Originally posted by Pyrogene at Project Omega.

Recently, I've been watching some games and to my surprise there were a substantial number of rather obvious misplays even among experienced players. I would thus just like to highlight some of the common mistakes. By avoiding these mistakes, you can increase your chances of winning with minimal effort.



Forgetting to Draw

Imagine this. You have 6 resources with only a Tome of Knowledge on the board. Your opponent has a Priest of the Light and a Puwen. You hold a single Fireball. What is the right way to play?

Evidently, it is to use the Tome first, hope for a Lightning Strike and if you don't have it, then play the Fireball.

It seems obvious here, but when there are more things cluttering the board, many people forget the fundamentals. Always use the draw engines first (Wizent's Staff/Tome/Wulven Tracker/Majiya's ability/Dimension Ripper/Night Prowler/Bad Santa/Wrath of the Forest/Ill-Gotten Gains) if the card you could play anyway would not have changed your ability to play your draw engine. Yes, some of these are not traditional draw engines but you can think through to see how to make moves such that you get extra cards in your hand for more options before making the play.

For example, you have 5 resources and a Gargoyle in hand with Zaladar with a Dimension Ripper on the board against an empty field. Rather than playing the Gargoyle straight-away, you should attack with Dimension Ripper first and potentially draw a more worthwhile play like a Molten Destroyer.

As a counter example, if you have a Wulven Tracker on the field with a Fireball in hand against a Raven, you should still use the Fireball 1st and then attack with Tracker so it will not be disabled.

Additional note (credits to DnDFreak): when you have multiple draw engines available, the situation is more complicated. While it is still the case that your draw engine should be used first, deciding which draw engine to be played first would require careful thought. This would depend on the amount of cards drawn, board state, deck composition, hp and a whole lot of other factors.


Maximising Damage

Once again, a simple example: You have a Puwen against Fire Snake and Pack Wolf with a Lightning Strike in hand. Lightning Strike would be able to take out both Fire Snake and Pack Wolf giving you card advantage. Sounds great? But using Lightning on Pack Wolf and the hero and Puwen to attack Snake instead would have netted you one extra damage on the hero. In a close match, this could be the difference between a win and a loss.


Minimising Damage

Following straight from the previous one, with allies on the field it is important to determine the order of attack/spells to minimise damage on your own hero and allies. Spells and allies/heroes with Ambush should usually be used first. The next part is a little more arguable. If you have an ally with damage reduction like Sandworm, it is usually to your advantage to let them tank the counter-attack. In general against most match-ups, it is also better to let the hero absorb the damage early since board control is crucial. Needless to say, if you have a Flayer and Molten Destroyer against a Brutal Minotaur, it would be better to suicide the Flayer and then use the Molten Destroyer to kill in most circumstances.


Unnecessary Sacrifices

In the first 5 turns, it is likely that you would want to sacrifice every turn (unless your deck is built to take advantage of low resources or your opening hand is filled with low cost cards). After which, it comes to a point where you may be able to play anything you want that turn without having to sacrifice.

Your turn planning should start at the sacrifice step. Say you are against a shadow hero with an Evil Ascendant on your field with Gargoyle, Fireball and another Evil Ascendant in your hand with 6 resources. While the extra Ascendant is not very useful, there is no need to sac it this turn as you can still play all the cards you could. The Ascendant on the field could get destroyed and therefore as long as the card you are saccing is not a completely dead draw, there is often no need to sacrifice it.

Having said that, if your deck is capable of drawing multiple cards per turn or has a specific combo you intend to work towards that requires a certain resource level (e.g. Tidal Wave + Jasmine, Brutalis + Energy Discharge), you may still wish to continue sacrificing every turn.

For more on the complex topic on sacrificing, have a look here.


Game Ends when Life hits Zero

Credits to Demnchi for inspiring this.

The game is over once anyone's life total hits zero. Rampage/Soul Seeker etc will not revive the player. The board does not matter at all at that point. Therefore as long as you can bring your opponent's life total to zero in that turn, that should be your play. Also remember DoTs on your opponent (Including unconventional ones like Blood Frenzy, Brutal Minotaur dying from a DoT, Him with Evil Ascendant against your Molten Destroyer).

On the flip side, if your opponent has the ability to kill you next turn with what he has on board, then you have to do everything you can to deny him that even if you have to make an inefficient move like Fireball on a Fire Snake. While you may still lose, at the least it still gives you a possibility of turning it around.