What I really want to get at are the five fundamentals for victory
- He will win who knows when to fight and when not to fight.
- He will win who knows how to handle both superior and inferior forces.
- He will win whose army is animated by the same spirit throughout all its ranks.
- He will win who, prepared himself, waits to take the enemy unprepared.
- He will win who has military capacity, and is not interfered with by the sovereign.
He will win who knows when to fight and when not to fight.
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| Somewhat obscure Star Trek reference. |
This primarily gets to anything involving faceoffs, as that's really the "fight" in this game. You need to know when it's worthwhile to go for the problem faceoff, fortify yourself, or even just hold back. It is not unusual for both players to just bunker down at one problem, bracing for the inevitable problem faceoff. This is especially true for yellow, which gets more powerful when gathered at one problem. Splitting up its forces actually weakens it. The defining factor is knowing whether you will be likely to win the faceoff if you force it.
If you can win, then it's usually a strong move to get in there. You'll get 2 points for confronting both problems and whatever the higher bonus is. If it's close, you should be careful of your opponent's action tokens and available power to figure what responses they might have to take it from you. If your opponent is playing yellow with many characters at your problem, you can probably expect a Yay in response. If you don't think you can win, you then need to figure what your opponent can do if a faceoff is forced against you. Sometimes it's worthwhile to just put more power at the one problem. Sometimes it's more useful to just give up that possible faceoff and bank tokens so you can go after the new problems more efficiently. After all, if a faceoff is forced against you, you will have the initiative for the new problem and can easily get its bonus. If you're lucky, the next problem will be worth a great deal, and you'd just be able to walk right in there.
He will win who knows how to handle superior and inferior forces.
This is where a lot of novices will get discouraged. The initial response is "my opponent is just more powerful than I am, so I can't possibly win." The reality is so much more optimistic, although I will admit bad hands can severely restrict you. As I just outlined for faceoffs, giving up on one can give you an advantage later that lets you sail to victory. I'll go over some common obstacles and my reactions.
We've all had it happen: two Yellow Parasprites played against us right on turn 1. You quickly lose your entire hand and your opponent just invested two tokens. It can be tempting to play the cards you like before they get lost. Sometimes this works, and sometimes your opponent will end up controlling them out, too. One handy trick is to bank tokens until you have enough that you can pay to draw and likely play whatever it is you just drew. This is especially useful against Nightmare Moon, which will take a great amount of effort to defeat.
Tricksy Hat has also been a good source of frustration. It normally costs 2 to move, and the controller of Tricksy Hat gets to move someone for just 1! If you keep on moving characters in an attempt to hold a problem, the purple player will profit in action tokens. It's especially irritating in multiples. The weakness here is that it only works on its controller's turn, not yours. You still have all the initiative you need to play and/or move characters on your turn to score points. Of course, then we get back to the previous faceoff evaluation. As long as your focus is on getting points, you'll probably be able to beat Tricksy Hat.
I won't go over a long list, but this game gives you plenty of tools both in cards and the rules. Sometimes you just have to get creative in how you use them.
However, one also should not be blinded by your strong presence. Just as you should never truly give up just because you're behind, neither will your opponent. Even when you are winning, you should be doing everything you can to either keep that position or expedite your victory. A control player with solid position should work to ensure the opponent never has any possible "out." If there is a card your opponent could possibly play to break your armor, do everything you can to prevent him from playing it or minimize its effect. At the same time, the faster you can win the game, the less time your opponent has to draw those outs. Given enough time, players can draw every card in their deck. That "inevitability" can easily be your enemy.
Finally, when the game does switch leaders, you have to be able to adapt on the fly. I play fighter video games a lot, and I know if someone has a significant life lead, they don't necessarily have to attack. They can play defensively and shut the opponent from ever getting in. Likewise, the losing player has to take more risk, confuse the opponent, and crack that armor. Identify where you are and play accordingly. Then of course, even in the worst-case scenario, never underestimate the value of a bluff. If your opponent has any fear, give them an opportunity to fail.
One other thing in regards to "interference from the sovereign." Sometimes we just want to make a particular idea work, like we have a favorite color pairing just because we like those characters in the show. I know someone who just got into our local group trying to play with a "rainbow of light" deck. He liked the idea of all the colors banding together for greater strength. I appreciate the very Power Rangers/Super Sentai/Captain Planet sentiment behind this. However, if you're making a deck more because you like the vision they give you rather than what gameplay elements they present, you're probably not going to win as much. Using all colors together equally makes your deck very inconsistent (right now... I look forward to hopefully future expansions allowing this like Magic's Invasion block). Your favorite color pair might not compliment each other very well, though in all fairness, I did explore each color pairing earlier. Don't get me wrong, there is always going to be some of you personally in there, no matter how methodical or mathematical your approach. I'm aware that my aforementioned deck is probably going to lose to a deck that can shut down action tokens and/or movement, but as I said in an earlier article, white/yellow doesn't seem terribly strong right now (purple did give me some problems once, though). All I'm saying is you should be aware how much of your personal vision is involved. It always impact's a deck's strength.
Well, there you have it. Sun Tzu's essentials for victory as they relate to My Little Pony. This is the mindset I bring to each game, because even though this game is certainly about celebrating friendship, it's also a competitive game.
We've all had it happen: two Yellow Parasprites played against us right on turn 1. You quickly lose your entire hand and your opponent just invested two tokens. It can be tempting to play the cards you like before they get lost. Sometimes this works, and sometimes your opponent will end up controlling them out, too. One handy trick is to bank tokens until you have enough that you can pay to draw and likely play whatever it is you just drew. This is especially useful against Nightmare Moon, which will take a great amount of effort to defeat.Tricksy Hat has also been a good source of frustration. It normally costs 2 to move, and the controller of Tricksy Hat gets to move someone for just 1! If you keep on moving characters in an attempt to hold a problem, the purple player will profit in action tokens. It's especially irritating in multiples. The weakness here is that it only works on its controller's turn, not yours. You still have all the initiative you need to play and/or move characters on your turn to score points. Of course, then we get back to the previous faceoff evaluation. As long as your focus is on getting points, you'll probably be able to beat Tricksy Hat.I won't go over a long list, but this game gives you plenty of tools both in cards and the rules. Sometimes you just have to get creative in how you use them.
However, one also should not be blinded by your strong presence. Just as you should never truly give up just because you're behind, neither will your opponent. Even when you are winning, you should be doing everything you can to either keep that position or expedite your victory. A control player with solid position should work to ensure the opponent never has any possible "out." If there is a card your opponent could possibly play to break your armor, do everything you can to prevent him from playing it or minimize its effect. At the same time, the faster you can win the game, the less time your opponent has to draw those outs. Given enough time, players can draw every card in their deck. That "inevitability" can easily be your enemy.
Finally, when the game does switch leaders, you have to be able to adapt on the fly. I play fighter video games a lot, and I know if someone has a significant life lead, they don't necessarily have to attack. They can play defensively and shut the opponent from ever getting in. Likewise, the losing player has to take more risk, confuse the opponent, and crack that armor. Identify where you are and play accordingly. Then of course, even in the worst-case scenario, never underestimate the value of a bluff. If your opponent has any fear, give them an opportunity to fail.
He will win whose army is animated by the same spirit throughout all its ranks.
Remember how I said this one was a bit of a stretch? It is, but there's still a strong principle to be learned here. In any customizable card game, you have a choice as to what cards go into your deck. That means you have a choice as to who gets to join your army. You choose the best team you can. I've commented before how I never choose a deck based on the colors alone, at least not my main deck. I get a plan of what I want to do to win the game and I find what cards do it best.
The real point here is that every deck must have an overall theme, and every card has to have its role in there. To illustrate this, here's an example of the deck I currently use at more or less its highest ideal. My starting theme was to take the fullest advantage of blue's mobility effects by moving few strong cards, rather than many smaller ones I see most similar decks doing. It would play villains for the sake of defeating them myself, and stay away from them as I played them (the others were for the sake of boosting RD). I initially designed it so the only cards that ever needed extra power were blue, because control decks around me were routinely shutting out the second color (white/pink really hurts). At the same time, I filled it with high-power cards that don't require anything beforehand, such as Full Steam and Apple Brown Betty. I didn't completely abandon the low-power cards, but I made sure those I did include give me lots of power efficiency. The deck has gone through many modifications since then (Pinkie for Big Guns & Random is still under evaluation), but in every incarnation, I kept these philosophies in mind. High-power is still very much a consideration of mine so that all of my flips stay awesome. At every step, every card has a specific role in the overall plan. I don't run anything just because "it's a good card." Ok, maybe Yellow Parasprite. Forest Owl and Cloudchaser are excellent cards, but they don't quite fit with my theme. Yes, Cloudchaser does not work in this deck, and I'll examine why in a future article.
The real point here is that every deck must have an overall theme, and every card has to have its role in there. To illustrate this, here's an example of the deck I currently use at more or less its highest ideal. My starting theme was to take the fullest advantage of blue's mobility effects by moving few strong cards, rather than many smaller ones I see most similar decks doing. It would play villains for the sake of defeating them myself, and stay away from them as I played them (the others were for the sake of boosting RD). I initially designed it so the only cards that ever needed extra power were blue, because control decks around me were routinely shutting out the second color (white/pink really hurts). At the same time, I filled it with high-power cards that don't require anything beforehand, such as Full Steam and Apple Brown Betty. I didn't completely abandon the low-power cards, but I made sure those I did include give me lots of power efficiency. The deck has gone through many modifications since then (Pinkie for Big Guns & Random is still under evaluation), but in every incarnation, I kept these philosophies in mind. High-power is still very much a consideration of mine so that all of my flips stay awesome. At every step, every card has a specific role in the overall plan. I don't run anything just because "it's a good card." Ok, maybe Yellow Parasprite. Forest Owl and Cloudchaser are excellent cards, but they don't quite fit with my theme. Yes, Cloudchaser does not work in this deck, and I'll examine why in a future article.
He will win who, prepared himself, waits to take the enemy unprepared.
Moving back into general gameplay, remember how I said never to underestimate the value of a good bluff. That's a smaller example of a much larger ideal. It's easy to keep your plans a secret when you're running a new deck, but that goes away when you have a strong deck that gets known. No, ultimately this goes down to just how secret you can keep your hand's strength. You could be forgiven to take a while when deciding to mulligan. I've experienced plenty of times when the decision to mulligan or not costs you the entire game. Outside of that though, a strong poker face is quite necessary. If your opponent feels that you do not have many resources, he may take the opportunity to strike. Remember what I said earlier about identifying which side is superior and playing accordingly. However, if he feels you have good tricks available to you (and they don't necessarily have to be events), he may hold off. True bluffs should be rare, of course. If your opponent sees you're full of manure, he won't fall for them. Some examples of good surprise tactics:
- Holding faceoff reactions like Critter Cavalry.
- Playing Lady Justice just after your opponent has moved multiple characters to your troublemaker.
- Playing a villain on a problem with many opposing friends.
- Hold Granny Smith until your opponent plays a disabling resource like Tangled Coiffure.
- Use deck-stacking effects like Inspired on your opponent or purple's many self-stacking effects (Double-check the Checklist, for example) to affect the outcome of faceoffs.
He will win who has military capacity, and is not interfered with by the sovereign.
This is probably the least important lesson, certainly the least relevant to strategy, but there is still a good lesson to learn here. The basic thing is the first part, military capacity. This is the sad part about collectible card games. Some people are just going to have more resources than others, especially adults vs. children. Adults are more free to spend their own money, while children often don't have nearly as much money to devote to their collection. I contend that children actually have many means of making money beyond just doing chores around the house, but still, kids traditionally are restricted to what money they get from their allowance. This can actually be considered interference by the sovereign, your parents.
(Disclaimer: I take no responsibility for any children actually using this argument to get their parents to give them more money/cards. It's not likely to work. Instead, use it as your own motivation.)
All the same, we can do some things to mitigate this. Again I will point to PonyHead. This has a very convenient deck builder, allowing you to build your personal best-case scenario. Test it out with proxies, those being basically printouts in card sleeves. When you're satisfied the deck works the way you want, then you can go pursue those specific cards. You'll likely spend less money getting the individual, single cards than you would hoping to open them from packs. I would also stress making good trades if you can. Of course, this all comes down to how business-minded you are, but seriously, a CCG is a significant investment of money & time. That's just the reality of the situation. One other thing people do to get around the cost issue is to play in "limited" formats, sealed deck and drafts. This particular game is not great for it, but I do have some ideas I'll be tossing around the community.
All the same, we can do some things to mitigate this. Again I will point to PonyHead. This has a very convenient deck builder, allowing you to build your personal best-case scenario. Test it out with proxies, those being basically printouts in card sleeves. When you're satisfied the deck works the way you want, then you can go pursue those specific cards. You'll likely spend less money getting the individual, single cards than you would hoping to open them from packs. I would also stress making good trades if you can. Of course, this all comes down to how business-minded you are, but seriously, a CCG is a significant investment of money & time. That's just the reality of the situation. One other thing people do to get around the cost issue is to play in "limited" formats, sealed deck and drafts. This particular game is not great for it, but I do have some ideas I'll be tossing around the community.
One other thing in regards to "interference from the sovereign." Sometimes we just want to make a particular idea work, like we have a favorite color pairing just because we like those characters in the show. I know someone who just got into our local group trying to play with a "rainbow of light" deck. He liked the idea of all the colors banding together for greater strength. I appreciate the very Power Rangers/Super Sentai/Captain Planet sentiment behind this. However, if you're making a deck more because you like the vision they give you rather than what gameplay elements they present, you're probably not going to win as much. Using all colors together equally makes your deck very inconsistent (right now... I look forward to hopefully future expansions allowing this like Magic's Invasion block). Your favorite color pair might not compliment each other very well, though in all fairness, I did explore each color pairing earlier. Don't get me wrong, there is always going to be some of you personally in there, no matter how methodical or mathematical your approach. I'm aware that my aforementioned deck is probably going to lose to a deck that can shut down action tokens and/or movement, but as I said in an earlier article, white/yellow doesn't seem terribly strong right now (purple did give me some problems once, though). All I'm saying is you should be aware how much of your personal vision is involved. It always impact's a deck's strength.
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| Rarity's personal vision of beauty interfered with the objective of taking down broken branches. |
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