I'm learning... I think.

SilverBride

I was winning almost every game against novice NPCs but knew if I wanted to get better I had to play real people. So far I've played 4 ranked games.

The first I lost by 2 points.
The second I lost by 3 points.
The third I won by about 15 points.
The fourth I lost by about 10 points.
The fifth I lost by 5 points.

I guess I'm learning but still feel like I'm missing something.

Rouz

It's all about just knowing how each card can interact with one another and which ones are the "meta" cards that decide entire games. Then you stack those cards and you win. That's essentially what it comes down to. You gotta hoard as many of those as you can and deny the opponent as many as you can.

Wait till you fight people with Orgnum patron. What a disaster of balance for the patron ability. Absolutely the most unfun thing I've seen lol. The strat with him is to make sure you've got the OP cards and there are none on the board. Even if its the 2nd round, as long as you have that slight advantage. Then you spam the ever loving hell out of orgnums patron ability. Unless the opponenet gets real lucky, its a win. The opponenet is forced to constantly use the same patron (orgnum) too because if they let you use it more than once, it crease a HUGE advantage that keeps stacking. Imagine getting a guaranteed archers volley every round lol. That is essentially what it turns into.

But yeah that's how it works. Learn what the OP/meta crap is. Spam that. Stop the enemy from spamming it. Sometimes you can, sometimes you can't. That's the RNG.

SilverBride

Yea I've noticed that we will be neck to neck, or me a bit ahead, and they come at me the last round and POW! BOOM! I lose. That must be what they are doing.

Youmee

SilverBride wrote: »

Yea I've noticed that we will be neck to neck, or me a bit ahead, and they come at me the last round or 2 and POW! BOOM! I lose. That must be what they are doing.

There should not be many Orgnum decks around, I only saw them at the NPC and yeah it will be a disaster(

Heartrage

How do you use your patrons?

Rouz

Heartrage wrote: »

How do you use your patrons?

Are you asking from a technical standpoint or from a strategy standpoint? To use a patron ability you just click the little dials to the right. Each patron ability has a different purpose

Commandment

TBH being able to reach top10 multiple times, it's mainly luck. Only skill is buying the better card first.

Rouz

yeah pretty much. Balance can still help. But so many matches one person gets one of the "good" cards then just refuses to break/pull the tavern. And the opponent has to break the tavern and potentially risk giving the other player yet another good card. I think the system promotes inaction way to well. Once you get an advantage you just turtle your way to the top. They really need to either heavily reduce the amount of treasure cards going into the tavern or they need to do some kind of refresh of the tavern every turn/round if somebody doesn't pull. Even just one card I think will really help players actually build (or have a higher chance to) build counters to someones advantage. Instead of the game just being one sided.

SilverBride

Strategy is what I would like to learn.

ZOS_Kevin

Glad to hear you're improving, @SilverBride. You'll get the hang of it in no time!

kmfdm

Rouz wrote: »

It's all about just knowing how each card can interact with one another and which ones are the "meta" cards that decide entire games. Then you stack those cards and you win. That's essentially what it comes down to. You gotta hoard as many of those as you can and deny the opponent as many as you can.

Wait till you fight people with Orgnum patron. What a disaster of balance for the patron ability. Absolutely the most unfun thing I've seen lol. The strat with him is to make sure you've got the OP cards and there are none on the board. Even if its the 2nd round, as long as you have that slight advantage. Then you spam the ever loving hell out of orgnums patron ability. Unless the opponenet gets real lucky, its a win. The opponenet is forced to constantly use the same patron (orgnum) too because if they let you use it more than once, it crease a HUGE advantage that keeps stacking. Imagine getting a guaranteed archers volley every round lol. That is essentially what it turns into.

But yeah that's how it works. Learn what the OP/meta crap is. Spam that. Stop the enemy from spamming it. Sometimes you can, sometimes you can't. That's the RNG.

Yeh, Orgnum probably needs some tweaking, it really seems somewhat broken atm.

Sly80

kmfdm wrote: »

Rouz wrote: »

It's all about just knowing how each card can interact with one another and which ones are the "meta" cards that decide entire games. Then you stack those cards and you win. That's essentially what it comes down to. You gotta hoard as many of those as you can and deny the opponent as many as you can.

Wait till you fight people with Orgnum patron. What a disaster of balance for the patron ability. Absolutely the most unfun thing I've seen lol. The strat with him is to make sure you've got the OP cards and there are none on the board. Even if its the 2nd round, as long as you have that slight advantage. Then you spam the ever loving hell out of orgnums patron ability. Unless the opponenet gets real lucky, its a win. The opponenet is forced to constantly use the same patron (orgnum) too because if they let you use it more than once, it crease a HUGE advantage that keeps stacking. Imagine getting a guaranteed archers volley every round lol. That is essentially what it turns into.

But yeah that's how it works. Learn what the OP/meta crap is. Spam that. Stop the enemy from spamming it. Sometimes you can, sometimes you can't. That's the RNG.

Yeh, Orgnum probably needs some tweaking, it really seems somewhat broken atm.

Orgnum is the natural balance to all the other decks. With all the other decks, you need to retain just a few strong cards, and get rid of the dross. With Orgnum, dross is your friend

SilverBride

Thanks @ZOS_Kevin

Rouz

SilverBride wrote: »

Strategy is what I would like to learn

Pelin - main focus of pelin are cards like rally, armory, and archers volley(siege). They're high impact cards that don't really require any combo points. They generate a lot of power and can easily turn the side of a battle. They can be combined with any deck for the most part. Reinforcements can also be a good early game card, but requires a combo to generate its power. It has the highest health taunt agents. However, they're very expensive. So they're not often taken (but I've seen them come in clutch in a power race endgame to deny "just" enough points for the other player to win).. There is an agent contract taunter for 6 coins. You can sacrifice this guy with hlaalu. So if you place it down and it has one health left, you can sacrifice it with hlaalu for 5 prestige. Based on coin cost, not current health. Their patron is sorta like an ansei thing. You move a agent from CD to the top of your deck. Allowing you to purchase an agent and then play it next round.

Ansei - Best cards are ones that generate a lot of power via combos and the ability to set up continuous combos by moving things from the combo pile to the top of the deck with the summoning card and others. So you can use a big combo that generates a ton of power. Then 2 turns later use it again if you use a card to move them to the top of your draw deck. Also keep in mind what you have in your draw deck. Potentially setting up combos beyond just the ones you move to the top. Like I said they've got some good power generators and the dual use cards allow them to have some use early game then switch to power generation for late game. But their major thing is ability to move things out of the cooldown deck for continuous combos/good hands. The patron ability can be used to help give you an edge early game with extra gold. Also good for patron wins because there's no neutral condition after one use.

Crows - Combos, draws, combos, and more draws. Honestly their entire deck is good because of its ability to combo. The ones that award gold+card draws are amazing early game (like too of silver). A decently sized crow combo (not even its final form) can easily generate 10 power and 10 gold in one turn. Combined with their patron ability, you can easily get 20 prestige points in one turn late early stage or early mid stage.

Hlaalu - More of a support deck. Lets you generate a lot of gold and give you free tavern draws with some of the cards. Their best card is probably the currency exchange, letting them get two patron turns if combo'd. I've won a few games by doing this. If oyu get luck you can get a lithe in the tavern pile too. So that's 3 patron dials in one turn. You can also sacrifice cards to give you power. Good to do when you're behind and you need to burn extra cards. Or all those hlaalu cards become useless if you've built out a deck (no longer need as much gold). So you sacrifice them to make room for the power generators.

Celarus - Decent gold generation. But major thing is deck/tavern manipulation. You can remove decks from the tavern pile and remove cards from your draw pile. Allowing you to bypass junk cards (Coins, bewilderment, etc). Similar vein to ansei's use, just a different pile. See a rally in tavern you know you wont get? Use celarus to remove it to deny it to the enemy. Best card is probably the dreaming cave. Patron is interesting/risky. It requires an enemy to place down an agent. Which means your opponent controls patron wins.

Rajhin - His deck revolves around card manipulation of the enemy (card discards), removing prestiege, removing enemy agents, and moderate gold generation. A bit of tavern removal too. This is probably the toughest to use because its a very late game deck to use effectively as most of the anti prestige cards or deck manipulators are expensive. With how fast the rest of the decks get to full power, most of the time you don't have time to act effectively. Best cards are probably Grand larceny/pounce and profit for early game. Twilight revelry can be really good IF you've got the deck for it. But its a slow roll deck that I don't builds up fast enough. Its patron ability spawns a "blank" card into your opponents pile. Causing them to potentially lose one draw spot. Great to break up raven combos, slow down power advancements, counter red eagle, etc. But I don't see this deck used often save for the early game gold generators. It's usually a "no other choice" type of situation. The patron ability is used a lot though and hilarious. Slows down games a lot though so I've had more than a few people rage quit.

Red Eagle - Every draw a hand that was full of crap? Full of those default cards you hate? This is what Red Eagle is for. You use it to discard junk cards you no longer need so you can keep spamming those power generators more often. Careful not to sacrifice too early else you wont have enough gold to buy the good cards. Midnight raid is also an amazing power generator. The patron ability is "meh". It just pays 2 power to draw a card. But its main thing is getting rid of junk cards so you can keep spamming the "op" cards and win.

Orgnum - This guy is like a snowball. He has a bunch of cards that are very cheap and add small bonuses like 1-2 power, a few gold, sometimes a combo for a bit more power. But its main unique thing is it has cards that add directly to the prestige pool. Allowing you to counter taunt agents. The patron ability is where things get OP though. It gives you power based on how many cards you get. And this ratio get better when its in your favor. I think you get 1 power for every 4 cards if you use his patron ability while its in your favor. Ontop of that it gives you a free card that adds 2 prestige when played. When people use this deck, they establish a very early game advantage of like 1-3 cards. Then they keep spamming the patron ability (it cost 3 gold so its cheap). The enemy is FORCED to use the patron ability because if they don't its pretty much a free armory every round + a new card. So that means the opponent is running at a -3 gold deficient every turn. Which stacks and makes it harder for them to catch up allowing you to get the lead even more. The only counter I've been able to identify is hlaalu (which also works in favor for orgnum at the same time). You have to utilize hlaalus large gold generation to not only turn the dial of orngum, but also buy cards yourself to try to catch up. Orgnum matches are probably the quickest matches I play. Usually lasting 6-9 minutes. Mainly because of the snowball roll that starts at like the 4th turn.

But yeah there's the basics. Now you just have to pray for good luck and not get trash tavern pulls.

SilverBride

Awesome information @Rouz! Thank you!

Your tips seem to be helping. After reading them over I logged in and won 2 ranked games!

Marcusorion1

Ty for the info, appreciated

Recently gained the Ansei deck and trying to sort out it's best uses ( having too many of them that don't generate power or gold did not work in my favour )

Any insight for us newer to the card game on deck selection ( vs NPC for practice or player ) once you have 5 decks - thinking along the lines of what goes well with the other(s) - acknowledging that tavern RNG is a factor when it comes to actually playing the cards.

For example , Ansei with some Pelin and Duke if available?

Or is it easier to have a " never pair " type strategy?

Or "if the opponent is collecting x, you should collect y"

Is this even possible to construct given the variations possible ? For novice players it can be a little crazy trying to swap strategies mid game if they are unsure what direction to go.

dmnqwk

Rouz wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

Strategy is what I would like to learn

Hlaalu - More of a support deck. Lets you generate a lot of gold and give you free tavern draws with some of the cards. Their best card is probably the currency exchange, letting them get two patron turns if combo'd. I've won a few games by doing this. If oyu get luck you can get a lithe in the tavern pile too. So that's 3 patron dials in one turn. You can also sacrifice cards to give you power. Good to do when you're behind and you need to burn extra cards. Or all those hlaalu cards become useless if you've built out a deck (no longer need as much gold). So you sacrifice them to make room for the power generators.

Celarus - Decent gold generation. But major thing is deck/tavern manipulation. You can remove decks from the tavern pile and remove cards from your draw pile. Allowing you to bypass junk cards (Coins, bewilderment, etc). Similar vein to ansei's use, just a different pile. See a rally in tavern you know you wont get? Use celarus to remove it to deny it to the enemy. Best card is probably the dreaming cave. Patron is interesting/risky. It requires an enemy to place down an agent. Which means your opponent controls patron wins.

But yeah there's the basics. Now you just have to pray for good luck and not get trash tavern pulls.

Just to expand on a couple of the Patrons here:

Hlaalu is a Patron power deck, with the idea being you buy expensive cards and sacrifice them after using them once (sometimes twice). A turn without sacrificing is a turn wasted for Hlaalu during the mid game (the mid game is the point in which you've bought as many writs of coin as you're likely to and can generate 6+ coin a turn).

Celarus - If you're not sure what to do with a card, TOSS it. The idea behind Celarus is that you go through your deck quickly, allowing the expensive cards you've purchased to come up more frequently.
Assuming you have 15 cards in your deck, The Armory (1 gold 5 power card, St. Pelin) comes up every 3rd turn. If you've got 2 Agents out (8 cards tossed a turn) then those 13 (remaining since 2 are in play) are used up EVERY TURN allowing The Armory to appear almost every turn (still rng if you dont have a dreaming cave to draw it).

SilverBride

Well I spoke too soon. After winning some matches I thought I'd play a few again today, but ended up with 6 losses in a row. Do they even try to match players of similar skill or do you just get what you get? Because never winning is really killing my desire to keep playing.

SFDB

A few general principles:
-Deck efficiency. Every card you buy into your deck now is thinning it out, make sure that those choices are ones that are worth it. It's why an ideal first turn is Ragpicker + buy a Coin Writ, you've tightened the deck while upping the card power average. With Hlaalu, you can risk buying more questionable cards to sell him later, but otherwise, only draft a card you wouldn't normally want if it's too dangerous to let your opponent have it

-Make the opponent play your game. The most direct way is with the patrons, if you ever get three clicks ahead, they now have to match you patron for patron or they will lose. Other ways are trying to control the tavern or the prestige progress, make them have to keep up with you.

-If you don't kill an agent, you better have a very good reason. Every agent is effectively a free +1 card you are letting your opponent have, to both gain extra resources or contribute to combos. The number of games I've won because my opponent tried racing for 40 prestige instead of killing my agents is shocking.

-The Duke of Crows should be activated in only three instances:
1) To place your opponent within one click of defeat via patrons
2) You got an unusually high amount of coin
3) The endgame is approaching and it will either even you both up, put you well beyond the opponent, or get your prestige above 79

-Better to waste one turn than setback the entire game. Bad hands happens, bad tavern setups happen, etc., and likewise, throwing away six gold is better than putting a card in your deck that winds up just getting in the way later, but you didn't want the gold "wasted."

And a piece of advice: Pick deck combinations and play them over and over, then change and do again. Learn how each deck earns victory. This way, if you pick Duke and Red Eagle as your decks, and it's mostly Psijic and Hlaalu coming up, you can pivot to playing what the tavern is giving, instead of struggling in vain to play the strategy you expected to.

Casdha

The one that caught me off guard the most was Hlaalu. It took me three out of the blue losses to figure out that one of the Hlaalu cards has a built in Tithe (costs 7 coins). This allows an extra patron turn and in conjunction with decks that only need 1 turn to shift their patron means an almost instant loss if your not paying attention. If you know they've got it you better hope the Tithe card doesn't show up on their turn and/or don't leave it sitting there yourself if you see it, because if you do they get 3 turns of a patron in one hand.

moonsister

Can someone point out what number of cards get used to calculate the points when using Orgnum?
Is it actually all cards you own across all decks? Or only those used in decks in the current game? Cards on your hand with or without Cooldown pile?

I can´t figure it out. The players I played against just hit the patron every round and won easily, while the NPCs tend to start using it after I clicked it first.

kevkj

@moonsister Agents+Hand+Cooldown+Draw+Played(Unsure about contract cards)

moonsister

kevkj wrote: »

@moonsister Agents+Hand+Cooldown+Draw+Played(Unsure about contract cards)

thank you!

Jaimeh

SFDB wrote: »

A few general principles:

-Better to waste one turn than setback the entire game. Bad hands happens, bad tavern setups happen, etc., and likewise, throwing away six gold is better than putting a card in your deck that winds up just getting in the way later, but you didn't want the gold "wasted."

This is a great tip; I do this a lot, and shouldn't because I end up buying cards I don't need and then the tavern gets new good cards but my turn has ended