“Hello all, and welcome to the tavern, pull up a chair, have a chat; the waitress will be with you momentarily.”
Glad to see that you have chosen to read one of my wee 'ittle posts. Today I’d like to share another tip 'ith ya. As are the most of my posts recently, the information that I will address will be viewed by most experienced players as an oxymoron, no dah moment, but for new players can be quite advantageous.
When piloting a deck, or testing out your own homebrew… Because just that one card is so epic, or legendary, it doesn’t mean it necessarily should be crammed into your deck, or worked into pre-existing one just because that one card is so superior.
You’ll soon come to find as you improve as a player linking different card interactions, as opposed to a DECK full of primes wouldn’t take you too far, and hence dead on arrival when facing a well made deck. It’s the linking interactions that at first will not make themselves apparent… In fact, I’m still wrestling with it still. However, as you improve as a player, and with a lot of patience, you may find those interactions staring back at you.
“Play your game, not your cards.” This sounds confusing doesn’t it? Let me clarify… Some apparently weak cards can be golden when played in the right conditions. “I just drew an (insert epic card named here) let’s play it right away.”
DON’T! Why? Because your opponent may make a play that renders that epic card completely useless.
So, you see now, when you lose a game, and you think… “But I was playing powerful cards, how did I lose?” It’s not the game that’s rigged. It’s not even necessarily that you were matched against your opposing class. It may have well been that you didn’t play the cards in your deck at the most advantageous time, thereby losing to your opponent in your current matchup.
"You will improve as you play the game, and if you get frustrated then take a break, and before you start play again, watching any player on their streams; pay attention to WHEN THEY PLAY THEIR CARDS, AND IN WHAT CIRCUMSTANCE THEY DID SO. Take that knowledge back with you as you continue practice matches, or continuing your rise on the ladder.
This is the link to my last post in case you may have missed it.
This is very helpful advice i will try to expand on:
Take note, new players, that the most advantageous time to play a card is not always the time where you can maximize it’s effect: It varies a lot by what your opponent is. There’s a very fine line between Tempo (where you maximize resources used by mana) and value (where you maximize resource effect, even if it’s not the most mana efficient) that you will need to learn against different decks.
Druids, for example, have little to no removal. Their strength is playing big minions surprisingly fast, but this needs setup. If you tempo your minions out, consistently, and dominate the board, you will (mostly) negate the Druid plays. Sometimes, playing a minion that would have an secure, guaranteed effect if played alongside other cards in the later turns is a better decision than holding it because it will force the player between removing the immediate threat or setting up their future turns. In that fashion, you influence their gameplay untill you build a strong enough board that by the time the Druid can contest it, you already can finish him off.
Classes with efficient removal, like Mage and Warlock, want you to play out your minions. Their removal is cheap and efficient, so they are trading multiple of your cards for frequently a single of theirs. The catch here is that you need to know what kind of removal their deck probably runs and play accordingly. Spell mage right now runs combustion, so keeping high health minions between low health ones will force them to spend more mana on removal. Warlocks removal caps out at 3 damage right now (or 2 to the whole board) so from turn 3 onwards, if you start to drop 4 health minions they have a hard time keeping up till turn 8, when they can play Twisting nether. That window is vital to win.
Priests, usually, have powerfull removal, but low draw, so they can’t count on having the spells they need in hand, and you can take advantage of that by putting your m inions out there. They probably have removal for them, but they also probably don’t have it in their hands right now, especially in the early game. Priest is also a low damage class, so you can sacrifice HP and hold your cards to maximize value in later plays knowing the priest has few ways to immediately punish your for it.
This is the gist of it for a few classes, but know that understanding what you can play and when is the best moment to play it is the number 1 skill you need to develop for the game. It’s what separates the good from the bad players, and what allows good players to climb with suboptimal decks.