Thread:Vizhre/@comment-25765835-20150316034745/@comment-25765835-20150321203914

You hit the nail right on the head Vizhre; you have to expect the worst to get the best out of those deck suggestions in order to clean up the battle in a safe (yet slow) manner.

First of all - if you max Catcine's DEF, then you possibly jepordize her ability to be useful. She may survive a regular poke or ability from someone who has a low atk value, but she also would then completely waste her ability if she was struck. If Catcine's ability is on and she gets hit for 20000 DMG, she takes 4000 DMG then hits back for 32000 DMG. A lot of people confuse the math with Catcine's ability by factoring in the damage reduction first, but then forgetting to apply the reduced damage to the counter-attack. In my example, a lot of people think Catcine would take 4000 DMG, and hit back for 160000 DMG - but that's now how it works.

So your max Def Catcine took a hit for 10000 DMG instead of 20000 DMG due to her high or max defense from an enemy poke. She now counter attacks for (10000*0.2) * 8 = 16000 pts of Dmg. That's not going to kill a GUR that did that damage with a poke. Ironically if she took more damage with a lower defense and survived, she would then kill the offending card(s).

Now's let's talk about the nullify card on an ATK team. If you ditch the skill nullify card and replace it with another Catcine or unleasher - you can end the battle quicker on the following turn. If you use the skill nullify card, then you have to poke for victory or HOPE for a counter-attack to proc on turn 3. Not all Catcines will proc; and even if they do you're now on 60% or 40% chance on Turn 3 depending if you have 3 or 2 Catcine. (You already went through your initial turn 1 setting up your deck along with a poke, and turn 2 to poke again. If you get all Catcine to proc and they hit you on turn 2, then you should win that turn. If you nullify the enemy's abilities on turn 2, then you now have to go into turn 3 (or more) to win with a poke. If the enemy has a skill nullify card on Defense, they can also block Catcine from activating her ability. (A skill nullify card does not block other nullify cards. People also get this confused since a FAW has an ability that clears buffs; but it's not a skill nullify. Since that ability gets blocked, people think it works the same way)

On a Defense team, everyone is vulnerable on turn 1 so like any defense team - it's a luck of the draw if you survive that turn. And on a defense team (and this is where a lot of confusion applies to Catcine I feel) is that an enemy with a skill nullify card in their attack team can nullify Catcine's ability if she procs on the following turn. That's why she's not automatically the best thing to put on a defense team, because all cards are vulnerable to skill nullify cards on an attacker's team UNLESS they are automatic. So instead of using Catcine on defense, another max stat SIF or Chocolatier (or any skill nullify card) would be superior with providing the same results at a higher chance on a better balanced deck.

At the end of the day you're putting a lot of work, medals, and setup time into an ATK PvP deck that is trying to accomplish one thing - kill an enemy deck quickly. The problem with AUB is that it rewards those who kill faster. If you make a deck that is "highly surviable" by poking an opponent with minimal chance to retaliate; you're accomplishing the economical victory by making sure every BP is a victory - but you loose out on point efficency. If you're engaged with an active alliance who is using rods the same time you are and you're both trying to beat the clock by getting as much points as possible; then you're automatically at a dis-advantage with a Catcine heavy deck that's slow to do the job. An argument can be made that if RNG absolutely hates you then the Catcine deck is more reilable; but that deck is too also under the same vulnerabilities with RNG on turn 1. (Especially the deck with Santa Oracle - she's a wasted proc if no one is injured on turn 2 and futher extends an already long battle) Rod wars are all about speed than safety.

So in summary - you have a really safe but slow ATK PvP deck. This helps your battle record more in the end than it does your alliance. If you're already stomping an alliance in pts anway, then you want to maximize your Fever Time for personal pts - which the deck is not really good at.

--- TL:DR VERSION ---

There's noting wrong with using Catcine. She's gimmicky and has a lot of flaws. She's in no way a part of the "ultimate" PvP ATK deck. She can be replaced by other cards with similar results.