Duelyst Forums

Ancient Bonds: Vaath

#17

They are two types presentation of decks,There is theorycraft approach and tested approach.The tested approach is player plays a deck reach Srank or plays a certain amount of games they present a deck.For example if i see f8d put out a deck you can be sure that he played 40 or 50 games with deck.To make a long story short testing your deck matters.It doesn’t matter if you reach S-rank your decks need to be tested on some level.

If your post are place for theory and trying out creative decks that kinda work be clear about that,I have all the cards in the game i have no issue trying out decks but not everyone’s that lucky, Imagine crafting cards to try a deck by a Srank player and just getting murdered.Just my opinion when i see on hiatus ain’t play for awhile presenting decks flags go up for me.For me at hey this deck is battle test on the ladder made it to Srank ,I have this win rate with deck lets you know how good deck might be to play

Just my feedback Anyways Magmar streamer to some degree I am looking forward that

1 Like
#18

Usually I spend a couple days on each deck before posting. But I had not posted in so long, and just wanted to share. I did put about 10 games in with each, and am continuing to test.

So this post is somewhere between theorycrafting and my usually thoroughly tested lists. I usually give more detail on how I play them, and endorse them as either S rank, Competitive, Gimicky/Competitive, or just gimmicky. But right now there is no meta, so its hard to say either way.

Just enjoying some expansion hype and getting back on the scene.

1 Like
#19

I took out an earth sphere and a tagete for the 2 meltdowns, but I actually think after a little more testing that one does the trick. I’m playing around with the last open spot, maybe I’ll give God hammer a whirl

1 Like
#20

i’m actually playing on a delay/sustain Starhorn using heals and removal until I get flash/Juggernaut into my hand. There’s so few things that can handle a defensive Flash/Juggernaut, the only one I’ve seen that was successful was a lightbender and that was only due to lucky egg placement. Other than that, the only thing I need to worry about is not losing before I can get those cards in my hand.

1 Like
#21

Anyone else get the feeling they will heavily nerf juggernaut?

1 Like
#22

I sure hope so, tbh. It’s a pretty unfair game winner.

#23

I don’t know if it’s nerf deserving. After all, we kind of have to build a deck around it to even be allowed to play it at all

#24

This is Grandmaster Variax all over again
The card is only truly efficient when ramped.
What do you want them to nerf this time? It costs 8 mana gosh, it’s already high enough.
At the 8 mana spot, you want stuff that ends games damn it, else every card would not deal over 5 damage or have cool effects.

As raqyee would say, why not play Golems then if stuff like this is unfair? And not the cool new ones, the really boring old ones.

3 Likes
#25

I wouldn’t be surprised to see Juggernaught nerfed, but not before Lavaslasher. From the games I’ve played, that one stands out much more as an oppressive card.

But Ancient Bonds is still young (weird to say that something ancient is young). So who knows?

1 Like
#26

The problem isn’t that it’s only efficient when ramped, it’s that it’s PAINFULLY efficient when ramped. Honestly, just get rid of the +5/+5 grow, or reduce it to something more manageable. The rest of the effect is…painful but at least potentially manageable, though it requires your entire board’s focus the instant it’s placed unlike Variax which at least takes several turns before it’s a lost game.

#27

Every faction is getting a late game value generator lately

Nosh rak,
juggy,
Ghost seraphim,
Calligrapher,
Variax

Comes to mind

I don’t see the problem in juggy
I see the problem in the ramp tho

#28

Yeah but not every faction can pump it out for 4 mana and begin an immediate countdown to your demise. It’s not like it even has to be played around to use, you could slot 3 of this and 3 Flash Reincarnations in a mech deck and mantain full value of both styles of play.

#29

You can’t do a lot when someone ramp jugg on 4 mana, ok.

If they don’t ramp it early a lightbender is enough to stop him.
If you are in late game and have actually time to play this you probably would have won anyway.

Like old-version-variax you must outspeed it

#30

Juggernaut is not OP imo. YOu need two cards, flash+jugg to play it efficiently. If played as a sinlge 8 drop then it is very vulnerable to any kind of removal, not to mention the tempo loss as it does nothing on its turn. So, you are dependent on a card combo which you may or may not draw, slowing down your game if waiting for it.

Even the flash+jugg play is not too overpowering, single card kills the jugg and normally at least one of the two eggs can be gotten to.

#31

Godhammer looks like a very good supplement to the Growmar deck. Yet I didn’t have much success w it, artifact and Moloki got destroyed too quickly. Which minions and how many copies of them should I have? Earthwalker seems too weak, and 3x Kolossus seems too wasteful, right?

#32

Here some impressions on two of the decks above (Golem and Pain):

At the beginning some words to the Pain-Deck:
I played 6 games with it yesterday with my smurf on Silver. I had 5 wins and one loss. The loss was most probably completely my fault because I totally misplayed turn 2 and turn 3 (as player 1). OK - Silver isn’t proved to say that much about a deck. But what I can talk about is of the feeling I had compared to the decks I played in the past in general and to the Golem deck.

The deck felt very consistent, which is no wonder with 3-drops only. While the winrate seems to be absolutely good I have to say that the matches I won mostly where hard fights. When to heal up Vaath is a critical decision because you need some board control at this point that you most probably lose the turn you use Earth Sphere.
For me the deck seems to be a good “template” for a pretty standard Midrange deck with thrown in Kujatas and Juggernauts FTW. Since there is no Meta atm we’ll have to wait how it will work in the long run.

Golem Deck:
I played two games in Silver and about 12 in Gold with my main. Conclusion: Nuts!
Prepare to get all the hate of the community for this deck!

I had one disconnect of the opponent right after I won the game (in the statistics it had the status “processing” when I went to bed) and one loss. This deck is too good not to be nerfed by CPG, that’s my believe (but read the last paragraph - to relativise). Juggie will be hit by the hammer. Not that he neccessarily deserves it. (There where players that handled him pretty nice and - hey - he is 8 Mana, and that’s a lot in this game!) But he will get all the hate because of his impressive egg-output and we all know how CPG handles the cards the community is whining about.

The deck is pretty simple to play: Stay on curve while ramping as fast as you can. Prefered sequence of cards as P1: T1 Celebrant, T2 Sister, T3 Lavaslasher. I had 2 concedes right after this sequence of cards.
Boulder Breacher is a card that seems to be designed especially for us (like Funsteel). Play it the way you can go face with it the turn after. A 5/5 is a thread by itself. Going face with 1 or 2 Minions + Vaath the turn Boulder Breacher is played and getting no damage is fantastic even if it has kinda anti-synergy with our beloved Sister.
I wasn’t exactly happy with Celebrant. While she (he? it?) is sooo helpful getting out a Slasher turn 3 (playing her as P1T1) you almost always want to replace her later on. It’s kinda same with the Golem Metallurgists. They help ramping - which is fine. But they don’t stack and they don’t do self-damage - which is absolutely wanted. So Kujata is almost always the better play.
That said I most probably wouldn’t touch the Celebrants but take out one Metallurgist and maybe (not shure about that) one Juggernaut for 2 threads of your choice. Claws, Drogon, Funsteel? Or Chrysalis for the extra hate? It’s up to you. But the deck - as it is listed above - is strong without changes.

What’s important to know: Yesterday there where many players that did not have the new cards or they didn’t use them. I think it will get harder over time and when some kind of Meta is settling. At the moment there’s kinda chaos. But we have a good spot in this chaos - and that’s exactly what I expect from the Church of Makantor!

1 Like
#33

gasp + punish = 3mp conter for egg deck

#34

Pain is a harder deck to play, but I do feel it is the strongest of the three. Other then fitting Jugger and kujata it is about the same as how I usualy run midrange decks.

Jugger is a little over the top, and I fear for his nerf. He is not exactly overpowered but he is meta warping as people will need to include more ping and small aoes incase he shows up. Meta shaking can be a good thing, but it’s also often unhealthy if a single card has to big of a warp effect, so we will see. Hopefully he will get a small change.

Yep the two drops are frequently replaced, but as a general rule 9 two drops is what you want for a consistent turn one play, and they are the best for this set up. Kujata is certainly usualy the best, but it’s a matter of redundancy, combining a couple leads to early juggers. Also I thought metalgurist stacked, it’s just only the first golem.

I wouldent try to fit Sunsteel or Claws, but I understand wanting another big drop to ramp into.

#35

Took Golem Vaath to S. Of course there was a lot of testing of other stuff a long the way, but it is what I played the most.

2 Likes
#36

It took me to Diamond pretty easy with 9 wins / 1 disconnect / 1 loss.
The disconnect was right after my opponents concede - so you can count it as a win also.