40enFri, 11 Jan 2013 11:02:17 GMTFri, 11 Jan 2013 11:02:17 GMT You're still overlooking a few strategic points. Ector is one of the highest gaping characters in Piranas. What's more, unlike almost all of Piranas, he goes through DR -- this is essential in a low damage clan. Having him in your hand allows you to harass your opponent with cards that it's not desirable for them to fight: Taljion, Puff, the unpredictable Hawkins, attack manipulators from another clan, etc. Depending on how your opponent reacts to those cards you are likely to gain a low-cost life advantage or a pill advantage. That pill advantage, in turn, helps Ector secure an easy hit.

Look at it this way: Opening with 1-pilled Taljion when Ector is in your hand essentially transfers Taljion's round-winning advantage to Ector (unless your opponent lets Taljion through, which is even better!)]]>Fri, 11 Jan 2013 10:59:45 GMTPan so much but at least he doesn't have a min. Any Piranas that doesn't have pill manipulation should be able to function as an anchor (the character you play last). Ector's min. means that once in a while you are screwed if you need to Fury with him, whereas Pan can always Fury to 8. Nightmare can also be built to resist DR, while it makes less a difference that Ector is DR resistant; you'd rather beat Ector and DR Tyd or Raeth instead anyway. Finally Nightmare has better poisoners so life gain is actually useful for them. Nightmare doesn't have the good options at 3* that Piranas have; Edwin is a good power reducer but Nightmare is loaded with power reducers and they die to SOA and protection. Cutey has the problem of being 6 power.

@fotaoku: Sakrohm has amazing characters but they are all permanently banned. I don't know why Sak keeps on getting characters that are strictly inferior to what Junkz, Uppers, Montana or Sentinels get; maybe so they don't get even more OP in extended. Sak's ELO 5* characters are terrible compared to Junkz and Sentinels.]]>Fri, 11 Jan 2013 10:43:18 GMT
The most common power for ELO characters is 7. A 7 power All-Star gets a 7-5 power advantage which is huge and often insurmountable even with a pill advantage. Thus any All-Star can be improvised into a servicable wall. This allows All-Stars to play defensive (i.e. win over your opponents' hardest hitters). However it means characters with natural 8 power are very useful against All-Stars.

Resistant to SOA. Very few SOA characters have 8 natural power. Therefore Marina, Saki and Jessie are all natural trumps to SOA characters.

Two top 20 3* characters. Saki is a topend 3* character, likely the best 3* character in ELO now that Olga has been banned. Randy has that freakish 6 damage. His ability is best against high natural power, yet the AS bonus gets even stronger against low natural power. He will generally at least go pill for pill against other 3* characters and hit harder. SOA is a weakness but his whole clan is generally strong against SOA. AS has 2 3* characters that can be used to answer 5* characters.

A topend 2*. Jessie with virtual 9/4 stats is likely the most well rounded 2* in ELO. As an additional bonus, she is a good answer against DR.

Two -3 min. 1 DRs. There are few DR abilities better than -3 min. 1.

Better than average damage due to Jessie, Randy and Quinn, roughly on par with Uppers.

Saki answers SOB, and it's easy enough to splash SOA as well. Also, SOB is common on 2*s but rare on 4* and 5*s.]]>Fri, 11 Jan 2013 10:32:45 GMT
Ector does have more trouble winning his round than his 3* counterparts. However in reality, it's only really a 1 pill difference. I'm not underestimating the difference that 1 pill can make to a match, but Ector offers 2 extra gap potential than his counterparts, as well as DR resistance. He's obviously also vulnerable to ability SOA (or GHEIST/Roots if in half without his bonus).

Going back to the 1 pill difference say between Ector and Tyd, Ector can be the difference between needing to win two rounds or three. Food for thought.

I take it you also don't like Pan. ]]>Fri, 11 Jan 2013 10:17:57 GMTTyd and Taljion are the only 3* Piranas I would use. At 7 power and no true fighting ability, Ector has too much trouble winning fights. For him to score a hit requires you to risk wasting too many pills, and 6 damage isn't worth it. 6 damage wont win you the match; whiffing on Ector with Piranas will likely cost you the match. If you have Ector, I would upgrade him to one of the 4* such as Scubb, Sheryl, Coleridge, Raeth or Sting, all of whom I'd rather use than Ector. Sheryl's pill manipulation, Coleridge's extra 1 power, and Raeth and Sting's ability to win fights over Ector are all worth the extra *.

With Coleridge: Against ability SOA, the trick is to use Coleridge to force out your opponents' SOA character immediately. SOA is least devastating against Piranas if you can get your opponent to use it on the 1st round.

With Sheryl: This depends on how many other pill manipulators in your preset. I think 3 total is the correct number, 4 is too many. Dalhia, Scubb and Hawkins are all better pill manipulation characters, but for instance it is easy to make mistakes with Hawkins so you could have Sheryl instead of Hawkins for instance, or if you are using a different 5* like Lizbeth or Ahkab.]]>Fri, 11 Jan 2013 09:44:35 GMTVortex.

Plus what ghelas said at the beginning of this very long thread, that they help you make safe openers really ringed true to me since I got a tendency to kinda overpill sometimes.

I am still not that much experienced(got to 1300 easily thanks to 0 ComeAtMe,but I am struggling this week) but it's still nice to see how the current meta changes depending on the bans and the releases.

I really hate Uppers,I don't like their bonus or their cards,everything seems kinda op to me. In the end,why do Sakrohm have 2 att.manip less and not that many good cards? It's kinda unfair. But as time passes by,I might even have to consider something like Harold,Jose Star,Kazayan etc. I really hope I never come to this though

One question to you guys,what makes All Stars that good? Before spitting on your pc screen whatever you are drinking/eating,I wanna say,how come they got some low powered cards that are considered good and still make their way into a deck? Do you think it's because of the bonus? SOB really ruins,as I have seen,but other than that? Cards abilities? Synergy with other classes?

Thanks for the input ]]>Fri, 11 Jan 2013 03:41:10 GMTEctor? because IMO he's strong. not their best 3*, but certainly makes the top 4]]>Fri, 11 Jan 2013 00:32:52 GMT
Tier 1:
Junkz

Tier 2:
All Stars
Vortex
Uppers

Tier 3:
Montana
Bangers
Skeelz
Jungo

Tier 4:
Ulu Watu
Roots
Freaks
Pussycats
GHEIST

Tier 5:
Piranas
Berzerk
Fang Pi Clang
Rescue

Tier 6:
Nightmare
Sentinel
La Junta

Tier 7:
Frozn
Sakrohm

Biggest mover is Montana. Angelo makes Montana a pain not just in mono but 1/2 as well, and the gap between Uppers and Montana has narrowed dramatically.

Despite losing Robb Cr, I've found Nathan to be a suitable replacement, allowing AS to remain #2, and Saki is often a blowout. Vortex is solidly #3 now with 5 topend characters to play with (Dagg, X-0DUS, T Gaank, Deea and Cyb Lhia).

Bans have laid low Freaks, GHEIST and Frozn: Roots has moved ahead of GHEIST; Yookie is easier to replace than Dolly.

I've realized that I need to rank Piranas more objectively; they are poorly played and poorly built most players and they require a lot of experience to both play and build. I would never use Ector but I guess my rankings have to account that a majority of players using Piranas in ELO are using Ector and not Dalhia.

Nightmare lost Azel but SOB has gained in value with Montana surging, and Nightmare is still resistant to DR.

Skeelz will trend downward as Montana trend upward.]]>Mon, 07 Jan 2013 23:02:47 GMTCassio Cr part ]]>Mon, 07 Jan 2013 21:12:13 GMTELO until Saturday last week... And then I managed to Tank super hard. D'oh!]]>Mon, 07 Jan 2013 11:31:31 GMTCassio Cr from ELO

Why make a new preset, a new thread, a new annoyance when you can just post it on one of the 'older' threads which is almost dead (unless someone says something really stupid like Bob Joby is better then Lizbeth and sparks it up again).]]>Sun, 06 Jan 2013 16:28:11 GMTSun, 06 Jan 2013 14:32:35 GMT
but yah Junkz Roots pretty good. I saw some a$$ running Junkz + Jungo very strong Fuzz + Ongh death hand.]]>Sun, 06 Jan 2013 13:44:49 GMTOjibway since the 14 life seemed to help and the deck is kinda low-ish on the damage side. But yeah,Fuzz seems like a better alternative,thanks for the suggestion(plus he is cheap!). Flora has helped me with some troll wins when they think I will 1 pill her,but yeah Treeman looks stabler with the high power and I feel like a noob for not thinking it before . Mmmm will try swapping and seeing how it will work,but if it messes up my perfect score I am gonna haunt you

Wow 1417? I have the same deck ready and haven't tried it yet! Let's see how it goes ]]>Sun, 06 Jan 2013 12:16:14 GMTOjibway doesn't go well in a half deck, you really want to make sure he gets his bonus so SOA cards like Angelo don't mess with his ability. IMO you need Fuzz in the Junkz half deck, so Ojibway for Fuzz. Flora should be swapped to Treeman just for the extra 2 power and 1 damage. Gretchen can be swapped to Tuck but that's just my preference. Rico is fine in there, Jeena and Noodile work just as well. Tremorh, Romana and Flanagan are fine.

Final deck: Fuzz. Flanagan, Romana, Tremorh, Tuck/Gretchen, Rico, Jeena and Treeman.

Or if you really hate that deck you can run the deck I used to get to 1417 : Ongh, Benicio, Buba, Rodney, Radek, Mindy, Jean and Pegh.]]>Sun, 06 Jan 2013 08:48:47 GMT
->Junkz
Flanagan
Jiro
Romana
Tremorh

->Roots
Flora
Gretchen
Rico
Ojibway]]>Sat, 05 Jan 2013 21:01:50 GMTELO run from 1300 to 1450 it shouldn't take more then 20 games.]]>Sat, 05 Jan 2013 20:22:49 GMTSat, 05 Jan 2013 16:44:13 GMTSat, 05 Jan 2013 01:08:43 GMTLa Junta and hit 1450 this week with it multiple times. It shows that either you know how to play that clan or you dont in the current elo game. I wouldnt say they're not usable but neither would I say its easy to use. This is directed at oracle's post.]]>