Giant creature decks

[victorcarbon]

haha reminds me of yugioh when if first came out, right before the chaos decks!

[Logress]

I haven't had too much of a problem with Spore / Burning Sun decks unless they were being played by Iczers who were significantly better than me (you know who you are). It burns a ton of SP, usually more than I will keeping my field alive. Let's say I have 3 units out when the combo happens the first time. I'll end up spending 3 SP to revive them all. My enemy will burn 5 SP playing the sun, plus another to revive the spore to do it again, so twice what I spend. Often, this will be done when the enemy has little to nothing on the field. I only actually have to keep alive enough to hold out against my enemy's field, which is generally one or two high level units, or often, nothing. Anything else I can let go to the cemetery, giving his High level unit some soul skill power to deal with, and use the SP I get from that to bring out something higher level.

So you ask, what if I don't have anything higher level? Well, then you're taking a risk playing that deck. Don't run anything high level? You can get screwed by Burning Sun. Don't run anything low level? You can be screwed by Succubus or Shade or Lawtia in general. It's actually a situation that rewards having a diverse deck. (Imagine that!) If there's anything you can tell just by reading the text on the Return card it's that this game is very level aware, and it really wants you to have a range to choose from in your Card File. This is something that was mostly (except for Return, again) missing from Set 1, and that's the value in having a high level. It's what sets it apart from casting cost in Magic, where a high casting cost was a pure liability. Here, there are advantages to having a high level card, in it's ability to "store" SP and keep it from evil Shades until you need it to bring out the right card for the late game, and it's immunity to certain game effects.

It looks like the Folrart Iczers are realizing this as well. There were lots of complaints with Set 1 Refess (keep in mind that we're actually getting posts here saying a Refess card is too powerful now) but the one that everyone kept coming back to was that "this card is too high level for what it does". Refess cards are actually very often just a little underpowered for their level. The idea is that this is a disadvantage, but having a diverse range of cards available to you at higher levels is also an advantage, because sometimes being higher level IS the advantage you want. If all the cards with the abilities you want to include in your strategy are level 2, the Witch is a lot more scary. Only now is some of that idea actually reaching the metagame with Set two strategies.

[darklogos]

I have one of those Gowen monster decks everyone says is so easy. If it was so easy I wouldn't still loose a lot in folrat. I just played KitsuneOni. He sank my sp so i couldn't even get out Earth Dragon. I had to stick to my wyvern and lizard combo. His deck is an example of a balanced lawtia deck. He has good low lvl cards with a strong upper lvl card to finish you off. You need both. A big monster deck requires low level cards to force a setup. Spore is the most benficical of all the cards for gowen because it can autoself destruct. That element makes it to powerful. Other then that the card is built to die.

One thing I'm suprised about is that there are not more Lawtia big monster decks out there. Lawtia can stand against normal units well with eternal night, suck sp while powering up for their own big hitter. Succubus is a very underestimated card and many people only use her open skill. That shows a lack of foresight by a lot of players. Even though Gowen has some buffs that make taking down Earth Dragon and Dragon Emperor Allin tougher it still doesn't make them unstoppable.

One thing this game has done, which i like, is to make big monsters low rarity. This makes it so anyone has a chance to make a Holy Dragon/Cutol deck or a Earth Dragon deck, etc. At the same time these decks are not unstopable. I know because multiple units on the field make my running a big monster deck hard unless you have an aoe opener or sp aoe attack.

I would tell anyone that is a big monster hater try making a big monster deck and see how you do. Its not as easy as it looks. You have to have soul skills that boost your sphere level while making sure your opponent does'nt hit yoru life points to bad. Many times you are defending 5 or 6 life points once you are finally setup.

[ANIMEniac]

I have a Lawt giant creature deck that I am pretty confident in. However, there are times I've been thrown off by a few Lawt cards. Gowen Blitz makes it hard to set up w/o running my "Plan B" (which is why I even had to add it). And believe it or not, I ran into a Falk rush deck that just kept me from having a decent field and pummeled my Big Men because they could send out unit after unit and get field buffs. Big Guys still can only take out 1 at a time, unless they have skills for extra hits/attacks.

The draw to Big Creatures is the overwhelming power they can have. However, a few missteps and poor SP control will set you back possibly several turns before you recover. We also have more to lose with Unit removals like Assassin Souls.