is on the board. As said, 3 Illusionists seem to much. No idea about Indoril yet, he is a recent addition. 2 Penitus might be enough as well. Cast into Time is incredibly strong in my opinion. I added that and Miraak fairly recent and they both won me so many games.
@Manitou: I pretty much lack all the cards except one Bloodlord and the Empress. And I'm always low on crystals.^^
Still needs some refinement. Thinking about dropping Black Dragon but he kind of served me well because people tend to overreact when he is on the board. As said, 3 Illusionists seem to much. No idea about Indoril yet, he is a recent addition. 2 Penitus might be enough as well. Cast into Time is incredibly strong in my opinion. I added that and Miraak fairly recent and they both won me so many games.
@Manitou: I pretty much lack all the cards except one Bloodlord and the Empress. And I'm always low on crystals.^^
Calm, Evermore Steward, Grisly Gourmet, Penitus Oculatus, and Indoril Archmage are all pretty uncommonly used cards in constructed decks.
The problem with Calm and Grisly Gourmet is if you find them without each other or without an Execute they can be dead cards. It's uncommon to see 3x Execute without 3x Cloudrest Illusionist. 2x is fine.
Evermore Steward is pretty underwhelming in a vacuum, and with Execute still being used fairly often, Sorceror's Negation showing up in most sorceror decks, and Curse-type cards like Curse, Shearpoint Dragon, Drain Vitality, etc being so common in agility decks you're likely to not get much value from it.
Penitus Oculatus Agent just doesn't offer much. If you steal lethal from an archer deck he'll probably just play another lethal and kill you. If you steal guard from something you're left with a 2-3 guard for 3 mana, where you could have just played Camlorn Sentinel to have a 2-4 prophecy guard for 3 mana instead. The greatest value you can expect to get in most situations is to steal a Daggerfall Mage's ward, but that's more of an annoyance than a real victory.
Indoril Archmage isn't awful, especially if you can combine it with Dark Rebirth, but even then you've played 11 mana to probably just do what Dawn's Wrath would've done for 8 mana. The reason the card isn't competitive is whether you play it on curve or later, is it's an 8 cost card that has no immediate impact.
Night to Remember and Dark Rebirth are potentially good cards, but having both of those and Winterhold Illusionist really dilutes the strength of your deck. What happens when you find several of them early or late? You'll be stuck with cards that recycle the effects of creatures you don't have. I'd recommend cutting Winterhold Illusionist as there are better 5 drops for the class, such as Knight of the Hour, Phalanx Exemplar, or even Doppelganger is probably just straight-up better than Winterhold Illusionist in every respect. I'd probably cut Night to Remember too, but that's your call. I think it's at least a stronger card than Winterhold Illusionist because it has nearly the same result for 3 less mana. I think you can probably keep Dark Rebirth since you're running Elusive Schemer.
Do you not have a third Ice Storm or Mantikora? No Dawn's Wrath or Immolating Blast?
Oh I just realized you're at 64/50 cards. It's actually really important to only use 50 cards. Having extra makes your deck really inconsistent. It's tough, but you have to decide which 50 cards best implement the strategy you're aiming for while giving you the most effective options against the most common or most particularly dangerous threats.
Calm is never a dead card to be honest. You can use it to safely kill something as well without losing your creature on the board in case you don't have execute or gourmet. Gourmet and execute are rarely dead cards for me, either. The abundance of 2 power creatures is actually pretty high.
You might be right about Evermore. I might drop that one. I got some value out of it and it's especially great against aggro to buy time. I might try to play some games without it an see how it works out.
The problem with Penitus is that I don't really have a great replacement in mind. I'm not playing it so it becomes strong but to take potentially dangerous keywords away. 3 is definitely too much though. Reduced it to 2. Maybe I'm going to scrap him completely.
I don't like Knight of the Hour. Lots of controls played it against me and it did absolutely nothing for them. I can see it's value against aggro but to be honest, I don't have as much trouble against aggro. Night to Remember is really nice to bring Mantikora or Conjuration Scholar to the other side of the board. Definitely saved lots of games for me to have that option available.
I'm running 2 Ice Storms on purpose. I don't need 3. They aren't of as much value in this deck as you might think. I might use one in 1 out of 10 games and I rarely ever think "fuck, if I only had an Ice Storm". Mantikora is a test. I played with one at first, which clearly wasn't enough. Now playing with 2, testing. Might add another one. Don't have Immolating Blast or Dawn's. I don't fancy IB, I hate the randomness. Dawn's might be worth a shot instead of Indoril. Seems much better indeed.
I know it makes me less consistent, however, I found it works here because it doesn't really matter what cards I draw in the beginning to buy time but in the long run it gives me more versatility. I don't want to stay at 64 (down to 62 now actually) but I'm not aiming for 50 necessarily. If I can get down there over time that's nice but I'm not unhappy if I don't because I generally like where I'm at with the deck. It definitely needs some refinement but it has come a long way already.
Aww I love Immolating Blast. It never fails me! It's basically my win condition against ramp decks: those are some nice Swamp Leviathans you have, it'd be a shame if they all died to a 6 mana spell! Although 3x Reverbererating Strike can do the same thing, I've never pulled that off yet. I usually can't ever keep creatures on the board anyway, so I have nothing to lose from it. It's also really strong against Divine Fervor / Resolute Ally decks since those buffs often make creatures safe from Ice Storm.
On March 05 2018 17:52 Miragee wrote: Calm is never a dead card to be honest. You can use it to safely kill something as well without losing your creature on the board in case you don't have execute or gourmet. Gourmet and execute are rarely dead cards for me, either. The abundance of 2 power creatures is actually pretty high.
You might be right about Evermore. I might drop that one. I got some value out of it and it's especially great against aggro to buy time. I might try to play some games without it an see how it works out.
The problem with Penitus is that I don't really have a great replacement in mind. I'm not playing it so it becomes strong but to take potentially dangerous keywords away. 3 is definitely too much though. Reduced it to 2. Maybe I'm going to scrap him completely.
I don't like Knight of the Hour. Lots of controls played it against me and it did absolutely nothing for them. I can see it's value against aggro but to be honest, I don't have as much trouble against aggro. Night to Remember is really nice to bring Mantikora or Conjuration Scholar to the other side of the board. Definitely saved lots of games for me to have that option available.
I'm running 2 Ice Storms on purpose. I don't need 3. They aren't of as much value in this deck as you might think. I might use one in 1 out of 10 games and I rarely ever think "fuck, if I only had an Ice Storm". Mantikora is a test. I played with one at first, which clearly wasn't enough. Now playing with 2, testing. Might add another one. Don't have Immolating Blast or Dawn's. I don't fancy IB, I hate the randomness. Dawn's might be worth a shot instead of Indoril. Seems much better indeed.
I know it makes me less consistent, however, I found it works here because it doesn't really matter what cards I draw in the beginning to buy time but in the long run it gives me more versatility. I don't want to stay at 64 (down to 62 now actually) but I'm not aiming for 50 necessarily. If I can get down there over time that's nice but I'm not unhappy if I don't because I generally like where I'm at with the deck. It definitely needs some refinement but it has come a long way already.
Calm: it's not a matter if it's a dead card or not. It just isn't efficient in a control deck. Works nicely when paired with execute or Gourmet but that's just about it. It's better to use Cloudrest for that, same effect but attached to a 4/3 body and a prophecy. In general 0 cost cards are pretty crap in control mage since you're aiming for the late game and drawing Calm at a key moment can ruin your plans. Hell, I don't even run executes or firebolts any more (the only things they're useful against are goblin skulk and daggerfall, but I stopped caring if they draw all of their curses/blooms and daggerfall isn't that much of a threat. Drawing execute or firebolt lategame is just sad.)
Evermore Steward: this card does nothing. All you can accomplish with it is stave off some ultra aggro deck for a moment, and even then there are better cards to play. Kvatach Soldier, Cleric of Kyne, Priest of the Moons or Ravenous Hunger come to mind.
Grisly Gourmet: paying 3 mana to get rid of a 2-power creature is not really worth it in my opinion. It's nice if you manage to pull it off against alchemist or dark guardian but usually you can spend your mana in something more efficient (and something that gives you more than 2/1 body). There are much better 3 drops: Camlorn Sentinel, Daggerfall Mage, Cunning Ally (if heavy on blue), Dawnstar Healer, Thieves Guild Shadowfoot.
Penitus Oculatus Agent: totally not worth it, see better drops above.
Knight of the Hour: prophecy, guard, gives you health. What's there not to like? It's super useful lategame in even fights when you want to stay out of double lightning bolt range when going for the kill.
Winterhold Illusionist: Swap for Doppelganger or Memory Wraith, much better use of your magicka.
Conjuration Scholar: It's ok but a bit meh.
Indoril Archmage: It's ok but also meh. It's expensive and doesn't do anything when it comes on the board. After that it's vulnerable to silence, shield breaker etc.
Ice Storm: You should run 3 not because you use it often but to have a greater chance of having it in your hand when you really, really need it.
What I'd do with your deck to make it more effective immediately: +3 Daggerfall Mage/Thieves Guild Shadowfoot +2 Doppelganger +3 Knight of the Hour +1 Ice Storm +1 Mantikora
-2 Calm -2 A Night To Remember -1 Execute -1 Dark Rebirth -3 Evermore Steward -3 High Rock Summoner -2 Grisly Gourmet -3 Penitus Oculatus Agent -2 Vicious Dreugh -1 The Black Dragon -3 Winterhold Illusionist -1 Indoril Archmage
Bam! 50 cards, more consistency.
Next step would be to start replacing Conjuration Scholars with something more useful, like the Undying Dragons or Pillaging Tribunes for some comback potential
Thanks for your input! I dropped Penitus, Black Dragon and Evermore almost immediately after my last post. Dropped an Illusionist as well and I think I will drop the other two for 2 Doppelgangers as you suggested. There are some cases where Illusionist is better but I dig the option to copy a card to the other side of the board.
I don't like Knight of the Hour because he is only a good card when drawn as a prophecy and that's rare. On other occasions you get a 3/3 guard and 3 hp for 5 mana, wow.
I also think I will drop 1 Rebirth and 1 Night to Remember to lessen their occurrence.
Ice Storm already ends up being a dead card way more often than it is useful so I don't want to run a third one. I think the thought of "if I only had an ice storm now"-thought occurred about 2 times in the past few hundred games... I think I would rather lose those two games instead of ending up with it as a dead card even more often.
Grizzly will probably stay. It did too good of a job for me so far. Thinking about dropping High Rock Summoner, will see.
Ayrenn is on my list. Getting it as soon as I got the crystals.
That's an un-losable situation.^^ I had a game with 3 Miraak's on my side a week ago as well. :D
About the RNG: I hate RNG. It reminded me a bit of the MtG community I went to years ago and after a while all they did was playing commander in big groups... 100 card decks, only one of each card...and then in a group of 8 FFA. And all I wanted was playing constructed and maybe a draft here and there. But Chaos Arena is RNG on steroids. Commander is nothing against that.
Just read through the Houses of Morrowind announcement. Rally looks pretty OP for aggro decks. I fear it already. Betray seem pretty cool. I haven't read anything about a new story campaign. Do releases such as this always go with a 3-part campaign? If yes, I'm going to save up to 3k (I'm at 2,2k atm.).
On March 30 2018 08:57 Miragee wrote: lol, just saw it now :D
Just read through the Houses of Morrowind announcement. Rally looks pretty OP for aggro decks. I fear it already. Betray seem pretty cool. I haven't read anything about a new story campaign. Do releases such as this always go with a 3-part campaign? If yes, I'm going to save up to 3k (I'm at 2,2k atm.).
No idea if there will be a campaign but there will be extra challenges to buy for $ or in-game gold (1500g each). Similar to memory stars in Clockwork City.
On March 30 2018 08:57 Miragee wrote: lol, just saw it now :D
Just read through the Houses of Morrowind announcement. Rally looks pretty OP for aggro decks. I fear it already. Betray seem pretty cool. I haven't read anything about a new story campaign. Do releases such as this always go with a 3-part campaign? If yes, I'm going to save up to 3k (I'm at 2,2k atm.).
No idea if there will be a campaign but there will be extra challenges to buy for $ or in-game gold (1500g each). Similar to memory stars in Clockwork City.
You mean those "one way to win" missions that were included in the Clockwork City campaign? Should be quite a few for 1500g then.
//Ok, just read the news. So it's 3 sets of 10 puzzles each. One of them is free and the other two can be bought for 1500g each. Seems alright.
I just played someone who played with the wabbajack. He used it on my Mantikora and turned it into a Merric which in turn turned my whole line into fucking monsters. His item he got equiped with was Dragon Priest Mask so he triggered twice, lol. Would have loved to see their face when that happened. :D Should teach them a lesson about using that rng shit.^^
Ok, I think I really like the new expansion. Lots of cool stuff here. Played the first set of puzzles. It was quick (only Dagoth gave me headache because I was being stupid) but fun. Got a 7-2 on my first arena run and learned that only 1 out of 3 packs is from Morrowind. I thought it would be all 3. Oh well. I'm a little bit frustrated with ranked atm. I was on the brink of ranking up so many times lately but I just can't make it and lose to some random shit in the deciding game, followed by a win-lose-win-lose streak...
Not a fan of 1x Fire Storm. Same with CoW, I find it rather underwhelming outside of support decks. Pure Blood Elder never did anything for me.
What I'd suggest: -1 Fire Storm -1 College of Winterhold -1 Reverberating Strike -2 Pure Blood Elder
+1 Leaflurker +1 Orb of Vaermina (much better support than CoW in my opinion) +3 Sanctuary Pet (rarely disappoints) if dropped Reverberating Strike OR +2 Blood Magic Lord (always nice) if didn't drop RS
I really like the Shrine Guardian for Blue/White Control. I just don't know what I should drop because I feel like it's going to destroy my mana curve. Well, I still have some time to think about it until I have enough crystals to get 3.
Ranked continues to be frustrating. I created a silly Imperial Aggro Deck to get rid of my frustration. Ended up on a winning streak until I hit the rank-up game. Obviously got a loss, than win-lose-win-lose-win-lose into a losing streak. That worked out well getting rid of my frustration, lol. I then just started games and played random shit, alt-tabbing after every turn and pretty much neglecting what my opponent did in between my turns. Still managed to win a few games. -.-' I feel like I'm in the wrong mindset for ranked atm.
Versus Arena is much more fun on the other hand. Did 2 runs now that Morrowind is out and went 7-0 and 7-2. The deck in the second one even included a lot of red, which I don't know how to play. I feel like my card picks have become a lot more solid over the past month.
Meh. I kinda lost heart for this game (might take a break and return later, like I did previously). Somehow I'm super stoked to play the skele deck but at the same time I despise 3-color decks and what they mean for the meta
On April 13 2018 08:09 Manit0u wrote: Meh. I kinda lost heart for this game (might take a break and return later, like I did previously). Somehow I'm super stoked to play the skele deck but at the same time I despise 3-color decks and what they mean for the meta
I kind of feel like Blue/White Control has lost its purpose now that Blue/White/Purple is a thing. I have played quite a few of those now and I my win rate has definitely been below 50% against those, even though they played like complete scrubs. You are just able to get so much more value out of your cards if you also add purple. It's frustrating.
That's a good example. The main difference between mage and spellsword was that spellsword had better top-end, access to ramp and support removal while mage had better card draw and board clears. Now that line is blurred.
I started thinking about what aggro decks can do with a mixture of red/blue/green or red/white/green and my mind just went into overdrive...
I've been experimenting with attrition decks as a way to turn the disadvantage of having 75 cards into an advantage over 50 card decks. I've had good, if not perfectly consistent results across the four decks I've made so far. They're fun for me to play because I know how annoying they are for the enemy, but I don't feel as bad as I might with a more conventional control deck because these don't run particularly oppressive combos (like Paarthurnax + Soul Tear, infinite resources support mage, etc). The two Tribunal decks emphasize two different approaches to the concept within the same class.
Then here's a simpler midrange deck I had fun with. I don't claim this one is at all optimized because I stopped playing it to experiment with other ideas. It worked very well when I was using it though.
I like the expansion so far. My collection isn't complete so I haven't been able to experiment with all the new combinations and strategies. The most annoying thing I've encountered is Blackfall's control Tribunal list, which is incredibly oppressive if they find multiple copies of Cast Into Time and Hallowed Deathpriest relatively early.
My favourite new cards which are not House specific are Caius' Machinations, Feasting Hunger, Vigilant Ancestor, Moonmoth Castellan, and Tel Vos Magister.
Caius' Machinations is easily my favourite card. It's incredible, especially if you can find and play it with a Betrayal on turn 2 or 3. I prefer control decks, and being able to get 5-7 Dark Guardians, 4-5 Barrow Stalkers, 4-6 Camlorn Sentinels, 4-3 Shrieking Harpies, etc, especially in the pivotal first few turns is incredible. Being forced to sacrifice a card to get the +2/+2 isn't bad at all, since depending on your class you'll often have cards like Thieves Guild Recruit who have already served their purpose. This card could easily work in aggro or midrange though. Midrange decks already try to consistently play threats which require either specific or disproportionate answers from the enemy, compounding their threat by giving them +2/+2 can snowball a game very quickly. Even aggro, where the Betrayal is the least wanted, as keeping creatures in play to maintain the pressure is important, could gain a lot from this card. A warrior deck could comfortably sacrifice something like a Nord Firebrand or the 2-3 orc with charge, etc.
Feasting Hunger is a solid card, a 3-3 Guard alone isn't bad, and being able to heal for every enemy creature in play can make a big difference at keeping you alive long enough to find an Ice Storm or big guard, etc.
Vigilant Ancestor I find hilarious, and again as a player who prefers control the downside of the creature being shackled is negligible, and what's left is just a really efficient and powerful guard.
Moonmoth Castellan is easily my second favourite card. The first downside to it is you have to play something ahead of time, but that could easily be a Firebolt, Rapid Shot, Shadow Shift, etc. The second downside is that it competes with other powerful 4-drops, but in a 75 card House deck this is no longer an issue. I think the card is competitive even in 50 card decks though. It's not a bad card on its own as a 4-3 guard for 4, but being able to draw a card that you know is useful is great. If you're already interested in a 4-drop guard you're probably looking for another guard. And there are many creatures who happen to have guard who have other useful abilities that allow this to be useful even in midrange decks. Imagine running some kind of midrange monk deck, playing this before you've started your attack, then drawing a Sower of Revenge or something to mount your switch to offence with great momentum.
Tel Vos Magister is a great, versatile card. I usually find that outside meme decks (before the expansion hit I was running a Echo of Akatosh + Battlereeve of Dusk + Illusory Mimic + Factotums deck which definitely needed Ice Storm too...) the 6 mana cost slot is the least busy as is, so this card should be perfectly fine in 50 card decks, but probably finds a place in all House decks including intelligence. As a 6 cost 5-4 with ward it's not bad on its own-- compare to the unplayable Genumbral Sorceress: 5 cost 5-1 with ward, or the commonly used 6 cost 5-5 with ward High King Emeric. But giving you a guaranteed source of unbypassable damage reduction for at least one turn is very useful in both control and midrange decks.
As expected, aggro is pretty stupid now. You can build decks now where you basically have infinite card draw so you can just keep up the pressure forever until your opponent crumbles eventually. With all the shitty "summon: get x mana" on top of the draw is just ridiculous as people will just play half a dozen cards a turn.
Just picked this up, how do i actually build 3 color decks? Once I pick a second one choices just seem to disappear (and the only reason not to seem to be the allies, but they seem to be worse than the oathmen).
I'd really like to add some aggressive 2 drops to my sorcerer deck atm (which is probably a terrible choice for starters).
Also I'd appreciate recommendations about how to expand my card pool as fast as possible, since I seem to lack a lot basic of cards I've already seen and there are probably dozens that are better.
On June 27 2018 04:55 Archeon wrote: Just picked this up, how do i actually build 3 color decks? Once I pick a second one choices just seem to disappear (and the only reason not to seem to be the allies, but they seem to be worse than the oathmen).
I'd really like to add some aggressive 2 drops to my sorcerer deck atm (which is probably a terrible choice for starters).
Also I'd appreciate recommendations about how to expand my card pool as fast as possible, since I seem to lack a lot basic of cards I've already seen and there are probably dozens that are better.
Hey, sorry for the late reply, I forgot this thread existed!
To build a three colour deck you have to first add a three-colour card. There are currently only five three-colour deck types (Houses): Telvanni (blue-green-purple), Tribunal (blue-yellow-purple), Dagoth (blue-green-red), Hlaalu (red-green-yellow), and Redoran (purple-red-yellow). So for example, to construct a Redoran (purple-red-yellow) deck you could add a card such as Redoran Forerunner (2 cost), and that would enable you to use all three colours in that House, albeit with the requirement that you use a minimum of 75 cards rather than 50.
I have no idea what your collection looks like, but here are some 2 drops I can recommend in a midrange sorcerer deck (aggressive but not all-in on ending in the first 5 turns): Endurance (purple): Ald Velothi Assassin, Barrow Stalker, Wind Keep Spellsword, Dragontail Savior Intelligence (blue): Wardcrafter, Shrieking Harpy, Ice Spike, Soul Split, maybe Abeacean Navigator, and maybe Seyda Neen Courier. Certainly you wouldn't include all of the above at the same time though.
The fastest way to expand your collection is to exclusively play Versus Arena. There are various arena guides for recommending which cards to prioritize drafting around, and I have no idea which are up to date or worth using. Make sure you login every day to get the daily login reward and get a new daily quest. Complete every daily quest so you never lose the next day's quest. Use the excess gold you make from daily quests and three-win rewards in the normal mode to buy all of the expansions and pre-made decks.
On an unrelated note, I hit Legend rank for the first time this last season. I made a write-up about the ladder climb and the various decks I used to achieve that here. The tl;dr is I used midrange Battlemage and midrange Sorcerer through rank 2 and then mostly used a control Tribunal deck to hit rank 1 and then Legend from there.
Thank you for the extensive answer. Atm I have played through the pve content including arena, hit rank 9 last season and didn't get enough gold for a deck yet, so I don't have any card past turn 5 that I'd consider strong. I thought about going Telvani once I have enough gold, I have read though that the assassin campaign and the sorcerer deck are very good for upgrading as well though. I noticed in ranked that I have trouble once round 7-8 hits since I don't have good solutions for big creatures outside of deathtouch-cards like ald velothi and the dagger so I'm looking for a way that either helps me finish the game faster, keep up the card draw to keep my board full or some 6-8 drops that are able to carry my game. Is there a solution you'd recommend?
Could you explain why Ice spike is a good card? It seems to me that direct damage is only good when you want to extend your damage range to close out the game and while I think that it's okay for that, but in all other cases it doesn't develop your board, you spent 2 mana and your enemy possibly draws a card. I see it played a lot though.
Can you show me the deck you're using right now? It's easier to give suggestions after I see the whole thing.
Ice Spike is good because it gives you cheap card draw. If you're deliberately waiting to create a strong board before initiating an attack you can leave your opponent at 30 hp, and odds are you won't find the third Ice Spike to actually break a rune, so you just replace a 2 mana card with a higher cost card for the next turn. It's great on curve (when you're actually at 2 mana) or it's great for finishing off your mana at a later turn (e.g. you have 7 mana but have only a 2 and 3 cost creature in hand to put on board, then you finish off the last 2 mana with an Ice Spike which helps you find the stronger cards of your deck).
Card draw, also called cycle, is important because it effectively shrinks the size of your deck. You always want to be at the minimum of 50 cards in your deck so you have the greatest chance of finding your best cards. When you add a cheap card draw card you effectively reduce the size of your deck since the card replaces itself with a new card from your deck.
When you have 50 cards, technically three of them are your three worst cards. So Ice Spike can be better than having a 2 cost creature if you've already fleshed out your 2 drop creatures with those which help your deck the most.
It's a little hard to explain, so if I've done a bad job and you're still confused let me know and I can try to explain it better.
Now all that being said, not every deck that can run Ice Spike should, it comes down to a lot of specific card interactions and is dependent on what your deck is trying to accomplish, what cards it needs, and the overall curve of the deck (the distribution of mana costs).
Yeah I've played magic, so I know cycling from fetchlands etc and I think you did a fine job explaining it
It's just that it's a fairly expensive card for cycling when the decks are fairly large with 50/75 cards and the real effect is mainly a win in an aggro deck (which probably won't play blue) or on a finishing turn, when the card draw might just do nothing. Also if I play it early it stops me from just playing the usual 2 attack card in the 2 slot, which can use it's damage multiple times or open the way for the bigger threats. But TESL has a way later manacurve than what I'm used to due to the high hp, so maybe it isn't all that expensive here?
My initial deck had an earlier curve earlier with crown quartermaster, seyda neen courier and soul split but i didn't feel like early board pressure created enough tempo to kill much earlier and mainly made me vulnerable to aoe spells. Strategy: + Show Spoiler +
I tend to control the board early with Ashlanders, Wardcrafters, Mammoths, Haunting Spirit and Archein Elites and try to use that lead to kill with Lillandril Hexmages and royal sages. Cruel firebloom and daedric dagger use trash cards to generate value later on, with the former playing off adoring fan and Haunting spirit and the latter having some synergy with breton conjurer and wardcrafter. But if I don't win by turn 8 or 9 I start loosing the board rapidly and since all that aggression generates card disadvantage I mostly flatout loose by then. Which probably isn't uncommon considering it's midrange.
Cards I have I'm considering are Mentor's Ring (but I don't think I run enough attributes), Abecean Navigator, Bruma armorer and Shadowfen Priest. Cards I'm considering crafting are currently more Indoril Masterminds, more Ald Velothis, my third Archein, Barrow Stalkers, try out enchanted plate (which I liked in the pve arena and it's cheap), sorcerer's negation. I think Daggerfall mage and Lucien would both be very good in my deck, but since only have 2.2k Soulstones I don't think they'd be a good way to spend stones.
The biggest issue I have atm with crafting cards is that I have no idea which cards I'd get from the decks I can buy, is there a comprehensive list somewhere?
The cards that jump out to me as being very replaceable are Suppress, Cunning Ally, Tome of Alteration, and Elixir of Deflection.
Suppress is one of the worst cards in the game outside of very niche decks which rely on self-silence. You can easily replace that with Sorcerer's Negation, which is very strong in particular against common threats such as Daggerfall Mage, buffed Giant Bats, and creatures with last-gasp abilities, as well as generally being useful as either a nuke or silence.
Cunning Ally is a great card, but I wouldn't recommend it without at least 66% Intelligence cards, and I'd personally prefer to be at 75%+. I could recommend many 2 or 4 drops as a replacement, but if you want a 3 drop to maintain the curve I'd suggest either Dwarven Sphere or Mace of Encumbrance. Dark Guardian is a decent option as well if you feel like you're missing out on defensive options. I think that's a Dark Brotherhood expansion card though.
Tome of Alteration is never played outside of niche item-synergy decks. In theory it's not a bad card, buff a creature to get a favourable trade while also drawing a card, but the issue here is your deck has such a low curve I think it really hampers your close-out options. If you have the Forgotten Hero set Bleakcoast Troll is a very good same-slot replacement. If you don't, my recommendation is to finish off your other 4 drops that you don't have 3x of, in order of decreasing priority: Lightning Bolt, Rising of Bones, Archein Elite, and Royal Sage.
Elixir of Deflection is pretty awful, even as a 1 of. Depending on your player-level you should have 1 copy of Stronghold Eradicator and I would recommend swapping this out for that.
Breton Conjurer is a good card, but it's stronger in Battlemage because that class has good options for triggering its effect on the same turn. I think it's too slow for this deck, but that's up to you.
Lillandrill Hexmage is a good budget finisher, but I'm not sure if you have enough actions to consistently use it once you find it. In budget decks Hexmage is usually found in Assassin or sometimes Mage. And ironically Hexmage is always run with Ice Spike for their incredible synergy together.
If you were looking to expand your curve a little bit I could recommend swapping something out for one of the following budget options: Swamp Leviathan, Ironscale Dragon, or Bloodline Outcast. I will say that if you don't have any of those, only Ironscale Dragon ever sees play in some niche decks, and even as common cards I don't know that I would recommend crafting them.
The last thing I'd say about your deck is while the strategies are sound I don't know how competitive they are. You note that two full cards are devoted to turning trash bodies into threats, I wonder if you'd be better off reducing the number of trash bodies in the deck and replacing these cards with something more substantial. Cruel Firebloom does see a moderate amount of play, but usually only in slower decks running many cards with last-gasp effects, and/or Assassin decks running Goblin Skulk. Daedric Dagger basically sees no play, and since you already have two creatures with lethal I'm not sure how useful an inclusion it is. I'm worried your already low number of 2 drops are being inflated by it. In theory combining it with cards like Wardcrafter, Brutal Ashlander, or Adoring Fan can create a lot of value, especially in the case of the latter if its last-gasp effect removes an additional threat.
The problem is that as an aggressive Sorcerer deck your goal is use cards which require the enemy to use multiple cards in answer, challenging the enemy to deal with your threats while you either attack face or use your more efficient cards to maintain board control while you build up for the attack. For example, as a 3 cost 4-4 Young Mammoth will probably require either multiple cards or a single card with higher cost to be used to remove it, being very efficient either way. Haunting Spirit can trade to remove a threat while also buffing another creature to then further require a disproportionate answer. By comparison, Daedric Dagger, Cruel Firebloom, and Brutal Ashlander are all cards which usually require multiple of your cards to be used up to deal with one threat of the enemy. This makes you the inefficient one in a class which relies being efficient.
I'm not saying your deck can't work, but I suspect the scenario you described where you tend to fall off pretty quickly by turn 8 could arise from your deck being watered down by these kind of cards. If you are interested in exploring other options we can discuss other budget additions. My suggestions thus so far have been built on the premise that we don't want to change your deck very much, just replacing individual cards with same-cost cards that do the same thing better. We open a whole new can of worms looking into non-same-cost replacements.
And since I've been kind of vague, here are some example Sorcerer decks that I've run to some degree of success that portray the kind of curve and cards I personally find effective and can recommend, which are influenced by the meta and what other people also find strong (although I will say that I prefer crafting my own decks from scratch idiosyncratically, and that you should also look at other people's decks too). I understand that many, perhaps even most of the cards in these decks might not be in your collection yet, but if you want to try out some of these ideas I can recommend either budget alternatives or recommend which cards are actually worth prioritizing crafting.
https://www.legends-decks.com/deck/44600/alduin-crafter This is a midrange Sorcerer deck thematically focusing on the inclusion of dragons. In theory you could pull off the same strategy replacing all the dragons with other options, though there are some neat things you can only do with their inclusion. Other people seem to like this one, though whether thematically or strategically I don't know.
https://www.legends-decks.com/deck/44599/emeric-shade I would consider this a more standard midrange Sorcerer deck, though the inclusion of Breton Conjurer and Mighty Conjuring is unorthodox. I don't even know if I like having the former in this deck or not.
https://www.legends-decks.com/deck/40963/galyn-ordinator This one hasn't been tested at as high a rank as the others and probably needs tweaking. I include it just to show that in a different strategy within the same archetype of midrange Sorcerer some cards are the same across each deck and which cards or slots I consider more flexible.
https://www.legends-decks.com/deck/45119/college-hexmage I just threw this together to give an example of how I would run a Sorcerer deck playing around Lillandrill Hexmage. There are many other ways to achieve this. There are many Intelligence creatures which have synergy with actions that can work, but I wanted to build a deck that more closely resembled your deck than an "action deck".
https://www.legends-decks.com/deck/45122/hrothgar-weaver I just threw this together for the fun of it as it occurred to me. I thought I'd share it with you since while it includes a very different strategy than appears in your deck or the other examples, at its core it's a very similar body-focused midrange Sorcerer deck. Prophecy-heavy decks used to be very popular, although they were usually Mage or Assassin. Prophecy Battlemage is still popular, but it's a straight-up aggro deck. They could be decent in this meta since aggro is popular (Hlaalu in particular).
edit: oh you edited your post, trying to make my life difficult huh.
Abeacean Navigator isn't common, but he is decent with Lillandrill Hexmage. I don't know what card you'd swap him for, but I can get behind its inclusion.
Mentor's Ring is mostly unplayable. It's used in very niche decks, mostly one turn kill decks such as Stealer of Secrets OTK (usually Battlemage, but technically playable in any class relying on Shadowmere), Nix-Ox OTK (Assassin or Telvanni), or Hist Grove OTK in Telvanni, the last two both relying on Giant Bat + Mentor's Ring to give everything charge, and finally Emeric OTK where you give all of your creatures Ward before playing High King Emeric to nuke face for lethal damage. I can't recommend using this card in any deck, much less this one.
Bruma Armorer is pretty bad. I don't know why people bother using it every now and then. There are too many decks which use instant removal, lethal pings, or aoe removal for this card to ever be consistently effective. I can't recommend using this card in any deck.
Shadowfen Priest is good or core in every single Endurance deck. I can absolutely get behind crafting this, though I don't know if your deck has room for it with its current curve.
The cards you mentioned possibly crafting are all good.
Enchanted Plate isn't meta and hasn't been for a long time, but is still a good card. I don't think I'd recommend it in a tempo deck like this though.
Archein Elite is only played as a budget option in midrange Sorcerer decks. It's good for that specific role, but it doesn't see play in any other deck, and is usually replaced by other cards when available (in particular Corrupted Shade or Bleakcoast Troll). I can't recommend crafting another copy.
Barrow Stalker is one of the strongest most used Endurance cards in the game right now. Enough said.
Indoril Mastermind is pretty popular right now. He's stronger in slower decks, but is generally a decent card and could be worth crafting and even including here.
I don't know how often other people are using Ald Velothi Assassin, but I'm personally using it increasingly frequently. I do see it very often, but I don't know if that's because it's a relatively new card from the Houses of Morrowind expansion or because people actually think it's good. I can get behind crafting a third copy.
I already mentioned Sorcerer's Negation. It's not core in any deck, but it's playable in any Sorcerer or Telvanni deck.
Daggerfall Mage is considered one of the best cards in the game. I actually disagree, and don't use her in most decks anymore. That being said, any midrange Battlemage or Sorcerer deck running Wardcrafter can definitely use her effectively. I don't recommend crafting any legendaries at this point in your collection, I think rare and epic cards make better crafting goals.
Lucien Lachance isn't a bad card, but he's more of a meme card than a serious addition to a deck. If you find him in a pack you can include him in a deck like this, but I can't get behind crafting him.
Thank you for taking the time again. I can definitely confirm a lot of what you're saying and my deck probably mixes too much stuff to be competitive even for a trash deck, so the watered down definitely hits the mark.
Also thanks a lot for the decklist, that helps a lot with my crafting decisions.
@card-disadvantage My trash cards are mainly trash bodies like wardcrafter/ashlander/harpy and sometimes haunting spirit for 3 extra damage, so a lot of the time I'm generating value from something that generated already value/has last breath. But I agree that dagger weakens my board more than a javelin would and isn't as flexible, although to be fair it's 3 less expensive. I don't run a lot of copies of archein and ald velothi, so I rarely have a lot of overlap there. I should probably either swap the daggers for the more copies or the aforementioned for wind keeps to have another card that generates save advantage though.
Keeping the curve is in no way a requirement. While your dragon deck is charming, if I'd develop the curve I'd rather develop it to a lower cost deck since most decent high mana drops seem to be rare or legendary, so I simply don't have the resources to create something even remotely similar and that seems to go for most of the lategame synergy/cards.
I've had problems making 1 and 2 drops count enough to justify the body disadvantage, so they mostly got replaced by support cards like wardcrafter or 2 cost lethal drops like ald velothi. Since I don't have a lot of value 2 drops, I have somewhat of a hole in my curve there, so my deck plays more like a control deck at times when I'm up against aggro.
Edit: Ok I vastly overestimated what you get out of those constructed decks. Also going to bed, thank you a lot for your help!
I don't know what expansions you have access to but generally aiming for the midrange sorcerer deck is a good way to expand your collection. Plenty of cards in it that are useful elsewhere too, if you chose Breton as your avatar (and you should) you get some godly cards on the way to lvl 50. Midrange sorcerer is kind of the default deck that I turn to when I'm tilted and need to score some wins to get back into it. Mid sorc and control mage are by far my 2 most favorites decks of all time (with Merric taking bronze for the fun of it).
So, here is the old school basis for the mid-range sorc, how it was actually played when only core was available:
Now, this base remains mostly the same, with some slight variations:
Blue-heavy (cheaper version but just as effective)
Iliac Sorcerer -> Crown Quartermaster Daggerfall Mage (or Haunting Spirit) -> Cunning Ally (DM is hard to craft being non-unique legendary) Breton Conjurer -> Elusive Schemer 1 Night Shadow -> Heirloom Greatsword Bone Colossus -> Supreme Atromancer
Item heavy
Windkeep Spellsword -> Skilled Blacksmith Haunting Spirit -> Gardener of Swords Camlorn Sentinel -> Mace of Encumbrance 2 Mentor's Ring and 1 Night Shadow -> Tome of Alteration Bone Colossus -> Master of Arms
You can mix and match them. Another good card for the item version could be the Enchanted Plate (could get it instead of DM early on). For cheaper options on the top-end you can also use Blackworm Necromancer.
Also, your first purchase should always be the Madhouse Collection. It's essential.
What you'll usually see in difference is Corrupted Shade being swapped for Bleakcoast Troll (same stats but I've found shade to work better, even without the silence) and Memory Wraith for Whiterun Protector (depends on the meta, there's plenty of decks now that utilize graveyard heavily or use Tullius' Conscription so MW is better in my opinion).
At least now you'll know which cards are good and what to strive for
The constructed decks are very efficient as far as total soulgems/gold, include copies of essential epics and useful legendaries, and are easily the best use of your gold after you unlock the expansions.
So you buy the decks multiple times to gem them instead of packs? I didn't really consider that.
Could you explain why Madhouse Collection is essential? And is it worth waiting for that long before spending my resources to upgrade my deck?
Also is PvP arena a decent way to gain gold or is it "just" about expanding your collection and I should continue to spam ranked to unlock factions/decks?
I'll look at the card pool once I'm not at work anymore xD
On July 04 2018 20:35 Archeon wrote: Thank you for the additional input!
So you buy the decks multiple times to gem them instead of packs? I didn't really consider that.
Could you explain why Madhouse Collection is essential? And is it worth waiting for that long before spending my resources to upgrade my deck?
Also is PvP arena a decent way to gain gold or is it "just" about expanding your collection and I should continue to spam ranked to unlock factions/decks?
I'll look at the card pool once I'm not at work anymore xD
You can't buy pre-constructed decks multiple times. My collection is so big now that most of them are simply turned into gems (like all the core cards). I usually buy them to get playsets of some basic cards for the expansion to speed things up.
Madhouse Collection is essential in that it has really good cards in it and some of them are pretty much deck-defining in some cases: Altar of Despair, Gardener of Swords, Swindler's Market, Illusory Mimic - those are 4 cards which get decks built around them. Other cards in the set are also useful, even if some of them are rather niche but they still work great in some combo decks.
I mean, you can hold out with it until after you got the expansions and your card pool is larger. Here's a detailed overview:
As far as gaining gold/grinding: - spam ranked to get player levels (this unlocks stronger versions of cards - remember to choose Blood Magic Lord instead of Night Talon Lord and set your avatar to Breton for the time being as it gives you a shot at awesome legendaries) and some gold from dailies etc. - spam solo/pvp arena to get more gems and cards (not that great for gold as you have to use gold to get into it but usually just 3 wins get you ahead)
All of the collections and expansions are worth getting. I'd personally leave the Madhouse for last, since none of its cards are core in any meta decks. Most of their cards are core to niche decks such as OTKs, although some open up entirely new archetypes. The issue is that you'd have to prioritizing crafting a completely different set of cards to make the most of them.
Fall of The Dark Brotherhood is probably your first priority, although Return to Clockwork City is pretty good too. Forgotten Hero Collection is pretty good too. I don't know how much these cost, so prioritize them accordingly.
Versus Arena is best for gaining soulgems and Core/Heroes of Skyrim/Houses of Morrowind cards. Casual is probably the best way to earn gold, just complete daily quests and spam out some budget deck. Don't be afraid to concede early if things aren't going your way since there's no penalty for defeat. You can earn 10 3-game victory awards per day, for 150-400 gold and 10 random cards ranging common-epic (in theory legendary is possible, but I've never seen it personally).
Solo Arena is pretty garbage, the rewards aren't worth the headache of fighting the AI's bullshit crafted decks with >3x copies of cards and with RNG based factors helping them out.
Practice mode against Expert AI is a good way to earn Soulgems if you don't mind grinding. Prophecy high decks tend to be good against the AI because they will always break runes. You can earn 300 soulgems per day by winning 20 games against the AI.
On July 05 2018 04:03 Nightmarjoo wrote: Practice mode against Expert AI is a good way to earn Soulgems if you don't mind grinding. Prophecy high decks tend to be good against the AI because they will always break runes. You can earn 300 soulgems per day by winning 20 games against the AI.
I think it's better to go with something like mono red aggro for this. You win much faster.
I thought I'll post it for new players: The general card crafting guide.
Priority: 1. Missing common and rare cards 2. Epics 3. High impact unique legendary 4. Non-unique legendaries 5. Other
The reasoning behind it is that you can get 3 epics at the price of 1 legendary (3 rares at the price of 1 epic and so on) and usually those 3 epics will have much higher impact on your deck's performance than a single legendary. Then come the unique legendaries, because you only need a single copy, non-unique legendaries can be left for later since you need 2+ copies of them and that's really gem-intensive.
So, with that in mind here are the most wanted unique legendaries to craft (non-uniques are often deck-specific). I'll mark them at priority levels based not on their power (some with lower priority might be actually much better than those with higher priority) but by the amount of decks you can put them in. Basically, priority 1 dudes will be pretty much auto-include in their color and going down it will be for specific decks (won't list niche decks here).
Cards you need - Queen Berenzaiah - Ayrenn - High King Emeric - Ancanno - Tazkad the Packmaster
Cards you want - Ahnassi - Allena Benoch - Gorthwog Gro-Magnom - Merric-at-Aswala - Red Bramman* - Galyn the Shelterer - Nahagliiv - Ungolim the Listener - Brynjolf - Miraak Dragonborn* - Dawnbreaker - Lydia - Vivec - Therana - College of Winterhold - Nahkriin, Dragon Priest - Reive, Blademaster - Odhaviing* - Paarthurnax* - Journey to Sovngarde
I've marked most-wanted here with a star.
After that it's pretty much free game since you have all the staple cards in your collection. Then you start building specific decks and adjust accordingly.
If you've found a deck you'd like to play that's being used at high levels but you don't have the cards for it just go down the ladder. Usually you can substitute non-unique legendaries with epics and so on. Try to find good replacements for cards that make sense for this deck.
Some examples: 1. Building midrange sorcerer you first want to fill all your slots up to epics, then your next 2 crafts should be HKE and Ancanno. 2. Building an assassin you want to fill the deck up to epics and then get Queen Berenziah, Ancanno and Tazkad (in this order, when in doubt, go up the mana curve).
For good substitutes just ask here because it's really deck-specific.
I don't mean to start a battle of lists, but I really can't get behind yours, Manitou. I agree with your rarity priorities, but not with your specific unique legendary priority list.
So many of those uniques you listed aren't used in any serious decks currently or are only used in very niche strategies.
Lydia, Therana, Nahkriin, and Journey are all niche cards. Therana is only useful in Therana OTK decks and is a detriment the rest of the time. Nahkriin is a meme card that isn't even played in the only archetype he's playable in: control mage/tribunal. Lydia isn't core in any deck in the game and is easily skipped in any list. Journey is core in Journey decks (which are swiftly falling from meta) and is a meme the rest of the time. Making the most of it requires a sufficiently complete collection to build around it, not something someone worried about which legendaries to craft should bother with.
The following are expansion cards and don't need to be crafted: Galyn (Clockwork City) Garnag (Dark Brotherhood) The Black Dragon (Dark Brotherhood) Astrid (Dark Brotherhood) Laaneth (Clockwork City); she's only good in control decks
Miraak is core in any yellow control deck and unplayable the rest of the time (too expensive). Those decks require decent collections in at least one class. Red Bramman is playable in any scout deck, but he's only core in control scout, and even then usually only played in ramp control scout. While popular, that's a niche archetype that requires a pretty specific collection, not something I'd recommend a newer player bother with. He's easily skipped in non-control scout decks, and therefore I don't think deserves the * Odahviing is only playable in control decks, and while useful I wouldn't even call him core in those any more. I can't recommend newer players even think about crafting him. Paarthurnax is even worse than Odahviing. He's only useful in control scout specifically.
I love College of Winterhold, but it's only core in support control mage, a very niche and now completely removed from the meta strategy. There's no way this goes on any crafting list. Reive, like Garnag, is only played in the most aggressive red decks, isn't meta, and isn't as useful as Garnag. Core in 0 decks, barely useful in a handful of decks, there's no way this goes on any crafting list.
I value Merric much higher than Barenziah. I'm surprised you put her so high and didn't put Merric in the same column.
I would value Ungolim higher, although he does appear to be dropping from some circles.
So in the "cards you want" list that leaves: Ahnassi, Nahagliiv, Dawnbreaker, and Brynjolf. These I think do belong in this list and without an asterisk. To that list I would add Allena Benoch and Gortwog gro-Nagorm. They're more auto-include worthy in their respective classes than Barenziah.
Berenziah is so high on my list because she has really good stats and abilities for her cost. I mean, at 4 mana she fits into any deck that runs her colors, no exceptions.
I love Merric but he's only really useful in Merric deck (which I love but it's not meta at all now). Gorthwog never really did anything for me and can be easily skipped in pretty much any deck that isn't orcs. Allena is a nice addition but not crucial by any means.
Odhaviing, while falling out of grace in the meta has never let me down. Ever. And I have never regretted putting him in my decks.
Nahkriin in my opinion is seriously underplayed. For some decks it's absolutely crazy value.
God progression in this game is so slow. 5g/win is just nothing. Like even with a 2/3rd winrate and enough luck to not get enemies who need 30 seconds to decide how many of their initial three 6 mana dragons hey are going to redraw you probably need 10 mins avg per game, so that's 450 hours for forgotten hero and 900 for dark brotherhood.
Even if you half that because of daily rewards (assuming you win 3x per day while playing specialized decks that can summon a god or unsummon 15 creatures and still keep that 2 wins in 3 matches ratio) that's three months of regular playtime for DB alone and more time spent than I think I ever did on a Pokémon game.
I like playing the game, but tbh it starts feeling grindy and I need to invest the time I need to invest in a 4x game to get a deck that's remotely competitive.
On July 20 2018 06:58 Archeon wrote: God progression in this game is so slow. 5g/win is just nothing. Like even with a 2/3rd winrate and enough luck to not get enemies who need 30 seconds to decide how many of their initial three 6 mana dragons hey are going to redraw you probably need 10 mins avg per game, so that's 450 hours for forgotten hero and 900 for dark brotherhood.
Even if you half that because of daily rewards (assuming you win 3x per day while playing specialized decks that can summon a god or unsummon 15 creatures and still keep that 2 wins in 3 matches ratio) that's three months of regular playtime for DB alone and more time spent than I think I ever did on a Pokémon game.
I like playing the game, but tbh it starts feeling grindy and I need to invest the time I need to invest in a 4x game to get a deck that's remotely competitive.
Well, it does get easier as you go (until you start grinding for premiums). With daily rewards and just casual play you should be able to make it relatively quickly. I'm not even playing every day and even then it's usually no more than 10 games (mostly hit for 1, max 2 3-win rewards). It usually takes me about 2 weeks to get 1k gold this way no sweat (I try to float above 1k to be able to participate in grand melees, anything above that is spent on arenas when I feel like it).
Daily quests give around 50g, you can do 7 of them in a week so that's 350g easy (you can also aim for those 70g quests which are quite often pretty easy). Then there's the 3-win rewards, which is usually another 15-30g.
Even if you don't grind that much, play the game only twice a week (you can do 3 daily quests in a single day, they accumulate) this should leave you with about 450-500/week. So ~6 weeks of casual playing for Dark Brotherhood.
You can also just buy it for cash if you don't want to grind (which is better value along with time saving). In all honesty, this game is worth way more than what they want you to pay for the expansions.
Edit: I also forgot to mention that you get gems for playing DB campaign as rewards. And quite a bit of them to boot.
Edit2: You don't need to grind a lot to get a competitive deck. Orcs have always been very strong and are rather cheap to build. Prophecy battlemage is another staple that you can run at a fairly low gem cost. You see those decks played at legend rank so you know they're good. You just need to get a budget version of it (not that much difference in power level, any legendaries they use are to push them from very good to amazing and you can wait with that until you hit higher ranks).
Thanks, might try them out. To upgrade my sorcerer I'd either need an expansion or non-unique legendaries, which just doesn't seem very realistic atm.
Thought 3-win reward is always 15, which is why I calculated 5g/win. How do you get 30? And yes, my DB calculation isn't very precise, but burning like 200 hours in a month and then be top ladder ready with a mid-cost-deck like in Gwent or Duelyst doesn't seem to be remotely realistic in TESL, which is a shame because I really like how mirrored-tempo decks play against each other.
In TESL if you really want you can get to legend rank with deck that has only common and uncommon cards in it. Expansions help but I'm pretty sure you could do it with just core to add insult to injury. Won't be easy but it's definitely doable.
If you want to focus on sorcerer just let me know what expansions you have available and I'll provide you with a deck you should aspire to (I think I did that recently in this thread, giving examples of competitive sorcerer decks based on different expansions and playstyles). Just check previous page of this thread.
As far as 3-win reward goes it seems to be random (I'm not really tracking it). I know for sure that I get 15-30g there and a card up to epic (just today I got 30g and uncommon).
This deck can get you up to rank 5 (possibly even legend if you're determined enough). It is cheap as hell (no card above uncommon, no cards beyond core set) and very effective. You can slowly upgrade it as you get more cards.
Well, I've been through a real crucible today. Because of my inactivity I've fallen down to rank 9 and due to work and other arrangements I didn't have that much time to play.
Anyway, I've decided to get back up to at least rank 4 this season (which ends today) but I fucking hate this current meta. Every deck is drawing millions of cards and it's mostly just combo, aggro or tokens. Control and midrange have pretty much disappeared.
I do not accept that, which is why I've made it my mission to reach rank 4 with control mage. It took me goddamn forever to figure out a control mage deck that wouldn't be useless in the current meta but I managed to do it. I must say I'm quite proud of it since it can go toe to toe with any deck out there (with Hlaalu and Scout it's a toss-up, depending on both player's draws and prophecies) without losing by default.
Last game (when I finally broke through to rank 4) was truly epic. I was facing TT and it went super late. I managed to finish off my opponent with 2 cards left in my deck (which was jav and daggerfall, not really your ultra lategame finishers when you have empty board).
Back to rank 4. Mission accomplished, my mind is at peace now.
I finally got enough gold for DB1. Do I get more soulstones the further I go in the hard-missions? Anyways, for my 1k gold I swapped Camlorn Sentinel for Dark Guardian, which was why I bought it in the first place, so I guess I got what I came for xD Tbf black dragon seems like a strong card.
I still lack any playable non-unique legendary. I guess Expert Atromancer and Indoril Archmage are almost okay. Later's body is probably not good enough, if it gets silenced it's a fairly weak card and a 10 card that gets hardcountered by Icestorm is a bit meh.
On August 01 2018 04:29 Manit0u wrote: Well, I've been through a real crucible today. Because of my inactivity I've fallen down to rank 9 and due to work and other arrangements I didn't have that much time to play.
Anyway, I've decided to get back up to at least rank 4 this season (which ends today) but I fucking hate this current meta. Every deck is drawing millions of cards and it's mostly just combo, aggro or tokens. Control and midrange have pretty much disappeared.
I do not accept that, which is why I've made it my mission to reach rank 4 with control mage. It took me goddamn forever to figure out a control mage deck that wouldn't be useless in the current meta but I managed to do it. I must say I'm quite proud of it since it can go toe to toe with any deck out there (with Hlaalu and Scout it's a toss-up, depending on both player's draws and prophecies) without losing by default.
Last game (when I finally broke through to rank 4) was truly epic. I was facing TT and it went super late. I managed to finish off my opponent with 2 cards left in my deck (which was jav and daggerfall, not really your ultra lategame finishers when you have empty board).
Back to rank 4. Mission accomplished, my mind is at peace now.
That's really strange. Since the Hlaalu nerf I've seen almost exclusively control at rank 2-4. Mostly I see Telvanni, but I've encountered Scout, Spellsword, Mage, and Dagoth. I haven't seen much control Tribunal though, which is weird.
Are you running Dres Renegade + Arrest control Mage?
On August 01 2018 04:29 Manit0u wrote: Well, I've been through a real crucible today. Because of my inactivity I've fallen down to rank 9 and due to work and other arrangements I didn't have that much time to play.
Anyway, I've decided to get back up to at least rank 4 this season (which ends today) but I fucking hate this current meta. Every deck is drawing millions of cards and it's mostly just combo, aggro or tokens. Control and midrange have pretty much disappeared.
I do not accept that, which is why I've made it my mission to reach rank 4 with control mage. It took me goddamn forever to figure out a control mage deck that wouldn't be useless in the current meta but I managed to do it. I must say I'm quite proud of it since it can go toe to toe with any deck out there (with Hlaalu and Scout it's a toss-up, depending on both player's draws and prophecies) without losing by default.
Last game (when I finally broke through to rank 4) was truly epic. I was facing TT and it went super late. I managed to finish off my opponent with 2 cards left in my deck (which was jav and daggerfall, not really your ultra lategame finishers when you have empty board).
Back to rank 4. Mission accomplished, my mind is at peace now.
That's really strange. Since the Hlaalu nerf I've seen almost exclusively control at rank 2-4. Mostly I see Telvanni, but I've encountered Scout, Spellsword, Mage, and Dagoth. I haven't seen much control Tribunal though, which is weird.
Are you running Dres Renegade + Arrest control Mage?
Nope. I figured out that to go forward I have to go back
What I did run in the end and which was most successful was a variation on prophecy control mage from way back when. It handled aggressive decks really well and was good against control too (I was actually pretty happy whenever I encountered Dagoth). Shout scouts are the biggest problem if you don't hit your casts and wraiths on time. Telvanni is pretty much even.
On August 01 2018 05:27 Archeon wrote: Congratulations
I finally got enough gold for DB1. Do I get more soulstones the further I go in the hard-missions? Anyways, for my 1k gold I swapped Camlorn Sentinel for Dark Guardian, which was why I bought it in the first place, so I guess I got what I came for xD Tbf black dragon seems like a strong card.
I still lack any playable non-unique legendary. I guess Expert Atromancer and Indoril Archmage are almost okay. Later's body is probably not good enough, if it gets silenced it's a fairly weak card and a 10 card that gets hardcountered by Icestorm is a bit meh.
Indoril is not used at all (super strong in the arena though). Expert Atromancer turns into Supreme Atromancer when you level up (level 48 or something like that) and becomes one of the best late-game finishers in the game.
For non-unique legendaries I think the most prevalent would be Daggerfall Mage, Vigilant Giant and Relentless Raider (from the core set). They are being run in a variety of decks (especially DM) so are usually a good option to craft if need be.
Although in the beginning I'd really focus on skipping non-unique legendaries. For the price of one you can get a playset of epics and it will be way better for your deck to have 3 epics rather than 1 legendary.
On August 01 2018 04:29 Manit0u wrote: Well, I've been through a real crucible today. Because of my inactivity I've fallen down to rank 9 and due to work and other arrangements I didn't have that much time to play.
Anyway, I've decided to get back up to at least rank 4 this season (which ends today) but I fucking hate this current meta. Every deck is drawing millions of cards and it's mostly just combo, aggro or tokens. Control and midrange have pretty much disappeared.
I do not accept that, which is why I've made it my mission to reach rank 4 with control mage. It took me goddamn forever to figure out a control mage deck that wouldn't be useless in the current meta but I managed to do it. I must say I'm quite proud of it since it can go toe to toe with any deck out there (with Hlaalu and Scout it's a toss-up, depending on both player's draws and prophecies) without losing by default.
Last game (when I finally broke through to rank 4) was truly epic. I was facing TT and it went super late. I managed to finish off my opponent with 2 cards left in my deck (which was jav and daggerfall, not really your ultra lategame finishers when you have empty board).
Back to rank 4. Mission accomplished, my mind is at peace now.
That's really strange. Since the Hlaalu nerf I've seen almost exclusively control at rank 2-4. Mostly I see Telvanni, but I've encountered Scout, Spellsword, Mage, and Dagoth. I haven't seen much control Tribunal though, which is weird.
Are you running Dres Renegade + Arrest control Mage?
Nope. I figured out that to go forward I have to go back
What I did run in the end and which was most successful was a variation on prophecy control mage from way back when. It handled aggressive decks really well and was good against control too (I was actually pretty happy whenever I encountered Dagoth). Shout scouts are the biggest problem if you don't hit your casts and wraiths on time. Telvanni is pretty much even.
On August 01 2018 05:27 Archeon wrote: Congratulations
I finally got enough gold for DB1. Do I get more soulstones the further I go in the hard-missions? Anyways, for my 1k gold I swapped Camlorn Sentinel for Dark Guardian, which was why I bought it in the first place, so I guess I got what I came for xD Tbf black dragon seems like a strong card.
I still lack any playable non-unique legendary. I guess Expert Atromancer and Indoril Archmage are almost okay. Later's body is probably not good enough, if it gets silenced it's a fairly weak card and a 10 card that gets hardcountered by Icestorm is a bit meh.
Indoril is not used at all (super strong in the arena though). Expert Atromancer turns into Supreme Atromancer when you level up (level 48 or something like that) and becomes one of the best late-game finishers in the game.
For non-unique legendaries I think the most prevalent would be Daggerfall Mage, Vigilant Giant and Relentless Raider (from the core set). They are being run in a variety of decks (especially DM) so are usually a good option to craft if need be.
Although in the beginning I'd really focus on skipping non-unique legendaries. For the price of one you can get a playset of epics and it will be way better for your deck to have 3 epics rather than 1 legendary.
Yeah but the ping Supreme has over Expert Atromancer seems fairly important to me. Instant impact make expensive cards so much better, since you can quite easily be in a situation where there is no next round.
I have 2 or 3 copies of all the epics I am playing/want to play in my deck. Except for Stornhelm Champion, but I'm not sure I really want to continue playing it. I guess I should upgrade all 2x epics to 3x, but I'm still hoping for a lucky draw.
On August 01 2018 22:04 Archeon wrote: I have 2 or 3 copies of all the epics I am playing/want to play in my deck. Except for Stornhelm Champion, but I'm not sure I really want to continue playing it. I guess I should upgrade all 2x epics to 3x, but I'm still hoping for a lucky draw.
Changes to be done later: - Whisperer + Daggerfall Mage - Dres + Mystic Dragon - Sage + Corrupted Shade (or troll, but I find shade to be much better and more synergistic) - Firebolt + Sorcerer's Negation - Something + Barrow Stalker
Options for top-end (not necessary): - Blackworm + Wrath of Sithis - Nahagliiv and Night Shadows + Bone Colossus
You can always drop Heirloom Greatsword for one of the options above, but I find surprise 5 dmg to be extremely good for finishing games since it makes everything you have a huge threat.
If you want to run Shornhelm Champion this would considerably increase the gem cost of the deck since then you'd probably want to run ward-heavy with Iliac Sorcerer's (epic), Daggerfall Mages (legendary) and Mentor's Rings (legendary).
Tbh I don't like Black worm necromancer in a deck with so many 1 and 2 drops and I don't have any other of the cards you described (outside of the single night shadow I'm running).
Currently thinking about swapping a Spellsword in for a Harpy, it's is a decent card vs Aggro and pings with Emeric and while the shackle helps me racing I mostly don't want to race aggro when I'm playing Ice Storm. Outside of that 3rd Ald Velothi or 3rd Shade are on the plate, but I'm still hoping that I draw one of them and can save the dust for Daggerfall Mages.
I can definitely see why picking up Heirloom Greatsword might be worth it, Ancano is in the deck for the same reason (along with being a good 8 drop in general, something I really lack).
I don't really run enough wards to make Emeric a really good card, but it's a solid card even without other ward creatures and any good card above 5 seems to be either legendary or epic, so might as well use my rewards/draws. Does he ping of the Tel Vos Magister player ward?
I've devised a really stupid deck that shouldn't really work but it does, and it's doing really well (I guess people aren't expecting that). The only loss I had with it today was when reirei hit pretty much perfect draw for his deck (Ulfric's with Praetorian Commanders, Genious Pathmages and Odirniran Necromancers). My draw wasn't that good and when Miraak got brought back from discard for the fourth time and then he hit Ulfric's this was too much for me
Ok, so I got to rank 4 with this archer deck. Then went from 4 to 3 with Dagoth version of it (was a bit of a chore but had to get this card back). Now at rank 3 basically all I see is Scout and Telvanni Uprising decks. That's why I've crafted this beast of a deck and am now plowing through them no sweat: https://www.legends-decks.com/deck/47743/mid-range-sorcerer