Icyman's Lawtia Rush I -- Resurgence of the Undeads

[GonFreeces31]

3 shades are very important if you want to beat falkow. If the majority of your matches are verse gowen or refess then I agree it's possible 2 shades and something else might help more.

[Scientiafide]

perhaps you should have packed a salamander and a 3rd shade that match against diondora huh? bet you had a hard time triggering your 2 lp 4th ss with 3 sac units.

Big whoop, so now I'm 24-5 with undeads. Can't win em all ^^ But hey, nice to know you're a sore winner :p

Live and learn, as they say. I learned that match that the file had trouble against a combination of infinite returns with attack immunity. Honestly, a 3rd shade and/or salamander wouldn't have helped that match. Using a salamander to take out an owl sage imo is pretty bad, that immediately puts you at a -1 sp disadvantage (since you have to raise gowen by 1). The way I see it, I could find other ways to ensure owl sage doesn't go off without being put at a disadvantage, and if I fail, it goes off once (putting me at a 1 sp disadvantage just like salamander would have done). Admittedly, that match I messed up, but hey no one's infallible. We've all messed up in matches before due to some reason or other.

Gon,

Well, sure 3 shades are an option, but I disagree that it's the only way to beat falkow. Lawtia has a lot of tools at it's disposal to get an sp advantage over falkow, including but not limited to having lots of free revives, sp draining units, and lots of good tech units.

[Callonia]

Broken Priest, oh how much I hate thee. Zombies snowball out of control cuz of him alone, back in set 5. I still have memories.. then they hit the brick wall that is.. named Sergis+Garfath duo. Sergis in front, Garfath hiding like a 1 hp supporter in the third row, then clutter in 2nd and 3rd rows to make garfath being hit as unlikely as possible.

lvl 9 undeads with 100+ attack sheesh.

Broken priest is a good lvl 1. Well worth the file space and his buffs is perm+snowballs.

[Romdeau]

Salamander is pretty much required for any lawt rush file that doesn't want to auto lose to early sages.

[Icyman2]

Admittedly salamander is not needed as much anymore:
As the number of skilled players decrease, the number of people willing to open cath and deal with
1. witch
2. cath lashes
3. shade opens
decreases. Playing the dance of owl survival and using up return grims, knowing when to dodge shades, saving your sp gen for next round do require some skill. Nowadays, I see dion control with ex wizzy open since people don't want to go through the motions (and if they do it wrong, they'll probably lose). This becomes especially complicated as lawtia techs like stronghold and death calling are introduced. Shade shade salamander is one of those opens that gives lawtia player an advantage but not enough for the falkow player to not overcome. There are other opens out there that if the falkow player is not skilled will **** them over. However, if the falkow player does not mess up at any one time, by about turn 10 at the latest, he can gain an incredible sp advantage (though be likely out of a lot of returns). Shade shade sala is a way to avoid that dance, breaking out of that reliance on the opponent messing up and giving more power to you. Plus it's useful to dodge sins and salamander a salamander (preventing 30 damage), for afel, for sniping units to follow up with bitter destiny. A whole bunch of reasons that make salamander used in almost every match I play unless 1. it is against a big and you don't want to lose the sp for iczering or 2. i completely dominate my opponent and don't need the sala. 30 damage sitting behind an undead tank is quite powerful. I wish shade had sala's stats.

[CainHyde]

I wish Wisp had sala's stats.

Fixed

[Scientiafide]

I agree that salamander is a good tech card for a lot of situations (and you mentioned a lot of good uses), but I just don't like the idea of splashing it against owl sage. Making you permanently spend 1 sp early is exactly what falkow would want. I mean sure, if you land the second shade then you break even, but what if the falkow player decides to open something like Cath- EX Wiz soldier- Owl sage? Personally, I'd rather try for an sp advantage instead of trying to break even. I mean, sure sometimes you mess up and things don't go exactly as planned, but in my experience in those instances you often end up with a sala open scenario (breaking even sp wise). I do understand the appeal in using salamander, a guaranteed fix is nice to have; I mean, the last thing you want is to have owl sage run rampant (and sala guarantees at worst you end up at a 1 sp disadvantage). Guess it's a matter of personal preference.

[GonFreeces31]

If you don't use a salamander you get trolled by a 10 DEF owl sage. I'm not sure what goes on in Folrart these days, but if you're playing verse other highly skilled players not having salamanders verse falkow WILL 100% lose you the game. The only condition where it might not is if you use a soul pact and hope to win the roll on turn 3.

I pushed for using salamanders in lawt rush a long, long time ago. Previously no one used to run it, but it is so freakin strong verse some of those falkow meta files there really is no reason not to.

[Romdeau]

I used to use cath->sage open all the time against lawtia, and it has won me a lot of games unless they played shade-shade-sal. If it's not a popular open anymore, maybe it's not worth using sal anymore. Salamander in general is so useful in many situations...

[gadu]

The problem with Undeads is that their matchups are so polarizing. I've been using them quite a bit and I tend to overwhelm the opponent or I auto lose to cards like Verlaat, Talisman, Ex Mermaid, even Feline Fighter. I find this quite stupid.