Your hand: a quartet of Apprentices, backed up by 1 Militia.
The board: before the game even got started, Ravenous Gorph got all up in there and immediately banished a Corrosive Widow and a Flytrap Witch, replacing them with a Rocket Courier X-99 and a Black Hole. Your opponent went first, cursed his luck and revealed 4 Apprentice and 1 Militia to buy a Great Omen Raven (H-L - C:2 - 1H - Name a card. Reveal the top card of your deck and put it into your hand. If it is the named card, gain +3h) and a Heavy Infantry. Unfortunately, your hand isn't much better. Now it's your turn to decide what you're going to do.
- Wind Tyrant (M - P:5 - Rw: Gain +3h. Gain +3r)
- Rocket Courier X-99 (C-M - C:4 - 4H - Once per turn, when you acquire another Mechana Construct, you may put it directly into play)
- Ravenous Gorph (M - P:3 - Fate: When this enters the center row, banish all cards adjacent to it.) | Rw: Gain +3h. You may banish a card that was adjacent to this)
- Black Hole (C-V - C:5 - 4H - Once per turn, you may banish a card in your hand. If you do, gain +1p)
- Doom Weeper (M - P:4 - Reward: Gain +2h. Gain +2r)
- Arha Initiate (H-E - C:1 - 1H - Draw a card)
What do you do? As always, don't forget Mystics, Heavy Infantry and the Cultist!
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All Hail Black Hole! This is all about a race - the first one to be able to get the Black Hole should have a huge advantage.
BeantwoordenVerwijderenThere are clearly two lines of play here:
Arha Initiate, buy a Mystic (either a normal one or an upgraded version if it comes up).
OR
Buy double Heavies.
So our opponent got a Heavy on his first turn. So lets assume that he gets double Heavy on his second turn. The hands that could afford the Black Hole would be:
5 APPs; 4 APPs & Raven (with APP on top); 2 Heavies (Kill Doom Weeper) & 3 APPs; 2 Heavies, 2 APPs & Raven (Anything on top will help); 3 Heavies & 2 APPs (Kill Tyrant); 2 Heavies, Mili & 2 APPs; Heavy, Mili, 2 APPs, Raven (Need Heavy); 3 Heavies, APP, Raven (Need APP).
That's a lot of outs.
Esp after he gets 3 Heavies in his two starting turns, he will most likely pursue a Power strat - you can definitely make the case to try and counteract that with Big Money and if you can't the Black Hole, you should be able to get the rocket courier - so i think that's what i'd do - Arha Initiate and Mystic
Remember that even if your opponent can't buy Black Hole, he can probably kill Gorph and banish it - so don't get your hopes up too much.
BeantwoordenVerwijderenBuying the Arha Initiate and seeing what pops up still seems like the correct play here, with Mystic being the probable second buy.
I disagree with both above (to a certain degree). I see the 3 options as follows.
BeantwoordenVerwijderen1. Buy the Construct and get your construct train started. You will still have one more turn to get your 2 Infantry if you would like to go that route or the mystic/see what came out between turns. Then you will be shuffling the Heavies in the deck to get the killing started.
2. As with #1 instead of getting the Infantry in turn 2 go with it right away. The expansion brings the all military approach back to being a much more viable longterm strategy in all games (not just the ones you get lucky and get monster heavy). So you could grab your two Inf. now and see what you have in next turn with the 4 bucks to spend.
3. I agree with trey that buying the initiate is a viable option to see "what pops up". The problem is you could also serve your opponent up a softball if a nice 4 cost card comes up b/c he will have the 4 next turn to buy.
I would still stick with # 1 for the 1st turn. Get that construct train a rolling.
I agree wholeheartedly with RxDoc. I don't always dive into the construct train because you can get very unlucky/hosed by banish effects and corrosive widows, but when I see a Rocket Courier or Burrower it is ON. Those are two of the strongest abilities for the mechana constructs and the most appropriate prices
BeantwoordenVerwijderenBurrower, fine. At worst it's a 3 Honor Arha Initiate. But Rocket Courier is crap in any deck but Mechana. A good fraction of the time it's like if you were to buy a Duchy first turn in Dominion on a 5 Copper hand. It screws up your deck for a few early points.
BeantwoordenVerwijderenThe play is Arha Initiate, Mystic (or a decent 3 cost that pops up). Your opponent has already committed to a rush plan and he's first so he's going to get his 3rd turn hand before you. Competing on the same game plan as him is only marginally likely to be good, and you need to go all in on Heavies if you do, which is really sucky (he has Great Omen Raven so if he buys 3 Heavies he's only increased his effective deck size by 3 while still having a decent shot at making a ton of Power in one turn, which you're hobbling your deck and unlikely to be picking up any of the high cost cards your opponent will need to leave around in the center row).
You're on double Mystic plan, and picking up an Initiate for value because you don't want to start too far behind in points as that game will likely be short.