How to Become a Better Player

I feel there should be a sister thread dealing exclusively with deck building.
Suprise Factor or what i see as "a punchline" to a build certainly belongs to that sphere.

 

I think that'd be helpful as well, as there are a lot of us who are great at limited formats - Quick Draw, Fixed Deck, and worse at Constructed formats. For instance, I've played Magic: the Gathering for nearly 20 years, and before I quit playing competitively, my limited rating was somewhere around 1800. My constructed rating? 1596. In either case, I'd like to see a deckbuilding tutorial for constructed formats.

Edit: Oh. Right. Contributing to the thread.

So, my biggest advice for play is a leftover from my M:tG days. It's anticipating your opponent's best move. In Magic, if you see your opponent drop a Forest, Tinder Wall, Lotus Petal first turn and pass, there are only a few things that could mean. Most likely, Channel / Fireball. As a result, this shapes your play.

In this game, knowing your opponent's cards is a huge benefit, because you can know all of the options that they have and play accordingly. Anticipating those cards and playing around the ones that will cause you to lose is a huge part of playing well.

For instance, if I've seen my opponent is playing an Impaling Stab, knowing the item that came off of (Highlighted when the card is played), also lets you know what other cards are on that item, with enough game knowledge. From there, knowing what item that player is using also narrows down the items that player is *not* using in that slot, and also gives you information as to what the player might be playing. After only a round or two, I can generally figure out a majority of a player's deck, the cards he's playing, and what his likely strategy is.

 

I'm still waiting for that program that was being built as a deck builder, so I can use it as a card counter. Then human wizards will be UNSTOPPABLE.




Maybe.

 

I think the greatest piece of advice that I can offer is to make a deck, playtest it against 1) vibrant pain-bjss warriors and 2) burst, and adjust yourself to be able to put up a fight against both extremes.

 

Still, don't act like snickersimba.
Also, if your opponent asks you to speed up or even end the round, you should at least give an answer and a reason

 

Bumped again.

I reread this thread and noticed someone mention earlier it is often better to focus on killing characters than the victory square. I feel its not always the case. It depends on the map and team compositions, which you will get a feel for.

I've played games where I used a warrior and team that was better suited to holding the victory square, to chase an elf wiz uselessly all around the map and the elf wiz had swarm of bats in the end!

Getting to the victory squares ahead of your opponent can also be really strong sometimes, as it forces their decision making. They can't pass, else you would just accumulate victory points and win, so they need to decide whether to chase your character(s) / hold the victory squares, and then are free to respond.

 

If you boil the game strategy down it is all about resources management like so many other games. You can think about a VP as an amount of damage or an amount of cards. When you distill it is effectively that. I used to have a calculation on some of the most cost effective strategies based on my builds and how to optimize my resources and such.

From my own experience playing (which hasn't been in a year or so) I would usually rush to get 2 VP from holding squares a then kill two enemy heroes. All while preventing the enemy from getting 2 VP from squares (let them have 1 if it sets you up for a better outcome). Remember, it isn't about the difference in VP (outside of silly tiebreaker points) but about who gets to 6 VP first.

 

I feel the complete opposite is true, I always try focusing VP because its much easier to get VP from the terrain than either chasing an elf around the board or trying to kill a werewolf dwarf.
Sit on VP and kill anything that approaches - thats how I have been doing it for years and it seems to work.

 

I trust you since you've demonstrated yourself to be a fantastic player, though depending on who you're facing it could be tricky -- if you sit your fat dwarf warrior there, wizards can shoot you from distance to gradually kill you, or janky builds like rocket charge. Your own wizards could be outdone by fast elf warriors or vampire priests. I've tried heavy defensive builds before though it's tricky to balance your party well.

 

I'm not a PvP player, but my flow chart would be:
Rule 1: Win.
Rule 2: Don't be a jerk.
Rule 3: If you're losing, Rule 1 overrides Rule 2.

 

Lol, rule 3 doesn't sound very Veza-like … You mean rule 2 overrides rule 1?