SE strategy--Who's The Beatdown?

**StrayDogStrut** · 08-12-2011, 12:32 PM

Originally Posted by He-Man

Ok, get it now--the examples were not about card advantage.

The examples are about card advantage though. Card advantage isn't just I drew an extra card this turn, or I Nova your 3 guys.

The Puwen

example is about about portal taking you from -1 disadvantage to neutral advantage. If I make that Portal

+ Medusa + Medusa, you could swing from -2 disadvantage to +1 advantage (1 card lost to kill 2).

I think that SE in many ways resembles MtG, a large part of which may btw be due to the somewhat similar card art and atmosphere, and that is why the comparison is so often made.

SE appears to resemble Warcraft TCG, presumably just not quite enough for anyone to litigate

I wonder if the WOW guys ever wrote any good strategy articles for us.

**Seth** · 08-12-2011, 02:04 PM

Originally Posted by StrayDogStrut

I also said we can contort the definition to try to make a fit; that was my attempt to.

I definitely agree that the idea has to be "contorted" a bit to fit SE correctly, but I guess what I'm trying to say is that the underlying concepts are still just as applicable. SE is much closer to the WoW TCG than it is to Magic, but the very basic game concepts of tons of games (SE, WoW TCG, Yu-Gi-Oh!, Pokemon, BattleTech, etc etc) are all related enough to Magic that very basic strategic considerations in all of them are pretty interchangable. Sort of like how nobody comes to Shadow Era going "listen, card advantage is something people talk about in Magic, but Shadow Era is a lot different!"

Originally Posted by StrayDogStrut

I was saying that in SE, you always want to be the "beatdown"; you play "control" when forced.

That's kind of true in any game though, if you frame it like that. In MTG, if I'm playing UB Control vs G Beats, I will probably throw out a 2-3cc creature on turn 5 or 6 because it has some ability I'm planning to make use of or something. If my opponent has no blockers (or my guy is a 2/2 and he only has a 1/1, etc) and doesn't remove it, I'm not going to sit back and say "I shouldn't attack, I'm the control...gotta wait for my win condition." I'll definitely attack. And if the G Beats player can't put a good blocker down or if I am able to undo all his plays, I'll probably convert to counter sliver and whittle him to death until he stops me or I win. I'm not ever going to turn down free damage for no reason.

The point of the Flores article was to recognize, not in deck-building, but during the course of the actual game, that you may need to adjust your idea of your role in the match, which is exactly what you're talking about.

Originally Posted by StrayDogStrut

What we're describing as control isn't really what Flores understood as control anyway.

I actually kinda think that it is. If you look at the example of my Majiya

vs Eladwen

match I posted, my opponent should have been using Fireballs on me instead of my allies. He misplayed by not being "the beatdown." That's basically the exact (inverse) example that Flores opened with in his article. Flores talks about an aggro vs aggro match in which one player has more potential removal, and therefore misplayed by not being "the control."

Basically, at the end of the day, I'm just trying to say that the underlying principle of "Who's the Beatdown?" is extremely applicable to SE, even though how it exactly takes shape in SE might not look quite the same as it does in MTG.