[Guide] Beginner's Guide to Teching

@Barrelfish
I’m good swapping Sparring and Rambasa on T1 and T2.

Mind Parry Monk feels more like a counter play to me. I’ve played against opponents where they’re not targeting my stuff (Blue, without Boot Camp, Arrest, or Hallucination). For a Beginner, I think Vigor Adept might be a better call, as it’s a really efficient body with Readiness, so good for offense and defense.

Maybe this compromise?

T1) Sparring Partner, Bird’s Nest
T2) Entangling Vines, Rambasa Twin
T3) Young Lightning Dragon, Vigor Adept
T4) Training Grounds, either Young Lightning Dragon or Mind-Parry Monk
T5) Whatever you didn’t pick from T4, and Earthquake or Fox’s Den Students based on which one you think you can cast.

Seems reasonable. I think of Mind-Parry Monk as a good “anti-comeback” pick, but you’re right, it’s more situationally good (better as P1, better against certain colours). If the intent is to just have a generic plan to start off with, this is fine.

As a broader note, I’m pretty skeptical about how useful this kind of T1, T2, T3 guide is, since it assumes you’re hitting your tech II immediately and doesn’t take into consideration P1 vs P2 and what you’re playing against. But maybe other people find it more helpful than I do.

Well, it assumes you build Tech II on turn 4 as either Player 1 or Player 2, which I’ve found to be the best timing in an average game, especially when neither player is in a position to set up a huge early play (which these guides all steer away from). There’s a nice feedback mechanism too, where if you play more cards, it will delay your reshuffle and let you build Tech II on turn 5.

The discipline plan is now updated, so all of the tech plans are complete. Thanks everyone who contributed!

@mysticjuicer you are right about the shortcomings of these plans. However I would call those more “intermediate” level concerns. The point here is to help someone who is staring at a binder full of cards between turns without any idea what to do. The goal is to take them from “teching cards basically at random, and then flailing around until they die” to “teching things that generally make sense together and accomplishing stuff”.

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As part of updating my New Player Reference Sheets, I noticed that the build order for Discipline here doesn’t have any suggested workers and both Discipline and Strength are missing a game plan summary. Could someone give me something to put in for those? It doesn’t need to be perfect, I just need something to put in instead of question marks.

I know i am quite late, but i never read this thread before.
I disagree for the teching choices for vortoss.
future spec: imo a quicker and more “kosher” way to victory is through Omegacron, insttead of Pop or Xenostalker, which i never saw actually being played outside made up scenarios.
present: i would never tech T2 both copies of stewardess, rather stewardess+Argonaut. so when i tech TD i could make pop up the second stewardess for 2 and maybe even replaying the first for popping 2 tokens/starter stuff.
As past, i would mention Second Chances.
Just my 2 cents, mates.

#Discipline

Game plan: use Birds and Young Lightning Dragon to (1) deny their Tech II and delay their Tech III, and/or (2) prevent them from contesting your units and heroes by killing their key heroes/units every turn.

Suggested workers: anything other than Aged Sensei (until the mid-game), Grappling Hook, Snapback, Sensei’s Advice - consider keeping Morningstar Flagbearer to protect your flyers from spells.

#Strength

I would swap out the 2nd Sparring Partner for either Rambase Twins or Inverse Power Ninja. I would also swap out the turn 4 Oathkeeper for a Colossus.

Game plan: fight to keep even on the board in the early game, and then flatten your opponent’s defenses with Whitestar Grappler and Doubling Barbarbarian, before setting up unstoppable lethal with Colossus. If all else fails, just push their patrollers out of the way with Oathkeeper or finish off a damaged set of buildings with Earthquake.

Workers: standard workers really - anything you can’t play on curve can be workered. Keep Grappling Hook and Snapback.

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Thanks a lot! This looks quite helpful. For Strength, I think unless someone objects I’ll go with Inverse Power Ninja because that build mainly focuses on large units rather than lots of them. On a related note, maybe one of these builds should have something other than SparBird for the first tech?

I assume “anything other than…” applies for everything before “…consider keeping…” since there’s no way Snapback gets workered. It’s kind of the opposite of the approach I’ve been using, but I can make it work.

SparBird is the best universal suggestion because it does not interfere with a P2T3 tech2 building.
There are a couple more options for player 1, but mono-white lacks alternative 1-2g cards that would be recommendable as a generic game plan.

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I think SparBird is pretty bad as P2 and would expect that it would be destroyed by a competent P1 opening, but this is explicitly a resource for people’s first few games where no one is going to know what they’re doing, and P1 build vs P2 build would require doubling the amount of information and also include some discussion of tempo and value, and and and.

That said, just going Sparring Partner/Rambasa Twin as T1 is also a fine generic build. The only things I would explicitly stop new players from teching in their first few games is Boulder, Mythmaking, and most spells. Birds Nest is an exception because it’s a spell that gives you units, so it’s safe.

Yeah, I tend to think more in terms of “what should I keep” rather than “what should I worker.” It comes out to the same thing in the end. I would actually remove the discussion of Flagbearer, given the audience for the guide. They’ll realize what games Flagbearer can help with through play. Not worth the additional info.

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Will you do the Fandango?

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I could see a build (probably as P2 Strength) where Boulder + Mythmaking is a good first tech, especially if the plan is to hose some strategy with either DeGrey or Morningstar Pass + Tower, but I guess that’s probably too situational for a no-thinking newbie build order.

Otherwise, I think I agree that Sparring Partner + Birds or Sparring Partner + Rambasa Twin are far and away the most reasonable first techs for newbie White builds. Maybe if we really want to stretch to get a different option to present, something like Inverse Power Ninja + one of Reversal / Speed of the Fox?

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My much more simplified guide to new players would just be the following rules of thumb.

  1. Build a worker every turn, and also play one other card every turn.
  2. Build your Tech I building on turn 2, always.
  3. For your tech choices, pick your biggest Tech I units for the first two tech phases, and then the biggest Tech II units for your next two tech phases, and your Tech III unit/thing on the fifth tech phase.
  4. Don’t tech spells unless they give you units.
  5. Patrol in (1) squad lead and (2) scavenger if you’re at 5 cards, and (1) technician and (2) squad lead if you’re at less.

edit: this isn’t intended as a dig at Hobusu’s resource, I just tend to think more in generalities than in specific instructions. For people who are looking for a specific tech recipe to follow, the general gameplans are probably more useful.

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That seems like good advice, and much of it is covered in my General Advice sheet. Not all of it, though… I’ll think about updating that later.

No worries! This is really meant to smooth things over for someone’s first couple games using a new color, since the paralysis caused by seeing so many unfamiliar cards and having to pick two of them every turn can hold up games for quite a while. I think I’ll try changing the recommended workers to be more of a “keep these cards” section, since that seems like a better way of thinking about that.

Edit: @mysticjuicer, since you’re the one who inspired this change, can you think of a good name to replace “suggested workers”?

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I know I wasn’t the one you asked, but since I’m here:

how about “important starting deck cards”? (I’m sure there’s a snappier way of saying the same thing.)

The problem is that they’re all important in different games, so that needs phrased slightly different to make it clear that it only applies to that strategy.

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Sure, I understand that. By “important” in this context I just meant “important for this particular strategy” - but yeah that’s going to be far from obvious to most beginners.

Cards You Shouldn’t Worker?

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“Worker” as a verb might not immediately make sense to a brand new player, and “Card You Shouldn’t Use As Workers” is pretty much the opposite of snappy. That’s probably as good as I’m getting, though… We’ll roll with it until someone comes up with a better plan.

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Cards To Keep?
Keeper Cards?
Cards To Keep Cashing For Cush & Cardamom?

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