How does Gowen Survive?

[Eeyore]

I'd like to start a new topic concerning the card Killing Machine and how to defend against and/or defeat the enemy, using a Gowen Starter deck.

First off let's talk about the card itself. It's SOUL CARD bonus is listed below...

Increase one friendly unit's DF by [the number of cards in your Cemetery x 5.]

Most users I've seen that use this card use two of them back-to-back as their SC's 3rd & 4th. They do this to allow other cards of theirs to build up in the cemetary so they can buff their selected card up to a higher DF rating. This card is so overpowered compared to other SC's that is difficult to play against if you do not have it yourself. I've found the GOWEN starter deck has no easy answers for this card.

I would like to look into the options that a GOWEN starter deck has to overcome this diversity. Some players have informed me of cards I could use to stop it, but none are natural to a GOWEN starter deck and hence are hard to come by if one does not pay for booster packs. I am around level 15 and most folks I play that have solid ratings obviously have purchased booster packs and play two Killing Machines as SC's. So barring the hybrid theory of using level 1 cards of another clan/deck to counter Killing Machine lets explore our options.

There are two cases I would like to discuss:
1) Killing Machine in a LAWTIA deck used on either Zombie Lord (50 Hp/30Att/1Agi/1Rng) or Animate Dead (20Hp/30Att/1Agi/1Rng)

2) Killing Machine used on a non-Lawtia deck on any non-fully regenerating Hp card

In case #1 let's first look at the cards in a Gowen starter deck that will be of use to us:

Fire Tornado - Subtract your [Gowen level x5] directly from the HP of one random enemy unit. This effect is repeated four times. (This card allows us to possibly make the enemy card heal once which is only of use when coupled with a SC and Berserker which maxes out at -6 SP for the enemy assuming he has less than that saved up this is plan B. The stars have to align for this strategy to work so consider this a last resort and only employ this strategy if the enemy will have 5 or less SP at the time you have a level 5 Gowen level and 6 SP available as it will take you two turns to employ this tactic (one to summon berserker and the next for Fire Tornado)).

Magic Sword Dual-Wielder - Action Fire Sword = Do [damage: AT+10] and AT-20 for this turn to a random enemy unit within range. (This is the main card we need to slow down our opponents destruction of us once Killing Machine enhances an opponents card)

Dryad - Action Tree Barrier = Give DF+10 to one unit. (This card keeps our Magic Sword Dual-Wielder alive)

Berserker - Action Berserk = Send this unit to the Cemetery. Set a random enemy unit within range to HP=0. (This card is used as a support card to force your opponent to spend two SP to heal its buffed card)

Fire Arrow - Do [damage:your Gowen level x 10] to one unit. (I do not suggest this card in my plan, but am listing it for others who may envision alternative usage. It's attack is too low to be of service when considering your enemies DF rating will be near 100)

Ok so let me summarize my strategy. In advance I warn you this is only a theory and has not been put into practice to legitimize it's success.

[Eeyore]

First step- Round 6-10 you see you observe your enemy summon Zombie Lord and his 3rd-4th Soul Cards are yet to be exposed and their are cards that will be going to the cemetary on your opponents side, (assuming your opponent is rated high) I advise you to make room in your front line for one card if your opponent has few remaining cards alive on their side. This is to make room for the card below w/range 1 that you'll be bringing out to prevent devestation.

Step two- Hopefully by this time you've been saving up some SP because you're going to need it! Summon your Magic Sword Dual-Wielder now. This is going to take some technique. What you're going to attempt is to use 1 SP to activate the Action skill of this card called Fire Sword which will decrease the buffed Zombie Lord's Att from 30 to 10 to prevent this card from clearing your side of the board one by one. This is why you make room in your front line. With agility 4 for your Magic Sword Dual-Wielder she will attack before Zombie Lord every round which will reduce him to 10 damage to a card in your front line. To keep your new favorite card alive I suggest you do the following:

Step three - Time for the Druid. Immediately summon her and use her on your Magic Sword Dual-Wielder buffing her up to 10 DF which will now negate Zombie Lord's and/or Animate Dead's reduced Att.

Conclusion - Ok so now that you understand the method to the madness let's look at the strengths and weaknesses of this strategy. The benefits are the following: you can now use ranged cards to attack from a distance behind the safety of your Magic Sword Dual-Wielder. You could use a card like Bear-Killing Axeman in the front line alongside your Sword gal in REST MODE so he could absorb any surprsie attack instead of your sword gal. He would absorb 10 damage from the buffed enemy card and recoop 15 in rest mode each turn. If you're opponent summons a card to kill your sword gal you will have your axeman ready to counter. I'd prefer a card with higher agility so look into other options here. By containing the buffed enemy card you will now put the game into a stalemate. By this time most Lawtia decks will not have anything left hopefully to remove your sword gal from the game. HOPEFULLY!

Some possible weaknesses are cards like Turn to Dust which could remove your sword gal from your card file before you have the chance to play her Ouch!, Invisible Druid who does 50 damage directly to the HP of a card in range (he is our main threat w/4 Agility you better have a higher agility card ready to pick him off), Counterattack would allow your enemy to summon one high damage card in the back row and send it to the cemetary to do equal damage to all of your cards, Assassin will make you cry she's so mean (she can set your sword gal to 0 Hp and she has 4 Agility so once again you need a card ready that can deal 20 ranged damage (And have to be lucky to avoid buffed enemy card) and have a 4 or better agility of its own. Soul Bind engages your card so it cannot act for the round (this will stop your sword gal from reducing the buffed enemy card's damage, hence another reason to have other cards up front in Rest Mode). Merciless Death is a card that you ideally would love to have to prevent Killing Machine's effectiveness. Unfortunately the rich get richer in this situation and the enemy has it as well. At last I do not have a strategy that will save you here. After all your efforts if the enemy has Merciless Death waiting in the wings all your hopes and dreams are crushed.

On the bright side hope may spring eternal. When you see the enemy patting him/her self on the back for such a sneaky move you will bring out your second copy of Magic Sword Dual-Wielder and start all over. Since you should only be using 1 SP per turn to use her Action ability you should have some saved up. The enemy will be saving up twice as fast though which is another downside. But the point of this was to show that there may be a way to tie, maybe even win if your opponent has the gull to try and kill off your sword gal this is the opportunity for you to kill off those last couple cards you need to get a win.

I would much rather not have to go through this much trouble for each and every win though. Since Killing Machine is such a popular card, the game would become very boring for GOWEN starter deck. I'll leave the second case for another time.

Arevarderche or howerver you spell that phrase hahaha!!!!

[magnum]

gowen can survive anything... it has all the cards needed to beat the def buff, I would summon my axeman, buff his attack with a spell card +20 at and then use charge on the def buffed unit, you could also get the bellydancer to further buff your attack so you could do more dmg with the axeman, the downside is that its all left to luck if the enemy has more than one card in the front row, also the axeman will loose half its HP and will probably die after that turn.

I haven't tried this out yet but it seems a good strategy, I mostly use blazing flame and leave it all to luck (which lately hasn't been on my side)

[Tenkai]

gowen can survive anything... it has all the cards needed to beat the def buff, I would summon my axeman, buff his attack with a spell card +20 at and then use charge on the def buffed unit, you could also get the bellydancer to further buff your attack so you could do more dmg with the axeman, the downside is that its all left to luck if the enemy has more than one card in the front row, also the axeman will loose half its HP and will probably die after that turn.

I haven't tried this out yet but it seems a good strategy, I mostly use blazing flame and leave it all to luck (which lately hasn't been on my side)

There are 3 problems with the axeman:
1. In order to buff him you have to have him out already. You have to wait at least another turn to buff him.
2. His low 1-Agi will mostlikely get him killed before he can act and if you wait for the buff the opponent even has 2 turns to take him down. Axeman without the buff will do like 15 damage, considering the minimum DF i have seen so far was 55. So either way, the opponent has 2 turns to take him down before you can succeed with your strategy.
3. Charge attack is still random.

And another problem: your 3x axemens might be already dead...

I would just fire up fire tornado and hope it hits the DF unit: well thats random too, but you have higher chance to succeed.

[reydien]

Another tip, if you can tell the LeBeau Soul ability is coming and your opponent will only have one unit on the field when it activates, play [card=74]Fire Arrow[/card] on that unit. Grimoires trigger before closed cards enter the cemetery, so you can kill the soon-to-be buffed unit before they go off, and as and added bonus, the soul ability will still go off, meaning they have to buff one of your units now. Obviously this won't always work: you might not have enough SP, your gowen level might not be enough to kill the unit, or your opponent might have multiple units in play when LeBeau goes off. I have several fond memories of forcing my opponent to LeBeau their invisible druid, though .

Also, I would advise anyone playing the Gowen Starter deck to try to hold onto their [card=74]Fire Arrow[/card] and [card=57]Fire Tornado[/card] as long as possible in a duel. Burning them early then having nothing to stop your oppponent's trump card, whether it is a LeBeau'd Creature or simply a [card=42]Skeleton Master[/card] in the back row keeping the front row effectively alive forever (close, revive, get card back, repeat) can be demoralizing.

One final note, if you see a [card=7]Dispel[/card] available while leveling up, I highly recommend you consider picking it up, even as a Gowen Deck user. This is a sure-fire way to ensure that LeBeau'd creature is neutralized. I wouldn't necessarily say alway choose it, because the Gowen option might be much more valuable, but consider it.

[Eeyore]

Ok so it looks like none of you that have responded understand my topic fully that I focused on as CASE #1.

Zombie Lord and Animate Dead of Lawtia fully regenerate at the cost of -2 SP to their owner I believe. This means that if your opponent has the available SP saved you cannot just kill off those cards. You can make them expend SP to revive the card, but that is all. Hence Fire Arrow,Bear Killing Axe-man, Fire Tornado, and any Soul Cards you may have that do damage are useless!!!!!!!!!!

All of you responded to strategies usable against non-regenerating cards buffed by Killing Machine. Maybe you haven't encountered what I was discussing yet. I wish you luck when you encounter it for the first time with a mono-Gowen deck at your disposal.

To the person who responded last, thank you for the tips I'll keep my eye out for good cards when I level up.

[reydien]

Something to keep in mind, reducing [card=29]Zombie Lord / Zugateroza[/card]'s attack doesn't really help because he can still use his "Wrath of the King of Death" ability (at 1 SP) to deal 100 damage to your units. [card=46]Animated Dead[/card] has no such ability (thank god), so this tactic would work, assuming your opponent doesn't have any units with RNG>1 behind the animated dead.

[Aether]

I've ran into this a few times and I have to say, it is most certainly difficult to deal with. After those few encounters I decided to tweak my soul cards a little and add Archer Scout. Although that can do a lot of damage, I am not sure that it will be able to counter that much defense.

The problem with with the counters to a high defense creature when using a Gowen deck is that they can often be random. Like people listed before, Fire Tornado can be a good counter, but luck must be on one's side. Also if the opponent manages to remove that card from one's file, things can get tricky. The Magic Sword Dual-Wielder can be nice for slowing down or decreasing damage of a high defense enemy, but if the opponent has more than one creature in range one may end up missing.

I guess the best thing one can try and do if they can't kill the juggernaut is clear the rest of the enemies on the enemy field and once they are gone, hold the high defense creature at bay with Magic Sword Dual-Wielder until one can find a card which can take down the enemy creature or bring things into a draw.

[TsunaYoshi]

i think gowen is keep pushing your enemy with monster which have agi 4, to keep his defence (123) die before its can attack , this metode just have one weakness, all card that have agi 4 in gowen have hp just about 30 hp max. so it would die just with soul card of enemy that give 30 damage to row enemy and this metode will lose.

[BcDed]

I play lawtia and am beaten more with gowen than other decks. You missed the best tactic of all clear the opponents board and kill the lebeaus while there is nothing to target. The reason gowen is better at this than other decks is because of whats known as swarm tactics. The speed and power of gowen in the hands of a skilled player can often clear two or three 3 drops and sometimes a 4 drop with just two drops leaving plenty of sp open to hit the 2 lebeaus.