Hit or miss?

Hi everyone!

Check out these two side schemes 

 

Is one more important to deal with than the other?

 

What about these two minions?

 

What factors should you consider when deciding to deal with it this turn? Should you even deal with it?

 

A lot of people when confronted with a scheme or minion will jump to first think what’s the best way to remove that from the board. But maybe the question should be what is it doing to the game state?

 

Check this out

 

Once this card has done its thing, what is the difference between this card and an advance token?

What about his one?

Is there a difference between this and playing on heroic 1 if you left it in play? How bad is that for you?

 

Well let’s try to thing about the factors that goes into answering these questions

The first question for me would be what difficulty am I playing on?

One extra threat a turn could be easy to manage if I’m on standard where I’m not expecting a load of cards flung at me and the villain is dialed down a bit. If I’m playing on heroic one will leaving that extra card a turn on the table really make a difference because I am already facing two cards a turn?

The next thing to think about might be what stage of the game is it?

I remember playing the wow TCG way back when, with my friends at a local gaming shop and I was playing this control deck. 

I was trying my best to “deal” with every card that my opponent had on the table and was feeling good about the situation, as you do, killing his creatures, drawing cards and the such, when a friend tapped me on the shoulder and asked me a simple question, why did you just kill him? 

I looked at the cards I had in my hand and the cards on the table and he was right, I could of just ignored what he was doing and ended the game that turn there and then, but instead I had got myself into the state of having to be the “control” player and dealing with everything, that I missed the basic point of the game.

Don’t be like past me, always try to think as the game goes on, “am I at a point in the game where I can win if deal damage?”

Now this might even be over a couple of turns, but ask yourself can you take the damage that the minion is dealing you and still win? If so, maybe don’t spend your time stuck in your role. Don’t be that justice player who thwarts for 4 when dealing 6 would mean the game is over just because that what my role is.

This mind state is also useful at the start of the game as well. Just because you can deal 5 with that uppercut doesn’t mean you should. 

Check out all the options that you can do, for instance, it might be better for you to play helicarrier, take the damage from the minion this turn and then deal with the minion in a later turn. This is true of side schemes as well, maybe its fine for the threat to go up before you have to worry about it, or maybe you can just have an extra threat on the main scheme every turn, is it really that bad?

Another thing to consider might be the number of players that you have on the table 

Maybe you will be better off thwarting the main scheme for one and taking the damage from an ally, so that your friend can flip to alter ego for a turn. Maybe the protection hero can take the minion that dealing damage to them every turn of the game, so you don't have to deal with it.

 

Speaking of forms maybe being in alter ego is a good way to deal with a threat

check out this guy

 

See the thwart of 0? Maybe you can flip down recover and do other things leaving the minion to deal you damage to you later, its no big deal its just one and guard is only relevant if you want to attack the villain. 

Maybe you have retaliate and that is a good way to deal with the card over several turns.

Going back to the first example some side schemes are actually better off on the table than back in the deck. Check out this example

 

This card can be brutal if drawn at the wrong time, so maybe if you plan the first time it comes out to play with the extra threat every turn, why not do that rather than live in fear of drawing it again and have to spend more time dealing with good old bog brain again. this way also cuts a 3 from the deck so you are less likely to be hit with that from a attack or thwart.

 Crossbones has another good example for this, this card for me almost never gets thwarted down as I would just rather not be attacked.

Hopefully this has given you some insight to when you should and if you should remove side schemes and minions

Until next time!