How to Build a (PvP) Deck [Guide]

[Aragorn]

AoC yea also work. NC doesn't fly. It was too much when I said "must have", i would just say good or in the meta. @Eirias

Edited August 18, 2015 by Aragorn

[Eirias]

AoC yea also work. NC doesn't fly. It was too much when I said "must have", i would just say good or in the meta. @Eirias

Yeah, definitely a common choice. NC has swift though, which is usually fast enough to reach the dancers with building repairs. Many LS players much prefer to use that deck slot for some lame t3 card though

I'm trying to be as careful as possible with the word "must," because I don't want people to think that they have no options on certain cards. Like, scavenger or forsaken are a must, but there aren't so many cards that you have no choice but to play. 

[Aragorn]

Yeah, definitely a common choice. NC has swift though, which is usually fast enough to reach the dancers with building repairs. Many LS players much prefer to use that deck slot for some lame t3 card though

I'm trying to be as careful as possible with the word "must," because I don't want people to think that they have no options on certain cards. Like, scavenger or forsaken are a must, but there aren't so many cards that you have no choice but to play. 

By cliff I mean with a wall, water, rock, or any obstacle. That's why I say NC doesn,t fly. @Eirias

Edited August 18, 2015 by Aragorn

[Eirias]

By cliff I mean with a wall, water, rock, or any obstacle. That's why I say NC doesn,t fly. @Eirias

Yeah, no for sure phoenix is better for preventing cliffing than NC. But even if the NC has to go around a cliff, it's still swift so it will probably arrive before your well drops as long as you keep repairing.

 

Also, for anyone else following this, I added the Pure Fire section at the bottom.

[Avalanche]

This is really great advice for newcomers to the game and will generally help everyone with their own builds!

 

[Eirias]

Updated again to include bandits!

 

Anyone willing to assist me on another faction?

[LagOps]

I will eventually add a matchups section for the bandits guide, but i will be kind of busy for the next month(s), so no promisses there.

[Hirooo]

Updated again to include bandits!

Anyone willing to assist me on another faction?

What do you need?

Btw. in your motivatedescription you mention keycards for shadow t1. I agree with them besides lifeweaving.

Lifeweaving was borderline useless in t1 and got its value of buffing high cost units in t2 and t3.

Shadow/Nature had no use for the card in t2 and had a lot of options so would most likely not run it.

Same goes for every shadow/frost deck that does not include reaver/mountaineer(and even with mountaineer it wasnt must have).

 

[Eirias]

What do you need?

Btw. in your motivatedescription you mention keycards for shadow t1. I agree with them besides lifeweaving.

Lifeweaving was borderline useless in t1 and got its value of buffing high cost units in t2 and t3.

Shadow/Nature had no use for the card in t2 and had a lot of options so would most likely not run it.

Same goes for every shadow/frost deck that does not include reaver/mountaineer(and even with mountaineer it wasnt must have).

 

Thanks, fixed!

For now it would be nice if you would look over the guide and see if there's anything else you disagree with. I'm also looking for people who can write a "deck evolution" section like I did for fire-nat and LagOps did for fire-shadow. I can't write those sections for other factions since I never built decks for them. I don't know how good you'd be at that; do you even remember being a noob  ?

When I write other sections, I'll also be especially uncertain about the matchups.

[Hirooo]

For now it would be nice if you would look over the guide and see if there's anything else you disagree with.

Alright. I dont even remember my most recent shadow frost list so uhm I currently dont feel like writing stuff before I had access to the forge/a decent deckbuilding tool to refresh some memories.

Even worse, that 300 power is not eco-friendly. It’s bound, which means it doesn’t get recycled. If it drops that’s a huge chunk of power gone, although it’s still permanently gone even if it doesn’t drop. 

"Bound" might confuse some people if you use the same word when talking about the power system besides monuments as bound energy in units and buildings is a completely different thing.

 

or I just summon a Grigori and nasty it. 

While I agree that this was like totally great n stuff (okay it was probably the strongest t3 attack next to old sandstorm and instastampede juggernaut..) they changed nasty to a hardcap on maximum damage making the infamous grigorinasty no longer viable.

 

That sudden loss of 300 power will bring back somewhere between 100 and 200 by the time your monument gets up. Even then, I’ll be getting power faster than you because my void will have 300 power more than yours.

You are talking about the same mechanic twice here.

 

Because of the nature of fire-nature t3, it’s often impossible to prevent an orb from dropping in t3. For this reason, it is highly recommended to play the t3 orb the same color as your starting orb.

While you got a point here I disagree with highlighting this in such a strong way.

For one your startingorb is the most secured one on nearly all maps and dropping to t0 happens almost nether. And if you do this requires you to lose two orbs so nature t2 creatures are no longer playable. For this to happen your t1 and t3 orb have to be more exposed than your t2 orb.

In the rare case with fire nature on one orb and you not having groundcontrol near a new orbposition the game is probably lost anyways. 

While there can be games where this is different the power difference between different t3 colors are almost always more important.

Personally I would not highlight it this way in a beginners guide.

 

mountaineer is fairly essential for fire-frost

I disagree. Fire/Frost gets powerefficient trades especilly by abusing frostsorceress + skyfiredrake/scythfiends and can scale into the higher energy t2s with using mountaineer but rageclaws do the job just as well in most matchups. Not a bad use of a deckslot by any means but fire/frost on budget is just as viable.

 

Pure frost is probably your hardest matchup because of your lack of air control

In my experience pure Fire was way harder to deal than pure frost and I considered shadow nature a pure frost counter.

DAs nightguards and ghostspears give you very strong offensive options with nothing but frostmages left for the poor frost soul.

Pure fire on the other hand.. You had no highly effcient way to clear out a offense as long as you could not get a lucky 900hp nasty and that powerwell really dropped fast this time

 

Offering: It’s rare to lose all of your charges in PvP. 

Btw. The only time this saw play was while voidstorm was overpowered but had little charges. Might be used as soon as low charge card gets buffed too much.

 

[Eirias]

 

Alright. I dont even remember my most recent shadow frost list so uhm I currently dont feel like writing stuff before I had access to the forge/a decent deckbuilding tool to refresh some memories.

"Bound" might confuse some people if you use the same word when talking about the power system besides monuments as bound energy in units and buildings is a completely different thing.

 

While I agree that this was like totally great n stuff (okay it was probably the strongest t3 attack next to old sandstorm and instastampede juggernaut..) they changed nasty to a hardcap on maximum damage making the infamous grigorinasty no longer viable.

 

You are talking about the same mechanic twice here.

 

While you got a point here I disagree with highlighting this in such a strong way.

For one your startingorb is the most secured one on nearly all maps and dropping to t0 happens almost nether. And if you do this requires you to lose two orbs so nature t2 creatures are no longer playable. For this to happen your t1 and t3 orb have to be more exposed than your t2 orb.

In the rare case with fire nature on one orb and you not having groundcontrol near a new orbposition the game is probably lost anyways. 

While there can be games where this is different the power difference between different t3 colors are almost always more important.

Personally I would not highlight it this way in a beginners guide.

 

I disagree. Fire/Frost gets powerefficient trades especilly by abusing frostsorceress + skyfiredrake/scythfiends and can scale into the higher energy t2s with using mountaineer but rageclaws do the job just as well in most matchups. Not a bad use of a deckslot by any means but fire/frost on budget is just as viable.

 

In my experience pure Fire was way harder to deal than pure frost and I considered shadow nature a pure frost counter.

DAs nightguards and ghostspears give you very strong offensive options with nothing but frostmages left for the poor frost soul.

Pure fire on the other hand.. You had no highly effcient way to clear out a offense as long as you could not get a lucky 900hp nasty and that powerwell really dropped fast this time

 

Btw. The only time this saw play was while voidstorm was overpowered but had little charges. Might be used as soon as low charge card gets buffed too much.

 

Thanks! "Bound" power means any power you spend that doesn't go back into the void pool. So building and units are bound when they're in use, but become un-bound when they die. The power from a well or monument is permanently bound, whether it dies or not. That's all I mean; was it too confusing?

Do you know what the nasty cap was? I meant that the grigori would hit the monument until it got into nasty range, because I still thought it was over 1000 damage, which is still a lot.

Actually, it IS 2 separate mechanics. I think I would need a differential equation to properly explain what I mean, but I'll try to summarize without one. What I meant was that I would have 100-200 power already in my pool, PLUS my pool would still be growing faster than the opponent. So think y=At + B where y is power and t is time. Both A and B will rise for the player who spent 300 unbound power than the player who bound it after any given time. Immediately after the 300 power is wasted, B=0 (which is why you thought I was talking about the same thing), but after the monument is finished, B no longer equals = 0 (because B is a function itself, and A is actually a derivative, so I'd need to use differential equations to properly explain. It looks like a first order linear non-homogenous initial value problem, but I haven't actually tried to solve it yet).

 

Regarding orb color, it's actually pretty devastating for fire-nat to lose the fire orb (I used to play fire-nat-shad but I could never let orbs be traded). If I lost my t1 I could only play mauler and ghostspears (burrower would have helped, but not a ton, I think). I think it's actually LESS of a problem in higher levels than in medium levels. Sure, the 1st orb is usually better defended, but it's also fairly easy to just target that orb. It doesn't matter if someone drops my fire orb in a fire-nat-fire deck 30 seconds before I drop his fire orb in a fire-nat-shad deck: it's still t2 vs 1/3 of t2. In my experience it becomes easier to prevent this exchange in higher levels, but easier to force it in lower levels. But maybe I'm biased and it's just harder on fire-nat than other factions?

@xHighTech You're looking in . Do you have any commentary about choosing orbs of 3 different colors? I remember dropping shadow t3 for fire t3 was one of the things that boosted me into gold rankings from when I was even worse than that.

 

Thanks a ton! I'll include these comments (with credit) in the next update!

[Hirooo]

"Bound" power means any power you spend that doesn't go back into the void pool. So building and units are bound when they're in use, but become un-bound when they die. The power from a well or monument is permanently bound, whether it dies or not. That's all I mean; was it too confusing?

The energy for monuments is not bound in anything it simply gets lost so I would not use the same word here as for bound energy that can be released (what is kind of implied by the word) by destroying units/buildings.

I know what you meant but in my opinion it should be way less confusing this way

Do you know what the nasty cap was? I meant that the grigori would hit the monument until it got into nasty range, because I still thought it was over 1000 damage, which is still a lot.

Iirc 990 Dmg per target. A grig wont get your monument down to that in a reasonable time. There are scarier things in t3. But this point wasnt that important. Your point was more about something big and angry stomping a base anyway and you are right about that. 

Actually, it IS 2 separate mechanics.

You have a advantage of 300 energy. You say you will get between 100 and 200 energy more back because of this.

Following this you mention you have 300 more voidpower. You have higher voidbackflow because you have more energy in your pool so you lose this faster so as much advantage you get by having a higher backflow as much is your advantage in the voidpool lowered.

So its the same thing. Or am I missing your point here?

Regarding orb color, it's actually pretty devastating for fire-nat to lose the fire orb (I used to play fire-nat-shad but I could never let orbs be traded).

If I lost my t1 I could only play mauler and ghostspears (burrower would have helped, but not a ton, I think).

Losing your t1 orb is on most maps not too common.

Yes burrowers would have helped a ton because what you want to do is either pressure monuments or reconstruct your t3. Burrower is the perfect unit in this situation (swift/siege) and should be considered a staple in most fire/nature decks. So in your special case of a deck not running burrower but firestalker I can understand you are a bit more worried about losing your t1 orb but from a standpoint of building the strongest possible fire/nature deck or even discussing a remotely standard one losing your fire-orb is not such a huge deal.

But maybe I'm biased and it's just harder on fire-nat than other factions?

To be honest most fire nature players run burrower  :/

While firestalkers can be fun burrowers  should be easier to handle for players new to PvP. 

Edited September 16, 2015 by Hirooo
Words

[Azta]

This needs either a PDF version, or put the guide on steam

[Eirias]

This needs either a PDF version, or put the guide on steam

Yeah, I'll format a PDF when I finish. Sometime next year, at this rate . I'm about halfway through the fire-frost section right now.

[Eirias]

Updated to include fire-frost! If anyone wants to help out with the matchups or deck evolution section (or anywhere else, I never played fire-frost or played with someone who did) just let me know. I appreciate any help I can get!

 

Also, the formatting seems weird for the 2nd half. I hypothesize that I'm reaching the limit of what i'm allowed to put in a single post....

[ImperatorSK]

Can you change for the overview each new topic and each Fraction that changed in a different color and in bold. Its hard to find specific topics in this wall of text, if its not highlighted. Overfly a bit the Deck section and so far a good guide .

Edited November 17, 2015 by ImperatorSK

[SilenceKiller99]

@Eirias I have not read the whole guide yet, but could you say some more about nature-fire (with a nature T1) and how it is different from fire-nature?

[Eirias]

Can you change for the overview each new topic and each Fraction that changed in a different color and in bold. Its hard to find specific topics in this wall of text, if its not highlighted. Overfly a bit the Deck section and so far a good guide .

Thanks for the suggestion. Unfortunately, I do have it formatted differently in my Word doc, but when I paste it over it loses the formatting. I can change it for now, but it will disappear the next time I update it.

@SilenceKiller99

Fire nature t2 is played pretty independently of the t1. That's why I did the t2 section first and added the t1 in later. I can include some deck combinations that only work if you play nature t1 though, if you want (they're pretty sub-optimal). Mostly the difference between that and the deck I gave as an example is that cards like hurricane become essential, so things like deathgliders become unplayable.

[SilenceKiller99]

 

Fire nature t2 is played pretty independently of the t1. That's why I did the t2 section first and added the t1 in later. I can include some deck combinations that only work if you play nature t1 though, if you want (they're pretty sub-optimal). Mostly the difference between that and the deck I gave as an example is that cards like hurricane become essential, so things like deathgliders become unplayable.

Okey, you mean deathglider gets unplayable to get in your deck? or that you can't defend against a deathglider?

And yes, please show us some good nature-fire decks, that would be great!

[Eirias]

Okey, you mean deathglider gets unplayable to get in your deck? or that you can't defend against a deathglider?

And yes, please show us some good nature-fire decks, that would be great!

Yes, you can't play deathglider (you probably won't want to anyway, but whatever) if you start t1 nature, because deathglider is basically a unit version of hurricane. It has its pros and cons, but most people (including myself) feel that hurricane is stronger than deathglider, but deathglider is the much cheaper option. But if you start nature t1, hurricane is essential to surviving t1, so that will be in your deck anyway. No need for deathglider.

I'll try to include some nature-fire stuff in the next update.

[Ultrakool]

Okey, you mean deathglider gets unplayable to get in your deck? or that you can't defend against a deathglider?

I think he means with Nature T1, you use more deckslots than fire T1, and therefore you don't have deckslots for death glider, or that if you go nature T1, you need hurricane, and death glider has the same function as hurricane, knock-back s units....

[Eirias]

Just wanted to let y'all know that I'm temporarily suspending my work on this guide. The forums have grown quite a bit since I last updated it, and I'm still taking suggestions and making notes if anyone who never noticed this has anything else to add. However, I don't have a ton of time right now (and I have lots of things coming up in mid-February) and I think my resources are better spent making videos than updating this guide.

 

Of course, if people would rather me write this guide than make videos, I can do this instead. I actually prefer writing than commentating (but I have a do a LOT of writing normally, so casting videos is a nice break), but I think more people watch videos than read this monstrous guide. I really shouldn't be spending any time here right now, but Battleforge is important to me and I'm willing to make sacrifices for it.

 

Anyway, sorry for such a long break, but you don't have to worry about me quitting. This WILL get finished! 

 

[TerriakiChancel]

Take your time, we'll be waiting for you to finish this when things get better

[Eirias]

Now contracting someone to write the "Evolution of the Deck" for pure nature!

 

@dekka @beijingguy @Darian DelFord

[Darian DelFord]

10 hours ago, Eirias said:

Now contracting someone to write the "Evolution of the Deck" for pure nature!

 

@dekka @beijingguy @Darian DelFord

I had planned on making a Video guide for Nature in the future, after I get done with this infernal trailer.

Define, "Evolution" ;p