[color=#0b0c0e][font='Courier New', Courier, monospace] ___ _ ____ ___ _ _ _ ____
| \ | | | _ \ / __| | | | | | | | \
| \ | | || \ \ / / | | | | | | | |) /
| |\ \| | || | | | | | | | | | | | \
| | \ | || | | | | | | | | | | | |\ \
| | \ | ||__/ / \ \__ | |__ | \_/ | | |/ /
|__| \_| |____/ \___| |____| \_____/ |____/
Presents:
=-----=
THE BATTLEFORGE PVP GUIDE
=-=
TABLE OF CONTENTS
_________________
-Beginner PVP
*First Rule
*Upgrades
*Charges
*Deck Construction
*Unit Counters
*Spells
*Power
*Ground Control
*ELO
-Cheap PVP Deck Models
-Intermediate PVP
*Importance of Middle
*Swift Units
*Dazed Units
*Walls
*Cliffs
*Base Defense
*Power Efficiency
*Teching
-Expert PVP First Orb Counters
_______________________________________________________________________________
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>''THE BASICS of PVP''
_______________________________________________________________________________
The first rule of PVP:
''CARDS DO NOT WIN GAMES, PLAYER SKILL AND UPGRADES WIN GAMES''
What does this mean? Your first few games, you'll lose a lot. It's not
because the other guy has better cards than you. It's because he knows how to
use them and he has upgrades for them. I have gotten to the top 200 in pvp
with only the free deck on not one but 3 different accounts. The free deck has
some of the best cards in the game and the only thing expensive cards bring
are more options. If anything, expensive cards are a curse for a beginner
because they are far harder to get upgrades and charges for. There are a few
cards and strategies in the game that might be a little too effective, but
there exists no "autowin" cards currently, and virtually every card and
strategy can be countered with enough knowhow.
Now that we have this rule down, let's move on to some of the basic
things you need to know before you start playing.
''UPGRADES:''
Upgrades are the lifeblood of a deck. You can beat the most
expensive low-level decks in the game with fully upgraded and fully charged
Masterarchers alone. You can go to allbfcards.com to know what PVE maps you
need to be playing to get the upgrades you need for the cards you own. Maps
will usually take several runthroughs to get the upgrades you are looking for.
This hard work is necessary in order to be competitive. Alternatively, you can
purchase upgrades with Tokens, which are won in Random PVE maps and PVP
matches. This way is much slower, but has the benefit of offering improvement
to your PVP skills or a break from running the same map mission over and over.
For an example of the power of upgrades, I will use the card master archers.
Without any upgrades, master archers will do 300 damage, but with all 3
upgrades applied they will do 480 damage, which is a whopping 160% increase.
That's a world of difference that you will notice immediately as the enemies
fall.
''CHARGES:''
Charges are also necessary for a good PVP deck. Charges are extra copies of
a card that you can attach to the card; the more charges you have, the more
times you can use a unit or spell before the cooldown period hits. (Cooldown
for a card is the length of time you have to wait before you can use it again.
Cooldown is calculated by taking the card's powercost, changing to seconds,
and dividing by two). Charging a card requires you to have the upgrade for
the level you want to charge (ie upgrade 1 to add one charge) and you won't
get the card you use to charge the original card back. Games are often won
and lost because all of the units you need are on cooldown. The free deck
cards are dirt cheap, so take advantage of this and charge them as much as
possible.
Upgrades and charges, added together, give you your deck's LEVEL. An average
PVP deck is level 40, so don't put yourself at a disadvantage by starting to
play with a low-level deck. Your cards should be at least at upgrade 1, if not
upgrade 2, with most charged at least once before you dive into ranked PVP. If
you are new making a deck of majority tome cards is a great alternative
considering a deck of all tome cards is automatically level 80.
''DECK CONSTRUCTION:''
The vast majority of pvp games are won and lost at Tier 1 or Tier 2 (when
you have one orb, you're at Tier 1, or t1. When you have 2 orbs, you're at
Tier 2, or t2, and so on.) Games ending on t3 happen but are far less
common, especially in 1v1. PVP games should never go to t4 - if they do,
something went horribly wrong. This means that your PVP deck should have a lot
of t1 and t2 cards, a few t3 cards, and absolutely no t4 cards.
As I've mentioned, the majority of PVP fighting occurs at t1 and t2. Your
deck should reflect this. An average PVP deck has about 7-8 t1 cards, and your
t2 should have abour the same number. T3 should have no more than 4 cards and
as few as 1, depending on your deck build and playstyle.
Speaking of which, your deck build and your playstyle are closely related.
There are four colors in the game: Fire, Frost, Shadow, and Nature. In
general,the following is true for each color:
FIRE has cheap, powerful units and spells and is designed to harrass the
enemy, strike fast and strike hard.
FROST has slow units with a lot of health and strong defensive spells and
is designed to build slowly, steamrolling once it has enough power.
SHADOW has a variety of quirky units and strategies and relies on
unconventional combinations of units and micromanagement.
NATURE has weak, expensive units and many powerful healing and crowd control
spells; it relies on these spells to control the enemy's units and the
battlefield.
If you only use one color in your entire deck, you're using a PURE deck. These
decks are quite powerful and have unique units. You can also combine colors to
form hybrid decks, which can also be quite powerful. FIRE/NATURE is the most
common for beginners, because you get the striking power of Fire and the spells
of Nature, which heal your cheap Fire units and cover when you make mistakes.
In general, Pure decks are about three times as expensive to fully upgrade and
charge. However, they're also easier to play with and arguably more powerful
than hybrid decks.
The more you play, the more you'll realize which deck suits you best. In
general, if you like to attack constantly and risk defeat, go something with
Fire in it. If you like to attack slowly and with force without much clicking
around, go with Frost. If you like a challenge or enjoy more micromanagement,
try Shadow or Nature. The balance of the game, while not perfect, has reached
a fair level of balance that no matter what color combination you chose you can
be successful.
''UNIT COUNTERS:''
Like most modern strategy games, BF units are grouped by their size, from
Small to Extra-Large (S, M, L, and XL.) In general, S units have the lowest
HP, attack, and cost; while XL units have the highest of each. Almost every
unit in the game does extra damage to a specific size enemy unit. Take a
moment to look at your Giant Wyrm card. In the lower left of the card it has
the letter L. This indicates that the Giant Wyrm does 50% bonus damage whenever
he hits an L unit. Giant Wyrms are L counters, that is they do the most damage
against L units. That doesn't mean that you can't use them to attack other
units, but they should mostly be used to attack L units. That goes for every
other unit: it should be used to attack the size unit that its attack
indicates. A * indicates that the unit does no bonus damage to anything.
Windweavers are like this, for example.
The biggest difference between beginners and intermediate PVP players is
that beginners often attack randomly, while intermediate players build their
decks to have specific counters. A well-built deck will have each kind of
counter, S, M, L, and XL at both t1 and t2. Some decks can't do this, but
you'll figure that out as you go and learn to compensate.
Another type of damage is important in the game. In their descriptions,
certain cards list SIEGE damage. Siege units do extra damage against enemy
buildings. Siege is vital in attacking enemy bases,
because it takes down enemy Power Wells and Orbs much faster than any type of
attack. Most decks include at least one Siege unit, and Pure Fire relies
on them to survive.
''SPELLS''
In general, there are five types of spells:
DAMAGE SPELLS do direct damage to enemy units. Some have knockback, which
knocks certain units down and prevents them from attacking.
HEALING SPELLS heal your own units.
DISABLE SPELLS freeze or otherwise incapacitate enemy units, preventing
them from attacking and usually from moving.
BUFF SPELLS give your units special abilities like increasing their
defense or attack.
SHIELD SPELLS are unique to Frost, and give units or buildings a shield
that either takes all damage or greatly reduces it.
There are other kinds of spells, but those are the main ones. Each deck
has different spells; for example, Fire has damage spells but no healing
spells. Shadow and Nature rely the most on spells. Shadow has several spells
that have unique effects, and Nature has the most healing and disable spells.
Nature and Shadow can also steal enemy units, often at great cost.
An important concept with spells, and playstyle, is something called
CROWD CONTROL. Crowd Control is your ability to handle an enemy attack
consisting of many units. Disable spells keep all of those enemies from
attackign while you focus on killing one unit at a time. Damage spells can
wipe out large numbers of enemy units. It's important to play around with
spells to see how they work and how they effect different units of all colors
and sizes. Certain spells go very well with certain units, and other spells
can be used to devastating effect on the enemy.
PLAYING THE GAME
Once you've played around in the Forge, picked the deck that suits you and
built it according to the instructions above, and gotten a few upgrades and
charges, you're ready to dive into PVP. Here are some important concepts to
understand once you start playing the game:
''POWER:''
The biggest beginner mistake is a failure to understand power flow. Power
Wells are the resources of the game; they give you Power, which enables you
to deploy more units, cast more spells, and build more Power Wells and Orbs.
At the beginning of each PVP match, you're given NUMBER Power to play around
with. Once you use that up, you draw power from the two Wells near your
starting Orb. This power is put in your Power pool, which is the large
number in the upper right. It represents the total amount of power you have
available to spend at any given time. In order to gain Power faster, you
must construct additional Wells.
A Power Well takes 200 seconds (3 minutes and 20 seconds) to pay
for its initial 100 power cost. This means that if you build a power well and
your opponent did not, the opponent will have more power than you in hand for
200 seconds. This is especially important at the very beginning of the game.
If you build a well and your opponent does not, he has that 100 power to spend
on units and spells to attack your well. Conversely, if you don't build the
well and he does, you can attack his well. There's a very fine balance
between a successful early-game attack and failure, which takes a lot of time
and practice to work out.
VOID POWER is essential to understanding PVP. Every unit destroyed or
spell played will put 90% of its powercost into Void Power. The Void Power
is slowly added to your Power pool. There are a few exceptions to the 90%
rule,one being whenever you repair a building any cost to repair it is
refunded 100%. 100% refund is also given for when you switch stances of units
such as Imperials or Spearmen. Whenever a power well or an orb are destroyed
you get 0% refund. This means that killing a well is 10X more important than
killing 100 power's worth of units. In addition to restricting their power
flow, you also force them to lose that 100 power forever. For this same
reason, you should guard your own wells and orbs with your life.
''GROUND CONTROL''
To summon any unit you must have what is referred to as ground control.
This is essentially a ground unit or building that you have in the area that
allows you to instantly summon units or spells around it. Though this mechanic
is well known to the majority of players, it should be noted that the
manipulation of it is a tactic of its own. Even if the enemy has twice the
power you have in most cases they cannot harm you as long as they do not have
ground control near you. Lone units running for your base should be intercepted
before they arive at your base to cause the enemy to either lose his one unit
giving him ground control, or summon an army of dazed units that can only fight
at half efficiency, giving you a sizeable advantage in the fight. In attacks
your air units generally need to be escorted by ground units in order to
support them when nessessary due to the fact that air units do not give ground
control. In the same way, if an enemy is attacking you with mostly air units
and very few ground units, if you can eliminate the ground control first the
air units will be impossible to support with anything other than heals or buffs
from that point on. Always remember that you cant disable things without ground
control and disables are a large factor in combat effectivness.
Every heal spell in the game along with a few others are listed as arcane
type on the card. This allows them to be cast even without any ground control
in the area though it should be noted that several cards in the renegade
expansion are listed as arcane, such as frostbite, that are not arcane.
''ELO''
ELO are the points either gained by winning a match or subtracted for most
losses. Matchmaking does its best to pair 2 players together with the closest
of ELO and ELO is directly related to your ranked PVP rating. Though this would
seem to be a simple concept, many players have many misconceptions about the
way this works.
A brand new player starts off with an ELO of 0 and Experience of 0. For
about the first 20 games or so the player gains experience which causes his
ELO to go up when winning or losing.(wins will still grant more ELO gain)
After experience hits 100% ELO gain will then be only related to winning or
losing the match. Beating an equal ELO player will net you about 500 ELO and
losing that match will subtract the same amount. A top ranked player playing
a nearzero ELO player will grant around 3000 ELO if the zero ranked player
winsor only around 30 ELO if the top ranked player wins. The higher your ELO
is,the higher PVP level you gain. Experience alone will give you a PVP level
of around 12 or so even if you lose every game so don't get too cocky when you
first start. Activity level can also grant up to a 10% bonus to ELO and
actually subract rating after much time passes without any ranked matches.
As I said before matchmaking will always pair the closest available ELOs
together in a match. I often hear of players saying that MM is broken because
they play many top ranked players. However when this is happening there are
literally no other available players to match you with and is the fault of the
small community. That being said playing a top player is by far the best way to
improve at this game. Watch what they do and copy their strategies or the way
they do things. A top ranked player does nothing superhuman and there is
nothing that separates you from them.(if there is an upgrade disparity you
shouldbe getting more upgrades) You don’t ever learn anything from winning and
if youwhisper the top player they generally will tell you what you’re doing
wrong and what to improve. Getting mad and logging off helps no one.
_______________________________________________________________________________
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>''EXAMPLE OF CHEAP PVP DECK''
_______________________________________________________________________________
If you have thousands of bfp, you can completely skip over this section because
it is dedicated to squeezing the most bang out of a pvp deck with the least
amount of bfp possible. This example deck is literally the very cheapest deck
you could possibly use without having any major handicaps. While its not the
best deck possible by any means, nothing comes close to effictiveness to bfp
ratio. It took me around 2 months or so of testing to find the ideal cheap deck
and this was the result.
=-----=
|T1|
Scavenger
Sunstrider
Wrecker
Makeshift Tower
Eruption
|T2|
Rageclaw
Skyfire Drake
Ravage
Fire Stalker
Unholy Power
Rallying Banner
Commandoes(blessed affinity)
Windhunter(either affinity)
Darkelf Assasins
Lavafield
Nightcrawler
Bandit Stalker(gifted affinity)
|T3|
Magma Hurler
Sun Reaver(either affinity)
Silverwind Lancers
=-=
Though it has a relatively light first orb setup, it can combat most
opposition fairly well. Starting unit is almost always scavenger and
sunstriders are usually brought in just in time to become undazed for the first
struggle. In all out rushes always have at least one wrecker in the group for
his skill to bring in instant undazed reinforcements. Against heavy small unit
opposition, go heavy on makeshift tower and scavengers. For medium units, use
mostly spread-out sunstriders and a few wreckers mixed in. It is almost always
a good idea during first orb to have a scavenger on the field, not only for
small damage and mobility, but also for the slowing effect which works wonders
with your archers beating down a slowed unit.
Second orb your main strategy will be keeping your enemy on the defensive
and "superbuffing" your units. Superbuffing consists of putting both ravage and
unholy power on a relatively strong unit such as windhunter, commandoes, or
rageclaws. This causes the unit to become incredibly tough and hard to kill.
Lavafield will be used for any time there are 3 or more enemy ground units
around and darkelf assassins will be the majority of your small unit counter.
If the enemy towers use firestalkers or attack somewhere else, and for large
offensives of any kind, it's generally a good idea to contruct a rallying
bannernear the fight. The worst thing possible for this deck is for you to be
on a defensive due to very limited options for saving your precious wells and
orbs.
On third orb use magma hurlers for killing any large unit threat, sun
reavers for longterm damage(usually great for killing orbs), and silverwind
lancers for the powerful nasty suprise bombs. Both gunner and magma
hurler can also be used for medium unit knockback if nessessary, and don't
forget that ravage and unholy power continue to be excellent on all of these
cards.
Things can be taken out and substituted however the player desires to fit
their own personal playstyle. This setup is devastating against color
combinations that do not have a disable and do not have disenchant due to the
fact that you superbuffed units will be nearly immortal.A fully raged rageclaw
with unholy hero hits for an unholy amount of 2772 damage which is unheard of
second orb. Cliffs in range of enemy buildings will also be strengths for this
deck due to firestalkers being able to fire from them with near impunity.
The deck is very weak if it ever finds itself in defense or faces decks
that have disables. This is because if you spend the 140 power necessary for
your unit to have both buffs, the enemy can simply disable your unit and let
the buff durations run their course which will cause them to have a power
advantage due to spending less power. One solution for this is to follow your
units around with a windhunter which if it is not disabled itself can remove
the disable from whatever unit you want for the cost of some of its health.
>>>>Alternative Cheap PVP Deck
Different players have different playstyles so this is another cheap deck
if the other one does not suit yours.
=-----=
|T1|
Scavenger
Sunstrider
Wrecker
Makeshift Tower
Eruption
Surge of Light
|T2|
Fire Stalker
Skyfire Drake
Ravage
Mauler
Curse of Oink
Rallying Banner
Twilight Brute(either affinity)
Vileblood(either affinity)
Lavafield
Spirit Hunters(green affinity)
Twilight Minions(either affinity)
|T3|
Magma Hurler
Sun Reaver(either affinity)
Silverwind Lancers
=-=
Overall the playstyle is much less risky because insead of relying on one
group of units with lots of buffs stacked, it can more effectively attack
at multiple locations. The main draw of this deck is the addition of curse
of oink which is the best disable in the game and should be used often to
enchance both defence and attack. It has issues fighting small size units
but spririt hunters can be used if there are a great number of enemy small.
(wealthy players can use of hurricane or scythefiends to remedy this) The
main way this deck attacks is sending out lone or supported vilebloods to
destroy enemy wells and orbs. Ravage or surge of light them when hurt and
curse of oink any big armies attacking them.
On third orb just run around enemy bases with silverwind lancers and
place sun reavers at each base. Ravage, surge of light, and curse of oink when
enough opposition is present.
_______________________________________________________________________________
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>''INTERMEDIATE PVP''
_______________________________________________________________________________
Now that you know the basics of PVP, it's time to move on to some of the more
advanced concepts and tactics.
''IMPORTANCE OF THE MIDDLE:''
On the vast majority of maps there is an orb with a
well cluster surrounding it in the middle of the map. If a player controls and
is able to defend this area, it is a massive advantage over his opponent. Not
only can it sometimes deny the opponent from reaching t3, but also it gives
you control of a large well cluster that you can concentrate your defense on.
It also can bottleneck your opponent by refusing him map control. Military
strategists call this the 'central position,' and every good general from
Alexander to Schwarzkopf used it to achieve victory.
As I said in the beginners' guide, a well takes 200 seconds to pay for
itself. Running to the middle and building a well without any unit support
is a quick way to a bad loss. The enemy can use that 200 seconds and 100
power to wipe our your well. Instead, bring in a big enough army to skirmish
over the middle ground and wipe out the enemy army before taking the well.
Most games are won and lost in this fashion.
It's important to remember that control of the middle does not guarantee
victory. Certain maps, particularly with cliffs, are not good for taking the
middle. Some maps also don't have a middle well cluster, so taking it is
obviously not that important. The more you'll play, the better you'll get at
seeing the strategic locations where you should build wells and attack the
enemy.
"SWIFT UNITS:"
Having a faster army than the enemy allows you to chose when the fights
happen and when they happen. It is not possible to retreat if the enemy is
faster than you are either. This is where swift units become important.
Most PvP decks have at least one t1 swift unit that allows them to reach
wells and enemy units quickly and efficiently. Though speed is important,
certain strategies allow for the total lack of a swift starting unit. Frost
for example does not have a single swift t1 unit but this shortcomming
is more than made up for due to their units having such large stats
compared to their power costs.
''DAZED UNITS:''
Units summoned away from one of your wells or orbs only have 50% life and
only do 50% damage. This is important throughout the game; you should never
attack an enemy army or base with dazed units. If they're near their base,
they can drop full health and attack units and you'll lose every time. The
only time you should drop dazed units are when you're out of range of the
enemy, like when you're headed towards the middle and you drop them far
enough ahead of time that they'll be un-dazed (which takes 10 seconds)
by the time they reach the middle. This takes experience and practice to
pull off.
Once you get to where you're comfortable with the timing and power flow of
the game, you can drop dazed units into a situation where they'll put you
over the top. This takes a lot of experience to understand and comes with
time.
''WALLS:''
Walls are found on some maps already built and on others unbuilt. You can
build or rebuild a wall for a set power cost, usually 25 or 50. Walls are
generally worthless in PVP except for one case: if a wall can have archers
on it that are in range of any of your bases, it is of the utmost importance to
do whatever you can to keep the enemy from building those walls. If a player
gets an offensive wall up in range of an enemies’ orb or wells, it is an
incredible advantage and usually leads to the game ending early. This is called
wall rape. Building the wall yourself is an option, as is keeping your own
units in range of it so they can't build it. You can do the same with your own
walls near an enemy base if they somehow let you by not seeing the threat or
simply don't understand the danger.
''CLIFFS:''
Cliffs are like walls, in that if they're too close to your base, the enemy
can put units on top of them and destroy your base without much trouble.
Pure Fire decks are notorious for doing this with Firedancers, which have
incredibly long range. In general, ground units at the base of a cliff
cannot shoot units on top of the cliff without being right at the base of the
cliff, well within range of the enemy's units. Unlike walls, you can't just
build a cliff yourself. The best way to avoid cliff attacks is to avoid
building bases under cliffs, even if that base is in the middle of the map.
The other alterative is to use air units to defend the base, but realize that
most decks do not have great air units.
''BASE DEFENSE:''
Many PVE maps require base defenses in order to win. In general, base
defense buildings are worthless in PVP. The enemy can often avoid them
at little to no cost to himself, and you've wasted all that power for nothing.
One of the biggest beginner mistakes is building too many defensive structures,
particularly when an attacking army is within range. A building under
construction takes 50% extra damage and will rarely be built if it comes
under attack. Bottom line, with only a few exceptions, you should not rely
on base defense buildings, and should not have them in your PVP deck.
''POWER EFFICIENCY:''
Another beginner mistake is using more power than is necessary. This is an
incredibly simple concept that many people struggle with. For example, in 95%
of cases. you should not use a spell to kill a unit if the spell costs more
than the unit. Even though you killed the unit, you've used more power than
your opponent, and they can use that power imbalance to hurt you more than
you've hurt them. Eventually if you do this well enough, you can "count
power," which is a expert skill that will give you a great indication as to how
much power the other player will be able to throw into a fight.
The other 5% of the time usually involves base defense. If you have a well
or orb that's in danger, do everything in your power to save it, including
wasteful spells. The power wasted is far less important than the loss of a
well or orb. There are other situations where you can waste power, like taking
down a threatening XL unit, but those are few and far between.
''TECHING:''
Teching means moving from one tier to the next, like from t1 to t2. Many
beginners do this when they have the power available rather than as part of a
larger strategic plan. The general rule is don't build an orb unless you have
an immediate direct plan that you are going to use it for. Otherwise, you've
wasted the 150 power, and chances are your opponent will use that power to
destroy the orb you've just built. If you have extra power sitting around and
can't figure out what to do with it, build units for an attack or build wells
for power. Don't ever build an orb simply because you're bored or at a loss
for something to do.
_______________________________________________________________________________
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>''EXPERT PVP''
_______________________________________________________________________________
One problem I was faced with in writing the guide is the inability to express
solutions to certain problems or situations due to the massive amount of
possibilities. After much deliberation I came up with strategies for how to
face enemy on first orb alone. First orb combat generally makes up the
majority of fighting in higher level play so the mastery of this area will
improve your win/loss record more than any other area. This section will
assume quite a few things.
1. Your deck is nearly or fully upgraded
2. You have the cards listed or the bfp to achieve them
3. The common playstyles of the game could change and everything I say
is not law, but instead the best representation that I can give for
the experiences I have had facing these scenarios. I am confident
that you will see results but incredible win/loss records are not
guaranteed. Many strategies are potentially risky and take practice.
4. Your opponent is very good, if the opponent is not very good then you
really don’t need a guide now do you?
5. All scenarios assume that combat will happen fairly early on, therefore
I would not suggest running at the enemy with a large t1 army if the
map is massive.
=-----=
AS NATURE VS FIRE
=-=
This is an interesting matchup due to the fact that before dryads and
treespirits, fire had the edge. After the advent of those two units, the
edge has shifted unto the nature player. As always bunching units is not
suggested against a fire player and you should always be ready to avoid mines
should they be placed. That being said, blue affinity dryads should be spammed,
mostly placed in attack mode, and spread out while being healed when needed.
You will also find success if you mostly spam green affinity treepsirits with
around 2 blue affinity dryads mixed in, either style works. This is very hard
for the fire player to face due to the fact that too many sunstriders will be
hurricane, eruption’s effectiveness is reduced, too many wreckers or nomads can
be rooted. Avoid mortars if you see them or kill them during construction for
they will be a total pain. Understand that nature is generally not very
effective at beating a second orb being constructed with only first orb units
and you will see this often as a fire response.
=-----=
AS NATURE VS FROST
=-=
This is one of my most feared matchups when I play nature on anything but a
massive map. You can rest assured that the good frost player will either take
an early well or go straight at you with massed frost mages. A more rare
scenario that I do not have an answer for yet is massed master archers with
wintertide. In this situation you are fairly screwed but at least if you see
that many master archers from a good player you know exactly what is coming.
Even though frost mages are S counters, they do a surprising job at fighting
medium units that should counter the frost player so things get really strange.
If the map is small and the fight happens extremely early against a small group
of frost mages I would suggest a few swiftclaws with one dryad. This fight can
go either way and usually comes down to who is the better player with
micromanagement. If you are facing 6 or more frost mages then you have a few
choices: Spam blue dryads, spam shaman with a blue dryad or two mixed in, or
spam treespirits with blue dryad mixed in. If you are going all blue dryads
then have the majority if not all in attack mode and have a bit of extra power
for healing, roots and glyph of frost will cancel each other out somewhat and
this fight can go either way. If you are going shaman+blue dryad then I hope
you are great at micro because this fight will be very hectic due to the fact
that you must use them to heal between launching projectiles. I understand
treespirits sound like the perfect counter but if you use purple affinity they
will beat you with ice barrier+frost mage. If you use green affinity then ice
guardians will stop your advance though you can defend quite fine. In any
combat with frost if you see them drop ice barrier and homesoil and you are not
fully committed to the fight, back off and let homesoil wear off.
=-----=
AS NATURE VS SHADOW
=-=
Nature has the edge in this matchup if there is even skill. Spam windweavers
until they are dead. If they make massed dreadchargers with motivate then have
power ready for roots. If they mass nox troopers with motivate then try to root
as many as you can and use all windweavers to fire at the edge of the nox group
so all of your units are firing and a minority of theirs are. If they completed
more than one phase tower then attack somewhere else unless you have an
overwhelming attack group. Spearmen make all of these encounters much easier
but many nature decks do not have room for them. If you are met with a mixed
force then expect nasty surprise by having power for a heal ready and focus
dreadchargers asap.
=-----=
AS NATURE VS NATURE
=-=
My suggestion would be if you have green treespirits spam them and an optional
1 or 2 dryads. If not, simply spam blue dryads backed by heals. You will be
able to root or hurricane whatever the nature player throws at you unless they
also have treespirits and dryads, in that case brawl it out because it will be
a coin flip.
=-----=
AS FROST VS FIRE
=-=
Mine is your big enemy here, watch for it above all else. Second biggest enemy
will be mortar tower which will give you a rough day. Fire has slight issues
against small units and though scavenger will counter them somewhat, you can
reach so many master archers that you can pick them off faster than they can
do the same to you especially aided by purple frostbite. As always when facing
fire, work hard to stay spread out and minimize the amount of dazed units you
are fighting with due to eruptions. Generally start with a lightblade before
the spamming of whatever combination of master archers and frost mages you
like. If the enemy makes more than one makeshift tower or firesworn, attack
somewhere else or shift to a heavier makeup of frost mages or lightblades.
You will most likely see lots of scavengers hitting and running around your
base so do not spread out too much if you suspect this happening.
=-----=
AS FROST VS NATURE
=-=
As I claimed before, frost has the edge here on all but huge maps. Create
endless frost mages and run at the enemy. If you see shamen , dryads, or a
combination, the fight will be difficult if you do not have glyph of frost. If
you see swiftclaws massed then do not engage them until you have critical mass
of frost mages, around 8+ or so and purple frostbite is your friend. If you see
treespirit purple then engage with frost mages in the open ground but place an
ice barrier or two in front of your units to absorb damage from trees. If they
continue to fight there the root/unroot animation is so long that homesoil will
pay off. If they are attacking you they generally cannot punch through if you
have ice guardians and even power so do not worry. As a warning, if you are
facing a pure nature player and they see you make an early well they will make
an early orb and energy parasite the heck out of your well netting a win, be
prepared for that.
=-----=
AS FROST VS SHADOW
=-=
Frost has so much of an edge here that they usually give up and go early orb so
expect that. Shadow is the worst color at dealing with small units on first orb
so use that to your advantage. Start off with 2 imperials and don’t stop making
master archers until they are dead. Do not put imperials into defensive mode
until you are fully engaged in the fight and keep them separated from your
master archers if they are sending lone dreadchargers in because that is
usually a nasty surprise about to happen. If they frenzy more than one
forsaken then back off and wait for them to die, heal near an ice barrier if
necessary (unless your force is just overbearing). They will nox trooper your
frost mages if you have them so use at your own risk, I generally like having
one or 2 midway through the fight if I am at enemy wells. Phase towers will be
slightly rough but you can generally power through 2 or less of them. Your
biggest threat is probably dreadchargers attacking you wherever your army is
not attempting to make you start using ice guardians at base before backing
off and using motivate when they want to fight. As long as you expect this and
are good with not spread out much and good use of frostbite you should be fine.
=-----=
AS FROST VS FROST
=-=
Difficult to say due to varied map sizes. I would generally say that as long as
frost is not already knocking on your door with an attack group, generally
frost mages, take an early well. Frost has a big problem stopping ice guardians
so both use that to your advantage and be prepared for the possibility. If you
face them at enemy well try to move to the next location to draw them off and
make their shields deteriorate, this risks glyph of frost but you can glyph
back or take the beating like a man with mixed results. If they are using a big
group of frost mages vs your big group of frost mages try to get 1 or 2 ice
barriers constructed between the two attacking groups to absorb much of the
frost mage punishment and retreat frost mages back slightly when almost dead.
Frost mage damage hits the first thing it comes across so they spread out
damage too much, tough unit but take advantage of that knowledge.
=-----=
AS FIRE VS NATURE
=-=
If they are coming straight at you and it is in your deck, use mortar.
Otherwise massed firesworn do a good job.(enough to onehit units in a volley
and then back up before next shot. This is expensive and only works once you
have all that power but its tried and true) I have no answer to green
treespirits other than making an early orb or mortar defense. Wreckers do well
against nature if they do not have blue dryad or treespirit but I would not
count on that. I would usually suggest more than one group of sunstriders ever
against nature but having at least one is usually invaluable against nature.
You can sometimes surprise them with a well whacking sunderer coming out of
wrecker ability due to the fact that other than root, they have a hard time
getting it down in time for even power.
=-----=
AS FIRE VS FROST
=-=
In the majority of cases my suggestion is to must make a massive group of
scavengers and harass the enemy at all of their locations hoping to nab a well.
This is not suggested if they only have one very compact base however.
Otherwise mine and/or erupt bunched groups and try to pick off all small units
with scavs, wrecker and sunstrider any other units but keep the number of suns
low because they are frost mage food. If they are coming at you with all small
units then have a few firesworn or makeshift towers handy. Your biggest
advantage is that you will always be able to decide when and where the fights
hapen until they are in front of your base.
=-----=
AS FIRE VS SHADOW
=-=
Possibly the most balanced matchup in all of first orb combat but for some
reason or another, both fire players and shadow players think they are
outmatched. Shadow has a big problem with small units so your army should
generally have a majority of sunstriders in its attack group. This is asking
for dreadcharger with nasty surprise so attempt to separate your scavenger
attacking the dreadcharger from your sunstrider group and leave only one with
the scavenger. Scavengers will be major targets for nox trooper ability which
I don’t really have much of an answer for other than the fact that nox troopers
get eaten up by sunstriders. If you are pressing into the enemy base then
expect lots of forsaken and again, back off if more than one go into frenzy
mode and you are not already dominating or committed. If for some reason you
wipe out most of the defenders understand that you are ripe for an instant
dreadcharger nasty. If you see one come up from the well it is sometimes a
good idea to erupt both it and the well in order to save your fighting troops.
(not efficient but will save you some heartache) Sunderers can also sometimes
be a good idea to suicide a well unless lost of forsaken are running around.
If they are attacking you they will generally have a big compliment of
forsaken with their mixed unit army so duke it out and change your defending
force as well as you can to counter the incoming threat. Use mostly scavengers
and sunstriders in most cases and erupt any dazed group if they make that
mistake.
=-----=
AS FIRE VS FIRE
=-=
You will generally see a scavenger start by both sides followed by early
sunstriders that will undaze right when they reach you. Depending on the map
size it’s really hard to say what to do but generally make sunstriders the
backbone of your attacks and have at least 1 or 2 scavengers at all times. The
key to beating other fire players is your mastery of spreading out sunstriders
and surrounding them so practice this as much as possible and know the results
can go either way quickly from one eruption or mistake. Spreading out is the
most important to fire compared to any other color in a fire mirror.
=-----=
AS SHADOW VS NATURE
=-=
Most common thing I see when a shadow player fights nature is an early orb if
they are bringing a lot of windweavers/spearmen. You could fight it out instead
if you have enough time to make phase towers or are confident enough in your
dread/motivate or nox/motivate playstyle. Dryads should immediately be slapped
with nox ability, swiftclaws and shamen are critical targets as well. Biggest
general comment to make is to make sure that you focus fire as much as
possible. If you spread damage out too much you can hand the nature player an
incredible heal opportunity that you will not be able to recover from. Another
general suggestion is try to have your units split into two groups so only one
gets rooted while the other can fully deal damage.
=-----=
AS SHADOW VS FROST
=-=
If the map is small whatsoever your chances are not as high as you may like
in this matchup. You can risk an early orb but your success rate will be
slightly lower than vs nature but can still work. If the frost player wells
then make lots of dreadchargers and bounce from base to base by retreating
whenever ice guardians show up. When enough are made start adding in nox
troopers to the mix and see if you can pull them into a mistake. If they
instead run straight at you then you have a few choices. First of which is to
again spam dreadchargers with motivate which works sometimes. You may also
stay back at your base and make phase towers if you have them and hope to
stand your ground. If the enemy does not have imperials then your chances
of survival go up significantly and you can stand a chance cutting down all
the master archers. If you ever see wintertide, do not risk letting
dreadchargers around the enemy units because they can almost one hit you
with payback. Try to get a lucky nasty surprise or two into their group but
if you do be very ready to follow it up with an attack or they will heal
everything back beside a building and regroup.
=-----=
AS SHADOW VS FIRE
=-=
As I said before this is a very even matchup that can go either way. However,
understand that while fire has an easier time fighting in an open field, the
shadow player can defend at the base much better than the fire player can. Keep
units spread out to prevent eruptions and try to focus mostly on forsaken with
a few nox troopers mixed in if the enemy compliment is mixed. If the enemy is
going massed sunstriders then you are a little bit in trouble but a lucky
dreadcharger nasty surprise can put all your fears to bed. Phase tower does
the worst against fire due to sunstriders and simply having overall damage to
focus them down but I have found limited success using them in the past.
Generally do not try to use more than one nox trooper at a time because they
are total food for sunstriders but having one around at all times is good to
use the ability on scavengers or forsaken. If the enemy is running towards
your wells with a wrecker then expect a sunderer by having either a nightguard
waiting, or lots of forsaken ready. If you somehow can steal a sunderer, using
lifweaving on it while attacking the enemy base is devastating. Again, do not
try to frenzy more than 2 forsaken at one time without a very good reason.
=-----=
AS SHADOW VS SHADOW
=-=
Shadow is very good at defending against other shadow attacks when at their own
wells or orb. Use this to your advantage when fighting them and know that most
assaults on enemy base when you have even power turn into suicide attacks with
forsaken frenzy and hope that they cannot hit you back harder. Fights in the
open field are dominated by the player who gets the best nasty surprise off or
has the most forsaken ready to go. No matter where you are facing the enemy
shadow player, make sure that you have tons of forsaken and generally do not
frenzy more than 2 at a time unless you can ensure destruction of whatever it
is. If for some reason your deck has skeleton warriors(a rare card in pvp)
they do incredible damage in shadow mirrors, use them a lot. Phase towers can
work pretty well but you may not see a shadow player challenge them much.
_______________________________________________________________________________
''Disclaimer:'' Nearly everything in this guide is based on opinion and it is
nearly guaranteed that there will be exceptions to my rules and advice.
That being said, this is the most comprehensive and accurate guide that
was possible at the time and has been based on my most successful techniques
over the course of more than 3 years of play. If you find any obvious
discrepancies or have requests for additional information don’t hesitate to
either send me in-game mail or to email me at caelb1@live.com. I will be
looking to constantly add and improve the contents of the guide. Thanks again
for reading!
=-----=
July/23/2012
Guide version 2.0 Hopefully more to come
Thanks to Masterarcha for ongoing editing
=-=[/font][/color]
