40enSat, 08 Dec 2012 14:36:56 GMTSat, 08 Dec 2012 14:36:56 GMTRaeth is definitely better than Sting because of extra damage and less predictability. Also Raeth > Scubb IMO because of he doesn't get eaten alive by power reducers.]]>Sat, 08 Dec 2012 04:13:31 GMTRaeth>Sting, Sting is courageous, and Raeth gets his ability every turn. Plus the extra damage is worth it, even if it is neutralized every now and then. Sure, 10 power is nice, but the opponent sees it coming every time, and can just toss a card or counterattack. I'm not saying Raeth is immune to this, but his ability not being courageous helps an aweful lot.]]>Fri, 07 Dec 2012 07:39:27 GMTPiranas you need to balance your ability to win 3 rounds with your ability to win the match on 2 rounds. SOB is not a true combat bonus so Piranas have a tough time playing a completely defensive "I neutralize your biggest threat" game which Skeelz, Junkz or Ulu Watu excel at. Puff and Sting are characters who help you win 3 rounds, but can be a disaster if you only win 2 rounds. This is why Hawkins is the most difficult character to play in Piranas. If you win with him, you really MUST win 3.

Win 3 sounds good but there are clans where it is very difficult to win 3 against, such as Jungo and Skeelz.

Consistent Piranas decks do not deviate from the 4 damage standard. As long as you are hitting for 4 and the occasional big hit with Coleridge or Lizbeth, you should be ok with winning 2 most of the time.

But I do recommend Sting over Raeth. Raeth needs a minimum investment of 1 pill. At 2 pills, Sting has already overtaken Raeth's attack bonus (30 to 29). Raeth's only real advantage is the extra damage, which is occasionally neutralized]]>Thu, 06 Dec 2012 22:10:13 GMTScubb or Selma are used to draw pillz from your opponents, such as Taljion or Raeth. Your opponent has to pill to get over the attack manip, or eat some damage. And to further complicate things, you can throw on a few pillz in order to scare your opponent into pilling even more.]]>Thu, 06 Dec 2012 16:31:56 GMTPiranas this week, not bad for, but hey i am a 1200 elo player, still need help reaching higher grounds.
When using Piranas its tiring sometimes when you lose by 1 damage or you win 3 rounds and in the end some card turns the whole game around. But I do feel that in more trained hands then mine Piranas can still wreak havoc in most games. Honestly I would love to see a better power manip in the clan, a 4 stars maybe since there is one in every level but that, something like Deadeye but more deadlier.
I can understand why a DR in Piranas is so dangerous, not only you stop their bonus, and in the cases of some clan it reduces greatly their damage, bezerk, fpc, La Junta, Freaks, Frozn, Jungo. it also reduces the damage of the card itself, a dr with sob is like the ultimate dr. But i would love to see sothing like smokey unbanned. Trey is useless, and in the 3 star category nobody makes pill manip. An 8/2 with defeat plus 2 pills would be really awesome. I can dream, but that aint gonna happen.

And yes conventional Piranas decks are very predictable, thus making things really hard for the user, 63 atack on Selma anyone?]]>Thu, 06 Dec 2012 05:03:10 GMTPiranas exactly: they have to win the 3 rounds most of the time.

Overpilling a card like Scubb, who brings a chunk of his pills right back to you, is all well and good, but what about their other cards? Both pilling too high OR too low carry certain risks, and pilling moderately is just asking for a card that you need to win to get beaten. The Piranas are a higher risk clan than most others, currently... And the fact that your opponent probably knows your strategy does not help matters.]]>Wed, 05 Dec 2012 23:58:13 GMT
Win rounds, manip. pillz, win 3/4 rounds. I don't think I've ever had to derive from that strategy.]]>Wed, 05 Dec 2012 09:31:53 GMT
What you said is correct but it doesn't contradict to what I said. Yes, Piranas need 3/4 wins in most cases. However, HOW they achieve these 3/4 wins in terms of particular strategy for each particular game varies more greatly than, say, Sentinel which also usually need 3/4 wins but can rely on the same strategy game after game with relative consistency.

My whole point is that the extent to which a Piranas or Nightmare player must adapt to their opponent's particular set of abilities from game to game is slightly bigger than the majority of other mono and half deck setups.]]>Tue, 04 Dec 2012 22:47:10 GMT
While that may be true for NM, Piranas have pillz manip + low damage: making 99% of the games about winning 3/4 rounds.

@nerous

True, but pillz let you win rounds, and won rounds let you do damage. IMO Pillz manip>Damage early game, which makes it easier to manipulate pillz in later rounds too.]]>Tue, 04 Dec 2012 20:54:11 GMTPiranas and even Nightmare are hardly underpowered in my opinion. What these two clans do is change the face of the game. Most other clans builds their decks around their clan bonus, and the SoB clans take that away. It then comes down to ability vs ability, and Piranas and Nightmare have their fair share of abilities just like everyone else.

The problem is that there are only a handful of clan bonuses but an endless combination of abilities, so for Piranas and Nightmare the differences in strategy from game to game vary more greatly than for most other clans. That puts of players that are habitual or inexperienced. Every single game, every single round has to be thought out individually, while the majority of other mono decks and even many of the half decks are based around similar strategies for the majority of their games.

I am over-simplifying of course, each game is slightly different. But for decks that rely on Ability vs Ability, this stands true more profoundly and that's what makes them a bit trickier in my opinion.]]>Tue, 04 Dec 2012 03:40:54 GMT The person with the most life at the end of the round always wins.]]>Tue, 04 Dec 2012 01:55:49 GMTPiranas, however it would have to be quite subtly (Spelling fail), since giving us a DR or defeat + life card would make round 1 stupid 50-50s worse than Freaks currently.

The reason I use Piranas (Aside from them being the best clan in ELO
) is that you'll need someone to keep those Jungo/Freaks derp-decks in line. Expecially with Amiral Coco, Piranas easily beat Freaks, and give Jungo a good run for thier money (Although a nice counter-Askai would be nice). Its like being a police officer


As for weakness vs. Defeat: + life (Like Lola): I don't think anyone should (But hey, they do it anyways) be running Puff in mono personally, and 2 dmg without any other factors (At least Hawkins has pillz manip.) is highly unadvisable, since Piranas get out-damaged against all the other clans.

The way I see it is that Piranas is a really solid clan. and through deck building, you can play to your strength (Like Frozn + Kalindra derp) or try to reduce your weaknesses. For Piranas, the second IMO is much more important, and by doing that you play to your strengths by becoming even more solid.

One last stab at Puff: I'm sure most Puff users use Lizbeth as well, but get turned off by the otherwise low amount of damage the clan offers and switch to Frozn or some other less-skilled clan. Correctly played I think Piranas are the strongest clan: Pillz>Life, why do you lose pillz but gain life in Survivor?]]>Tue, 27 Nov 2012 14:38:01 GMTelo and tell me stuff like "omg pirana is so op... faceroll elo wins... sob rules" ect ect ect point being if you give them too much power and to big of abilities like some of the clans without offensive bonuses have it could great a huge advantage for some of those players and there was a time (before alot of the newer powerhouses came out) where almost every top elo player used Piranas (this also used to be an issue with Rescue) yes you see alot of the same clans but imagine taking your favorite deck (junks or Uppers or Sakrohm, Montana, Bangers, Ulu Watu ect) and running in to all SOB that would be unfair if you werent set up with enough prot and stop bonus abilities in your deck. lots of complaints go out and so the staff makes new cards to combat the sob and sob become obsolete just like when they ban characters to prevent same deck wins all the time (Lehane with sents all those ghiest ect) a balence has to be made for elo to be fair to all players of all clans, to simply power up sob for elo would be unfair to players who like to have more strategy based games not just pill winning face rolls. (Ulrich may not be the best ban choice but he certainly calmed down some of the pirana spam i would say) ]]>Sun, 25 Nov 2012 16:27:36 GMT
When I'm talking about Piranas DR/Defeat problem, I don't mean the fact that they don't have any, either. I mean the fact that their low damage cards make them painfully vulnerable to it. Selma hits for a mean 4 damage through a 3 DR. Sure, that's offset somewhat by her pill gain, but it's not going to win you the game unless you 3-round. And now that Defeat: +/- 3 life cards are becoming more common, some Piranas cards are just helpless against them. Hawkins and Puff both become a liability in that situation, actually gaining life for your opponent.]]>Sun, 25 Nov 2012 15:45:22 GMTPiranas is that they'll become the next Freaks. Say I draw both Scubb/Selma and the 2/3 star DR/Defeat: card, and Hawkins and Tula (Really could be any low star card.)

Now, since you have less stars than your opponent, he goes first. And now he has to guess if you'll derp-pill Scubb or block with your defeat/DR. And if you block with your DR when your opponent tries to deny Scubb, you win. Or if he few-pillz to sneak past your DR, you can overpill with Scubb and get your pillz back, along with doing a decent 5 damage. Like Freaks, 90% of games will come down to 1st turn 50-50s.]]>Sun, 25 Nov 2012 07:56:35 GMTNightmare and Piranas have 5 8-powered cards. 4 of them are 5* that struggle against fierce competition especially in ELO decks, leaving just one that is arguably good enough to find a spot in mono decks (Tyd), and he has no ability. SoB and CoB, as pointed out, cripple both clans already, but that's not their only problem. More and more 8-powered 3* and 4* cards become a staple in competitive decks, making it very difficult for mono Piranas and mono Nightmare to match them pill for pill and pull out a 3/4 victory, and they both need it since most good decks run decent SoA cards as well that can take out Piranas' pill manipulation and Nightmare's life manipulation, making 2/4 victory that much more difficult.

In short, since both clans rely on raw stats + ability vs raw stats + ability, they need several releases of cards with better raw stats and more variety in abilities in order to stay competitive when run mono.

It doesn't have to clash with the clan themes, either. Amiral Coco was a step in the right direction. Copy, Defeat and Revenge abilities that play into their clan's theme (pillz and power manipulation for Piranas, life and attack manipulation for Nightmare) and better DR for Piranas coupled with a few more 2*, 3* and 4* star cards with slightly higher raw stats will make these clans as viable as other clans that follow a similar pattern: which is most other clans nowadays.]]>Fri, 23 Nov 2012 19:49:58 GMTPiranas for a very long time, its was basically all I used, now I prefer Berzerk/Vortex or Skeels, but I dont feel Piranas are weakened, its just that you have to really now how to play with them to manage good results.
Actually the main reason i changed from Piranas is because i felt that it really makes you try and predict correctly your opponent to win, one mistake and usually you're in a tigh spot if you dont draw a good hand.

Lizbeth can be a problem when you play first against a hand that has SoA as an abillity but even then people spent all the rounds afraid of her that its really a good mind game to win the other 3 rounds.
Selma is a beast and can easy overpill win and let the opponent shivering.
I dont like taljon that much, he has good suport but for a wal I prefer to use Piranas 2 stars, Hawkins, Tula (but she is a bit shakky now a days), Puff or Kalder and Spycee just because we can (if bonny wasnt banned in elo, my god, Piranas would be amazing in mono). I have lost count on how many times Kalder won me the match simply because we only had one pill left at the endgame and there was no SoA on the other side.

Rateh is a good choice for Elo but for me Scubb takes the prize for best 4 stars in mono. For 3 stars Tyd obviously or Baba.

And then there is Bloodh, in the good old days Bloodh was a fraking demon, speacially when rhed was not that week in power. Rhed Bloodh was an eck of a combination.]]>Fri, 23 Nov 2012 14:50:26 GMTSaki and Marina (Who's just convienently a DR ), Skeelz, since their stats are higher to balance thier bonus, which is dormant most games, plus Greem derp/old, and mix in a little Chiara and Sandro for some painful gameplay. And Nightmare, just a bit, when they draw more than 2 uber-nukes like Cutey, Kenny Cr, or Karrion. Most times Tula, Taljion, and Raeth can beat them pill-wise, its just the pure guesswork involved...]]>Fri, 23 Nov 2012 05:54:25 GMTPiranas have some great cards, and that they can be pivotal in some games. It's just that this is true of La Junta and Ulu Watu as well. I myself have gotten pretty high scores running Ulu/Vortex and Junta/Vortex mixes.

Restating my whole point in brief: Piranas and NM both have serious disadvantages. Piranas focus on 3-round wins, and NM focus on scaring you with their lineup of glass cannons. Before, these just contributed to clan identity... And the fact that SoB makes cards solid in a wide variety of situations, both defensive and offensive, helped make these clans strong despite their weaknesses.

But now, strong SoB and CoB cards are becoming more common in other clans. These cards offer the same sort of well-roundedness and carry none of the disadvantages. This is the important part: We can assume that more good SoB and CoB cards are going to be added to the game. If that continues, running a SoB clan or half may soon lose any advantage, unless NM and Piranas get a bit of a boost.]]>Fri, 23 Nov 2012 04:25:23 GMTELO.

Here are two adventages of SoB clans that you should not miss out:
- Stably against others clan especially SoA clan!!
- Can be defensive cards most of them and most of the time!! Stop clan poison; +damage; +-life; pillz recover, etc!

Highlighted card in Nightmare: (I play NM in ELO so I would like write about them)
- Artus - 2* version of Jeena, very strong for defensive, too easily to fit in deck.
- Pan - A bit underrated includes its price. Stably +life, and better then similar cards with -life (no max.), like Oxen.
- Azel - No doubt strong poison.
- Phyllis - Stably 7/1+(3), too good as a 2*, quite similar to Z3r0 D34d +3 damage in GHEIST and Treeman +3 life in Roots.
- Edwin - I think Edwin is a good card, to take down opponent's power plus stop their bonus, and make 5 damage which is reasonable.
- Cutey - Another underrated cards, replacement of Kenny, but only 3*. Same stats as Loma Noju and Dr Saw, but they are 4*.

Here are three adventages of NM that you should not miss out:
- Many great low-star characters that allow you to leave space for big characters.
- Characters with independent abilities allow you to mix up with other clans easily.
- A clan with both great +life, -life and poison abilities, easily to match up variety strategies.

The only bad thing I can see on NM is that most of their playable 4 - 5* characters are banned permanently/very often.]]>