Epic Strategy #4:
Gladiators of the Board
Who would win?
Sea Titan
VS
Cheesy American Reality Show Guy
I remember watching American Gladiators as a kid and being impressed, yet at the same time I felt embarrassed to be watching it. You have these impressive athletes that are doing incredible battles, but the spandex and cheesy uniforms just gets me every time. If you have not figured it out yet, the Sea Titan won.
Board Control is #1
Now that I have created a whole new fan base for American Gladiators, we can move on. In Epic, the board is your arena. Your first priority in every game is to take over the board while pushing their gladiator's off the board. Of course, this is easier said than done as there is only one board and your opponent is going to have the same plan . This all begins in the draft. There are several heroes in the game that control the board exceptionally well. Please keep in mind, I try to keep these to about a 10-15 minute read so I will not be able to cover every card in depth. However, after you read this you should be able to recognize what you are looking for in a card and what you need to pick based on the theme of the strategy.
The Champions of Board Control
Since we are in the core set on digital, I am going to focus in a bit more on these guys in this post. I call this the holy trinity of board control. These 3 champions are exceptionally good picks in the game as they are a double edged sword. Each of these cards establish your board presence, while weakening theirs. That double threat is the true power. Sure, you can play a great card like Triceratops, but you wont get that + and - effect at once. The icing on the cake is that these cards are great in any color as they are tribute effects not loyalty effects(Ex. Medusa). These cards shine their best, when the opponent has the board control with 1 creature. You start your turn and in seconds,the tables have turned. Since there are only a few of these in the draft, landing one can be devastating if your opponent can not immediately re-balance the board at the end of your turn/their turn. These cards are at their maximum effect with the not so surprising card.
Ambushing one of these cards into the board can cause a complete turn around in the game. When your Kong destroys the board, and then gets to swing 13 damage at their face it is not a pretty day for your opponent. This usually forces a gold to be spent, which will then lower their defenses further for a huge hit like Gold Dragon/Lord of the Arena/etc. So remember this, your main goal on most turns of Epic is to make sure that you have at least 1 champion into play while they have none and so on. If they have 1 champion you want two champions into play. Unless there is an obvious exception, you should be doing everything in your power to try and make sure you have a solid board control in Epic.
"Okay, I have the board what next?"
Once you have the board under your command, it is time to take the next steps. Generally, consistent board control will eventually lead you down 1 of 2 paths to victory. Here is a flow map of how it breaks down usually.
It can be very tempting to get a small lead and then overstep your bounds and try and win to quick. Some players will get board control and then try to burn their opponent down to fast, which gives him too much time to recover the board and then start punishing you. If you do not have board control you can not try and force one of the win conditions unless you have already done significant damage. So maintain board control and then focus on squeezing your opponent out. I cant stress enough how important card draw is. Sure you can control the board, but if he has 6 cards and you have 2 cards you are going to run out of cards to maintain your board control really fast. You really need to be at the very least only 1 card behind or equal to really put this theory into effect.
The Events of Board Control
Sometimes your creature will end up sticking on the field, but he will be met with a challenger. You may also need to re-establish your own board control. These 3 cards here are the holy trinity of doing so. Just like the champions above, they are great in any deck. Bitten/Inner Demon are very good in the core set. When played on your turn, they instantly do the +1/-1 effect to the board as we described earlier. Banishment is a great card at retaining board control or settling the 1 on 1 scenario. Banishment is also very good to because it keeps your card draw alive while maintaining the board which is a nice bonus. These are very good picks in a draft.
Over-Extending Your Board
John looked at his board and grinned as he just smashed his opponents Angelic Protector with his Kong. His Sea Titan was ready to swing next. He then asked the important question way too late. "You would not happen to have a board wipe would you?" John is still depressed about what happened that dark day.
As with many things in life too much of a good thing can become a problem. Board wipes are everywhere in Epic. With all 3 sets combined in a draft, it is increasingly rare for each player to only end up with only 1-2 board wipes. Most of my uprising drafts end up with me getting a solid 3-4 board wipes to hit the "Oh Shit" button. In Epic, we have to play around the board wipe as it can happen at any time. There are many variables to consider here, but a general idea is relative to my champion presence on the board compared to his. With that said, once I have about 2 extra champions out on the field compared to my opponent(not counting tokens), I begin to focus back on card draw and removal instead of throwing more champions down to only die in the fire. If you over extend your board, you will find it very difficult to regain the board back while keeping a high card count in your hand.
Pass the Buck
A good idea to follow is that once you have board control, you should be trying to pass your turn to your opponent as much as possible. If I have a lone Kong out, and I swing in to kill and kill his last remaining demon token then I will attempt to end the turn. If he kills the Kong with removal then I can quickly reestablish board control with a new creature. If he accepts the ending, he will then spend his turn killing your Kong giving you time to ambush a new champion in or draw 2 cards and restart the process again until you can make it down the flow map we discussed earlier.
Conclusion
In conclusion, keep the idea of board control always in the back of your head. Board control is your first mission in Epic. Good board control will open all of the doors to find the right chink in your opponents armor to deal the finishing blow. I am looking forward to getting online and playing some games with all of you tomorrow!
Well put. You discus the basics in a very readable way. Keep it up!
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