Epic Card Game is my favorite game, and you can find the most recent Epic articles on this page. For an organized list of all of the previous Epic content (with brief descriptions) click here.
After two really fun Random 30 games today, I’ve decided to round out my stream snipe sessions with a Random 30 stream. Currently I’m planning on Thursday June 1st, 2017 from 11am CDT (UTC -5) to approximately 3pm CDT, and 5pm CDT (UTC -5) to approximately 9pm CDT.
Random 30 involves dealing out 30 random cards to each player and playing. Simple as that. It can be done with a single collection, so each player has 30 different cards from their opponent, or each player can use their own collection so both players could end up with some of the same cards. (The app does the latter, intentionally.)
This is usually how I teach the game. However, I initially wrote it off fairly early as not a fun format for players that know what they are doing because it is too random; the better player isn’t as favored to win as they are in Dark Draft or Constructed. Recently though, I’ve been really liking the format because I approach it as just a fun experience where I don’t need to win to enjoy it. In addition, trying to figure out the best plays, using cards you wouldn’t use otherwise, in situations where your opponent is less likely to have the best answers, is exhilarating (and occasionally frustrating).
So, if you want to enjoy some less serious Epic, join the chat during the times listed, and I’ll be happy to play. As always, I will explain my plays as we go and provide a summary at the end of each match. Challengers are welcome to stay in chat with audio and video if they so desire, since it is a nice learning experience and wins/losses have no stakes attached.
Stream Raw Footage
Thank you everyone who played and watched. For those who could not, or if you want to watch your match, below is the raw footage from the stream with timestamps.
In Epic, many powerful effects involve showing your opponent cards in your hand. The most obvious of these are Loyalty 2 effects: when a champion with a Loyalty 2 ability enters play, you may reveal 2 cards of that champion’s alignment from your hand to get the effect after the arrow. Other effects that show your opponent a card in your hand include Recall effects (Lightning Storm), Memory Spirit-type cards, and bounce effects (Time Walker). Being able to effectively utilize this information allows you to play at a higher level.
The Basics
First off, there are a few simple practices that can make a big difference.
Loyalty 2: Reveal the Same 2 Cards
When you play a Loyalty 2 champion and reveal 2 cards to your opponent, try to remember which cards you showed them. (Moving the revealed cards to one side of your hand can help you remember.) If you play another Loyalty 2 card on a future turn, reveal the same 2 cards if they are still in your hand. Doing this restricts the amount of information you give your opponent.
Record Cards Your Opponent Reveals
If you want to play at a competitive level, tracking revealed information is critical. When playing in person, writing down the names of revealed cards (as well as cards returned to hand) can be helpful as it is difficult to remember everything. As your opponent plays these cards, cross them off your list. Personally, I prefer to leave all revealed cards face up to save time.
When playing in the app, you can go through the game log to check what cards your opponent has revealed in the past. (Open the game log and click on the “Player resolved effect: Loyalty 2: etc.” to see cards revealed to Loyalty.)
Playing Around Information
Once you start keeping track of revealed cards, the next step is to play around those cards to weaken their effectiveness.
Avoiding Opponent’s Best Plays
On a basic level, playing around the cards you know are in your opponent’s hand involves denying those cards their best possible use cases. In order to do this, understanding the best possible use cases of your opponent’s cards is critical. Therefore, this is something you only get better at by gaining a better understanding of the game. The best way to improve is to lose to a new tactic, think about why you lost, and try to avoid losing the same way again.
One of my favorite examples of playing around cards is Lying in Wait and Steel Golem. As a blitzing, untargetable champion with 13 defense, Steel Golem is immediately threatening and exceedingly difficult to remove off-turn. The only answers to it in Core-Only (besides chump blocking) are off-turn board clears (like Wave of Transformation/Surprise Attack -> Angel of Death) or Lying in Wait. (Lying in Wait works because it does not “target” the champion attacking alone.)
So, you have an unrevealed Steel Golem in hand, and you know your opponent has Lying in Wait in hand. You could still play Steel Golem and attack with it alone, which is usually a fairly strong play. But, if you do that in this situation, your opponent can play Lying in Wait and 1 for 1 trade with your powerful, hard-to-answer champion. Instead of making that play, you have a few other options to play around Lying in Wait:
Direct Damage, burn, in Epic is very powerful because it just happens. If you play Flame Strike targeting an opponent at 8 health, they lose and can’t stop it. However, if you use burn against an opponent and don’t kill them, they can punish you by playing health gain cards like Inner Peace. In a situation where you have 2 Flame Strikes in hand and an opponent is at 16 health with a revealed Inner Peace, playing around the Inner Peace is pivotal.
…while your opponent’s gold is up, they may immediately Inner Peace, go back up to 18 health, and be safe from your second Flame Strike.
…on your turn while your opponent’s gold is down, they may immediately play Inner Peace at the start of their turn to leave the reach of burn.
…on your opponent’s turn when their gold is down, you can then follow up with your second Flame Strike immediately at the start of your turn and win.
Another way to play around Inner Peace is to wait until after your opponent plays Inner Peace to start burning them out. If they play their Inner Peace to bring themselves back up to 16 while you have double Flame Strike, you can burn them out before they have the opportunity to recall it and then replay it. You could also potentially banish the card in their discard pile before they can recall it.
Ceasefire Example
Ceasefire is one of the most controversial cards at the writing of this article because it is an essential part of Chamberlain Kark decks. When played in conjunction with a Bodyguard block, Fumble, etc., it can essentially negate an entire turns worth of attack damage bridging Kark decks into their next turn to safely gain health while also drawing 2 cards.
If you know your opponent has a Ceasefire in hand, attacking with multiple champions in a group attack might be the only way to get significant damage through. However, if they have ways to negate that attack with a 0-cost card like Spike Trap, attacking in a group can be very dangerous.
Ceasefire is also a prime example of a card that when you see one of them, in a format that allows multiple copies, it can pay to preemptively play around the card even if you don’t know if they have one in hand. Any turn where an opponent can spend their gold first to draw 2 and limit combat damage to approximately 4 is a strong turn, usually.
Preemptively playing around cards has a lot of caveats, relies on knowing your opponent’s deck/being able to deduce it based on cards played or revealed, and is out of the scope of this article. Essentially it boils down to learning when making the “wrong play” is the best play.
Hide Your Best Plays
While in many situations you only have 2 cards you can reveal to a Loyalty 2 ability, determining which cards to reveal when you have more than 2 is important. Generally, you do not want to reveal your most impactful plays or your plays that are the easiest to play around.
Card Hiding Examples
Hasty Retreat is a card I like to hide whenever possible. The reason for this is that it protects me from most Gold-Punishers if I’m forced to use my gold first on my opponent’s turn. It also protects me if my opponent commits a Lash/Rage to a blocked champion. If my opponent knows I have a Hasty Retreat in hand, they generally won’t commit resources that allow my Hasty Retreat to really shine.
Army of the Apocalypse is another card I like to hide. If my opponent knows I have Army, they can focus their discard pile banish effects on my champions to preemptively neuter my Army.
Amnesia is nice to hide in Dark Draft because your opponent could try to go for a draw out victory. If they do, you can punish them at the last moment and negate multiple gold spent to draw cards to a full-hand.
Inner Peace and other health gain can be nice to hide. Being able to lull your opponent into committing their burn to your face can be devastating.
In general, it is also usually great to hide your unusual inclusions. For instance, if you are going for a Drinker of Blood combo kill, revealing your Drinker early lets your opponent know they need to hold onto a Flash Fire or Wither to answer a board of small champions before you can play your Drinker.
Deciding which cards to reveal depends on what cards are in play, what you have in hand, and what you expect your opponent to do. As a rule of thumb, I like to reveal duplicates to only reveal 1 potential play. I also like to reveal cards I plan on using before my opponent spends their gold, such as Triceratops and other establishing champions. Cards I plan on using just to draw 2 can frequently be strong choices as well.
Playing Into Information
One thing that can be even better than playing around your opponent’s answers is to purposefully play into them. When playing against experienced players that won’t make weak plays, guiding them into the “wrong” strong play can be critical.
Examples: Playing Into Your Opponent
Below are 3 examples of playing into your opponent’s revealed cards in order to guide their plays to your benefit.
Muse (Draw Out Removal)
If you watch my streams or read certain articles of mine, you know that I think Muse is a frustratingly powerful card. It is a 0-cost card that can grant you a major advantage and is difficult to deal with efficiently (particularly in core-only). However, if removed in a 1 for 1 trade (Wither, Flash Fire, Fireball, etc.) or better (Forcemage Apprentice, Wolf’s Bite, Siren’s Song, etc.), Muse can be worthless. Therefore, if your opponent reveals a Wither, playing something your opponent can Wither (Guilt Demon for instance) can draw out their Muse-Removal before you play your Muse. Even though your opponent using Wither to break Guilt Demon is strong, if it costs them their only Muse-Removal, they are in a terrible situation.
Noble Unicorn Bait
In a recent Dark Draft I played, I had drafted Amnesia and a bunch of strong defensive cards in order to pursue a draw out victory. Near the middle of the game, my opponent played Angel of Death and revealed Succubus and one other Evil card.
In order to bait out the Succubus, I played Noble Unicorn on my turn. On their turn, after attacking with Angel of Death, they played Succubus to draw a card and Banish my Noble Unicorn, a very strong play. However, this allowed me to play Forked Lightning on their turn, break both of their 6/5 airborne champions, leave them with just a zombie, and get back into a defensible position. While drawing a card and removing a champion is strong, me being able to essentially off-turn board clear with no downside was much more important in that game.
Ambush Blocker?
In my Bo7 showmatch against John Tatian, I was in a situation where my opponent played Memory Spirit the turn before to return a Drain Essence to hand. Then, on his turn he attacked with the Memory Spirit. I played my Memory Spirit and here is what the casters (cnoz and CJ Moynihan) thought about the play, what my opponent thought about the play, and my explained reasoning at the time.
When I assembled these clips I was “remembering” that I was talking/thinking about playing Memory Spirit to “play into” his Drain Essence for multiple reasons. Since I knew he had Drain Essence, the obvious play would have been for him to Drain my Memory Spirit to prevent me from blocking/trading, and to get 5 damage through. I was fine with this for these 3 primary reasons:
In the clip, however, I primarily talk about “playing around” Drain Essence by not playing my Ice Drake. Then, I talked about not blocking to “play around” a possible Steel Golem. While John was incredibly close to taking my bait, unfortunately for me he proved again why he is the World Champion by passing up the obvious play. Looking back at it now, I still think this was the correct play for me in this situation though. (I also think John made the correct play in response: gain 9 health fairly safely, not overcommit to the board, and remove my 7 damage threat/card drawer.)
Feeding Your Opponent Information Examples
Sometimes, revealing a card to your opponent to force them to play around it can be beneficial. Basically, if you can force your opponent to disrupt their play in such a way that you can exploit it, you can gain an advantage.
Flame Strike
Fellow Pluck You team member and Epic personality Tom Dixon has gone on the record multiple times discussing one such example: include 1 Flame Strike in your constructed deck and reveal it as soon as possible. By doing this, you let your opponent know that 8 health is effectively 0 for the entire match. Therefore, your opponent will make sub-optimal plays to stay above 8 health, regardless of whether or not Flame Strike is in your hand at that point.
In addition, since you have already gained the advantage of influencing your opponent’s play, you can freely use your Flame Strike as removal. Since your opponent will probably expect you to have more copies in your constructed deck, they will still feel the need to play around it.
Ceasefire/Ice Drake
As mentioned in my Ceasefire example above, Ceasefire/Ice Drake are two powerful cards that encourage your opponent to attack in groups to play around them. Attacking in groups in Epic is usually “wrong” since 1 champion can block multiple. In addition, cards like Spike Trap and Hands from Below can punish group attacks. By showing your opponent Ceasefire/Ice Drake, you encourage them to play in a way that you can punish with your other cards.
Conclusion
Effectively utilizing revealed information is an important step in becoming a better Epic player. By playing around (and occasionally into) your opponent’s revealed cards, you can lessen their effectiveness, and by strategically revealing your Loyalty 2 cards, you can influence your opponent’s plays. From here, the next step is learning how to deduce the cards that might be in your opponent’s deck/hand, and to utilize this information in the same way.
BONUS CONTENT **Added 1/27/20**
My favorite new example of playing around revealed information involves Strafing Dragon, Pyrosaur, Feeding Frenzy, Raxxa Demon Tyrant, and Justice Prevails.
I’m at 21 health with just a wolf token in play. My opponent has 3 cards in hand, but only small champions with 2 or less defense. I play Raxxa Demon Tyrant, getting me a 6/6 and two currently 6/6 demons, while also clearing his board. Opponent responds by playing Strafing Dragon, revealing Pyrosaur/Feeding Frenzy, and hiting me for 5. [I’m at 16.] Looking at my hand, I had neither answers to kill Strafing Dragon/a blitzing Pyrosaur, nor ambush champions I could play to block them.
Opponent goes to their turn and immediately attacks with Strafing Dragon. I celebrate. Why?
…
First off, here’s why Pyrosaur + Feeding Frenzy was so threatening to me. Assuming my opponent draws a second Wild card for Pyrosuar Loyalty, when he plays and attacks with Pyrosaur both me and my entire board takes 4 damage. This drops me to 12, breaks my wolf and damages Raxxa and his demons. If my opponent then follows up with Feeding Frenzy on Raxxa, not only does Raxxa break, but so do my demons, since they are now just 4/4 demons with 4 damage on them. This leaves me wide open to take the 6 damage from Pyrosaur hitting me, plus the 6 damage from Strafing Dragon, which kills me.
So, when my opponent attacks with Strafing Dragon, he gives me initiative to make plays. In this window, I play Justice Prevails. While this has no impact on the Strafing Dragon attack (besides drawing me a card), it does preemptively buff my tokens. Therefore, when my opponent follows up by playing Pyrosaur with loyalty + Feeding Frenzy on Raxxa, I’m left with a 5/5 wolf and two 7/7 demons all with 4 damage on them and Righteous. This enables me to block the Pyrosaur, gain health, and then swing back on my turn to win the game.
If I had not known about the Pyrosaur + Feeding Frenzy in my opponent’s hand (or if he had made that play immediately at the start of his turn before I could gain initiative to play Justice Prevails/spent my gold), my board would have been cleared before I could prevent it, I would have taken the full 16 damage that turn, and I would have lost. However, since I knew it was coming, and it was probably his only strong play he could make, I was able to directly counter it (even more effectively than if Epic had Magic-like responding and counterspells).
My favored Epic Constructed playstyle varies significantly from most other people I have played against. Usually, my constructed decks are hyper-distilled versions of my Get Ahead, Stay Ahead limited playstyle. I also favor tribute/loyalty -> draw a card champions higher than most. The best example of this is my Core Epic Humans deck based off of my Combative Humans deck.
On Saturday 5/13/17 I plan on streaming 6 hours of constructed from 11am CST to 5pm CST primarily highlighting my Core Epic Humans deck. Just like last time, I will be taking challenges from my Twitch Chat. Those that challenge me are welcome to “stream snipe” by remaining in chat and playing with the stream video and audio on while I explain my plays and give advice. Whether or not a challenger chooses to “stream snipe,” I’ll provide feedback at the end of each game.
It is also possible I might break out some of my other Core-Only decks or try out some chat submitted decks.
The stream (Saturday, 5/13/17 from 11am CST to 5pm CST) can be watched live at: twitch.tv/tomsepicgaming
At minimum, the raw footage will be uploaded to YouTube.
World Champion Showmatch Reminder
As I reminder, I will be taking on World Champion John Tatian in a best of 7 showmatch on 5/20/17 at 2pm CST. For full details click here.
I have updated my Dark Draft, Core-Only, Tier Charts article to include my Good tier charts, included below. Check out the main article for explanations on when and why I draft specific alignments.
I, Tom’S Epic Gaming, have challenged the World Champion, John “Tatdaddy” Tatian, to an Epic best of 7 showmatch on the Epic Digital Alpha. This will be the first time we have ever played against each other. We will be live streaming the showmatch on our respective Twitch channels listed below.
Who will win, the Prolific Blogger or the Undefeated World Champion?
World Champion John Tatian’s perspective will be live streamed at twitch.tv/johntatian
Format
This showmatch will consist of a best of 7 games with 7 different decks:
The first 2 games will be Dark Draft
The next 3 games will be Constructed
The final 2 games will be Dark Draft
Each game of Dark Draft will be preceded by a new Draft.
Each game of constructed may not feature the same primary alignment.
For example, if my first constructed deck has 33+ Evil, my second and third constructed decks may have, at most, 27 Evil each. If my second deck has 33+ Good, my third deck may have at most 27 Evil and 27 Good.
Stakes
If I win, John Tatian has agreed to write a guest article here on Tom’S Epic Gaming.
If John wins, I have agreed to treat him to lunch at a restaurant of his choice at either Origins, Gen Con, or Worlds.
Videos
So far we have my raw stream footage uploaded to Youtube, John’s raw stream footage can be seen on his blog, and both streams can be watched simultaneously with commentary from cnoz + CJ Moynihan.
I have updated my Dark Draft, Core-Only, Tier Charts article to include my Evil tier charts, included below. In addition, I have added a bit of clarification to the article. I did decide to go with 2 charts per alignment, a pick 1 chart and a pick 2/3 chart since there is enough difference to warrant it based on how I draft.
Recently WWG updated a few of their rules partially based on their experience with the app. These are fairly minor changes that help speed up the game, and I like them. You can check out their article on it here. Rob and Nathan also discussed the changes, took some questions, and played some Epic on a recent twitch stream.
Initiative Passing
The biggest changes have to deal with passing initiative in combat and at the end of turns.
Combat
Previously combat worked like this (AP = Attacking Player, DP = Defending Player):
1) AP Declares attacking champion(s)
2a) AP may play cards and activate abilities (“make plays”)
2b) DP may play cards and activate abilities (“make plays”)
2c) If DP made any plays, return to 2a. Otherwise, proceed to 3
3) DP Declares defending champion(s)
4a) AP may “make plays”
4b) DP may “make plays”
4c) If DP made any plays, return to 4a. Otherwise, proceed to 5
5) Assign damage
Essentially, the Defending Player would always be the last person to pass in order to advance to the next step.
Now combat works like this:
1) AP Declares attacking champion(s)
2a) AP may “make plays”
2b) DP may advance to 3 (declare blockers) or may “make plays.” If they make any plays, advance to 2c
2c) AP may advance to 3 (declare blockers) or may “make plays.” If they make any plays, advance to 2b
3) DP Declares defending champion(s)
4a) DP may “make plays”
4b) AP may advance to 5 (assign damage) or may “make plays.” If they make any plays, advance to 4c
4c) DP may advance to 5 (assign damage) or may “make plays.” If they make any plays, advance to 4b
5) Assign damage
Assuming no one makes any plays initiative passing/choice making looks like this:
1) AP
2a) AP
2b) DP
3) DP
4a) DP
4b) AP
5) –
After combat) AP
Implications
Now, the Defending Player has the first opportunity to “make plays” after blockers are declared. Not only does this reduce the number of times initiative is passed in combat by 1 (assuming no one plays anything), but it also slightly buffs the attacker in combat.
As the attacker, I don’t know my opponent plans on playing Hasty Retreat, so I play Rage on my T-Rex since, if my opponent doesn’t “make any plays” I’ll lose my opportunity to play it and lose 10 potential damage. When my opponent then gains the initiative, they play Hasty Retreat and not only save their Unicorn and return my T-Rex to hand, but they also get a free negation of my Rage in the process.
Now
The defender gets the first chance to play events. If they play Hasty Retreat now, they can protect their Unicorn; however, they will not be able to draw out my Rage. If, on the other hand, they know I have Rage because I revealed it for loyalty earlier, they could opt to pass initiative. If I play my Rage, my opponent may then Hasty Retreat my champion. But, I (as the attacker) now get the choice to either accept the current state of combat and break the Noble Unicorn, or I can play my Rage to try to get 10 damage through.
Due to this, the attacker gets a very slight advantage over the defender, or more precisely, the attacker loses a disadvantage they originally had.
End of Turn
Essentially, the non-current player was always the last player to pass before. Now, the turn can end after 2 consecutive passes.
Before, when the current player tried to end their turn and their opponent “made a play,” the current player was immediately thrust back into their main phase. From there, the current player could have either played more cards, made more attacks, or attempted to end their turn again. When the current player tried to end their turn again, their opponent could make another play and repeat this process.
Now, if the current player tries to end their turn and their opponent “makes a play,” the current player can either go back to their main phase in order to play cards/declare attacks, or the current player can immediately end the turn.
In other words, the non-current player no longer gets the last pass before the turn ends.
The main thing this eliminates (besides extra initiative passes in the app) is the ability to play a single card at the end of your opponent’s turn, see if they have a response, play another single card, see if they have a response, play another single card, etc. until you no longer want to play cards.
For example,
Opponent: “I try to end my turn”
You: “Okay, I play Muse, pass”
Opponent: *Sigh* “I try to end my turn again”
You: “No Wither? Okay, I play second Muse, pass”
Opponent: *Longer Sigh* “I try to end my turn again”
You: “Pass”
Now, if you pass after playing your first Muse, your opponent can end the turn before you get the chance to play your second Muse. You either need to risk playing both Muses (hoping your opponent has no Wither), or you can hedge against Wither, but risk only getting one Muse in play.
Conclusion
As I said, I am in favor of these changes. For the most part, they have almost no effect on gameplay (particularly the mulligan order change I didn’t bother discussing: second player mulligans first now), they make defender initiative passes less obvious, and they help attacking a tiny bit.
greylag is an Epic-loving goose who prowls the BGG forums and, now, the alpha app. She loves the weird stuff in Epic: pulling things from discard piles, odd little card combinations and, always, mass death via zombies. And somehow, she always seems to end up theorising the games she plays…
I’ve had a lot of fun with the puzzle contests run on Tom’s blog, in which we’re given a challenge: play as many champions as you can in one turn, or see how much total offense/defense you can get. The numbers possible in those challenges are ridiculous, but they’d be impossible to achieve without the puzzle rule which says you can decide exactly what card you’d get on every draw. Wouldn’t it be nice to have that ability in normal Epic? Good news: you can. Well, sort of.
I’m going to give a name to the 30-card deck you start your game with: Deck 1. (I won’t be talking about Constructed here, because I don’t think what I have to say really applies to 60-card decks. If you think it does – cool. Say how in the comments.) Deck 1 is shuffled before you start the game, you draw 5 cards out of it, you can mulligan if you want. Your next 20-25 draws (depending on how many cards you mulliganed) are your Deck 1, and are completely random – all you know is which cards were shuffled to form Deck 1 in the first place, or perhaps not even that in Random 30.
But if the game goes on long enough, probably something interesting will happen. You’ll hit a card you’ve seen before. In most cases, this will be one of the cards you mulliganed; otherwise it’ll be the first card you recycled or which was banished, usually from play or discard. This card is the first card of Deck 2. Deck 2 is fundamentally different from Deck 1: Deck 2 is ordered. You probably don’t know the exact order, but you can potentially know a lot.
Let’s limit it to the (alpha) app for now. Looking at the game log, you can see a complete list of what’s happened. From that, you can pretty much see what was recycled and banished and when. In the case of recycles, you get to choose the order of the two cards. In the case of 2+ cards being banished, they are shuffled before being put on the bottom of the deck, but you still know which cards were in each group of banished cards.
More formally, Deck 2 is an ordered list of card groups. If all those groups are just 1 card in size, it’s an ordered list which you can have perfect information about. If the groups are larger, you still have a huge amount of information.
Let’s call the first group in Deck 2 the marker group. Once you see a (or the) card in the marker group, you know from now on pretty much what you will draw, almost every time you draw. If you play Mist Guide Herald (not in the app yet), you can make a good guess at which champions might be revealed out of the 5 cards. If you Surprise Attack, you can guess what’s coming up, and same with Fairy Trickster.
What does this mean for play? My suggestions are:
Memorise the marker group. This is usually but not the same as: remember which card(s) you mulliganed. Once you see a card in the marker group, you can start checking the game log to see what might be coming up next.
Memorise your opponent’s effective marker group. Interestingly, this will usually be different to the cards they are memorising for their own marker group, because you don’t know what they mulliganed. But since you don’t know their hand or their mulliganed cards at the start of the game, it doesn’t matter. All 25 of the cards in their deck (however many they mulliganed) are unknown, and so practically for your purposes you’re interested in the first time they will draw a card you know.
If you want a rough guess at when your marker cards will be coming up, use the figure of “25 turns, less mulligans, less 1 per recycle”. If a player spends their gold every turn, to keep up on cards they will need to draw a card on average once every turn. (This often works out as 2 natural draws and one draw 2 every 2 turns.) This means 25 turns to draw through the deck. 0-cost recycles (practically all the recycles) accelerate the arrival of Deck 2 because they generally replace a card in hand with a fresh draw. For your opponent’s marker cards, use the same rule of thumb but discount mulligans (see point 2 above).
You can card count if you want to and know exactly when both players’ marker cards (yours, and your opponents’ effective markers) will be coming up. This is very laborious in the current state of the app, though it may get easier if/when WWG update the game log. Basically, just make a note every time there is a draw, and have your card totals in mind. 26 draws will put your opponent’s first effective marker in their hand, and 26 less mulligans will put your first marker card in yours.
Expansions make this even more interesting. Mist Guide Herald brings you 4 cards closer to Deck 2 when you play it. Play it twice, and you’re 1/3 of the way there already. However, it also makes your Deck 2 more unpredictable, since you’re banishing 4-card groups which are internally random. Only the last card of each group can be predicted perfectly. Arcane Research and to some extent Fairy Trickster also accelerate Deck 1 into Deck 2.
There’s a special note to Arcane Research, which is that if you know how many cards remain in Deck 1 and you’re looking for a particular card – say, Flame Strike – you know exactly how many you need to banish to be sure of seeing that card. And if you’re already in Deck 2, Arcane Research is in theory a precision tool. For this reason, if Arcane Research is in my opening hand, and I’m not running an aggressive deck, I almost always want to mulligan it, to ensure I will draw it when it is most useful.
What you do with the information above is up to you. There is more to be written about the strategy of how you compose your Deck 2, and what you want in it. There are also interesting points around the fact that both players’ Deck 2s are built collaboratively. Both you and your opponent will be acting to compose your Deck 2, and these choices can be in tension with what is best for the current board state. (Do you banish their good card from discard now, so they can’t get it back, but know it will come earlier in their Deck 2? Or do you banish a number of other cards first, betting they can’t recur it from discard right away, so that they won’t get that Flame Strike until late in Deck 2?)
But I hope I’ve at least made you think about the possibilities of what it means when a game of Epic becomes semi-deterministic in terms of drawn cards. You get the possibility to re-enact the opening moves of the game, but this time with all your questions answered. Do they have Lash, for their Kong or for your Thought Plucker? Now you know, and can play accordingly.
As a side note, I plan on streaming tomorrow once I get my new microphone to get rid of that annoying clicking sound. Probably around 3pm CST, but it will depend on when my package arrives. twitch.tv/tomsepicgaming
New decks in this article: Core Resurrection Evil and Core Rampaging Evil. (I really like Core Rampaging Evil.)
Core Resurrection Evil
After a brutal dark draft game where I played Thought Plucker on my opponent’s turn, played Corpse Taker to replay Plucker on my turn, and Resurrected Plucker on my opponent’s turn, I decided to make a constructed deck that could do the same thing.
The Deck
Essentially I just grabbed the most powerful champions in the game, added all of the ways to recur them, and added Surprise Attacks to help me cycle to get them.
Performance
The deck performed only okay.
Difficulty Dealing Damage to Opponent
The deck’s main weakness is that it struggles to push damage. I noticed after I played a couple test games that I had completely ignored on-turn gold-punishers! I had been so fixated on the most powerful, high-value champions that I hadn’t built the deck to compliment my midrange playstyle.
Pretty much the only way I was able to get damage through was when my opponent ran out of cards in hand, or by attacking with the zombies gained from multiple plays of Murderous Necromancer.
Reliance on Muse/Thought Plucker
Unanswered Muses and Thought Pluckers are some of the most powerful cards in the game. However, if your deck relies on drawing cards from them, and they are immediately answered (which isn’t hard when decks are built to answer them), they can perform quite poorly.
The main reason why this deck relies on these cards so much is the deck’s Evil core. Evil has the worst ability to draw in the game. Core set only includes no Evil “draw 2 and” cards and only 1 Evil Tribute/Loyalty -> draw a card champion. This is offset by the fact that they have some of the most powerful loyalty 2 effects in the game, all of which are included in this deck.
In addition, Palace Guard and Kong take up off-alignment slots that could have gone to card draw. Therefore, if my Muses/Thought Pluckers don’t draw me multiple cards, my hand eventually dries up, and I lose.
Low Impact 0-Cost Cards
Finally, my 0-cost cards in this deck aren’t able to do enough to help. They are largely removal effects to deal with Muse/Thought Plucker and chump blockers. Most of them won’t draw out my opponent’s gold to give my Kongs, Palace Guards, and Medusas effective targets. Overall, the deck just doesn’t function great as a whole. Instead of building my deck to win a game of Epic, I built it to gain as much value as possible.
Core Rampaging Evil
After playing the no on-turn gold punisher deck, Core Resurrection Evil above, I needed a palette cleanser. So I built a Rampaging Wurm deck.
Since Rampaging Wurm is an incredible on-turn gold-punisher, I wanted to give it a deck that could draw out my opponent’s gold before mine as often as possible.
The Deck
My first thought was that Medusa is one of the best off-turn cards in the game, and it can let you start your turn with a solid threat, while keeping you alive off-turn too. Then, I wanted 0-cost blitz champions that could provoke a 1-cost response from my opponent, hence Guilt Demon, Dark Knight, and Thrasher Demon. Army of the Apocalypse works great with them, as does Rampaging Wurm. From there I used the rest of my deck to include solid Sage card draw that works well with Army and Necromancer Lord. 9 break all board clears also give me the ability to consistently reset to begin a fresh assault again.
Performance
So much fun! Killing an opponent from 13 because they had the audacity to spend their gold before me on my turn is great.
Sage Package
I am loving the Sage cards in this deck. Winter Fairy is great to play on your turn, and Final Tasking it on-turn is pretty solid (draw 3 and deal 4 damage). Djinn continues to out perform my consistently growing expectations. Being able to draw twice with it and threaten a third draw is great. 8/8 airborne gold punisher is amazing, and if it survives until next turn I can always draw with it if I’m afraid of mass removal. Love this card. Army of the Apocalypse with Crystal Golem feels great. Get back multiple champions and draw 2, pretty nice, especially since my Amnesias and Guilt Demons do work keeping my opponent’s discard pile threatless.
0-Cost Blitzers
Guilt Demon is great. It breaks just as easily as Muse, which means many decks can answer it easily, but at minimum it takes 2 cards from your opponent’s discard pile and 1 card from your opponent’s hand with it (unless it breaks in combat). This removes recall cards, Soul Hunters, obstructs recycling, clears the way for your Army of the Apocalypses, and can severely hamper cards like Memory Spirit/Corpse Taker/Necromancer Lord/etc. There are many reasons why this is far and away my most included card in core only decks.
Thrasher Demon in a Raxxa’s Curseless environment has also been pretty nice. Mine haven’t grown very big yet, but 3 damage and the final nudge that draws the board clear against my 0’s is quite respectable. Forcemage Apprentice‘s direct damage can also be helpful when I don’t need it to break Muses.
Conclusion
Now I have Evil, Good, and Sage focused core-only decks I really enjoy: Core Rampaging Evil, Core Epic Humans, and Core Sky Force. Just need a Wild deck to complete my collection.
I’ve been primarily playing my Core Epic Humans deck and my Core Sky Force deck on Epic digital. Currently, my Core Sky Force deck has been dramatically exceeding my expectations with only 1 loss. Core Epic Humans has also been performing well but has a few more losses prompting this update.
Interestingly enough, I’ve been doing better in constructed than limited overall, but this is partially due to Wasabi kicking my butt all up and down Dark Draft. (I’m going to need to update my Dark Draftarticle and Card Ratings…)
While the deck is able to create and maintain a lead better than most decks, multiple sequential turns of Kong and Sea Titan (especially with Surprise Attack) are able to get so far ahead against the deck that it can’t come back. This can also occur against decks with a lot of huge Wild champions. Even though I can drive these opponents out of cards by forcing them to keep playing non-drawing cards to survive, I can’t beat those cards after they hit a critical mass on the board. To address this, I am stealing the Apocalypse + Plague package from my wildly successful Core Sky Force deck. I’ve done a bit of testing with this package, and while I haven’t needed to board clear yet, at minimum, the board clear package hasn’t disrupted the deck significantly. Plague to clear out Thought Pluckers has been nice though.
Sea Hydra had been consistently underperforming my expectations. It isn’t a big enough threat by itself, the 1 Gold: recall is too slow, I haven’t had a single big unbreakable turn with it yet, and other cards in the deck do basically the same thing it does but better.
Drain Essence hasn’t been necessary in any of my games as Angel of Light + Priest of Kalnor have kept me healthy enough while my Good core has either outraced my opponents or kept them consistently on the back foot, except for a few extreme cases which these changes are meant to address.
Pyromancer has surprised me with just how much I like it. Ambush really is that big a deal, so is the 4 damage. Lash has also been great, and it is definitely correct over Rage for this deck. It helps deal with Pluckers and I have spent my gold to recall it on multiple occasions. That being said, Surprise Attack and Kong are more powerful so I had to cut 1 Pyromancer to fit in the board clear package. I also went down to 2 Lash and 2 Flash Fire because both are great in different roles. I don’t want to decrease my Muse answers because Muse can easily negate a significant amount of the pressure this deck applies if unanswered. Immediately answering Muse can also devastate decks that rely on it for its incredibly high raw power.
Anti-Sea Titan/Bounce Plan In addition to everything above, 3 Apocalypse and 2 Plague allow me to clear out Sea Titans when I fall significantly far behind.
My favorite Priest play was against an opponent who turn 1 Fire ShamanLightning Stormed my faced. After attacking with my ambushed in Noble Unicorn on my turn, I threw down White Knight with loyalty, immediately Priest of Kalnored it, and attacked. My opponent then proceeded to Erase my expended Unicorn since my White Knight was untouchable. The 4 health was also quite nice. I like this card.
Playing with Brave Squire again has reminded me why I used to love it and value it so highly. It is great. In so many situations you are able to trade a 0-cost card in hand with either an opponent’s 1 cost or 0 cost champion in play, while also protecting the champion you targeted with it. The human is also a relevant chump blocker in multiple situations. I’ve even created super 14/5 unbreakable White Dragons to break Kongs (with the help of Lash). This is one of the cards that you really can only understand just how powerful it is by playing with it.
While Faithful Pegasus has done work transporting my Epic Humans like Lord of the Arena safely past potential chump blockers, even as just a 2/2 airborne, blitz, tribute -> recycle it has been solid. That little bit of hard to disrupt pressure can push me to that win, and the tribute -> recycle helps me get to the cards I need when I need them.
Finally, while not unexpected, the Noble Unicorn + White Knight draw engine + threats has been working quite well. Those continuous mid-range threats that let me apply pressure while digging into all of my best cards are great. Going second Noble Unicorn off-turn followed by White Knight on turn leaves you with a 6/6, a 9/9, and 7 cards in hand. It is straight up gross if your opponent has an evil champion in play you can break with White Knight.
As a side note, I’m not sure if the 3 Final Task, 3 Apocalypse, 2 Plague distribution will be final. I love Final Task in the deck and it does work, but I might want that 3rd Plague. Or, I might swap the 3rd Apocalypse for the 3rd Plague, we’ll see.
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