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Andreas Propst
Austria
enzenkirchen
upper austria
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So tomorrow is the great day at last: Elemental Clash will be available at The Game Crafter!
I would like to remind you one last time about the EC Raffle being held on www.facebook.com/elementalclash. If you want to win a copy of the Basic Set, go "like" the page and send me an email to andreas.propst31@gmail.com with the subject "Raffle". The Raffle will end today noon GMT+1. So be quick if you want to enter! 
Furthermore I am very pleased to announce the release of the third expansion "Elemental Clash: Tribes" for 1st September 2012!
I am looking for people willing to playtest, so if you are getting EC fom TGC and would be interested to participate in the development of the next set shoot me a geekmail!
(As you might understand I can NOT provide you with free playtest copies, as my budget is very limited...)
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Andreas Propst
Austria
enzenkirchen
upper austria
-
As I showed you in my earlier post today, I got my Elemental Clash packs from TGC in the mail yesterday. Having the Basic Set plus the two Expansions "Underworld" and "Spellforce" in their fancy, new incarnation at my disposal - that is about 190 different cards - I could not wait any longer and built some kickass decks from that huge card pool. In the following article I will showcase the four decks, one for each element, and give you some thoughts and strategy on them:
I will first give you the decklists (BS means Basic Set, UW stands for Underworld and SF is the abbreviation for Spellforce) and then share some thoughts on the cards I included and the general strategy the respective deck follows. If you are interested in particular cards, have a look at the card images on www.elementalclash.com!
So let's get started with...
Mono-Earth Recursion:
Creatures...10
3 x Loam Shaman (UW)
3 x Flowering Wall (SF)
3 x Venus Wurm (BS)
1 x Earth Dragon (SF)
Spells...15
3 x Earth Ritual (BS)
3 x Elemental Ritual (BS)
3 x Excavate (BS)
3 x Necromancy (BS)
3 x Venus' Wisdom (SF)
Element-Stones...15
15 x Venus Stone
This deck is all about "Recursion", the thing the Earth Element excells at, meaning card effects that let you retrieve cards from your Archive (discard pile), either returning them to your Spellbook (deck), to your hand or directly to the playing field. Almost every single card in this deck does one of these things. For example Earth Ritual, arguably the single most powerful Earth Spell card in the whole Basic Set:
The deck also features the mighty Venus-Wurm, which lets you put cards equal to its DEF from your Archive back under your Spellbook when it is destroyed.
Combine Venus Wurm with Excavate, which lets you take any card from your Archive into your hand or Necromancy which puts the Wurm directly into play to get its effect again and again - rinse and repeat...
Venus-Wisdom serves as a powerful "draw-engine", letting you draw the bottommost card from your Archive into your hand each time you play one of your many many Earth Spells.
The one copy of Earth Dragon is in there as a "finisher" if Venus Wurm is too small to do the job.
This deck, with 12 cards that let you "restock" your Spellbook, has a lot of staying power and games will drag on longer than usual. This means that a late-game Earth Dragon can become huge! And if it gets killed in some way, you have your retrieval Spells to bring him back to life! Your opponent should better stock on cards that "purge" Creatures (remove them from the game that is) or some other way to get rid of Creatures...
Mono-Air Quickbounce:
Creatures...12
3 x Lightning Spirit (BS)
3 x Ball Lightning (BS)
3 x Will-o'-the-Wisp (UW)
3 x Lightning Dragon (SF)
Spells...13
3 x Repulse (SF)
3 x Undo (SF)
3 x Whirlwind (BS)
3 x Venus' Wisdom (SF) / Arcane Teachings (UW)
1 x Astral Charge (SF)
Element-Stones...15
3 x Demonic Stone (UW)
12 x Jupiter Stone (BS)
This deck features a combination of powerful "Quickattacker" Creatures and nifty "Bounce" Spells, that is Spells that allow you to return Creatures to their owner's hand or Spellbook - thus the name "Quickbounce".
Basically, the plan is to slow down your opponent and clear the way with your 12 Bounce Spells like
and then attack with high-ATK beasts like
I also threw in Lightning Dragon, which can get rid of pesky opponent Creatures through it's "Ranged Attack: 2" ability.
As a draw engine I would suggest either the Permanent Spell "Jupiter's Wisdom", which lets you draw 1 card each time you play an Air-Spell (and you got Air Spells galore) or Arcane Teachings, a normal Spell that lets you draw 2 cards and discard 1 but has the Boon ability.
Speaking of Boon: This deck runs 6 - 9 Boon Spells in total, depending on if you play Arcane Teachings or not.
I added a copy of Astral Charge to make a quick and brutal finishing blow with a horde of unblockable, ATK-boosted Creatures possible.
As for Element Stones I am running a playset of Demonic Stones
which allow you to play a turn two Will-o'-the-Wisp and will ocassionally trigger your many Boon cards...
Mono-Fire SBB (Salvage-Boon-Burn):
Creatures...3
3 x Spark Spirit (SF)
Spells...24
3 x Spark
3 x Fiery Arrow (BS)
3 x Scroll Burning (SF)
3 x Flaring Flames (BS)
3 x Fiery Bolt (SF)
3 x Fireball (SF)
3 x Burning Thoughts (UW)
3 x Mars' Wisdom (SF)
Element-Stones...13
3 x Recurring Stone (BS)
3 x Salvager Stone (SF)
7 x Mars Stone (BS)
This is my first (quite successful) attempt at a creatureless deck. Well it is virtually creatureless. I don't count the Spark Spirits as Creatures as they are very similar to the many one-shot "direct damage" Spells the deck is running. Have a look at Spark Spirit - it has Salvage, giving it a great synergy with the two core-cards that make and break this deck and which I am going to show you in a moment.
SBB - "Salvage Boon Burn" is a deck only relying on "direct damage" to kill the opponent and his or her Creatures, making the max of its many Boon and Salvage cards (the deck runs 12 Boon cards and 9 cards with Salvage).
The very core of the deck are two Permanent-Spells, namely Burning Thoughts
and Mars' Wisdom
Burning Thoughts turns every card in your hand into direct damage which you may either use to kill off enemy Creatures or aim at the opponent directly. Also it has great synergies with the many Salvage cards in the deck. Maybe you remember: Cards with Salvage can be played for free when they would be discarded from your hand. One example: You have Burning Thoughts out and discard Spark Spirit to the Thoughts. Spark Spirit being a Fire-card, lets Thoughts deal 2 damage to any target and comes into play due to its Salvage ability dealing another 3 damage to a Creature or to the opponent if he or she has no blockers. So at the mere cost of discarding one card (your Spark Spirit), you can potentially deal 5 damage in total.
While Burning Thoughts is vital for the SBB deck, Mars' Wisdom is the card that makes this deck actually work, supplying you with a neverending influx of "Burn-Spells" as it lets you draw cards whenever you play a Fire-Spell. In addition, it offers a discard outlet for your many Salvage cards. Wisdom is so crucial in winning with this deck, that I would redraw new hands down to 5 cards or so until I have one in my starting hand.
You may have noticed that this deck runs an outrageously low number of Element-Stones. The low average cost of cards in the deck and the Salvage and Boon abilities of your non-Basic Element-Stones make this possible.
Lastly I want to point out that playing SBB is quite a balancing act. Many times you may end up drawing too many cards through Mars' Wisdom, burning through your deck too fast. So you really need to keep an eye on the number of remaining cards in your deck. It would be interesting to see how this fares against Mono-Earth Recursion. Have to try that matchup sooner or later...
Bottom-line: This deck plays fast and furious. Give it a try if you want a challenging, out-of-the-ordinary deck!
Mono-Water Merfolk Stone Control:
Creatures...15
3 x Merman (BS)
3 x Merman Warrior (UW)
3 x Wave Courier (BS)
3 x Trident Tosser (SF)
3 x Mercury-Shatterer (BS)
Spells...9
3 x Shattering Wave (BS)
3 x Rummage (UW)
3 x Forbid (UW)
Element-Stones...16
3 x Powerstone (BS)
3 x Hastestone (BS)
10 x Mercury-Stone (BS)
Last but not least, Mono-Water Merfolk Stone Control. This is my all-time favorite deck, as I have a soft spot for resource denial strategies in general. The deck is very powerful and consistant - consistant as in it wins constantly against many different decks and does not much rely on the luck of the draw.
The deck has two themes that go well with each other: A tribal theme - nearly all Creatures belong to the Merfolk Creature-Type - and a Stone Control theme. Stone Control means, in this context, that your strategy is to deny your opponent resources, by messing with their Element-Stones by sending them back to his or her hand or Spellbook.
This is accomplished by what is probably my all-time-favorite Water-Spell
and by this very useful Creature from the Basic Set:
Shattering Wave is immensely versatile and has more uses than simply putting your opponent back one turn regarding his or her resources. Besides messing with my opponent's resources I used it many times to save my life and win a game I had otherwise lost by using it on one of my own Element-Stones, adding the Stone to my deck - a move that often made the difference between victory or defeat.
Besides the high quality Merfolk Creatures and resource denial cards, I am running Rummage for card draw and Forbid to neutralize anything the opponent manages to summon or cast.
Having the Spellforce cards at my disposal, I replaced one of the lesser useful Merfolk Creatures with a playset of Ranged Attacking Trident Tossers. This way I added a bit of direct damage against pesky 1 DEF Creatures the opponent maybe has.
Looking at the Element-Stones, I am running the deadly duo
and
Just think of cost-efficient Creatures that are very powerful in and off themselves able to attack the very turn they come into play, with multiple +1 ATK and +1 DEF Counters on them (as you will be stacking multiple Powerstones). That about gives you an idea of the power level of this deck...
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Well I hope you enjoyed my quick tour through the initial decks I built right after opening my EC packs from TGC. I encourage you to try the decks out or tweak them and give them your personal touch or just take them as an inspiration for decks of your own. Maybe you have deck ideas as well... I will start a Decks thread on the EC: The Basic Set BGG forum and invite you to start posting and discussing deck ideas over there!
Thanks for reading! Keep on clashing!
Yours,
Andi
on one Element-Stone-Stack).
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Andreas Propst
Austria
enzenkirchen
upper austria
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Dear readers, friends and fans of Elemental Clash, fellow gamers and game designers!
Time has been passing terribly slow for me over the last few weeks, but in a week's time, on 31st of May, incidentally my 25th birthday, Elemental Clash: The Basic Set, Elemental Clash: Underworld and Elemental Clash: Spellforce will be (re-) released on www.thegamecrafter.com in the form of so called "Master Editions". But as a follower of this blog this won't be new to you...
So here's some news:
My copies of EC arrived:
I was very excited when I got a package from TGC yesterday - containing my proof copies of the upcoming EC Master Editions. I was very relieved that everything turned out to look great - I was a bit afraid the custom boxes, which was a first for me on TGC, would be printed badly (out of center, ugly white borders etc...) but everything, including the cards themselves was very much to my satisfaction! Have a look at the boxes:
EC Website Update:
Next I would like to inform you that the Elemental Clash Website at www.elementalclash.com has been updated. You can now look at all the cards in the Basic Set and the two epxanisons in the cards section.
My sincere thanks go to
Jason Fordham
United States
Rome
Georgia
who was kind enough to go through the trouble of adding 180+ card images to the website.
No more daily Spellforce card previews:
For the simple reason that all the card images for the Basic Set, Expansion 1 "Underworld" and Expansion 2 "Spellforce" can be viewed at http://www.elementalclash.com/cards I will not be posting any more card previews on here. If you are curious, go check out all the Spellforce cards at the EC website!
Raffle Reminder:
I would like to remind you once again that there is an Elemental Clash Raffle / Giveaway is being held on facebook. I will be giving away a free EC Basic Set Master Edition for each 50 new likes, starting at 150 likes. Currently I am at 142 likes, so 8 likes before the first copy of the game goes to the pot. To participate in the Raffle, please go to www.facebook.com/elementalclash, like the page, share it and tell your friends to like it as well and send me an email with the subject "Raffle" to andreas.propst31@gmail.com. Then I will add your name to the list. On 31st of May the winner(s) will be chosen at random...
Upcoming Reviews:
I am happy to inform you that I got two well-known reviewers who will be doing video reviews of EC in its "entirety" (I sent them Basic Set and both Expansions) soon. I will keep you guys posted on that! Let's hope they'll like the game... 
EC: Tribes to be released on September 1st 2012:
As promised, there will be quartlery expansions of at least 60 new cards to be released on The Game Crafter. So I proudly announce the release of EC Expansion 3 "Tribes". My friend and fellow artist Enggar Adirasa and I are already working on the artwork. Tribes will be all about Creatures, especially about the four main tribes, each associated with one of the four Elements: Trolls (Earth), Spirits (Air), Goblins (Fire) and Merfolk (Water). Furthermore EC Tribes will come with a Mini-Expansion called "Spellcasters". It will introduce a cool new variant of playing the game, but for the moment I will not reveal any further information about the "Spellcasters". Expect more info to be revealed in the next few months! 
Also, if you are good at writing flavor text, please shoot me a geekmail. I am looking for people who would like to contribute some flavor text for the EC: Tribes cards!
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So this is about all of the news I got for you at this point. Hope you are looking forward to the grand (re-) release of Elemental Clash as much as I am! 
Keep on clashing!
Sincerely yours,
Andi
P.S.: I will post another article today with some decklists for decks I built right after getting my EC packs in the mail along with some strategy and stuff. If you are considering to get some EC yourself, detintiely check out my "Decks and Strategy" article...
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Andreas Propst
Austria
enzenkirchen
upper austria
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Today's card is the last of the wisdom-cycle: Mars' Wisdom:
Tomorrow I will be doing something completely different, and, among other things, tell you why Mars' Wisdom is my favorite of the 4 "Wisdoms" and how it came to be the centerpiece of the first working, (almost) creatureless deck!
Wed May 23, 2012 11:35 pm
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Andreas Propst
Austria
enzenkirchen
upper austria
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Today it is going to be the third out of the four-card cycle of "Wisdoms": The Water-Spell "Mercury's Wisdom":
Mercury's Wisdom is the single most powerful of the four "Wisdoms" as it has you draw 2 cards each time you play a Water Spell - Water being the Element that excells at drawing additional cards. But as the previously shown "Jupiter's Wisdom" it is a double-edged sword so to say: While you will get massive "card advantage", that is surplus hand cards, for each Water Spell you play, it might well get out of hand by running you out of cards in your Spellbook faster as you want. So play this one carefully and think of ways to put spare copies to good use (maybe by including cards in your Spellbook that allow you to discard hand cards for certain, beneficial effects)...
Tomorrow I will show you the last card of the Wisdom cycle, which for reasons that will be discussed tomorrow, is my favorite of the four Wisdoms!
Tue May 22, 2012 11:44 pm
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Andreas Propst
Austria
enzenkirchen
upper austria
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Today I will show you the second card from the "Wisdom" cycle of Permanent-Spells: Venus' Wisdom:
As yesterday's "Jupiter Wisdom", "Venus' Wisdom" gives you an extra card each time you play an Earth Spell - with the important difference that you do not have to draw a card from your Spellbook, but rather retrieve the bottommost card from your Archive. This means on the one hand that you are not going to run yourself out of cards in your Spellbook, but on the other hand that you get no extra cards if you haven't got any in your Archive - as may be the case early on in the game...
Mon May 21, 2012 10:10 pm
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Andreas Propst
Austria
enzenkirchen
upper austria
-
Starting today I wanna show you a four-card cycle of Permanent Spells that let you draw cards whenever you play a Spell of their Element.
Let's start with the most basic one: Jupiter's Wisdom of the Air-Element:
Jupiter's Wisdom is a decent "draw engine" for any deck running a good amount of Air Spells. Note that the draw is mandatory, so be careful with this card, especially when you got multiples of it out there. While drawing lots of useful cards you might run yourself out of cards in your Spellbook sooner as you would want to...
Sun May 20, 2012 11:54 pm
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Andreas Propst
Austria
enzenkirchen
upper austria
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Due to computer problems I was not able to post a preview yesterday. My apologies for that...
So today I want to show you another dragon from the Spellforce Expansion:
Sea Dragon has respectable stats with 3 ATK and 4 DEF, but what makes it really shine is its Play-Effect: When Sea Dragon enters play from your hand, you get to rearrange the top 5 cards of your deck and MAY draw one card. This can be incredibly useful and you can pull off some very nice tricks if you run a deck with a lot of "Boon" cards. Just put the cards with Boon on top of your Spellbook and have your opponent deal damage to you in his or her next turn, triggering all the nasty boons you cunningly put on top of your deck. Also, the fact that the draw is not mandatory can make a difference. Imagine you are low on cards in your Spellbook and need the dragon to attack or block. You can simply decide not to draw, because that one card more or less in your Spellbook could make a difference deciding if you win or lose...
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Andreas Propst
Austria
enzenkirchen
upper austria
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In Elemental Clash: Spellforce Dragons will make their debut in the game. Seriously, what fantasy-themed game could live without that archetpyical (or stereotypical?) type of creature? Anyways in the second Elemental Clash expansion there will be four dragons - one for each Element.
Today I will show you "Earth Dragon":
Earth Dragon has a DEF-value that has to be reconed with. At 5 DEF it survives about any direct damage spell of the Fire element and the best way to kill it is with pinpoint Creature destruction or cards that return it to opponent deck or hand that the nemesis of the Earth Element - the Air Element - features in many facettes.
Besides having a great DEF-value, Earth Dragon grows bigger in regard of ATK-value the more Venus-Stones (Basic Earth Stones) you have in play. Earth Dragon only gets better and better the farhter the game progresses, so it can become a huge threat for the opponent in mid- to late-game...
Fri May 18, 2012 12:31 am
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Andreas Propst
Austria
enzenkirchen
upper austria
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Today I will show you another of the new Equip-Spells: Magmahammer.
Magmahammer doubles in use both as an ATK-booster for your Creatures, preferably belonging to the Fire element, and as "pinpoint-removal" for smaller, non-Fire Creatures. As you can attach Equip-Spells to opponent Creatures as well, you can kill any non-Fire Creature with a DEF-value equal or lower than two by attaching Magmahammer to it...
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