Best deck for a new player to kick your ass with?

Moderately sensationalist title aside, I’m wondering what you guys think is the best deck for a new player to practice over a short period of time and do OK at a tournament level. The background is that I roped my sister into coming to FSX with me and I did that older brother thing where I signed her up for all the tournaments.

I figure that, while I won’t stop her from trying new things, the best way to avoid overwhelming her is to get her very familiar with one good deck while I play a variety of meta decks against her.

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Mono white / purple / black are all viable, and let her not have to worry about remembering all the extras that come with multicolored decks

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As a newbie, any reason why Green, Red, and Blue aren’t as good mono?

I was about to say, I really like Green for beginners.

You can point out a few win conditions (stealth tigers, MOLAC, T-Rex, Mimics etc), you have good upgrade removal with Balance. A strong combat hero for openings with Cal. Deathtouch units, which are awesome.

Green follows a natural progression, not so many shenanigans like purple.

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I would say stick to mono purple or mono red, depending on if she likes to beat down/attack/base race or go for long term value and powerful tech 2 options.

Mono black is strong but harder to pilot.

The other mono colors are pretty weak, in a tournament setting, and even more fiddly. Growth is much, much weaker in mono green than it is when you add Haste to it. That said, Balance/Growth/Finesse is too tier if she likes green.

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Would mono-purple really be good for a rookie with all of the forecast token handling?

Don’t bother with the token stuff, just play a solid tempo game with stewardess , hyperions, etc

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Mono Red is fairly straightforward outside of the part where you often have to pick just the right moment to drop that brick on the gas pedal and climb out the window, like something out of Mad Max. That said, that applies more strongly to Blood than to Fire or Anarchy, so.

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It applies equally to all red specs if I’m playing them. It’s also not limited to red specs.

I :heart: base damage

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mono red or mono purple. @EricF is right, black is not that straightforward for beginners.

Not sure about monopurple. A significant part of Codex to learn is skilled handling of heros and teched spells. Purple’s heroes and spells are anything but straightforward to use for beginners.

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my impression with new guys is that most of them feel like they are doing nothing until they start attacking. Mono red has lots of haste/dmg spell, mono purple between counter spells, now and stuff, makes them feel like they are doing something.
just my 2 cents, mate

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I think mono white is the best for new players.

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I think white is not bad, because Rook provides enough defense early (or Grave with the early midband) that you will definitely feel like you have a chance to play the game.

But Shax’s post was specifically about doing okay at a tournament level, facing PPA and MoLaC rush and all that goodness. I think that’s why @Bob199 narrowed it down to white/black/purple (as he sees them as solid) and @EricF suggested purple and red.

As a hyper-aggressive player, I would warn new players off of Red, for the same reason I’d warn them off of Geiger (my favorite character) in Yomi. You look at those cards, and you immediately see the awesome, and you immediately want to play the awesome, and the game will let you. It will let you play all of the awesome. And then you have no hand and you lose. I think Red’s cheapies really lend themselves well to overextending and never coming back (esp. if you’re willing to skip workers), which is the hardest thing to learn not to do as a new player.

I’ve been playing some purple lately, and I’ve found the expensive units force me to play much more defensively and worker more consistently (ignore the last few turns where I’ve skipped workers in my current game (; ), and generally be a bit more successful.

As @Bob199 mentioned, you can play the very straightforward Stewardess into Present Tech II, but there’s also a fairly simple Stewardess/Argo -> Omegacron option, or Future fliers. If you can add in Ready or Not for the turn Omegas come out, or Now!+Voidstar, you can probably get some nasty damage on the table. And Argo+Past Golghurt stall into Archon could also work.

Yeah, it’s complicated to keep track of the runes, and it gets way more complicated if you want to get really tricky with Geiger or Prynn flickering, but overall I’d say it encourages you to play the game more safely in a way that’s healthy for newbies. And Mox and Nullcraft make you feel powerful from the start.

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I agree with your assessment of red vs purple for new players. It is soooo easy to overextend.

Compelling point. Purple also has obvious answers to opposing Rook/Vandy (Origin Story) and MoLaC/graveyard/garrison (assimilate), so just go with that.

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They are only obvious answers if you realize that they are coming, and that requires an understanding of your opponents deck more than anything your own deck is doing.

If I put down Tech 2 Growth or Peace, the purple player needs to know that assimilate will be needed soon and tech it in.

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It might be good to point out that there will be at least a little bit of practice, so meta things are something I could warn her about pretty easily.

I think I’ll teach her purple and lose repeatedly to Hyperion in practice sessions. I’ve somehow never beaten Hyperion before. Help

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It’s pretty ballsy to go for MoLaC if your opponent is Future…

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Against new players? I would do it just to see if I can pull it off and to show them why those spells are helpful.

Also, it can be a bit ballsy to go for Molac even though your opponent “could” destroy it, but it does come back to people not teching in the answers because of course I wouldnt try to do it against someone that has access to it.

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