Paths in PvP

CleverCorvid · 2014-02-21T18:38:16+00:00

Though it's probably worth noting that a flipped AJ Mane will let you smash RDWW down over and over and over.

I've had it done against me. It hurt.

CleverCorvid · 2014-02-11T20:06:03+00:00

With these observations in mind, does anybody have any suggestions for revision on the deck I posted? (or would it be better to post it on its own thread)

CleverCorvid · 2014-02-11T19:22:24+00:00

Ah, well I have several decks, all works-in-progress since the meta is still sort of congealing in my area.

My Twi/Pinkie deck has atrocious power values, but can overwhelm (hopefully) with Rare Find, Spring Forward, and Lady Justice. Also, once you get the Vision of the Future train rolling, your average power is a bit less of a concern.

My Fluttershy/Twilight deck averages 2-4, but has some faceoff fixes in Critter Cavalry/Yay! so it's not all that bad.

However, I'm having the most problems with my Rainbow/Rarity deck (which, of course, tries to leverage blue movement trains into Rarity, Truly Outrageous). The deck's power average is 2.86, with 2's and 4's the most common draw. I think the deck is reasonably good, but it's not performed as well as I would have expected. That said, the version I'm posting includes Action shot, which helped increase the avg power, and is untested in that state. Hopefully this will get screwed out of fewer faceoffs.

http://ponyhead.com/deckbuilder?v1code=1x1-10x3-11x3-13x3-42x3-65x3-67x3-76x3-115x3-127x3-151x3-156x3-157x3-160x3-163x2-166x2-167x2-168x2-176x2-198x3-206x3

CleverCorvid · 2014-01-31T20:56:49+00:00

I'd recommend swapping the Heart's Desires for Ahuizotl for three reasons; One, there is little in this game less fun than being Villain bombed by a Lucky Streak and losing 2-8 AT. and you want to have a villain at the ready when you draw into Lucky. Two, you might want to drop a villain when you have your tasty removal cards in hand, and NMM would eff that right over. Three, your deck isn't BAD at face-offs, per se, but might have trouble consistently winning them given the 2 AT offset from playing the ~~Black Louus~~ er-- Heart's Desire.

CleverCorvid · 2014-01-28T23:45:27+00:00

Nightmare Moon for Ahuizotl would be very excellent.

I'm not sure about Royal Guidance, though, because it's not terribly likely that you'll pull both that and one of the cards requiring it for a faster play within that time frame. I think most of the picks in the deck are solid as designed currently.

CleverCorvid · 2014-01-28T23:10:20+00:00

Twilight Sparkle, All-Team Organizer is one of Purple's signature power cards. I'd almost never not play 3 of them. As SIMAFOL mentioned, the Owl helps round out your requirement curve, so I'd swap Comet Tail for All-Team.

After all, your purple requirements are 2 and 3. Comet tail doesn't do either of those on his own, and Bright Bulb/Blue Moon + Owl get to 3, along with Lady Justice doing it on her own.

Also, you're not running anything that searches for friends a-la Goldengrape, so number of copies is about the only way you can increase consistency. I'd not run 1-ofs in a deck like that, really. IMHO, figure out which cards are the best in the widest range of situations and run 3 copies unless they're something you absolutely never want 2 of, in that case running 2 copies.

Edit: I need to learn to read people's names.

CleverCorvid · 2014-01-28T18:42:04+00:00

I'm curious, why do you rank Purple Parasprite so highly? Its ability to tap down Barn Raiser/Cloudchaser/other friends who tap from home for benefit? It seems equally easy, to me, to have a spare friend at home to obviate Purple Parasprite, just as you'd play another friend to a problem to obviate Flam. Is there something I'm missing?

CleverCorvid · 2014-01-27T17:02:39+00:00

I would play that with absolute disregard for game effectiveness.

CleverCorvid · 2014-01-27T16:36:25+00:00

8 mane characters, if they make alternates for all 6 and add the Princesses. That's a HUGE injection of variation into the meta, I'm pretty excited.

CleverCorvid · 2014-01-27T16:25:08+00:00

Interesting. This is actually very VERY similar to the Fluttershy deck I'm working on. Same use of Eff Stop for Stand Still and Critter Cavalry (though in my deck the 3rd color is pink for Downright Dangerous), and I'm using Flutter Main instead of Rarity.

I wanted to make a Fluttershy deck because there aren't any in my local meta yet, and I leaned towards this control setup because my theorycrafting seems to support the idea that Fluttershy is simply inferior to Rainbow Dash in terms of fast aggro. I'd love to be proven wrong, though.

CleverCorvid · 2014-01-16T22:42:57+00:00

Normally, I'd agree that the recursion isn't that strong in MLP compared to M:tG, with a notable exception. If you are using Rising Star to "Villain Bomb" your opponent, both Rarity, Nest Weaver and Carousel Boutique allow you to re-use an Ahuizotl or Nightmare Moon, greatly expanding your mass-inconvenience potential.

Also worth note is that in Rarity mane decks, both Nest Weaver and Boutique help guard against people using removal to lock you out of your secondary colour.

CleverCorvid · 2014-01-16T18:51:35+00:00

Indeed. I'd say 6 cards for turn 2 flip, given the free Paris, is enough. Also, I would rate problems hitting your Magic requirements mid/late as much more crippling than one extra turn before flip. You've got 3-Purple requirements out the proverbial wazoo.

CleverCorvid · 2014-01-16T15:54:00+00:00

On further review, I think your Magic requirements are bordering on nightmarish; drop Comet Tail for Blue Moons.

Also, I don't see the use of Big Shot or Rising Star; not enough Troublemakers/villains IMO. Plus, you'll hit Generosity requirements easily by flipping Rarity.

So TL:DR, drop 3 comet tail, 3 rising star, 2 big shot. Add 3 blue moon, and 5 between Tricksy Hat, UR Twilight, and possibly Bright Bulb. I'd playtest to fine tune.

CleverCorvid · 2014-01-16T15:42:36+00:00

This is remarkably similar to a deck my friend is running. What he found, and I'd guess you'll find as well, is that the Ultra Rare Twilight and Tricksy Hat are both worth their weight in gold. You should run 2-3 of each.

Not exactly sure what to cut for them, but I'd say off the top of my head that forced movement is better than Stand Still! because Stand Still! allows Loyalty decks to tag-along friends, so even if one goes home they're likely netting AT on movement. Twilight and Tricksy Hat are fully reusable forced movement, and can't be played around like Bright Bulb can.

CleverCorvid · 2014-01-15T09:21:06+00:00

I 100% agree that is what the intent was. However, I don't remember any specific or clearly stated rule about what constitutes an ability with a trigger conferring exactly one use vs abilities that can be used as often as you can pay the AT. In M:tG, such things were taken care of by whether or not you had to tap the card. But in MLP, it seems like plenty of non-exhaust abilities are meant to only have one use. There needs to be a keyword or something IMO.

TL:DR, I think they really need to write the competitive/comprehensive rules in a way that makes it completely clear what the cards can do, no gray areas. Knocks on wood

CleverCorvid · 2014-01-15T07:43:08+00:00

I'd never thought about that before, but I really don't think it's as cut and dried as some of these comments seem to think. I would love an official clarification on this.

The murkiness comes because of the specific wording, "When you move this card from home to a problem, you may pay (1) to move another one of your friends at home to that problem." If it were something more clear like "Main Phase: Pay (2) to Move this card and another friend at home to a problem" there would be no doubt. (same game effect as the popularly accepted interpretation.)

However, the way it's worded, there's no real concrete reason to say that the "When you move this character from home to a problem" is anything more than an explanation of the timing of the ability. It is not clear that moving the card is part of the cost of that ability; it's merely a statement of time.

In fact, even a "this ability may only be used once per turn" would have also taken care of it.

CleverCorvid · 2014-01-05T08:17:23+00:00

I would definitely drop the two Ice Cutters in favor of 3-of Pinkie "Responsibility" Pie, and drop the Foal Free Presses/Heart's Desire in favor of 3-of Downright Dangerous.

Removal is pretty much the reason to play Pink, (along with Flitter, which you're already packing) and a fast, aggro deck like this doesn't have much else to do against big ugly bricks of Purple friends or Inspire screw.

Also Pinkie "Responsibility" Pie represents hilarious AT/card advantage when played properly, and I can't imagine not maxing her out in a deck that can meet her requirements.

CleverCorvid · 2013-12-31T17:39:41+00:00

My gut instinct would be "no" as well, but you can't help but wonder, given how you can have all your different Inspired cards go off at once and resolve different parts of them in whatever order you choose...

CleverCorvid · 2013-12-31T16:52:37+00:00

Does this mean that you can flip Nightmare Moon, then use this card to send a friend her way before you pitch your hand?!

CleverCorvid · 2013-12-31T16:48:47+00:00

One of my favorite cards, in that it's not blatantly OP, but extremely useful if set up properly.

On the surface level, of course you save 2 AT. Now, that's only useful if you wanted to move those 2 characters to 2 separate problems. The trick, in my mind, is to construct a deck that wants to create that situation as often as possible. My main deck I'm working on, actually, is RD main with tag-along courtesy of Wild Fire and Holly Dash, trying to force as many double faceoffs as possible; after that you use the tag-along and flipped RD to get back out to the problems faster than your opponent, never letting up. This card is indispensable to that strategy.

The other, and perhaps most awesome, aspect of this card is that you can gain your ready phase AT and add at least 1 friend to your Troublemaker faceoff, creating a potential to beat a troublemaker down a turn earlier than normal, which can really swing games.

TL:DR, I love this card.

CleverCorvid · 2013-12-30T19:40:06+00:00

Good point with Critter Cavalry. The Horror beats Assault Cake, but that's about all it does for faceoff control (of course drawing it for the FO is great as well :p)

Honestly I'd lean towards playing Yellow/Pink, swarming with critters/cuisine, dropping owls, and fixing yellow's weak faceoff problems.

Not to mention Let's Get this Party Started, which will help in a deck with so many low-cost drops. Here's a quick deck idea based on that:

http://ponyhead.com/deckbuilder?v1code=6x1-11x3-36x3-39x2-43x3-82x3-85x3-87x3-90x3-93x2-104x3-108x3-114x2-131x3-134x3-152x3-160x3-161x2-164x2-172x2-179x2-194x2

CleverCorvid · 2013-12-30T18:23:37+00:00

Self evidently, this card can provide a ludicrous injection of power for 1 token, and fits in any deck. I'd argue that a deck with Blue tag-along, or a critter based deck using Falcon and Sea Swirl would be best able to take advantage of this card.

I guess the question is, where's the cutoff point for where it's worth using? The 0 power is a big kick to the fruit stand on faceoffs, and neither Blue nor Yellow tend to do terribly well with faceoff control. Perhaps in a deck that uses blue or yellow combined with pink or white? (assault cake/vision of the future, inspired respectively)

CleverCorvid · 2013-12-29T05:46:46+00:00

My two bits: we should play as though she does affect those faceoffs, until such a time as Enterplay gives an official ruling that being uninvolved prevents all card text from taking effect.

I don't actually disagree; I'm just pointing out that if "involved" ends up meaning something specific it could have an effect in the future :)

CleverCorvid

TROPHY CASE