Ignore for now

[maudlin27]

Edit: It seems you can't edit the title for a thread, so just ignore this and let it disappear to the depths of the forum (or better, be deleted).

[maudlin27]

Edit: Ignore, please see the thread titled "Shattered Peaks Guide": http://forums.poxnora.com/showthread.php?t=466

[maudlin27]

Moga
Note: Moga section is updated for Path to Conquest
Not as powerful as they used to be, Moga can still be quite effective especially at lower levels. Typically used with a more aggressive 'rush' style backed up by some support g'hern.

Buckethead A great moga for sheer damage potential (it can upgrade to rend to increase this further), the buckethead is a fairly unconventional champ, but suffers from damage aura when used near other moga. Note that berserker only works with overseer, allowing you to store ap out of range (but also causing only +5 ap instead of +6 ap a turn).

Possible Upgrades:
'Reinforced Bucket' - +6 hp [33]
'Spiked Bucket' - +6 hp, Rend 2 [38]

Cavernkeeper
Some obvious synergy with voil decks, this champ can not only help heal them bit (without fear of being focused on), but doesn't have to rely on g'hern for overseer.
Note: More information requested from cavernkeepers for possible upgrades.

Moga Assault Team - A great all-round champ. Although expensive for a moga, they're very tough, have a brilliant range, and with multiattack can dish out damage at a decent rate (while also allowing you to deploy them at your font/shrine and launch an attack immediately). Disperse also gives them a useful situational use for boosting your g'herns damage, as well as destroying equipped equipment, and removing DoT and other effects. It also means if your MAT is 1 hit from being killed you can potentially quadruple the number of attacks your opponent has to make (since the dispersed shield moga gains block). Use these if you're worried about aoes or facing a large ranged force, and also to block enemy melee champs. With a range of 1-3 you'll also find them highly versatile (e.g. melee attack against champions with dodge, ranged attack against champions with block)

Possible Upgrades:
'Standard' - 9 speed [57]; There's not much need to boost them any more; the dispersed moga won't benefit, and with 9 speed you're getting enough ap for 2 attacks every round anyway. A damage boost is a slight possibility, but not that necessary.

Moga Creeper - SP gets a stealth moga! Stealth coupled with knockout gives this moga a number of useful roles that moga decks previously did not have available to them, helping to compensate for it's fairly low hp and high cost.

Possible upgrades:
'Survivor' - +6 hp [44]
'Ambusher' - 11 speed, +6 hp [52]

Moga Hunters - Decent as a detector and font contester, and also as a long term nora efficient method of gaining moga. For 77 nora you have a fast and reasonably tough champ who doesn't need overseer, and then you gain 2 more moga when it dies.

Possible upgrades:
'Lean Hunter' - 11 speed [77] (Makes most efficient use of the hunter's moga-on-death ability, since those moga don't benefit from any upgrades to the hunter)

'Font Contester' - 11 speed, +2 damage, +6 health [86] (powerful enough to take on most champions 1on1, and tough enough to tie up a font against several champions for a while. Main drawback is the cost prevents you deploying a second champion in the event that the fonts are on two separate paths)

Moga Netter - A cheap ranged moga, whose attack causing grounding. The grounding is especially useful when combined with knockback abilities/spells and cliffs, although the netter as a general combat champ isn't that efficient since the cost increase. Inferior to the slinger, but worth consideration for a moga deck.

Possible upgrades:
'Swarmer' - +6 hp [34]
'Upgraded Net' - +2 damage, +4 hp [39]

Moga Scout - A decent melee moga, with detection in case you face stealth champs, and dodge to help it survive a bit longer. Worth including at least 1 in your bg if you're short on anti-stealth runes. However if you have no need for a detection rune then there are other slightly more efficient options.

Possible upgrades:
'swarmer' - +4 health [34]
'Bounty Hunter' - +6 health, Detection 3 [39]

Moga Slinger - One of the best moga available, due to a combination of a good range (3-6), decent damage and health, and a very cheap cost. 2 of them are brilliant for providing ranged firepower, while if you want to run lev5 moga they're probably one of the better candidates to choose due to their range

Upgrades:
'Battle-hardened' - +6 hp [39]
'Moga Elite' - 11 speed, +2 damage, +6 hp [53]

Moga Trailblazer - with the new moga from various expansions post SP there's not much need to include one of these in your bg. Mobility is a weak rune on melees, and even more so on a light-weight moga who will often have a thrower nearby anyway. Exertion meanwhile is also hopeless given the trailblazers low hp, and weak damage. Basically only consider these if you are focusing on rushing. The one advantage the trailblazer is it's speed, meaning you can make a respectable font contester out of him (which also increases the use of mobility).

Possible upgrades:
'Cheap Font Contester' - 11 speed, +2 or +6 health [39-41]
'Archers Nemesis' - 11 speed, +6 health, Exertion 3 [45]

Moga Trapper - One of the cheapest melee moga available, although their fairly low damage and more expensive cost than before means they aren't usually the best choice for a melee moga. Use these if you're looking for some cheap cannon fodder that will have a chance of dealing some damage to the opponent. The trap ability is mostly worthless, although if you're efficient with your moving you can often use it to deal a bonus point of damage to the enemy. Upgrading it meanwhile is too expensive given the weak effect of the traps in question (even if you combined it with a SL 10/ deck with dragon skull). There is also some slight synergy with the moga trigger, but nothing too noteworthy.

Possible upgrades:
'Swarmer' - +4 hp [29]
'Trigger-friend' - Fire Trap 1 [29]
'Trapper' - Fire trap 3, Bouler trap 3, +4 hp [44]

Moga Trigger - Although overshadowed by the trapper (in turn overshadowed by some of the more recent melee moga), they're still an average melee champ, and have some mild synergy with cyclops nemesis and moga trappers. Given that traps can be set ontop of each other you can set a nice stash of traps, then eat them with your trigger and relocate him into the front lines.

Possible upgrades:
'Swarmer' - no upgrades [29]
'Trap Eater' - 11 speed, +6 health [40]

Moga Zealot - Given a big boost, so it is now playable in moga decks and surge decks (compared to neither before). A powerful hitter who can gain +1-2 bonus damage from your g'hern, although the zealot does suffer from poor survivability, as with other melee moga.

Possible upgrades:
'Battle-hardened' - +6 hp [37]
'True Zealot' - 11 speed, +6 hp [45]

Reckless Spellhack - Cheap, with a fast cooldown, reasonable health (compared to what it used to be), and the ability to deal some ranged damage to the opponent unlike other moga. The best ues for this champ is often as a cannon fodder type champ who can get to battle quickly, get off an attack, draw some enemy fire, and then come back again quickly.

Possible upgrades:
'cannon-fodder' - +2 hp [24]
'Battle Trained' - 9 speed, +6 hp [34]

[maudlin27]

Cyclops Chieften - Unfortunately I haven't got any experience with this cyclops, and so can only comment based on what others have said. As such please contribute if you have any suggestions for builds etc. with him. A quick summary is that while his boost abilities are nice at improving cyclops decks, decks that are built around 2x2 melee champions suffer a huge mobility problem making them fairly poor overall. The chieften is a good champ, but it's just the deck type doesn't really work with poxnora.

Suggested upgrades:
Contributions needed

Cyclops Earthshaker - better than some of the cyclops available, but the problem is his tremor ability is just too much of a liability with moga and other champ heavy deck styles. A fun rune, but not that competitive with your typical SP build. You could try and combine him with an IS 10/ to get a bit more use out of knockback, but with rock traps, eye belts, and avalanches there are better runes for that anyway.

Possible upgrades:
TBC (can't remember if you could get physical resist 2 on him)
Provisional upgrade suggestion:
'Unstable' - 9 speed, +6 hp, vulnerability: magical, resistance: physical 2 [57]

Cyclops Mauler - With berserker being recosted the mauler is slightly more worthy of inclusion. He can hit hard, and is fairly tough, but suffers the typical millstone of being a 2x2 melee champ. To be honest there are better options out there, but if you're pursuing a cyclops theme deck with the lord he's worth consideration.

Possible upgrades:
'Mauler Cub' - 8 speed, +6 hp [57]
'Mountain Cyclops' - 11 speed, berserker 3, +6* health [78] *(if cp allows)

Cyclops Nemesis - Unfortunately a shadow of it's former self. The cyclops nemesis has it's uses, particularly in a defensive deck where you are looking for something to hold the opponent up, such as with a surge deck. The nemesis is a poor deploy if it's your first turn, or you are advancing on your opponent, since they will be able to get the earthmover out and attacking you quickly. However if you're defending your font/shrine, then it works out much better since chances are your opponent will be forced to kill it long before the earthmover reaches battle.

Possible upgrades:
'meat-shield': 9 speed [38]
'killer': 11 speed [47]

Cyclops Seer - If you want detection go for the moga scout or hunter. If you want devour, go for the g'hern punisher. If you want non-physical damage, go for the g'hern birthmother. If you want poison, migrate to forglar swamp. Although the seer is certainly better than she used to be a long time ago, with the slag/afflict nerf she is much more of a niche option, for example if you want to cover all the above options in one rune, albeit not very well, and have afflict as an extra. Please comment if you're having success with her or have a better recommended build!

Possible upgrades:
'Assassin's Bane' - 9 speed, Poison 2, Detection 3, +6 hp [64]

Cyclops Youth - It's damage aura will end up hurting you more than your opponent, although it no longer costs a fortune. The cave dragon is a better choice than this however, providing anti-equipment, decent damage and some staying power for a lower cost.

Possible upgrades:
Veteran: 9 speed, +6 hp [61]


Voil+Bats:
Bat Swarm - The original swarm champ. Despite various buffs it's still inferior to the other swarm champs out there, but fortunately not by such a great distance. On the plus side, you get 9 base speed, decent damage, and flight. On the down side you're easily killed.

Possible upgrades:
'Bat Duo' - +6 hp [65]
'Bat Horde' - 11 speed, +2 damage, +6 hp [79]

Cavernspawn - Worth considering if you're going for a SP/UD deck, and also reasonable in a standard SP deck. Very hard hitting thanks to high base damage and rend, while kill frenzy offers some (admittedly situational) scope for further damage.
Possible upgrades:
'Standard' - 9 speed, +6 hp [72]

Firebomber - a nifty champ this. Comes with fire damage for physical resistant/immune champs, works as a decent aoe champ if you boost it's fire bomb ability, and is nice when coupled with SP's relocate ally and thrower abilities. On the downside the moga cannon provides a better fire damage option, and it costs a hefty amount of nora.

Possible upgrades
'Standard' - +6 hp [76]
'Skirmisher' - 11 speed, Fire Bomb 3, +6 hp [88?]

Voil Bomber - an inferior version of the firebomber as a combat champ. It has a few advantages, such as the ability to destroy equipment (increasing their versatility), and the fact that their stone bomb ability will cause knockback (meaning if you combine it with avalanches and the knockback ability you can often get kills on maps with cliffs). It can also disengage an enemy champion without injuring your bomber, giving it further use. It's basically a more fragile version of the firebomber, but with improved better support abilities. Include this if you want a flying disarming champion, or like utilizing knockback.

Possible upgrades:
'Standard' - 9 speed, +6 health [77]
'Skirmisher' - 11 speed, +6 health [86]
'Heavy Bomber' - 9 speed, +6 health, Stone Bomb 3 [81]

Voil Courier - Arguably the weakest of the diplomats. With deflect being recosted the courier is at least better than it was, with decent survivability, and the much coveted range of 1-3. Devour provides some small synergy with moga/surge decks, although chances are you'll be using the courier in a voil deck.

Possible Upgrades:
'Standard' - 9 speed, +6 hp [72]

Voil Frenzy - The voil soldier. Basically a decent combat champ which isn't really fragile and deals a decent amount of damage. Whirlwind attack isn't all that special, and it's often killed before blood frenzy is active, but it still is a decent rune in a voil deck.

Possible upgrades:
'Battle-hardened' - +6 hp [65]

Voil Lancer - A cheaper alternative to the frenzy, with better range but worse damage, health, and no special abilities (other than mobility which you're not going to want to upgrade to).

Possible upgrades:
'Battle-hardened' - +6 hp [61]

Voil Lifestealer - To be honest I don't much care for this champ. Low health means you aren't likely to get a chance to heal it with life siphon, while mobility coupled with life siphon means it costs a lot for what it does. Go with the frenzy, cavernspawn or even the lancer before this IMO.

Possible upgrades:
'Vampire Bat' - +6 hp [66]
'Count Lifestealer' - 11 speed, +2 damage, +10 hp [84]

Voil Queen - A very deadly attack with surge, and the ability to create cheap cannon fodder that also help with surge. The bats aren't worth upgrading to be combat capable (they die too easily for the nora cost of the ability), but the queen herself is a very powerful voil.

Possible upgrades:
'Voil Batmother' - +6 hp [63]
'Sharpened Claws' - +6 hp, Surge voil [74]
'Queen Eehiist' - 11 speed, +6 hp, Surge voil [81]

Voil Screecher - gives a rare ranged option to the voil, but is outclassed by the sorcerer in terms of damage. Dodge gives it some basic survivability, but the screecher still goes down pretty fast. Shouldn't be dismissed outright though, since 10 damage on a ranged champ is decent.

Possible upgrades:
'Deafening Bat' - 9 speed, +6 hp [71]
'Sonic Lightning' - 11 speed, +6 hp [80]

Voil Sorcerer - Very expensive, and with a dangerous on-death ability (that will hurt you far more often than your opponent), the sorcerer is still made powerful both by it's decent range, and synergy with 2 other voil runes, the transporter and the queen. With the queen producing bats the sorcerer can quickly gain a high damage level, while the transporter can then help bring it into range to attack.

Possible upgrades:
'Arch-Sorcerer' - 11 speed, +6 hp [88]

Voil Transporter - A great champion for voil, cyclops and beast decks, due to the big boost it provides to mobility. Relocate ally is invaluable for 2x2 melee champs, while the transporter makes placing your relocated champs where you want much easier thanks to flight. The transporter also opens up hit and run tactics, and works well with champs such as the sorcerer.

Possible upgrades:
'AMC: Armoured Moga Carrier' - +6 hp [60]
'Harrier' - +6 hp, 11 speed [68]

[maudlin27]

Beasts:
Cave Dragon - Works as both a cheap meatshield, a decent combat champ, and an anti-equipment champ, depending on what you want. Superior to the cyclops youth overall, it's main drawback is being a 2x2 melee champ.

Possible upgrades:
'Dragon Fodder' - No Upgrades
'Combat Dragon' - 9 speed, +4 hp [49]
'Versatile Dragon' - 9 speed, shatter, +2 hp [54]

Crowned Sauropod - Although unstoppable isn't great, this champs main use comes from it's upgrades (Voilbound and Bodyguard). Although slow and bulky, with 52 hp and decent defence it can soak up a fair amount of punishment, while voilbound helps ensure it's cost doesn't get too high.

Possible upgrades:
'Voilbound Chub' - 9 speed, Voilbound, Bodyguard [??]

Hyaenid Spearman - A nifty addition to most SP decks, the spearman has a number of useful abilities. It's range helps flesh out a typically weak part of SP, Cackle is very useful defensively not just for the spearman, but also for your other champions, while dead eater can provide a bit of extra nora.

Possible upgrades:
'Hardened Spear' - 9 speed, +6 hp [69]

Moga Cannon - although technically a moga, the moga cannon doesn't have g'hernbound and as such functions like most other beasts. With good damage, health, range, and a strong defensive ability, the moga cannon is a great all-round champ, while fire damage helps it fulfill yet another role (non-physical damage dealer). Typically included in both moga and voil decks alike, the cannon is an expensive but usually worthwhile choice of ranged unit.

Possible upgrades:
'Toughened Shell' - +6 hp [71]
'Skirmisher' - 11 speed, +6 hp [79]

Mountain Lion - the mountain lion has suffered both from the pounce nerfs and being a 2x2 melee champ with less survivability than your typical ranged champion. Low health, defence, and damage coupled with it's large base and melee range mean there's not much point putting this in a deck.

Possible upgrades:
'Hunter' - +6 hp, Detection 3 [54]

Mud Elemental - Very tough and with a useful mudsling ability, the mud elemental is often a key unit in voil/beast decks. Although trail mud and mudwalker are both useless ability upgrades, the elementals other upgrades provide a few different directions to go with him (from a efficient but more situational tank to a tougher but much more expensive one).

Possible upgrades:
'Clay Elemental' - +6 hp, Physical resist 3, Vulnerability: Fire, Vulnerability: Frost, 9 speed [64]
'Hardened Mud' - +6 hp, Physical Resist 3, 9 speed [76]

Oozing Slag - from shoebox to auto-include to shoebox, the slag has had quite a turbulent time of things. Although more useful now than when first released, the slag's suffers from being too easily killed once replicated. it's vulnerabilities mean aoes can make short work of it, while it's lack of decent healing means you're left only just above half health after replicating. Scry allows some trick deck use with them, and if you use them in a KF/SP deck with natures balance you can improve the survivability a bit, but the healing is still a problem even then.

Possible upgrades:
'Trick Deck Slag' - Scry [51]
'Super Slag' - 11 speed, +6 hp, +2 damage, Scry [78]

Parasitic Fesh - a champion with lots of potential, but in reality little of worth. There are several problems preventing the fesh achieving it's true potential. Firstly, the damage caused is no longer as great due to powercreep (champions damage and hp have increased significantly since it was released). Secondly and more importantly, your opponent can easily kill the fesh once it's infested the target, with cleanse, and also spells like sacrifice. If the worst comes to the worst they can just use an aoe to finish off their champion and stop you feshing it too. Even if you get a kill with the fesh, if it spawns on your opponents turn then you're surrounded by their champions, and have very low hp, meaning 2 hits and you're dead most likely. All in all the fesh is a great shame, since it's a very fun mechanic.

Possible upgrades:
'Toughened Worm' - 9 speed, +6 hp [60]
'Immortal Fesh' - 9 speed, +12 hp [66]

Pit Wolf - A cheap melee champ who hits hard but dies easily. The pit wolf is efficient at first glance, but is stopped from being great by it's 2x2 size and low health, meaning chances are it'll die before doing much if any damage. Rabid allows some decent damage, but again isn't great on a melee champ since chances are you'll be hitting the same target several times rather than being able to spread out the disease damage.

Possible upgrades:
'Starved Wolf' - +6 hp [49]
'Rabid Wolf' - Rabid 3, +6 hp [56?]

Savage Boar - On first glance you might think there is some decent potential here for a hit+run tactic with a charging boar and a voil transporter. However the boar is a bit too costly for what it does for this to really work out. The boar is an ok champion, and charge certainly helps make it easier to get into combat, but it still struggles too much compared with other options out there.

Possible upgrades:
'Enraged Boar' - Charge 3, +6 hp [67]
'Manic Boar' - 11 speed, Berserker 3, Charge 3, +6 hp [80]

[maudlin27]

Spells
SP is a typically champion orientated faction. That said, they do have some nifty spells that work well.

Avalanche - one of the more popular SP spells, it's very useful on cliff maps if your opponent is careless enough to leave a champion near a cliff (and complements SP's other knockback sources such as stone bomb, cyclops belt, and in particular rock trap nicely). Also useful for damage purposes if you need just a little bit of extra damage to finish off an enemy; Knockback is also very powerful if you're using a trap focused bg, as even if your opponent manages to avoid traps you can always knockback their champs to trigger ones they've avoided
Note: Knockback from avalanche won't work on HoC champions (or other physical/damage immune champions)

Bad Blood - quite expensive, but it is quite useful given how many factions will feature one or two main races. A fairly versatile spell due to the high single-target damage coupled with a global effect.

Consume Resources - Allows for some interesting rush decks, both with SP20/ and also SP/FS decks (consume resources, nora drain, semi-aquatics and moga). It's situational in use, but can catch your opponent of guard and if used at the right time can help win you the game.

Crack the Earth - very tough to cast as you can't have any champions in the affected area. As such has a marginal use (it's best used with knockback to gain the 5 knockback damage reliably), and probably won't be seen in most decks.

Devour - although it has been boosted, it's still quite weak, as the damage is spread over all your moga, and g'hern are typically expensive champs to sacrifice. That said, its of use if you have a near-death g'hern, and also for protection against global damage such as festering wounds and blister.

Distract - a nice ability, but it costs far far too much for what it does. Unfortunately I just can't see a case where the 35 nora wouldn't be better spent elsewhere

Intimidation - A great niche rune, that works well when your opponent has quite a few champions, but obviously not as many as you. It basically gives your moga a large defensive boost for a significant amount of time, meaning if there's about to be a large battle, playing this can often swing it in your favour. It can also be useful as a counter to shrine rushes if you have nothing else available, as that little bit less damage can often slow your opponent down by just enough to allow you to destroy their shrine, or deal with their shrine rush. The spell is less useful against high damage champs such as UD's though, where the -3 damage won't have much of an impact. Also beware of playing this against ST or other aoe heavy factions if your moga are grouped together, as a couple of aoes later and you could end up suffering from the -3 damage. For 40 nora though this spell is definitely worth it if you expect to outnumber your opponent in champions.

Moga Decoy - these are for pup generation what marsh song is for nora generation; They're not great, but they can be useful for an early-game boost, and if you have some spare nora. A g'hern birthmother is far better for cost-efficiency later on, and it can't produce pups as fast or as cheaply as a moga den. The decoys are crippled by global damage, and due to deploying anywhere in your shrine it's often obvious that they're illusions. Ultimately although just about comparable with some of the other moga-surge runes like the den, surge decks themselves are hopeless because the den+decoy are both so weak.

Scatter - Another source of knockback, but I'd much rather have 2 avalanches than this.

Strength in Numbers - If surge decks were competitive this spell would probably be ok. As it is though it sucks, since the bonus doesn't really do that much, and costs a lot of nora.

Suicidal Attack - unfortunately this is just too weak to consider in almost every case. The situations where it can be effective are on a near-death moga who can launch 2 attacks. 2 suicidal attacks will also effectively lower the disadvantage compared with just 1 (that is, you get +20 attack and +10 damage, but still only have to sacrifice 1 champ), but even then it's still too weak. In fact the spell doesn't really have any redeeming features, unless you're using nemesis champs and expect the nemesis to cause huge problems for you, in which case you could spend 35 nora and sacrifice your champion just to get rid of the nemesis.

Swimming Lessons - if in the future FS gets boosted with it's water spells and abilities causing impeding, and other factions also gain impeding water runes, this just might be of some marginal use, in particular for a 10/10 FS/SP bg. Other than that, don't waste a rune slot on this feeble rune.

Tribe War - don't bother with this, unless you're using it for a trick deck (in which case you'll probably be playing circus rather than 10/10 or 20/, and even then would struggle due to the nerfs to the tribe wars trick deck). The cyclops maulers are very weak due to only gaining 5 ap and having berserker (meaning they can never launch 2 attacks). Bear in mind that against the majority of factions your opponents maulers will be more powerful than yours (SL, ST, KF, UD and to a lesser extent IS) due to the faction bonus, and that their maulers won't die when yours are destroyed.

Unstable Ground - Synergises nicely with knockback, and so creates a welcome alternative to crack the earth that is easier to use and doesn't require going 10/10 with your deck. Although as a spell it's not great, because it's in SP (the home of knockback) it ends up being much better.

[maudlin27]

Relics
G'hern Scarecrow - great for moga rush bgs, average to weak for normal SP bgs. Basically this is a cheap source of overseer, for when you don't have any g'herns nearby or when they've been killed. It's a useful situational rune as such, because if your moga are left without overseer support they'll be near-useless. The main application is with moga rush bgs however, where you'll be looking to play lots of cheap moga early on, charge towards your opponent, and rather than suffering the tempo loss that a g'hern deployment would cause you simply deploy the scarecrow when you need it.

Moga Den - with the SP faction bonus at just +5 for 20/ this is a sadly weak rune now. The main reason is because of it's very high initial cost, coupled with a significant running cost. It is still useful though for moga-pup (g'hern focused) bgs, where if you can hold off your opponent for long enough with your moga, the moga den can produce enough pups to allow your g'hern to become deadly in combat. Unfortunately the pups themselves are useless in combat, while moga are no longer as strong as they were, and so will struggle to hold off the opponent, especially if most of your nora has gone on the dens. All in all, surge decks are very weak because of this rune (and the decoy) being so expensive.

Rock Trap - works brilliantly with avalanche, so much so that it has attracted a number of complaints+nerf calls. It can be tricky to position optimally (you'll want to use Linque's knockback guide to help you), but once you've got the hang of it it can work out as an aoe stun for you when coupled with avalanche. Without avalanche it is still good, likely being able to stun 1+ enemy champions if placed correctly.

Skull Totem - of some use against bgs where their spells are their main strength, and in particular where those spells are likely to be played several times in one game, but even then these will only be useful if you're planning a long drawn out cooldown-based game (where you'll be relying on your moga cooling down faster than the spells they use to kill them). A bit weak for my taste, but is useful for covering one of SP's main vulnerabilities, and offers some basic protection against FW tomb+fester bgs.

Tribal Post - if you're one of the people lucky enough to have a premium account, and were loyal enough to choose SP as your prefered warbanner (or rich enough to craft one/buy one from the store), then congratulations, because this is brilliant for SP - SP are the most champ heavy of all factions, and as such the warbanners (which benefit champ heavy bgs the most) are best with SP. +5 hp on your moga is a big boost, even if the nora bonus, attack and defence boosts won't make as noticeable an impact as with other factions, and the boost is nice for the fragile voil too!

Equipment
Bag of Boulders - it's meant to have been fixed now so it gives siege, but tbh you don't really need this unless creating a bg dedicated more to a sneaky incursion into your enemies shrine's area to kill it. It's probably best used on a g'hern tyrant or similar high damage champion (siege in effect provides +43% + 1 damage boost against shrines, due to the fact that siege will negate a shrines defence, so this is obviously going to be best on a massive damage champ)

Ball and Chain - great for crippling an expensive enemy champ, in particular if they're a melee champ, and for fighting retreats/combined with knockback (basically it's good if the champ isn't about to engage with your champ, and not so good if that champ can attack fine even with the +1 ap cost to movement)

Cyclops Eye Belt - a fun rune, and now at a reasonable cost (it used to be 50). It's useful on maps with cliffs, especially combined with stone bomb and avalanche, and if you knockback a champion and it's got no-where to go it results in a bit of bonus damage. Ultimately it's qutie a situational rune, but if used right can have devastating effects (e.g. +10 damage on a champion - stick it on a jakei shardmaster, cast crack the earth behind the enemy champion, and chances are it'll be enough to kill the champ in one turn!)

G'hern Helm - weaker than the scarecrow for overseer purposes in SP20/ (as it won't provide overseer to the equiped champion), it's better in 10/ bgs where you can equip it to a non-moga champion to provide overseer. It might also cause your opponents heroes to take 15 damage whenever they play a non-SP rune, but I'm not sure if that's still the case. Sadly it's currently bugged in that the equiped champ won't actually be classed as a g'hern (that is, I don't think it provides a boost to the moga zealot, or works as a g'hern for example for bad blood/superiority)

Idol of Elements - this costs much for what it does. Useless in SP 20/ bgs, it has some marginal use with Dark Knights for FW-SP bgs, but even then the 40 nora cost is usually too much. The fact that this is an exotic further enforces the view that SP isn't allowed good exotics (which in a way is actually a good thing because it makes it cheaper for us to put together the best SP decks!)

Mammoth Club - weak for what it does, and the speed reduction is a real killer. It might have a few very narrow applications, but ultimately there are better runes to have

[maudlin27]

General deck building ideas and tips:
With SP more so than most factions, you'll benefit from a champ heavy bg. This is because with moga's cheap costs you can often deploy 2 or even 3 a turn, while with the g'hern-moga synergy and the faction bonus you also have a clear incentive to have more champions. Meanwhile voil decks benefit from surge, which again favours more champions over fewer. Of course there is still a place for their spells, relics and equipment, but these will typically take up far fewer slots in a bg than for other factions.

In terms of tactics, the biggest split is usually to decide on what deck type you want. There are probably 4 rough groups for these: Moga, Surge, Voil, and Cyclops+Beasts.

The most popular at the moment is a voil battlegroup. This is one made up predominently by voil, and utilises their superior mobility to try and win against the opponent. The key runes for such a deck are voil queens, sorcerers, and transporters, while mud elementals also frequently feature. The sorcerers and queens are the damage dealers, while the transporters help ensure a strategically superior position + open up various tactics for defeating your opponent. The mud elementals meanwhile typically soak up a lot of damage and disrupt the enemy with mudsling.

The second most popular deck type is probably moga. Here the favoured approach is to swarm the opponent with moga quickly, releasing an unrelenting tide of moga to overrun them. Moga's cooldowns are fairly low, so you can often re-deploy the same champion several times over in a battle. Meanwhile g'herns such as the taskmaster provide much needed support with abilities like drive, and later on can deal a reasonable amount of damage in combat too. Spells like intimidate further support the swarm approach, while the warbanner can have a massive impact on your deck. Ultimately moga decks aren't seen to be as powerful as voil decks due in part to all the aoes out there (which typically slaughter moga). However moga decks are fairly cheap to obtain, and don't need much upgrading. Extreme versions of the rush style feature no g'hern at all, using the scarecrow and g'hern helms instead to ensure you can charge your opponent straight away without needing to wait for a g'hern to be revealed.

Cyclops/Beast decks are a third option, and if you have a cyclops lord then it is certainly a possibility (albeit not that great of one). Such decks are weighed down by the fact that most of the champions are 2x2 melee's however, meaning that voil transporters are essential, and even then you will struggle. Ultimately cyclops+beasts tend to work well with just one or two included in a normal deck, as opposed to an entire deck being built around them though.

(Moga) Surge decks are a final option for a SP deck, and although fun, they're hopelessly uncompetitive. They basically rely on pup producing runes such as the g'hern birthmother, moga den, and moga decoy, to produce a large number of moga for surge purposes. The decks also include g'hern such as isangomas and tyrants who can deal massive damage if enough pups are out, to destroy their opponents in a single attack. Unfortunately such decks take a long time to get going, are very weak early on, and are devastated by global spells. In particular they suffer from the high costs of the moga den+decoy, and you're best off just going for a moga/g'hern hybrid where you have a few more g'hern than a typical moga rush deck, and focus on the moga all being cheap so you can get enough out for surge to be meaningful.


A 'standard' SP bg that I'd recommend for newer players would be such a hybrid, that combines several support g'hern with moga, and maybe one of the surge runes (such as a moga den) to allow you to get accustomed to the various different strategies. Such a deck wouldn't be very competitive, but it would help you learn what works best, and what style suits you the most.

For more advanced SP/poxnora players, Linque came up with a nice deck utilising SP's mobility a while ago, with runes such as voil transporters and firebombers to harrass your opponent, which was particularly nice as it went against typical conventional wisdom as to what works and what doesn't for SP. As such it always pays to experiment with SP and see what works and what doesn't, since the decks/runes used most at the moment aren't necessarily going to be the best.


In terms of general runes to include in a deck, you want to try and make sure some of the basics are covered. You'll want a mixture of range and melee champions (for a moga deck slingers are a great ranged champion, voil decks meanwhile have the sorcerer). You'll also ideally want a variety of damage types, since an all-physical deck is highly vulnerable to physical resist champions. Meanwhile you should try and aim to include at least one damage spell such as avalanche, which allows you to finish off a near-dead enemy champion (stopping it attacking again), as well as being useful in various other situations.

Try and pick runes that synergise well with each other - a few examples would be the g'hern taskmaster and moga, or the voil transporter and 2x2 melee champions. Such synergies can make two otherwise average runes good, or two already good runes great.

Also be sure to consider some of the more niche counter runes, such as ball and chain, or cyclops eye belt. They're not going to be useful in every game, and so you shouldn't include many of them, but having one or two can add a lot of versatility to your deck.

[maudlin27]

For upgrades, with moga the favoured approach is to use no upgrades, or minimal ones. There are a number of reasons of this, firstly the faction bonus (+5 nora in 20/ per champion played, so 2 cheap champs will net more nora than 1 champion twice their cost), warbanners if you have them (+5 hp for 2 champs is a greater bonus than +5 hp for 1 champ), the fact that the more moga you have the better your g'hern become, and also the ability to rush your opponent's font and contest it while simultaneously heading for your own font due to cheap champions. Finally, g'hernbound is a greater penalty for more expensive champs, as not only are the attack and defence penalties going to have a greater impact on a champion with 15 damage than 8, or 40 health than 30, but the loss of range+ability will also effectively cripple ranged moga, which may not be such a problem if it's only a 30 nora moga, but if it's a 60 nora moga it's much more significant. Finally, in terms of the overseer benefit, the cost you pay for your g'hern if it's simply used to provide overseer is going to be much less when spread over 5 g'hernbound moga than over just 1. Cheaper champions also have lower cooldown, meaning if you get into a war of cooldown attrition with your opponent having low cooldown champions can often mean the difference between winning and losing.

Of course there are advantages to upgrading your moga as well. For a start, there's the surprise factor - alot of players won't actually check your moga slinger when it's deployed for example, so won't notice it's had it's damage and speed boosted dramatically, so might make a sub-optimal move as a result. Furthermore several tough champs are less vulnerable to aoes and global damage (SP's main weakness) than lots of weaker champs. Also, if you can get overseer cheaply, your expensive upgraded moga are still going to be quite a bit cheaper than similar powered champs. The fewer champions you have the easier it is to choose the optimal moves each turn as well; One major disadvantage of relying on a swarm of champions is you only have 1 min 45 to make your moves in, and with the poxnora game often forcing you to wait several seconds between each move (e.g. while moving, while waiting for ap gains, while checking for RD on a ranged attack, etc.). With fewer champions, you don't have that problem.

One variation on the cheap moga, without going all-out to the lev5 moga is to run them at 11 speed instead of 9. This yields slightly better rushing abilities, at the general cost of making your moga slightly less efficient.

With g'hern, with the exception of the birthmother (who you may want to use as a pup producer/overseer), you'll want to boost your g'hern to 9 speed. 11 speed is also an option, but probably only for g'hern focused bgs or heavy hitters such as the tyrant, as in more traditional moga-g'hern or moga-rush ones 11 speed g'hern will cost alot more, without adding that much (due to their weak combat capabilities early on). Overseer 2 typically isn't needed for melee g'hern (unless they're going to be hanging at the back of your army), although it's more appropriate for ranged g'hern such as the thrower, as with a range of 6 if he's your sole overseer provider you might well end up with your melee moga moving out of his range.

For other champions, it depends partly on the deck you are going for, but 9 speed is usually a good standard to work for. You should also generally always upgrade your champions with +6 health since at 3 nora it's a bargain, although similarly almost never upgrade beyond +6 health. Exceptions are with champions with a low nora cost (the +1 cooldown from a hp boost can make a difference), or low hp and a high cost (where boosting beyond +6 can become more efficient). 11 speed on your champions is another option to consider, increasing your speed+movement options, at the cost of making your champions more expensive.

For myself, when looking at health and damage upgrades I tend to work on the basis that a 50% boost to a champs damage isn't worth more than a 25% boost to it's nora cost, and the same with health. As such if the champs health is below it's nora cost it's typically worth considering boosting it. This 50% is only a rough guideline of course, and will vary according to the role you want your champ to perform - a slow melee champ whose purpose is as a meatshield is going to want health more than damage, while a long-ranged champ may want damage more than health. However it helps give a starting point to work out how valuable an upgrade might or might not be.

With the SP faction bonus however this general rule has some exceptions,since upgrading your champ by 1 more nora for example may increase the amount of nora from the bonus by 1, thus making it worth conidering. Anastase has the following chart to allow you to see how much nora you obtain for a champ with upgrades:
full faction:

1 nora to 33 nora : 4 nora
34 to 41 : 5
42 to 50 : 6
51 to 58 : 7
59 to 66 : 8
67 to 75 : 9
76 to 83 : 10
84 to 91 : 11
92 to 100 : 12
101 to 108 : 13
109 to 116 : 14
117 to 125 : 15
126 to 133 : 16

10/10

1 to 16 : 1
17 to 33 :2
34 to 50 : 3
51 to 66 : 4
67 to 83 : 5
84 to 100 : 6
101 to 116 : 7
117 to 133 : 8

Full faction with banner:

0 - 9 :4
10 - 19 : 5
20 - 29 : 6
30 - 33 : 7
34 - 39 : 8
40 - 41 : 9
42 - 49 : 10
50 : 11
51 - 58 : 12
59 : 13
60 - 66 : 14
67 - 69 : 15
70 - 75 : 16
76 - 79 : 17
80 - 83 : 18
84 - 89 : 19
90 - 91 : 20
92 - 99 : 21
100 : 22
101 - 108 : 23
109 : 24
110 - 116 : 25
117 - 119 : 26
120 - 125 : 27

[maudlin27]

Typical Strengths and Weaknesses of SP (will vary depending on the type of deck used):
Lots of cheap champs with a low cooldown
Strong early-game
Mid to late game potential (both with low cooldowns for attrition and also surge)
Great mobility (Voil, relocate ally)
Knockback+Knockback synergy
Lots of melee champs

Weaknesses:
Vulnerable to aoes and global damage
Champions predominately deal physical damage (weak vs physical resist)
Often won't be able to make full use of nora mid to late game
Weaker late-game unless have a significant focus on surge
Moga weak against high defence champs (moga typically have low attack)
No decent healing (devour and sustain are almost never seen, while the isangoma is very expensive as a healer)
Few ranged champions


10/10 Faction combinations: Although SP is one of the few factions which strongly encourages full-faction anyway due to the natural g'hern-moga synergy, 10/10 combos can still be very powerful. Typically 10/10 decks which focus on moga for the 10/ SP part will want to include ~3-4 overseer runes, depending on the strength of the other 10/ faction's champions used. Meanwhile knockback provides some other 10/10 options, and voil are less restricted to a 20/ framework than moga+g'hern.

Forsaken Wastes - Mobilization works best with more champions and hence works well with moga, although you have to be able to move very quickly with moga+mobilization. Meanwhile FW also has access to a number of cheap champions, making a swarm deck type possible. The cooldown faction bonus is also of some use, although since it's % based it doesn't have much impact on moga. Idol of Elements meanwhile works well on dark knights, and tome of hate can generate heavy shrine healing with moga in play.

Savage Tundra - the +5 hp boost is nice for moga to make them even tougher, while ST's aoes give a nice use for any spare nora, and also have higher damage potential than avalanche. Other than the faction bonus there are no major benefits to this though.

Forglar Swamp - no obvious synergies here, except for the moga cannon with turtle shell (perma-invulnability!). FS does provide an instant-kill with drown which helps cover one of SP's weaknesses, and their good champ mobility and terrain control spells also complement SP's already good mobility nicely. They also have access to very good healing, something SP is again short on, and of course have cleanse.

Ironfist Stronghold - Has healing, and SP's mobility with throwers helps benefit IS's powerful melee champs, although the dwarven catapult fills this role better. IS also provides heavy nora gen, although late-game this isn't really needed by SP. The defence boost also provides an option for boosting your g'hern, for example with the tyrant, but IS is a typically mid-late game faction anyway, so such a combination would be very weak early on and so likely to struggle even more than a normal SP surge deck. That said, with the massive boost to aoes seen with SR, the -3 spell damage from IS is very attractive for mogas, by helping protect them from aoes.

IS lends itself most for combination with SP for knockback decks, as the ability to create chasms on any map makes SP's abundance of knockback runes much deadlier. However such builds are probably more for fun than competitive (with some exceptions of course).

K'thir Forest - Initiative champs and a speed bonus coupled with SP's mobility and cheap moga, along with champ control from KF allows for a very specialised rush deck, especially if the SP shrine bonus could be retained (although this is unlikely given that KF's initiative champs tend to be expensive, and SP's moga cheap). Also offers good healing and long ranged champions, and cleanse.

Underdepths - The faction bonus is probably one of the best ones for SP, turning moga into lethal champions. SP's mobility also works nicely with some of UD's champions (e.g. voil transporters+pit dragons). UD also has a few nice spells which have been boosted, and can amplify fire damage allowing for some combos with SP's fire runes (although this is barely noticeable now since the amplify change).

Sundered Lands - Firestorm provides powerful aoe, dragon skull and skeezick trapper work nicely if building a trap deck (as SP has quite a few fire trap champs), Dragonic Benediction is brilliant for moga, and while the faction bonus is quite weak due to mogas low base defence, it does help improve their survivability slightly. Also allows for a rush focused bg with SL's initiative champs and SP's cheap moga, although lacks the champ control of KF. With the boost to skeezick, you could run a 10/10 swarm bg with both skeezick and moga, but typically you'll be better off running a 20/ SL or 20/ moga bg instead.

[maudlin27]

Specific faction tips:
SL - one of the factions well equiped to deal with a SP bg, they're going to be tough to beat with moga, although voil should fare better. Your best chance (with moga) is to try and rush them straight away before they can get going. The skeezick rioter is near-impossible to counter for moga however, as with all of SL's ap gaining abilities+spells, coupled with high damage aoes like firestorm, your opponent will be able to swarm with ease. Fortunately skeezick decks aren't as tough as they used to be, but then neither are moga. Voil should have an easier time however, with their improved mobility making it easier to prevent a rioter swarm, while sorcerers and queens will have the damage and attack to quickly kill any threats. Meanwhile vindrax is far easier to deal with if you've got sorcerers than if you're relying on reckless spellhacks!

The draksar decks should be easier to beat as a general rule - focus fire on one champ at a time (since with regeneration a bit of damage to lots of champs doesn't do that much), and try to rush them quickly before they can get many champions out. If you can heavily outnumber their few champions, as tough as they may be they should still fall. Watch out for firestorm though, as it can be lethal if you're closely grouped together.

FW - Unholy tomb+festering wounds coupled with the reduced cooldowns means that long-term a FW bg will have a very good chance against a SP bg, while festering wounds will slaughter surge decks. Traditionally the tactic against FW has been to rush them with everything you have straight away, but they also have a number of cheap defensive champions such as their skeletal berserkers and blood fiends, which will make such an attack risky. Also be careful with focusing on their shrine instead of their champions - they can deploy a tome of hate to heal back a hefty amount of damage, and if you weren't expecting it, it can turn a sure victory into a crushing defeat. Also make sure to factor in mobilization when facing them.

Some FW bgs will also be skeleton focused, relying heavily on tomb lords (with boost skeleton, as well as surge+inspire which can be used to turn lich kings into lethal enemies), so if you can kill these then the rest of the army should die fairly easily. Watch out for sacrificial altars being used with the cheap summoned skeletons, as well as the cheap but powerful skeleton beserkers. It's also worth bearing in mind that a near-dead tomb-lord can still be deadly since they can then just fall back out of combat and inspire other champs. Also watch out for the soul siren+necromancer(+mobilization) combo that can take your most expensive champion and turn it into nora for your opponent!

ST - Another faction with some very nice options against SP, due to their heavy aoe focus. Ideally try to open up two fronts against your opponent to prevent them wiping out your entire army in the space of a turn (although this can be hard to do with moga as opposed to voil depending on the map). If possible also spread out your champs a bit so they can't all be hit by an ice storm, and remember the -1 speed loss (and therefore typically 1 ap loss) caused by an ice storm that could mess with your plans for getting 2 attacks from a champ. Frostbite is lethal both against moga and moga pups, but few ST bgs seem to run it. Frost cone is much more frequent and will cause problems especially when dealing with lev3 frost cones, but isn't unstoppable. Fortunately when facing ST they tend to be fairly weak early on, so an early attack is often a good idea, as if they use their aoes to stop you they'll typically then be starved of nora for champions.

Typically although the ST players aoes are very powerful against SP, SP's swarm can still often win through with lower cooldowns, and spread out champions. With the typical ST bg featuring probably 3+ aoes (as a rough guide you can probably expect several ice storms and deep freezes) if running moga make sure you prepare yourself for losing a lot of moga at any time, and never deploy all your moga at once in the same place. Keeping some champions unplayed or near the back of your army is often better than bringing them to the front line against ST. G'hern throwers and voil transporters are invaluable for helping you get past any snow created from abilities/spells, while ranged champs will also help prevent you being stranded and taking fire without being able to retaliate.

FS - A decent sp bg should have a decent chance against FS, depending on the bg setup. True, fs has nice mobility, some movement restriction, nora generation and healing, coupled with some reasonable spells, but they're usually no match for a swarm of moga, while voil can ignore some of the movement restrictions such as bog traps. Try to kill their champions in 1 turn to prevent them being healed, and try and keep yourself ontop of them before their nora advantage can take too much of a toll. Voil sorcerers will be prime targets for drowning/feeding frenzy, although if you keep several champs close together you can restrict feeding frenzy's use and make it harder to get an instant-kill with it. Meanwhile voil will have to be monsooned before being drowned, which at least means some FS decks will struggle more than others. For moga, try not to rely too much on just one g'hern providing overseer as a result of this.

Overall forglar swamp have consistently been one of the strongest factions in poxnora, so certainly don't underestimate them. However they are at least one of the factions that doesn't seem to have runes tailor-made for SP destruction (well, assuming they're not running g'hern traitors with snaptooth helms)!

IS - don't let them get a heavily armoured champ and you should be ok. Hammerstrikes will cause slight problems for some of your expensive/essential champions, in particular for voil decks, but are much less of an issue for moga/g'hern decks. The lack of ranged champs for IS also means you have a strong advantage already since you have decent ranged options and good melee meat shields for holding them up. For heavily armoured champs, moga pup/g'hern focused bgs will also be able to deal high enough damage with boosted attack over time, although be wary of an early attack if using a surge deck. In the worst case scenario you can simply ignore the armoured champ and kill the shrine without too much trouble - a couple of moga will be able to tie up the (often melee) champion, while the rest swarm over your opponent (or a transporter with relocate taking your high damage voil past their lines).
Their biggest danger rune is the dwarven king, thanks to warcry being able to turn a group of average champs into lethal multi-attacking enemies. Meanwhile if IS gets a vial of holy water on their armoured champ and you're lacking an anti-equipment rune, expect a very tough time trying to kill it.

KF - KF have some powerful aoes, in particular thorn collection and brambles, which can make life tough for a champion heavy faction like SP. They also have some nice ranged champs, and some tough melee ones. With cleanse and healing coupled with long range+teleport they can be very hard to tie down and kill, so make sure you finish off their champs when you get the chance, and focus on killing them 1 by 1 rather than spreading out your damage. KF is also good at rushing thanks to a number of initiative champs and some good champion control spells. On the wrong map, and with them going first, this can often spell doom, although moga are better placed than most to withstand such a rush. If you're having trouble reaching their ranged champions try making fuller use of knockback to bring them in range of your troops, or alternatively to allow you to hit their ranged champions without having to deal with the melee ones first.

UD - They can hit very hard, and now have decent aoes, but can often be tied up quite easily by moga. A big threat UD can offer is a Helm of Chaos rush, although with the boosts to their ranged champs, along with imp summons and nora generation and boosted aoes they pose a much stronger all-round threat than before. It's in this situation (a HoC rush) that anti-equipment runes like the cave dragon, and niche runes like the parasitic fesh, become more valuable. A meat-shield can also work as a temporary barrier. Moga scouts are also good for such a situation if you've boosted their detection ability (as if you can reveal the imp early on you can either kill it or force early deployment of the helm). The typical combo to watch out for is a DE priestess being played, advancing, then relocating a pit dragon near her, and the pit dragon advancing near your shrine before gaining a HoC. A variant is simply the deployment of an imp, with that imp then not appearing in the initial battle between your forces.

Other than that, look to avoid any big blows from UD's melee champions, and try and pick off the biggest threats. If using moga you should usually be able to throw a couple of cheap moga at their pit dragons to soak up damage while the rest of your forces focus-fire to destroy them. Try not to leave an UD champ nearly dead, since not only can it hit to deal a lot of damage, but your opponent can then sacrifice it to regain all of that nora. Anti-equipment is also vital to deal with demon shields, which can make pit dragons and K'lzik a nightmare prospect to deal with. You're more likely to see Grimlic than K'lzik however, and so should make sure you have the ranged champions to take him out quickly.

SP - faction matchups are never much fun, but if you're lucky one person will be running moga and the other voil, to make things more interesting. With 2 moga decks the person running the cheapest moga will probably do best (due to the lower cooldowns and more efficient champions), while with voil a lot will probably depend more on each players skill at utilizing voil.

[maudlin27]

10/10 Decks to look out for:

SL/UD - these decks can feature several nasty combinations. Firstly, you have 2 dragon leaches and banish to have two instant-kills that are both cheap and end up refunding some of their cost. The leeches themselves are fragile, but deal alot of damage so can often be upgraded to be decent combat champs. A range of 2-3 does make it easy to engage them or outrange them though. The other powerful combo that this 10/10 can offer is a Deepelf Summoner with Invigorate 2 - you can summon an imp, equip a forbidden fruit to it, invigorate it, and get an instant-kill against any enemy nearby (with the range increasing even further if you have a DEP that can summon the imp). This is mainly a concern for your g'hern, since it's inefficient to use instant-kills on moga.

FW/UD - the most powerful combo this matchup can unleash against you is cursed temple x2 coupled with use of banish and domination+sacrifice. 2 Cursed temples reduce the nora from banish and sacrifice by 75%, so it works out almost as good as an instant-kill. Your best protection against this would be maybe having a scarecrow and some cheap overseer g'hern, since your moga will be naturally resistant to instant-kills.

FS/UD - this combination suggests either a BBND deck or a psychic deck (or both!). A BBND deck means they will cast banish twice before casting a nora drain, typically resulting in 2 instant-kills for 75 nora each. Psychic decks meanwhile will feature 2 firk masks, firk sensorates+mindbreakers (often with assassinate 2), along with UD psychic runes such as the summoners and ritualists. Superiority is a very powerful aoe given that it is boosted by the firk masks, and generally speaking you can expect to face alot of damage from this sort of deck. Moga scouts will be useful for revealing the mindbreakers, while a general rush by moga will work fairly well since bringing out 2 firk masks early on will cost alot in terms of initial tempo+champ deployment. Often players will put the masks on summoned imps and move them somewhere safe so you can't kill them. Other times they'll put them on normal champs - if they do this, focus on those champs and try to kill them to severely hurt the rest of the deck.

FW/UD or FW/SL: On a few rare occassions this might suggest your opponent is going for a DR shrine rush deck. That is, where they send one champion up to your shrine, and once within spell casting range cast dark rising along with other spells to destroy your shrine within a single turn. This can usually be spotted if your opponent plays a champion like an imp, and little else (i.e. is hoarding nora), or seems desperate to get one of their champions past yours even if it doesn't make tactical sense. There are several counters to this. The first is to find the 'postman' before it gets within casting range of your shrine, and to kill it. This requires upgraded detection champions, and/or large aoes, and/or global damage spells. The second alternative is to position champs adjacent to your shrine, preferably with low damage (since they can be dominated and used against you). This is to prevent the dark rising skeletons being able to move adjacent to your shrine to get the attack off. The third option is just to charge for their shrine and try and destroy it in time. Of course other counters work fine, such as nora drain or backfire.

A variation on this uses sundered lands, with the broodguard+hatching season spells. However this is a much slower process and therefore easier to counter (since you can for example destroy the eggs before they hatch, or heal your shrine).

As a general note, SP is much better against alot of the instant-kill decks mentioned above that use banish, since the most expensive champ typically used is the g'hern thrower who has planar bound! Other g'hern tend to be run fairly decently, while moga of course are so cheap that it's just not worth banishing them.

Please add any other 10/10 decks that feature prominently or might catch someone off-guard if not expecting them!

Feel free to add comments, corrections, and suggestions below :)

[dacidd]

Had to do it twice huh =P

[fireball94]

Yep. Maud is a spammer.

[demonmarch]

i'm just going to edit your stuff on cyclops if you don't mind

Cyclops Chieften - A quick summary is that while his boost abilities are nice at improving cyclops decks, decks that are built around 2x2 melee champions suffer a huge mobility problem making them fairly poor overall. The chieften is a good champ, but the problem with him is that he is often gunned down before he gets to where he is needed (saurapod with bodygaurd helps with this) the cheiftan also costs alot and can easily not come out because of this

Suggested upgrades:
"Magic King" 9 spd magic bomb 3 spellswallower (97)


Cyclops Earthshaker - better than some of the cyclops available. he has relatively high health and can upgrade to Phys resist 2 making him an effective low cost tank. but the problem is his tremor ability can sometimes hinder your units as much as theirs, though sometimes it has its uses it can trigger rocktraps, slow a rush (tremor gives lumbering) and knock off cliffs. A fun rune, but not that competitive with your typical SP build. You could try and combine him with an IS 10/ to get a bit more use out of knockback, but with rock traps, eye belts, and avalanches there are better runes for that anyway.


Possible upgrades:
TBC (can't remember if you could get physical resist 2 on him)
Provisional upgrade suggestion:
'Unstable' - 9 speed, +6 hp, vulnerability: magical, resistance: physical 2 [57]

Cyclops Mauler - With berserker being recosted the mauler is slightly more worthy of inclusion. He can hit hard, and is tough, but suffers the typical millstone of being a 2x2 melee champ. To be honest there are better options out there, but if you're pursuing a cyclops theme deck with the cheif he's worth consideration. with the mountain cyclops build you get 2 attacks at 17 damage he is capable of decimating IS and other melee heavy factions, but with the mountain cyclops build he has a MASSIVE target on him and often gets gunned down.

Possible upgrades:
'Mauler Cub' - 8 speed, +6 hp [57]
'Mountain Cyclops' - 11 speed, berserker 3, +6* health [78] *(if cp allows)

Cyclops Nemesis - Unfortunately a shadow of it's former self. The cyclops nemesis has it's uses, particularly in a defensive deck where you are looking for something to hold the opponent up, such as with a surge deck. The nemesis is a poor deploy if it's your first turn, or you are advancing on your opponent, since they will be able to get the earthmover out and attacking you quickly. However if you're defending your font/shrine, then it works out much better since chances are your opponent will be forced to kill it long before the earthmover reaches battle.

Possible upgrades:
'meat-shield': 9 speed [38]
'killer': 11 speed [47]

Cyclops Seer - If you want detection go for the moga scout or hunter. If you want devour, go for the g'hern punisher. If you want non-physical damage, go for the g'hern birthmother. If you want poison, migrate to forglar swamp. the seer is certainly better than she used to be a long time ago, now she is the heart of the cyclops deck if you want to cover all the above options in one rune, and have afflict as an extra. then this sexy lady is your girl. she does well as an anti range because of afflict (if you have afflict 2, afflict 1 is rubbish) you put it on her and force them to do 8 damage each time she is hit to whoever you hate (very usefull in bottle necks) is an alright healer with sustain. and is alright for damage (10 dmg + 4 poison damage.) very usefull
Possible upgrades:
'Assassin's Bane' - 9 speed, Poison 2, Detection 3, +6 hp [64]
Cyclops Queen - 9 speed poison 2 +6 hp afflict 2 sustain 10 dmg [80]

Cyclops Youth - It's damage aura will end up hurting you more than your opponent, although it no longer costs a fortune. The cave dragon is a better choice than this however, providing anti-equipment, decent damage and some staying power for a lower cost. in summary this rune is crap. never use it. not even in a cyclops deck