Constructed Epic: Efficient Evil

Epic Box

Foreword

I started designing this as a demon deck, but I shifted to trying to make it as efficient as possible. What I mean is that I attempted to create a deck where I would spend as little time just drawing as possible. I want my plays on my turn to get me far ahead, and I want my plays on my opponent’s turn to also get me ahead, just not by as much. The challenge was doing this in Evil with minimal card draw. Well, we’ll see if I succeeded.

First Shot Deck List

Efficient Evil

Evil (48)

Slow (24)
2x Angel of Death
1x Drinker of Blood
3x Infernal Gatekeeper
3x Murderous Necromancer
3x Necromancer Lord
3x Raxxa, Demon Tyrant
3x Reaper
3x Succubus
3x The Gudgeon
0x Trihorror

Fast (16)
1x Demon Breach
2x Drain Essence
3x Final Task
3x Medusa
3x Necrovirus
1x Raxxa’s Displeasure
3x Zealous Necromancer

0-Cost (8)
3x Plentiful Dead
3x Spawning Demon
2x Wither

Good (6)

Slow (0)

Fast (4)
1x Inheritance of the Meek
3x Resurrection

0-Cost (2)
2x Brave Squire

Sage (3)

Slow (0)

Fast (3)
3x Erase

0-Cost (0)

Wild (3)

Slow (0)

Fast (3)
3x Surprise Attack

0-Cost (0)

First Shot Explanation

The slow cards in this deck do something powerful initially and must be removed. Aside from Drinker of Blood, none of these champions suffer terribly from bounce.

The fast cards in this deck were picked because they (almost) all provide incredibly strong effects on my opponent’s turn. Ideally, I can use the powerful effects each turn to grind down my opponent quickly. Essentially, I do not want to let up the pressure to spend my turn drawing 2 cards.

I am attempting to make this work due to 2 factors. I am including The Gudgeons, Succubi, Zealous Necromancers, Erases, and to a lesser extent Resurrections, Final Tasks, and Necromancer Lords to draw cards. Demon Breach and Plentiful Dead can both be returned to hand as well.

In addition, I have limited the number of 0-cost cards in this deck to 10. Since I have fewer 0-cost cards, I do not need to draw as many cards to be able to continually play 1-cost cards. In other words, I am less likely to be in a situation where I unload all of my 0-cost cards and run myself out of fuel. The 0-costs I included are either big threats, continuous threats, combo/defense, or efficiency enablers.

Spawning Demon can create an army of demons while I play my Evil 1-cost cards normally, and it can start on my opponent’s turn.

Plentiful Dead is a constant stream of zombie tokens. Wither can work with my deck or prevent the damage from a Secret Legion on my turn into Insurgency combo. (Wither wouldn’t kill those tokens with Insurgency, but it would remove their offense for the turn.)

Brave Squire is included for 2 situations, in addition to it being a combat trick. Final Task + Brave Squire is the first. Zealous Necromancer + Brave Squire is the second.

I am really curious to see how this deck works out. My greatest fear is discard, but Human tokens could be an issue too. The nice thing is that Zealous Necromancer does turn those broken human tokens into zombies.

This deck was incredibly difficult to pare down initially. I wanted more of a few cards because they are so powerful, but I cut them because they are either situational or 1 effective use is all that is needed in a game. I also had to cut Trihorror even though it works well with Necromancer Lord, Final Task, Resurrection, and Reaper as well as the demon specific cards. Trihorror just doesn’t seem reliable enough. I did not include Dark Assassin because it breaks a champion, but then it is too easy to remove. Necromancer Lord gives a permanent champion and The Gudgeon draws 2, so neither of them need to stay around to get excellent value.

Let me know what you think in the comments below. I am especially curious to hear how many 0-cost cards other people include in decks and why. Is 20 the goal every time, do you have a formula you like, or is it more about selecting the best cards regardless of 1-cost to 0-cost (as long as it is legal)?

Dixit Review

Dixit Box

Foreword

Dixit is a simple, attractive, party game for 3 to 6 players.

How to Play

Each player starts with 6 cards with pictures on them. The current player selects 1 card from their hand. They place it face down and say either a word or phrase, or they make a sound to describe it. Every other player then picks a card from their hand, that they think fits that description, and places it face-down. Once this has happened, the current player shuffles the cards, lays them out on the table face-up, and each other player guesses which card the current player played. The guessing is done by playing a tile face-down with the number of the picture you think it is. All of the tiles are revealed at once.

Scoring is based on the premise that you want your definition to be obscure, but not too obscure.

  • If every other player guesses the current player’s card, everyone but the current player gets 2 points.
  • If no player guess the current player’s card, everyone but the current player gets 2 points.
  • If at least one player guesses the current player’s card and at least one player guesses incorrectly, the current player gets 3 points and each player who guessed correctly gets 3 points too.
  • Finally, if you are not the current player, you get 1 additional point for every person who guessed your card that round.

After this is resolved, everyone draws a card and the next player becomes the current player.

Dixit In Progress

Example

Anne places a card face down and says “alone.” Each other player places a card face down as well. After shuffling the cards and placing them face up, Bob, Carol, David, Edna, and Frank make their guesses.

Anne had played the number 3 card.
Bob played the number 1 card and guessed 3.
Carol played the number 2 card and guessed 4.
David played the number 4 card and guessed 5.
Edna played the number 5 card and guessed 3.
Frank played the number 6 card and guessed 4.

Anne gets 3 points because Bob and Edna guessed correctly and Carol, David, and Frank guessed incorrectly.

Bob gets 3 points because he guessed correctly, but no one guessed his card.

Edna gets 4 points because she guessed correctly (3), and David guessed her card (1).

David gets 2 points because Carol and Frank both guessed his card (1 each).

Carol and Frank get 0 points because neither player guessed correctly, and no one voted for their cards.

Conclusion

I enjoy this game, but about 1/4 of the people I have played it with do not, and they really do not. I, personally, love thinking up interesting and obscure ways to describe the cards. Trying to connect the interesting cards to something only 1 or 2 people would get is fun for me. I don’t think I have ever won though because I go too obscure, but still, I like it.

The people that I play with that do not like Dixit dislike coming up with those words/phrases/etc. Generally, they do not mind thinking which card they want to use to match someone else’s word/phrase, but they are, to an extent, self-conscious about coming up with a “good” one on their turn.

One problem I do have with the base game is that it can get repetitive. The cards are pretty cool looking, there are a good number of them, and you can describe them in a myriad of ways, but seeing the same ones over and over again can get stale. Luckily, there are expansions which add a lot of new cards. I do not have any of these expansions though, so I can’t actually recommend them, yet.

Overall, this is another one of my games I like to break out with “non-gamers,” but I haven’t had as much success with it as I would like. I do recommend it, but it very much isn’t for everyone.

Sample Epic Dark Draft 3/16/16 (Tom)

Epic Box

Foreword

Recently I did a couple Dark Drafts with my friend Paul (quite a few), and we wrote notes during a couple so we could post it on here. We are writing up our thoughts throughout the draft in separate posts, so you can get the perspective of each of us. His post can be found here: Sample Epic Dark Draft 3/16/16 (Paul).

Dark Draft is a two-player draft format where each player is simultaneously dealt 5 cards face down. Each player picks 1 of their 5 cards and then passes the remaining 4 to their opponent. Then each player picks 2 of the 4 passed cards and discards the remaining 2. This is done 10 times and you have your 30 card deck. During the draft, you may not look at the cards you drafted (once you draft them) and at the end of the draft you will not be able to cut any cards from your 30. You may go over your drafted deck before the first game though.

To stay true to the Dark Draft format as much as possible, we took notes in a very specific way. After getting dealt the opening 5 cards each round, we wrote down all 5. We then circled our choice and put a square around the 2 cards we expected our opponent to take. In addition, we wrote notes beneath this to reference during these posts. Before looking at the passed cards, we flipped over the page so we could not see the previous choices. On the back of the page, we wrote our 2 choices from the 4 passed cards and any notes. We then started the next round on the next page.

DarkDraftNotes

Round 1

Angel of Death, Bitten, Muse, Plague, Word of Summoning

E3_16DDT1a

Round 2

Round 3

Round 4

Round 5

Round 6

Round 7

Round 8

Round 9

Round 10

 

Conclusion

Tzaar Review

Tzarr Box

Foreword

This is a rules-light two-player abstract strategy game. I like rules-light 2 player abstract strategy games.

How to Play

Goal

The goal of the game is to eliminate all of a single type of your opponent’s pieces. (There are 3 types.) You do this by capturing their pieces and building stacks with your own. Stacks can only capture stacks of equal or lesser height.

You can also win by making it impossible for your opponent to capture a piece on their turn.

Set Up

You can either randomly set up the discs, use a predefined setup, or alternate placing discs on the board.

TzarrInProgress

Turn

  1. Capture
  2. Capture, Stack, or Pass (Skip this step for the first player’s first turn.)

Capture

Pick a stack of 1 or more disc(s) of your color. Move that stack along a straight line onto an opponent’s stack of equal or lesser height. Remove your opponent’s stack from the board.

Stack

Pick a stack of 1 or more disc(s) of your color. Move that stack along a straight line onto another one of your stacks; this combines the two stacks into one. For determining if you have a disc of a type, only the top disc of a stack counts.

Pass

Do nothing.

Conclusion

This game is simple, elegant, and excellent.

When I previewed this game, I characterized it as a hunting game, and I think that nails it. The ringed piece (Tzaar) is quickly hunted down to just 1 remaining for each side, since each player only starts with 6. To protect their last Tzaar piece, each player will put it on top of a stack. The first player to do that will always have the higher stack, if they stack it every turn. Due to this, that player can chase down their opponent’s stack(s) with impunity.

While this happens, the second player will generally need to shift into hunting their opponent’s second or third rarest pieces (the Tzarra and Tott respectively). So now, the first player is still trying to capture the last Tzaar piece, but they also need to protect their other pieces. The second player, on the other hand, needs to focus on evading the first player’s mega stack while chipping away at the more plentiful discs. This is frequently accomplished by having a few smaller stacks of 2 to 4 discs, as opposed to a big 4+ stack.

Throughout this process, each player can also set traps to ensnare their opponent. For example, player 1 leaves a 3 stack vulnerable. If player 2 captures that 3 stack they might be allowing their opponent to capture one of their stacks. Or, the capturing stack might be put into a position where it can no longer move, neutralizing it. Overall board awareness is critical to winning this game.

Another major decision point in this game is determining when to make a second capture and when to stack. In almost all games, you win the game by capturing your opponent’s pieces. So, capturing moves you directly toward victory. Stacking, on the other hand, is necessary to prevent you from losing; but, it does also give you an offensive edge for capturing. In general, big stacks are better for defense. Multiple small stacks are better for offense.

Everything I have discussed in my conclusion is emergent from the incredibly simple rules. The strategy is surprisingly deep and the better player will usually win. But, there is a lot to pay attention to, and if you neglect something, you can quickly lose. It is easy to focus on attacking and let yourself be eliminated. I really enjoy the back and forth of this game. If you enjoy abstract strategy games like Chess, The Duke, or Push Fight, I highly recommend this game.

Constructed Epic: Duel Decks (Tall vs Wide)

Epic Box

Foreword

In this post, I am including 2 constructed Epic decks. They are designed to be played against each other, with just 3 sets of the base game. The idea to do this came from Harold, a reader and Epic Fan, and it is an excellent idea. With these decks, players can experience Epic constructed play without needing 2 players to have 3 sets each.

In addition, I designed these decks to be largely opposite of each other. The first deck wants to get out big champions and run over their opponent. The second deck wants to get out a lot of champions and run through their opponent.

Tall

Epic Tall

Evil (0)

Good (9)

Slow (0)

Fast (6)
3x Ceasefire
3x Resurrection

0-Cost (3)
2x Brave Squire
1x Watchful Gargoyle

Sage (21)

Slow (11)
2x Frost Giant
3x Juggernaut
3x Sea Titan
3x Steel Golem

Fast (3)
3x Stand Alone

0-Cost (7)
2x Forcemage Apprentice
3x Keeper of Secrets
1x Muse
1x Spike Trap

Wild (30)

Slow (11)
1x Jungle Queen
3x Kong
3x Raging T-Rex
1x Sea Hydra
3x Triceratops

Fast (9)
1x Lightning Storm
3x Lurking Giant
3x Hurricane
2x Surprise Attack

0-Cost (10)
1x Cave Troll
2x Fire Shaman
2x Flash Fire
2x Lash
3x Wurm Hatchling

Wide (Based on Plentiful Dead Deck)

Epic Wide

Evil (42)

Slow (15)
1x Angel of Death
1x Dark Assassin
1x Drinker of Blood
3x Infernal Gatekeeper
3x Murderous Necromancer
3x Necromancer Lord
3x Trihorror

Fast (16)
3x Bitten
3x Demon Breach
3x Final Task
3x Inner Demon
2x Medusa
1x The Risen
1x Zombie Apocalypse

0-Cost (11)
3x Guilt Demon
3x Plentiful Dead
3x Thrasher Demon
2x Wither

Good (6)

Slow (0)

Fast (4)
3x Inheritance of the Meek
1x Secret Legion

0-Cost (2)
2x Courageous Soul

Sage (9)

Slow (0)

Fast (6)
2x Crystal Golem
1x Deadly Raid
3x Erase

0-Cost (3)
3x Hasty Retreat

Wild (3)

Slow (0)

Fast (2)
1x Mighty Blow
1x Surprise Attack

0-Cost (1)
1x Flash Fire

Conclusion

I am not going to go into too much depth on the strategy of these two decks. A lot of the fun of constructed play is figuring it out as you play. I also did not include Tyrants cards in either deck. Feel free to upgrade these decks as you see fit.

In general, Tall deck is much more straightforward to play. It doesn’t really run out of cards in hand either. To win, this deck has to get 1 or 2 attacks through with big champions.

Wide deck requires a lot more concentration to play well. Effective chump blocking is critical. Also, a lot of your fast cards work better on your turn. To win, this deck must chip away at your opponent’s health.

As an aside, I am beginning to think I underestimated Demon Breach and Plentiful Dead. 3 demons on your turn, with one card, isn’t bad. Plentiful Dead also works quite nicely.

**Updated Untested Lists**

Now that I’ve played significantly more Epic, Core-Only specifically on the app, I decided to remake these decks. (Someone also requested duel decks on reddit too.) I have not tested these decks yet, but they can both theoretically do a lot of powerful things. I also designed them to have some theoretically interesting interactions. Slight tweaking of certain card counts would probably make these better…hmmm…just had an idea…

Tall

Evil (6)

Slow (0)

Fast (4)
1x Drain Essence
3x Zombie Apocalypse

0-Cost (2)
1x Corpse Taker
1x Wither

Good (3)

Slow (0)

Fast (2)
2x Ceasefire

0-Cost (1)
1x Brave Squire

Sage (33)

Slow (11)
1x Frost Giant
3x Juggernaut
3x Sea Titan
3x Steel Golem
1x Time Walker

Fast (11)
1x Ancient Chant
1x Crystal Golem
1x Deadly Raid
3x Ice Drake
1x Memory Spirit
3x Stand Alone
1x Thought Plucker

0-Cost (11)
1x Amnesia
3x Keeper of Secrets
3x Forcemage Apprentice
1x Muse
3x Spike Trap

Wild (18)

Slow (6)
3x Kong
3x Triceratops

Fast (6)
3x Hurricane
2x Pyromancer
1x Surprise Attack

0-Cost (6)
3x Flash Fire
1x Lash
2x Cave Troll

Wide

Evil (39)

Slow (11)
2x Angel of Death
1x Drinker of Blood
3x Infernal Gatekeeper
3x Murderous Necromancer
2x Necromancer Lord

Fast (15)
3x Demon Breach
1x Drain Essence
3x Inner Demon
3x Final Task
3x Medusa
2x Plague

0-Cost (13)
1x Corpse Taker
3x Guilt Demon
3x Plentiful Dead
2x Unquenchable Thirst
1x Wither
3x Word of Summoning

Good (6)

Slow (0)

Fast (4)
3x Inheritance of the Meek
1x Resurrection

0-Cost (2)
1x Brave Squire
1x Watchful Gargoyle

Sage (12)

Slow (0)

Fast (8)
1x Ancient Chant
1x Crystal Golem
1x Deadly Raid
1x Erase
1x Lying in Wait
3x Wave of Transformation

0-Cost (4)
1x Amnesia
1x Muse
2x Ogre Mercenary

Wild (3)

Slow (0)

Fast (2)
1x Mighty Blow
1x Surprise Attack

0-Cost (1)
1x Fireball

Hearthstone Hat Hunter

Foreword

A friend recently got me back into Hearthstone (a Digital Collectible Card Game), and he thought this deck was interesting enough to post.

ExplanationHat Hunter

The star of this deck is Explorer’s Hat. It works well with Zombie Chow and Steamwheedle Sniper to gain board position early. Cards like Wild Pyromancer, Violet Teacher, and Djinni of Zephyrs work well with multiple castings of the Hat. Overall, this deck does well when you draw a hat early since you can make favorable trades.

Combinations

Gahz’rilla can one shot players if you have a Wild Pyromancer and 2 or 3 spells (Hats) to cast. Wild Pyromancer with Hats is also solid AoE damage. Arch-Thief Rafaam works quite nice with Djinni of Zephyrs to get 2 +10/+10 buffs.

Cut Cards

I have been refining this deck for a couple days, and the cards that did not make it are explained below:

Webspinner: The 1/1 stats weren’t doing enough for early game tempo, and the random beast deathrattle wasn’t reliable.
Other Secrets: Mainly the secrets just weren’t reliable enough. Snake Trap and Bear Trap stay in because they are above the curve (3/3 worth of stats for 2 crystals).
Glaivezooka: This was decent, and I could potentially experiment with it more.
Desert Camel: This was frequently not beneficial enough for me because of the strength of my opponent’s class-specific 1 crystal minions.
Ball of Spiders: Same reasoning as the individual Webspinner. The spell aspect wasn’t enough, especially after I cut summoning Stone.
Fjola Lightbane: Didn’t do enough when I didn’t have Hat.
Summoning Stone: Occasionally did great things, but I think replacing it with a second Violet teacher has been slightly better.
Emperor Thaurissan: It just didn’t feel strong enough since my draw is lacking and I need my big minions to win me the game.

Potential Cards

I do not own these cards, but they could work: Feign Death, Lock and Load, Dreadscale, and Eydis Darkbane.

Paperback Review

Paperback Box

Foreword

This is a deck-building word game. While everything may not be perfectly balanced, it is still an excellent game that works with a lot of different people.

Paperback In Progress

 

 

 

 

Deck-Building

In a deck-building game, everyone starts with an identical deck of cards. These cards are used to acquire new and better cards during the game. All cards you acquire are eventually shuffled into your deck. This means that you will then be able to use the new cards you acquired, in that same game. In addition, all of the decks will diverge as each player makes their own card acquisitions.

Different deck-builder games handle scoring and end game in different ways. Some other deck-builders include but are not limited to: Dominion, Baseball Highlights: 2045, Star Realms, Thunderstone, and Valley of the Kings.

How to Play

Starting Deck

Each player starts with a 10 card deck containing 5 wilds and the letters L, N, R, S, and T.

Turn Overview

At the end of each turn, you draw 5 cards from your deck to use on your next turn.

Paberback Starting Deck

On your next turn, you use up to all of the letters in your hand and the common vowel to spell a word. That word is worth a number of cents equal to the combined total of the value in the top left of each card used. For instance, if you spelled ‘s*lent’ using 4 of your starting letters, the common card, and 1 wild, it would be worth 5 cents. The wild is worth 0 cents.

Paberback Silent

With the cents earned from your word, you may buy new card(s). If you had 6 cents, you could buy 3 2-cost cards, 1 6-cost card, or any other combination that adds up to at most 6. Cards you buy go directly to your discard pile.

Paberback Buy Examples

After you buy your card(s), discard all cards from that turn, whether you played them or not. Repeat this process until the game ends.

Card Type and Abilities

Cards are either Letter cards or Fame cards.

Letter cards have higher cent values (for purchasing more cards) than the starter cards. They can also have abilities that trigger when used in a word. For instance, there is a P that costs 5 cents to buy, is worth 2 cents when played, and, when used as the first letter in a word, it is worth 2 more cents.

Some of these abilities include drawing additional cards at the end of your turn, gaining cards, trashing cards (removing cards your your deck), and even giving a one-time double word score.

PBExamples

Fame cards are either wilds or common cards. Wilds provide 0 cents when used in a word, common cards provide 1 cent. Fame cards are important because they are what give you points at the end of the game.

Your deck starts with 5 1-point wild cards, and there are 4 other wild cards that can be purchased during the game. The higher the cost, the more points it is worth at the end of the game.

PBFameCards

Common cards are worth 5 points at the end of the game. You get common cards by making words with at least 7 letters. To get the first common card, you need a 7+ letter word. The second common requires an 8+ letter word. 3rd requires 9+. Final requires 10+.

PBCommonCards

Game End

The game ends when 1 of 2 conditions is met.

  • Any 2 piles of fame cards are depleted

or

  • All of the common cards are depleted

Conclusions

I enjoy Paperback. I bought this for a family member that plays a lot of Words with Friends, and she loves this game. Paperback works well as a word game, and it works fairly well as a game in its own right.

As a word game, you get the same feeling of accomplishment when you create an excellent word. In addition, it’s generally not difficult to know the most potential points you can score in a hand, and it feels great when you find a word that does it. I generally see the word game enthusiasts chase after cards that let you draw more cards. This lets them create these impressive 7+ letter words which award the common cards. These long words are generally also worth significant cents, for buying.

For those of you who do not enjoy chasing massive words, you can go after individual high cents cards and fame cards. I frequently go this route. Doing this lets me buy the fame cards, and I am frequently the player that ends the game. As a gamer, I do feel like the balance of the cards might not be perfect; the 4 or 5 cent letters and the single-use double word scores are just so powerful.

The other downside of Paperback is the potential length. When a player takes an incredibly long time to think of a word, the game can drag on. This is especially true if there are multiple people in a row taking a long time. In gaming, this phenomenon is known as Analysis Paralysis (AP). The game does address this by allowing players to ask for help. The helping player then gets a reward. In addition, there is a cooperative mode, but I have not played it yet. There are also a bunch of other “expansions” included in the base game. The expansions that I have tried haven’t been great.

Overall, Paperback works excellently as a game I can play with casual players. It works particularly well for fans of word games.

Sample Epic Open Draft

Epic Box

Foreword

In this article, I go through an entire sample Epic Open Draft. I will be drafting 40 cards per deck and cutting 10 each for 30 card decks. I am picking for both decks, but, since the cards are visible to both players constantly in this format, I don’t have to pretend that I don’t have complete knowledge. So I think it works. (This wouldn’t work for Dark Draft; however, you can expect to see something involving Dark Draft soon.)

After showing my picks, I explain why I picked the cards for each deck. Anytime I say A thinks this or B thinks that, I am referring to my own thought process. I use A and B to (hopefully) make it easier to follow as two separate drafts.

Round 1 (Player A First Pick)

Round 2 (Player B First Pick)

Round 3 (Player A First Pick)

Round 4 (Player B First Pick)

Round 5 (Player A First Pick)

Round 6 (Player B First Pick)

Round 7 (Player A First Pick)

Round 8 (Player B First Pick)

Round 9 (Player A First Pick)

Round 10 (Player B First Pick)

Round 11 (Player A First Pick)

Round 12 (Player B First Pick)

Round 13 (Player A First Pick)

Round 14 (Player B First Pick)

Round 15 (Player A First Pick)

Round 16 (Player B First Pick)

Round 17 (Player A First Pick)

Round 18 (Player B First Pick)

Round 19 (Player A First Pick)

Round 20 (Player B First Pick)

Final Decks and Explanations

 

Draft Conclusions