kuberr
07-24-2006, 11:40 AM
My plan was to finish my top 5 series with the top 5 strikes. I tried and I tried to pick the five best strikes, but I honestly don’t think it’s even possible. Some strikes are amazing in the right deck and still completely suck in another deck. I did find some really bad ones that I cant imagine would ever be good in any deck so here are the Top 5 Strikes that you should never play.
Number 1
Hunted Down - While you have more allies than your opponent, Hunted Down has +2 Intercept.
Cost: 2 Green 1 Red Intercept: 8 Force: 3
Ok so having allies is good, and having more than your opponent is a good goal to have. If you achieve that goal Hunted Down gets an intercept of 10 instead of 8. Guess what, the highest force of any Strike in the game is currently: 7. Since most Force bonuses only give +1 Force. So you will rarely if ever need an intercept of greater than 8. Its almost like they were trying to make this card as bad as possible.
Number 2
Good Night, Captain –
Cost: 1 Green 1 Red Intercept: 7 Force: 1
Lets see, it has 7 intercept, which means it will stop 95% of the strikes that come your way. However, it has a force of ONE. I mean seriously. Your spending Red Energy for a strike with a force of ONE. This is not good. Compare this to something like Set Ablaze, which has Intercept: 7 and Force: 4 with a pretty good ability and it doesn’t cost any Red Energy. Please, Please don’t play Good Night, Captain.
Number 3
Hit the Deck - Reflip: Green
Cost: 1 Yellow Intercept: 1 Force: 7
With a force of Seven this one has to be playable, right? NO. Even as much as I like reflip this card is still absolutely terrible. Its also the first Rare to make our list. I see why they made this card, because its kind of a cool concept, but its still terrible. Even if your opponent is playing something as bad as Good Night, Captain and sends a strike your way with a Force of only one, the odds of you flipping this card at that exact time are extremely low. Even if your deck is packed full of cards to give boosts to Intercept this card would still be unplayable.
Number 4
Incendiary Shot
Cost: 1 Red Intercept: 4 Force: 5
Do I really need to say anything here?
Number 5
Dueling With Death - Red >>> +2 Intercept. Use only once.
Cost: 1 Green Intercept: 2 Force: 2
This Strike has two things that I really like. First, it only costs 1 Green Energy. Second, it has an ability that gives it some flexibility. So why is it on the list? With an intercept of 2 it can only stop a few strikes and those are all terrible too. Even if you do manage to Intercept a Strike this card only has a force of 2. You can rest assured that your opponent will be striking back from there Green Zone. Now lets look at the ability. For one Red Energy you can give it +2 Intercept, bring the Intercept all the way up to 4. OH BOY! Guess what, it still sucks. For 1 Green and 1 Red I would expect something a lot better than this. My favorite is the Use only once clause, as if you were allowed to use it multiple times it would just be too good. Even if it was 1 Yellow Energy this card will still be awful. For the love of all things Holy please burn all copies of this card that you are unfortunate enough to open. Oh yeah this ones an uncommon too, which makes it that much worse.
So there you have it, my list of absolutely terrible Strikes. I was a little surprised at how few truly awful strikes there are. Some look pretty bad at first, but I can imagine specific decks that would be able to put them to good use. With that in mind here are a few things to look for in a strike.
1st The most important factor is sidebar cost. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t play cards with Red Energy in the cost (as a matter of fact I think all of your red energy should be spent on strikes). What I am saying is that when you build your deck, be sure to spread out the costs of your strikes. If all of your strikes are really low then you’re likely to get run over, and be left with a ton of unused energy. If on the other hand your strikes are all really expensive, then you’re likely to score a point or two early on and then find yourself with absolutely no energy. This doesn’t mean you should pick a bunch of average costed strikes either. Have some cheap ones, some expensive ones, and try and keep the majority of your strikes in a medium cost range.
2nd The next thing you need to check is the Intercept/Force of the Strikes in your deck. This is very similar to costs. You don’t want to have too many Strikes with intercept below 5 or over 6 as these seem to be the average size of the strikes that you will defend against. When you play a strike, the closer your intercept is to the actual force of the strike the more efficient your being. For example if you defend against a Strike with a force of 2 with your own Strike that has a Intercept of 7 then your not getting the most out of your energy. You can expect to see some low force (1-4) Strikes coming your way and a few big ones (7-8), but the majority will be around 5 or 6. I like to keep the average Intercept of my strikes as close to 6 as possible. This means that your average Strike will intercept most of your opponents Strikes while not wasting too much energy on extra intercept points. Why is it so important to keep your Intercept so close to your opponents Force? Well there is a trade off between Force and Intercept in the cost of each strike. A Strike might have an Intercept of 8 with a Force 1 while another Strike that costs the exact same might have an Intercept of 6 with a Force of 4. So as you can see if your Strikes have Intercepts that are, on average, several points higher than your opponents Force then you aren’t attacking back with as much Force as possible. All that sounds kind of confusing, and essentially all I’m saying is try and find a nice balance of Strikes. If you know what a bell curve is try and setup your deck in that style, where you have fewer extreme cards (really high or low intercept/force) than average cards (intercept 5-6/force 5-6). You need some of the extreme cards, but a few on each side of the curve is usually enough. If you don’t know what a bell curve is look it up.
3rd Synergy. Look it up if you don’t know what it is. Your deck should have a theme, and I don’t mean only playing good or bad characters. I mean your deck should focus on something like ally advantage, or energy advantage or card advantage or something along those lines. Its important when choosing strikes that you have an idea of what your final deck will focus on. Its also important that your Advantage and Allies help you achieve that goal. With this in mind don’t take an overcosted Strike just because it helps your focus. Think of your main focus as winning, and the advantage as just something to help you reach that goal. Ideally you want good cards that just happen to help your goal. Always take a good card that helps your goal a little as opposed to an average or bad card that helps your goal a lot. Good Players Playing Good Cards Win Games.
I hope some of that made sense.
Gl hf
Number 1
Hunted Down - While you have more allies than your opponent, Hunted Down has +2 Intercept.
Cost: 2 Green 1 Red Intercept: 8 Force: 3
Ok so having allies is good, and having more than your opponent is a good goal to have. If you achieve that goal Hunted Down gets an intercept of 10 instead of 8. Guess what, the highest force of any Strike in the game is currently: 7. Since most Force bonuses only give +1 Force. So you will rarely if ever need an intercept of greater than 8. Its almost like they were trying to make this card as bad as possible.
Number 2
Good Night, Captain –
Cost: 1 Green 1 Red Intercept: 7 Force: 1
Lets see, it has 7 intercept, which means it will stop 95% of the strikes that come your way. However, it has a force of ONE. I mean seriously. Your spending Red Energy for a strike with a force of ONE. This is not good. Compare this to something like Set Ablaze, which has Intercept: 7 and Force: 4 with a pretty good ability and it doesn’t cost any Red Energy. Please, Please don’t play Good Night, Captain.
Number 3
Hit the Deck - Reflip: Green
Cost: 1 Yellow Intercept: 1 Force: 7
With a force of Seven this one has to be playable, right? NO. Even as much as I like reflip this card is still absolutely terrible. Its also the first Rare to make our list. I see why they made this card, because its kind of a cool concept, but its still terrible. Even if your opponent is playing something as bad as Good Night, Captain and sends a strike your way with a Force of only one, the odds of you flipping this card at that exact time are extremely low. Even if your deck is packed full of cards to give boosts to Intercept this card would still be unplayable.
Number 4
Incendiary Shot
Cost: 1 Red Intercept: 4 Force: 5
Do I really need to say anything here?
Number 5
Dueling With Death - Red >>> +2 Intercept. Use only once.
Cost: 1 Green Intercept: 2 Force: 2
This Strike has two things that I really like. First, it only costs 1 Green Energy. Second, it has an ability that gives it some flexibility. So why is it on the list? With an intercept of 2 it can only stop a few strikes and those are all terrible too. Even if you do manage to Intercept a Strike this card only has a force of 2. You can rest assured that your opponent will be striking back from there Green Zone. Now lets look at the ability. For one Red Energy you can give it +2 Intercept, bring the Intercept all the way up to 4. OH BOY! Guess what, it still sucks. For 1 Green and 1 Red I would expect something a lot better than this. My favorite is the Use only once clause, as if you were allowed to use it multiple times it would just be too good. Even if it was 1 Yellow Energy this card will still be awful. For the love of all things Holy please burn all copies of this card that you are unfortunate enough to open. Oh yeah this ones an uncommon too, which makes it that much worse.
So there you have it, my list of absolutely terrible Strikes. I was a little surprised at how few truly awful strikes there are. Some look pretty bad at first, but I can imagine specific decks that would be able to put them to good use. With that in mind here are a few things to look for in a strike.
1st The most important factor is sidebar cost. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t play cards with Red Energy in the cost (as a matter of fact I think all of your red energy should be spent on strikes). What I am saying is that when you build your deck, be sure to spread out the costs of your strikes. If all of your strikes are really low then you’re likely to get run over, and be left with a ton of unused energy. If on the other hand your strikes are all really expensive, then you’re likely to score a point or two early on and then find yourself with absolutely no energy. This doesn’t mean you should pick a bunch of average costed strikes either. Have some cheap ones, some expensive ones, and try and keep the majority of your strikes in a medium cost range.
2nd The next thing you need to check is the Intercept/Force of the Strikes in your deck. This is very similar to costs. You don’t want to have too many Strikes with intercept below 5 or over 6 as these seem to be the average size of the strikes that you will defend against. When you play a strike, the closer your intercept is to the actual force of the strike the more efficient your being. For example if you defend against a Strike with a force of 2 with your own Strike that has a Intercept of 7 then your not getting the most out of your energy. You can expect to see some low force (1-4) Strikes coming your way and a few big ones (7-8), but the majority will be around 5 or 6. I like to keep the average Intercept of my strikes as close to 6 as possible. This means that your average Strike will intercept most of your opponents Strikes while not wasting too much energy on extra intercept points. Why is it so important to keep your Intercept so close to your opponents Force? Well there is a trade off between Force and Intercept in the cost of each strike. A Strike might have an Intercept of 8 with a Force 1 while another Strike that costs the exact same might have an Intercept of 6 with a Force of 4. So as you can see if your Strikes have Intercepts that are, on average, several points higher than your opponents Force then you aren’t attacking back with as much Force as possible. All that sounds kind of confusing, and essentially all I’m saying is try and find a nice balance of Strikes. If you know what a bell curve is try and setup your deck in that style, where you have fewer extreme cards (really high or low intercept/force) than average cards (intercept 5-6/force 5-6). You need some of the extreme cards, but a few on each side of the curve is usually enough. If you don’t know what a bell curve is look it up.
3rd Synergy. Look it up if you don’t know what it is. Your deck should have a theme, and I don’t mean only playing good or bad characters. I mean your deck should focus on something like ally advantage, or energy advantage or card advantage or something along those lines. Its important when choosing strikes that you have an idea of what your final deck will focus on. Its also important that your Advantage and Allies help you achieve that goal. With this in mind don’t take an overcosted Strike just because it helps your focus. Think of your main focus as winning, and the advantage as just something to help you reach that goal. Ideally you want good cards that just happen to help your goal. Always take a good card that helps your goal a little as opposed to an average or bad card that helps your goal a lot. Good Players Playing Good Cards Win Games.
I hope some of that made sense.
Gl hf