Anarchy of Playtesting (The Deck of Chaos) -- Kenshin Anarchy of Playtesting - By Kenshin [.][..][...]Anarchy of Playtesting (The Deck of Chaos)[...][..][.] The title says it all --The Anarchy of Playtesting-- means the "absence of government" of playtesting. I have experimented with a Rainbow deck, or which some might call a "chaos" deck. And let me tell you, playing with such a confusing and unpredictable build [B]is[/B] [I][B]Chaos[/B][/I]! What is a "rainbow" deck? It's simple; it is a deck containing cards from each and every color, or civilization. It doesn't use every good card in the game, but it uses a lot of the most playable cards from the five civilizations. Some key cards that I use in my Rainbow deck are: [B]Terror Pit Natural Snare Crystal Memory Brain Serum Holy Awe Bloody Squito Death Smoke Dimension Gate Aqua Hulcus La Ura Giga, Sky Guardian Gran Gure, Space Guardian Lost Soul Ultimate Force Dark Reversal/Gigargon[/B] That's a lengthy list of cards, but that's not even the full list of what I use! Anyhow, you can derive from this list of cards that key factors in building a Rainbow deck are: [B]Mana Acceleration Draw Power Search Stall Monster Destruction Monster Recurrsion[/B] The mana acceleration is so that all of the big cards I use (Vampire Silphy, Swamp Worm, Gigargon) will be easier to use. More important than that, I am working with 5 different colors, so I need to work with as much mana as possible, even late game. That's why Ultimate Force is used. Also, after drawing and searching with cards like Aqua Hulcus and Crystal Memory, I will be able to play the card(s) in the same turn. Obviously, the deck will be at least 70+ cards because you are including so many different concepts into one build. The deck I currently use IRL is composed of 86 cards. This is why draw and search are so valuable to the deck; draw is for enlarging your hand, and search is to get specific cards that you need because of the large size. Stall plays the fatherly role in this deck, it is the backbone. It and Monster Desctruction stop you from getting killed. Plenty of low-cost blockers (Marrow Ooze, La Ura, Marine Flower, Bloody Squito being the biggest helpers) get you through early game. Chances are you will lose at least 2 shields early-game, but that's not bad. You will probably get at least one shield trigger (being that your deck will probably have 20+ shield trigger cards, at the least) and you are getting valuable card advantage. With a deck like this, you want as many cards in hand as possible. After surviving the first few turns, get out stronger blockers like Jade Tree and Dia Nork, as well as use low-cost destruction like Crimson Hammer if you have it. By this time, your opponent will be topdecking if they are a rush player. If they use any form of water, well that's what Lost Soul is for. Mid-Late game you start acceling mana with Bronze Arms and Ultimate Force. While doing this you draw and search as much as possible, and destroy any monsters they throw at you. DO NOT destroy blockers. Their blockers are really no threat to you, unless they have guardians to evolve into Ladia Bale. By this time though, you will be able to block her, then destroy her next turn if they do manage to get hear out. Also, do not attack shields unless you are playing an exhibition game or you just want to take a chance. In a tourney, don't give them shields. Let them deck out. Monster destruction goes hand in hand with the stall element, to diminish their field so they will not be able to overrun your blockers. Monster Recurrsion is not always necessary, but it's good to have some of it to recycle some of the useful monsters such as Swamp Worm, Rothus, or Silphy. Phal Eega, Dawn Guardian can be used to recycle useful spells such as Crystal Memory or Holy Awe. What should the different civilizations be used for? [B][U]Light[/U][/B] Light is one of the major players in the deck. It allows for you to tap your opponent's monsters with Holy Awe and Miele, stall with La Ura, Jade Tree, and Gran Gure, and attack thier tapped monsters with extra blockers to get rid of them. Lone cards like Magris, Vizier of Magnetism and Phal Eega help as well (Magris for card draw and Phal Eega for spell recurrsion). Logic Cube also may be put in for spell search, if not Rayla, Truth Enforcer. [B][U]Darkness[/U][/B] Darkness also adds quite a few usages to the deck. Terror Pit, Smoke, and Swamp Worm are major destruction. Marrow Ooze and Squito provide 1st/2nd turn defense. Lost Soul is essential to use against Water players, to maintain card advantage late-game. Things like Gigargon add a bit of monster recurrsion as well, which can help the deck out. [B][U]Fire[/U][/B] Although the least used pool of cards in the deck, they add 4 extra shield triggers and cheap destruction in the form of Crimson Hammer, Rothus, and Tornado Flame. [B][U]Water[/U][/B] Water is "the guy pushing the boulder up the hill". It utilizes search and draw power to give you card advantage and keeps options available. There are also useful blockers such as Marine Flower for added stall. [B][U]Nature[/U][/B] If water is the guy pushing the boulder up the hill, nature is the energy that gives the guy the strength to push that boulder. It uses its mana accel to speed up the ability to utilize the cards you draw, and help spread mana of all different colors. Storm Shell and Natural Snare are added destruction, and the Snare is an ub3r shield trigger. Dimension Gate is there for extra searching. This deck has some weaknesses that you have to address if you want to have any chance of winning with this, especially when it comes to top tier competition. Obviously rush will scare you early game, but all you have to do is survive early-mid game. They may hit a couple shields (which will give you card advantage), but their monsters will not be on the field for long, and they will begin to topdeck. Even Valdios can be thwarted, if you don't let it have a chance in hell of hurting you. Block with it once then stall until you can destroy it. If Valdios is all they have on the field, a Rothus will take care of him. If you are dueling a light deck, you REALLY should be careful. Holy Awe will tap ALL of your blockers and they will be able to hit you if they have monsters. That's why you have to kill everything they have; so if they are able to hard cast Holy AWe, it won't matter because they won't have (m)any monsters on the field. If they start holding cards in hand and/or drawing with water, search for a Lost Soul and decimate their options. Obviously anti-blocker cards will hurt you as well. Valdios + Rumble Gate is not a pleasant event. Critical Blade will destroy your early blockers. Scarlet Skyterror and Crystal Paladin are to be feared. They give instant field damage and that could shift the entire tide of the game. Gatling Skyterror and Metalwing are not threatning, they will be Smoked/Snared/Pitted because they have summoning sickness. Not to mention Gran Gure can handle those creatures in terms of power. Another thing you may have to worry about with water is Crystal Lancer. He is unblockable and will be able to attack the turn he hits. If he hits the field, it will be inevitable that you will lose at least 2 shields. Against him all you can do is trounce every Liquid People card your opponent throws at you. Eventually they might have enough mana to play Hulcus/Soldier/Vehicle and Crystal Lancer in one turn, which will hurt. You just have to take that hit, and get rid of it next turn. You may also want to tech in some Ghost Touches into a Rainbow deck. If they hold a card in hand, it is probably Crystal Lancer or Paladin. They know you are stalling and want to get through your blockers. If they threw that in the mana zone they'd be throwing away one of this deck's major weaknesses, which a player that is thinking will not do. You can ghost touch it, and when they draw a Liquid People creature they don't have the evo in hand anyway. DO NOT attack their shields. Things like Holy Awe and Crystal Memory (to search for Lancer) will kill you. More important, you are giving your opponent card advantage, and contradicting a dominating theme in this deck. And again, don't attack their blockers. Blockers aren't a threat, attackers are. Based on the details of this deck, you should be able to figure out other uncommon weaknesses that may arise against this. The title of this article was [I]Anarchy of Playtesting[/I], right? Well, I have done a bit of playtesting online as well as once in person against a friend (who is not a bad player). He was using a Black/Red deck, so I suspected I would come out on top. As to be expected, he got out Braid Claws and Zylers, and a Gett or two early to mid game. He took out two or three of my shields, and one was a shield trigger no doubt. Anyhow, I got out blockers starting 3rd turn (I didn't have any low cost blockers 1st or 2nd turn) and on the 4th turn I started dropping more blockers. Soon he started to topdeck himself and I began to accel my mana and draw cards. Let's just say, that after those 2 or 3 shields he didn't hit me again for the rest of the duel. I ended up decking him with around 15 mana and 10 monsters on the field. The deck had performed VERY well, especially for a deck without a lot of the cards I really would've liked to have. So, that brings this article to a close. For those of you who may think about building this deck: Use this wisely, and have fun with it! After playtesting it to your liking, take it to a tourney and see how it performs (and how much it pisses people off). Beware though, you must be able to shuffle the deck without help for it to be legal in a tourney, according to the DCI floor rules. If you don't have thick cases on your cards, you should be able to shuffle a hundred cards. With cases, the deck will be too thick most likely. My deck is 86 cards w/o cases, so it's tournament legal. Also beware of time constraints as this deck is STALL. It will take a while to win, so be aware. Thanks for reading my article; I will have many more to come! Talk to me by AIM @ ProsperousKnight or e-mail me at prodigalchild_88@hotmail.com if you want to ask me a question or give some feedback. Thanks.