Author: Tom Sorenson

Constructed Epic: Dinos and Friends

Epic Box

Foreword

Great Horned Lizard made me want to make a Dinosaur deck. So I did.

First Shot Deck List

Dinos And Friends

Evil (2)

Slow ()

Fast (2)
2x Final Task

0-Cost ()

Good (9)

Slow (1)
1x Thundarus

Fast (6)
3x Ceasefire
3x Resurrection

0-Cost (2)
2x Brave Squire

Sage (0)

Wild (49)

Slow (20)
3x Brachiosaurus
2x Draka, Dragon Tyrant
3x Fire Spirit
3x Jungle Queen
3x Kong
3x Raging T-Rex
3x Triceratops

Fast (13)
1x Chomp!
3x Draka’s Enforcer
1x Draka’s Fire
2x Great Horned Lizard
2x Hurricane
1x Smash and Burn
3x Surprise Attack

0-Cost (16)
3x Ankylosaurus
3x Cave Troll
3x Feeding Frenzy
3x Fire Shaman
1x Lash
3x Wurm Hatchling

First Shot Explanation

I attack with Triceratops. Opponent ambushes in a Lurking Giant. I play Great Horned Lizard, breakthrough the Lurking Giant, and swing for 10 breakthrough with the Great Horned Lizard. That scenario was largely the impetus behind this deck. I really liked that interaction, in theory.

The rest of the deck just makes use of big, high-value Wild champions. The only other particularly interesting interaction in this deck is Draka, Dragon Tyrant Attack, followed immediately by Feeding Frenzy. This is one situation where you would actually use that window to play cards immediately after your attack and before your opponent gets a chance. (Fire Shaman 1-cost Wild card followed by Feeding Frenzy also works.) There is also the Final Task into Brave Squire trick.

(Use Final Task to return a champion from a discard pile to play. Then, you cast Brave Squire on that champion granting it unbreakable this turn. During the end step, you first resolve any “at the end of the turn” triggers. At this point, Final Task tries to break your returned champion, but it is unbreakable so it can’t. The “this turn” trigger from Brave Squire falls off after this point. Since Final Task only tries to break that champion once, that champion is now permanently in play. This also works when you use Final Task on your turn on an “unbreakable on your turn” champion, Juggernaut for instance.)

When I played this deck, it was fairly lackluster. I never had the Great Horned Lizard interaction I wanted, and I used my Feeding Frenzies just to draw 2. It is still a bit early to call it for this deck, but it didn’t show much promise. I do have a couple directions I want to experiment with going forward.

A Feeding Frenzy based direct damage chip deck featuring Blue Dragons, Forcemage Apprentices, and Helion the Dominators could be interesting. I could also make use of Lightning Storms, Rain of Fires, and potentially Fire Shamans/Fire Spirits. Memory Spirits could also be excellent to further exploit Feeding Frenzy. This would be a very different deck. (I would need to keep reminding myself that Feeding Frenzy can only break on my turn.)

A more similar deck could try and exploit the 10+ toughness champions that draw a card to overwhelm my opponent. For this deck, I could make use of Kong, Raging T-Rex, Triceratops, Sea Hydra, Lurking Giant, and possibly Jungle Queen/Draka’s Enforcer. Hurricane would be the major star of the deck, but I think Smash and Burn could work excellently in this deck as well. I would mainly just draw 2 and use the 6 champion damage to finish off pesky utility champions. This deck would probably also bring a lot of bounce like Erases to deal with other high toughness champions. Sea Titan, Hasty Retreat, and Vanishing could all also show up. The 0-costs would only be particularly viable if I had enough card draw. I would probably not bring 3 Feeding Frenzies to this deck, but definitely at least 1 Lash.

So, those are the 2 directions I might take this deck. Let me know in the comments below if anyone has a preference in which route I take. (I’ll probably do both eventually, but I am also working on other decks and articles so the second one won’t show up for awhile.)

Constructed Epic: Efficient Evil

Epic Box

Foreword

I started designing this as a demon deck, but I shifted to trying to make it as efficient as possible. What I mean is that I attempted to create a deck where I would spend as little time just drawing as possible. I want my plays on my turn to get me far ahead, and I want my plays on my opponent’s turn to also get me ahead, just not by as much. The challenge was doing this in Evil with minimal card draw. Well, we’ll see if I succeeded.

First Shot Deck List

Efficient Evil

Evil (48)

Slow (24)
2x Angel of Death
1x Drinker of Blood
3x Infernal Gatekeeper
3x Murderous Necromancer
3x Necromancer Lord
3x Raxxa, Demon Tyrant
3x Reaper
3x Succubus
3x The Gudgeon
0x Trihorror

Fast (16)
1x Demon Breach
2x Drain Essence
3x Final Task
3x Medusa
3x Necrovirus
1x Raxxa’s Displeasure
3x Zealous Necromancer

0-Cost (8)
3x Plentiful Dead
3x Spawning Demon
2x Wither

Good (6)

Slow (0)

Fast (4)
1x Inheritance of the Meek
3x Resurrection

0-Cost (2)
2x Brave Squire

Sage (3)

Slow (0)

Fast (3)
3x Erase

0-Cost (0)

Wild (3)

Slow (0)

Fast (3)
3x Surprise Attack

0-Cost (0)

First Shot Explanation

The slow cards in this deck do something powerful initially and must be removed. Aside from Drinker of Blood, none of these champions suffer terribly from bounce.

The fast cards in this deck were picked because they (almost) all provide incredibly strong effects on my opponent’s turn. Ideally, I can use the powerful effects each turn to grind down my opponent quickly. Essentially, I do not want to let up the pressure to spend my turn drawing 2 cards.

I am attempting to make this work due to 2 factors. I am including The Gudgeons, Succubi, Zealous Necromancers, Erases, and to a lesser extent Resurrections, Final Tasks, and Necromancer Lords to draw cards. Demon Breach and Plentiful Dead can both be returned to hand as well.

In addition, I have limited the number of 0-cost cards in this deck to 10. Since I have fewer 0-cost cards, I do not need to draw as many cards to be able to continually play 1-cost cards. In other words, I am less likely to be in a situation where I unload all of my 0-cost cards and run myself out of fuel. The 0-costs I included are either big threats, continuous threats, combo/defense, or efficiency enablers.

Spawning Demon can create an army of demons while I play my Evil 1-cost cards normally, and it can start on my opponent’s turn.

Plentiful Dead is a constant stream of zombie tokens. Wither can work with my deck or prevent the damage from a Secret Legion on my turn into Insurgency combo. (Wither wouldn’t kill those tokens with Insurgency, but it would remove their offense for the turn.)

Brave Squire is included for 2 situations, in addition to it being a combat trick. Final Task + Brave Squire is the first. Zealous Necromancer + Brave Squire is the second.

I am really curious to see how this deck works out. My greatest fear is discard, but Human tokens could be an issue too. The nice thing is that Zealous Necromancer does turn those broken human tokens into zombies.

This deck was incredibly difficult to pare down initially. I wanted more of a few cards because they are so powerful, but I cut them because they are either situational or 1 effective use is all that is needed in a game. I also had to cut Trihorror even though it works well with Necromancer Lord, Final Task, Resurrection, and Reaper as well as the demon specific cards. Trihorror just doesn’t seem reliable enough. I did not include Dark Assassin because it breaks a champion, but then it is too easy to remove. Necromancer Lord gives a permanent champion and The Gudgeon draws 2, so neither of them need to stay around to get excellent value.

Let me know what you think in the comments below. I am especially curious to hear how many 0-cost cards other people include in decks and why. Is 20 the goal every time, do you have a formula you like, or is it more about selecting the best cards regardless of 1-cost to 0-cost (as long as it is legal)?

Dixit Review

Dixit Box

Foreword

Dixit is a simple, attractive, party game for 3 to 6 players.

How to Play

Each player starts with 6 cards with pictures on them. The current player selects 1 card from their hand. They place it face down and say either a word or phrase, or they make a sound to describe it. Every other player then picks a card from their hand, that they think fits that description, and places it face-down. Once this has happened, the current player shuffles the cards, lays them out on the table face-up, and each other player guesses which card the current player played. The guessing is done by playing a tile face-down with the number of the picture you think it is. All of the tiles are revealed at once.

Scoring is based on the premise that you want your definition to be obscure, but not too obscure.

  • If every other player guesses the current player’s card, everyone but the current player gets 2 points.
  • If no player guess the current player’s card, everyone but the current player gets 2 points.
  • If at least one player guesses the current player’s card and at least one player guesses incorrectly, the current player gets 3 points and each player who guessed correctly gets 3 points too.
  • Finally, if you are not the current player, you get 1 additional point for every person who guessed your card that round.

After this is resolved, everyone draws a card and the next player becomes the current player.

Dixit In Progress

Example

Anne places a card face down and says “alone.” Each other player places a card face down as well. After shuffling the cards and placing them face up, Bob, Carol, David, Edna, and Frank make their guesses.

Anne had played the number 3 card.
Bob played the number 1 card and guessed 3.
Carol played the number 2 card and guessed 4.
David played the number 4 card and guessed 5.
Edna played the number 5 card and guessed 3.
Frank played the number 6 card and guessed 4.

Anne gets 3 points because Bob and Edna guessed correctly and Carol, David, and Frank guessed incorrectly.

Bob gets 3 points because he guessed correctly, but no one guessed his card.

Edna gets 4 points because she guessed correctly (3), and David guessed her card (1).

David gets 2 points because Carol and Frank both guessed his card (1 each).

Carol and Frank get 0 points because neither player guessed correctly, and no one voted for their cards.

Conclusion

I enjoy this game, but about 1/4 of the people I have played it with do not, and they really do not. I, personally, love thinking up interesting and obscure ways to describe the cards. Trying to connect the interesting cards to something only 1 or 2 people would get is fun for me. I don’t think I have ever won though because I go too obscure, but still, I like it.

The people that I play with that do not like Dixit dislike coming up with those words/phrases/etc. Generally, they do not mind thinking which card they want to use to match someone else’s word/phrase, but they are, to an extent, self-conscious about coming up with a “good” one on their turn.

One problem I do have with the base game is that it can get repetitive. The cards are pretty cool looking, there are a good number of them, and you can describe them in a myriad of ways, but seeing the same ones over and over again can get stale. Luckily, there are expansions which add a lot of new cards. I do not have any of these expansions though, so I can’t actually recommend them, yet.

Overall, this is another one of my games I like to break out with “non-gamers,” but I haven’t had as much success with it as I would like. I do recommend it, but it very much isn’t for everyone.

Sample Epic Dark Draft 3/16/16 (Tom)

Epic Box

Foreword

Recently I did a couple Dark Drafts with my friend Paul (quite a few), and we wrote notes during a couple so we could post it on here. We are writing up our thoughts throughout the draft in separate posts, so you can get the perspective of each of us. His post can be found here: Sample Epic Dark Draft 3/16/16 (Paul).

Dark Draft is a two-player draft format where each player is simultaneously dealt 5 cards face down. Each player picks 1 of their 5 cards and then passes the remaining 4 to their opponent. Then each player picks 2 of the 4 passed cards and discards the remaining 2. This is done 10 times and you have your 30 card deck. During the draft, you may not look at the cards you drafted (once you draft them) and at the end of the draft you will not be able to cut any cards from your 30. You may go over your drafted deck before the first game though.

To stay true to the Dark Draft format as much as possible, we took notes in a very specific way. After getting dealt the opening 5 cards each round, we wrote down all 5. We then circled our choice and put a square around the 2 cards we expected our opponent to take. In addition, we wrote notes beneath this to reference during these posts. Before looking at the passed cards, we flipped over the page so we could not see the previous choices. On the back of the page, we wrote our 2 choices from the 4 passed cards and any notes. We then started the next round on the next page.

DarkDraftNotes

Round 1

Angel of Death, Bitten, Muse, Plague, Word of Summoning

E3_16DDT1a

Round 2

Round 3

Round 4

Round 5

Round 6

Round 7

Round 8

Round 9

Round 10

 

Conclusion

Tzaar Review

Tzarr Box

Foreword

This is a rules-light two-player abstract strategy game. I like rules-light 2 player abstract strategy games.

How to Play

Goal

The goal of the game is to eliminate all of a single type of your opponent’s pieces. (There are 3 types.) You do this by capturing their pieces and building stacks with your own. Stacks can only capture stacks of equal or lesser height.

You can also win by making it impossible for your opponent to capture a piece on their turn.

Set Up

You can either randomly set up the discs, use a predefined setup, or alternate placing discs on the board.

TzarrInProgress

Turn

  1. Capture
  2. Capture, Stack, or Pass (Skip this step for the first player’s first turn.)

Capture

Pick a stack of 1 or more disc(s) of your color. Move that stack along a straight line onto an opponent’s stack of equal or lesser height. Remove your opponent’s stack from the board.

Stack

Pick a stack of 1 or more disc(s) of your color. Move that stack along a straight line onto another one of your stacks; this combines the two stacks into one. For determining if you have a disc of a type, only the top disc of a stack counts.

Pass

Do nothing.

Conclusion

This game is simple, elegant, and excellent.

When I previewed this game, I characterized it as a hunting game, and I think that nails it. The ringed piece (Tzaar) is quickly hunted down to just 1 remaining for each side, since each player only starts with 6. To protect their last Tzaar piece, each player will put it on top of a stack. The first player to do that will always have the higher stack, if they stack it every turn. Due to this, that player can chase down their opponent’s stack(s) with impunity.

While this happens, the second player will generally need to shift into hunting their opponent’s second or third rarest pieces (the Tzarra and Tott respectively). So now, the first player is still trying to capture the last Tzaar piece, but they also need to protect their other pieces. The second player, on the other hand, needs to focus on evading the first player’s mega stack while chipping away at the more plentiful discs. This is frequently accomplished by having a few smaller stacks of 2 to 4 discs, as opposed to a big 4+ stack.

Throughout this process, each player can also set traps to ensnare their opponent. For example, player 1 leaves a 3 stack vulnerable. If player 2 captures that 3 stack they might be allowing their opponent to capture one of their stacks. Or, the capturing stack might be put into a position where it can no longer move, neutralizing it. Overall board awareness is critical to winning this game.

Another major decision point in this game is determining when to make a second capture and when to stack. In almost all games, you win the game by capturing your opponent’s pieces. So, capturing moves you directly toward victory. Stacking, on the other hand, is necessary to prevent you from losing; but, it does also give you an offensive edge for capturing. In general, big stacks are better for defense. Multiple small stacks are better for offense.

Everything I have discussed in my conclusion is emergent from the incredibly simple rules. The strategy is surprisingly deep and the better player will usually win. But, there is a lot to pay attention to, and if you neglect something, you can quickly lose. It is easy to focus on attacking and let yourself be eliminated. I really enjoy the back and forth of this game. If you enjoy abstract strategy games like Chess, The Duke, or Push Fight, I highly recommend this game.

Constructed Epic: Duel Decks (Tall vs Wide)

Epic Box

Foreword

In this post, I am including 2 constructed Epic decks. They are designed to be played against each other, with just 3 sets of the base game. The idea to do this came from Harold, a reader and Epic Fan, and it is an excellent idea. With these decks, players can experience Epic constructed play without needing 2 players to have 3 sets each.

In addition, I designed these decks to be largely opposite of each other. The first deck wants to get out big champions and run over their opponent. The second deck wants to get out a lot of champions and run through their opponent.

Tall

Epic Tall

Evil (0)

Good (9)

Slow (0)

Fast (6)
3x Ceasefire
3x Resurrection

0-Cost (3)
2x Brave Squire
1x Watchful Gargoyle

Sage (21)

Slow (11)
2x Frost Giant
3x Juggernaut
3x Sea Titan
3x Steel Golem

Fast (3)
3x Stand Alone

0-Cost (7)
2x Forcemage Apprentice
3x Keeper of Secrets
1x Muse
1x Spike Trap

Wild (30)

Slow (11)
1x Jungle Queen
3x Kong
3x Raging T-Rex
1x Sea Hydra
3x Triceratops

Fast (9)
1x Lightning Storm
3x Lurking Giant
3x Hurricane
2x Surprise Attack

0-Cost (10)
1x Cave Troll
2x Fire Shaman
2x Flash Fire
2x Lash
3x Wurm Hatchling

Wide (Based on Plentiful Dead Deck)

Epic Wide

Evil (42)

Slow (15)
1x Angel of Death
1x Dark Assassin
1x Drinker of Blood
3x Infernal Gatekeeper
3x Murderous Necromancer
3x Necromancer Lord
3x Trihorror

Fast (16)
3x Bitten
3x Demon Breach
3x Final Task
3x Inner Demon
2x Medusa
1x The Risen
1x Zombie Apocalypse

0-Cost (11)
3x Guilt Demon
3x Plentiful Dead
3x Thrasher Demon
2x Wither

Good (6)

Slow (0)

Fast (4)
3x Inheritance of the Meek
1x Secret Legion

0-Cost (2)
2x Courageous Soul

Sage (9)

Slow (0)

Fast (6)
2x Crystal Golem
1x Deadly Raid
3x Erase

0-Cost (3)
3x Hasty Retreat

Wild (3)

Slow (0)

Fast (2)
1x Mighty Blow
1x Surprise Attack

0-Cost (1)
1x Flash Fire

Conclusion

I am not going to go into too much depth on the strategy of these two decks. A lot of the fun of constructed play is figuring it out as you play. I also did not include Tyrants cards in either deck. Feel free to upgrade these decks as you see fit.

In general, Tall deck is much more straightforward to play. It doesn’t really run out of cards in hand either. To win, this deck has to get 1 or 2 attacks through with big champions.

Wide deck requires a lot more concentration to play well. Effective chump blocking is critical. Also, a lot of your fast cards work better on your turn. To win, this deck must chip away at your opponent’s health.

As an aside, I am beginning to think I underestimated Demon Breach and Plentiful Dead. 3 demons on your turn, with one card, isn’t bad. Plentiful Dead also works quite nicely.

**Updated Untested Lists**

Now that I’ve played significantly more Epic, Core-Only specifically on the app, I decided to remake these decks. (Someone also requested duel decks on reddit too.) I have not tested these decks yet, but they can both theoretically do a lot of powerful things. I also designed them to have some theoretically interesting interactions. Slight tweaking of certain card counts would probably make these better…hmmm…just had an idea…

Tall

Evil (6)

Slow (0)

Fast (4)
1x Drain Essence
3x Zombie Apocalypse

0-Cost (2)
1x Corpse Taker
1x Wither

Good (3)

Slow (0)

Fast (2)
2x Ceasefire

0-Cost (1)
1x Brave Squire

Sage (33)

Slow (11)
1x Frost Giant
3x Juggernaut
3x Sea Titan
3x Steel Golem
1x Time Walker

Fast (11)
1x Ancient Chant
1x Crystal Golem
1x Deadly Raid
3x Ice Drake
1x Memory Spirit
3x Stand Alone
1x Thought Plucker

0-Cost (11)
1x Amnesia
3x Keeper of Secrets
3x Forcemage Apprentice
1x Muse
3x Spike Trap

Wild (18)

Slow (6)
3x Kong
3x Triceratops

Fast (6)
3x Hurricane
2x Pyromancer
1x Surprise Attack

0-Cost (6)
3x Flash Fire
1x Lash
2x Cave Troll

Wide

Evil (39)

Slow (11)
2x Angel of Death
1x Drinker of Blood
3x Infernal Gatekeeper
3x Murderous Necromancer
2x Necromancer Lord

Fast (15)
3x Demon Breach
1x Drain Essence
3x Inner Demon
3x Final Task
3x Medusa
2x Plague

0-Cost (13)
1x Corpse Taker
3x Guilt Demon
3x Plentiful Dead
2x Unquenchable Thirst
1x Wither
3x Word of Summoning

Good (6)

Slow (0)

Fast (4)
3x Inheritance of the Meek
1x Resurrection

0-Cost (2)
1x Brave Squire
1x Watchful Gargoyle

Sage (12)

Slow (0)

Fast (8)
1x Ancient Chant
1x Crystal Golem
1x Deadly Raid
1x Erase
1x Lying in Wait
3x Wave of Transformation

0-Cost (4)
1x Amnesia
1x Muse
2x Ogre Mercenary

Wild (3)

Slow (0)

Fast (2)
1x Mighty Blow
1x Surprise Attack

0-Cost (1)
1x Fireball

Hearthstone Hat Hunter

Foreword

A friend recently got me back into Hearthstone (a Digital Collectible Card Game), and he thought this deck was interesting enough to post.

ExplanationHat Hunter

The star of this deck is Explorer’s Hat. It works well with Zombie Chow and Steamwheedle Sniper to gain board position early. Cards like Wild Pyromancer, Violet Teacher, and Djinni of Zephyrs work well with multiple castings of the Hat. Overall, this deck does well when you draw a hat early since you can make favorable trades.

Combinations

Gahz’rilla can one shot players if you have a Wild Pyromancer and 2 or 3 spells (Hats) to cast. Wild Pyromancer with Hats is also solid AoE damage. Arch-Thief Rafaam works quite nice with Djinni of Zephyrs to get 2 +10/+10 buffs.

Cut Cards

I have been refining this deck for a couple days, and the cards that did not make it are explained below:

Webspinner: The 1/1 stats weren’t doing enough for early game tempo, and the random beast deathrattle wasn’t reliable.
Other Secrets: Mainly the secrets just weren’t reliable enough. Snake Trap and Bear Trap stay in because they are above the curve (3/3 worth of stats for 2 crystals).
Glaivezooka: This was decent, and I could potentially experiment with it more.
Desert Camel: This was frequently not beneficial enough for me because of the strength of my opponent’s class-specific 1 crystal minions.
Ball of Spiders: Same reasoning as the individual Webspinner. The spell aspect wasn’t enough, especially after I cut summoning Stone.
Fjola Lightbane: Didn’t do enough when I didn’t have Hat.
Summoning Stone: Occasionally did great things, but I think replacing it with a second Violet teacher has been slightly better.
Emperor Thaurissan: It just didn’t feel strong enough since my draw is lacking and I need my big minions to win me the game.

Potential Cards

I do not own these cards, but they could work: Feign Death, Lock and Load, Dreadscale, and Eydis Darkbane.