how far from ideal skill, how to surge

as you can see above, i made new stat. mostly to check who has surging/deck building skill.
1. to be on the list, you have to have more off battles than def. to reduce def bias.
2. pattern to count ideal skill: battles fought * 40 - points won.
3. i know it is biased by def wins, but still i think it gives good idea about skill of our members.
4. the less points you have, the worst you are.


Dustangel, Cromatt, person3143, trigga420, garrett8, w_alloy:
1. can you write down in this thread your techniques of surging, what things you think are important when you surge?
2. and write down in decks sections your surge decks in separate threads under your names.

i'd be grateful if you do it and do it fast. mos, noss and xt3rm are doing negative results with so high activity, we need to find a way to increase their skill.

well basicly i use 3 decks for surging:

1: 7x ogre 3x asy + draco

when surging with it vs rainbow or anything with low hp its ogre spam
when trying to surge vs carriers and slow rolls with high hp its 1. ogre 2. ogre. 3.asy 4. asy (ofc if you draw them)
when going vs another ogre deck you are screwed if UI playes ogre as first card and follows with asy. if UI plays anything else but ogre you will win for sure just go ogre first and second and then 1 asy and he is done
and when surging vs fears...dont even try to fight paratherizer decks...but you can win vs GS fear with playing 2 ogres first and then get a bit luck with hitting 2-3 walls and kill them before they kill you


2: 4x azure 1x niaq 1x heir 1x gorivore 1x apollo 2x emp + draco
its basicly anti ogre, wall, and trident deck.
ussualy in like 75% cases you will loose to CW decks tho you might get lucky if you combine early azures with emp to kill CWs and Salvagers
also this deck works nice vs cerrier/elemental deck

3: 6x carrier 1x elemental 1x mend wounds 1x bridge of destiny 1x apollo
slow deck that either wins 90% of games or looses them

and ofc...if 1 deck dosent work...dont push it...just swich to something else...sometimes duncan+10 micros will work..all depends what decks other faction uses
works great vs ogres, and most rainbows...tho fear decks will totaly destroy it as it has no fast cards to counter it...and bridge will not save you nuff times to win.
Vs mirror decks just try to get your elemental down first...if you are short of 1 turn..thats why you have the bridge and cross fingers for regen
Just drop carriers first until you get a foothold so your elemental dosent get burned down.

I rely pretty heavily on an ogre deck similar to Cromatt's. Since I have a very limited card pool, I'm not able to build many other powerful surge decks. Interesting options I'll be looking into in the near future are fear and some sort of rush with AA and/or strike. Since I don't have much experience with other surge decks, I'll just focus on how to play my ogre deck. Keep in mind this is based off of only about 2 days in a top faction, so there may be flaws. Feel free to point these out.

My deck:
6x ogre, 3x asylum, plasma field (pandemic/another ogre) + draco
(Pandemic focuses mostly on fear and ogre defs, plasma is more versatile)

I typically run into 5 kinds of decks that give this problems when surging:

1: quick strike - lots of fast, low att cards with strike 1-2 (tiamat, predator, etc.)
To counter this, you need to get as many ogres on the board as you can as quickly as possible. The main point is spreading out the strike damage so that they don't get many kills. You only really need 1 or 2 ogres to activate, so you can often still get win rates around 60% with plasma field. Pandemic isn't very effective against these decks, win rate around 40%.

2: Fear - Grim Spectre and pathrazer are most common
In order to beat a fear deck you'll need to play 2 ogres to start, then spam asylums as long as you can. The weaken card should be saved until after the asylums if possible as it will affect more units (negate more damage) at this point. Win rates can be around 60% with pandemic and 30% with plasma)

3: Structure and Strike - missile silos, gatling, command centers, etc
Again, get as many ogres out as possible to spread the strikes. Plasma field could buy you a turn to activate another ogre, but the key is killing the commander before too many big strikes activate. Win rates are around 50%, but vary greatly depending on exactly which cards you're facing.

4: Carriers - usually with apollo, bridge of destiny, and a high hp fear card
High hp, flying, siege, and heal make carriers a nightmare for ogres. Cromatt is exactly right though. When fighting high hp with heal, it's 1-2 ogres, then asylums, then more ogres. You're not really worried about them killing your ogres - if it gets to that point you've already lost. Instead, the key is getting a few kills before they siege your asylums. Since they have high hp and heal, the best bet is to activate relatively few ogres at a time (1-2) so that the rallys can stack and get 1 hit kills. Win rates here are not good, but you can occasionally sneak out a few (20-30%).

5: Other ogres (usually with draco, asylums, and sometimes noxious den)
Play 2 ogres, then an asylum. The fourth play depends on what they've done. If they lead with an ogre and follow it up with an asylum in the next 3 cards, you'll need to have your weaken/protect card ready the turn their first ogre activates (your 4th play). After this, just pile on more asylums. If they don't open this way, you'll win regardless. Win rates here are pretty good since you're facing AI playing the cards. Typically around 80%.

Most other decks I see are just ogre food. Play 2-3 ogres, some asylums and watch 'em work.

My overall success rate using only this deck is right around 65%, which while not incredible will beat simply fighting. The key to maximizing points with this deck (or any) is to know when to surrender. Stay in every fight until the turn before you'll lose, and you'll occasionally pull a surprise win. Be sure to carefully count the damage they could do on the next turn so that you don't give them full points though.

As cromatt said however, relying on one deck is a bad idea. I'll be working to correct this, and hopefully will see drastic improvements in win rate as a result.

The deck I used for this period is the same ogre deck from kfsw that has been posted elsewhere:



In general I think people switch too often from one deck type to another deck type. Experimentation is great but nearly everyone underestimates how easy it is to get fooled by randomness when frequently switching decks. The exception to this is minor deck variations that are easier to evaluate separate from wins and losses.

I also think there is more homogeneity between factions than most people realize, and that at any given time one type of deck is going to be best against the majority of factions.

I use two decks for surging, switching between them when I start running into a lot of bad matchups.

Atlas
1x Tiamat
1x Predator
1x Omega (Rox is better)
1x Ravenous Dredge
1x Fighter Jet
1x Stealthy Niaq
1x Dozer Tank
1x Mortar Bunker
2x Electromagnetic Pulse

Dracorex
1x Ravenous Dredge
1x Stealthy Niaq
1x Rifter
1x Hades
4x Sundering Ogre
1x Elemental
1x Electromagnetic Pulse

I've explained them in greater detail here: https://thelostwikingz.actieforum.com/t279-dustangel-s-surge-decks#1565.