What are some strengths about this faction and are there any cards I should know of that should be auto include for competitive play? I used to see people go 2x occuli slag + den mother but I don't know what's been nerfed and what's been buffed or changed since the last 1 1/2 years I last played. Also what kind of theme is good for someone to start in KF (eg: fairies, plants, archers, mages etc...)
The best decks tend to be a mash-up of KF's power runes. If you want to go for a theme deck, however, Beast/Vashal decks are really quite competitive and rather easy to pick up. Something like the following Beast/Vashal BG should do pretty well (I purposefully left out Exotic and Legendary runes to make the deck easier to acquire, BTW)... http://poxbase.com/#!/deck/C3GC2CtyCuvC5HCtoCdaCddC8vs5s1as7Ts4Ks6gs6Br3nr2YrUeWe25eM
There are no strengths, only weaknesses. Everyone who says that they play KF and enjoys it are lying to you. FW is clearly the best faction to play, so you should go ask there. And you totally shouldn't try Treefolk, they're weak and boring... P.S. Xirone is just a masochist.
KF is one of the factions I enjoy playing the most (others are SP and UD). In a pure meta deck, you'll have good aoe spells, good single target cc and disables (lots of soothing serenade, time slips), nora gen through slag and flamemages, an end game win/con through slags (haven't tried w/ the new nerf, but it seems like it still will work with healing deficiency) and fae oracles, lots of healing, and some very efficient pet champs and durable melee (den milfs, enforcers, anaru, experimental spirit, dugon). Early game, you rely on pet champs, durable melee and single target disables to win fonts outright. You also rely on the enormous range and burst potential of a centaur skirmisher with carnivorous vines to win those fonts, push enemies out of range of fonts, and to massively increase your threat range. If that doesn't work, you've got a large number of long range champs that can sit back and out-shoot most opponents. Many of these have good stalling abilities (soothing serenade, ghostly visage), abilities that punish aggression (doom vortex), or abilities that remove protection (cleansing flame). Your threat range is quite high because of the KF faction bonsues, and because or reverie on elven bard. This is even more true if you use a elven strategist. You'll notice that KF champs tend to be a bit squishier and or have lower damage than other champs. But there is a huge amount of synergy in a good KF deck, so it's a lot of fun to play with and personally very rewarding when well executed since you see all your cards working together. PS: Vashal are good to start w/ learn. Elves are good too. Both are pretty cheap to collect and pretty effective.
http://forums.poxnora.com/index.php?threads/what-are-some-good-cheap-cards-for-ud.1228/#post-12610 An elven deck might look something like this. I couldn't resist the centaur skirmisher/carn vines combo, but you can remove as non theme. Occuli slag, catharsis bloom, and combined effort is another combo that is not elven, but fits well in pretty much every deck. Overtime, you can make room for better elves (i.e. enforcer of the circle, experimental war spirit queen anaru and ranger elite can replace your boas and apprentice mage) or you can move away from elves into purer meta (i.e. replacing boas/task masters w/ garu den mothers or any of the elf melee I just listed), replacing elven mages and deadly trackers with a kthir doombringer, 2 fae oracles, ghost stalker, and privateer captain (covers your shatter, a 2nd knockback option, relics to contest). With spells, you'll want to add in thorn collections and possibly a stellar horizon, dropping 1-2 nature's wrath and brambles. Personally, I don't run covenant even though I run menelaus, since I have a 2nd catharsis bloom and am experimenting with overgrowth...it's super efficient at making champions that can contest fonts.
Rather than running x2 of everything I prefer the highlander approach for more versatility and lasting power grims mirror effectively gives me another x2 if I need it. http://poxbase.com/#!/deck/c8wc2=c2lc54c5Fc4fc5Acg8cuncpUc3Fcinc1Ac8Xcqvc9ls4Zs4ysks1as4Ks2tr3nr2YrUe2Fe2ue2we29eM
Elven Deck: http://poxbase.com/#!/deck/c2=c2cqbCtyChxc5FCLc5AChkCjbc3Fcins5s7s2@s1-S1as4KS6gsLr3nrUe2F There's no shatter, so you might want an elven artisan or ambling frond instead.
Have you and GabrielQ ever gotten into it about whether 2x or 1x is better for a deck? It would be educational for the audience.
From a purely theoretical standpoint, restricting yourself to 1x only includes cannot be better than being able to include 2x. That is, Highlander is a subset of "Standard," thus the best Highlander can do is match Standard. Otherwise, it's preference.. some runes really do warrant 2x includes (Thorn Collection, Centaur Skirmisher), or are also better in multiples (Fae Oracle).
Lol, we'll I've even playing kf for years now and I've honestly found having one piece vs x2 is better I have a bigger tool belt and sure the draws may not always be perfect but balancing the bg to off suit that is what a highlander is all about and if need be, I just slap grims mirror on that champ to get the second price out. Having a bigger selection rather than brainless auto includes are better than just spamming the same Bane Shift over and over again, if it died the first time and isn't doing a good job, your x2 slot has literally become useless and you're further limiting yourself based on a system everyone has ingrained into them.
I think with all these suggestions I will be going the split route as I'm originally from FS. I'm wondering if anyone can post a split fs/kf deck (being under 150~k in poxbox or preferably no more than 1-2 legendaries)
I don't think you understand that it's still a subset of normal building, so by definition it CANNOT be better. There is literally no argument you can bring up against it. If a deck is improved by having 1x of 2 things rather than 2x of 1 thing, then make that change... and the reverse holds true as well.
People, please don't get mad. What nidhogg is saying that highlander bgs are a special case of unrestricted bgs, and thus they can't be, by definition, better, because if the better way to build a bg were highlander, the unrestricted bg would become highlander and it would be equal. I hope that's clear, it's a tautology. About my opinion on battlegroup building, please keep in mind that I give advice to new and inexperienced players, so I try to advice battlegroups that can achieve good consistency and with clear winning conditions, so the strategy develops naturally as long as there are no big mistakes, I do think that this is the better way to give advice to new players, and I find that doubling champions makes those bgs easier to understand and to play with. Now, Karmavore is a good player and, in the process of learning the game, he developed his own vision of battlegroup making, and I'm pretty sure that the bgs he makes for himself are the ones that give him the most winrate and enjoyment of the game, so, there is no "better" or "worst" in a game as complex as poxnora, it's just about preferences.
GabrielQ has an extensive Tortun guide (which he just posted above). Assuming you don't want to do turtles, the general consensus seems to be that you'll want to mainly have FS champs and use the KF spell set, since many KF champs have their speeds pre-nerfed on the assumption that they will have the KF full faction bonus, which you don't get in a split. That said, you could build a pretty awesome knockback bg w/ a split. I imagine the core would be 2x centaur skirmisher, 2x privateer captain, 2x augur, 2x carnivorous vines, 2x poison clouds, and then a lot of ap gen to provide the mobility you need (i.e. elven bard, horn of order, time slip, etc.) and possible things that have the ability to create illusions that you can knock units into (ghost stalker, flame mage). I'm less familiar w/ FS...so someone else would have to give you ideas about what other types of bg you could make using this split.
Thing is, knockback would be pretty much better in FF FS since the only thing you gain is Skirmisher and Vines (Captain, Augur, Fumes, Horn are all in FS already). I'd suggest FS/KF wizards would be worth a look, many good wizards live in FS. GabrielQ got what I was saying, but ... yeah actually, any bg not running double TC is almost certainly inferior to the version running it 2x.
FS/KF Slam to start with: http://poxbase.com/#!/deck/CgPCqbCpfCpaChYChnCjUC5qcils1S7sdS1aS46S2tr2Ye2weM
