Recently, I've been encountering the same person called Swetabh or what. He just go 2 sword 1 miner, then all swords. It is very annoying as when I use Treature opening, he immediately crush my Treature with some micro. With air, he just rushes to the statue(note that he has lots of swords) and destroy it. He masses swords on early game so no thing about Scorch. He is just very annoying. So... how to counter it? He just use swords. ALOT of them.

uhm...maybe explosion (water+fire)? Dunno ^_^

Are Earths equal to Swords in combat due to their stun? Also, does the Castle Air have splash damage? I would hope so because it attacks so slow.

Massing earths as they come out in 4 seconds have equal speed to swords yes 1v1 they lose to swords but if you can get 2-3 more than your opponent easy win if they rush they get stunned and you can either rush your self of defend.

No, castle air has no splash damage and does the same amount as a normal lightning.

For your information Swordwrath are cheaper than Earth.

due to the downgrade of health of tree, tree is now much easier to be killed by sword spam
so I now seldom use tree rush start anymore
air rush is not safe as well, because your eco falls behind , and you cannot do anything if there is CA , swords can just rush and ignore the air

I would say the most effective start would be earth mass, and then kill their swords one by one, and then convert the low health one to miners
but if they really do sword mass continuously, then I prefer all earth convert to miners, and then switch to castle air, you will gradually own the mid game

Quote from FailingAtFailing

Are Earths equal to Swords in combat due to their stun? Also, does the Castle Air have splash damage? I would hope so because it attacks so slow.

no earth are not equal even with stun just slightly tho and no the castle air doesnt have splash dmg which is pretty unfair considering the other do.....

1 Earth will roughly equal 1 Sword, which is a problem for Elementals because that puts Order 25 gold ahead. I'm having more trouble with Archer + sword mass though, a water elemental doesn't seem to be cost efficient for disabling their archer, and as swords are faster than Earths I can't really isolate the archer, their swords arrive chunking my water down before I even get my Earths there in time. If I let a matched up fight occur the arrows make me lose. I also struggle to hold mid when I have to fall back so as to avoid poke damage whenever my opponent has archers. Tips for early/mid game or just play defensive temporarily as above?

How about fire start? :P

Get a fire and kite them like a boss, get some earths later to back him up

to properly combat sword mass you should produce earth miners to keep up with the number of swords he produces as training time is only 4 seconds so 2 earth should get out b4 2 swords.
keep pumping out earth and eventually tech to air i'll explain later to avoid rage

Quote from Azxc

How about fire start? :P

Get a fire and kite them like a boss, get some earths later to back him up

That's like sword/archer/miner, but no sword/miner.