(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.
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