Yeah bois we did it. I've been inwardly (and sometimes outwardly) huffing about the existence and marginally greater prevalence of Overload for weeks, and have felt forced to play worms as a result -- it seemed like there was no attrition deck good enough to be tier 1 that wasn't running a hefty relic package. I messed around briefly with a cheap meat variant using Illusion of Lies, but it was underwhelming. Of the two main relic paths (chops or Ed), Essence Devourer has struck me as the more powerful, but I have not for the life of me figured out a way to use it without depending on that one relic -- until now. Finally, relic-less attrition. That's what the core looks like right now. There's some very standard stuff in there -- the three utility equips, Wandering Zombies, Seism and Shatter, and the basic kill-spell package that I've been running. Considering the "relic-less" moniker, Statue and Skull may not make a lot of sense, but I think they are appropriate. The relics are bare-bones. Xulos and Risen Moga fill out the guaranteed champs. So, that should leave the replacement to Graveyard pretty obvious: Arroyo Riftlord. Fun fact: Arroyo Rift allows one Riftlord to feed an Essence Devourer forever, unassisted. This is the key to making this work. Unfortunately, it is much more expensive than Graveyard, but not terribly so -- I currently have them at 81 and 86. That's about 35-40 more nora than a Graveyard, but you get a (semi) functional champ out of the deal. They are much better, for instance, at smoothing out draw chances. (If you think about it, though, the Riftlord doesn't do shrine damage, and so you might not have to deploy Tome of Hate. [This is not actually as good as it sounds.]) But the really big deal is that you don't die to Overload, and it's much harder to snipe off the champ-producer. Because you're now using summons to feed Ed, Vengeful synergy goes out the window, so forget that. The grind in general has a lot lower ceiling: you won't be getting out Tomb or Tome or any of those other spicy relics, so there is no substantive global damage. This hurts. On the other hand, I am experimenting with some whack stuff, so we can see where it goes: 16 champs is a lot more than I would like, but the plan is to cull the weak lot and replace them with more spells. Gravewatcher is there not for Exhume (resurrection) on any particular champion, but for Gravetend on Xulos. In theory he can also resurrect one of the ~60 nora champions and generate some value that way -- I think the champ is a bit under-valued by a lot of FW players (speaking of, if anyone has a second they want to trade, let me know). Death Harvester in theory supplants Unholy Tomb as "mediocre and maybe over-costed form of nora generation". Both the Stormorb and Flamewisp have Vuln: Physical, Flame with Blind, Storm with Relocate: DMZ, which I am psyched to use to speed up the suicide speed of Essence Devourers. The Votary has Revel in Misery and Rabid. Yeah. I've thought about Commander for that sweet Undead value. I love Absorb Magic, but have never quite gotten it to work. Soulreave is a solid utility spell that I rarely include, so I want to start feeling it out again. Touch of Serkan -- man, I hope people forgot their cleanse, because that spell becomes nonsense if they do. Exceptional against UD and to a lesser extent FS. With indefinite Cripple, a champion's defense just keeps going down; long-suffering champions are not only useless in combat with 0 DMG and 3 SPD, but they also become papery thin, barely suitable as roadblocks. Anyway, I haven't given this a whirl yet, but we'll see how it does.
Global damage and stuff like Shattered Fonts can really mess up a Rift Spirit's day. It's a situation that requires some fairly specific circumstances but it happened to me much more than i expected when playing Arroyo, doubt it'll happen often but it's something you might have to play around.
Ok, that's good to note. It seems like few decks would be packing 17 global damage in the space of 4 rounds, so just playing around Font Eruption etc. should be enough.
Isn't gravetender anti-attrition? He bypasses the FW bonus with a 20 turn CD when he dies and resets your opponent's highest CD champ as well. I've always thought that Statue of Xulos got most of its value as a seism tax for your relics that actually accrue value over time. Have you found that it's worth it for the pure Xulos bonus? If you're going all experimental, I wonder if this might be the best deck for deathcaster as well (short lived so his cost doesn't interfere with xulos/exhume). Not saying that he'd be the best choice for the deck, but that this deck might be the best condition for him. I also have this nagging suspicion that you'd be better off with an SP or FS split for more replicate champs, better nora gen, and more options for utility (at the cost of xulos, ofc.)
Yes, he himself doesn't benefit from the bonus, but resetting opposing CDs doesn't matter that much -- you're never going to lock your opponent from CDs anyway, and giving them another champion that they can't play doesn't matter much either. Attrition right now is a resource game, not a cooldown game. Yes, and this is always why I've run it. I consider it a superior alternative to Vengeful as a way of generating high-DMG ranged champs. This is a fair idea. I've never been sold on the Short Lived build with the champ, but I can try out some variants. There are so many experiments to run with the FW champ set -- it's just frustrating how dominant the main melee champions feel sometimes, even if I advocate for using them. Essence Devourer does not work nearly as well in split because of how much it depends on the FW bonus. Unless you are getting something truly exceptional from another faction, I don't think it's worth it. I split with FS for a while for Pool of Dreams because of how well that interacted with GY/Ed, but changed after Dreamstate was nerfed. All interesting questions.
Still have not properly used this deck, but here would be the updated version based on play testing with other decks and other recommendations.
Yo this crap actually works. I don't think it is quite as good as the relic-heavy version for a few reasons -- mainly, because you don't get Tome/Bazaar and there's more upfront cost -- but the difference is really not that bad. On the plus side, you get occasional support from Riftlords, and of course Ed is immune to Overload and Wail. Against SL, I think the right play is still to run out Statue, but just hold off on the other three relics until you have a good read on whether or not they have Trigger etc. -- I've also been working on an alternative version of the deck, as a way of responding to Overload, that still has the full relic package, but can respond to Overload by running a slimmed-down attrition game with Harvester, Gravewatcher, and Toll-Taker. The low CDs mean you can cycle the (very small) remaining champ pool even without the main Ed engine. Looks something like this: Has some similarities to the other, more recent versions of EdGY I've been building, but it takes out a few of the spells for a broader champion base, and also (purposefully) all the champions are undead, which means it can theoretically meet one-race theme requirements for a certain upcoming tournament.
One wonderful thing about using the Riftlord (which, side note, I think is better with Oblivion Shield even though it costs 5 more nora) is that you can take Ally: SP on the Risen Moga and have it reliably proc. That buffs the up to 14 DMG/52 HP with Banner. For 55 nora, with two alt-ranged attacks and no mobility downside, that's great. Might even be worth running 2 in that case?
I think Death Harvester/Coragh makes for a better Gravewatcher target than does Deathcaster. Getting 220 HP with Banner is just... a lot. That the HP comes mixed up in various forms and with a variety of resistances and protections is icing. In light of the intent to use Coragh twice, though, I wonder how much it would be worth running a more expensive build? I am running the 85 nora build right now in a general effort to keep the deck painfully low to the ground, but I am a big fan of Auras, and I find Breath a valuable tool. Maybe the 88 nora build? Here's about what I would run, at my current point in testing:
