Tyrants Evil Control

Foreword

In preparation for Tyrants getting added to the app today, I created this generic Tyrants Evil control deck. I was planning on not explaining it too much, so I could work on my next article, but I should have known better.

Tyrants Evil Control

This is a control deck (leaning midrange) that tries to win with incidental damage from tokens. I have included extra health gain cards to “tech” against burn/aggro decks. This is because I dislike losing to those decks the most and heavy Evil decks have consistently had problems against those decks, in my experience. I also automatically “tech” against Muse/Thought Plucker to some extent.

Build-Around Cards

The fundamental cards I wanted to build around were Murderous Necromancer, Reaper, and Spawning Demon. Murderous Necromancer is a card you can play on your turn while your opponent’s gold is up, and they usually can’t do something significantly better in response. (Surprise Attack -> Sea Titan/Kong isn’t too back breaking, nor is Thought Plucker, and Rift Summoner is in Uprising.)

Reaper is repeatable removal on a 7+ defense body that your opponent can’t incidentally remove with Smash and Burn, Lightning Strike, etc. (although it can be removed by Draka Dragon Tyrant + Feeding Frenzy). Your opponent must spend a gold, such as Kong or Drain Essence. Reaper also benefits from a heavy Evil deck that can consistently play off-turn 1-cost cards either for their effect (Final Task, Drain Essence, Medusa, Demon Breach) or just as a draw 2 (Apocalypse, Plague, Raxxa’s Displeasure, Zombie Apocalypse).

Spawning Demon is the compliment to Reaper rewarding me for playing a large amount of off-turn 1-cost Evil cards. For a net loss of 0 cards and 1 health (Spawning Demon into a 1-cost Evil draw 2), I get 2 off-turn demons, I like it. (If Reaper is in play, break a champion and give its controller a demon too.)

Deck List

Cards in black are the “Foundation” cards I knew I wanted to include (after theorycrafting in my head beforehand). Cards/quantities in amber are the “Filler” cards I added to get to 60. Crossed through cards were cut to make room for magenta “Distribution” cards in order to reach my distributions quotas.

Evil (51)

Slow (12)
1x Angel of Death
3x Murderous Necromancer
2x Necromancer Lord
2x Raxxa, Demon Tyrant
3x Reaper
1x The Gudgeon

Fast (22)
2x Apocalypse
2x Bitten
2x Demon Breach

3x Drain Essence
3x Final Task
3x Medusa
2x Necrovirus
2x Plague
3x Raxxa’s Displeasure
2x Zombie Apocalypse

0-Cost (17)
3x Guilt Demon
2x Heinous Feast
2x Plentiful Dead
3x Raxxa’s Curse
3x Spawning Demon
3x Unquenchable Thirst
1x Wither

Good (3)

Slow (2)
2x Avenging Angel

Fast ()

0-Cost (1)
1x Second Wind

Sage (3)

Slow ()

Fast (2)
2x Ancient Chant

0-Cost (1)
1x Spike Trap

Wild (3)

Slow ()

Fast (2)
2x Surprise Attack

0-Cost (1)
1x Wolf’s Bite

Foundation Cards

These are the cards I knew (or at least was fairly certain) I wanted to include when building the deck/looking through cards.

Auto-Includes

These are cards that I want to include in basically all 33+ Evil decks.

Medusa and Drain Essence are the two insanely-powerful, essentially-unquestionable Auto-Includes.

Necromancer Lord, Final Task, and Surprise Attack aren’t quite at that level, but they are pretty close (particularly when combined with cards like Necromancer Lord, Murderous Necromancer, Angel of Death, Raxxa Demon Tyrant, Medusa, and Reaper.

Plague, Guilt Demon, Raxxa’s Curse, and Plentiful Dead largely fall into this category too.

I consider Ancient Chant an Auto-Include in heavy Evil decks to counter one of its primary weaknesses, a lack of powerful card draw. By including Reaper and Spawning Demon we can turn all Evil draw 2’s into powerful “draw 2 and” cards, but those aren’t enough by themselves.

(Not Quite Build Around) Synergy Cards

These are cards that give your deck much of its strength, but aren’t necessarily Build-Around cards by themselves.

I’ve played a lot of iterations of Demon decks in the past, and the card that just feels like it wins the most games is Raxxa’s Displeasure. Using this to full-clear your opponent while leaving you with demon tokens is incredibly strong, especially since this can be used in combat, after your opponent ambushes in blocker(s). However, its true power is when used in conjunction with demon cards like Raxxa, Reaper, Medusa, Guilt Demon, and Spawning Demon. (Reaper does have a bit of an anti-synergy though because your opponent’s champions turned into demons survive.) Due to the fact that this is also an Evil draw 2 makes this a 3-of in the deck.

Another benefit from going 51 Evil cards to support my Reapers and Spawning Demons is the ability to run 3 Unquenchable Thirsts. The more Evil cards you can get in your discard pile, the stronger this card becomes. That being said, running 3 might seem like (and might actually be) too many since you aren’t likely to get many big uses out of it. I’m trying 3 because of how it interacts with control and aggro in different ways.

Against control, the health gain isn’t too relevant and you can use it to break champions like Thought Plucker, Muse, Necromancer Lord, etc. without needing to banish many cards from your discard pile. This is important because control is the deck most likely to attempt to repeatedly attack your discard pile.

Against aggro, drawing and playing one of these can slow them down just enough to safely run them out of resources. In addition, if you can use this to remove a 1-cost champion, the tempo swing can be enormous.

Against midrange, this can remove mid-sized threats like White Dragon while letting your board clears and targeted removal deal with swarms and/or big individual threats.

Tech Cards

These are cards I included to make my deck stronger against specific matchups. If I end up not running into these matchups often, these cards can be replaced.

Health Gain

Health Gain is important for control because it allows you to stabilize after surviving your opponent’s early aggression. Without it, you can always lose to direct damage, like Flame Strike, even if your opponent runs out of champions in play and cards in hand. That being said, I’ve included extra, less-common health gain to supplement my existing 3 Drain Essence and 3 Unquechable Thirsts.

Avenging Angel is a non-standard inclusion in this deck. I want it specifically because it can repeatedly gain me health, it can’t be removed by a single 0-cost card, and Inner Peace requires multiple 1-cost Good cards to reliably  recall (making it weaker in this deck). I can also bring Avenging Angel back out with Necromancer Lord. In this deck, Avenging Angel should basically never be played while your opponent’s gold is up (if they have cards in hand). Gold Dragon was a very real consideration because the extra 2 defense allows it to dodge a Smash and Burn trigger, but I’ll see if my Guilt Demons and Heinous Feasts will be enough to mitigate that problem.

I also included Second Wind and Heinous Feast for a bit of extra health gain. Both can also draw cards/replace themselves. Against control, Heinous Feast will probably be used as a draw 2 more often. Against aggro, Heinous Feast will probably be used to gain a bit of health, hit a recall card, and starve my opponent’s ability to recycle at a critical time.

An alternative to the Avenging Angel package would be to include Lesson Learned to use with my Drain Essences. This would also be nice to use with Ancient Chant and/or Surprise Attack, but I want to try Avenging Angel instead, since I like leaning towards my midrange blitzing gold punishers.

Anti-Muse/Plucker

Wolf’s Bite, Wither, and Spike Trap are all included over other cards as answers to Muse/Thought Plucker. They help support my Raxxa’s Curses, Unquenchable Thirsts, Plagues, and Raxxas. It’s possible I shift the deck more towards anti-Muse/Plucker if the meta dictates.

Filler Cards/Distribution Cards

These are less-critical cards added to address gaps. Specifically I wanted more Threats and more Card Draw

Threats

Raxxa is included as another way to get tokens that can attack my opponent. It is also nice for the 2 damage to all opposing champions to break Muse/Thought Pluckers. Playing this after a Zombie Apocalypse or Wave of Transformation is quite strong as well.

Demon Breach is another way to get threats into play. In addition, recalling it, especially against control, is stronger than you might expect.

Necrovirus was the final card considered in order to give me additional threats. It was cut for additional card draw tough.

Card Draw

Zombie Apocalypse, Apocalypse, Bitten, Heinous Feast, and Demon Breach were all included as card draw. Board clears are always nice, if needed, especially off-turn ones. Off-turn targeted removal is nice if I’m ahead on board and my opponent tries to slam an airborne blitz champion against me.

Other Considerations

I really want to fit a single Soul Hunter in the deck because it can carry the game against some decks. It is particularly potent with my 3 Reapers because, if I have Reaper in play, I can play Soul Hunter and use Reaper’s ally trigger to immediately break that Soul Hunter, deal 5 damage to my opponent, get my Soul Hunter in my discard pile, and put a demon in play for me. That being said, I do not want to remove any of my splash cards (non-Evil), and I do not want to remove any of my card draw cards (including recall cards like Plentiful Dead and Demon Breach and treating Surprise Attack as half a draw, I am at exactly 30).

This only leaves Angel of Death, Murderous Necromancer, Necromancer Lord, Raxxa, Reaper, Drain Essence, and Medusa. Of those, the only cards I would consider cutting (at this point) are Angel of Death, Necromancer Lord, and Raxxa. I like the singleton Angel for Final Task/Necro Lord shenanigans (off-turn full board clear is nice) and Raxxa is one of my few threats. Necro Lord is the only one of those I seriously considered cutting because I don’t have a ton of targets for it in my deck. However, 2 Necro Lords is much stronger than 1 because you can Necro Lord back your Necro Lord. It is also amazing with Surprise Attack because if it triggers twice it is hard to beat.

Conclusion

Due to the update coming out early and me heading out to play some paper Epic, I wasn’t able to add the card links in yet. However, I can say that the Reapers and Spawning Demons have helped to get me two in app wins so far.

Gen Con 2017 Dark Draft Qualification (Part 2)

Foreword

This is part 2 of my 2-part article on the Dark Draft top 4 portion of my qualifying limited run at Gen Con 2017. (Part 1)

Finals

My finals match was against Nathan Overbay. These were our decks:

My Deck

His Deck

My Interesting Picks

While I do not remember all of my picks, a few stand out.

Strong Start, Human Tokens Though?

My first pack was one of those lamented 1 great, 4 terrible packs. I got Rescue Griffin, and I passed Winds of Change with 3 other mediocre 1-cost cards. The rest of the early packs felt a bit underpowered too; however, they did contain the makings of a decent (human) token deck. I’ve learned not to chase human tokens because it is awful, unless specific cards materialize in 2nd/3rd picks of packs. (I credit this mistake as a contributing factor to my loss at Origins 2017.) But, I know it has the potential to take surprise wins. While I didn’t expect my opponent to go for it, I made a mental note to draft some counter cards, just in case. Especially since I passed some actually strong token cards, namely Hunting Pack and Den Mother, as well.

Token Counter Picks

One of my first token counter picks was Pyrosaur. I do not remember if it was a 1st or 2nd/3rd pick, but I did take it well before I had committed to Wild. At that point, I was not expecting to go deeper in Wild, and I was planning on relying primarily on the tribute effect. (I also picked Spore Beast before I was committed to Wild because it was the only decent card in a 2nd/3rd pick of a pack.)

Savage Uprising was a mid-draft first pick for me because I was lacking any form of board clear at this point, I passed my opponent some strong 1-cost mid-sized champions like White Knight and Avenging Angel, I wanted to deny my potentially token opponent from getting it, and, least-importantly, I figured it might work with my 0-cost champions.

First picking Hurricane was the toughest choice in the draft. I knew that I needed board clears and anti-token cards, I knew that I had at least 1 of Sea Titan or Kong at that point, I knew I needed some more card draw, but I really, really wanted to take Angel of the Gate. AotG is one of my pet cards that I think is amazing in draft, and I almost ignored all of the reasons I knew I needed to draft Hurricane to take it. However, after losing my Dark Draft match at worlds where I picked AotG over Palace Guard, I was finally able to force myself to take the Hurricane.

Miscellaneous

I have been fairly vocal about my dislike of Deadly Raid, and I stand by that dislike. That being said, I’m fairly sure I first picked it from a pack this draft. I remember the pack wasn’t too amazing, I figured I might need it to get past my opponent’s tokens, and I do like it more with big untargetable champions (Sea Titan). In hindsight, I also prevented my potentially token opponent from getting it when my draft had few ways to stop an unblockable token attack (off-turn board clears and/or Blind Faith).

I had a pack with both Little Devil and Dark Knight. I first picked the Little Devil and left my opponent the Dark Knight. The only card that can punish this choice hard is if my opponent got Raxxa’s Curse. Aside from that, the 4 defense on Little Devil actually makes it harder to efficiently remove than Dark Knight‘s unbreakable on turn and its 2 defense. In addition, Little Devil‘s airborne makes it significantly harder to block.

In the final 2nd/3rd pick of the final pack I picked Rally the People over Demonic Rising (and 1 other bad card). While I like Demonic Rising much better than Rally the People, especially because it has a draw 2 option, I expected it would be incredibly unlikely that I would be able to use the non-draw option against my token opponent. Due to that, I decided I would rather have a 0-cost ambush chump blocker than a card that would probably only ever draw 2 in an alignment where I drafted no loyalty or ally effects.

My Thoughts/Concerns Post-Draft

I felt great about my deck. 13 0-cost cards, Sea Titan and Kong, a mass-discard pile banish, and some close-out burn. The only thing I was a bit worried about was my lack of health gain, but I didn’t remember passing too much burn. There were a few cards I wasn’t happy about passing though, Drain Essence and Hunting Pack + Smash and Burn for instance. Finally, I felt like I passed a lot more mediocre packs than I received.

Match Interesting Moments

These were also very intense games where my choices above were critical.

Holding Hasty Retreat

Game 1, turn 1, my opponent plays White Knight with Loyalty (drawing a card) and attacks for 9. I have Hasty Retreat in hand, but no ambush champions to declare as a blocker to prevent my opponent from drawing a card. Looking for an ambush 0-cost blocker, I Ceasefire to draw 2. Not finding one, I seriously consider Hasty Retreating anyway to save myself 9 damage. However, I am unwilling to trade 1 card in my hand, 9 health, and the tempo gained by removing my opponent’s champion for +2 cards in hand for my opponent (White Knight and the draw from Hasty Retreat). This would have put them at 7 cards in hand after taking the first turn with me at 5 (6 at the start of my turn).

As someone who is perpetually scared of being burned out (losing to direct damage from cards like Flame Strike), this was a difficult decision to make, but I felt I couldn’t afford to sacrifice that much card advantage that early. Further, I wanted to save Hasty Retreat just in case I needed it to stop a Lash/Raged blitz champion while my gold was down. I ended up holding onto that card for most of the game, and I either never played it or used it to draw 2. In addition, I was able to prevent myself from taking much if anymore damage that game, thanks to the Bash Brothers: Sea Titan and Kong.

Pyrosaur, Loyalty, Pass (No Attack)

In both games, there was a situation where I had a big champion in play, and my opponent played Den Mother with Necrovirus in their discard pile. Both times, I played my Pyrosaur, breaking all of the wolf tokens, revealed for loyalty (to give Pyrosaur blitz), and passed without attacking. I did this for a couple reasons:

 

  • If I attacked with Pyrosaur, I would get a guaranteed 2 damage to my opponent through, but my Pyrosaur could be blocked and broken by Den Mother in combat with my opponent not needing to spend their gold.
    • This would negate my opponent’s only in play blocker for my big champion, but then they could play any 1-cost Evil card to get 3 more zombie chump blockers, or they could just spend their gold to remove my big champion.
  • By not attacking after spending my gold, my opponent either had to pass without spending their gold or risk getting attacked by my big champion and Pyrosaur.
    • Further, if my opponent tried to just play a 1-cost Evil card to activate their  Necrovirus for chump blockers, I could then attack with Pyrosaur, clear the tokens, draw the Den Mother block, and then attack with my big champion.

In both situations, however, my opponent Hunting Packed my Pyrosaur. On the bright side, I was able to hold back my big champion to block the Den Mother next turn instead of just having it get chump blocked when I attacked.

Hurricane MVP

Due to my opponent’s Hunting Pack, Den Mother, Necrovirus, Zombie Apocalypse, Hands from Below, and 0-cost champions, I found myself in a situation both games where my opponent had significantly more champions in play than me. Due to this, they were in a position where they could both attack with small champions to get damage past my big champion(s) and leave a chump blocker to stop my aggression. In both of these games I found myself desperately digging (drawing multiple cards and/or using cards like Arcane Research) to find my only strong answer, Hurricane. Playing Hurricane with Sea Titan/Kong/Velden in play essentially won me both games. It allowed me to halt my opponent’s aggression without disrupting my own.

In the second game, I played Hurricane on my turn with Sea Titan in play. This cleared out all of my opponent’s blockers, but instead of attacking with Sea Titan, I passed. At this point, I was unwilling to risk my opponent playing an ambush champion, blocking, and trading with my Sea Titan. In other words, I valued preserving my 11/14 untargetable champion over possibly dealing 11 damage to my opponent. Further, I was afraid of 0-cost Spike Trap finishing off my damaged Sea Titan allowing my opponent to spend their gold purely on a 1-cost ambush champion to start applying pressure to me. Even though I had not seen Spike Trap in the first game or the draft, I was not willing to take that risk, even if my opponent spent their gold on a non-ambush champion.

In that situation, my opponent decided to pass without spending their gold. Then they played Divine Judgement on their turn, allowing me to freely ambush in Angelic Protector. When I attacked with Angelic Protector on my next turn, he Spike Trapped -> Reusable Knowledged -> Spike Trapped.

Talking with my opponent after the game, they had no answer for Sea Titan on my turn in hand. However, if I would have attacked, they would have spent their gold to draw 2, and this would have drawn them into their Spike Trap. By not attacking, I denied them a draw 2, and both their gold and Divine Judgement on their turn.

One thing that almost got me to declare my attack anyways was the fact that my opponent said something along the lines of, “that is really bad for me,” after I played my Hurricane. Due to this statement, I figured they probably did not have any answer if I were to attack with Sea Titan. However, not being 100% certain this wasn’t a bluff, and not willing to risk compromising my chance of winning the game later by attacking now, I still held back.

Honorable/Dishonorable Mentions

Savage Uprising was able to get the ideal use case of remove 2+ 1-cost champions on my opponent’s turn while leaving my Little Devil in play. Little Devil did work.

Spore Beast saved my life from a wolf token that was Mighty Blowed post-blocks (after a tense draw 2 gave me my second Wild card needed for loyalty). I won the game and the match next turn.

Deadly Raid and Rally the People were never played.

Conclusion

Forcing myself to look past my individual card preferences while drafting, namely taking Hurricane which I’m lukewarm towards over Angel of the Gate which I love, allowed me to counter my opponent’s draft and win me the match (even though my opponent didn’t go quite as heavy tokens as I was fearing). While drafting I felt like I was getting the significantly better pool of cards, and even though I would say my deck’s overall card quality was higher, my opponent built a better deck than I was expecting, given my impression of what I was passing.

With Dark Draft complete, next up, before coming back to Random 60 and my Epic Progression series, is my top 8 constructed Wolf deck: Elara’s Hunting Pack.

Gen Con 2017 Dark Draft Qualification (Part 1)

Foreword

I managed to successfully defend my Gen Con limited title on Saturday, August 19th, 2017 for a spot at Epic Worlds 2017. (I was one of two people who qualified in limited events at Gen Con 2016.) This is also the first time I remembered to take pictures of both my opponents’ and my dark draft pools in top 4. So, this 2-part article contains an analysis of key things I remember during my top 4 Dark Drafts. This article will be specific to these matches, but I have a detailed, slightly outdated article that goes over my general Dark Draft philosophy as well.  (I do also have my Random 60 pictures for a later article, and I will of course write an article about my Wolf deck that got me into top 8 in constructed.)

Semi-Finals

My semi-finals match was against Brad Minnigh who knocked me out in the limited semi-finals at Origins 2017. These were our decks:

My Deck

(Kong and Pyrosaur are the cards obscured by the glare.)

His Deck

My Interesting Picks

While I do not remember all of my picks, a few stand out as major decision points.

Kong over Amnesia

I am one of the most vocal people about the need to pick the first mass-discard pile banish card you come across. Doing so allows you to draft with the knowledge that your opponent can’t win by decking out (essentially). In addition, this allows you to draft as many powerful defense-only cards (like Ceasefire) as you want, since you don’t need to worry about an opponent drawing out to win if you can’t apply enough pressure to kill them first. There are very few situations where I break this rule.

The main reason I broke my rule in this match was my knowledge of my opponent. He has never had a game decided by decking out, ever. (I have had many, in Limited formats). Therefore, I know my opponent’s playstyle favors aggressive play.

Kong is incredibly powerful in an aggressive limited deck because it allows that player to remove an opposing threat while presenting their own big threat. Further, it is resistant to some of the best off-turn removal cards in the game: Erase (letting them play it a second time is painful) and Drain Essence/Hurricane/Chomp!. Due to this, the opponent frequently has to either use weak off-turn removal (Inner Demon/Banishment), a highly valuable off-turn board clear (Zombie Apocalypse/Martial Law), or wait until their turn to remove it (Palace Guard/Divine Judgement). In all of these situations, the aggressive player was able to remove a champion and either maintain a small advantage, force out a valuable card, or force the opponent to use their gold first on the next turn. Even further, if Kong isn’t removed it can be Raged/Lashed which can allow for that one big hit to get through enabling a burn-out kill.

Finally, unlike in Core-Only, full dark-draft through Uprising means there are 3 other mass-discard pile banish cards I could draft, and at this point (pack 2 or 3), I still had some chance to get one of those 3.

Aggressive Focus (Not Picking Ceasefire)

Due to not picking Amnesia early in the draft, I was forced to shift my picks more aggressive than I usually prefer. I know for certain that I passed on Ceasefire (possibly as a pick 2/3) because I couldn’t afford a card that can never be used aggressively (although it can let you overextend with an all-out attack and leave you a safety net). Similarly, I believe I passed on a few board clears for “lower tier” cards.

Winged Death over a Strong 0-Cost Card

This was a very tough pick for me. I do not remember exactly what I passed to take this, but I remember it was a powerful 0-cost card (Siren’s Song?). The reason I drafted this over a 0 was I wanted to protect my Kong and Mythic Monster. I was worried that I could lose 2 of my hard to remove champions and just get blown out of a game. In addition, I’m a big fan of this card generally.

Grave Demon over Word of Summoning

This was my last pack. By this point, I knew I had an aggressive enough deck that I probably didn’t need to worry about my opponent decking out for the win. Therefore, I wanted to take Word of Summoning because it is a strong 0 that lets you apply pressure off-turn without spending your gold. However, I chose Grave Demon out of personal preference.

Knowing my personal playstyle, I knew that I would be much more comfortable playing a deck with a mass-discard pile banish card than a deck without one. Having Grave Demon means I can always take the slow/defensive play. Without Grave Demon, I constantly need to worry about whether I am playing aggressive enough to win. This can drive me into riskier plays such as: spending my gold first on a turn possibly on a blitz champion with no relevant Tribute/Loyalty ability (instead of passing with gold up), playing another champion when I’m already ahead on the board and my opponent’s gold is down (instead of drawing cards), or using “or draw 2” cards for their effect (instead of drawing) when I’m low on cards in hand.

For all of these reasons, and the fact that it is a decent sized ambush champion, I picked Grave Demon. At this point in the draft, Word of Summoning might have been the “correct” choice for many, but not for me.

Other First Picks

Hunting Pack was my Pack 1 Pick 1. I am also fairly confident that I first picked Raxxa’s Curse and Angel of the Gate. I do not remember my 4 other first picks, but they were very possibly: Little Devil, Consume, Flash Fire, and Hasty Retreat. In other words, 0-cost cards.

I know my opponent first picked Erratic Research and Palace Guard, but I don’t remember the rest.

My Thoughts/Concerns Post-Draft

My greatest concern post-draft was the fact that I only had 13 reliable draw/recycle cards instead of my desired 15+ (not counting Quell or Cave Troll). Due to this, I made a mental note to prioritize using “or draw 2s” (like Bitten) to draw cards. Other than that, I felt like the deck was strong.

Match Interesting Moments

These were very intense games where we both spent a lot of time analyzing our moves, since the top 8 matches (in this case top 4) are untimed.

Running out of Draw (Bitten)

As expected, in one of the games I hit an early string of non-card-draw cards and my handsize dwindled to 3 cards. My opponent was also low on cards, but I was up 1 champion in play. On my turn I drew into Bitten.

My first instinct was that I could use Bitten as cover for my champion. In other words, I could attack, and if my opponent played an ambush champion to block, I could Bitten it, get a zombie, and probably get my attack through. However, knowing that I didn’t have a ton of card draw in my deck, I decided to pass holding my gold. There were a few reasons for this:

  1. Using Bitten as removal instead of card draw was not an option
    • Assuming my opponent spends their gold on their turn, I would want to spend my gold as well, so I don’t fall behind. This would reduce me to 2 cards in hand.
    • If I don’t draw card-draw on my turn, I have to survive my turn’s gold usage and my opponent’s turn gold usage with just those 3 cards. Most likely this brings me to 1 card in hand at the end of my opponent’s turn. Then, if I don’t draw card-draw that turn, I basically lose the game by being forced down to 0 cards in hand.
  2. Since I can’t use Bitten as removal, attacking with my champion is dangerous
    • If my opponent plays an ambush champion that can block and break my champion in combat, they get to establish a champion and remove my champion for free.
    • I personally do not like taking these risks when I don’t have to, so attacking with my gold up was not an option.
  3. If I use Bitten to draw 2 now, I give my opponent a free-gold to recover
    • They could ambush in a champion that I can’t remove that turn, allowing them to attack me on their turn.
    • They could also freely draw 2 to refill their handsize.
  4. Therefore, since I don’t want to play my other cards, passing is my best play
    • If they spend their gold, I draw 2.
    • If they don’t spend their gold on my turn, I have Bitten which I can use, if they spend their gold on their turn.
    • If they don’t spend their gold on either turn, I get to return to last turn’s advantageous board state with both players at +1 cards in hand.
      • Since my deck is lacking in card draw, this is ideal for me because I maintain my board advantage while negating my disadvantage (lack of card draw) without exposing myself to an opponent’s gold usage.
      • Further, I have Grave Demon so I can afford to let as many turns pass with no plays made as I need.

In the end, I believe my opponent passed on my turn and spent their gold on their turn, allowing me to spend mine to draw 2. My next 2 cards were non-card draw cards, so I would have almost certainly lost the game if I had used Bitten for removal.

Running my Opponent out of Draw

In a different situation, I was ahead on board, my opponent was low on cards in hand, and I had at least 5 cards in hand. Instead of holding back to build my card advantage further, I pushed my opponent to prevent him from being able to draw, keeping him vulnerable.

In game 2, this was the board state: I had a Winged Death and Grave Demon in play. My opponent had Brachiosaurus and Ogre Mercenary in play. I had 5+ cards in hand. My opponent had about 3 with no discard pile. I attacked with Winged Death, no blocks were declared. Before damage, I Consumed the Ogre Mercenary.

This forced my opponent into a situation where he would lose his Brachiosaurus, if he did nothing, which would open a path for Grave Demon to attack too. In order to keep his gold available to answer a potential gold-punisher (he knew he passed me Rampaging Wurm in the draft), he opted to play Wolf’s Bite without recycling so he could break his wolf to Winged Death‘s trigger, leaving his Brachiosaurus able to block my Grave Demon.

Once he passed initiative back to me, I used Hunting Pack to break his wolf token. Why?

  1. Because my opponent was low on cards, it was possible he had no strong play in response to this. Also, since this was after blockers were declared, I didn’t need to worry about an ambush, airborne champion blocking my Winged Death. Best case scenario, he couldn’t even spend his gold.
  2. If he had no way to further disrupt my Winged Death, which I got the impression he did not based on previous turns and body language, Winged Death breaking Brachiosaurus would be backbreaking and essentially win me the game right there.
  3. Even if he played an off-turn board clear, this would reduce him to 1 card in hand, which would be hard to come back from. I also had an ambush champion to reestablish on his turn, if needed.

He ended up playing Wave of Transformation giving him 1 wolf to my 5. (On a side note, Hurricane would have blown me out there. I do not remember if he had already played it at that point in the game.)

Stand Out Cards

Winged Death, Little Devil, and Fire Shaman were particularly effective in this match. Grave Demon was useful, but there was no point where I needed a mass discard pile banish to prevent my opponent from decking out.

Of the cards my opponent played, Turn seemed to be the least impactful.

Conclusion

My knowledge of my opponent’s playstyle and my own allowed me to draft a specifically powerful deck. Then, my understanding of the primary weakness of that deck allowed me to play in such a way to mitigate that weakness. Finally, small edge plays were able to gain me just enough additional advantage to push my wins through. In my next article I’ll go over my finals match against Nathan Overbay.

Epic Progression (1): How to Play

Foreword

Epic is a non-collectible, expandable card game where players mobilize Champions to attack their opponent(s) while providing support with devastating Events. To play these cards, you and your opponent(s) get 1 gold per turn. Every card either costs that 1 gold or is free. Due to this, every card is immediately playable and no card becomes worthless later. Timing your cards to the game state, as opposed to the game turn, is paramount.

In this article series, I will guide you through as much of the unfathomable depth this game has to offer as I have discovered. For now, lets start with learning to play.

First Game Setup/Objective

  • Deal each player 30 random cards (their deck)
  • Each player draws 5 cards from their deck
  • Each player starts at 30 health
  • Randomly determine who goes first

Players primarily lose health due to champion attacks. If you are reduced to 0 health, you lose. If all of your opponents are reduced to 0 health, you win.

If you would draw a card and your deck is empty, you win.

(Health can be tracked with Dice, Pen and Paper, the Epic ScoreKeeper app, or any other way you prefer.)

Turn Structure Overview

A turn consists of resolving start of turn triggers once, and then any number of Battle, Slow, and End phases in any order. Below is the basic 2-player turn flow.

Slow vs Fast

While cards are divided into Champions and Events, the more important distinction here is Slow and Fast. Any card with dots at the top is Fast. If it doesn’t have dots at the top it is Slow. (All Events are Fast. Champions with the Ambush keyword are Fast. Champions without the Ambush keyword are Slow.)

(Other Fast plays include: activating an ability by paying a cost [such as expend powers] discussed later.)

Slow champions may only be played in a Slow Phase.

Explanation Plan

From here, I am going to start by explaining the basics: how/when you may play cards, how/when you may attack with champions. Once you have that information, I am going to double back to explain the start of turn effects, then the End Phase. Finally, I’ll explain all of the keywords that break these rules, as well as other terminology/notation.

Playing Cards

In 2-player games, at the start of your turn and at the start of your opponent’s turn, you reset to 1 gold. Unspent Gold does not accumulate.

In 3+ player games, you reset to 1 gold at the start of your turn and reset to 1 gold at the end of your turn. Unspent Gold does not accumulate.

To play a card, you must be:

  • Able to pay for it
    • Cards with a 1 in the upper right corner cost your 1 gold for the turn
    • Cards with a 0 in the upper right corner are free
  • Allowed to play it
    • Slow champions may only be played on your turn in a Slow Phase
    • Fast cards may only be played
      • On your turn in a Battle or Slow Phase
      • On your opponent’s turn in a Battle or End Phase
      • When you have initiative (initiative is passed back and forth when one player is finished “making fast plays.” More on this in Combat Section below.)

Events, when played, resolve all of their text and are then put into their owner’s discard pile. Then, any other card effects resolve.

Champions, when played, enter play. Then, any of their effects and any other card effects resolve in an order of your choice.

All Epic keywords are explained below. The ones that matter when playing cards are Ally, Loyalty, and Tribute (Banish, Break, Recycle, Untargetable, Unbreakable, and Unbanishable tangentially).

Attacking with Champions

On your turn, you can use your champions in play to attack your opponent in an attempt to reduce your opponent’s health to 0. Below I discuss how a champion’s State and Position determines whether or not it may attack and/or block. Then I break down everything that happens in a Battle Phase.

State (Deploying vs Non-Deploying)

When a champion enters play it gains deploying. A deploying champion may not attack, but it may block. At the start of your turn, all of your champions in play lose deploying.

Position (Prepared vs Expended vs Flipped)

A champion can only ever be in one of three positions: Prepared, Expended, or Flipped. At the start of your turn, all of your champions are Prepared (returned to the Prepared position).

Prepared

When a champion enters play it is prepared. Prepared champions may block. Prepared champions that aren’t deploying may attack or use expend powers. (Expend powers discussed later.)

Expended

When a champion attacks (or uses an expend power), it becomes expended (rotated 90/270 degrees). Expended champions may not attack, block, nor use expend powers.

Flipped

When a champion blocks, it becomes flipped (rotated 180 degrees). Flipped champions may not attack nor block. Flipped, non-deploying, champions may use expend powers.

Attack-Relevant Champion Anatomy

A Battle Phase

On your turn, you may initiate as many Battle Phases as you have prepared, non-deploying champions. A Battle Phase consists of

Declaring Attackers

You may either attack with one (prepared, non-deploying) champion alone or with any number of (prepared, non-deploying) champions together. Expend all declared attacking champions. (“When a champion attacks” triggers resolve now. Triggers discussed later.)

Fast Plays (Post Declare Attacks)

Once attackers have been declared, each player gets a chance to make Fast plays. The attacking player may make any number of Fast plays first. When they choose to make no more Fast plays, they pass initiative to the next player.

If that player does not want to make any Fast playsthey may progress to the next step, Declare Blockers. If that player makes at least one Fast play, once they finish making as many plays as they want, that player must pass initiative to the next player who repeats this step.

Once one player passes without making a Fast play, after everyone has had a chance to make a Fast play, progress to Declare Blockers. (In a multiplayer game, everyone must consecutively pass without making a play to move onto the next step.)

Declare Blockers

Your opponent may block an attack directed against them with one or more of their prepared champions (may be deploying). Flip all declared blocking champions. (“When a champion blocks” triggers resolve now. Triggers discussed later.)

Fast Plays (Post Declare Blockers)

Once blockers have been declared, each player gets a chance to make Fast plays. Unlike in the Post Declare Attackers phase, the defending player may make any number of Fast plays first. When they choose to make no more Fast plays, they pass initiative to the next player.

If that player does not want to make any Fast playsthey may progress to the next step, Assign Damage. If they make at least one Fast play, they must pass initiative to the next player who repeats this step.

Once one player passes without making a Fast play, after everyone has had a chance to make a Fast play, progress to Assign Damage. (In a multiplayer game, everyone must consecutively pass without making a play to move onto the next step.)

Assign Damage

  1. If an attack is unblocked, the attacking champions deal damage equal to their offense to the opposing player’s health.
    |
  2. If the attack is/was blocked by at least one champion,
  • The attacking champions assign all of their offense to the defending champions’ defense (divided however the attacking player chooses)
  • The defending champions assign all of their offense to the attacking champions’ defense (divided however the defending player chooses)
  • All damage resolves simultaneously
    • If a champion takes damage equal to or greater than its defense, it is Broken and put into its owner’s discard pile
  • No damage is dealt to the defending player
    • Even if all of the assigned blockers are removed before offense is assigned
    • The number of attacking and defending champions is irrelevant

All Epic keywords are explained below. The ones that matter during a battle are Airborne, Blitz, Breakthrough, Righteous, Unblockable, and Unbreakable (Break tangentially).

Start of Turn

At the start of each turn, do all of the following steps once.

Attempt to End Turn (End Phase)

Once you no longer want to declare any Battle or Slow phases, you can attempt to end your turn (End Phase). Each opponent gets a chance to play something, and if at least one play is made, you can declare more Battle/Slow phases.

New Terminology/Notation

I’ve hidden all of the definitions behind a “click-to-reveal” section to artificially decrease the size of this article, while still making the terms searchable. (Didn’t want the article to be too intimidating when first opened, and if you’ve made it this far it’s only a bit more.)

Conclusion

Now you know everything required to play a game of Epic. Once you have played at least a game or two, if you would like some basic strategy advice check out part 2 of my Epic Progression series: Epic Progression (2): Basic Strategy Advice.

If you are a veteran card game player and would like to skip to Epic’s heart, Epic Progression (3): Epic Limited, Get Ahead – Stay Ahead awaits.

Deck Archetype: Combo

Foreword

This is part 3 of my 3 part series on Epic Deck Archetypes. Due to issues with my internet connection at my new place, I have placeholder card links instead of some images. *Fixed*

Combo

If you combine cards a, b, c, and d with specific game state x, you essentially win.

The “purest” form of combo works by surviving until it assembles multiple key cards and crafts an acceptable Game State to use them. (Game State refers to exactly what is happening at a specific time: such as champions in play, cards in discard piles, players’ current health, etc). Then, the combo deck uses those key cards with the crafted Game State to immediately win, usually by reducing an opponent directly from their full starting health (30) to 0.

For example, you survive until you draw Zombie Apocalypse, Drinker of Blood, and Wither. In addition, you wait until both discard piles have a combined champion count of at least 15. Then, on your opponent’s turn you play Zombie Apocalypse, putting 15 zombie tokens into play. On your turn, you play Drinker of Blood followed immediately by Wither. This breaks all 15 zombies, creates 15 Drinker of Blood triggers, deals 30 damage to your opponent, and wins you the game.

While flashy One-Turn-Kills (OTKs) are the hallmark of combo decks, any deck that combines 3+ cards for one incredibly powerful effect can be considered to have a combo aspect. Combo decks are generally built around supporting/enabling one (or more) of those combination(s). Due to this, combo decks vary widely in how they are constructed and when/how they try to win.

 

Deck Archetype: Midrange

Foreword

This is part 2 of my 3 part series on Epic Deck Archetypes.

Midrange

If you consistently apply pressure, while preventing your opponent from winning, you will eventually win.

Epic Midrange decks focus on aggressively controlling the board (champions in play), in order to create and exploit unopposed gold-opportunities (turns where your opponent spends their gold first), to establish and maintain immediate/recurring sources of champion-based damage.

To achieve this, midrange decks tend to favor cards that have 3 of 5 primary functions: 6+ toughness champion, fast (event/ambush champion), draw a card, blitz, and/or removal (secondary functions: make tokens, deal direct damage, gain health, discard pile removal, airborne). Midrange decks win when they exploit X gold-opportunities (X depends on opponent’s deck); this involves surviving against aggro or maintaining handsize with board pressure against control.

 

Next Article

Combo archetype discussed in the next article.

Deck Archetypes

Foreword

Decks in card games generally fall into a few broad archetypes: Aggro, Midrange, Control, and Combo. In this article I explain the intricacies of these archetypes specific to Epic.

For historical context, I have included links to similar articles for 10 different card games – Magic: the Gathering, Hearthstone, Eternal, The Elder Scrolls: Legends, Shadowverse, Game of Thrones, Star Wars: Destiny, Solforge, Duelyst, and Android Netrunner.

Magic is the originating game. Hearthstone is the new juggernaut. Eternal has a particularly well-written article. If anyone has a link to a similar article to an unrepresented game, like Spoils, let me know, and I’ll add it.

 Overview

“Aggro” decks are aggressive, try to win early, and focus on converting their gold to damage.

“Control” decks are defensive, try to win late, and focus on making their cards and gold worth more than their opponent’s.

“Midrange” decks are persistent, try to win in the mid game, and focus on applying consistent pressure.

“Combo” decks are ticking-time-bombs, try to win when precise conditions are met, and focus on exploiting explosive synergy between cards.

These archetypes are high level descriptions, and many decks fall somewhere between two or more.

Aggro

If you reduce your opponent to 0 health, you win.

Aggro decks attempt to take the quickest and most direct path to victory, reduce your opponent to 0 by any means possible, regardless of what else happens. To achieve this, aggro decks tend to favor hard to answer blitz champions or cards that do direct damage. The quicker an aggro deck can kill an opponent, the less time the opponent has to build up to kill the aggro deck or draw efficient answers like Drain Essence.

Burn is a subset of aggro decks that try to win primarily through direct damage, such as Flame Strike.

Control

If you safely run your opponent out of resources, you will inevitably win.

Control Decks in Epic focus on doing everything possible to not lose until they eventually win. To achieve this, control decks tend to favor removal with extra effects, off-turn board clears, low-board-impact high-card-advantage cards, and health gain. The longer the game goes, the more opportunities control decks have to slip attacks through or build to their potential alternate win-condition, such as Kark.

In general, control relies on cards that can gain multiple gold/cards worth of value.

Midrange

If you consistently apply pressure, while preventing your opponent from winning, you will eventually win.

Epic Midrange decks focus on aggressively controlling the board (champions in play), in order to create and exploit unopposed gold-opportunities (turns where your opponent spends their gold first), to establish and maintain immediate/recurring sources of champion-based damage.

To achieve this, midrange decks tend to favor cards that have 3 of 5 primary functions: 6+ toughness champion, fast (event/ambush champion), draw a card, blitz, and/or removal (secondary functions: make tokens, deal direct damage, gain health, discard pile removal, airborne). Midrange decks win when they exploit X gold-opportunities (X depends on opponent’s deck); this involves surviving against aggro or maintaining handsize with board pressure against control.

Combo

If you combine cards a, b, c, and d with specific game state x, you essentially win.

The “purest” form of combo works by surviving until it assembles multiple key cards and crafts an acceptable Game State to use them. (Game State refers to exactly what is happening at a specific time: such as champions in play, cards in discard piles, players’ current health, etc). Then, the combo deck uses those key cards with the crafted Game State to immediately win, usually by reducing an opponent directly from their full starting health (30) to 0.

For example, you survive until you draw Zombie Apocalypse, Drinker of Blood, and Wither. In addition, you wait until both discard piles have a combined champion count of at least 15. Then, on your opponent’s turn you play Zombie Apocalypse, putting 15 zombie tokens into play. On your turn, you play Drinker of Blood followed immediately by Wither. This breaks all 15 zombies, creates 15 Drinker of Blood triggers, deals 30 damage to your opponent, and wins you the game.

While flashy One-Turn-Kills (OTKs) are the hallmark of combo decks, any deck that combines 3+ cards for one incredibly powerful effect can be considered to have a combo aspect. Combo decks are generally built around supporting/enabling one (or more) of those combination(s). Due to this, combo decks vary widely in how they are constructed and when/how they try to win.

 

Conclusion

Understanding the basics of deck archetypes (how specific decks try to win and why they use specific cards) helps both when building your own decks and deducing what other cards your opponent might have in theirs. That being said, almost no deck is a “pure” representation of a single archetype. Some aggro decks lean midrange and vice versa; all combo decks have a secondary archetype attached, etc. This is merely a guide. Build what you want, and expect to see some crazy stuff.

First Self-Edited Videos

I’ve finally started to edit some of my Epic Digital Alpha videos. Since I am new to video editing, I would love any feedback to help improve future videos.

My first edited video:

My second edited video (Posted for the first time in this article):

If you do watch the videos, I would greatly appreciate any feedback (constructive/positive/negative), but you can also click below for a few specific questions. Feel free to answer as many or as few as you would like.

 

Whether or not you choose to provide feedback, thank you for taking the time to come to my blog and view my content. Also, if there is anything else you want more of, let me know.

July 4 Dark Draft VoDs

Today I played my first game of the Epic Team Masters. As a member of team The Flash Fire, I went up against Brave Squires team member Noverb. Going into this game team The Flash Fire was down 0-1. Afterwards, I played 6 more dark drafts.

Full Playlist

DD v Noverb: Epic Team Masters

DD v Noverb: July 4, 2017

DD v Gutpocket: July 4, 2017

DD v www: July 4, 2017

DD v RetroKC: July 4, 2017

DD v RetroKC #2: July 4, 2017

DD v GeneralGyp: July 4, 2017

July 4th Dark Draft Team Masters Stream

Tomorrow, Tuesday July 4th, at 10am CST, I will be streaming 1 game of Dark Draft against Noverb from team Brave Squires. My team, The Flash Fire, is currently down 1-0 in the match. Will I be able to start to turn things around? Tune in to find out: twitch.tv/tomsepicgaming

If you want a notification when I begin to stream, you can add me on twitter @tomsepicgaming
The raw footage will be uploaded to: Tom’S Epic Gaming Raw youtube channel
For edited videos check out: Tom’S Epic Gaming youtube channel
(Shout out to Phoenix Gravin for editing)

After the game against Noverb, I’ll happily continue to stream for as long as I have challengers (any format).