You need to look at the center row and focus all your energy on obtaining (or defeating) the most over-powered cards. I can't emphasize this first point enough. (Mechana Initiate might be the worst - you don't want flexibility at a cost in this game, you want sheer power.) Twofold Askara is light years ahead of Arha Templar. For this same reason, Aiyana's Messenger is the best one-cost card in the game. However, Wolf Shaman can sometimes be much better because of the Lifebound synergy. For example, I will almost always take Abolisher over Wolf Shaman - even though Wolf Shaman costs more, because deck thinning is such a powerful force in this game.

So, first off, you've got to know the cards really well and you need to know generally which ones are better costed. Others are more subtle - such as the card in Storm of Souls where you can get a construct out of your discard, which combos with constructs that you can destroy to gain an effect. Most of these are obvious - Lifebound heroes are all green, get enough green cards and you have a combo. (Also, in my opinion, Storm of Souls is the best expansion and is best played alone.) Biggest accomplishment is winning a game with only eleven cards in my deck. And of course you do get points for owning good cards as well.So it's hard to generalize.ĭedicated Ascension player here. My perception is that Runes fall on the deck building side and Power is more for direct point grabs but sometimes killing monsters gets you runes or other bonuses (directly or via card draw), and sometimes you can even convert Runes into Power by buying a card mid-turn and playing it in the same turn. At the very end if the game is close you can even wreck your deck by buying up lousy heroes for the points they give. Deck building is less important, especially if your cycling is so slow that you might never get to play those new cards.

Later in the game these priorities gradually reverse themselves. (And this category includes cards that increase your Power, since 2 extra Power is always worth at least 1 Honor if not better.) But deckbuilding, improving your deck's ability to buy and play the above type of cards, is the best of all. Even a hero as simple as 'Gain 1 Honor, draw a card' can eventually be worth more points than defeating a strong monster. 'Gain X Honor every time you play this card' is better, because you'll have lots of chances to play the card. Early in the game, gaining X amount of Honor is all well and good.

Constructs don't care about cycling except for when you just bought or destroyed one.Īs far as pacing, there's a clear general progression. Cards that draw 2 actively speed up your cycling. Cards that draw one card are neutral (since if you didn't own that card, you would have drawn the next card instead anyhow) and are great they can only help you. Cut that down to once every two turns and it's roughly as good as having a second copy of that card! Pretty cool.Ĭards that don't let you draw slow down your cycling, which is another good reason to get rid of the cards in your starting deck. It also means you'll only get to play him once every four turns.

If you only reshuffle once every four turns then that's how long it takes before you get to use that sweet new hero you bought. But a subtler reason is cycling speed.Ĭycling speed means how often you reshuffle your deck. And it also helps you match up your combo cards like Union powers. Obviously if you don't have any crappy cards, everything you draw will be good cards. Disclaimer: I'm more a Dominion player but some things carry over so I'll try and focus on those:Ĭlearing the crap out of your deck is great, especially if you can start early.

Ascension card game