Myx have caught my eye and I'm curious if anybody has any juicy wisdom I can steal? Any duds/gems I should keep an eye out for? Neat tricks and such? Thanks!
They lack ranged options so your best bets are Acid Dartwing, it has Elusive which is neat and Sand Spitter, 6 range. Other runes that provide some ranged threat are Krikkinwing Alpha, Skeezick Arthromancer, Locust and Skywing Imperator (but he isnt an Arthropod or Myx, worth considering though) They got plenty of melee options with Sand Lion, Slasher, Mindwarp, Adamant, Broodlords, Demonic Sandclaw, Locusts and all the Myx Drones. Matriarchs are auto include and Coordinator is good too. Myx/Arthropods have a lot of 2x2s so you kind of have to picky with which you run, or maybe cut down to just 1xs of certain ones, some maps can give u real trouble if u have too many fatties. Dartwing, Kwing Alpha, Locust, Matriarch and Sand Spitter are the main things atm really. You can experiment with out of theme stuff like Imperators, Valdac and other shiz. If you run Broodlords, run Drone Signal, the Broodlords can Consume the summoned Myx after you use up its AP. Neat combo for healing the big Broodlords. Dunewalkers Mantles work well due to all the sand that gets created from Pupae. I would probably run 1x Dune Manticore in Myx now too, its a great support rune.
Anyone been playing Myx/Arthropods recently, i havent played them for a little while, got fed up of having to run out of theme magic damage and range, just ended up being a sand deck.
I used to play them a lot when they came out, but don't really anymore. With the nerf of Sandsnipe (now known as the Myx Sandlion), Myx has lost it's only truly good ranged unit, and that hurt the theme a lot. And it really doesn't help that 4/9 of all Myx champs are exotic/legendary, which makes it extremely hard for a free/budget players (e.g., me) to collect them all. As it stands right now, to me, Myx needs a lot of work to be it's own functional battlegroup theme. As well as the other two "new" races from Wild Alliance, the Strig and Snaptooth, but that's another story for another day.
I was playing this recently to pretty good effect, went about 50/50 but i think it was more due to my fails than the shortcomings of the deck. I was using Slashers in place of Sandclaws there though, I'm not a huge fan of Slashers relying on stealth to get close so i think Sandclaws will do better. Mantid Tracker is pretty nice now, good source of Detect and Declare target is actually really good, Locusts are crazy and being able to buff the SPD of champs like Krik Alpha is kinda of huge. I usually run 2x Sandspitters but it's too much physical dmg for me. Sadly though like you say it is just missing a few things, Beezick is the only magic damage option and it does feel like some kind of quasi sand deck.
@potatonuts What's the name of the green dude there? Looks like a Skeezick maybe. Between the Matriarchs and The Snogvie. Why no Broodlord/Adamant?
https://poxbase.com/champion/739 He's Skeezick Arthromancer, he has some good synergy with Arthropods. He also has Locust Swarm like Locust does which is an excellent AoE ability to have access to. He is a rare source of Attack: Magical, him and Valdac are about your only options really, or Doombringers (theyre pretty solid for their cost despite having next to no synergy with Myx, they do have Domain:Sand) cant think of much else, Skeezick Wylder is ok too but again no Myx synergy other than Hidden: Sand. You'll notice in SL that Myx and Arthropods have sort of blended together. Most Myx also have race Arthropod now, except Slasher, Spitter and possibly Adamant. I used to play a split with SL and UD Arthropods and Myx, its was pretty good, but it was quite a while ago. Actually @potatonuts what do you think of "Beezick" being reworked a little to get 3-5 or 4-5 range. I feel like that might help Myx decks quite a bit. Its his weird 2-4 range that i dislike, he has to get a little too close and ends getting focused a lot for me. Just a thought any way. Myx do have Acid Dartwing now, who despite having Dissipate still hits hard from 5 range and is pretty deadly with a Dunewalkers Mantle. 2x Dartwing and 1x Mantid Tracker gives u decent amount of Elusive champs to deal with annoying ranged champs. Snaptooth are in a great spot, theyre very strong, but the problem u mentioned does exist for them, you really need Chilans, Ancients and Shamans and theyre all Exos/Legs. Strig need some love i think as a theme. I dont play ST though. For Myx id say only really important Exos/Legs are Krikkinwin Alpha, Locust and Adamants. Coordinator is good but not auto include i dont feel. Especially if u run a few non Arthropod runes like Beezick or Imperator. I understand your point though but some themes are just more expensive. The devs are working towards making themes less dependant on legendary theme enablers and such so thats a good thing.
He is at present far better than he used to be, could he be better than he is? Certainly. Is he runnable? Absolutely. And if you knew where he came from, the fact that he is even runnable is a minor miracle itself. As to the overarching question with regards to Myx. A pure myx deck is bad. Very bad. That is not to say one can't run a successful Myx deck, but it will not be a pure Myx deck. At this point your best bet for a Myx deck is run a Myxsex (Myx and Insex (Arthropods)) or a SandMyx (Sand and Myx) deck. Given the recent love that sand has been getting (to a degree) either would certainly be viable.
Beezick should get manticore'd. Lose magic attack, range, and damage, gain another ability and a cost decrease. He's got the same problem that manticore did in that he's very clunky. Pays for some combat stats but he really can't get into combat with anything.
That's good to hear. Honestly I'm kind of hoping there's a really big new set comparable to how big the PoxNora Release set was. Something like that could go suuuuuch a long way to help flesh out so many underdeveloped themes. Case in point, there's barely enough Myx champ runes (9) to even make a pure Myx battlegroup, much less a GOOD pure Myx battlegroup. Myx needs multiple ranged champs (something a little better than 2-4 range D:<), detection champs, maybe healing champs, etc. And hopefully they're not all legendary. >.< Until then, reiterating MovnTarget's point, a good Myx battlegroup is just going to be a battlegroup with Myx in it, and not a Myx battlegroup - if you get what I mean.
Alrighty, well, after heeding the advice of the sages and fiddling around a bit myself here's what I am using currently and my poor attempts at justifying how I use them haha. 2 Demonic Sandclaw - I love how much damage these guys can put out and boy do they look awesome. A lot of the time these end up picking off important targets. 1 Locust - Picks off stuff, swarms, Broodlords can eat the summoned ones. 2 Myx Adamant - Big dumb bug. Probably going to go to 1 because I rarely play 2, but I love the one for its ability to hold the proverbial fort. 2 Myx Broodlord - Walk forward until it gets to the opposing shrine and clock in. 2 Myx Coordinator - Spawn, AP generation and teleporting my guys around the board. 2 Myx Matriarch - Spawning, Speed buff on the other units. Rarely deploy both, considering just using 1. 1 Sand Elemental - Just playing around with this one, I dig that it generates sand and has a little range. Not in love with it at all though. 2 Skeezick Arthromancer - From the advice here, trying it out. I really like it. Surge makes it pretty big. 2 Burning Sand - AoE damage. 2 Drone Signal - Thematic, fun source of damage and Broodlord can eat them. 2 Quickening - Power Turn, though should probably just run 1. 1 Sandstorm - AoE and sand generation. 1 Transfusion - Lots of little bugs, sometimes one can't get somewhere but I still want the AP. 2 Myx Hive - Spawn. 1 Sundered Warbanner - Yup. 1 Bloodthirsty Blade - Mostly because I play skirmishes almost exclusively. AI keeps focusing. 1 Dunewalker's Mantle - Sand stuff. I would probably switch the Blade out for a second one if I had a second one. 1 Quarry Mark - "Gotcha somethin'! It's real nice! Got it at Target."
I'm not a huge fan of adamants myself. Adaptive is cool and all but he kinda just sits there and doesn't do anything. I'd probably take krikkinwing alpha or something instead. I still don't see how people can drop upper 70's nora on arthromancer and win the game. His range blows, he's slow, and he's mega squishy. He has less utility than dunes manticore. He just seems really bad to me. If I really wanted magic damage I would likely just splash eretat guardian into the deck, but I don't think the meta demands magic damage right now. Don't eat your swarmed locusts; they're still very valuable. Eat your summoned broodlords from drone signal. The potential for you to snowball out of control with continuous locust swarms after the first swarm is very high. I would think about running two locusts in your deck; I consider them to be one of the best runes in SL right now. I would 100% run sand spitter in this deck. myx sorely need range (true range, not this 4 range crap) and you can get a beefy high ranged unit with multiattack that also generates sand. Totally worth his cost imo. He makes a fantastic dunewalker's mantle target too because you have to take creep and crawl over domain sand. Lastly, he even has consume so the drone signal trick works for him too. Consider acid dartwings. They're borderline runnable in meta where they don't get the +1 spd; so in a deck that does give them a boost and also sorely lacks range I'm sure they'll do well. I don't love demonic sandclaw in a post-empowered speed nerf world. However it kinda seems like you have to run him just so you have a cheap deploy option. Looking at my suggestions it seems like every rune is falling in the 75-81 nora range which is less than ideal for the early game. I'm probably going to be alone on this one but I really don't like myx hive. It's definitely efficient and it's not a huge backloaded investment or anything, but I also don't think it's a necessary rune. Like when I look at my decklist, I don't think myx hive will generate me more wins than something like magnetize or purge. It just puts you more "all in" on overwhelming your opponent with drones; so if he has an answer to them you're kinda screwed even more. If he doesn't have an answer, I think the stready stream of pupae from coordinators and matriarch are sufficient. I've lost too many games to not running magnetize and/or purge to not put those two runes into everything. Anyway, I'll post what I would run if I were to go into ranked right now with a myx deck and try to win. You'll notice what I'm posting is much more of a "sandmyxsex" deck than it is a pure myx deck, but I think that's kinda the way it has to be (to be competitive in ranked) in my opinion. The 2 missing slots are myx coordinators. As I've said before though take what I'm saying with a grain of salt. I know much more about what's good in the meta and sand than I know about what's good in myx.
Wow, thanks a ton for such an in-depth response! I can't really comment on ranked. The only PvP games I've done have been 2 training matches for dailies, and one of them just let the timer kill them haha. About to crash for the day too, but I'll play around with your advice when I crawl back out this evening. Thanks again! One question: What makes Kwing alpha so good? I see it recommended a lot, but to my ignorance I don't see what makes it so good.
Basically it has the ability to tank like a champ while still providing a threat for harassment and powerturns. Say you have a champ that gets to a midfont on your 2nd turn, then your opponent gets to the same midfont on his 2nd turn. If your champ is a myx adamant, it likely has to sit there and not do anything because he's a pure melee 2x2. If you want to actually attack with him, you have to run over to your opponent's side of the font, likely putting it out of position. Now if you have a krikkinwing alpha, he can both attack with a ranged DoT, and drop a poison cloud, dissuading any counter-harass your opponent might have. so basically both champs are beefy and can tank well, but krik gives you an offensive threat that myx adamant doesn't. Krikkenwing is also a lot harder to chip away at because of regen 3, whereas myx adamant doesn't have regen, and myx don't have an in-theme healer. Anyway, given your inexperience with pvp I would strongly recommend watching good players play to see what they do. I mean this from a point of analysis, not so much the runes they run. Try to analyze why what they're doing is successful, and apply those concepts to your own games. Playing a lot of games certainly helps you learn the runes, but I find the players that just spam pvp games when they're new usually take longer to develop into good players than the ones that decide that they want to improve by learning the game. You're already ahead of the curve by coming to the forums first, lol. Good luck and welcome to the abusive relationship that is Poxnora .
Yeah DrSteve's got it all covered here. Ill reiterate something he mentioned though and say that you should certainly add in a Dartwing or two, best ranged option bugs have atm imo and a Sand Spitter or two depending on how many 2x2s uve got in there. Itll give your deck more of a ranged threat. I personally would ditch Sand Elemental, a Quickening, a Myx Hive and Bloodthirsty Blade for 2 Dartwings, a Spitter and a Magnetize. You seem to have listed 28 runes instead of 30 unless i cant count. Id add a Purge because i love the spell and a Hive or another Spitter in the spare slots.
But then bugs got no Magic damage, which is a big problem. Does not change the fact that he went from being Bane Shift, to still being pretty Bane Shift. Could he have not just been changed from Bane Shift to decent, lol. Who was in control of those changes at the time, my nan couldve done a better job. From looking at decklists, im seeing Sandclaw over Slasher almost exclusively, is this the general consensus? Im running 1 of each atm for the added variety, but i was wondering which is the better include overall. vs
