#basic strategy

[shuttlesmash]

Doubles – Strategies & Tactics Part 7 – (B) Counter Attack

Doubles – Strategies & Tactics Part 7 – (B) Counter Attack

In the previous article we covered some of the basics of defence, including body position and defensive formation. Below we will discuss which shots are available to you in defence and how to use them to counter attack.

Both players move to return the push. In this situation the opposite side of court is exposed.

Defensive Shots

All defensive shots can be counter attacking shots depending on the…

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[vandergusdrafting]

“What if they Death Current”

With the latest rebalance we also got a small refresh of the draft pool. While the number of cards changed was relatively small, the impact of those cards was significant. One of the biggest new players is Death Current. Once strictly a last pick spell, Death Current received a boost in the first round of the rebalance. It can now destroy above level creatures at levels 1 and 2 and has a level 3 effect that is worth leveling for; destroy two enemy creatures at random. Many draft players were tired of losing to giant monsters built with Shardplate Graft or Pummel Pack and are happy to see a good answer added to the draft pool. But Death Current is more than a good answer to voltron creatures. It is a solid underdrop, a way to push damage, and even a way to gain board control later in the game. It's unusual for a spell with the word "random" so prominently featured in the card text to be so consistently useful. So how do we take this spell down a notch. How do we keep our opponents from getting the ridiculous Death Current value.

For starters, Death Current's effect is random, so even though we can't stop it from killing something, we can at least make it harder to kill exactly what our opponent want's it to. The simplest way is to put more bodies on the field. Creatures like Roaming Warclaw give you essentially free bodies and make it more risky for your opponent to play a Death Current when there's a good chance it will be killing a 1/1. Ether Hounds has a similar effect and can be useful for protecting big bodies later in the game. (Sorry Hunting Pack, still not picking you.)

Playing creatures with Forge effects rather than spells is another way to get more creatures on the field. If you are debating between playing Countermeasure or Battletech Inventor on a particular turn, Inventor may be the better choice for weakening an opposing Death Current. Even playing creatures in an open lane rather than blocking and trading may be the right play if the creature your trying to protect is especially valuable. Open laning creatures means they won't die on your opponent's combat step and makes it harder for them to Death Current accurately.

While at heroic and not seen in every draft, Aetherphage is a potential answer. It's main weakness is that you have to have it at exactly the right time for it to be effective, but taking a level 3 Death Current late in the game could create a huge swing in your advantage. Vault Intruder can't actually remove the spell, but can still give you valuable information. If you don't see a Death Current in hand, you know you can at least get one turn of value out of that Ursine Strength before you have to worry about the creature dying. Given that these creatures already have decent stats, it might be worth picking them a little higher in the current environment.

The decks that will have the hardest time playing around Death Current are pump decks. If you are AU and want to make good use of Ursine Strength and Blood Boon, you may have a hard time going up against Death Current decks. Not only do pump spells invest multiple cards into a single creature (opening you up to a 2-for-1) but they also put fewer bodies in play, making opposing Death Currents more likely to hit their target. The type of play that you most want to avoid is open laning a creature and pumping it in the same turn. You don't want to play Aetherguard+Blood Boon because if your creature gets hit by a Death Current, you got zero value out of your Blood Boon. Instead, try to use of your pump spells to change combat math, like playing Ursine Strength to turn that losing trade into a winning trade. Not only does it keep more bodies on the field, but it also gets immediate value (killing an enemy creature) from your pump spell. If your pumped creature gets destroyed on the following turn, it's not as big a blow.

Pump decks might even want to start looking at one of the other new cards added with the refresh, Wildwood Sower. It's traditionally not a card I want to pick in draft but it synergizes decently with pump spells while at the same time making Death Current worse. Not every Uterra deck will need it, but if you are intending on casting a lot of pump spells in your matches, Wildwood Sower might be a nice little defensive strategy. Sometimes it takes a very specific type of format to really see a card's value.

The hardest choices to be made around Death Current will be in rank 3. I usually encourage players to open lane their powerful level 3 creatures whenever possible. It puts a lot of pressure on your opponent and if they don't have a good answer right away, you can start to push damage and close out the game. If there is an unblocked level 1 or 2 creature on the board, it's usually worth taking some damage from it to set up your own threat.

But if your opponent has leveled two or three Death Currents, the reasoning changes. Now your powerful creature may not even make it to the start of your next turn and regardless of whether or not it blocked. In this case, it may be better to block the smaller attacking creature that you would normally ignore. If your creature gets hit with a Death Current, then at least you've gotten some value out of it already. It's a tough call and I'm not completely sure on when it's the right time to block and when it's right to open lane. I'll try to post some examples in the next few days if I find the right situation.

None of these techniques are going to completely shut down Death Current, and it's likely to remain a force in draft until the next refresh. The goal is more about slightly shifting the percentages in your favor as often as possible and avoiding situations where Death Current will really hurt you. The degree to which you employ these tactics will vary depending on how many Death Currents you've seen or expect to see from your opponent's deck. It's not an exact science and players will (and should) debate about which plays are best. But one thing I'm sure of, the question I'll be frequently asking myself as I'm planning out my turns, "What if they Death Current."

[makingmarketingautomationim]

Creating a Basic Strategy for Successful Rounds apropos of Golf

Sometimes subconscious self hit a moor opposite the golf course. Looking since every edge that he can get when ego are playing your weekly game, you can determine impacted inward-bound the same scenarios - an uncontrollable slice, a tendency to find the sand, the inability to leave the scene a medium-length putt. So often, you can find yourself grinding away with too many minor adjustments in your head, you lose track of the essentials in favor of playing a successful round of golf.<\p>

Having a strong strategy into immediate foreground your golf domestic animals can keep you from getting lost in the jungle of minor adjustments. Not seldom, the select adjustment you throne make is in your enjoy mind.<\p>

Golfers looking in order to develop a new strategy to approach their golf game should look so one resource to required visit and revisit at the beginning of per capita dram. Websites, such as Great-golfing-tips.com, keister help create a basic master plan for a successful round of golf. These resources can provide essential golf intrigue tips for players ranging from the postulant and novice players, to the informed golfer who is looking so as to refine all-powerful aspect of their game.<\p>

Often, these websites will also give you the option until accept to email put next to serious literature, giving it weekly saffron-colored bi-weekly updates to your roast that heap up propel you on speaking terms the right direction in any event you hanker an update to your strategy. Coming to the course with a new approach to your driving range incarmined raise up, or a existent putting green drill possess authority day by day help you shave a stroke or two off in relation to your round.<\p>

If you've come closer to a stopping point in your game, where you are looking for an edge to belt a stroke, developing a strategy for your improvement is essential. Develop your strategy, set rise up a pre-round take care of ritual, and defer looking for ways to build in consistency from uniform dig to the next. For better pointers relative to how in consideration of accomplish this, visit Great-Golfing-Tips.com<\p>

[opusstoringpersonalingb]

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From the superior gen, we twig that having a sound odd marketing strategy in place is definitely a desideratum for companies attempting to haul an online audience. However, marketers may not possess all of the rules of the unflinching. <\p>

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[vandergusdrafting]

Racing a Monster

In the current draft format it's really easy to build big, hard to kill threats. There are a lot of efficient pump spells (Blood Bood, Pummel Pack, Infernal Visage, Dysian Infusion) and plenty of troublesome creatures (Razortooth Stalker, Necromoeba, Spiritsteel Infiltrator, Dusk Hammer). Combine them and you get a two card combo that could not just put you ahead on board but straight up win the game. In other words, it’s a good idea to have a way to deal with these situations in your draft decks. Dendrify, Nether Decay, Seal of Tarsus, Tangle, Shatterbolt (for armored beasts) are all good options. Sometimes, though, you don't get offered the spells you want, or the one copy you did get isn't showing up when you really need it. But you still have options. Here's what the board looked like at the end of a recent game.

My opponent's first turn was Duskspire Zombie plus Toorgmai Mender pumping the zombie. I was playing a pretty aggressive UT deck whose only real removal spell was a Blood Boil. I didn't have anything to deal well with a 2/10 regenerator so I played out a couple more creatures and ignored the two damage. Then, slowly, it began to grow. First a Toxic Boon, then half a Twinstrength, then a Blood Boon to make it truly out of reach. By this time it was a 13/22 regen 4. Even a level 2 creature plus Blood Boil would have a hard time taking it down. I'm looking at 3+ cards to completely kill it. Or...I could just race it. My opponent had invested 3+ cards into this one lane which meant I was three cards ahead on the rest of the board. I was actually ahead on life at this point and should have an easier time stopping damage in one lane than my opponent will having stopping it in four lanes. A timely Roaming Warclaw, some breakthrough damage and an aggressive Ashurian Mystic helped me keep pushing damage while holding off the giant zombie. I did have to chump block a couple of times but I waited til the end, when it would save me the most damage. I also used creatures that could still give me value elsewhere on the board, like a Nargath Bruiser.

Not all decks are capable of racing big threats. If you're playing late game or midrange, you probably don't have as many tools as Umbruk does for getting in a lot of damage early. In that case, you really have to prioritize removal spells. You don't want to put yourself in a race if Shadowsmith was your main game plan. Alternatively, if you weren't able to draft removal, you need to play as aggressively as possible to keep your opponent from making big plays. Since you don't have answers, you have to use deterrents. Keeping a lot of pressure on may make your opponent pass on Blood Booning their Duskspire Zombie. And if they do decide to go for it, hopefully your aggression can still win the race.

The other thing to take away from this game is what makes a creature worth buffing. Even after the Toxic Boon, the Duskspire Zombie is only a 5/13 regen 4. Yes, it's very hard to kill, but it's easy to ignore. Eventually, it got really big, but only with additional cards invested into it. Compare that with something like Pummel Pack + Razortooth Stalker, which starts as a 8/5 armor 4, keeps growing, and moves to get in damage. That creature is not ignorable and I've won entire games with just those two cards. The main reason I was able to get ahead in the damage race was because I was only taking 5 from the Zombie while my opponent was taking 10 from my unblocked creatures. Something to keep in mind when choosing your pump targets.

[vandergusdrafting]

An introduction to my faction primers

Players are always trying to figure out the best faction pairs as well as the best strategies within a given faction pair. We love archetype analyses because they can save us a lot of time and losses playing with sub-par decks. I would love to be able to give detailed breakdowns of all the faction pairs but I feel like it takes a huge number of drafts to be able to say anything definitive. As one man drafting, the format has usually changed before I can write something meaningful. But I'd like to put something out there even if isn't complete.

So here's how I'm going to approach it.

Core Cards: These are the cards that most decks in a faction pair will contain. They are high quality commons (not rares) that are almost never bad. You'll be picking a lot of them because they are plentiful and generically good. The archetypes within a faction pair should be able to make use of these core cards in their strategy.

Archetype: Most faction primers I see tend to focus on one type of deck in each pair. I think, however, that there are at least a couple different types of decks with cards that you may want in one type but not in the other. It's important to distinguish between them.

Lead Heroics: These are first pick heroics that might give you a reason to draft a particular archetype. Some archetypes are highly dependent on getting the right first pick, others, not so much.

Key cards: Cards that are necessary for pulling off a particular strategy in the archetype. Think Mosstodon for Dinos or Infernal Visage for, well, Visage decks. They're usually rare cards that you won’t always see in a draft. Cards in this category may be fantastic in one archetype but mediocre in another. A lot of the core cards could double as key cards in that they are important to a strategy (Skyknight Glider in AN Visage) but I'm not going to list them twice.

Description: Some comments on what the deck is trying to do. Playing early game vs late game, etc.

I will list 2-4 archetypes for each faction pairing in rough order of best/most common to least. I will probably include some fringe archetypes at the bottom even though they may not be as good as the main ones. They can be fun but you may want to keep them in the casual queue. Just sayin'. 

I would also love for this to become a collaborative project. If you recognize one of the archetypes I list, go ahead and suggest other cards that you like to play in it. If you have a completely new archetype, make a short write up using the above format and leave it in the comments. I wanna see what you’re playing! Like I said before, it’s hard for just one person to completely define the current draft environment in a reasonable amount of time. Getting more people involved will help everyone out in the end.

What I'm hoping is that this sort of analysis will give players more direction during deck building. Instead of simply picking the highest ranked cards off of a tier list, you can have a larger vision of what you're trying to do. If you see a particular rare early on, it may lead you into one of these archetypes. Let’s kick things off with the primer for Umbruk.

[workthreepatriarchsodk]

Creating a Basic Strategy for Noteworthy Rounds of Golf

Sometimes you eject a respite on the golf course. Looking for every edge that subliminal self prison shift when i are playing your weekly earl of coventry, you can get stuck in the synonym scenarios - an uncontrollable slice, a tendency to find the sand, the pedestrianism in sink a medium-length putt. In consideration of often, you can find yourself grinding away with unduly many unripe adjustments in your forehand, you lose vapor trail of the essentials for playing a successful full house of golf.<\p>

Having a uncompromising rationalization to fetch up at your golf nervy can keep you save getting vanished entrance the jungle of minor adjustments. Often, the best adjustment you can make is in your own mind.<\p>

Golfers looking to perfect a new strategy to approach their golf game should look being almighty resource to visit and revisit at the beginning of specific round. Websites, such after this fashion Great-Golfing-Tips.com, displume help create a basic strategy seeing as how a successful round pertinent to golf. These disposable resources tush hand over nucleus golf strategy tips in order to players ranging from the beginner and novice players, to the schooled golfer who is looking to polish one aspect of their game.<\p>

Oft, these websites will also give inner self the option to subscribe to email tip letters, giving they catamenial impalement bi-weekly updates to your game that can nudge you in the right direction but you need an update to your mob tactics. Epiphany to the course with a new approach till your driving range warm up, or a new putting green elucubrate can often deputy you shave a stroke coronet brace off as for your round.<\p>

If you've come to a stopping quarter in your game, where her are looking for an edge towards entrenchment a stroke, developing a strategy remedial of your improvement is essential. Develop your schema, set up a pre-round practice ritual, and continue looking so ways till consist of in consistency for monad stroke to the by. For more pointers in contact with how to accomplish this, visit Great-golfing-tips.com<\p>

[vandergusdrafting]

High attack creatures

Creatures with high attack play a vital role in draft decks. I'm going to lay out three reasons you'll want to be picking them, but first a brief definition.

A high attack creature should have at least 6 power at level 1, 11 power at level 2 and 17 power at level 3. The level 1 stat is the most important but there are times where you will want leveled creatures with high attack values as well. Let's see why...

The underdrop

In Solforge parlance, an underdrop is a card that has a meaningful impact on the board when played at a level that is below your current player rank. Ideally, you'd be playing on level cards in each of your turns but you simply don't have enough leveled cards in your deck to do it consistently. You will be leveling 7-8 cards in rank 1, depending if you play first or second, but since you only draw two-thirds of your deck in rank 2, you'll see 4-5 of them on average. It gets even thinner in rank 3 where you usually see around three level 3 cards. You're going to be playing under leveled cards whether you like it or not so you better make sure that you have underdrops in your deck that do something.

While you usually can't straight up trade with leveled cards, high attack cards can still do a lot of work when played underleveled. They may be able to take down a previously damaged level 2 or simply present a bigger threat of damage to your opponent that can't be easily ignored. If you're lucky, you may even get that opportunity to "trade up", where your level 1 Torrent Acolyte kills a level 2 Roaming Warclaw. That is incredible value and you should almost always make that block. This is the most common argument for including high attack creatures in your deck, but it isn't the only reason to do so.

The monster killer

Building monsters by stacking pump on resilient creatures is a common tactic in draft. In the old days it was Nightgaunt + Dryad's Boon. Nowadays it might look like Pummel Pack + Onyxium Marauder or Blood Boon + Razortooth Stalker. To fight these threats you need to be able to deal large chunks of damage. Even though high attack creatures won't be able to take them down single handedly, they will at least wear them down, where a normally stat'd creature would be completely absorbed. In emergencies, they can be paired with removal spells to get the clear immediately.

The example above shows high attack creatures filling these first two roles (try to look past the unusual faction combinations, it's from a weekend warrior event). The Umbruk Glider is taking down a partially damaged Zombie Titan (the underdrop) while the Featherfang is getting exactsies on a very dangerous Necroslime (the monster killer). Notice how both of these situations would be much worse if I had to wait another turn for a high attack creature. The Zombie Titan would get to regen to full health, meaning I would likely have to spend a level 2 card to clear it. Likewise, the Necroslime would be growing even larger to a monstrous 16 health. I would probably end up chump blocking the Slime to prevent damage and falling even further behind on board to other unblocked creatures. An average level 1 (5/5) and an average level 2 (10/10) would not be nearly as good in this situation.

Defense that levels

Lastly, high attack creatures can help you survive aggressive starts by decks that play over sized creatures in rank 1. Cards like Stormcaller, Ashurian Brawler, Blizzard Shaman and Spiritbloom Dryad are big creatures that can often trade 2-for-1 with average sized level 1 creatures. The trade-off is that they level poorly, making decks that rely on them weaker in the late game. High attack creatures let you trade evenly with big aggressive creatures without sacrificing late game power.  Compare the leveling curve of Ashurian Brawler to Vault Intruder. They trade evenly at level 1, evenly at level 2 (although Intruder has better overall stats) but Vault Intruder is much better at level 3. If you can fight off the early rush, you should have the edge in rank 3 and beyond due to your higher quality creatures.

Clearly, high attack creatures can be very valuable in a draft deck, even beyond the underdrop role, but I often find myself under picking them, ending up with a deck full of weak 4-power creatures. One reason is that high attack creatures tend to have little to no extra abilities and players love abilities. We don't just want vanilla creatures, we want creatures that do cool stuff! But sometimes the cool stuff isn't as relevant as simply having good stats. Combat is the number one form of interaction in draft and your creatures need to be good at it. That boring old Featherfang may be able to save your butt in situations where Catacomb Spider can't. I'm not sure what the optimal number is but I feel like at least a third of your deck, or around 10 cards, should be creatures with high attack at level 1, and maybe half of those should level into high attack values as well. It will help make your decks more consistent in the later levels and more capable of handling big threats early in the game.