Sacrificing tenderfoot+spark+messenger for Bogre in order to kill Drakk with a bloomed Grave sounds nice, but invests a ton of cards and let’s me skip T1 and leaves my patrol zone clear.
A charged dog let’s Zane trade with my Grave, we both miss T1, but I am one card down. In case he does not have the combo in hand I think I make a good deal with this move, if he has it in hand it’s plain bad, but hopefully not blowout bad. If he “only” has charge but not the dog he can still trade, but then has to skip a worker, so that’s definitely a gamble I’m willing to take.
Obviously without a tech building I do not want to tech a unit, instead I’ll go for two spells, one for Rook, one for Grave.
With that in mind I will worker away my wither as I do need some units in my deck as well
Awesome redraw! Especially after looking up what happens when casting Martial Mastery from an then empty hand, cf. Rules Questions thread - #2570 by FrozenStorm
Now let’s hope Grave gets to live another day!
Well, it’s trading 4(!) cards, 5 gold, and skipping tech 1 to get 6g (incl level-up) and one card, kiiinda feels like a bad trade, but I suppose we shall see! Note Drakk death puts your base to 19
Careless Musketeer
Charge
Pillage
Nautical Dog
Bombaster
Events of Turn:
Upkeep:
Get Gold (6)
Tech 2 cards in (except turn 1)
All Teched Cards
Surprise Attack, Lobber
Main:
Nautical Dog (5)
Worker (4)
Tech 1 (3)
Workers
Careless Musketeer, Bloodburn
Patrol as below
Discard 3 rs Draw 5
Board Info:
Buildings:
Base HP: 20
Tech1 HP: 5
In Patrol:
Squad Leader:
Elite:
Scavenger:
Technician: Nautical Dog (1/1)
Lookout:
In Play:
nothin
Economy Info:
Cards:
Hand: 5
Deck: 4
Disc: 0
Gold:
Gold: 3
Workers: 7
End of Turn Hand
Pillage
Bombaster
Bloodrage Ogre
Makeshift Rambaster
Mad Man
End of Turn Discard
My Thoughts
Pretty reckless abandon from zango here early, probably will be able to get an easy tech 2 rush, will go for sharks though just to maximize trading up on cards, and a lobber as well, should trade easy
Thanks a lot for taking your time with me in parallel to the stuff you mentioned in the tournament chat!
As for our game: my next move will be done in 3-4 hours
And with respect to that game: lesson learned!
Only because a move seems to be okayish and safe for the next turn, that doesn’t mean sh*t… I have to think more than one turn ahead… As if this game wasn’t already quite complex and complicated… I’m lovin’ it!
Tech 2 card(s)
Get Paid - ($6)
Timely Messenger - ($5)
Older Brother - ($3)
Martial Mastery (Look at hand, draw two without discard) - ($2)
Worker - ($1)
Tenderfoot - ($0)
messenger trades with dog, you draw
grave deals 4 to your base (can you please provide in your thoughts, whether attacking T1 instead would have bothered you more? thanks)
Float ($0)
Discard 0, draw 2
Board Info: In Patrol:
Squad Leader: Older Brother (2/2A)
Elite:
Scavenger:
Technician: Tenderfoot (1/2)
Lookout:
In Play:
Grave (4/5, lvl 3) +
Buildings:
Base HP: 19
Economy Info: Cards:
Hand: 2
Deck: 3
Disc: 4
Gold:
Gold: 0
Workers: 7
Thoughts
If I were in his situation and if I would have seen this line of simply playing a dog and tech and let 3 float, I would have teched a GPT and sharks or maybe even two sharks, as it is not unheard of that I will be able to break his tech 1 building.
That results in me having to expect a charged GPT, two sharks, a mad man and Zane (or at least the part of this list that can be bought by 9 gold) in addition to the dog. That’s 3+3+4 (+2) or 3+3+2+1 (+2) attack.
His probability of having the singleton of surprise attack in hand is 56% (or 67% with technician draw).
Playing both brother and messenger allows me to neglect him free levels for killing grave, but let’s me go down to three hand cards where he will have 5 left and he will have left units on the board whereas mine will be wiped. In case a draw the spark from MM I can even break his tech building, but will go down on cards even further.
Workering the brother doesn’t feel good in this state, workering the messenger leaves a bigger chance of not depleting my hand completely, but I do love my hasters, so I will worker one of the redrawn cards.
I’ll tech twins (for compensating my reduced hand size) and discord (as that was the card I always wanted to play last game)
So I look at his hand and realize I forgot about bombaster ability to kill a patroller without having haste. He can deliver 2 bombaster + 1 mad man + 2 dog + 1 rambaster + 2 Zane
Only two patrollers keeps my hero safe but he then can break my tech building/deal 5 to base.
Playing tenderfoot results in my hand being shredded. But I think I will go for it.
The only question then is: not attacking means 4 wasted Grave attack. Trading messenger & mad man let’s me get these through, but has a 25% redraw chance of my hero dying. And if not he will have massive board presence after this turn…
Well, my learning of this game is clear: don’t shred your hand too early, especially if the opponent has too much gas left in his hand… Let’s make it drastic on this front and skip T1 for another turn.
Edit: forgot to properly move cards to discard. Fixed to card count
I think the tech damage makes more sense, unless you are playing for Grave maxband surprise 10 damage on base, which I don’t think is a smart play generally.
Sucks to TOTALLY whiff here but that’s fine, just tech up, odd zango STILL hasn’t teched up, isn’t trading great still… I’m going to hit back hard next turn
I really really want to kill Bogre with Graves sword. But killing Bogre feels not good, especially as he redraws (3 out of 6 where two of these were newly teched… o.O)
But I really don’t want him to establish too much board presence and grave is going to die soon enough, hence the level up really feels relevant!
But as I am one gold short, I have to skip one of the four: T1, worker, HH or the level up.
I want the other spells available, hence the HH. Also with having just a single maxed out hero, I allow him to sacrifice his heros without me gaining free levels.
Skipping t1 even more is just weird. (But still, see Frozen’s game against bansa this CAMS for reference about not teching with this Codex).
Skipping a worker refills my hand but lets T2 be out of reach due to the lack of gold…
Let’s skip HH in order to play mind games that he might not want to kill my hero.
Just an opinion with respect to your first turn in game 1: I think opening with Rook would have been fine. The early game against Red, for most colours, is less about keeping your own things alive, and more about making sure that Red can’t kill them efficiently. Red really becomes a problem early if it can kill your pieces without losing its own, so they can attack again and their worse starter card efficiency doesn’t matter as much.
For example, Rook in Squad Leader takes 5 damage to kill. Killing him is a net benefit of 4 gold: 2 because that’s what you spent to play him, 2 for the free levels to Jaina. However, most ways to deal that damage aren’t worth it. Jaina and Mad Man can deal 3 damage, but FrozenStorm doesn’t have especially cheap ways to get the other 2 damage:
Jaina (survives) + Charge + Ogre/Bombaster/Musketeer is 4 gold and 2 cards, so FrozenStorm would spend 2 cards for no gold advantage, and he has to skip building his Tech I to do it.
Jaina (survives) + Scorch + Mad Man is also 4 gold and 2 cards. Even worse, with the Mad Man dead there’s no patroller to stop Timely Messenger killing Jaina. You didn’t have it in hand, but FrozenStorm wouldn’t have known that.
Best option is Jaina (survives) + Charge + Nautical Dog, for 3 gold and 2 cards. However, spending 2 cards for 1 gold advantage is still pretty awful. At least it lets FrozenStorm build Tech I.
This can all change later, but thinking about this early on can help keep Red’s board under control, and then you might not need to sink 3 gold into a Tower.
Well that was another eye opener for me, thanks a lot @charnel_mouse !
Let’s get over with this game, as my blunders are obvious, but as least I’ll try to put up a fight to the end
P1T5
Tech StartingHand Workers
TECH
Doubling Barbarbarian
Doubling Barbarbarian
STARTING HAND
Brick Thief
Bloom
Granfalloon Flagbearer
Bird’s Nest
WORKERS
Fruit Ninja
Wither
Helpful Turtle
Spark
Granfalloon Flagbearer
I expect sharks. Also if I were him I’d go for gunship to close out the game, which is currently in his favor but far from decidedly over (at least in my eyes :-D)
I’d love to have two stepped barbarbarians against the former and earthquakes against the latter (especially with birds on the table). Having earthquakes available at the right moment feels like a purely wishful thinking, especially as Rook probably is dying next turn. (As a single shark together with Drakk’s midband is enough to kill him, I’ll put him into the offering position as SL)
As I can not rely on my tech 2 to hold, I’d love to not tech two tech 2 cards, but as this is going to be the last cycle of the game and therefore the last time a teched card makes it into my hand hopefully at some point I’m going for double doubling barbarbarians…
With this decision made everything else of this turn is straight forward
STARTING HAND
Discord
timely Messenger
Doubling Barbarbarian
WORKERS
Fruit Ninja
Wither
Helpful Turtle
Spark
Granfalloon Flagbearer
NextHand
Doubling Barbarbarian
Brick Thief
Discard
Bird’s Nest
tenderfoot
timely Messenger
Discord
Entangling Vines
Two Step
Tech 2 card(s)
Get Paid - ($9)
River - ($7)
discord kills your technician - ($5)
timely Messenger suicides into Drakk - ($4)
tenderfoot pings Drakk
birds kill Drakk, river to level 3, my base takes 1
Doubling Barbarbarian - ($1)
Float ($1)
Discard 0, draw 2
Board Info: In Patrol:
Squad Leader: Doubling Barbarbarian (3/5AA)
Elite:
Scavenger:
Technician: River (2/4 lvl3)
Lookout:
In Play:
bird 1 (1/1)
bird 2 (1/1)
Buildings:
Base HP: 18
Tech I HP: 5
Tech II HP: 5 (Strength)
Economy Info: Cards:
Hand: 2
Deck: 6
Disc: 6
Gold:
Gold: 1
Workers: 9
Thoughts
It’s such a pity that discord is not hitting the monkey!
So I’m doing it again. I’m sacrificing three cards to kill a hero. Ok, this time Drakk is worth 9 gold and I’m also killing a mad man, but as this card is redrawn I have to count the investment as 3 cards against zero. I still think it’s worth it, as a maxband Drakk is a real pain. And in the unlikely case that he drew extremely unlucky and I’m drawing gold with my next two cards, I may even get back to a good position concerning the board state. If I’m not drawing anything of value I’ll go for maxband Rook as SL
Yeah well, my learnings are pretty straightforward and intense. Thanks a lot!
So it is GG and obviously well played at least on your part.
Are you up for another round? In case you are, it’s again your turn to start and I will pick up nightmare. Please pick whatever you want.
Hopefully I will be able to put way more emphasis on trading better…
PS: a big ROFL for me honestly not seeing your tech 3 building. Probably I should forbid myself to make a play in the morning while still lying in bed, if that leads to such a big blunder
A lil piece of advice that I find to be one of the keystones for good codex players: calculatin payoffs. EG: killing a hero that costed 2g and 0 cards to the opponent by spenindg 4g and 2 cards is a bad trade. My advice is always to consider how much do you gain and how much do the opponent loses with every trade. Like, against white starter, due to snapback it’s always bad to rely on heroes’ maxb/ults because let’s say you spend 7g for maxband Oni, the oppoent needs just 1 card and 3 gold to get rid of him, gaining even 2 lvls(equal to 2 gold) if he can kill the new and sidelined hero, for a total of 1card and 1g against your 7g.
Obviously I have no idea how to play this deck.
Most games with nightmare that I have read about go for hero+jav+haunt if they have this combo in hand, obviously in order to apply early pressure. As P2 and against mox I don’t see the ultra large value in the two hand cards, instead I prefer to go the card advantage route with the imp. Graveyard plus Jandra seem nice against the expected Fargo. That’s the reason why I miss on purpose on my haunt, I want to draw all five cards and I want to reduce the risk of flooding the graveyard.
Every nightmare player I’ve seen in this forum workers the rouge as soon as it is available. I wonder whether I should have tried to make use of it instead in order to get rid of the mox, especially with StW in my second hand… That would be an invest of two cards (rouge+StW) and 5 gold (I’m not counting the hero costs but the costs to create an extra skeleton) in order to get rid of two cards and also 5 gold (as I am expecting him to play a Fargo), but three of these having the nasty habit of returning to the game often… This strategy puts me in a weak place if he just nullcraft kills the rouge with the help of mox that’s why I decided against it.
Squad Leader: Tenderfoot
Elite:
Scavenger:
Technician: Grave (2/3 lvl 1)
Lookout:
Base HP: 20
Patrol as below
Base HP: 20
Squad Leader: Bloodrage Ogre (3/2a)
Elite:
Scavenger:
Technician:
Lookout: Drakk (1/3 lvl 1)
Note Drakk death puts your base to 19
