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View Full Version : I love my armory and you hate my armory (IS/FW)


DfosterW
11-05-2009, 11:58 AM
I thought I'd finally post this after playing with it for about a week. Some background information: Back when heralds came out, I IMMEDIATELy started running a fw/fs lockdown deck, and ended up talking to kreb about it. I love control themes, and FS/FW are favourite factions because of this. The day after heralds came out, my motherboard fried and I was SOL... not able to play for a month.

While I really liked that deck, I decided that, it ultimately was not incredible because of reliance on the anurans. Don't get me wrong, I love them. They are adorable, hysterical, and did I mention cute? Unfortunately, they are also overcosted, become crutch runes, and are easily killed. I wanted to branch out, and design various other equipment control decks.

Now, I'd previously tried some IS/FW control decks, even using the armory with some of them, but the decks never had enough consistency, and often ended up relying on the possession elements, which everyone abhors. However, the heralds brought out a couple huge changes that made this deck runnable. So, without further ado, here's my current BG.




Champions
Angel of Death 83
Angel of Death 83
Deep Miner 38
Deep Miner 38
Drakon 99
Earth Elemental 89
Executioner 67
Executioner 67
Mairdreth of the Rot 110
Whitestone Gargoyle 80
Whitestone Gargoyle 80
Wretched Witch 68
Wretched Witch 68
SPELL COST FACTION 6

Desperate Heal 50
Disarm 30
Essence Drain 50
Hammer Strike 45
Repair 35
Righteous Deflection 35
Soul Cage 30

RELIC COST DEF 2
Armory 25 9 21
Armory 25 9 21

EQUIPMENT 8
Blight Ring 25
Earthgod Sigil 25
Ethereal Mindshank 20
Ethereal Mindshank 20
Full Plate Armor 40
Ghost Pendant 30
Sacrificial Dagger 35
Sacrificial Dagger 35


What sparked this deck was the the gargoyles. They are relatively heavy hitting champs, with incredible tenacity, and a form of crowd control in sonic roar. Couple with negative equipment, Gargoyles are nasty. What made it better were the witches, who work so well with gargs you'd thing the design team had planned it. Gargs are immune to friendly witches (ie, aura, poisons clouds have no affect on them) which makes the witches great support, lowering ap even more, and debuffing enemies, as well as stealing ap.

Drakon was an immediate choice, as antagonize can now be abused with 1-2 range. The serpent works okay solely because of the discount. If she didn't get that discount, I'd remover her immediately.

The FPA+ earth ele combo is fantastic, and is often an early game winner. Couple with even more equipment, your opponent often cannot get rid of it.

I got up to rank 500 running this, and have been climbing still. Although I am finding myself lacking some important things, that I need to alter. Right now, my changes will be as follows.

swapping out the 2 angels of Death for 1x crossbones (64nora) and 1x decay. The reason being, angels really don't work as well as I was hoping in this deck. I think the cheap nature of the crossbones, and the utility of decay will be much more useful.
And lastly, I need to find room for a vial of holy water. Almost every single game I've lost in ranked (which is only 4) can be directly attributed to a lack of cleanse. I'm not sure what I will take out, but I'll find a slot.

S4v4g3r
11-05-2009, 12:27 PM
looks nice, but expensive to put together

DfosterW
11-05-2009, 12:56 PM
a little bit. the most expensive part though are the angels, and I'm taking them out.

Regulate
11-05-2009, 01:17 PM
looks fun, might give something based on this a go

Strings
11-05-2009, 01:48 PM
Very limited in range.Are you sure 2 sac daggers work better than, say, a shackle?

DfosterW
11-05-2009, 02:11 PM
I have not had a single problem with range. And I really don't understand why. But whenever I run into a problem range champ, execs+ shank/earthbound do me fine.

I've gone back and forth about swapping out a dagger for a shackles. Most games I only use 1 dagger, but then I'll play a game where I dagger both my grags at 1 hp, kill something, heal them back up to full, repair one later, kill again, RD, kill again... you get the idea. I think it just depends on preference. I've found sac dagger to be a big enough gamechanger that it's worthwhile, and the shackles would play a similar role as earthgods.

gaverion
11-05-2009, 06:28 PM
I love this style BG just have to ask, where are the cursed blades? I always love them, great when your opponent has a problem champ.

DfosterW
11-05-2009, 07:55 PM
I love this style BG just have to ask, where are the cursed blades? I always love them, great when your opponent has a problem champ.

I ran a cursed blade, but I found it much more useful to use shanks. They lower damage, and speed (which means less attacks) as well as actually giving you 5 nora each cycle. What's not to like? cursed blade is more of just a 'good rune' while my bg focuses alot on ap denial through shanks, shackles, witches, sonic roar, and curse. I prefer to shut down a champ than let it do it's thing. Along the same lines, eathbound sigil is better, because I can rush a champ, sigil it, and it is going nowhere. If you feel the need, I'm sure you can work it in, but for me, I'll stick with my shanks and shackles.

Strings
11-06-2009, 03:21 AM
You said the only time you lose is due to not having a vial of holy water and that shackles do the same as earthgod, so why dont you remove the earthgod, add in a vial, remove a dagger and as in a shackle?

Would give you some more room and options.

I am thinking of trying something like this my self, it looks cool! I will probably remove a dagger/FW dragon for 2 eternal liches, simply for added range (and those guys are just so good). I was also thinking Bone Ele's with FPA could be nice, since charge gives them a little movement and assault helps as well (and of course mega def on those dudes is cool ^_^) as well as unbending for bloodfiends.

Although those 2 ideas move away from the control part, they should be able to fit into it somewhere ^_^

Strings
11-06-2009, 04:54 AM
Btw, how do you deal with moga? :)

kthx
11-06-2009, 05:45 AM
Btw, how do you deal with moga? :)

I guess you're stuck with witches/BEs/gargoyles. Not as good as I'd like against them, but especially if you can get an angel down, definitely good enough.

kthx.

Strings
11-06-2009, 07:02 AM
I guess you're stuck with witches/BEs/gargoyles. Not as good as I'd like against them, but especially if you can get an angel down, definitely good enough.

kthx.

I guess FW/IS heralds and BE will have to do for me since I cannot find room for the angels. EL are too good to pass up when you have the choice imo.

FPA BE/EE should do well vs the little guys, along with ghost pendant :)

Regulate
11-06-2009, 07:05 AM
I took your deck and added an earthmover & 2 domi for extra rage factor. I think equipment deck, EE + FPA, witches/lockdown element, and chasming makes this probably one of the most annoying decks ever, heh.

DfosterW
11-06-2009, 07:30 AM
Yes, it's one of the most obnoxious decks if you add chasming. With it's lockdown elements, it's actually pretty good at it. ASs to how I deal with moga... mainly it's a case of hope and pray.


There are a couple things you hope and pray for

-early witches (ghost pendant can help alot)
-semi early earth ele+fpa (and wait for sustainers to come out... BH totally counters FPA)
-they use diamond mace for something stupid, like removing a blight ring from dirge

SP is by FAR the hardest matchup for this deck, but it has enough survivability and nora gen that if you can withstand the first wave you can often pull Through. I've only played 3 moga decks, but I beat 2 of them. I've found mixed SP much more difficult.

Adding a BE instead of the angels might not be a bad idea, just to help with le moga.


Earthgods does shackles job even better than shackles does. And about once every 5 chasm maps, I'll get a kill vs a flying champ. Adding lumbering to a champ with min range >3 means it will take them EIGHT ap to get into position to attack a champ that has engaged them. This NEVER happens. Witches will just tear through them. It's not a bad idea, but earthgods is also nice to slap on a dragon if you don't want to deal with them at the moment. Definitely a good idea though. I really feel like I need to find room for it, but have no idea how.




Random helpful hint: This deck definitely benefits from the miners, and as such you ahve to have ways to deal with anti nora gen. The best answer are witches. 1 cloud and an aura later, and you can gib your own miners. They have something like a 5 turn cooldown, so if you've dealt with the shamans/regulator/leeches, you can deploy them again pretty quick.



Great feedback though. Regulate, what did you take out for the earthmover/domi?

Regulate
11-06-2009, 08:29 AM
I run this:

CHAMPION

Bone Elemental
Deep Miner
Deep Miner
Drakon
Earth Elemental
Earthmover
Eternal Lich
Executioner
Executioner
Mairdreth of the Rot
Pox Doombringer (IS)
Whitestone Gargoyle
Whitestone Gargoyle
Wretched Witch
Wretched Witch

SPELL

Desperate Heal
Disarm
Domination
Domination
Hammer Strike
Mobilization

RELIC

Armory

EQUIPMENT

Blight Ring
Cursed Blade
Earthgod Sigil
Ethereal Mindshank
Ethereal Mindshank
Full Plate Armor
Sacrificial Dagger
Vial of Holy Water


I don't necessarily think it's an improvement on your deck, but yeah it's fun.

I've got 2 FW angels but I didn't feel like I could fit both in, and running 1 seems silly.

DfosterW
11-06-2009, 08:36 AM
Angel's don't work well, I've taken mine out. On paper they seem sexy, in practice, they need different decks.

wohenjian
11-11-2009, 04:25 PM
A deck of Exotics and LE's is just a bunch of superheros, who just overwhelme you with a bunch of super-abilities, and is not fun at all !

The coolest runes in this game is Uncommons and Commons.