How to survive a bad pick on the 1st few turns

[HugeMistake]

So I've been playing the game for a week. I'm ranked 260 and playing a Boris and a Lance from this post :

http://www.shadowera.com/showthread....adow-Era-quot-!

I won nearly all the games all the way to ranking 240-250. From there it became a lot harder and I'd say it's a 50-50. I think i started to understand the very basics of the game (why i should use only 40 cards, why i need 4 of my crucial cards, what to discard 1st etc...).

The thing that bothers me is that, if the opponent seems to know what he's doing (no 70 cards in his deck for example), i usually can tell if I'm going to win or loose within the 1st 3 or 4 turns, and I'm correct nearly 100% of the time. The only reason why I'm not sure if I'm going to win or lose from the 1st turn is that i need to see how lucky/unlucky my opponent has been on the 1st few turns. I'd say that only 10% of the time i play a very fun game where the outcome is uncertain and every decision matters.

I don't seem to be able to recover from a bad starting hand, and sometimes when i win easily, i don't have a feeling of achievement because it feels like the opponent was unlucky and unable to play any useful cards on the 1st few turns.

So the question is :

- what am i missing ? is this the very nature of this game or are there ways to recover from a bad start (let's say the first 4 turns) that i'm totally missing ?
- what do you do when your starting hand is 3x ancklebreaker, 2 aeon, 1 stop thief (it's an example) ? and on the second turn and 3rd turn you get 1 more stop thief and 1 aldon (that gets killed as soon as you play it because the opponent was ready) ?

Any tip or any eye-opener comment is very welcomed

[Grumbaki]

Control decks in general and lance in particular (with zhanna) can make very nice come backs.

With your exemplar I'd sac sack aeon then ankle breaker x2 then ST or the second aeon depending on draw and opponent.

Even with a very bad hand t5 ankle breaker t6 hasted raven is a play that regularly turn tables. Specially with aeon T7.

TO is interesting as he both serves as a meat shield and makes you get the cards quicker. Having an excellent draw engine as IGG should limit usage of other draw methods.

Everything you throw at them is an Hp gain. See it as "healing".

Of course a perfect start rush deck generally crushes you but that's rock paper scissors curse.

[mclamdc]

If you can survive the first few turns without taking to much damage control decks like Lance can easily come back especially against mages when you're packing a couple spelleater bands for my Lance deck the goal of the first four turns is to take the least amount of damage possible and try to keep control of the board, I'm often below or around 20 health by the time I start taking control with the fatties

[Jao]

if Lance does not draw IGG, it's usually GG.

[Airact]

if Lance does not draw IGG, it's usually GG.

I've seen some Lance decks run Tainted Oracle to migitate the lack of cards. Alternatively you could just run a deck without any gimmicks (Lily, for example) and survive with topdecks.

I've beaten some decent players with Lance when I've drawn late IGGs. A single Bad Santa or a Tainted Oracle really help but you can survive even without them.

[Zeuhl]

I'm also quite new to this game and to TCG's in particular and this is what my realizations for this game at the moment.

No matter how I fancifully create my deck the randomness always forces me to treat each hand differently every single time. I have to make the right decisions based on the cards I have at the moment but some are also dependent on who I'm facing ie. not saccing heals against a mage, keeping a focused prayer always ready in anticipation for items, keeping one tidal wave if the opponent has have a dominating ally presence at the start. Sometimes though I may be wrong in my decisions but it's better for me to have a wrong plan than having no plan at all.


You may not feel much contentment when you win because most of the time things really did not go as you expected it to be or the opponent just not have the key cards that could have foiled all of your plans. But always remember each of you were dealt an equal number of cards and you were able to make the most of your given hand so don't think so much about what your opponent could have done because your opponent has made his share of choices and sacrifices too and in the present moment you were able to outplay him.

Also I will always remember a saying of the great Chess Master Jose Raoul Capablanca: "A good player is always lucky"

[HugeMistake]

Thanks for the replies I really liked the saying fro Capablanca !

For some reason, i seem to be able to recover more easily with a aggro Boris than with Lance.

[vYzion]

I actually think Capablanca was being sarcastic.

What a good player does (at least in chess) is take whatever advantage is offered. Is it luck when you get offered a huge advantage? Maybe...but it's skill that recognizes the advantage to be had. That is, there is a certain threshold of bad playing that luck just can't (statistically speaking) overcome.

Saccing is really an artform...knowing what to sac is a combination knowing your own deck (e.g., I have 4 AB and 4 Lily Rosecult and I just drew 2 AB on an opening hand...Chances are, your either gonna get a Lily or another AB before it becomes an issue...sac the AB) and knowing your opponent's decks (do they typically run light on allies? Should probably prioritize item/support destruction over e.g., Dirk Saber).

I guess if I had to weigh in on your particular example, I'd probably go with 1st: AB (I assume you have at least more and probably Lily); 2nd: Probably Aeon (It's a long way off before you'll be able to drop him anyway). 3rd: Stop, Thief (of course, that depends on the opponent as well...but all things being equal, I'd like to think that I can create some kind of advantage from the single ST). But, this order makes a lot of assumptions and ignores a lot of important factors like opponent and hand-size and board presence and particular deck construction etc. You could easily now use the Aldon in order to remove your opponent's removal and pave the way for your Aeon.

Basically, I guess my point is, that the your formulation of the question makes you sound very egocentric. There's a lot more to consider than yourself and your hand when attempting to recover from a bad situation. Any tips or tricks would have to be considered in the context of a particular game.

So, I guess my advice would be the ancient Delphic aphorism: "Know thyself." You have to know what your deck can do (card draw probabilities, useful combos etc.) and then formulate the best plan to get yourself out of the situation. Maybe it comes together, maybe it doesn't, but you don't expect to win every game, do you?

I'll also give my two cents on control deck comebacks. I play a Serena deck and I've had some ridiculously elegant comebacks (I've come back from 1 LP against a Boris with full health). It used to scare the hell out of me...now I just realize that's the way it goes. My "comebacks" typically start around the 7 - 15 LP range. But like I said, coming back from fewer than 7 is not impossible. I played a similar match against an Eldawen: She got me down to 1 LP (very dangerous against mages...so yes, I was scared). I managed to take her down from 24 to 5 LP (I had been hoarding creatures and saccing my own creature removal and I was able to keep her top-decking)...then she dropped a Supernova for the draw.

"Know Thyself"