Guide to Battle Awareness and Conservation - Adding Depth to your game

[Frostowl]

Yes that is a severe disadvantage but when the other option is being less likely to ever retake the board it can often be worth it. Unless my opponent is getting card starved or has limited resources it can be quite hard to retake the field after a nova because your opponent still gets the important first play. I'd rather my field clear kill less and fight a non-overextented player when I'm in control than hope that he overextends himself and let him be in control the whole game. Also many players assume a mage has a nova in hand and won't play much more than they do when they can clearly see the board wipe.
I agree with you in a case where I'm packing retreats and would effectively be able to take the field after a nova.

I personally second this. Playing as eladwin it's sometimes better to fb an enemy jas than nuke her with your se, especially when you have an ally on the board. Your opponent is forced to 1. Play enough allies to overcome your board position (opening them up to a nice hero focused attack + nova beginning a favorable death race) or 2. Play a fattie that'll be able to take care of your field (negated by your se ability pretty easily) or 3. Forget allies and go for weapons (which happen to be pretty effective against elad in the first place, so hopefully you have a contingency plan for that such as LLN or squire). Going se first will allow them to go for fatties which may be a bit of a hassle if you lack draw and have to trade 2:1, and a well timed aeon or ogloth can wreck havok if you don't have that extra frostbolt.

Of course the obvious downside is that if you don't have the board you don't achieve anything, but that's what nova is for anyways

[Zhou86]

Thanks for bumping this. This article is one of the earliest articles I have read when I first started and it helped me quite a fair bit.

[qaz92zaq]

I personally second this. Playing as eladwin it's sometimes better to fb an enemy jas than nuke her with your se, especially when you have an ally on the board. Your opponent is forced to 1. Play enough allies to overcome your board position (opening them up to a nice hero focused attack + nova beginning a favorable death race) or 2. Play a fattie that'll be able to take care of your field (negated by your se ability pretty easily) or 3. Forget allies and go for weapons (which happen to be pretty effective against elad in the first place, so hopefully you have a contingency plan for that such as LLN or squire). Going se first will allow them to go for fatties which may be a bit of a hassle if you lack draw and have to trade 2:1, and a well timed aeon or ogloth can wreck havok if you don't have that extra frostbolt.

Of course the obvious downside is that if you don't have the board you don't achieve anything, but that's what nova is for anyways

Tbf to Wreon when he used as Elad an example he was refering to the old it did not freeze the target just 4 damage. The main dispute was about whether it was worth it to save SE for a big tempo play or spend SE first as it is clearly visible and cards are not allowing your opponent to make mistakes.

I didn't see this, and it's an absolutely true point because I forgot to mention one thing: it's better to use your SE before your cards IF your cards do exactly the same thing as your ability.

Best example is old eladwen's skill and fireball (cause they were exactly the same). Better to use ability before card.

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