Gallente Synergy Deck - 2006/11/05 22:57I played a fair number of games with this deck and it's pretty scary how succesful it has been so far. Most of the cards are useful for at least 2 things. Almost all of the cards have passive or special effects working together with other cards.
The deck:
Monopoly Tower or Enthrallment Tower
Insmother The Tierijev Pocket Kyonoke Pit
3 Pyroxeres 3 Scordite 4 Crumbling Moon 3 Hemorphite 3 Sisters of EVE
4 Astronautical Laboratories 2 Central Fleet Command 2 Advanced Shipyard
4 Veteran's Premature Retirement 4 Hired Enforcers 4 Damage Control
For a total of 56 cards
Justification for each card and play guide:
Regions: The idea behind the regions is to have good income while making it impossible or very hard for your opponent to drive you out of them.
Insmother: Great 2nd or 3rd turn region if your opponents have none out already, which will almost guarantee your income the next turn.
The Tierijev Pocket: This is usually the 2nd or 3rd region played in this deck, because it requires money to keep the enemy out, and money is at a premium in the first few turns, especially when you just spent 4 + whatever else to put a location in there. Still, very hard to take over and gives solid income.
Kyonoke Pit: With 60% of all the ships having mining ability, this is a very good region to have out early. It's also the main reason the Sisters of EVEs are in this deck, as it will enable your velators to mine there, while at the same time making it pretty hard to take over in the early stages thanks to the -1/-1 to all ships.
Locations:
The locations were selected on the following criteria: - First turn playable - High Mining yield, any income bonus - Sacrifice / Resurrect effects.
Pyroxeses: This is very useful to have in your starting hand if you also have a velator, for which the odds are not all that bad. You can also happily sacrifice it for Scordite later on without losing out on something. It also means 5 mining yield when played in Kyonoke, which is very nice.
Crumbling Moon: Some people seem to think it sucks. I think it's pretty good. You can sacrifice it without losing out on much, because you can get it into play right away. So this card is pretty forced-discard and location-destruction proof.
Scordite: Great income, Great mining yield, only costs 1, and the only drawback is having to sacrifice a location, but that's what the crumbling moons, pyroxereses and hemorphites are for!
Hemorphite: Cheap and cheerful. Being only 1 isk, but having 1 income and 1 mining is pretty good (if you have the velator out). It's also a location you can happily sacrifice.
Sisters of EVE: These are for fortifying your regions, in particular the Kyonoke Pit, which is the hardest to defend of the three I chose. Said region also offsets the fact it has 0 income and 0 mining yield, because of the +3 mining yield bonus of the region.
Ships:
These were picked to have - Relatively lots of hitpoints - Affordable - Additional beneficial continuous effects - Mining or Trading abilities
Velator: Fairly obvious choice. These enable you to ramp up your 2nd turn income and starting to control a region that turn as well. It's also painful for your opponent(s) to attack it early on due to the retaliate ability.
Inferior Iteron: This card is so good it's not true! Inferior Ities are never alone, they invite their friends! If you have one, you have them all. This card is very good in combination with the Astronautical Laboratories, as you'll basically always have one on hand to pump the ones in play up.
Tristan: By far the most versatile frigate. Mining, Ambush and Patrol, and high attack/shield!
Celestis: This cruiser is evil. Sure it costs 6, but it pays itself back 50% the next turn (provided you can put it on trade), so it's not just going to sit there being a meatshield or frigate deterrant. Oh and it makes enemy ships more expensive too.
Navitas: Pretty hard to kill mining ship, and its continuous effect making enemy news more expensive saved my ships from pirate mercenary and veteran's on more than one occasion.
Structures:
Astronautical Laboratories: Doesn't really need any explanation. This card is one of the key cards. You can win without drawing it though, but since there's 4 in the deck, it's fairly likely you'll get at least one every game.
Central Fleet Command: People usually go "ugh" when this comes into play. Suddenly those iterons and velators aren't looking all that carebearish anymore.
Advanced Shipyard: Considering the large amount of ships and the fact most of them cost 3 or more, it seemed like a good idea to have it in.
News:
Hired Enforcers: Again, doesn't need any explanation. This card simply rocks. And you can get if back from the scrapheap, so it's counter-proof as well.
Damage Control: No-brainer. But here's the kicker: Play Hired Enforcers, Damage control it back to your hand after the pile resolved, Then play it again!
Veteran's Premature Retirement: This card is probably the single most useful card in the game. It's a tad expensive, though, but it wins games. Uses found for it so far: - Bounce enemy ship out of a region you want to take - Bounce enemy defending ship out of home region when making the final attack - Bounce your own ship back to your hand when it's being destroyed by news - And the coolest one: If someone somehow manages to rid you of the ships in your hand that you needed for astronautical laboratories... bounce one of your own in play back to your hand and use that. The look on your opponent's face when he realises why you just bounced your own ship back to your hand is priceless.
I tried a few variations, like putting a few Oneiros and Thoraxes, but I found the Oneiros to be fairly useless as it takes too long to assemble and only has one ability (even though it's a really good ability). The Thorax, while an awesome card, is simply too expensive. I found myself discarding it every time I drew it. I don't even want a Thorax in my initial hand as it will take 4 turns before I can play it out anyway, waste of a mulligan. I also considered Center of Astrogeology, so I could hasten my mining ships, but considering it costs 5 and need to spend at least another 1 to make use of it, that's 6 isk better spent on another ship or one of the other starbase structures.
If anyone has comments/suggestions for this deck, let me know. Got item?
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Calmdown
User Battlecruiser
Posts: 284
Re:Gallente Synergy Deck - 2006/11/06 08:03I like the deck all round. It plays on Gallente's strengths (economic warfare, cunningly the same title as Tallest's new articll ). Inferior Iterons are so good that including Insmother in a Gallente deck is mostly a no-brainer, and after some recent testing I've really come around to Astronautical Labs, if only in Gallente.
As the deck title suggests, you have a lot of good synergy in there - DC/Hired Enforcers can end a game very quickly in such an income-centric deck, and Vet's Retirement on your own ships is very often overlooked (it also works really well if you're about to lose a ship and have the ISK to burn to bounce it and replay it).
If I had any issues with the deck, they would be that barring your Iterons your ISK curve is very back-loaded, and your first few turns don't lend themselves to a good income neccessarily - your income is synergistic but some of it doesn't work too well on it's own, and there's a lot of possibility of a dodgy draw. Also, you're somewhat reliant on your early ships to create your ISK, which means anything running anti-ship/command cards such as Minmatar direct damage cards, Outmaneuvered, Glitch, etc will cripple you and you'll struggle to recover from it. I don't think it'll neccessarily be a problem, but given the strength of the deck when it has a solid income I'd be tempted to replace my location scheme with a more 'standard' basic income scheme to remove that vulnerability.
Secondly, your ships don't threaten an awful lot. This means that most decks are free to jump around outer regions early on without needing to leave much in the way of defence behind. This can work in your favour if you drop 'surprise' cards like Labs, CFC or Hired Enforcers, but it can also mean free reign for a lot of decks in the early game. I'd probably want to replace the Celestis with something else assembly 1 to provide an early threat. I'd say Coercers (even though they don't work with CfC, they're so far better than any other ship of their cost and power level they're worth it imo).
I tried a few variations, like putting a few Oneiros and Thoraxes, but I found the Oneiros to be fairly useless as it takes too long to assemble and only has one ability (even though it's a really good ability)
Im happy to finally see someone posting about the downsides of the Oneiros
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). Inferior Iterons are so good that including Insmother in a Gallente deck is mostly a no-brainer, and after some recent testing I've really come around to Astronautical Labs, if only in Gallente.
