Wild decks and Control decks have dominated and shaped Epic’s competitive constructed meta forever. This is partly due to the effectiveness of uninteractable direct damage effects such as Strafing Dragon and Scarros. In a moment of frustration having just been burned out, after getting reverse burned out by two previous Kark players, following my own burning out of a third Kark player, I wondered what the game would be like if no burn (damage or life loss that can target a player) or health gain effects existed. I was intrigued and didn’t have an answer, so I decided to put on an unofficial Epic Digital tournament series to find out, this.
Format
In order to best explore what an Epic meta with no burn and (almost) no health gain looks like, I’m thinking the best way to do this is with a scheduled tournament, followed by two to four weeks of individually scheduled round robin matches, and then a culminating scheduled tournament. Each individual event will have a winner, and if someone wins two of the three events, they will be the overall winner. As of now, I am planning on not having prizes since I think it would be awesome if some WWG employees joined in too! (For example but not limited to CJ, Darwin, Rob, etc.)
I am hypothesizing that the removal of burn and health gain will simultaneously slow down the format while also decreasing the average game time. Therefore, every match will be best of three.
For the schedule tournaments, I figured we could use battlefy + discord and hold a tournament similar to the monthly tournament (4+ round of swiss cut to top 4/8 depending on the number of participants). Round limit of approximately an hour plus 4 turns with tie break going to the player with more health remaining and final tie breaker going to whoever went first that game. Use the same deck throughout the entirety of the tournament. Decklists will be posted after each tournament. First tournament will provide a baseline, last tournament will demonstrate how the meta evolved.
For the weeks of round robin, *ideally* everyone would play each other player once with between one and four matches per week. A player must use the same deck throughout the match, but may change decks between matches. Decklists will not be required to be posted during this event. This event will require discussion to iron out the details.
It will NOT be necessary to play more than one event.
Dates and Times
I figured we could hold the first tournament either Saturday August 8th at 12:45pm CDT or anytime Sunday August 9th. Let me know what times would work best for anyone interested. I could possibly do an earlier time on that Saturday if necessary.
The weeks of round robin would start that following Monday. The number of weeks would depend on the number of interested participants as well as the number of matches we would want to shoot for in a week. I would also personally be fine with allowing people to commit to playing only a portion of the events. The player with the most event wins (within the established “limit” per week) would be the winner.
The second tournament would most likely be on the weekend following the last week of round robin, as long as it does not interfere with an official WWG tournament.
Full Event Banlist
The full ban list can be found below and is primarily based around burn and health gain, but I want to go over the exceptions to those criteria first.
EXCEPTIONS
Banned: Ceasefire, Fumble, Blind Faith (WWG bans, even though this is a different environment from what they were banned in, they are too disruptive and efficient in a combat-damage-only environment and I don’t want the events to potentially center around already banned cards) Banned: Thought Plucker, Muse (Primarily because I hate them and I’m drunk on my power from organizing this, but also because I feel they overly inhibit deck building)
NOT Banned:
Avenging Angel (While it does gain the player life, it has to deal damage in combat to do it, and there are multiple effective ways to interact with it for every alignment)
Clarifications/Considerations
[Gold Dragon is still banned for this because it doesn’t personally need to attack to gain health, and it threatens too much health gain. Similar reasoning behind Justice Prevails still being banned.]
[Soul Hunter is still banned for this even though I considered adding it back in since: it needs at least 1 other card to combo with it to deal the damage immediately, it doesn’t deal that much damage at first, and there are multiple ways to interact with it. Ultimately, I decided to keep it banned because Good and Wild have no way to interact with it if it is discarded and then continuously broken immediately at the start of its controller’s turns when it returns to play.]
[I considered banning other cards for this event too but decided not to at this time.]
All other cards that can gain a player health or directly decrease a player’s health without dealing combat damage are BANNED (for this event)
(The exceptions above are also included in this list)
Good (15)
1-cost Cards (10):
Absolve Angel of Light Angel of the Gate Breath of Life Ceasefire Chamberlain Kark Gold Dragon Inner Peace Justice Prevails Royal Escort Vital Mission
0-cost Cards (5): (Blind Faith) Brand, Rebel Fighter Mobilize Priest of Kalnor Priestess of Angeline Second Wind
Evil (11)
1-cost Cards (6)
Dark One’s Apprentice Devour Drain Essence Drinker of Blood Plague Zombies Soul Hunter Zannos, Corpse Lord
Ascendant Pyromancer Draka’s Fire Fires of Rebellion Flame Strike Flood of Fire Forked Lightning Hunting Raptors Lightning Storm Polar Shock Pyromancer Pyrosaur Rain of Fire Savage Uprising Scarros, Hound of Draka Strafing Dragon Whirlwind
0-cost Cards (6):
Fire Shaman Fireball Flame Spike Flash Fire Forked Jolt Javelin Thrower
Everything Open to Discussion
None of this is set in the stone, not the format, not the complete banlist, not the dates/times, etc. If anyone has any suggestions/recommendations etc. let me know and we can work through the best way to do this. You can either comment on here or any of the places I’ll cross-post this: the Epic Digital Facebook group, Epic Reddit group, Epic Board Game Geek page, the Epic Discord, or on Twitter. If it isn’t on here, please tag me as I can forget to check each of the locations at times.
Streaming
I will be streaming all of my scheduled tournament games and potentially round robin games too at https://www.twitch.tv/tomsepicgaming\. I plan on experimenting with a lot of different decks since I believe all alignments will potentially be viable.
Decklists
I will compile all of the decklists on here. Please send me the exportable deck code from the app at least after each tournament. If you could send me a screenshot of the full deck as well, that would be helpful, otherwise I can do that part myself.
While talking to Christian Kudahl after our Dark Draft Showmatch he mentioned a note taking strategy that intrigued me. So, I asked him to write up his thoughts on it. Game one was saved and can be viewed here: Game 1 vs Kudahlissimo
I first talked to Tom Sorenson about a year ago because I was a fan of his blog. As an amateur Epic player with no real competitive opponents around, getting to read his draft guides and tournament reports was really exciting for me. Tom was even nice enough to help out with a lot of testing my game Unleash, which is scheduled to come out later this year. His expertise in competitive card games was a huge help.
With the Epic app, we also started playing Epic together. We always played Dark Drafts, and I was really excited when I was able to get a win against him now and then. After some matches, he challenged me to a best of five match which he would stream. It sounded like a lot of fun for me, though I was a bit nervous. I have never played Epic tournaments or any kind of “official” matches before. I knew he was strong, and I really wanted to beat him.
If you have not yet seen the match, I would recommend watching game one before reading more. It can be watched here:
To prepare myself, I started re-reading every entry on his blog. I wanted to internalize his style. What did he value in Dark Drafts? What did he overvalue? (Tokens!) Which cards did he draft even though he kind of knew he shouldn’t? (Rampaging Wurm seems to tempt him every time.) What does he undervalue? (Knight of Shadows, that guy is strong!)
I knew that Tom was streaming the match and he wanted to take some time explaining all his choices thoroughly to the viewers, so the matches would be quite slow. I wanted to use this to my advantage. I came up with the ultimate note-taking scheme:
With every pick in the Dark Draft, I would note the four cards I sent to him (I call this a quad). I would note the two cards I expected him to pick in one list (called ‘the decklist’), and the two cards I expected him to burn in another list (called ‘the burnlist’).
During the matches, every time he played or revealed a card, I would cross reference it with the decklist and the burnlist. If he played a card from the burnlist, I would find the two cards I had expected him to draft in the decklist and decide the one I think he actually picked, and swap the other with the card from the burnlist. If I ever saw him playing two cards from a quad (four cards I had sent to him), I knew the other two could not be in his deck, so I would stop playing around them.
With my scheme, I was ready to crush Tom on his own stream. So how did it go?
Pretty bad, actually. The first two games, I found myself making lots of mistakes that I normally consider myself too good for. I suspected that the reason was me spending so much brain power with this ridiculous note-scheme that I only had a small focus on the actual game itself. Tom played really well and I soon found myself down 2-0.
Like the basketball team in any American movie I watched as a kid, it was half-time in the finals and I was way behind. I needed to do something. I decided to throw my note-scheme out the window and play the remaining games from my gut. With a mix of good play and good fortune, I was able to get back to a score of 2-2. We now had one deciding game remaining.
Due to a baby-situation at home, I was unfortunately unable to finish the match. However, as a European, ending 2-2 is quite fine and the result of an exciting soccer match. I enjoyed playing the games a lot and my two final observations are these:
Realize that taking notes is not free. This also applies in real-life matches where the notes are taken internally in your head. In both cases, it costs brain power that will be taken away from your actual play. Is your note-taking scheme providing a benefit comparable to the effort you are putting in?
In other games (such as Hearthstone) using deck-tracking software is sometimes allowed. It is a piece of software which tracks for example which cards are still in your deck or how many turns certain cards have stayed in the opponent’s hand. All the boring stuff that you would be able to track by paper anyway but you don’t feel like doing. After this match with Tom, I realize that the power of such software in Epic Dark Draft would be enormous. By remembering all the Dark Draft picks and burns (and Deck 2, see http://www.tomsepicgaming.com/epic-theory-an-introduction-to-deck-2/ ), you theoretically have a ton of information about what is in the opponent’s deck and hand. It is probably for the best that such software does not exist.
I look forward to our next match where I will have revised my note-taking scheme. If anyone has a different note-taking scheme or other ideas on the subject, I would love to hear about it.
I’ve been lax about updating my blog in general recently, and I realized I forgot to post something directly on here in response to the blatant police brutality highlighted by the murder of George Floyd in the city where I live. I’ve updated my welcome page.
Black Lives Matter, I’ve been listening and learning about how much more systemic oppression black people face then I realized, and I’m working on transitioning that knowledge into action. Just because it makes zero sense to me how others can perpetrate these heinous actions onto anyone, that doesn’t mean it isn’t happening or that I can ignore it and thereby enable it. Silence is violence and just trying to be personally “not racist” isn’t enough.
WWG is having a Legend Series event on the app tomorrow 6/19/20 at 1pm ET where the winner will become an Epic card (https://www.epiccardgame.com/play-in-an-online-legend-series-with-epic-card-game-digital/). It is a dark draft tournament where 100% of the proceeds of ticket sales will be donated to Black Lives Matter Global Network. It costs $3-5 in gems to enter. I haven’t decided if I’m competing in it yet. If I do, I’ll be streaming it without delay at https://www.twitch.tv/tomsepicgaming
This Thursday May 21st stream at 7:30pm CDT on twitch.tv/tomsepicgaming will be Duels constructed testing with Pluck U captain and my competitive card game mentor Tom Dixon.
My current decks include an
AoE bounce deck built around the tribute deal 2 damage 0-cost champions: Bouncing Lightning
Human tokens aggro combo deck (duels gives a lot of fuel)
Messing around with Evil tokens, first draft had too many holes. Either an update to my constructed monthly winning MGH tokens list or possibly an event based version
My constructed monthly winning Sage untargetables list, currently the only change being +3 Dissapearing Act, possibly swapping in Transmogrify
I’m also working on an anti-war, anti-bounce Wild list, but it doesn’t have much if any duels in it
“Images used with permission from White Wizard Games. These are not the final card files and are subject to change.”
The beta version of the Epic Card Game app just added the cards from the upcoming Epic Duel Decks. I have verified that they are in there (by checking the deck builder), but I have not looked at the text of any of the new cards yet. Aside from a few cards they spoiled before and a few that might be in the campaign, this is the first time most of the these cards have been seen before.
This Thursday at my usual stream time 7:30pm CDT on https://www.twitch.tv/tomsepicgaming, I am going to go through them and give my first impression reviews. Come join in the discussion! Seeing as this is a full day away, I welcome you to review the cards ahead of time to form your own opinions on them and see how they match up to my own, or if you want to discover them at the same time that works too. Hopefully there’s another Dark Eyes equivalent. Eventually, once I’ve had a chance to mess with them a bit more, I’ll write up reviews for them to add to the rest.
I’ve also roughly edited out the most interesting game from my last Dark Draft Arena stream:
In addition to these videos, just a heads up that I’m moving back my Thursday stream start time to 7:30 PM CDT to give myself enough time to finish dinner first.
I was extolling the virtues of Resurrection in Discord today before my drive back from work. By the time I got home, I’d realized I had so much more to say, and that I needed to write an article about this very good card. (Ha ha Martin, for the first time ever it’s actually a Good alignment card too.)
Why This Card Sucks
Many people think this is just a trash draw 2. The bottom effect only works when
a non-token champion of yours breaks (Sorry Scrap Tokens),
your opponent doesn’t immediately banish it from your discard pile before passing initiative (Amnesia)
Also, it can only target something the same turn it was broken. If you don’t meet all of those above conditions, at the exact time a champion you actually want to resurrect breaks (while also having Resurrection in hand) …
Further, in limited, you are less likely to have amazing champions to return to play with it, and it’s in by far the worst alignment for loyalty effects. (In app there are only Brand, Kark, Markus, Angel of Light, High King, Priest of Kalnor, and White Knight.)
With the incredibly narrow use case for its main ability and the fact that it is in the worst alignment to commit to overall, how could it possibly be one of my favorite cards?
Basic Strength and Some Examples
In general, Resurrection’s strength comes when you are able to meet all of the above conditions to resurrect a strong 1-cost slow champion off-turn. When that happens, it’s essentially as if you Surprise Attacked that champion into play; few two card combos in Epic are as strong as Surprise Attack -> Kong.
Other great targets include Raging T-Rex, Mist Guide Herald, Raxxa, and Silver Wing Savior. (When you use Resurrection to bring back Silver Wing Savior, the Resurrection you played is in your discard pile when Savior’s Tribute ability resolves, so you can return that Resurrection to hand for infinite recursion with no loss in net handsize.)
I frequently run it in constructed alongside another 1-cost Good card (Urgent Messengers/Justice Prevails) to enable me to run three 0-cost Good cards (Second Wind/Brave Squire). The best case scenario is excellent, and the worst case scenario is draw 2.
Get Ahead, Stay Ahead Intersection
The main thing I wanted to touch on with this article is how well Resurrection works within my Get Ahead, Stay Ahead playstyle. Until today, I hadn’t thought about this, but it quite clearly illustrates why I love this card and keep coming back to it.
Brief Recap
Quickly, my Get Ahead, Stay Ahead strategy revolves around three points
On an empty board: either play an “Establishing card” or pass
When Ahead on board: attack then pass, if opponent spends gold -> “punish”
When Behind on board: play a “Reestablishing card” to get ahead or empty board
“Establishing cards” are effects that give you immediate value that your opponent has a hard time completely/efficiently removing for only 1 gold. Raging T-Rex is the best 1-cost example because no matter how your opponent removes it, you’ve still at minimum gained +1 net card in hand. Token producing cards like Murderous Necromancer can establish because they are hard to completely/efficiently remove off-turn for 1 gold. 0-cost champions (especially blitzers, Little Devil) can establish because they put a threat into play without depleting your gold.
“Pass,” in this context, refers to attempting to end your turn while both you and your opponent still have your respective golds available for the turn. Either your opponent makes a play or they go to their turn both golds unspent.
“Punish” or “on-turn and off-turn gold punishers” are cards that are especially strong to play while your opponent’s gold is down, and they are likely to provide extreme immediate advantage, mainly damage to your opponent. “On-turn punishers” are primarily blitz champions with 6+ health (Dark Eyes) because they can immediately deal damage to your opponent while your opponent can’t Drain Essence, Zombie Apocalypse, or otherwise remove them with a 1-cost card. “Off-turn punishers” are typically ambush champions (Rift Summoner).
“Reestablishing cards” are effects that ideally both remove an opponent’s threat(s) in play and create your own (Sea Titan). Since you generally play “Reestablishing” and “Establishing” cards when your opponent still has a gold available, they need to have incredibly powerful immediate effects to prevent your opponent from punishing you! If absolutely necessary, board clears (Apocalypse) can be used to re-empty the board, but if your opponent’s gold is up, expect to be punished.
For a more in depth explanation of why and how all of this works, check out my full article (it’s one of my best).
The entirety of Get Ahead, Stay Ahead revolves around getting you ahead on board with your gold available. From this position, your opponent has to act, usually spending their gold, or they will eventually lose. When they’re forced to spend their gold to deal with one of your threats, immediately getting that threat back into play, especially off-turn, can be back breaking. At minimum, they will need to spend another gold to deal with that champion again. We are going to look at two of my decks that currently run Resurrection and break down why it is particularly powerful in both.
Sage Untargetables
Brief Overview
This deck was specifically designed to beat Wild decks in the March 2020 monthly tournament. It is a brutal Get Ahead, Stay Ahead deck that relies on using Kong/Sea Titan to get ahead early and then Steel Golem to win games before we can get burned out. The untargetables negate potential disruption such as Erase, Hasty Retreat, or Spore Beast. Mist Guide Herald is included to get us to these cards either by putting them directly into play with its tribute or by getting us past 5 other cards.
Resurrection is mainly included, in combination with Angel of the Gate, to get us access to 3 copies of Second Wind to help us outrace heavy burn. It also functions as our 28-31 card draw effects (not counting Surprise Attack). The only champions we actively want to Resurrect are the four above. Ice Drake and Juggernaut are situational Resurrect targets. Angel of the Gate, Crystal Golem, and Helion usually are not.
Everything else is included either to support Kong/Sea Titan/Steel Golem or because they synergize well with them.
Why’s Resurrection Powerful Here?
Our Kongs and Sea Titans are our best cards against Wild. They immediately swing the board back in our favor after Wild arrogantly establishes with some of the best establishing cards in the game (Raging T-Rex, Brachiosaurus). Against Wild we never want to spend our gold first and, if possible, we always want our first gold spent to be a Kong or Sea Titan response.
Once we’ve played a Kong or Sea Titan ideally while our opponent’s gold is down (possibly off-turn with Surprise Attack), Resurrection acts as 3 additional copies of either that can even be played off-turn. Wild decks in general and aggressive Wild decks in specific, basically just can’t beat two plays of Kong/Sea Titan (especially Sea Titan). After initiating with Kong/Sea Titan, Steel Golem becomes the main untargetable threat, and even if the Wild deck can manage to deal with it once, they generally won’t be able to do it again in the same game.
When we don’t get lucky enough to start with any Kongs or Sea Titans, Mist Guide Herald (and Resurrection) step up. MGH, even if it doesn’t find Kong/Sea Titan on its first try, at minimum digs us closer to them while providing a 3/2 airborne blocker and probably an intermediately helpful extra champion. When we cash in MGH as a chump blocker, we can rip our Resurrection to bring it back and do some more digging. Going through 10 to 15 cards (if we hit a second MGH) makes our chances of finding our game winning bash brothers (Kong/Sea Titan) that much more likely while also blunting our opponent’s aggression.
For our situational cards, lets start with Ice Drake. The main reason we would want to Resurrect Ice Drake is to give us a second turn in a row of expending our opponent’s board while we work towards finding our necessary pieces (Kong/Sea Titan or Deadly Raid). How it works is we Ice Drake our opponent’s board the first turn they present a threatening attack. If we can’t then kill our opponent on the swing back attack on our turn, we can save Ice Drake as a blocker for their next attack. When Ice Drake breaks, we Resurrect it, expend their board again, and launch our next swing back. Extra copies of Ice Drake can give us a massive edge in racing champion based decks.
Juggernaut is not a card we actively want to play against Wild unless we can finish them off with it. That 3 health is too vulnerable to too much of what Wild has, and we can’t afford to go down a gold in play to them. However, Juggernaut is one of if not our best card against control, specifically Kark. As a breakthrough blitzing threat that draws a card when it comes into play and attacks for 9, it is super threatening. Further, since it is unbreakable on our turn, it dodges Zombie Apocalypse and 0-cost breaking removal like Consume while our gold is down. By the time Juggernaut loses its unbreakable, we have our gold back up and ready to Resurrect it, if the control player can only remove it by breaking. It is fairly unlikely they would have double consume early in a game unless they know the matchup and got lucky. So, if they want to deal with the Resurrected Juggernaut, there’s a reasonable chance they’ll have to spend their gold on it.
Angel of the Gate can be Resurrected if it’s our opponent’s turn and we either need to gain health and/or they have no airborne champions. Crystal Golem can be Resurrected if we just need an untargetable champion to launch a Deadly Raid. Helion can be Resurrected for its excellent Loyalty 2 ability, but the only time it would generally get broken would generally be to a board clear where we want to get something else back, to desperation, or when it is our only champion in play. In that final case, spending a gold to get an 8/8 back usually isn’t worthwhile enough.
Deck Conclusion
Resurrection is particularly powerful in this deck because getting even just one extra play of our incredibly powerful champions can be game winning, especially off-turn. Further, since our deck relies on such a small spread of champions, Resurrection gives a bit of redundancy we are otherwise lacking.
Even though Final Task works the same way on both MGH and Ice Drake (to a lesser extent Juggernaut), it is no substitute because maintaining the body of Kong/Sea Titan is necessary to make multiple attacks or hold off our opponent’s potential attacks while we look for Deadly Raid. Also, we really want Second Winds for the health gain and the recycle to get us to our Kongs/Sea Titans.
Midrange Wild
Brief Overview
This a fairly typical unrefined Wild midrange deck I’ve been messing around with to potentially run next constructed monthly to hunt Kark. It is a Get Ahead, Stay Ahead list shifted to the extremes to fight the aggressive Wild matchup and the Kark matchup with cards that are great in one but potentially quite bad in the other. There are some similar supplemental packages to the Sage untargetables list but we trade out the Sage untargetable package for the Wild package (Raging T-Rex, Brachiosaurus, Smash and Burn, Strafing Dragon), 0-cost breakthrough effects, and Scarros as big burn with a big body.
Resurrection is once again included primarily to get access to Second Wind. Angel of the Gate is significantly more questionable without Sea Titan working together with Kong to create situations for off-turn gold punishers. It is also the only 1-cost champion we wouldn’t potentially want to get back with Resurrection.
Why Resurrection’s Powerful Here?
Champion-based Wild Midrange is just that: champion-based. It relies on playing the best establishing champions (Raging T-Rex, Brachiosaurus) and the best punishers (Strafing Dragon, Draka Dragon Tyrant, Draka’s Enforcer, Scarros Hound of Draka). There are 3 Kongs for Reestablishing against Wild decks, but they are quite weak against control, without a breakthrough effect. Since we will be establishing immediately, our opponent, particularly control opponents, will frequently spend the first turn drawing cards. This lets us move into the next turn ahead on board with a gold available: the perfect position to play either a gold-punisher or Resurrection.
Once again, Resurrection potentially gives us 3 more copies of our powerful cards, but this time the deck has a bit more redundancy built into it, so we’ll either have more opportunities to use it, or we can patiently wait to get it on the exact right champion. I’ve Resurrected a fair amount of Raging T-Rexs and that grinding card advantage is oppressive. Works by Resurrecting Brachiosaurus + a draw 2 too. Scarros to clear a board of tokens, hit the opponent for 5+, and then threaten an attack of 11 potentially with breakthrough can quickly chew through an opponent’s health. As can Strafing Dragon. Draka just ends token decks by removing their board and clocking them at 9 damage a turn. Draka’s Enforcer is a card we’re happy to play off turn anyway. Finally, we of course have Mist Guide Herald. It can find the most important 1-cost card for the matchup, and Resurrection can either help us dig for it twice or potentially Resurrect that card after we get it.
Deck Conclusion
While this list isn’t refined, it does do a reasonable job in demonstrating how Resurrection especially with MGH can reinforce the strength of champion-based decks. This is especially true for this deck since many of its champions are oppressively powerful against specific decks. That being said, unless you are actively looking to include 0-cost Good cards, Resurrection’s unreliability could be too much a liability. Part of the strength in running it right now is that your opponent isn’t expecting it, so they frequently won’t drop the Amnesia after clearing your board. If the card does get more popular, there are plenty of ways to play around it.
Overall Conclusion
Resurrection deserves much more credit than it is given, particularly if you play the Get Ahead, Stay Ahead way. It is one of my major fallbacks in constructed when I want those sweet, sweet alignment-independent Good 0’s.
I finally got matched against EpicAgenda and his 74 win streak in this week’s arena. EpicAgenda is a monster. I have learned so much from him in the games we have played, and I absolutely would not be the player I am today without him. I especially wouldn’t know how to fight control as well as I do now.
Edit: I was wrong, jazzbjorn actually ended EpicAgenda’s 74 win streak. This game was against a random 60 deck that EpicAgenda built after that loss.
