Author Topic: Was I playing Complainers correctly?  (Read 4333 times)

Offline stefferweffer

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Was I playing Complainers correctly?
« on: April 22, 2009, 02:32:46 PM »
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I was playing my gold/brown deck last night, and something new happened.  I converted an EC to some hero brigade color that my opponent was not playing (White I think, when he was playing Green).  He had already played his Angel of the Lord on one of my previous ECs.  After that, when he would make a rescue attempt with one of his Green Heroes, I would block with Complainers (which seem to allow me to choose which hero my opponent makes the rescue attempt with), and force him to rescue with the White Hero instead.  It just so happened that every time these two met in battle, it was a stalemate, so that complainers were not killing the Hero, and he was not defeating Complainers.  He had no white enhancements to help his hero, and I just chose to pass.  It seemed like an endless cycle that he could not get out of, and resulted in him rescuing no more lost souls.  If I did it right, it seemed a little unfair.

Did we play this correctly?  Thanks.

Offline Lawfuldog

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Re: Was I playing Complainers correctly?
« Reply #1 on: April 22, 2009, 02:37:23 PM »
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Yes you were playing it correctly, though I do not see how it wasn't fair. There are several ways to get around it.
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Offline soul seeker

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Re: Was I playing Complainers correctly?
« Reply #2 on: April 22, 2009, 02:45:18 PM »
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Yes you were playing it correctly, though I do not see how it wasn't fair. There are several ways to get around it...

Bold part:  ...especially with Green.  It is completely fair and you made a great move...what's unfair about a great strategic play?
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The Schaef

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Re: Was I playing Complainers correctly?
« Reply #3 on: April 22, 2009, 02:56:46 PM »
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It's about as unfair as using Red Dragon to block every battle when your opponent has only human Heroes.

This is a great combo but the crazy thing is you have TWO points of entry to combat it: use a card that kills ECs to get rid of Complainers, or a card that kills Heroes to get rid of the white Hero.  Get rid of EITHER of these and he can't use the combo anymore, whereas to get rid of Red Dragon, getting around that one EC is the only way to stop the infinite block.

Offline YourMathTeacher

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Re: Was I playing Complainers correctly?
« Reply #4 on: April 22, 2009, 04:01:21 PM »
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What your opponent could work on would be:

1. Creating a more diverse deck to combat this scenario (i.e. adding a FBTN hero, Wall of Protection)
2. Be willing to use power cards against himself (you had mentioned him using AotL, but had he already used Christian Martyr?)
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Offline stefferweffer

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Re: Was I playing Complainers correctly?
« Reply #5 on: April 22, 2009, 04:13:53 PM »
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Both Martyrs had been played, mine on his FBTN Benaiah, and his on my FBTN Moses :)

He did finally get the artifact out that lets his green prophets play an enhancement immediately, but the game was over at that point.  He probably could have done something to his white hero if he ever had initiative in a battle with my heroes, but I kept rescuing with Ehud and choosing a Sadducee of his that would always give me initiative.  Its kinda weird, because my gold/brown deck is doing well and it's far from my favorite deck, probably because its a hodge-podge of different characters (i.e. Simeon, Deborah, Women of Israel, Seeker of the Lost, Ehud, Eli, Samuel, Moses, Obed-Edom, and sometimes even Zaccheus and Joshua promo).  It's kind of judges, but not entirely.  Its even more of a mix on the brown side, with King Zed (I think that's the 1/1 Brown king), Athaliah, Uzzah, Esau, Abner, Beast from the earth (immune to females), Unclean Spirit, Complainers, etc.  I guess I'm more partial to themes in single color decks, but last night especially the combo of Ehud and Complainers worked very well.

Offline TimMierz

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Re: Was I playing Complainers correctly?
« Reply #6 on: April 22, 2009, 04:17:51 PM »
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Cards like Ehud and Complainers are very nice for the "don't give your opponent an opportunity to do what they want" strategy. While pre-block ignore is a common way to do that, things like your deck can be nearly as effective, if not moreso.
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Offline stefferweffer

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Re: Was I playing Complainers correctly?
« Reply #7 on: April 22, 2009, 04:54:20 PM »
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By the way, I don't want to deceive anyone about this.  The "opponent" was ME.  I've been doing a lot of RTS of me against me, to see how my decks do against each other.  I also made a spreadsheet to track the win-loss record and against which decks.  At first I found this difficult, because I can see what the other person (ME) has in their plans/hand, but I think I am playing each game "fair" now.  I ask myself with each turn what I would HONESTLY do if I did NOT know what the other person had, and I just do it.  Usually it means my plans are thwarted, but that is likely what would happen in a real game.

The hardest part is separating what I know is still in the opposing deck from what any experienced player would EXPECT to be in a deck of those colors.  For example, last night the green/black player had no lost souls for a time in their LOB.  When opponent (me) blocked their green hero with King Zedekiah, I decided that an experienced player would expect Dungeon of Malciah to be played next.  The problem is that I also knew I DID have that card in my hand :)  I know that was a judgement call, but I felt justified playing Angel of the Lord on King Zed to maintain my already weak defense of no lost souls in LOB.  As it turned out, this move helped the Conversion/Complainers combo work for the other player, but I could not have foreseen that at the time.  Next time I play the gold/brown, I may hold onto Angel of the Lord specifically for Complainers.

Does anyone else try playing against themselves on RTS?  It's been a great learning experience for me.  The decks I expect to do well don't always play out that way.
« Last Edit: April 22, 2009, 05:34:53 PM by stefferweffer »

The Schaef

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Re: Was I playing Complainers correctly?
« Reply #8 on: April 22, 2009, 04:56:14 PM »
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While there are many strong themes in the game, many of them depend on common abilities that have easy counters (conversion, capture, discard).  These themes are strong, but you get players who are confident that they're shored up against your attacks (a Z-Temple deck, for instance), then you throw something at them like return to hand or shuffle the character back into deck, and your strategy works just based on the fact that they're not equipped to deal with you.

Ironica

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Re: Was I playing Complainers correctly?
« Reply #9 on: April 22, 2009, 06:48:43 PM »
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I put my decks against each other all the time (though, not on RTS).  The down side is that, for me, I usually have the same configure when it comes to the type of enhancements (i.e. one negate, one recurrence, etc).  I also need to work on that mind set you mentioned.  I'm probably predujice against the deck I use a tournaments so it usually wins. :P

Offline YourMathTeacher

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Re: Was I playing Complainers correctly?
« Reply #10 on: April 22, 2009, 07:50:08 PM »
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I play against "myself," but I use cardboard cutouts of Gabe and Tim (either one) and put them in the chair across from me. That way I can work on strategy and overcome the "stare."

When I practice multiplayer, I use a sledgehammer to represent Schaef and my Lord of the Rings Collector's Edition DVD case to represent The Hobbit.

Those games get nasty.
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Offline Prof Underwood

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Re: Was I playing Complainers correctly?
« Reply #11 on: April 22, 2009, 08:23:23 PM »
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I play against "myself," but I use cardboard cutouts of Gabe and Tim (either one) and put them in the chair across from me. That way I can work on strategy and overcome the "stare."

When I practice multiplayer, I use a sledgehammer to represent Schaef and my Lord of the Rings Collector's Edition DVD case to represent The Hobbit.

Those games get nasty.
lol

Seriously, I play against myself in a lot of games actually.  This dates back 25 years to when I was playing Risk against myself as an 8 yr old because I didn't have any friends to play it with me.  I usually do this in Redemption using 2 actual decks.

Offline TimMierz

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Re: Was I playing Complainers correctly?
« Reply #12 on: April 22, 2009, 08:32:32 PM »
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I play against "myself," but I use cardboard cutouts of Gabe and Tim (either one) and put them in the chair across from me. That way I can work on strategy and overcome the "stare."

Hey kids! You too can have your very own Tim Cutout! Print out the following and glue it to some cardboard, and you'll have a fierce competitor in no time!


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Offline DaClock

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Re: Was I playing Complainers correctly?
« Reply #13 on: April 22, 2009, 08:37:18 PM »
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Tim wins the thread.

Offline YourMathTeacher

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Re: Was I playing Complainers correctly?
« Reply #14 on: April 22, 2009, 09:25:07 PM »
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Tim wins the thread.

Gee thanks!  ;D
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