Post by trickster on Oct 9, 2016 23:19:00 GMT
Alright, this is for the newbies(I'm just making these things up from all I've experienced, don't depend on it too much xD)
Some basic terms:
>Topdecking: When you have no cards in hand. You draw a card and either play it or put it in mana. This is often dangerous and should be generally avoided(except with certain kinds of decks). Either have enough draw power/hand replenishment, or a low mana ceiling.
>Mana Ceiling: The cost of the highest costing card in the deck. This is important, because if you know that no card in your deck costs more than 6, then you don't need to put more cards into the mana zone after reaching 6 mana when cards in your hand are running low - You can play those cards. Even when topdecking, any card you draw can be played right away.
You can cross the mana ceiling easily and put more and more mana if you deck has high enough draw power.
>Meta: Meta is simply the most commonly played or popular cards or decktypes. Some examples are Terror Pit, Jenny, Bronze-Arm Tribe, Energy Stream, Hell's Scrapper, Holy Awe/Super Spark etc.
These are generally strong and useful cards that can be used in almost all decks that run a particular civilization. For example, if your deck has darkness, Terror pit and Jenny can almost always be added.
(I will keep adding more terms here in later edits)
Deck types:
Broadly speaking, there's 3 deck types: Rush, Aggro and Control.
1. Rush:
>This kind of deck has very cheap creatures and spells - lots of creatures costing 1 or 2. With most rushes, the mana ceiling is generally very low, about 3 to 6. Average mana cost should also be very low, around 2 or 3.
>Rush aims to break the opponent's shields quickly and end the game as soon as possible.
>Rush has strong early game, meaning you can play things on early turns quickly, but by mid and late game(around turn 6, 10) it can easily lose if the opponent manages to survive it.
>Most rush decks have no countermeasures against triggers, so triggers are their biggest enemy, and one lucky trigger early game can hurt a lot.
>These have lots of cards to counter blockers, like Rikabu's Screwdriver and Unicorn Fish.
>Since you'll be breaking lots of shields quickly, the opponent will get a huge amount of cards in their hand, so discarding doesn't go well along with rush, except in special cases.
2. Aggro:
>This kind of deck aims to bring huge creatures onto the field, then control the field by killing the opponent's creatures in battles. It can either break shields as soon as possible or swarm and break all shields in one or 2 turns, by huge creatures that have double or triple breaker.
>Most dragon decks are of this type. Blocker swarming/Petrova powered decks can also come under this category.
>These have strong mid game, and may also have either strong early or late game.
>These decks are good against rush because they can easily stop it by using huge blockers or killing their tapped creatures. And since rush has little options for removing big creatures, they can easily swarm against rush and finish it off in one hit.
3. Control:
>These are generally spell based decks that aim to control, or disrupt whatever the opponent is doing. They aim for the hand with discard, burn mana and/or destroy whatever the opponent summons.
>They generally rely on big spells like Terror Pit and Apocalypse Vise.
>Most of them have a high average mana cost, and if they can manage to get out of the early game without much damage, they can be deadly.
>These DO NOT break any shields until they've got good control of the duel. Then they bring out a finisher (eg. Bolmeteus Steel Dragon), or attack with the swarmed weenies(Eg. Jenny, Corile, Bronze-Arm Tribe) to finish the duel by breaking all shields in 1 or 2 turns.
Special Decks: Combo decks
These decks base themselves on a powerful combo of particular cards, and mostly aim to finish off the duel in one hit.
For example,
>Swarming 4 Guljeneraids at once with Heavy/Babel out of the grave after setting up the grave with Colorful Dance/Dandy.
>Ultimate Galaxy Universe and Ken Geki decks
>Transmogrify decks
>Cosmic Darts based decks
These decks sometimes rely too much on luck, and can be easily disrupted.
Things to keep in mind when building a deck:
>Instead of just putting together random cards, think about what kind of approach your deck takes to win - Will you break all the shields asap? Will you win with some gimmick combo like Ultimate Galaxy Universe? Will you accelerate upto 10 mana quick to summon Alphadios to lock down the opponent?
Make the deck such all cards in it support each other in trying to fulfill that aim as efficiently as possible.
>Unless there's no rush in the meta, all decks should be able to stand up to atleast mediocre level rush decks. The best way to ensure this is putting at least 8 triggers in the deck. Triggers can also save you in a tight situation against other kinds of decks, so make sure to have many!
Ninjas and Strike backs can also work well, but Ninjas need to be early ones line Falconer or Sanji(against rush) and Strike Backs work best in decks with many cards of one civilization.
>Cheap blockers can work well against rush too, but keep in mind that they'll only stall rush because most rush decks have many anti-blocker cards. However, it DOES help when the opponent wastes a turn on casting Critical Blade when he could have used it to summon some attacker instead. But cards like Fuuma Vines and Unicorn Fish still negate this disadvantage, so be careful!
>Make sure that your deck has enough countermeasures against any card that is most likely to destroy it. For example, if most of your creatures have power 2000 or less and your deck works by swarming, fire spells like Blizzard of Spears and Hell's Scrapper can annihilate it! So have some cards like Petrova or Dalmandy at the ready.
>It is generally good to have have at least some kind of hand replenishment in the deck, whether by draw power, cards like Corpse Charger and De Baula/Phal Eega or Belix to make sure you can prevent a sticky topdecking situation, or get out of it.
Things to keep in mind while dueling:
>Anticipate what kind of deck an opponent is playing and make your decisions accordingly. For example:
>It is generally not a good idea start breaking your opponent's shields quickly if he's running rush or has low draw power(unless you're running some kind of rush yourself. Even then, you can still wait and swarm to finish it off by breaking all shields in 1 turn). This is because most rush decks quickly run out of cards in hand, and if you break their shields they'll be able to swarm their cheap creatures quickly.
>Suppose your opponent is running a control deck, and has lots of spells like Terror Pit and Natural Snare. You have a choice to summon big creature like Bolmeteus. But if your opponent has 2 or more cards in hand, it would be a bad idea to summon Bolmeteus because those cards could probably kill Bolmeteus next turn. So do something else instead of summoning Bolmeteus, unless you have no other card in hand. Even then, against non-darkness decks, it might be a good idea to simply pass the turn and keep Bolmeteus in hand, and wait for a better opportunity.
>If you see that the opponent is running a lot of multicolored creautures with both Light and Darkness in his deck you should quickly take care of the multicolored creatures they summon - because there's a good chance that they have a Queen Alcadieas in the deck. This can be confirmed easily, of course, if you see a Queen in their mana already. Try to prevent Queen from coming into the zone if it can hurt your deck a lot.
But you can also lure the opponent into summoning Queen if you have something that can easily counter it, like Corile, Olzekia etc.
>Most control decks should aim to bring the opponent to topdecking, either by attacking their hand directly by discarding or by killing everything the opponent summons. (This is what Bolmeteus Control decks do- the chance of Bolmeteus getting killed decreases drastically if the opponent is topdecking- because their next card might not be a removal card, and Bolmeteus would be free to burn shields next turn.)
Note: This guide is originally posted by Nitrox senpai on the arrival of Divine Evolution Saga on Aug 25,2015.
Some basic terms:
>Topdecking: When you have no cards in hand. You draw a card and either play it or put it in mana. This is often dangerous and should be generally avoided(except with certain kinds of decks). Either have enough draw power/hand replenishment, or a low mana ceiling.
>Mana Ceiling: The cost of the highest costing card in the deck. This is important, because if you know that no card in your deck costs more than 6, then you don't need to put more cards into the mana zone after reaching 6 mana when cards in your hand are running low - You can play those cards. Even when topdecking, any card you draw can be played right away.
You can cross the mana ceiling easily and put more and more mana if you deck has high enough draw power.
>Meta: Meta is simply the most commonly played or popular cards or decktypes. Some examples are Terror Pit, Jenny, Bronze-Arm Tribe, Energy Stream, Hell's Scrapper, Holy Awe/Super Spark etc.
These are generally strong and useful cards that can be used in almost all decks that run a particular civilization. For example, if your deck has darkness, Terror pit and Jenny can almost always be added.
(I will keep adding more terms here in later edits)
Deck types:
Broadly speaking, there's 3 deck types: Rush, Aggro and Control.
1. Rush:
>This kind of deck has very cheap creatures and spells - lots of creatures costing 1 or 2. With most rushes, the mana ceiling is generally very low, about 3 to 6. Average mana cost should also be very low, around 2 or 3.
>Rush aims to break the opponent's shields quickly and end the game as soon as possible.
>Rush has strong early game, meaning you can play things on early turns quickly, but by mid and late game(around turn 6, 10) it can easily lose if the opponent manages to survive it.
>Most rush decks have no countermeasures against triggers, so triggers are their biggest enemy, and one lucky trigger early game can hurt a lot.
>These have lots of cards to counter blockers, like Rikabu's Screwdriver and Unicorn Fish.
>Since you'll be breaking lots of shields quickly, the opponent will get a huge amount of cards in their hand, so discarding doesn't go well along with rush, except in special cases.
2. Aggro:
>This kind of deck aims to bring huge creatures onto the field, then control the field by killing the opponent's creatures in battles. It can either break shields as soon as possible or swarm and break all shields in one or 2 turns, by huge creatures that have double or triple breaker.
>Most dragon decks are of this type. Blocker swarming/Petrova powered decks can also come under this category.
>These have strong mid game, and may also have either strong early or late game.
>These decks are good against rush because they can easily stop it by using huge blockers or killing their tapped creatures. And since rush has little options for removing big creatures, they can easily swarm against rush and finish it off in one hit.
3. Control:
>These are generally spell based decks that aim to control, or disrupt whatever the opponent is doing. They aim for the hand with discard, burn mana and/or destroy whatever the opponent summons.
>They generally rely on big spells like Terror Pit and Apocalypse Vise.
>Most of them have a high average mana cost, and if they can manage to get out of the early game without much damage, they can be deadly.
>These DO NOT break any shields until they've got good control of the duel. Then they bring out a finisher (eg. Bolmeteus Steel Dragon), or attack with the swarmed weenies(Eg. Jenny, Corile, Bronze-Arm Tribe) to finish the duel by breaking all shields in 1 or 2 turns.
Special Decks: Combo decks
These decks base themselves on a powerful combo of particular cards, and mostly aim to finish off the duel in one hit.
For example,
>Swarming 4 Guljeneraids at once with Heavy/Babel out of the grave after setting up the grave with Colorful Dance/Dandy.
>Ultimate Galaxy Universe and Ken Geki decks
>Transmogrify decks
>Cosmic Darts based decks
These decks sometimes rely too much on luck, and can be easily disrupted.
Things to keep in mind when building a deck:
>Instead of just putting together random cards, think about what kind of approach your deck takes to win - Will you break all the shields asap? Will you win with some gimmick combo like Ultimate Galaxy Universe? Will you accelerate upto 10 mana quick to summon Alphadios to lock down the opponent?
Make the deck such all cards in it support each other in trying to fulfill that aim as efficiently as possible.
>Unless there's no rush in the meta, all decks should be able to stand up to atleast mediocre level rush decks. The best way to ensure this is putting at least 8 triggers in the deck. Triggers can also save you in a tight situation against other kinds of decks, so make sure to have many!
Ninjas and Strike backs can also work well, but Ninjas need to be early ones line Falconer or Sanji(against rush) and Strike Backs work best in decks with many cards of one civilization.
>Cheap blockers can work well against rush too, but keep in mind that they'll only stall rush because most rush decks have many anti-blocker cards. However, it DOES help when the opponent wastes a turn on casting Critical Blade when he could have used it to summon some attacker instead. But cards like Fuuma Vines and Unicorn Fish still negate this disadvantage, so be careful!
>Make sure that your deck has enough countermeasures against any card that is most likely to destroy it. For example, if most of your creatures have power 2000 or less and your deck works by swarming, fire spells like Blizzard of Spears and Hell's Scrapper can annihilate it! So have some cards like Petrova or Dalmandy at the ready.
>It is generally good to have have at least some kind of hand replenishment in the deck, whether by draw power, cards like Corpse Charger and De Baula/Phal Eega or Belix to make sure you can prevent a sticky topdecking situation, or get out of it.
Things to keep in mind while dueling:
>Anticipate what kind of deck an opponent is playing and make your decisions accordingly. For example:
>It is generally not a good idea start breaking your opponent's shields quickly if he's running rush or has low draw power(unless you're running some kind of rush yourself. Even then, you can still wait and swarm to finish it off by breaking all shields in 1 turn). This is because most rush decks quickly run out of cards in hand, and if you break their shields they'll be able to swarm their cheap creatures quickly.
>Suppose your opponent is running a control deck, and has lots of spells like Terror Pit and Natural Snare. You have a choice to summon big creature like Bolmeteus. But if your opponent has 2 or more cards in hand, it would be a bad idea to summon Bolmeteus because those cards could probably kill Bolmeteus next turn. So do something else instead of summoning Bolmeteus, unless you have no other card in hand. Even then, against non-darkness decks, it might be a good idea to simply pass the turn and keep Bolmeteus in hand, and wait for a better opportunity.
>If you see that the opponent is running a lot of multicolored creautures with both Light and Darkness in his deck you should quickly take care of the multicolored creatures they summon - because there's a good chance that they have a Queen Alcadieas in the deck. This can be confirmed easily, of course, if you see a Queen in their mana already. Try to prevent Queen from coming into the zone if it can hurt your deck a lot.
But you can also lure the opponent into summoning Queen if you have something that can easily counter it, like Corile, Olzekia etc.
>Most control decks should aim to bring the opponent to topdecking, either by attacking their hand directly by discarding or by killing everything the opponent summons. (This is what Bolmeteus Control decks do- the chance of Bolmeteus getting killed decreases drastically if the opponent is topdecking- because their next card might not be a removal card, and Bolmeteus would be free to burn shields next turn.)
Note: This guide is originally posted by Nitrox senpai on the arrival of Divine Evolution Saga on Aug 25,2015.
