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  1. #1
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    In-game strategy as opposed to Deck strategy?

    So I've been at the game for a few weeks and I've found myself wondering about strategy and how I should/could be playing the game. Obviously a lot of the game's strategy comes in the deck building, but what about the in-game strategy?

    I may be totally wrong, but I get the feeling there's a little more to the game than just having a well built deck. I mean, if the best ranked player in the game gave me their deck, I don't know that I'd be ranked much better than I am now.

    Obviously the strategy you use is partly, or even mostly, decided on the kind of deck you decide to play with, but I found myself losing a lot of my first few matches because I made poor choices setting up, discarded a card early only to have it be imperative to my winning a match (say an early Smashing Blow against an ally who uses weapons late-game), not casting my abilities or allies in an optimal way, or in more cases than I'd care to admit, I'd not understand how a particular card worked and I'd pay for it.

    Could anyone share how they approach a game from the first hand on? Are you trying to use the most CC available? Or are you holding your cards in order to improve your mid-to-late game? Do you try and size up your opponent or are you going head first and attacking?

  2. #2
    Senior Member Leviosablade's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Sulaco View Post
    So I've been at the game for a few weeks and I've found myself wondering about strategy and how I should/could be playing the game. Obviously a lot of the game's strategy comes in the deck building, but what about the in-game strategy?

    I may be totally wrong, but I get the feeling there's a little more to the game than just having a well built deck. I mean, if the best ranked player in the game gave me their deck, I don't know that I'd be ranked much better than I am now.

    Obviously the strategy you use is partly, or even mostly, decided on the kind of deck you decide to play with, but I found myself losing a lot of my first few matches because I made poor choices setting up, discarded a card early only to have it be imperative to my winning a match (say an early Smashing Blow against an ally who uses weapons late-game), not casting my abilities or allies in an optimal way, or in more cases than I'd care to admit, I'd not understand how a particular card worked and I'd pay for it.

    Could anyone share how they approach a game from the first hand on? Are you trying to use the most CC available? Or are you holding your cards in order to improve your mid-to-late game? Do you try and size up your opponent or are you going head first and attacking?
    There's a lot to the game such as for example on turn 3 do I cast a fireball on the enemy hero? Or play an ally then when he plays an ally use fireball on it so my ally lives to deal more damage?
    Then yes there is a ton of strategy going straight for the throat usually don't work,

    But good playing consists of:
    *Pre planning.
    *knowing how many copies of certain cards.
    *saccing the right cards
    *not being wasteful of abillities ie kill two birds with one stone not 1 bird with 8 stones
    *knowing your opponents card pool
    *not over saccing for resources or sac when not needed
    *and knowing your deck

    It takes time to master these to which is considered basic concepts of play.
    But there is a ton of in depth strategy that is limited to your imagination.
    I hope this helps.
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    Heres a link that might help they have some useful decks with strategy made by some professional players:

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  3. #3
    Member Nanock's Avatar
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    To try and boil down my answer, I would say that your in-game tactics will derive from a number of considerations...

    What does your deck (via design) try to accomplish?
    Do you have the cards you need to accomplish this in your hand?
    What is your opponent 'likely' to attempt to do? Thus, what is their most reasonable goal based on hero and cards played?
    How best can you disrupt that goal to allow your own goal to succeed?

    We could discuss how the meta-game portion comes into play, but for now I think you are looking for in-game pointers for how to approach your game decisions. I would suggest the following:

    * If you are playing a deck with allies, the main goal is almost always to establish board presence by playing allies who will not immediately be killed by what you opponent has access to on his turn. If they do kill your ally, but it costs him something he can't immediately replace (like Shadow Energy, the last point of durability on a weapon, or an ability played from the hand) this is often worthwhile. If he only needs to use the allies at his disposal for a free kill, it's often better to sacrifice or hold the card till later.

    * Establishing a means to draw more cards is the next most critical part of your tactical concern. Playing a 'draw engine' like Tome of Knowledge or Blood Frenzy means you have the ability to sacrifice more cards in future rounds without running out of cards to play in your hand. Likewise, destroying the draw engine of your opponent will give you a strong advantage as long as you can keep them from gaining complete control of the game in all other ways. Also keep in mind that there are many abilities that play from the hand that give cards, and many of them cannot be stopped.

    * If your draw engine requires resources (like the above Tome of Knowledge, or Antimatter), I would delay playing the card till later turns. Ideally you spend your early turns establishing allies on the board, and later play the draw engine when you can immediately use it (turn 4, with 4 resources, play ToK for 2CC, then use the final 2CC to draw a card).

    * Your initial hand will have an array of cards and different costs for them. Some cards are critical for the goal of your deck, and sometimes those are expensive cards. Duplicates of expensive cards are often a burden early. These and non-critical expensive cards can often be sacrificed early so that you can do more to establish yourself in the early game. Do not sacrifice cards that are critical to your goal unless you absolutely must.

    * Expect to sacrifice a card every turn for the first 3 turns. Start planning on the cards you will play on turn 1, 2 and 3 (and potentially turn 4) once you have your starting hand, and what cards you will sacrifice. Some will likely disagree, but I rarely play my hand with the expectation that I'll get any specific card via draw during my first few turns. There are exceptions to sacrificing cards this way, but usually nobody skips their sacrifice turn until turn 5 or later. A complete lack of card draw would be a good reason to save some of your cards.

    * Unless your deck goal is to kill your opponent as quickly as possible, and it was designed for that purpose, it is rarely a good idea to fire direct damage cards (like Fireball) directly at the hero. If your opponent is very low in HP, feel free to toss a Fireball in his face and take him out.

    Kill enemy allies who have not been neutralized when you can do so without trading poorly. Look at the ability of the hero you are facing, and determine if it requires a weapon to be used. If so, keep/save cards that allow you to destroy such weapons. When you are near the end of the game always keep an eye out for ways your opponent might kill you. Do whatever crazy thing you can to survive one more turn if need be. Sometimes the next card you get is exactly the card you need.
    Last edited by Nanock; 10-22-2014 at 09:32 PM.

  4. #4
    Senior Member akratch's Avatar
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    A lot of it is just knowing the meta and reacting to what might happen before it does.

  5. #5
    Moderator danae's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by akratch View Post
    A lot of it is just knowing the meta and reacting to what might happen before it does.
    I agree with this. The best way to learn in-game strategy is to play a lot of games. Try using one deck and tweak it as you learn more about the type of decks you encounter. The more you play, the more you can understand the optimal plays that certain decks/heroes might have and have a ready counter for it on your turn. If the meta is heavy in item usage, then you'll know better to keep that item destruction card. If attachments are prevalent, you might want to include attachment removal. And the meta changes the higher in rating you go so you need to adapt your deck accordingly. I used to have less consistency in my game at the lower ratings because I would be meeting a diverse meta using all types of heroes and decks and it's somewhat difficult to tailor your deck to all types of matchups.

  6. #6
    Senior Member bobrossw's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by danae View Post
    I used to have less consistency in my game at the lower ratings because I would be meeting a diverse meta using all types of heroes and decks and it's somewhat difficult to tailor your deck to all types of matchups.
    I've been struggling with this a bit lately myself. I'll do fine vs a 300+ player and then lose to someone ranked 170 and drop down a few points.

    To the OP, welcome to your next plateau in understanding this game! There are many important things to learn that people have mentioned:
    building a consistent deck,
    knowing your deck,
    knowing your own playstyle -and adapting your deck to your playstyle (or your playstyle to your deck),
    knowing the metagame (what other decks are out there) - how they win, what are their weaknesses and what can your deck do to beat them...
    tweaking your playstyle or deck to accommodate the metagame.

    It's really a lot of different skills and can take a while to master - and even then it's an ongoing process.

    As Leviosablade mentioned, shadowera.net has some great stuff in the beginners and strategy sections to get you started in your thinking (shameless plug). Also the strategy sections on these forums are great.
    The stickied articles especially have a lot of great info for new players.
    It can be very useful to watch other people's games, which you can do from the quickmatch screen. You can also search for specific players. I recommend looking at a few high ranked players and finding someone who plays your hero, then watching how they play in different types of matches...which cards are good, and which ones they avoid. If you find a deck you like in the strategy section, check to see if the author posted their IGN (in-game name) then try to watch their matches. It's a great way to learn.
    Lastly, you may want to look into joining a guild (in the guild section of the forums). The people in the guild may help you hone your playing skills a lot.
    IGN: ETC BobRoss
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  7. #7
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    One thing for sure, you can't have a deck that counters every deck, and there's always some decks that counter your deck. And even if you have a deck that has an answer for everything, you still need draw power and draw luck to get the exact answer the moment you need it.

    The pilot is important, but luck is just as important, if not more. You can't control how your deck is being shuffled and for god knows why all your early game cards could be at the bottom of your deck at the beginning. So if you ask me, in order of importance, I think DECK comes first, and then your LUCK, and finally the PILOT. That's why the same deck can be powerful and still suck, because you need a good player and LOTS of luck. Some players don't want to acknowledge the luck factor because they want to feel superior in terms of skills, but as I said you can be a very skilled player but you can't beat the game engine if your early game cards are all shuffled to the bottom of your deck. You can have a lot of early game cards to counter this, but then your late game will suffer. You can have something like Glass Chalice of Knowing, but it comes at the cost of tempo and card slots, and limited to Priests.

    The best way to counter everything imho, is to just suck up losses and know that they are part of the game, and to be the best player, well, you need the perfect/near-perfect deck, practice a whole lot and TONS of luck.

  8. #8
    Senior Member bobrossw's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Secruoser View Post
    One thing for sure, you can't have a deck that counters every deck, and there's always some decks that counter your deck. And even if you have a deck that has an answer for everything, you still need draw power and draw luck to get the exact answer the moment you need it.

    The pilot is important, but luck is just as important, if not more. You can't control how your deck is being shuffled and for god knows why all your early game cards could be at the bottom of your deck at the beginning. So if you ask me, in order of importance, I think DECK comes first, and then your LUCK, and finally the PILOT. That's why the same deck can be powerful and still suck, because you need a good player and LOTS of luck. Some players don't want to acknowledge the luck factor because they want to feel superior in terms of skills, but as I said you can be a very skilled player but you can't beat the game engine if your early game cards are all shuffled to the bottom of your deck. You can have a lot of early game cards to counter this, but then your late game will suffer. You can have something like Glass Chalice of Knowing, but it comes at the cost of tempo and card slots, and limited to Priests.

    The best way to counter everything imho, is to just suck up losses and know that they are part of the game, and to be the best player, well, you need the perfect/near-perfect deck, practice a whole lot and TONS of luck.
    I agree with you that luck matters - but what good is that? It's not something you can control! So it may be helpful to make yourself feel better when you lose to blame the luck, but it's not always clear how much is due to luck and how much is skill/deck. It also spoils the fun of victory if it was only by luck that you won. I think it's usually more helpful to blame the deck and the pilot (even if you're wrong), since at least then you can change and learn a bit.

    I also think that the deck can affect how much luck and pilot matter. I tried playing Edganel's top ranked elementalis deck for a bit, but found myself unable to win consistently with it. I like to consider myself a fairly skilled player, but the deck just didn't fit my style, and I didn't understand it well enough to play it how it needed to be played. I really don't think that I was losing with it because I'm just less lucky than Edganel. There are decks that lessen the importance of luck, but punish player error a lot more. Other decks just need the right cards in the opening hand and to go first and they have a pretty good chance of winning (e.g., certain mage rush decks or discard Zaladar). When the luck doesn't come together there may be nothing that the player can do, but when it does come together even a novice player can win. Skill matters less, however a skilled player using one of those decks will probably be able to do more, even with some degree of bad luck.

    So I guess what I'm trying to say is, yes luck matters - but I'm not going to change my luck, so I'll focus on the things I can change.
    IGN: ETC BobRoss
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  9. #9
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    How important is using a deck based on your style? I used a rush deck for a while with success until 250 then couldn't win to save my life. My deck went straight to hero. Suiccide style but when i got higher was failing. Since the. I suck and have been trying different approaches to no avail.

  10. #10
    Senior Member Daemon Rayge's Avatar
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    You are going all in too early. A Rush Deck is like an automatic rifle, but you only have 1 round of ammo. If you blow all your firepower too fast, you are helpless. Use it too slowly, you don't throw enough damage.

    Try to be a tad more conservative with your plays and try to go all in, but not too all in. Enough so you have a strong backup play.

    Also, Control Decks piloted by decent players can easily Conquer rush Decks as they, as aforementioned, have limited firepower available.
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