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.
I have just updated my ratings for Epic cards to include the Tyrants Evil cards. In addition, I have tweaked a few of the base Evil cards’ ratings as well. (The original ratings and explanations are still there, I just added a section for Tyrants updates.) The updated post can be found here. With this last update, the card by card analysis is complete (not including promos/kickstarter cards that are not yet tournament legal). Feel free to let me know if you disagree with any of my ratings.
This deck was built to abuse Resurrection and Final Task.
Slow (3)
3x The Gudgeon
Fast (3)
3x Final Task
0-Cost (3)
3x Heinous Feast
Slow ()
Fast (14)
3x Divine Judgement
1x Inheritance of the Meek
3x Quell
3x Resurrection
3x Royal Escort
1x Vital Mission
0-Cost (7)
1x Blind Faith
3x Brave Squire
3x Priest of Kalnor
Slow (5)
3x Knight of Shadows
2x Winter Fairy
Fast (9)
3x Psionic Assault
3x Thought Plucker
3x Wave of Transformation
0-Cost (7)
3x Forcemage Apprentice
1x Shadow Imp
3x Vanishing
Slow (2)
2x Kong
Fast (4)
2x Mighty Blow
2x Surprise Attack
0-Cost (3)
3x Feeding Frenzy
Resurrection and Final Task are able to bring back all of my powerful champions. Brave Squire and Priest of Kalnor can give a champion I return with Final Task unbreakable. This prevents that champion from breaking at the end of the turn.
This can be disrupted by fast discard removal. Since a player maintains the initiative until they pass it, they can break one of my champions and then play Guilt Demon or Amnesia. Final Task and Resurrection can’t return a banished champion.
To best make use of this effect, I included incredibly powerful tribute champions. Kong is big and deals big damage. The rest (The Gudgeon, Winter Fairy, Thought Plucker, and Knight of Shadows) all either draw multiple cards or force my opponent to discard cards. One of the strongest plays in this deck is to ambush Thought Plucker in on your opponent’s turn after they spent their gold. Then, if they break it on your turn, you can Final Task it and Priest of Kalnor/Brave Squire it and attack. Assuming it does damage, the Thought Plucker has drawn you 3 cards and forced your opponent to discard 3. It also doesn’t break to Final Task because it is unbreakable.
Due to the incredible card draw in this deck, I included Feeding Frenzies (triggered by Forcemage Apprentices) and Vanishings to facilitate powerful tempo plays.
Royal Escort is interesting in that it helps protect my smaller defense champions, but it does also disrupt my own plans. While Royal Escort is in play, I can’t target my champions either. So, if I Final Task a minion, I can’t target it to give it unbreakable. I do really like the idea of Royal Escort and The Gudgeon though. You can’t target me while The Gudgeon is in play, and you can’t target my The Gudgeon while my Royal Escort is in play.
Since I have such strong discard, I included the Psionic Assault to up the ante. Heinous Feasts help me control my opponent’s discard. All of my board clears are banishment based because I want to shut down my opponent’s available resources as much as possible.
Mighty Blows are primarily included as finishers since they work excellently with unblockable champions like Thought Plucker.
Biblios is an intriguing, partial-information card game that has basically nothing to do with religion.
The goal of the game is to score the most points by collecting a plurality in at least one category.
The game consists of Category cards, Gold cards, and Church cards.
Category Cards
Collecting Category cards is how you score points to win the game. The 5 categories are Pigments (blue), Monks (brown), Holy Books (green), Manuscripts (orange), and Forbidden Tomes (red).
The Pigments and Monks categories consist of four 2-value cards, three 3-value cards, and two 4-value cards. So, there is a combined total value of 25 for each of these categories. If you collect at least 13 value in either category, you are guaranteed to win that category.
The Holy Books, Manuscripts, and Forbidden Tomes categories have seven 1-value cards and two 2-value cards. So there is a combined total value of 11 for each of these categories. If you collect at least 6 value in any of these categories, you are guaranteed to win that category.
If, at the end of the game, there is a tie for the amount of value in a category, the player with the letter closest to A (in the bottom right hand corner) wins the tie.
Gold Cards
Gold cards have a value of either 1, 2, or 3. These cards are used in the auction phase to bid for cards.
Church Cards
Church cards can raise or lower the point value for winning specific categories. For example, say you get the +1 Church card and you have collected 12 value in Pigments. You can choose to increase the Pigments die by 1. At the end of the game, if you have the most Pigments value, you take the blue die with the increased point total.
Immediately when you gain a church card you resolve it. So, if you get the -1 for 2 dice, you must immediately discard the Church card and decrease 2 dice by 1.
At the start of the game, place the Scriptorium board in the center of the table with each die starting on 3. Then, based on the number of players in the game, remove a number of cards from the deck. Do not look at the removed cards.
For a 4 player game, remove 7 cards randomly.
For a 3 player game, remove 1 of each type of Gold card and then remove 12 additional random cards.
For a 2 player game, remove 2 of each type of Gold card and then remove 21 additional random cards.
Due to the removing of cards, you never know exactly which cards will be in the game. For instance, it is possible that both 4-value Pigments cards will be removed so there would only be a combined value of 14 available.
The game is divided into 2 phases: the gift phase and the auction phase.
Gift Phase
In the gift phase, each player takes turns drawing cards and distributing them between themselves, everyone else, and a separate pile to be used in the auction phase. Each card is drawn individually and placed in a pile before drawing the next card. You draw a number of cards equal to the number of players plus one.
For example, in a 4 player game, each player draws a total of 5 cards on their turn. The current player takes 1 of those cards, places 3 of those cards into a communal pile, and places 1 in the auction pile.
Example Turn
This repeats until the original deck of cards is depleted. At this point, the game moves into the auction phase.
Auction Phase
Once the gift phase is completed, shuffle the created auction deck. Beginning with the starting player, each player takes turns putting a card up for auction. Bidding starts with the player to the left of the current player. To win a bid, you need to have a corresponding amount of gold to cover the cost.
For example, it is my turn to auction a card, and I reveal the Church card that can raise 2 dice by 1. The player to my left (Becky) bids 1 gold. The next player (Carl) bids 2 gold. The final player before me (Diane) passes. I want the card and only have 2 2-value Gold cards, so I bid 4 gold. Becky passes. Carl bids 5 gold. I pass. Carl only has 2 3-value Gold cards, so he must use both of them. He does not receive a refund even though he overpaid by 1.
There is a rule for penalizing a player if they bid more than they have and win the auction. Each other player takes a random card from that player, and then the card is re-auctioned. The penalized player may not participate in that re-auction. This rule does allow people to bluff, especially if they have no Gold cards left. If you are playing with incredibly competitive people who all know what they are doing, then you can use this rule. Otherwise, I would just recommend re-auctioning the card if someone accidentally makes that mistake. Even in this scenario, everyone now knows approximately how much gold that player has to spend, which I see as a penalty.
When a gold card comes up for auction, players bid a number of cards in their hand instead of bidding gold. So, the first person might bid 1 card. The second person might bid 2 cards, etc. If you win the bid, you must discard face-down a number of cards equal to your bid. These could be Gold cards or Category cards. (Church cards will never be in your hand.)
Once the auction pile is depleted, the game is over.
At the end of the game, each person reveals the total value they have collected for each category. I recommend revealing 1 category at a time for suspense. Whoever has the highest value in that category wins the corresponding die and gains that many points. In case of a tie, the player with the card closest to A wins the die and the points.
Whoever has the most points at the end is the winner. In the case of a tie, the player with the most gold remaining wins. If still tied, the winner is the tied player with the highest value in the Monks category (the leftmost category on the Scriptorium). If still tied, the player with the card closest to A in the Monks category wins. If still tied, because none of the players had Monks cards, repeat this process with the next category on the Scriptorium (Pigments). Continue this process until there is a winner.
At first when I played this game I wasn’t a huge fan. I liked the concept, but it seemed too easy so I didn’t play much more of it. Recently, however, I played some 2 player games, and they were quite interesting. I also lost which really gets me thinking about a game.
In a 2 player game, you see 66% of the cards during the gift phase. In a 4 player game you see 70% of the cards. This is why I call it a partial-information card game, since you don’t have complete knowledge about all of the cards in play, but you do know most of them. Due to this, you can guess what categories the other players are collecting. With this information, you can determine how strongly you want to pursue each category. For example, if you never see anyone take any Pigments and you already have a 4-value and a 3-value, you know there is a pretty good chance you could win that category.
The second aspect of the game that gives you information is the Church cards. If someone boosts a certain category, you know that they almost certainly have a lot of value in that category. So, if you have little to no value in that category, you can just ignore that category going forward. You can also target that category with negative Church cards. In a two-player game this is very interesting because you can feed those Church cards to your opponent to figure out what they are chasing. The actual value changes haven’t been that relevant in my 2 player games because the winner has always been the player to win 3 of the 5 dice regardless.
The gift phase is also interesting because of the whole ‘push your luck’ element. Do you take that early 3-value Pigment card, or do you hold out for something even better. If you take something pretty good early, you know you got something solid. But, when you see a better card come up in a later draw that turn, you have to let it go. In addition, deciding what to put in the auction is just as interesting. Frequently, you just put in a strong card you couldn’t take because you already took a card. Sometimes, though, you get something early like a Church card you want to throw into the auction. Each individual choice on your turn is fairly limited, but the implications and thought behind those choices can be quite interesting.
Overall, I think this is an excellently designed/developed game. I can put a lot of thought into my play, and I really enjoy that aspect. More importantly though, I can still lose the game even when I put the most thought into it. Even in the games I lose, I enjoy the journey and don’t mind the loss. Due to this, I group it with other games like Dominion, Camel Up, and Ninjato.
The goal of this deck is to force your opponent to spend their gold first as often as possible.
Slow (11)
3x Elara, The Lycomancer
3x Juggernaut
3x Sea Titan
2x Time Walker
Fast (12)
3x Helion, the Dominator
3x Memory Spirit
3x Temporal Enforcer
3x Turn
0-Cost (11)
3x Forcemage Apprentice
2x Fumble
3x Hasty Retreat
3x Muse
Slow (6)
3x Kong
3x Raging T-Rex
Fast (12)
3x Draka’s Enforcer
3x Hurricane
3x Strafing Dragon
3x Surprise Attack
0-Cost (8)
2x Feeding Frenzy
2x Flash Fire
1x Lash
3x Lightning Strike
In Epic, it is frequently advantageous if you can get your opponent to spend their gold before you do in a turn. For instance, say it is your turn and you pass holding your gold. Your opponent then ambushes in Lurking Giant. After that enters play, you then spend your gold to play Kong and break their Lurking Giant. If you would have played Kong first, a Lash, Flash Fire, etc. would have been able to finish off your Kong, and then your opponent would still be able to play Lurking Giant unanswered.
Another example of this is when your opponent immediately spends their gold on their turn to use a “if it is your turn” board wipe like Apocalypse. If you still have your gold, once Apocalypse finishes, you can slam down a Draka’s Enforcer. You draw a card and have a 7/7 airborne champion ready to attack face next turn unopposed. On your next turn, you attack before spending your gold, and if they Surprise Attack in a Thundarus to block, you can play your Turn to permanently gain control of that Thundarus, or possibly just take it for the turn with blitz and attack face with it since they spent their gold.
So, since the goal is to get your opponent to play their gold first, I have included a lot of high-impact 0-cost cards and ambush champions. Hasty Retreat and Lightning Strike are solid 0-cost cards for dealing with threats. With a 0-cost card, you can potentially remove a 1-cost card leaving your opponent in a neutral or behind position. They can either play a 1-cost card (depleting their gold) or pass holding on to their gold. If they pass, you can let their turn end and just move into your turn denying them a chance to play their slow champions. If they play a 1-cost card, you have a significant advantage in deciding which card you will play afterwards. Fumble works similarly in that it can completely negate an attack while still recycling. Feeding Frenzy, Lash, and Forcemage Apprentice are generally much more devastating on your turn. Almost all of the 0-cost cards included can also be used to draw 2 if needed. Most of the 1-cost cards in this deck don’t have an or draw 2 option.
Helion the Dominator, Memory Spirit, Temporal Enforcer, Draka’s Enforcer, and Strafing Dragon are all excellent ambush plays. They can all do something worthwhile on your opponent’s turn, in order: stop an attack/use one of your opponent’s other champions to block their own attack, return an event to your hand (particularly a 0-cost event to immediately play), bounce a champion, block a champion, or deal 5 damage and potentially block. Memory Spirit, Temporal Enforcer, Draka’s Enforcer, and Strafing Dragon also all have evasion (airborne or unblockable) for attacking your opponent. Whether you attack or expend/hold your Helion depends on the board state, cards in hand, etc. In addition, Helion is an excellent answer to an opponent’s ambushed in champion on your turn.
I am very interested to really try out this deck, since I’m not sure how strong it will be in practice. If it can consistently draw out your opponent’s gold, I think it could really do work. The cards you would want to play on your turn to a neutral board are generally Juggernaut, Sea Titan, Forcemage Apprentice (enough of a threat that it needs to be eventually answered), and Raging T-Rex.
I am not sure how this deck will do with hand management generally, since it relies a lot on single use 0-cost cards and I don’t have events like Ceasefire and Erase. Juggernaut, Memory Spirit, Raging T-Rex, and Draka’s Enforcer due provide some card draw, but if you use all of your 0-cost cards for their effects, you might get into trouble.
As a final note, Surprise Attack into Time Walker is an excellent way to stop token strategies. It can also disrupt most other non 0-cost blitz champion strategies for at least a turn. Swinging in with a 10/10 on your next turn with a probably empty board is also a huge perk.
This is the spiritual successor to Bouncing Chip which can be found here. Since only 20 cards are the same between the decks, I decided to just start a fresh deck post.
Slow (0)
Fast (6)
3x Bitten
3x Inner Demon
0-Cost (3)
3x Dark Knight
Slow (0)
Fast (6)
3x Ceasefire
3x Urgent Messengers
0-Cost (3)
3x Brave Squire
Slow (9)
3x Juggernaut
3x Mist Guide Herald
3x Time Walker
Fast (15)
3x Helion, the Dominator
3x Memory Spirit
3x Temporal Enforcer
3x Thought Plucker
3x Turn
0-Cost (9)
3x Forcemage Apprentice
3x Shadow Imp
3x Warrior Golem
Slow (0)
Fast (6)
3x Flame Strike
3x Mighty Blow
0-Cost (3)
3x Rage
This is an aggro deck. I did say previously that I thought aggro decks wouldn’t really be a successful archetype in Epic, aside from Burn, but I was wrong. This deck can output a lot of damage quickly. A large chunk of that damage comes from the 0-cost cards.
Each 0-cost card is either a blitz champion or a 4+ offense buff. Shadow Imp is especially dangerous because it is unblockable, and it can either attack twice in one turn or be held onto to protect it/use it as a free chump block. For blocking, you would ambush it in, pass initiative, declare it as a blocker if it lives, and then play a fast 1-cost Sage card to return it to hand if it lived through your opponent’s post-block initiative. Shadow Imp is also an ideal target for Rage, Brave Squire, and Mighty Blow.
The Wild is included because I wanted the highest single damage events in the game, Flame Strike and Mighty Blow. Rage was a nice bonus.
The Good is included because I wanted 3 Brave Squires. Ceasefire and Urgent Messengers are excellent for a bit of defense and draw.
The Evil is included because I needed 3 Dark Knights. I decided to take Bitten and Inner Demon because it’s helpful to have more than just bounce for removal. Drain Essence could also work for removal and some health gain. Final Task is a definite possibility because it works well with Juggernaut (unbreakable on your turn), Mist Guide Herald (you still get the tribute ability), Time Walker (fast defensive board bounce), Helion, the Dominator (8 blitz offense and a partial Turn), Memory Spirit (can return that final Flame Strike etc.), Temporal Enforcer (bounce and 6 unblockable offense), Thought Plucker (strong tribute, strong damage effect, and unblockable), and I am already running 3 Brave Squires which could prevent that Final Tasked champion from breaking at the end of the turn. After some more testing, I might exchange some of the Bittens and Inner Demons for Final Tasks.
The Sage cards are just solid aggro cards. Helion, the Dominator and Turn give me solid (temporary) removal + a (temporary) threat. Juggernaut and the unblockable champions are excellent for inflicting damage.
Bounce is solid for both defense and offense, as was the original intention of the deck. For offense, I can play and attack with a Dark Knight, bounce it, and then play/attack with it again that turn. For defense, there is the obvious bounce a threat, but you can also bounce one of your blocking champions as well. For example, your opponent attacks with a blitzing Steel Golem. You block with your Mist Guide Herald, and then, assuming it lives to your post-block initiative, you ambush in Temporal Enforcer and return Mist Guide Herald to your hand. Since Steel Golem was blocked (even though the blocker is no longer in play), the Steel Golem does no damage that turn. Temporal Enforcer can also use its ally ability to bounce Dark Knights or Warrior Golems for a second attack.
Mist Guide Herald is a strong card for this deck because it can bring any of your other threat champions directly into play. Taking that Juggernaut out of the top 5 cards of your deck and putting into play is crazy. Even just taking a Shadow Imp is solid. Also, since this deck has so much bounce, you can potentially replay your Mist Guide Herald multiple times for significant value.
Helion, the Dominator is excellent to steal an opponent’s ambushed in blocker and attack with it that turn, or to steal an opponent’s blitzing attacker to prevent the attack that turn. In addition, you can always use its loyalty ability on itself to be able to immediately use its expend ability. That 2 damage to 2 targets should not be underestimated.
As you can tell, I am experimenting with the card images in the explanation. Feel free to let me know in the comments below if you think this is helpful or just annoying.
Great Horned Lizard made me want to make a Dinosaur deck. So I did.
Slow ()
Fast (2)
2x Final Task
0-Cost ()
Slow (1)
1x Thundarus
Fast (6)
3x Ceasefire
3x Resurrection
0-Cost (2)
2x Brave Squire
Slow (20)
3x Brachiosaurus
2x Draka, Dragon Tyrant
3x Fire Spirit
3x Jungle Queen
3x Kong
3x Raging T-Rex
3x Triceratops
Fast (13)
1x Chomp!
3x Draka’s Enforcer
1x Draka’s Fire
2x Great Horned Lizard
2x Hurricane
1x Smash and Burn
3x Surprise Attack
0-Cost (16)
3x Ankylosaurus
3x Cave Troll
3x Feeding Frenzy
3x Fire Shaman
1x Lash
3x Wurm Hatchling
I attack with Triceratops. Opponent ambushes in a Lurking Giant. I play Great Horned Lizard, breakthrough the Lurking Giant, and swing for 10 breakthrough with the Great Horned Lizard. That scenario was largely the impetus behind this deck. I really liked that interaction, in theory.
The rest of the deck just makes use of big, high-value Wild champions. The only other particularly interesting interaction in this deck is Draka, Dragon Tyrant Attack, followed immediately by Feeding Frenzy. This is one situation where you would actually use that window to play cards immediately after your attack and before your opponent gets a chance. (Fire Shaman 1-cost Wild card followed by Feeding Frenzy also works.) There is also the Final Task into Brave Squire trick.
(Use Final Task to return a champion from a discard pile to play. Then, you cast Brave Squire on that champion granting it unbreakable this turn. During the end step, you first resolve any “at the end of the turn” triggers. At this point, Final Task tries to break your returned champion, but it is unbreakable so it can’t. The “this turn” trigger from Brave Squire falls off after this point. Since Final Task only tries to break that champion once, that champion is now permanently in play. This also works when you use Final Task on your turn on an “unbreakable on your turn” champion, Juggernaut for instance.)
When I played this deck, it was fairly lackluster. I never had the Great Horned Lizard interaction I wanted, and I used my Feeding Frenzies just to draw 2. It is still a bit early to call it for this deck, but it didn’t show much promise. I do have a couple directions I want to experiment with going forward.
A Feeding Frenzy based direct damage chip deck featuring Blue Dragons, Forcemage Apprentices, and Helion the Dominators could be interesting. I could also make use of Lightning Storms, Rain of Fires, and potentially Fire Shamans/Fire Spirits. Memory Spirits could also be excellent to further exploit Feeding Frenzy. This would be a very different deck. (I would need to keep reminding myself that Feeding Frenzy can only break on my turn.)
A more similar deck could try and exploit the 10+ toughness champions that draw a card to overwhelm my opponent. For this deck, I could make use of Kong, Raging T-Rex, Triceratops, Sea Hydra, Lurking Giant, and possibly Jungle Queen/Draka’s Enforcer. Hurricane would be the major star of the deck, but I think Smash and Burn could work excellently in this deck as well. I would mainly just draw 2 and use the 6 champion damage to finish off pesky utility champions. This deck would probably also bring a lot of bounce like Erases to deal with other high toughness champions. Sea Titan, Hasty Retreat, and Vanishing could all also show up. The 0-costs would only be particularly viable if I had enough card draw. I would probably not bring 3 Feeding Frenzies to this deck, but definitely at least 1 Lash.
So, those are the 2 directions I might take this deck. Let me know in the comments below if anyone has a preference in which route I take. (I’ll probably do both eventually, but I am also working on other decks and articles so the second one won’t show up for awhile.)
I have just updated my ratings for cards to include the Tyrants Wild cards. The updated post can be found here. I will be updating the rest of the factions in the coming weeks. In general, the Tyrants cards seem very strong.
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.
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
Slow (0)
Fast (4)
1x Inheritance of the Meek
3x Resurrection
0-Cost (2)
2x Brave Squire
Slow (0)
Fast (3)
3x Erase
0-Cost (0)
Slow (0)
Fast (3)
3x Surprise Attack
0-Cost (0)
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)?
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.
Angel of Death, Bitten, Muse, Plague, Word of Summoning
I’ve been playing board and card games with Tom for about seven years, if I’ve counted right. He introduced me to Epic a couple months ago. Him telling me it was his favorite game was enough to pique my interest, and I quickly came to really enjoy the unique facets of the game.
Dark drafting is one of the ways I can beat Tom. The randomness makes every draw fun, almost like opening a present to see what you’ll get. It can be frustrating to pass good cards to your opponent, but of course, that comes back at you. Overall, it’s very satisfying to play this format and come up with a plan for a deck as you build it based on draws.
Read on to see my choices in the 10 rounds, along with my commentary. Tom’s draft can be found here: Sample Epic Dark Draft 3/16/16 (Tom).
– Paul Kaefer, guest blogger
Banishment, Cave Troll, Flash Fire, Surprise Attack, Wolf Companion
Paul is an amateur board and card game enthusiast. His favorites are CardsAgainstHumanity, the Battlestar Galactica board game, and Bananagrams.
Epic has made his way into his top ten, and is interested in playing with more people. You can learn more about Paul on his website.
