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  1. #1
    DP Visionary BlanketEffect's Avatar
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    Lightbulb The importance of card advantage - Banebow tech

    (Pardon, this is long, and meant to teach - if that's not your thing, cool, don't read it)

    This is going to be kind of a lesson for people about card advantage. If you're a well versed player in CCGs, or even just SE specifically, this isn't meant to patronize you in any way. This is something then perhaps for more novice players who are still learning the mechanics and techniques of playing a deck well/competitively.

    Card advantage, meaning the amount of cards that you get into your hand versus the amount your opponent gets, usually translates into higher win ratios. In other words, (assuming you have a fairly well-designed deck) if you consistently draw more cards per game than your opponent, you will consistently beat your opponent. You also gain card advantage when you use 1 card (or 0, in the case of hero abilities) to elimitate more than one of your opponent's cards. Lightning Strike, for example, when killing two Blakes, is a 2:1 card advantage in your favor. Banebow's hero ability, killing two Blakes, is a 2:0 ratio in your favor.

    A good way to assess quickly, and on the fly, how much card advantage you've garnered over your opponent, at any given time, is to count the total number of cards in your hand, plus your items, plus your creatures, plus your resources, plus your graveyard. Do the same for your opponent. If your total is higher than his, that's how great your card advantage is. Do NOT count cards in deck yet undrawn, as these are not accessible and, therefore, not relevant to card advantage.

    My Banebow deck has been worked and re-worked and worked again to get as lean and dominant as I can make it. What took it to the next level was a change in mindset about the cards in it and how to use them.

    It's a very resource efficient deck, with cards costing the following resources:

    Cost
    1 x4
    2 x15
    3 x16
    4 x3
    5 x1

    As you can see, it does not need many resources on the table to do much of what it does. Here's the thing, this deck is set up to be functional with only 3 resources on the board. @ 5 it becomes fully functional. So, you don't have to sacrifice all the time if you have some key cards in hand. I commonly see people sacrificing cards to their resource pile when it already has 6-9 resources already on it - because they have to! Their decks don't function in the meta (late-game) unless they have 6-10 resources in play. This Banebow deck can go meta with 5 resources on the table. Less, in some instances. Every card you sacrifice is a card you won't be playing against your opponent. A deck that allows you to keep your cards instead of necessarily sacrificing them has an intrinsic advantage over high-resource cost decks.


    Okay, seems like the optimal build I'm going to get to with the current cardset:

    Banebow
    4x Infernal Gargoyle
    4x Brutalis
    4x Fire Snake
    1x Plasma Behemoth
    3x Chimera
    2x Poison Arrow
    2x Flaming Arrow
    4x Death Trap
    3x Net Trap
    2x Surprise Attack
    2x Bloodlust
    3x Extra Sharp
    2x Bazaar
    3x Bad Santa


    I've been trying this deck for a couple weeks now, and now I think I've figured out the key to its success (currently @ 370 and climbing using this deck about 90% of my matches recently)

    Cardflow. This deck dominates at drawing (and thereafter USING) more cards than its opponents, even ones who have Research.

    A turn two Bad Santa after a turn 1 Snake drop is key especially if I got to go first. I gain three cards, opp gets one card. If I went first, I still get my draw next turn, whereas he doesn't. Worst case, we both lose draw. I spend a card (Bad Santa) and my second turn resources to go from (now) 3 cards up to 6 cards in hand, plus my next draw; whereas, my opponent is going to go from 6 cards in hand to 7, and as a result of it lose his next draw. That means he gets a net gain of 0 cards and you get a net gain of 4 cards drawn over your opponent. Essentially, you draw 4, he draws none. That's huge.

    I get the above draw setup about 1 in 3 games. 50% of those are with me going first.

    Bazaar: Normally to me only good in decks trying to deck opponent, because it gives him as much draw as you, and typically he's going to draw before you, granting him a card advantage of 1. However, with early Santa, a turn 3 Bazaar grants you card advantage. There's a decent chance when you cast it that your opp will still have 6 cards in hand, thus only granting him the draw of 1 on his turn. Meanwhile, when the draw comes back to you, you will be drawing two, thus always being 1 card ahead of him in card advantage.

    Now, because this deck is so resource efficient, I am almost always confident that I'll be able to do more with my cardflow than my opponent, even if I was using Bad Santa when we'd both gain the max cards out of it. My cards are so cheap to play, those extra draws will benefit me in a very immediate and direct way. Most opponents... not so much.

    Surprise Attack didn't look that great to me at first, but even if he only gets two early allies out that I haven't trapped or otherwise dealt with, it's a quick 2:1 card advantage.

    This deck, built as designed above, and constantly with the #1 priority set to drawing more cards, will win again and again even over a dominant Eladwen and Zaladar decks. Trust me, I know, I've been playing against about 70% Eladwen since I capped 360.


    Takeaway from this, class? Simply put, draw more cards than your opponent, and you'll win matches. With the possible exception of timing, no element of a strategy card game is more important than card advantage. Always remember that.

  2. #2
    Senior Member yeater42's Avatar
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    Thanks this was very a useful table.

  3. #3
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    Nice one, I have consider building a banebow deck. Will certainly take yours as reference

  4. #4
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    Well done BlanketEffect. IŽll give a try.

  5. #5
    Senior Member Narziss's Avatar
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    Really interesting post. Regarding your last comment, I agree that card advantage is really important, although it sometimes falters against tempo.

    I posted about card advantage and tempo a while back, which might interest you: http://www.shadowera.com/showthread....itive-PVP-Deck

    Your deck sounds very interesting. Sounds like a really fun deck. Bad Santa is a subpar card that can shine as an amazing card in the right deck like this. Would like to see how you improve your deck after the update.

  6. #6
    Senior Member Calmdown's Avatar
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    Good article for noobs for the most part, but metagame does not in any way mean late game as you suggest. Meta game refers to 'the game outside the game' and has a lot of connotations in a ccg, but late game isn't one of them.
    Calmdown * Shadow Era Designer * Logan Stonebreaker & Brutal Minotaur Fan Club

  7. #7
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    I like Banebow... my approach has changed a lot. I like the theory there BlanketEffect, but it looks like it would play a little wonky to me. I am no pro though

    With a complete set it'd be nice to think that Hunters tend to lean to the control side of things with their arrow effects and traps, but at this point we need a lot more of them to be viable that way.

  8. #8
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    Quote Originally Posted by Calmdown View Post
    Good article for noobs for the most part, but metagame does not in any way mean late game as you suggest. Meta game refers to 'the game outside the game' and has a lot of connotations in a ccg, but late game isn't one of them.
    Yes I read that in wiki as well. But more precisely, in ccg it means the decks that will be encountered. For example here the meta by default contains Zaladar and Eladwen and darkclaw mostly with some other decks that pop up.

    As for hunters and traps we need more traps and they need to cost the same. Not the way it is now everyone knows what traps I play by the resource count.
    Last edited by Sorter; 03-24-2011 at 12:32 PM.
    Guild: Marksmen
    "We are Hunters, and you are our prey.. Fear not the allies you can see. Fear only the arrow that will pierce through your hero.."

    Check out my Videos post. I will be updating it once in a while. Bump it if you watched ^^.

  9. #9
    Senior Member Thuull's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Sorter View Post
    As for hunters and traps we need more traps and they need to cost the same. Not the way it is now everyone knows what traps I play by the resource count.
    /strongly agree.

    Yes, there is an obvious difference in power level between Net Trap and Death Trap...but the difference in cost between them destroys the entire concept of "face down card", which is an extremely cool idea ruined by implementation. There was a post the other day about more face down cards...yes, please.

    But more importantly, we need the facedown cards to be the same cost.

    Kyle, when the full set 1 is out, please strongly consider the power level of hunters in the run-up to 1.25, and adjust casting cost on one of the two traps (and set any new ones to whatever the casting cost of the others are). If hunters are very powerful in 1.24, which they could be, set Net Trap's cost up one. If they are underperforming, set Death Trap's cost down one.

    Cool mechanic, let us use it.

  10. #10
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    Lol I'd stop using net trap at 3. Make all cost 2 or improve net trap.
    Guild: Marksmen
    "We are Hunters, and you are our prey.. Fear not the allies you can see. Fear only the arrow that will pierce through your hero.."

    Check out my Videos post. I will be updating it once in a while. Bump it if you watched ^^.

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