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Strong, Captain, Oak. That's all you need.

I assume that you are asking for type 1. Angels can work well against humans if you build it with say Micheal w/ wheel and angel's sword, but they just get slaughtered by demons. They are usually used as an assist more than the focus of an offense
 

People say that angels can't win on their own, but if I remember correctly a mono-angels offense won the MN State tournament (arguably the hardest in the country) in 2012, and that was even before they got all the new cards that significantly improve their brigade (like the previously mentioned speed).

Despite MKC's sarcasm, I'm not sure if the lack of "consistency" at top tournaments is less due to the inability of mono-silver and more due to the lack of top players trying it (since everyone tells them that it doesn't work).

He has demonstrated one example of mono-angels having a strong finish in a higher tier tournament (albeit one on the lower end of the spectrum). I call that a far stretch from 'several'.

2011 Nats was also won by TGT. TGT has been consistent for years.

I was also under the assumption we were talking about T1. My assertions stem from that.

Quote from: browarod on October 21, 2013, 11:25:53 AM

Consistency of top tier decks has always seemed, to me, to be based on popularity moreso than actual "best" decks.

I completely agree with this.  I think there are probably ~5 "best deck" build types.  But there are probably about twice that many decks that are good enough that if a bunch of the top players all decided to use them in a big tournament would almost all make it to the top of the standing.

I think the reason "The Deck" was so successful at Nats a couple years ago was more due to the fact that almost 10 of the top 15 players decided to play it.  If they had picked a different deck, then that deck would've been at the top.

Top players are top players because they pilot top level decks with high efficiency and few mistakes.  Do you think that 10 of the top 15 players would all switch to a deck that was sub par? I don't. I think they went to "The Deck" because it was the best deck available against the current metas and it's speed was so consistent.  Granted, Martin did not run "The Deck" but he pulled early naz's in a lot of games and was one step ahead of the meta shift with Nazareth in his deck. (Not to mention he is a phenomenal player.)

You still haven't answered his question. Why would a top player use a deck that was less efficient rather than one that was more efficient, especially at a higher level tournament? Perhaps another way of phrasing it, in mono-angels vs 'The Deck',  how many games do you truly believe mono-angels would take from it out of 100?

You'd have to ask some of the T1 players to be sure, but IIRC, the angel deck wasn't the only deck that the winner used to win MN State, he had a Disciples deck as well. Not sure what the breakdown of usage between the decks was, but just wanted to throw that out there.

I believe it was actually a Samuel deck. In addition, it was a relatively small MN tournament, and Tim, RDT, and Myself ended up hitting each other early and never got to play him. So it's not the best source to cite, but I don't want to totally discredit it because he did win a lot of games against pretty good players, and there's no denying that.

I don't think mono-angels vs The Deck is a fair way to weigh the two. Matchups can determine a lot, and ultimately it comes down to the defense, draws, and techs. A more fair assessment would be asking how many games they would win against any given deck. Redemption doesn't have a well-established metagame, but suppose you had to run a gauntlet of Disciples/Demons, Genesis/Romans, Judges/Canaanites, The Deck/Pharisees, Isaiah/Assyrians, TGT/Royalty/GoS, etc. Mono-Angels will win a few, but is ultimately a less consistent deck, and will likely be unable to keep up.

However, I don't think it's right to discredit angels. I played The Deck this year because it utilized a lot of angels and I knew that Pharisees, which I expected to be everywhere, couldn't really handle them. In T2 Multiplayer, Jordan built a terrible mono-angels offense (well, good for mono-angels, but still...) that won a lot of games just because of sheer good luck matchups against the common defenses.

Last thoughts: I've always found the concept of mono decks to be odd, since you're automatically limiting yourself from the start. If you want to build a deck around angels, go ahead, but ultimately that deck probably won't be mono-angels.

Quote from: Westy on October 21, 2013, 09:46:10 PM

Last thoughts: I've always found the concept of mono decks to be odd, since you're automatically limiting yourself from the start.

Mono Disciples is unarguably one of the best decks right now. Sure, you could pair it up with something else, like the ever so popular TGT variants, but I feel that takes away from the consistency and strength of most of Disciples' boss and support cards (Thad, Passover Hymn, Fishing Boat, even possibly Matt). Disciples needs no more than the two TGT heroes to utilize TGT; with the speed available to them, they will usually always have a live TGT.

That's not quite my point, and this is all speaking from a deck-building position, but I see that as a Disciples deck, not as a mono-Disciples deck. The fact that it's mono is coincidental, not the premise of the deck. In the same way, mono-Genesis isn't a thing, hand control or Genesis is. Mono, to me, indicates an emphasis on the singularity of the builds, which is always close minded. It may just be semantics, but I tend to differentiate between them.