Post-Balance: possible melee counter to 3DC

Discussion in 'Deck Building' started by Jacques, Aug 3, 2014.

  1. Jacques

    Jacques Hydra

    I wanted to see if I could make a 3DC counter without using any wizard (that means no Smoke Bomb, for instance), to see if a non wizard team could still compete in the new meta. So I built this deck, that surprisingly worked pretty well. A couple of clarifications, though.
    1) I built this team assuming that 3DC will heavily dominate the next meta, so it's a specific counter to that build. I know that it sucks badly against melee, but I didn't think that even building a specific counter I would have had a shot against 3DC without using wizards, so I'm very happy with the results.
    2) I played only a couple of games, I know I should test it more and I intend to, but it was against one of the current top players who was using a 3DC build in the tester. At first I thought it may have been luck or the map chosen (the one with the X which isn't so bad for melee), but then I won again and in Melting Glacier, the best map for wizards.
    3) It has some legendaries that are very important and very hard to find. If (and only if) all balance changes stay, I would even reconsider my Randimar's opinion, because it would be nice to get those key legendaries to have a shot at defeating 3DC with a melee team. But, on the other hand, of course that my opponent was also using a lot of legendaries (Heartrippermainly) which are hard to find too.

    Ok, let's talk about this build now.

    It's a 2 war 1 priest team, and you'll notice they are all elves. Dwarves have been badly nerfed with no more than 2 step attacks, and I didn't test with humans, but the elf racial movement, Dash, has become very important despite what I thought previously. Here are the two warriors:

    Dhildhelen
    Level 1 Elf Warrior

    Dhrosma
    Level 1 Elf Warrior

    Let's go step by step
    1) Weapons: Vibrant Pain and Bolg's Big Iron Plate were the legendaries I was talking about. VP is still a fantastic item, just not as good as before and not the indisputable king of the hill anymore. But it sure helps a lot. And Bolg's Big Iron Plate is very useful as it has 2 of the new best shield against wizards. Then I chose Blazing Shortsword over The Strongarm because of 2 things: ranged attacks and one trait, which I needed badly as I only had 2, the ones in the Martial Skill. Combustible will remain unnoticed most of the times, unless you're facing a Fireball team.
    Other options instead of the 2 legendaries: Axe Of The Titans (yes, another legendary) and Lochaber Axe for the NS, though it's a much weaker choice of course. A non legendary combination could be Tango Spear, as Dancing Cut is almost as good as NS now, and Lochaber. Same number of 2 step attacks than this build and even some more ranged attacks, but no Surging Block, which sucks.

    2)Helm and Armor: finding a good combination of helm and armor for protection against those Punishing Bolts and sparks is essential. The 2 Enchanted Harness in Helm Of Reinforcement are only good against Punishing Bolts if you pair it with other armors, and Wex's Mail is great in combination with those. The good news is that SPR is pretty much dead now, so if you can manage to draw at least one Enchanted Harness and one Shimmering Aura or, better, Crafted Mail, the only way they can discard it is with armor removal, which isn't so common (at least for now), meaning you are much safer, which is great considering your characters are elves.

    3) Shield: Catch Arrow (the buffed version of Stuck Arrow) is pretty good now. It's not as reliable as before (now it's 4+) but it doesn't encumber you anymore and it nets you a card, which is great unless you're playing with many traits, but you shouldn't be doing that with the new limit draw. Bullseye Shield is tokenless and has 2 of them, plus another magic block. Spellthwart Shield can be a cheaper and even more reliable option, but with no card-advantage.

    4) Boots: Sliding Boots are still great. Team Run is one the most important cards, Sparkling Cloth Armor can help a lot to get close to your enemies, and Flanking Move can be useful even when encumbered to get priority in the next round, which is something very important, much more than I thought it was.
    If you don't have VP, which has esentially 6 2-step cantrip attacks, another option is going with some boots with 2 or 3 Quick Scuttle (the new Scuttle) that would work the same way now that it has cantrip, but with the disadvantage that it isn't good by itself, you need to have some good attacks in your hand as well. That's the great thing about NS or Dancing Cut, in only one card you are packing 2, freeing your hand for other cards.

    5) Martiall Skill: nothing new here, Savvy Attacker keeps being the best due to the fantastic Team Run, which you really need against 3DC.

    6) Elf Skill: now here we have something new. I have never seen anyone playing Elvish Scamper before, I think it's maybe one of the most overlooked cards, but it's awesome against 3DC, as it's pretty much as having 2 more Team Run, as the new Superb Evasion comes with 2 of them, and another useful Flanking Move. Being able to have 6 Elvish Scamper and 5 Team Run with this build is what allowed me to face 3DC without the need of having Arrogant Armor, which is good because that armor is very expensive. I cared little about encumbrance, and of course the fact that I was using all elves also helped with that.


    Now, let's go with the priest:


    Halglor
    Level 1 Elf Priest


    Weapons: I chose Rockshaft Atlatl and Feathergod Blade for the 5 Stone Feet mainly. While Team Run and Elvish Scamper allows you not to worry too much about encumbrance, Stone Feet does the same with other 3DC's pillar: Gusts Os War and Winds Of War, and it also provides you with armor 1 as a bonus, very welcomed for elves. That said, with all the team movements I had, I managed to won my first match without the need of any Stone Feet, so I'm not sure they are entirely necessary, so maybe Feathergod Blade could be replaced by something else, like Rapier Of Misfortune.

    Shield: Defender's Block is now simply amazing, and specially for the priest, who usually stays in the back and comes in only for the final blow. Of course that the card drawn can backfire your blocked ally due to some Punishing Bolt, so you must be very careful. That ally should have at least another block or good armor to come in. It could also be the opposite way: your warrior comes in knowing that your priest has Def. Block. He blocks one attack with his block, and then your priest blocks the second one and nets him another card.

    Divine Armor: St. Sebanna's Armor isn't an important item, I just had one major token available so I decided to go with this one to have at least some decent healing. I also found out in the test server that there are only 5 divine armors with a gold token, very few in my opinion. Mail Of The Martyr was the obvious choice before, but now Martyr Blessing has been nerfed badly because of the limit draw.

    Boots: Sliding Boots for the reasons explained before.

    Divine Items: Mass Frenzy is crucial to kill quickly at least one of the wizards, as this build doesn't have any big attacks. That's why I chose 2 Shuddering Relic, despite the fact that Vulnerable is more dangerous now, even more for an elf priest. Bleneth's Skull is a no brainer.

    Elf Racial: Superb Evasion for the reasons explained above. If you think this is too much, think that before, with the unlimited traits, it was possible to build a consistent deck without so many copies of the same cards. Now, with the limit draw, you won't be able to have as many traits, so you really need a lot of the same cards to remain consistent. That's why I don't think that 5 Team Runs and 6 Elvish Scampers are too much. Of course that you could get really unlucky and draw them all together, but that's how the new meta is going to be, with decks with more variance and a bit more inconsistent due to the trait nerf.

    Divine Skill: I put Novice Piety because of habit I guess, but I'm not sure it's the best tokenless skill anymore, as Altruism isn't so good now. Novice Ablution could be more useful, and Trained Cleansing could be another choice as well, but with one less trait.



    General strategy: a lot has already been explained in the item description. The main thing to realize is that you won't win if you don't think very carefully every movement. Don't rush in unless you're sure you can resist their attacks (with blocks or armor), send first your better equipped warrior. Sometimes it can also be useful to send everyone in with one of the Team Runs or Elvish Scampers. Check for Toughness, most of wizards are going to have 2 of them. And count them: if one wizard has already used his 2 Toughness, then focus all your attacks on him while you can. It's not easy but they are beatable, which is very good news.

    Weaknesses: melee mainly, as I have explained that this is a specific counter against 3DC. To make this build a bit more all around, some changes would have to be made. Some of those could be Bulging Cuirass instead of Wex's Mail and some shield with 3 "block any" cards like Underdog's Shield, Snitrick's Shield or Eeygonnic's Shield instead of the Bullseye Shield.

    Also, the only thing about wizards this build cannot counter, which became clear in one of the matches, is Flash Flood. In some maps it's possible to go around it, in some it isn't, in which case more patience is needed, and there is when taking priority for the next round becomes essential. If you can find cover, Flash Flood isn't so important. Be sure you go first next round and get in as soon as the water goes away. I won my 2nd match without any Flash Flood real counter and my opponent used like 5 or 6 of them, so it isn't SUCH a game breaker as I had thought.

    Feedback would be great! I will also be updating my results when I play some more with this build.
     
    Genki likes this.
  2. Vakaz

    Vakaz Guild Leader

  3. Flaxative

    Flaxative Party Leader

    I'd love to hear how people do with this build vs. 3DC (and other builds) on the test server.
     
    Jacques likes this.
  4. Jacques

    Jacques Hydra

    Yeah, that was exactly what I was worried about, so I chose Helm of Reinforcement for that reason. And you're very right about Electroporter Novice, but there two good news about that: the first one is that they are not getting those traits as easy as before, the limit draw means that putting a lot of traits in your deck is very risky, so there are less chances of those to appear. The second one (not really news) is that those traits are bad for your blocks, but not for your armor. That's why armor can be even more important than blocks now.

    That said, I have yet to try this build against sparks instead of Punishing Bolts and encumbrance. I think it would have a very hard time against the new penetrating sparks (well, any build would be in that situation). They are just insane and really unbalanced, you can't defend yourself with armor, and blocks are almost useless due to the hard to block 2 they have (you have to roll a 5 in the best case scenario). I strongly suggest BM to review this decision. If you want to make them different and add penetrating to them, ok, but then remove the hard to block 2 so I can have a shot at blocking them at least. A Deadly, Deadly Stuff buffed with traits or some priest can be just devastating.
     
  5. Squidy

    Squidy Hydra

    I guess you didn't encounter someone having some walls of water, did you?
     
  6. Jacques

    Jacques Hydra

    Actually I did, that was my opponent's main defense (I say it on the last paragraph of the main post), which was good because it made me realize that you can still win without having a real counter to that, that would be fly or teleport. In my last match, my opp threw 5 or 6 Flash of Flood by turn 2, he stayed with one wizard in a vp and put water on other 2 vps. The solution was staying in the remaining vp with the priest and under cover with the warriors, taking priority for the turn in which the effect went away and then charge with a Team Run. Using elves help a lot to go around the water too.

    But as I also said, all maps and all matches are different, so it could be a major problem sometimes, and I hate the lack of counterplay it has. That card has to be revised, same with those penetrating hard to block 2 sparks.
     
    Flaxative likes this.
  7. Oberon

    Oberon Hydra

    Nice build.

    If there's a warrior build that beats 3 control wizards, it has to look something like this. It's going to be weak against warrior builds, since it's comparatively light-weight. Do you think you could manage with a superb trickery on one of the warriors? That one item gives a ton of advantage against warrior builds, but you lose a lot against encumber...
     
  8. Jacques

    Jacques Hydra

    It was one possibility, but as you said, it would make it worse against one of the good things about this builds, which is nullifying encumbrance. And I won't have any guarantee to draw one of the 2 Trickeries, specially now that we have the limit draw which makes all builds more inconsistent due to the trait nerf. I have played around 6 games with this build now, and Stone Feet, which I have 5 with my priest, never appeared more than once, which is a prove of the inconsistency I'm talking about. And the reason why it's strong against encumbrance is because I have tons of team movements (11), so even without many traits I'm guaranteed to draw them one per turn in average, so I wouldn't want to lose that, at least for now.

    I have changed The Iron Plate for Infused Greatclub now, we'll see how that works. Those OBs helped a lot in some matches, but we'll see if losing 2 blocks doesn't hurt too much.
     
  9. Ector

    Ector Hydra

    I can agree that Water Wall may be too strong, but not the sparks. If they got weakened, then the armored elves will dominate the metagame instead of 3DC.

    Actually, I don't believe that 3DC are going to be so powerful that people will need a special anti-build against them. So I don't think Superb Evasion is appropriate here, there are better elven skills around. Also, if you run Enchanted Harness, it would be advantageous to have some good armor, like Ogre Plate. I also believe that Purging Burst will help a lot versus encumber, Nimbuses, enemy MF and and many other things.
     
    Last edited: Aug 5, 2014
  10. Scarponi

    Scarponi Moderator

    Actually you should be able to see from the discussion in this thread that 3DC is currently dominating. But if you have ideas that you think can take them on I suggest you hop on the test server and show how its done; you might even earn some free pizza in the process!
     
  11. Ector

    Ector Hydra

    I am a bad player but a good theory maker. Yes, I've read that thread, but there are only the opinions there. Did someone defeat everybody with 3DC? Earned 1800 rating or something like that?
    Talking about the healthy metagame, I see only two changes that should go away: the Water Wall and Firestorm destruction. Then we will have more or less healthy metagame: Firestorm kills the control wizards, the control wizards supposedly kill warriors, and the warriors easily kill Firestorm. But this is a bad place to discuss this, of course.
     
  12. Lord Feleran

    Lord Feleran Guild Leader

    Ector's posts are often dumb but this looks like a new record. There are very little people playing on the test server so such numbers cannot be reached there.
     
    CT5 likes this.
  13. Scarponi

    Scarponi Moderator

    Theories are good if they match up with what happens in practice - otherwise they're just merely failed theories.* Your theory that 3DC is not a problem does not match what is happening in practice. The thread that you claim is only opinions is discussion of what has actually happened with the current test build, which makes it more than mere opinion.

    *Failed theories can be a good thing. They can lead to the exploration of what results in correct theories. There are plenty of good scientists that have failed theories. But what makes them good is that they come up with a theory, then they test it, and then if it doesn't match the empirical evidence they either revise it or abandon it completely. They don't hold onto a theory without testing it and/or against evidence to the contrary. They acknowledge it as a failed theory and they move on to seek the truth.
     
    CT5 likes this.
  14. Squidy

    Squidy Hydra

    Also people are actually testing and trying new things. Since the testing event started, I have tried a different deck everyday. Some does good, some not so much.

    So far I have tried:
    Day 0: 2 dwarf wizz with frosting spells, a bit of AoE and gusts of wars, 1 dwarf priest with draw cards (unholy energy, accelerated thoughts) and some Savage Curse
    Day 1: 3 human wizzs with Heartripper + Illusion each + wall of water and more ilusory barriers + Leadershipx2 on each
    Day 2: FS Wizz + 2 Perfect command humans with each 7 Impenetrable Nimbus, 7 Touch of Death and some Savage curses
    Day 3: no time to play
    Day 4: back to triple wallbuilders but this time three same elves with 2 Heartripper, 4 Wall of Water and 4 Illusory barriers on the arcane items and 5 cantrip moves and the tokenless other items. (I surprisedly had some fun with this one, was like juggling with some eggs)
    Day 5: 1-1-1 team but I only had time for one game with this one so far.

    I don't even play normal CH anymore (played like 2 leagues games and did 2 LF for like the past 5 days, luckily those two leagues games were enough for an epic chest each time ^^ ) and half of my time goes to finding and building some new parties).

    Oh btw, best results have been with 3 wizzs team, then 2 wizzs then one wizz only. I am afraid to die of boredom if I only play the best actual team setup, which is 3 wizzs in practical ass well as in theory. I don't know where you get your theories but personaly I play the games in my head. Helpful when you are doing things like 1HP quests, allowed me to always come with the correct team (but not always the correct items).
     
    CT5 and Sir Veza like this.
  15. Oberon

    Oberon Hydra

    Just some thoughts today...

    What about Quickness Aura? Seems like it would pair really well with Elvish Scamper. And of course it boosts your free dash each turn as well.

    In theory you have a number of options to get 3+ of these on a warrior. Necalli Cap is probably the best place to start, and maybe Plates Of Ixicha (1 of arrogant armor could be a fun trick)?
     
  16. Squidy

    Squidy Hydra

    That reminds me a discovery I made today when I was making my 1-1-1 build. A change that I saw nowhere and that is worth mentioning.

    Before:

    [​IMG]

    After:
    [​IMG]
     
  17. Jacques

    Jacques Hydra

    Yeah, I thought about it too, but I couldn't find the place to include them without losing something important, and you're right that you need at least 3 to draw one often.

    But let's see, Necally Cap would be a must because it has 2 Quickness Aura. That means losing 2 Enchanted Harness that are very good against Punishing Bolt when you pair them with another armor. And for the third one, I would prefer Goldshine Mail, at least for this particular build, where Arrogant Armor doesn't fit with MF and Stone Feet. The results I see in theory are even more movility, and less defense. And in my matches I didn't have much problem with movility, I think I have that covered, while defense is very important for elves, so I wouldn't want to lose those armors. But I caould test it anyway.

    How about 2 dwarves warriors, that can take up more damage, with at least 4 QA? The priest could be human for more team movements. They also would have easier access to Inmovable.
     
    Sir Veza likes this.
  18. Oberon

    Oberon Hydra

    I'm not sure quickness aura us worth it with dwarves... It mainly would help them with their free walk each turn, as it doesn't help much with Team Run or the other push cards, and dwarves lack team moves, though you would get immovable. I really want to like that Necalli Helm though. The one all out attack can be nice against wizards.

    How are you doing in the damage race against wizards? I fully expect this to lose to other warriors, but I suppose you have more or less equal health to the dwarf wizards. I've been working under the assumption we'd see changes to punishing bolt which will hopefully help this strategy out.
     
  19. Squidy

    Squidy Hydra

    While we are at it, what's better then a Mageslayer Mail to go after the beard of a wizz?

    [​IMG]

    Makes me feel like BM really wants people to play wizz or go after them.
     
  20. Sir Veza

    Sir Veza Farming Deity

    I love Necalli Cap. I stacked officer's harnesses and used a human frenzy cleric with 2x Leadership. When it came together it was a flying leathal combo. I haven't tried Necalli Cap, Scuttling Socks, and BSS or Infused Greatclub, but I probably should. Fewer harnesses for translating to bonus attacks, but lots of reach.
     

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