Posted: 04 October 2007 at 8:02am | IP Logged

-As the post subject line suggests, i am considering gluing my opponent's cards together to slow down his card drawing and playing during games. As i don't think this will work more than once, i need an alternative to slow him down.

O1 Time Compression (?) cards have worked okay, and i am sure there are others out there to stop card draws or plays. I know the saying goes "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" but i don't have the cards to speed my decks up. So, i want to slow my opponent down.

This leads to my question: What strategies have you used in the past, both commonplace and unique, to slow down your opponent in the areas of card draws and card plays per turn? Thanks in advance, have a good one.....Lobo

Posted: 04 October 2007 at 8:20am | IP Logged

Bribes work...

J--

Posted: 04 October 2007 at 3:40pm | IP Logged

Most of the extra card plays are coming from an L7 whose name I can't remember (Artifact Stargate or some such), along with C5 Quartermaster, the Cyber mages, R/C9 Temporal Engineer combined with the J'Xar ability to gate him back into my hand. There is an a5 Wizard's Ring.

I use tech breakthroughs, surprise attacks, artifact sceptre of time, fantasy world/planet, etc... to get cards plays which don't count as card plays.

The J'Xar mechanic allows me to move crew around during his turn and this allows me to dump more cards that I can then use on my turn.

J--

Posted: 05 October 2007 at 8:22am | IP Logged

-In my deck that he has played against, i did have an Insanity or two in there, but the one game i actually drew one it was a non-issue. I will likely simply stock more crew-affecting cards int he future to try taking that part of the equation out of it.

I'm hesitant to get too many defensive cards in there as i hate big decks, but i think i could add a couple more Insanities and perhaps a Cessation or two. I'll let ya know how it works after this monday's challenge.

The main problem is that anything i do he can react by bringing it back to hand with J'xar ability, so those cards to counter his strategy may be all for not. We'll see, have a good weekend all i'm heading to watch the Chiefs and Jacksonville in what is sure to be a mediocre contest of below-average offenses and surprisingly-good defences.....Lobo

Posted: 06 October 2007 at 7:51am | IP Logged

Gekonauak wrote: lol Well, that explains a few things. If you play an insanity on his crew, and he chooses to bring that crew back to his hand (using J'Xar's transgate ability), you get your insanity back as well.

Why would he get his card back? Where does the rules say that? I'm not disagreeing with you but neither am I agreeing with you. I'd like to see the relevant rules.

Thanks

J--

Posted: 06 October 2007 at 7:59am | IP Logged

Never mind I found the rule and you are right... Cool I'd never seen that before.

It still doesn't improve his situation. The insanity cards are only played during his turn and so long as I have an active transgate I can pull the card back once he plays it thus putting it back in his hand (and eating one of his card plays). The insanity card should never - so long as I have an available transgate - be on my crew during my turn.

Of course he can go after my transgates with time skips, and damage but my deck has to handle those conditions anyway.

I really think the J'Xar's reactionary transgates are very potent in a duel. In a multiplayer game... their ships are a bit brittle but I think they are still viable.

J--

Posted: 06 October 2007 at 8:06am | IP Logged

I'd like to add one strategic observation.

If you're dedicating cards and card plays to stopping what my deck does then you're not developing your deck. In my mind, that is defensive thinking and if you're designing your deck defensively - in a duel - then you've adopted a losing mentality.

In general, I think you should develop your deck to 'do what you do'. In other words, instead of attacking the other deck's play style you should develop your own win condition. That win condition might be resource denial for the opponent but that isn't reactive its proactive.

Of course, you want something to handle your foes 'bombs' like an S10 Indirigan Battleship with Catastrophic Repetition. Did I mention that I top decked an r/C9 Temporal Engineer on the turn before he played that? I was very lucky!!!

Lobo, is fun to play. kind of like the Chiefs... :)

Go Dallas Cowboys!

J--

Posted: 08 October 2007 at 8:46am | IP Logged

-Well, that's a nice observation, but it doesn't mean squat here.

Why would i say that?

Because i lose. Every time. So, when your offense isn't working much better from game to game, you look at your defense. Take those Chiefs, or my beloved Bears. They knew their offense could do only so much, and their defense helps take teams out of games where their measly offense is *just good enough*.

When your offense sucks and you know it can't get significantly better, it only make sense to look to bolster your defense. Besides, i have no other offensive cards to use. That's the limitation of a CCG, some people's collections just don't provide all the offensive weapons that would allow your deck to "do what you do".

And up to now, what i do is lose. This isn't intended in any mean or depressing way, it's just the facts. So, i could either continue losing or try slowing Galaktische down to get a chance to at least damage his sector HQ. I like trying, so i'm looking at slowing him down. The alternative, me getting faster, is not an option unfortunately.

The games have been fun, which is key, but it wouldn't hurt every once in awhile if i could actually have a chance to not lose horribly and actually give him a challenge so he isn't bored out of his mind.....Lobo, feeling like ripping some Trollkin heads off tonight

Posted: 09 October 2007 at 8:55am | IP Logged

In defense of my 'gaming honor' I have suggested to Lobo that he proxy cards and/or that we play a limtied version of the game which levels the playing field in card terms. He has so far declined to accept. The few times I've mentioned that I purposefully avoided certain tactics he 'encouraged' me not to take it easy on him.

I typically don't attack his terrain base and I play with only a single time skip and no time warps. I will destroy the reactionary worlds if I can and if I fall behind I will attack his terrain in order to catch up.

Lobo's deck almost always out plays mine in the first few turns. He almost always gets an S10 out in the first three turns and he rarely ever plays anything less than an S7. He has an annoying habit of playing an S1 Ship From the Future in reaction to my turn 2 ship play so he typically 'out ships' me early. He has trouble pressing the advantage home and generally by turn 6 I've caught back up and have a bigger/better fleet than he does.

I wonder how we'd do if we switched decks and played each other?

...Galaktische running around the schoolyard tyring to convince everyone else he isn't a bully!

J--

Posted: 09 October 2007 at 3:54pm | IP Logged

In the very early turns of the game he oftentimes cannot engage all of his big ships or cannot power up their heavy weapons. I can usually redirect his firepower via R/C9 Temporal Engineer, R/T2 Asteroid shield, etc... He usually blasts the crap out of one of my bigger ships and will either destroy it or - more often than not - he'll almost destroy it. In my turn I can usually repair the damage and play more ships (I use the intergalactic void and/or Surprise attacks to make up a lot of the difference).

He's very good about cutting off my 3rd and subsequent card plays but when he doesn't I've usually got either 4 or 5 plays per turn (the Artifact Stargate and the Cyber mages, etc...). I get command points through my terrain (Jozef) and ships in general. I gate in my small ships on his turn so that they don't take command points.

The truth is that neither of us are very good players. I think we're fairly closely matched in ability but I have the bigger suitcase. I've asked to play a more balanced format but he is a bit stubborn...

J--

Posted: 10 October 2007 at 7:49am | IP Logged

-Actually, i think your format actually benefits the bigger suitcase player and further disadvantages someone, say , like me with limited card base.

4 of any strength 8 or 9 means that he's stocking 4 Twist of Fates. 4 Time Waves. And 4 of lots of other nasty high-powered cards i may only have one (or more than likley none) of.

I am not saying that you guys shouldn't play that way, and i appreciate your suggestions, but this one i don't think will help out our two-player Oklahoma group.

Now, if you had posted something along the lines of "Galaktische only gets to take a turn after Lobo takes 3 in a row"...that would be more helpful...talk later, have a good one.....Lobo