Post-Balance: possible melee counter to 3DC

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

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  1. Jacques

    Jacques Hydra

    Here is some update from the build.

    I have played close to 10 games (don't remember the exact number, and it's hard to find opponents using 3DC to test my build) with it, always against 3 wizard's teams, and I won more than what I lost, which isn't much if we think that it's supposed to be a counter build, but it is a good number if we take into account that wizards are very op right now and also that, as I said on the feedback thread, there are so much things wizards can equip right now that you can't have a counter for all of them.

    I have made 3 changes:
    1) 2 Blazing Shortswords x 2 The Strongarm: this is to be more consistent with the damage. Also, movility is the best thing about this deck, so the ranged attacks from Blazing Shortsword weren't really necessary.
    2) 2 Bolg's Big Iron Plate x 2 Infused Greatclub: this change was great. Those OB were essential in my victories so far. It helped a lot against armor stacking and also to make more valuable the few situations where I could get near one wizard without being inmediately slided back. The lost of 2 blocks was nothing compared to the gain of two OBs.
    3) Bullseye Shield x 2 Spellthwart Shield. The draw when I blocked with Stuck Arrow was good, but I found it much better to have 3 more reliable Missile Blocks instead. Specially when you try to block a hard to block spark or a Punishing Bolt with Spark Generator attached to the caster. Trying to roll a 5 is tough, but eventually it's possible to roll one. A 6 is much more complicated.

    Results against some of the main wizard's tools:

    1) Encumbrance: now, this is curious. At least half of my opponents weren't running encumbrance, or too little of it, like only one Staff of Winter. I believe this is because we were on the test server where everything is available and packing lots of Punishing Bolts or penetrating sparks can be more flashy. But in the normal meta I think encumbrance is going to be a big thing, because everyone has a Staff of Winter, while Heartripper and Deadly, Deadly Staff are way harder to get. In the matches that I had where my opponent was using encumbrance, the results were very good. It's one of the strong points of this build.

    2) Slide: if there is one thing of the range of possibilities that wizards have which appeared on every match, that was Slide. WoW, GoW, TK and Force Cone, even Force Bolt and Force Cannon. It's very difficult to fight against those, specially GoW and WoW that have target 2. Besides, to beat this it's not only important to have high movement cards, but it's even more important to have a lot of them, while at the same time having good attacks. It's a difficult balance to get. That said, I was able to overcome that difficulty by playing very cautiously. Also, Stone Feet was huge, I take back what I said before. With Stone Feet attached, I didn't have to worry about slide for 3 turns, which is a lot. I may want to sacrifice some MF to add more of these, because I only drew about 1 per game on average, despite having 5 on my priest's deck.
    Some strategies to counter slide:
    a) Usually, the better thing to do is sending only one guy next to one, or even better, 2 wizards, keeping the other 2 under cover. They may have to waste a slide card for only one target. That's even better if you have a block with that character. And better yet if you can get in with a 2 step attack, so that you save your valuable movement cards for later.
    b) To have a shot to corner one wizard, you usually need at least 5 move cards. 3 Dash and 2 team movements (Team Run or Elvish Scamper). Don't bother going in if you have less than that, you'll end far away from them without any more movement cards while they throw all their Punishing Bolts and sparks at you. Of course that number can change according to how many blocks you have, but you always should have one final Team Run or Elvish Scamper to reposition yourself.
    c) If you didn't draw any attacks but have blocks, send him first as a decoy. You can get him back to cover with a team movement after he blocked some attack.
    d) Prioritize killing the wizards over camping on the VPs. Camping is for wizards. If you camp on VPs from the start of the match, you have 2 options: they use slide cards to remove you from that position, or you receive a bunch of PB and sparks that kills your character. The only way to win via VPs is when you have already killed 2 of them. Then you may win that way.
    e) The main strategy is NOT RUSHING. Some maps allow you to wait for better hands, some don't. Take advantage of those that do, and resign a point if necessary in order to draw a good hand. It's better to resign one star than rushing in and getting quickly killed.

    Lava: hardly relevant with all the movement I had

    Punishing Bolt and penetrating sparks (mainly Deadly Spark): the 2 main direct damage options wizards have. Both op in my opinion. The main difference is that you can block and defend yourself with armor from PB if you are prepared, while you can't do the same with the penetrating hard to block sparks. PB can do more damage sometimes and has better range, but sparks are much more consistent and are really deadly in high quantities (specially for elves), and also easily buffed with the also op Electroporter Novice. The only defense you have against Deadly Spark is praying to roll a 5 with Missile Block or simply getting cover. I had uneven results against sparks (sometimes I managed to win, sometimes I didn't, mostly in the maps with little cover), while I had pretty good results against PB.

    Fire: not too much trouble against it, mainly because of the good armor I had and because it was easy to block. The only way it could become dangerous is if I didn't draw any armor in the first 2 or 3 rounds, because staying behind cover is useless against Ember Burst and Fireball.

    Illusionary Terrain: easily avoided with Elvish Scamper.

    Armor stacking: OB was the main answer for this, and it was a good one. The not rush strategy also meant that when I went in it was very probable that I had at least one of them.

    Flash Flood: I stand on what I said before: while this build had no real counter to it, I won the matches where my opp used this card. Here, more patience was needed, and Flanking Move was my best ally, whether it was for taking priority for starting the round when the effect ended or for using it in combination with Dash for a 6 move combo, which is useful to go around the water. Tip: if an opp has a lot of this card it usually means that he had to sacrifice some slides cards, so it's usually good to go in as soon as you can, unlike what I said previosuly. But I'm also aware that, depending on the map, having no real counter for water could lead to very frustrating situations (like the opponent standing on one VP and throwing water on the rest).

    Well, that was a long one. I understand that a new build is coming very soon with some wizard's nerf, so we'll see what happens after that. Maybe it's not necessary anymore to build a completely anti-wizard deck like this one to have a chance at winning against them, which would be very good news.

    As I said, OB really tipped the balance in my favour, even though there were no easy matches. And I keep thinking sparks are more deadly than PB right now.
     
    Jacques, Aug 6, 2014
    #21
    Flaxative likes this.
  2. Oberon

    Oberon Hydra

    So I have been testing as well, it has a very similar theme but very different at the same time. I think Flax might like this, since it has a vamp priest :)


    Maeron
    Level 19 Elf Warrior


    Thilamdan
    Level 19 Elf Warrior

    Ok, so the main difference on the warriors weapons is trying to get some more big attacks on them. I'm not hating the chops because I find wizards tend to stay grouped up at times. I really tend to think that warriors have to be dedicating 4 tokens to weapons in order to get the damage they need/want against dwarves. Notice that I also have a one of all out attack which is handy when you can occasionally one shot a dwarf wizard.

    Otherwise I'm trying to utilize quickness aura for movement. This one card gives you so much additional movement that you can really trim down a lot of other options. It combos amazingly with sparkling cloth armor and dodge and elf scamper.

    Elf scamper is better against wizards, but superb trickery still gives you a lot of additional movement cards. Wild run with quickness aura can slingshot an elf across the board. Focusing against wizards these should be the elf scampers.


    Acelfe
    Level 19 Elf Priest

    This is another thing where we really differ. I give up on stone feet, but want to focus on making the priest an additional threat they need to worry about. I could see swapping a vial for a relic to get a 5th mass frenzy. Personally, I think these are superior to a dedicated support priest with warriors. You can get all the benefits of mass frenzy, while still getting a viable threat out of the priest (which normally you just don't have).

    So this is essentially a light version of a vampire priest, with some mass frenzy. The ability to drop all your vampire attacks as cantrips allows you to put a pretty big dent in wizards. A bit of mass heal doesn't hurt with elf warriors either to be honest.

    So in playing this, you use cover and wait for high damage attacks, and hopefully draw into quickness aura. This allows for some explosive turns. Encumber of terrain hasn't been much of an issue to be honest.
     
    Last edited: Aug 6, 2014
    Oberon, Aug 6, 2014
    #22
    Jacques and Flaxative like this.
  3. Jacques

    Jacques Hydra

    I wonder how this works out for you, Oberon. Quickness aura is interesting, but you have way too few team moves imo (only 2 Team Runs) and only 6 move cards other than the racial dash, 5 of them that will only move 1 if you're encumbered with Frost Jolt (2 Elven Trickery, 2 Dodge and 1 Flanking Move). This would mean that against wizards, you will be able to reach them fast, but they could slide you pretty easily without the possibility for you to return close to them, as you didn't include step attacks or ranged attacks at all, but we'll see what happens with the slide nerf now. I can see this team being great against melee though, if you change the shield of course.

    That said, you did the complete opposite of what I was going to build with these changes :p
    The slide nerf means that step attacks are really useful now. A sequence I see happening is this one: a) you get close to 1 or 2 wizards with a high movement card, which could be Dash for instance b) The won't use encumber at that point because they need to get you away from there, so they slide you c) You come back with a step attack and hit them. The rest depends on the situation and the rest of your cards, but what I mean is that step attacks are worth it with these changes.

    I see it pretty balanced: in maps with good amount of cover, I see very difficult for a 3 wizards team to resist, as they really need to use their encumber, PB and sparks before you come too close of them. On the other side, in maps as those in the current rotation, they still have a good edge over melee.
     
    Jacques, Aug 6, 2014
    #23
  4. Jacques

    Jacques Hydra

    Wait, I just thought about something. I was thinking that with the slide nerf Stone Feet would lose some value, but I totally see it fitting in your build. The bad thing is that you would have to replace the vamp priest for a Stone Feet Spammer, but with all the great attacks you have, if you can draw at least 2 Stone Feet per game to attach them to your warriors, it would be huge against wizards and you won't really need the priest's vamp attacks in that case.
     
    Jacques, Aug 6, 2014
    #24
  5. Oberon

    Oberon Hydra

    Yeah ignore the elf racials on this, superb evasion is superior against wizards control, which is the point of this thread. I was testing them to see how much it hurt the build, I still managed to beat a 3DC team this way mainly due to having quickness aura early on both warriors.

    Vibrant pain got hit, so I can't see using 2 gold tokens on that any more. Maybe a bejeweled would be better.

    With the nerf to WoW, seems like you could move away from stonefeet. I can't stress enough how awesome a vamp/mass frenzy priest can be with 2 warriors. Especially if you're using lots of team moves that allow you to threaten with all 3 of your characters at once.
     
    Oberon, Aug 6, 2014
    #25
  6. Oberon

    Oberon Hydra

    The reason I'm really trying to run trickery on the warriors is that it gives this build some ability to beat cardotron and mom. I don't think I have the balance yet, but working on it.
     
    Oberon, Aug 6, 2014
    #26
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