This season I wanted to challenge myself with teams using just one element with no awakened myths (except 1 which I’ll explain later). I ran an all Earth team and an all Water team. This was mostly just for enjoyment, but I learned a few things too.
The team
The best thing about this team was the FL. Instant rear load the token and Terra’s ability to summon 3 rocks instantly was amazing. Dual Catapult caught a lot of players out and SFox provided a threat to Camo. It would tear through teams pretty quick. I didn’t mind Baha being slow after the initial attacks as it fed Tricraniums constant shielding and quick attacks.
Having Megaiasloth in 5th was great too. It’s such an underrated protector and it’s SS brought more rocks. The dark horse in this team was Chamilizard. Catapult does some insane damage.
The stun absorbing protector was great for protection against more or less everything and not clashing with fox.
Geo to kill fox if needed and mainly get Natu on the field with the devil it’s self - Stag.
Emeraldus SS does insane damage and low TU.
I kept getting hammered by Fire so Draco - even though I don’t like it, was a must.
Late Vampviper just for Moku.
Results
Whilst the team took down some big PvP names, it didn’t do as well as I’d hoped, particularly compared to its water counterpart.
Weirdly, it did well against strong opponents, but players I’d never heard of seemed to fair better against it.
The vast majority of my losses were due to stun. Although there is considerable less stun protection towards the end, but this isn’t where I kept getting caught, it was actually within the first 8 mons. Partly because the FL was so effective, so I would reach opponents mid game quick and then get caught. Shiny Fox would die and then I’d be open to stun, even though it was next in line.
One form of stun protection wasn’t enough and given the elemental restriction, it wasn’t possible to spam immunes or run 2 absorbers because the enemy would happily stun them both and leave them there.
After an extremely disappointing first day, I decided to switch to water which I planned to run next season.
The team.
In contrast to the other team, the FL was easy to stop, but I like it, so I ran it. There were lots of Skele’s though which Ankara liked.
Whilst I was running no awakened Myths, I made the exception for Ankara because it’s in the shop.
I loved the combo of Polareon and Cele. Instant sleep into step back or even double step back brought amazing control and this is what won me games, if Bloom and frog struggled.
Ultimately though, the reason this team did better, despite a weaker FL was because it dealt with OoO slightly better and primarily because it handled stun better too.
Plume can never be deadweight, Bloom I don’t even need to explain, esp with Froggie, Azuraidos could bring in protection in emergencies and Cobra just for lemon endgames.
In the end, the stun protection made all the difference. In a no stun rule, I think Earth would have been just as strong.
Results
This team also took down some big names, but ran much better overall. On day 2 I managed to almost run flawless playing all tickets, picking up just a few losses and it made up for a shocking day 1.
On day 3 I ran Earth again in the morning and had way too many losses. I switched back to water and again started to climb.
In the end I finished 27th which I was a little disappointed with, but proud of my comeback when I was struggling on day 1. I would have liked to have broken top 20 and perhaps would have made it sticking with Water from the start.
In short, Earth started amazingly until it met stun, Water was much better at handling stun and controlling the match over all, so it made up for some losses. I was reflecting on why stun is so much more oppressive than sleep. But that’s because if 4 mons are sleeping, one purify recovers them all, there is nothing to recover 4 stunned monsters.
I have to say though, I absolutely loved it! It was a lot of fun running some different stuff and I loved facing the big names, big accounts and big teams. GGs to all.
What element do I run next?
