Help with a wonky Equip/Relic BG

- Hey I think I'm forcing it and need to trim the fat but wanted to reach out to the "min/maxer elite synergy masterminds" for this deck idea.

Right now it's based off champs like
2x Master axeman (provision/axemans fate trolling)
2x Barb Diviner (enchant magic)
2x NCPriestess (relic shenanigans)
2x J.Architect ( ^ )
2x Metallic slag (Forge hammer? cheaper equips)

Questionable champs
Lodestone armory/builder (seem overkill and never deployed)
V. Needlewing/Magnetic Rover (Burr/magnetic pulse...IS neg equips are meh)

Spells/relic/equips

2x Holy light (just feels awful..not enough throwaway relics in this deck for effect)
Burning steel (feels terrible...again IS isn't great at negative equips...splits?)
Celestial spear (great relic but shines in paladin not really in this deck)
Armory (obvious auto include)
Medal of honor/axemans fate/forge hammer

- Any suggestions welcome, thinking of just tossing the relic synergy and just go Equip but then I think a split makes the most sense since Armory is IS..but other factions have way better negative equips and equips in general.

 

Ironfist Collector

 

- Yeah has all the tools...but still stuck on the combos... The burning steel relic needs something like KF spell living vines to feel useful. And abilities like "ruin" in IS feel like they need an SL spell like mine field. Ironfist seems to lack splashable equip and relics despite having these tools to exploit them.

 

- Its too bad that burning steel doesn't give allied equipped champions fire aura 3 or damage shield fire for X turns if within 5 spaces so you could control it better for beneficial effect. Typically equipping an enemy then damaging it for 10 damage feels bad and inefficient, but with adding a beneficial effect to friendly equipped champs might make it a bit more playable

 

Burning steel was horrible, sure its a good 1 time nuke so guess horrible aint to correct word. its an AoE5 with 10pts of damage for 30 nora, then eat it with any unit with Ruin and the enemy will not deploy more equipped champs or add holy light for more damage.
Needlewing is just meh, or i just need to find a way to stealth it i guess. so atm when testing iam using a few dwarf with carouse to pester enemy life with instead.

Think you are missing 2 superb IS relics though Hahndor Memorial and Heartstone, especially with all relicate abilities its possible to keep awestruck or destealth/no-spell presence where you need it.

spell barricade if you dont want to use so many barricade creating units, that around priestess to shield her a bit and make her have ammo for ruin while holding a forge hammer looks good before ive tested it or her favority holy blade of valdac.

Did just a first test in skirmish, was very fun, needs alot of tweaking for me both BG and playstyle before i dare run it in PvP

 

you should definitely consider adding a valdaci or two

 

- Yeah hearthstone might be worth it since Im keeping one IS collector but likely dumping most other relic synergy. I'm also trying to get a valdaci guardian, and likely drop the V.burr chicken. Deck is also slowly gravitating toward an axeman/granite brace/diviner super champ module sadly... everything else is too gimmicky and unreliable.

 

Valdaci bolter works good with forge hammer, multiattack, range and can drop his own relics. valdaci guardian is still under test, think he will be kicked off though, even if slam is very nice with the walls. I rather use weaponsmiths then axeman.
cant get it to work, its a mess with constructs,leoss,barbarian,dwarf
using 2 collectors to move the real relics forward, and if they got a free relocate its a valdaci crossbow somewhere to be moved, they are sadly to ineffective, its alot of fun to move all around, but not effective.

 

- Yeah even when I could get the perfect execution of "relocate relic" on earthshaker or hearthstone....the awkward steps and ranged of relocate make it too much busy work for not enough effect. It's quickly turning to euan/axeman with block 1 working off of granite bracers and providence for super champ shennanigans....and less and less relic nonsense.

p.s. If I go relic again it will prolly just be a sl/is split or is/sp.

 

What i did like with the deck is "Ruin" but it just lasts to short time, it should be the double amount of turns and it would be useful, kinda like rock defiance is great but too much hassle.
Having serious problems vs SL skirmish decks, its sad but when AI deploy permanent+2DMG champs and so much AoE damage champs it really makes relic decks look bad.
Was so bored of it so i did put down Bastion+equipment+barbarian diviner and cleared up the mess

think i need to test Groble rock eater+barbarian diviner+burning crusade+dwarven tinker for silly Aura damage.

 

- Yeah with ruin, I keep trolling myself and expecting buff after destroying enemy relics....and I think it's anti-synergy to have ruin and relic guardian on so many similar champs. It works against you, trading one buff for losing another most times. It's just too many hoops to jump through when as you put it...you can just drop euan or bastion + equip and blast the enemy with real force instead of dink and dunking them with these parlor tricks

p.s. Burning steel is perma dropped from any deck I use .... just awful. Even in carouse deck it feels futile when you can deploy M. rover which is bad now for 10x more benefit and it can move instead of being stationary for equipment synergy on friendlies and enemies.

 

Magnetic rover should have an option to get rid of that silly aura, a support unit with damaging aura is just annoying for an old person like me. Allthough its +2dmg buff to equipped champs stack, so its easy to get a valdaci bolter to 20+ dmg with a forge hammer. Had a few units with charged barricade, so had always alot of relics to eat, its just that use 3AP now to get 1AP for the next 3 rounds is a bit meh but guess +3dmg is nice still.
Tested a very deadly pantier headhunter, forge hammer, magnetic rover buffs and then assassin 3

 

So why dont i just add another tinker to give all constructs tough3 and that problem is solved. changed the Magnetic Rover to use Planar hold since i cant get mobile why should i allow the enemies to be it, after a test i switched and used the spell Increase Gravity, but each time i add a cheap spell i wish i had adaptive units and then the bg is ruined and altered into spellspam bg instead.
had a few fun fights yesterday, poor players getting stuck on hammering on grobbles with almost 100hp, tough 3, scale armor and 10+ defense, while valdaci bolter with forge hammer kept doing 30+ damage per turn, so slow playstsyle, forget fonts just shield up near one font or even at the shrine. but valdaci bolter + forge hammer + tinkerbuffs are still weaker then pureblood plainswalker even after invested 2x the nora.
not to mention no aoe cleanse with this bg, so many autoloss fights without cleanse
still belive its good to test these a bit more, its so near to be doable in pvp, just need to keep the frustration away ;-)

 

- Hey thanks for posting this evolution because this is what happens with most of my "really clever synergy" decks....I end up just picking out the most effective module or changing one rune and having a chain reaction that changes the whole theme of the deck.

- Currently the most success I've had is very aggressively playing Axeman and Valdaci Guardian with diviner/rover/lodestone support. Lodestones improve speed works on axeman which is a nice surprise since hes a brute and improve speed works on class too. You can actually get some nice burst with a surprise guard tower drop then equip forge hammer for stacking relic guardian and battle master buff. Plus rover magnetic pulse and enchant magic etc.

 

If you'd like to try IS/FW Clone Matter that is pretty much a IS/ST Wish bg.

FW: reduced cd with splitfaction bonus
Pros; with FW you can run a relic or an equip style bg or both a lot easier than other factions and IS/FW is pretty Op?balanced.

•Masons Spire (if you don't want to run Lodestone Builder) ability and relic.

•Mobilization

•Elasarin Night + Granite Bracers (although I've been told indirect dmg is back/never gone away, so idk about Granite Bracers; but with Clone matter the one equip can become 5 easily in one round.

•Worms?

•Voil King + Stasis Field + Bane Blast (+ BBCount?) Spare Parts Vampyres/Consume is enjoyable plus with all that death Voil King can Stun nearly every turn; I haven't tried it with Blood Crest, but that bg is tight for slots which is why.

•Holy Blade of Valdac and Valdaci help tremendously with Clone Matter as would NCPriestess for the reduced CD proc on CM

Cons
•Unless playing Clone Matter a lot of equipment becomes unappealing; Clone Matter itself takes up x2 champion slots or x2 relic slots which can be a lot so anywhere from 1-4 runes, then weighing which rune over what becomes hard for the rest of the bg, Relic Guardian or Masons Spire or Enchant Equipment, etc.

•Bgs become extremely tight for space and the pace of Clone Matter is kind of all or nothing; which has to be built around if you don't intend to run x2 of each Clone Matter rune.

ST: Wish; it's a con if you don't run wish otherwise it is the most efficient spell:equip spam in the game besides maybe a dedicated Clone Matter Bg.
Pros: split faction bonus (MoV/ToV already in your favor (this is why IS/ST Rock Defiance is OP)

•Chronomancer - Spam; always have ToV/Wish off CD. Mobile and solid Haste or Stall unit; I also like Nexus Aura for spells

•ST units + IS equipment is really nice; not so much vice versa

•I already mentioned ToV + MoV; there's Tactical Manual, Holy Vial, Shroud (I like running it occasionally) Holy Blade, then there is all your own preference runes.

•Valdaci + ST is a free sacrifice technically

I have a bg that runs with 6+ equips, it is a Clone Matter Stonearm Sash (Spare Parts/Consume) bg which doesn't use much Rock Defiance units; Lich receive Medal of Valor, Coven Claw used to; while most of the other units get Stonearm Sash or occasionally Manual/Vial/MoV/etc. Voil King and Stasis Field/Bane Blast combo is in this bg.
I have a lot of variations of this bg with more Spells than Equips (which gets Stonearm Sash out just as efficiently for each variation; just less choice equip runes) and even a Nora Gem bg that can also sustain Clone Matter.

Overall I would say Clone Matter is more fun but Wish is quick and clean and only requires (x2) Chronomancer and Wish; where's Clone Matter also has the same amount of runes, Spell trumps Relic when comparing Wish to Mystic Atelier; Clone Matter only becomes efficient with Masons Spire, Relocate Relic(which is lost rune slot) and the rest of the runes fall under the same scrutiny as a Relocate Relic unit since they should all enhance Clone Matter.

Then there's Wish and Chronomancer which their Pros far outweigh their Cons.

Edit: forgot about it till I read the rest of the comments but yeah Holy Light in both split bgs and FF IS is OP, Valdaci shine and V. Guardian is a monster I must say. Been really enjoying Valdaci , great runes that have their rarity pretty well balanced across the theme as far as abilities.

 

^ Hey @aseryen thanks for that in depth break down of your decks. I definitely love IS/FW splits in general , and FW negative equips definitely trump IS in that specific category. Ill comment more when I get home.

- For now Im having a lot of success with a small module of :

Valdaci Guardians/Master Axeman front lining with support from NCpriestess/Diviner/M.rover..then when deep in engagement. Dropping forge hammer on them, then drop a guard tower for power turn with stacking magnetic pulse/battle master/relic guardian...They end up monsters.

 

Welcome! Happens to be one of my more played themes as I have always wanted to increase Stonearm Sash's presence, then Wish was redesigned, then Clone Matter released, and now this equip focused meta. Valdaci are becoming a favorite theme to play but Rock Defiance will always be first and then most race specific themes; then specific modules lol

Master Axeman is a great rune, one of the first rares I got waaaay back when. I play him mostly in FF since those bgs are always more flexible.

Haven't played Diviner much actually, but I'm expecting more Enchant abilities; hoping for at least one in IS or FW(Lich) in the following expansions. Been playing Megolith instead for the extra units and Stonearm Sash candidates, I haven't mentioned Rockforger before but now Rocklings can get Stonearm Sash whereas ST:wish would have been a waste of Nora; this is where Clone Matter trumps Wish in many regards.

I've used Forge Hammer with Constructs split with FW which was a nice change of pace from Stonearm Sash because you can very easily get every unit equipped in one round; while having only focused on deploys previously so ideally 5-7 units.

Unfortunately I would say Craft is a bit lack luster, perhaps it's the units that have it, or I just don't like those bg comps.

I wish there were a more mobile Pox, I haven't been sitting at my computer lately so I don't play, been typing all this from my iPhone. I have steam link, im just too lazy to get a monitor in a more comfortable viewing area to mirror my computer...but I do recommend Steam Link and the Controller for Pox...the controller is really nice.

 

Noticed we have a very powerful attack relic that i havent tested like this before, might be a "bug" though. Still need to test it a little bit more, but "free multiattack" on all berserker attackers -1AP so attacks are 2 and 4AP on all our berserker attackers, and it also makes execute cost 0 AP, but thats ok since its not useable more then once per turn. works on Farshot and power attack also but not as good.
charge + crazed charger worked also, charging around for 2AP *BAM*
- sanctuary of hope, it needs a relocator though and a mason unit, but here is where Lodestone armory makes the whole thing rock. he is a brute mason with increase speed. so all constructs and brutes get +1spd
a battle rager gets a little bit new dimension with +1spd and -1AP on pummel, and for those with 5spd add a rockforge and it stacks to give a groble piledriver 7spd
drunken thug with forge hammer hits crazy hard for 2AP and then again for 4AP

sad Drive didnt work with sanctuary of hope, had been awesome with drive for 1AP, think all heals works with it.

 

Wonder why not all "melee" equipment are working like sunder axe? They have the code for it i guess since its working on the axe (max range 2). sure its fun to have holy blade of valdac on a ranged paladin, or get free attacks from Mail of barb on a pureblood. not to mention Providence on a ranged sniper.

 

Yeah I think IS has some of the best equipment runes; although there are certainly some equipment runes I like that are not in IS, Goading Mask specifically for Rock Defiance.