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I like this game a lot. I started back in the spring and went all in on Azalea. After getting my teeth kicked in I committed to pivoting come Aria and settled with Oldhim. Azalea taught me a lot of bad habits that I still haven't broken in regard to tempo and patience since my line with her was overly aggressive, but even so Oldhim has been an extremely fun switch up. Aria overall has been great even though Briar threw the sealed balance way out of whack. The fervor with Aria plus all the Calling events recaptured a lot of the MtG GP hype. There's definitely a lot of renewed hesitance for in-person stuff though. I never bothered with a webcam setup but that seems like the right way to do things for the foreseeable future.
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Jan 1, 2022 01:22
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| # ¿ May 21, 2024 09:47 |
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First Time Caller posted:Picked up the ira welcome decks to try this out with and have had a blast. My wife who typically only likes board games is also getting into it and wants to get a booster box and do sealed deck games. Living the dream y'all. Welcome is pretty good because there's a lot of basic usable stuff in the set, and a similar thing kind of applies to the heroes. If you're doing limited with it it's good fundamentals with straightforward keywords and math. I've heard people posit that Aria is also a good jumping off point via limited because it's like a forgiving version of jumping into the deep end; It has talents with the elemental heroes and the fuse mechanic so you're seeing everything the game does at this point, but at the same time it kind of helps guide your hand a lot with deckbuilding due to hero elemental restrictions. Arcane is a little weak in limited because two of the four heroes have weapons that literally do nothing without a good card pool to support them, which can make sealed in particular a little jank comparatively. I can't speak to Monach limited really, but of course it has light and shadow so like Aria it gets you accustomed to talents. Barring the obvious overarching fact of singles always being the most frugal, with sealed product if you're also hopeful to get stuff for blitz and constructed decks the other element is to just think about what heroes you like. Sets are self contained and for the most part it's still at the point where a majority of a given hero's card pool is going to be coming out of the set they're in. Again, if that happens to be something that tips you in a certain direction.
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Jan 11, 2022 05:25
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First Time Caller posted:What makes Staunch Response good in a bravo deck? (I mean the card effect) It's a mixture of a couple things. Defense reactions from arsenal let you more easily cover up big dominate hits for one. The other is that both Bravo and Oldhim like to play the long game, and you will almost always hit your pitch stack in both CC and Blitz games. The idea of card advantage is weird in FaB compared to something like Magic because you're not pacing yourself in terms of your individual hands, but rather with your pitches and with your deck card count. Blocking with three cards from hand for 9 total is 3 cards going to the graveyard afterwards, whereas a Staunch Response from arsenal via two blue pitches for the sum total of playing it and pumping it is one card being discarded and two being put on the bottom of your deck. Once you get deep into it there's also the element of deliberately stacking your pitch cards such that you have good hands and a lot of gas in the late game to finish things off. So, even if might not be quite as much total block value it's significantly more flexible and retains meaningful card advantage in your deck.
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Jan 15, 2022 20:10
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Ranger presents a unique balance issue in how they designed bows and arrows. Thematically it makes sense that you have to "load" and arrow, but it makes for an almost inherent baseline issue of card advantage. They tried to overcome that initially with Azalea and how Death Dealer works to effectively replace the card. In conjunction with that, they clearly thought that arrow effects and Azalea's dominate on a stick ability to warrant keeping baseline arrow attack numbers a little lower, and also that they should be stingy with go again. Azalea's problem was that she would dump her entire hand to put forth an attack you could call "pretty good," but that oftentimes could still be covered up with equipment and reacts pretty easily. You never saw the turn to swing momentum because her having to block became a downward spiral; You couldn't cobble together anything meaningful without that aforementioned full hand of gas. It's why with Lexi people gravitated towards the gimmicky lightning Snap Shot build almost immediately. It theoretically solved the card disadvantage/go again issue and let her belt out big strings of inefficient to block attacks. I'd love to see them figure out ranger's power level, and will probably cobble together an updated Azalea blitz deck at the very least with Everfest. I think what I'd ultimately like to see is them leaning into the toolbox concept of ranger people were hoping for with Aria before Lexi was revealed. Go with slightly more powerful and useful arrow effects that trip up opponent's turns, make some better traps, and give them just a touch more capacity for reasonable card draw and perpetuation of their turns and I think it would work out. The classic D&D high fantasy ranger is easily my favorite type of class, so I hope they can either salvage Azalea, or give her a retrain or something. Maybe the dude on Read the Glide Path is a future cool ranger.
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Feb 2, 2022 07:20
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I hadn't been super actively looking at spoilers, but now that I've been able to open physical product and look over all the cards I like it more than I thought I would. The mish mash of every hero type getting something seems to have been pretty well thought out. Every slice of cards looks to have a fairly significant percentage of meaningfully playable stuff, and moreover stuff that can kind of tweak playstyles and deck archetypes within specific heroes which is where they needed to go with it for sure. I have Kassai and Rhinar built for biltz. Kassai got some pretty low key but amazing tools for producing just a crazy amount of consistency on her turns, and the cards like High Roller, Bad Beats, and Wild Ride slot in very nicely to Rhinar. I think for my main CC deck of Oldhim the Heave cards of Thunder Quake and Pulverize are gonna be pretty incredible. They fit well with Oldhim's tempo of a few turns of Winter's Wail swings followed by a huge haymaker, and make cards like Awakening or even some of the other seismic surge producing stuff more appealing. Telegraphing the hit by putting it face up in arsenal is a real "whatever" downside compared to the insane whacks you could theoretically turn out once in a while. Like I mentioned before I'm even excited to go back to Azalea too. I think there's something there with Tri Shot and Even Bigger Than That combined with her existing suite of Death Dealer, Three of a Kind, and free pumps/free good value arrows plus other generic good value go again like Rabble and E Strike. In the past I always had more luck with her going wide with mid-weight attacks rather than going super tall. She's still not gonna have the endurance for CC, but I'm convinced there's a build to be figured out that lets her do work in blitz.
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Feb 6, 2022 21:06
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I've been really enjoying Uprising limited these last few weeks. It feels like they dialed in a dynamic that they were trying to pull off in Aria. The three heroes are nicely varied and feel fair; Fai is kind of the baseline since he's got a lot of really good value at common and strings together 10 to 15 damage chains fairly easily, but the conditional nature of the gimmicks of Isylander and Dromai kind of result in how those classes should feel. Prism was a little too fast and loose with everything at instant speed and her permanents being very incidental and way too high value for how easy they were to accumulate, and Kano was relegated to borderline gimmick character due to his whole style of playing solitaire while trying to 1 turn KO you. Dromai's sequencing of ash into ashwings or invoked dragons plus them having health and allowing go again to trigger is incredibly reasonable but strong, and likewise Isylander operating halfway at instant speed by having to first set up a blue spell plus staff combo is also tuned very fairly. All of this works well with quell which is a way more thoughtful keyword than arcane barrier, really forcing you to think about when your big "quell turn" is going to be when you're on the defensive against a lot of little aggressive hits. Aria limited burned me out a little and this is a real refreshing, clean kind of set.
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Jul 13, 2022 22:43
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jasoneatspizza posted:Thinking about picking this up. Got a couple of those blitz starter decks. Anyone have any tips for the Azalea blitz deck? I've been learning the game against AI opponents on felt table, and so far managed just one win. It feels like other heroes have all these reaction cards, and I always fall behind when I play too many defense cards. But then I play too few and eat 9 damage in a turn. I've played Azalea as my "main" since I started and she's always had a rough time overall but her toolkit is pretty good these days. I've definitely had the most luck with a go tall strategy. As far as really tuned decks Azalea can pretty consistently deliberately set up a dominate shot via her ability, along with one to two pumps or some kind of go again supplemental attack. Looking at the precon contents it has the gist of it a little bit. As far as arrows: Spire Sniping helps with that setup of putting a more effective arrow on top to then immediately cycle into the arsenal with dominate, and an older card that's very similar and also useful in a pinch to actually shoot is Ridge Rider Shot since it's free. Infecting Shot is one of the nicest things to see on the top of the deck. Her specialty of Red in the Ledger is great against most heroes. Endless Arrow is pretty cheap too and good, basic and flexible. Remorseless is good but probably not an always mainboard arrow. The other two I like and mainboard are Heat Seeker and Barbed Undertow. I've messed with Bolt n Shot and Amplifying Arrow, and they're usually in and out/flex slots, but the former is probably better. Buff wise, Premeditate is great. The precon has blue Toxicity but I like red because it's real brutal with actual pump spells that increase attack value. They tend to average out good shots at between 8 to 11 damage, and a lot of times that can literally be impossible to completely cover up unless you've got the perfect spread of defense reacts, equipment, and other abilities. Red Lace with Bloodrot and red Read the Glide Path are both good; blootrot tokens are huge buffs to ranger damage output, and Glide Path helps with that topdeck fixing. Take Aim is an original, good clean pump too. Most rangers also use Dead Eye which is more resource intensive but gives a really powerful outlet for aim tokens on your arsenal arrows if you do have those resources to spare. Nock the Deathwhistle is her signature setup card and gets you exactly what you want when you want it. Codex of Frailty is sort of a pump, but more of just a very strong utility card that automatically gives your opponent a little debuff for the turn but more importantly a free ponder token. If it wasn't already evident ponder is super important for rangers because it triggers prior to putting a card in arsenal, meaning your can expend your entire hand, draw your ponder card, arsenal it, and then draw your normal four. Four in hand plus always having an arsenaled fifth is necessary to make your resources jive with what you want to do. For generics the red Ravenous Rabble is always a fantastic opener to let you know if you can safely fire off Azalea's ability. Give and Take gives you good potential setup by making your opponent not want to block it. Enlightened Strike is just good, high value. Equipment wise I think her best bow remains the original Death Dealer. Easiest upgrade is a pair of Snapdragon Scalers for shoes. Her best chest is probably still Spring Tunic. She also likes her original hat of Skullbone Crosswrap to just make her top card even more consistent/in your control. Azalea is a real circuitous aggro deck that wants to bash damage through with big pumped hits that do minor to major debuffs, or inflict extra damage via bloodrot or supplemental damage with generic attacks or a second arrow shot facilitated by something like Snapdragons. The combo of those things is usually enough to strip one to two cards out of hand and hamstring their actual actions in the coming turn to where they never really crack back hard enough to make you care.
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Oct 10, 2023 02:17
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| # ¿ May 21, 2024 09:47 |
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Azalea definitely likes the sucker punch of a turn one buffed up dominate shot so yeah in general if you can get it set up, even if it's not a crazy huge shot it's still just an awkward thing for the opponent to deal with. If you have to overextend a whole lot and use your entire hand without any ability to arsenal a card with the shot still not being all that impressive then that's an instance where you may just want to hold back. "Damage can't be prevented" specifically refers to any abilities that use that same wording to do exactly that; Something like Oldhim's hero ability or a card like Oasis Respite versus regular old blocking or use of equipment to block.
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Oct 11, 2023 19:45
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