Defensive Theorycrafting (please help)

sergeant Posts : 68 Join date : 2011-10-30

I was gonna make a long post about a process to use evaluate decks to find a strong defensive strategy for a faction. Instead, to save myself time, I decided to just post cliff notes of the process followed by my preliminary findings. I would like others to test decks against my deck list to see if they can find any weaknesses I missed.

Process Cliff Notes:
1. I created a deck list of a bunch of good defenses and a second deck list of good surging decks
2. I opened each surge deck in evaluate decks and ran it on ordered mode against the defensive decks
3. I exported each result into a spreadsheet where I built a table showing all the results
4. I looked at this table and selected the best performing decks, trying to also pick decks that covered eachothers' weaknesses
5. I went back and did some testing against the new preliminary deck list and made some tweaks based on my findings

Resulting Preliminary Deck List:

PathrazerA: Dalia,Pathrazer(10)
PathrazerB: Dalia,Pathrazer(10)
PathrazerC: Dalia,Pathrazer(10)
Ogre1: Dracorex,Sundering Ogre(6),Elemental,Asylum(2),Ravenous Dredge
Ogre2: Dracorex,Sundering Ogre(8*,Ravenous Dredge,Necrogeddon
SC1: Dracorex,Apollo,Support Carrier(6),Elemental,Destructive Ram,Bridge of Destiny
SC2: Dracorex,Apollo,Support Carrier(6),Elemental,Kyrios(2)
Struct1: Dracorex,Utopia Beacon(3),Pantheon Progeny,Earthquake Generator(6)
Atlas1: Atlas,Rox Chainblade,Ravenous Dredge,Stealthy Niaq,Tiamat,Predator,Sabre(2),Rifter,Bulldozer,Arc Trooper

If you could copy the above list into evaluate decks* and post any decks that get over 50% surging, I would appreciate it. I would also appreciate any suggestions on how to improve the above list. I realize right now there are some difficult cards, but these can be replaced with similar cards without much trouble.

All that Pathrazer spam may seem weird but it's a very strong deck against other fear decks and slow rolls, and the other decks are all strong against strike decks which is its major weakness.

*To copy the list into Evaluate Decks, 1. create a new text file 2. copy/paste above deck list replacing the "*" in the fifth line with a ")" 3. move contents of decks->batcheval folder in evaluate decks directory out 4. move new file in

Private Posts : 14 Join date : 2011-12-06

I haven't played around with this too much yet, but one of my surge decks beats it just over 50% when set to the order below. If I adjust the order (as I would in an actual battle), I can get significantly better win rates against specific deck types (SC's, ogre's, atlas, etc). It's hard to know what the live win rate would be considering human strategy and draw probabilities, but I would say it's definitely over 50%.

Play order:
Draco + Ogre, ogre, asylum, asylum, pandemic, asylum, ogre, ogre, ogre, ogre

sergeant Posts : 68 Join date : 2011-10-30

person3143 wrote:: I haven't played around with this too much yet, but one of my surge decks beats it just over 50% when set to the order below. If I adjust the order (as I would in an actual battle), I can get significantly better win rates against specific deck types (SC's, ogre's, atlas, etc). It's hard to know what the live win rate would be considering human strategy and draw probabilities, but I would say it's definitely over 50%.

Play order:
Draco + Ogre, ogre, asylum, asylum, pandemic, asylum, ogre, ogre, ogre, ogre

Thanks, nicely done. That combo is a great counter to any fear deck; I didn't realize pathrazers could be consistently killed with any otherwise decent slowrolls. And I agree the simulator is performing a lot worse than a human would with this deck.

When I have some time I'm going to try to reconfigure this list with more strike decks. Still interested if anyone can find other decks that beat this list in the mean time.

Private Posts : 14 Join date : 2011-12-06

I don't mean to pick on the lack of strike again, but I made a fear surge that does very well. It sucks against the strike deck (0%), but dominates everything else. Overall win rate is around 80% on surge.

Play Order:
Skullkeeper + pathrazer, pathrazer, pathrazer, mortar bunker, pandemic, full power

sergeant Posts : 68 Join date : 2011-10-30

Due to the facts that we are getting Skimmers in around a week and that I am also busy this week with finals, I'm putting this on hold for now. Thanks again for the testing.