Just a few notes before I start. I only briefly describe how the various advantages below are achieved because there are already articles written on how to do that. I will be focusing on what you should be thinking about when you see that either you or your opponent have achieved or is trying to achieve one of these advantages.
So for more on card advantage see this article by Mojumbo
For more on card and field advantage see this article by Raphael
Finally I give a brief definition of tempo for more on how it works I would recommend (the second half of) this
article by Wreon
Now for my actual article hope you enjoy it.
Knowing your advantages and how to use them,
There are 3 main advantages you will often see mentioned in Shadow Era.
These are:
Field control
Card and Resource Advantage
Hit Point Advantage.
Field Control.
This is when your allies have a grip on the field which when combined with the first strike mechanic means that most things your opponent plays can be killed instantly with no loss on your end. This makes you the dominate player and your opponent is forced to play in a reactionary manner. This advantage is listed first because it is the most basic and usually the most important. Until the game has already been decided field control is important! (Note solo heroes make this a bit more complex I am not dealing with them in this article)
So what do you do if you have field control?
Ideally you want to play really aggressively to make sure you never lose this advantage until you win the game this means that other advantages become secondary be willing to forego additional draw and damage dealing to seal the game also absorb damage with your hero to keep your allies alive if you can. Unfortunately for the dominate player the ideal situation cannot occur most of the time because of the many ways to get the field back. Therefore you must know your opponent to figure out how they will try to get the field back and whether or not you can stop them.
Depending on their class they can use board wipes (Priests Mages and Elementals with either high resources or any sort of ally on the field) try swarming the board themselves with more than you can handle (any class really but they either need a real high card and resource count or a way of helping their allies survive Moonstalker is a good example here) or use weapons and other cards that immediately effect the field (Warriors, Wulven, Rogues and Mages are good examples of this.). If they are forced to resort to options 2 or 3 the dominate player might be in luck as committing all resources to hold the field has a chance of putting the opponent in a hopeless position and if you have the ability to do so, go for it and it is game over right there (even if the actual game drags on a half dozen turns past this point). However if they can resort to option 1, or as often happens you are not in a strong enough position to prevent options 2 or 3 you want to convert your field advantage into some combination of the other 2 main advantages. To do this use the time it takes them to react to your field presence to set up your draw engine. If you know opponent is about to wipe the board feel free to ignore some of the weaker allies and put some damage on the hero (most common set up is against a priest that has only a TO out and you have a strong enough board that it cannot combine with other common tricks (like retreat Jasmine combo) to retake the board outright.
What should you do when your opponent has field control?
You do not want the game to get to the point of hopeless! However do not simply throw allies on the field to absorb hits because you are scared of leaving the field unopposed. You need to stay calm you and think of how you plan to take the field back and work towards this goal. That could mean letting yourself take a beating until you have enough cards and resources to effectively oppose the field particularly if you combine these efforts with your SE ability. It could mean trying to hold out for your board wipe or it could be using instantaneous effects like Retreat direct damage or weapons to challenge the board in a way that first strike does not hurt you but make sure you have a plan. Throwing away cards to stall their damage will put you into a helpless position very quickly unless you are stalling for your board wipe or something along those lines. Bottom line come up with a plan and do not do anything that will make yourself worse off.
Card and Resource advantage
Although there are differences between card and resource advantages there is a lot of over lap and for much of the game they are practically the same thing. The idea here is that with more cards and resources you can do more things than your opponent can and do them faster than your opponent can. However accomplishing this means you are playing for the long term. Its takes a lot of tempo (turns/resources which could be used to play threats in order to gain or keep the initiative especially important in Shadow Era do to first strike. Essentially if one player is active forcing the other player to be reactive the active player has a tempo advantage over the reactive player first turn advantage is simply a tempo advantage. ) to ensure late game card and resource advantage this means if you are not careful your early game will suffer. Also having more cards than your opponent is not a win condition it is only once you use these cards to get other advantages that you will ultimately win the game.
How do you set up and use card advantage?
There are a two main ways to set up late game card advantage. The first way more typical of priests is to stall to set up your draw engine and mainly use cards meant to be card efficient (one card will trade for more than one of your opponent’s or do the work of multiple cards Lightning Strike is often used as an example of this) as opposed to cards that are tempo efficient (cards that give your opponent card advantage in exchange for a cheap cost allowing you to more effectively use your turn, things like SoV, Retreat and potentially Bad Santa). As mentioned above this method could cause your early game to suffer making you vulnerable to rush however you will have a very strong late game if you do not lose before that. On the opposite extreme you can try achieving late game card advantage by having a strong enough early game you can get your draw engine up and running while your opponent is still dealing with your early game advantage (This can be seen with Banebow using his ability and early allies to get control then setting up WotF to draw lots of cards while his opponent is using many cards to counter his early game another example of this is using HBM once you have the field so that by the time they can start to get it back they needed to use a lot of extra cards while you effectively saved a card every turn). Obviously no matter which method you use it helps to make sure that you have a draw engine in play and that they do not.
Once you obtained card advantage you should have a plan on how to take the field back (see above section). Once you’ve obtained the dominate position at this point your opponent will likely be in trouble as he cannot keep up with your extra cards and resources especially once he is put into the reactionary position.
So what do you do when your opponent is trying to obtain late game card advantage?
Their earlier game often suffers do to the tempo loss of setting up for late game try to cripple them before their card advantage kicks in. Make sure you know what they can do if they have board wipes do not overextend, but if they do not having any way of clearing the field throw as much stuff onto the board as you can make them lose before they start playing. Try to keep their draw engine off the table and get your own set up if they do not out draw you their late game advantage will be hard to come by. Using resource destruction to delay their late game can also help quite a lot if applicable.
* continued below
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