What is the most anti FW deck possible?

Hey guys, so I'm about to quit this game again. After getting essence drained for the 3rd time in one game, I'd pretty much rather beat my face into the moniter than press "ranked pvp game" one more time. I think I've complained about the specifics in countless threads by now, but like a resilient lung tumor the cancer lingers on.

So, first, before riding into the sunset and leading a healthier, more heart friendly life, I want to try something. My aim is to create a deck whose sole purpose is to counter as much FW as possible. Doesn't matter if it's useless against every other faction, I will happily get stomped by the other 7 every game I encounter them; but I'm not to worried about that, as most games are against FW anyway.

So, I'm looking for ideas. Firstly what faction or two factions have the most useful runes? My first thought is an anti spell deck. Literally any theme or combination of champs is viable in FW, so long as you just pick the same 10 stupid spells that will be the spine of your deck and spam them endlessly, right? And since the whole field is dead magic zone, your spells are about as useful as that spoiler on your 2003 honda accord!

This makes me think IS should be one of the factions, but in a split their bonus only reduces damage by 3, and most spells deal so much damage that 3 is negligible or have some effect where damage is irrelevant.

SP has spell resistance in their fonts and spread among champs. A contender. With spell resistance, Anathema will do all it should do in the first place; minor damage if it's also going to inflict a shitty effect. Here I thought ST or UD was supposed to be the spammy aoe damage spell faction, and yet... It's to bad skull totem blows compared to some other spell seals.

SL on the other hand has tainted statue, a relic that makes spells cost 50% more nora to cast. 75 nora essence drain? Mmm that would be a sweet feeling.

Cleansing aura champs seem like they'd be useful. Since witches perma curse by just existing, zombies perma disease just by... existing.. it seems like this would be a staple ability in this deck. Valdac would be core, but he can't go in a split. unfortunatley.

Anti relic is also going to be a part of this. ST has that beautiful spell arctic wail. Might have to include them for that alone.

Anyway, what any ideas, community? What have you noticed to be a godsend when the the game starts and to your dismay the enemies shrine is holding a big sword and wearing a devious cape?

 

Too many runes can spam dmz, fws toolkit has spells to deal with every situation. Honestly most fw and sp games I just surrender as soon as I see them.

Ive yet to see an fw player that was actually any good at the game outside of them playing fw. It's a crutch faction and very straight forward and easy to play.

 

So first of all, anti relic makes them cry. Things like corrode and demolish are very good contenders for this, but the best are unstable power source and double arctic wail.
They may often not have shatter, so sticky equips like lasher helm could tear a whole in them.
Blockade could be really good vs them, but it's hard to find on cheap champs and any expensive ones with blockade the FW player will just doom or ED or something.
Very importantly is anti summon spam. Things like battle leader, swarm, illusion of lies.

 

I think SL/IS split is the way to go. Tainted Statue, Infestor, Mimic. Using Infestor and Mimic, you can copy the spell seal that is on Infestor to get another one. If you're worried about the Infestor deploying relics, you have three choices. First, pay to cast Barricade and surround the Infestor with barriers. Second, kill the infestor after mimicing it's ability. Third, surround it with champs/relics.

You can also field a few champs with Backlash to punish Unholy Tomb. Unfortunately you have no access to Seism or Siege Lord to destroy relics at range. Loss of Life from Essence Drain cannot be prevented, so IS's bonus won't reduce it. Focus on equipment, FW doesn't usually have a lot of ways to remove it. The Valdaci champs seem especially suited for this kind of play. Unstable Powersource works in your favor as well as you have access to champs with Mason to repair your relics. Overall, you're basically going for an IS/SL construct BG.

 

stop listening to what i say in chat.

anyways 2 prime factions would be either ST or SL (or worms but i wont go into that, too complex)

Key things.
#1 Anti Relic Arctic wail. Its absurd that ST players dont run this. You pop 2 of these against me late game heres what your gonna destroy, Unholy tomb, tome of hate, Graveyard, Elsarin Bazaar, Warbanner thats 170 noras worth of relics for 70 (or 60) noras worth of spells. Alternatively unstable powersource

#2 forget healing. Your playing against FW building around healing is just going to get the efficiency of your deck cut in half. forgo healing and go for raw survivability.

#3 Anti spell, Cancel Magic, Snowblind are both things that can hurt FW bad. Snowblind less so since you actually need to put thought into using it now.

#4 High damage AOEs. Cones/spells take out those weak units as efficiently as possible (i DO NOT mean use ice storm to wreck 3 broken bones splits cause thats just silly)

#5 Swarm helps but don't expect it to win you a game. Bone circle staff does exist it will absolutely destroy summons and we can get multiple out just from 1 rune slot so don't rely on summons cause we have an extremely reliable anti summon. Except voils voils can do that pretty absurdly

 

A SL deck with 6 cannons and 6 tanks generally curb stomps FW. I dunno I just find FW easy to face as SL...

 

Problem with things like demolish is that dead magic zone screws you. This is why it's so stupid. No weaknesses. Blockade is something to look for, good god. I don't get why mobilize exists. You know who else would like mobilize, in it's current form with no flavor changes whatsoever? Literally every other faction. It's not thematic, it has no synergy with anything, it's just simply a stupid powerful spell that would be auto include in any meta deck for any faction. It has nothing to do with death or zombies or skeletons, why does FW have it? FS would Firking love a global 4 ap per champ.

Hell, that's almost every spell they have. Enemy champ loses half their hp? Well sure boghoppers could use that. Doom? Faires would love doom!

 

#1 The problem with arctic wail is it's a spell and all the spell seals effect everyone, so both relying on anti spell and a spell of my own to kill relics won't work to well. ST does have that jakei holding a big rock with seism though, probably run x2 of her.

#2 Yea forget healing, forget buffing, forget investing any resources in any single champ as FW doesn't allow you to have super champs. Better off going UD and throwing cheap beaters out and sacrficing everything once it gets doomed, soul corrupted, or some other Bane Shift.

#3 I question the use of spending nora on anti spell spells. First of all my own spell seals will prevent me from doing this, secondly every FW spell is run x2 because why the Firk not, so after failing once they'll just recast it.

#4 Yes.

#5 You know, people keep suggesting anti summon, but one of my many problems with FW is how much of the things they summon dont count as summons. Like the skeletons from graveyard, why the Firk aren't they summoned? The damn revenants that magistrate summons by killing you, why are they real champs? Some of the zombies are real champs to. It makes no sense what is a summon and what isn't.

 

I do find it easier and less frustrating to just surrender at the beginning of the game if you see certain FW champs\relics drop early on.

 

If you're focused solely on FW hate IS fits the bill with lots of spellswallower, cleanse + heal, immunity magic, and even outright attrition hate like exorcist. Also, millenial icequake does relatively well against FW if you can handle saving up 250+ nora without losing ground/the game.

 

Not gonna bother playing against chopping blocks. Even if I should win, I will not have had any fun.

 

stop using spell seals. pretty simple

What determines whether or not a unit is a summoned is whether or not a price is paid to spawn it. in the case of graveyard magistrate and green house. they all give up HP or nora and create reals. And there are no real zombie spawns that aren't death spawned like coragh and wandering zombie.

And no i didnt recommend anti summon. It would help vs zombies, spirits and skeles but not against the general meta, witches and super vengeful which are the 3 more regularly played FW decks at this current point in time.

 

Pro tip by the way guys. surrendering at the start of the game is just sad. Neither the person playing FW or you want it your simply denying an experience to someone playing the game. don't do it, feels like Bane Shift to have it happen 3-4 times in a row

 

Don't play a BG that makes sitting around doing nothing seem a good alternative to actually playing a game. You are the ******* in the equation, not your enemy.

 

Mates just want to give my 2 cents on the topic:
1st St is the main counter to FW (too much health and utility for them to deal with) preferably yetis or lonx.
2nd Themacca is a solid player and has been playing FW for more than 7 years in the game so when he is giving u advise I am pretty sure he knows what he is talking about.
3rd and most important point: anyone complaining FW is OP ( I may agree with u but only in spirit bgs) however its not even the most powerful, please try playing dwarves dragons, voils and SP meta and then judge. Losing constantly to something doesnt mean its OP necessarily some bgs counter others and thats the beauty of pox in that anyone can beat anyone with the right runes.

good day to all

 

It doesn't matter at all whether it is OP or not when it is anti-fun. Immolating myself with gasoline isn't hard and I still don't like to do it, go figure.

 

or you can start playing FW?

 

Feedback as a FW player (coming from a particular kind of FW decks) --

On matchups

• FW's best matchups are KF, FS, and IS, roughly in that order. This because those factions have trouble directly interacting with FW's back-line, have reduced ability to gimp key champions, lack high-volume healing, lack a way to punish FW for grinding, or lack the ability to put together a durable rush, or some combination of the above. Obviously, IS is more competent at some of those things, which makes it a less favorable matchup for FW compared to FS or KF.
• FW's worst matchups are ST, (current) SP, and some specific brews of FW. This is because those factions can do, either well or exceptionally well, some of those above things -- ST has an easy time putting together a burly line, SP can destroy super-champs and field many stats like ST, and correctly-build FW can absolutely stomp the faction mirror. ST also has Arctic Wail, which has surpassed UPS as the best raw anti-relic in the game.
• FW's matchups with UD and SL depend heavily on the decks involved. SL can run UPS, durable tanks, and key counter runes, or it can be something like Myx and get destroyed by FW's counter runes.

Bearing that in mind, you should look to ST, SP, or FW if you want to build anti-FW. If you want to play a racial theme deck, try Voil, Foul Rite Witches or, if you can manage to play them, Worms. I believe that worms are FW's single worst matchup; they utterly destroy everything except for Foul Rite.

On healing

• Healing is still good against FW. Outside of a few key units, or investing spells, FW doesn't have the ubiquitous burst or muscle of factions like IS or UD. Invariably, several champions will sit around at reduced HP, and healing can easily generate value, even when reduced, against FW. While Skull impedes healing's efficiency, it's still fundamentally strong against much of the faction. The removal of Inhibited from Diseased contributed to that efficacy.
• Be sparing and smart with healing, should you choose to include it. Building 100% all-in healing will get stuffed, but using healing to grind margins into the mid-game can do wonders.

On anti-relic

• Seism doesn't matter in the slightest. Ignore it. Any competent player can play around Seism, and sacrificing board presence for a Seism champ will cost more than it will provide.
• Demolish and Erode can be devastating, but require invested use. There are only a few maps were FW can protect relics against Demo/Erode inside SDZ, and on those maps spaces are still sparse. A well timed dash and spell can be a huge cut into FW's plans.
• The best anti-relic are the pieces FW can't play around i.e. Arctic Wail, Unstable Powersource, and Skeezick Trigger (a champ which can do unbelievable damage). An amped Wail can do 20 damage to every relic for 25 nora, which locks out any sort of relic-dependent deck. Overload has similar effects.

So, some sort of ST/SL or SP/SL split could probably do wonders. Run the new dragon as a 1x to counter Doom with Reinforce, include some nasty beaters, and you should be alright.

 

No. I can't.

 

more towards OP...but jk anyways