Hi Guys, Thought I would like to add some more fuel to the above topics that are going around at the moment. Over the past 2 weeks I have been playing with both the Cult of Bejeweled team and the Stab Evles team. (For the stab elves I kept the bejeweled item set up, just changed the 3 weapons). I managed to take the Bejeweled team upto 1670, could have gone higher but consistency became an issue, with the stab elves I got to around 1650. Overview Bejeweled, Great killing power, but has a problem with elves randomly commiting suicide at the start. about 1 in 5 games an elf would draw raging strike combined traveling curse. If you then also had blind rage and were unable to get rid of raging strike the result was an elf next to dead. This slight inconsistent problem was preventing me getting the team into the 1700's as you need your team to be stable. To make the team overall more consistant I added 3x Crazy Sauls to free up gold token for the agis defender. With this change I took the team to 1709 before I changed to try the stab elves. Overview stab elves. After running with the 'cult' I found the stab elves to be lacking in damage. 2 many low attacks. I fell back to about 1570 before pulling it upto 1650. I understand the stab elves were designed to be cheap and they do make a good 1500's team but I do not think they are viable high 1600's -1700's and this is where the cult of bejeweled leads you to be. I also found there to be a lack of movement cards for the mobility traits to benefit from and what you did get to draw gave little damage. With players in the high elo's running higher damage cards going toe to toe did not work out in the stab elves favour. One noticeable difference with the stab elves is that they took apart wiz teams very easy (with range 2 attacks), and you did fight more wiz teams in the lower elo. Overall Cult of the bejeweled is the better team for higher elo. Stab elves better for vs wiz heavy teams, which do not exist in higher elo so limits stab elves to be effective only in the 1500's. To make both teams better you need to add agis of the defender. To free up a gold token for the bejeweled team you either add crazy sauls or a double eaged sword.. (forgive spelling trying on an iphone) Led
I've been trying to avoid putting together either a cult of bejeweled or stabby elves team because they seem a bit boring. Especially the bejeweled deck, as it just involves moving up close and unloading. But the frequency I encounter them and the number of times they beat me is almost forcing me to play like everyone else. The most success I've had is a blazing sparks volcano deck (with ring of appropriation, bless, cleansing rays, entangling roots, leadership as support) that I made into the 1600s (was at 75-80% win rate for a while) for the first time ever, but then quickly bombed to the 1400s (dropped to less than 50% win rate, not sure what changed). It was fun playing it while it lasted, but was heavily dependent on drawing volcano early or bless early. Most of the time it can handle 2 warriors rushing forward, but not three. I think once people realize they are playing against volcano, they just start saving up move cards and then you're screwed. I've tried using a 1/1/1 stabby elf warrior burfft deck or a parrying dwarf warrior 1/1/1 burfft deck with little success so far. This map rotation doesn't lead to as much bunching up as the manors rotation where I was forced to build a burfft deck. I haven't extensively tested a 2 wiz/1 priest burfft deck or a 2 priest/1 wiz burfft deck, but they seem too squishy. I've tried a 2war1priest 2VP/2strongarm dwarf deck that while effective chasing down that squishy wiz or priest, it has nothing to chase against a 3 war team and eventually succumbs to the damage output of bejeweled. VP is great for movement, but severely lacks in damage output even when buffed with blind rage/MF. I just got my second Aegis of the Defender, so I might try running more of that with different builds as I see a lot of it at higher ELO. Seems like too powerful an item despite the yellow orb cost. Also just got a second Crazy Sal's, so it opens up more options for me to try. Other than that, looks like I'll have to be like everyone else and join the cult or the stabbies. Either way, Cautious Mobility (2x elven maneuvers) is too good not to run. For the sake of variety, what are my alternatives?
Alternatives? As good as Elven Maneuvers? In a tokenless item? Well, Cautious Mobility is the main reason to play elves; otherwise the meta would be dwarves. ... and since 'stab elves' don't get great benefit from EM (compared to Cult), maybe it's time to try 'stab dwarves'... About the Cult, I want to give credit to Exythe, and suggest some small "improvements": first is Dependable Mail, because the Traveling Curse (it tickles a dwarf but cripples an elf); second is to use a lvl 17 helmet, and lvl 8 boots... why? Immovable is worthless (i said it)... and Dash, team! is the way to go.
Most stab elves run Double-Edged Sword or Tango Spear, both of which benefit as much or more from Cautious Mobility.
