Post by Diamondback on Mar 9, 2015 21:12:33 GMT -5
Antillium’s general strategy is maintaining battleground presence through superior technology, bolstered stats and searching for supplemental weaponry. While the humans and Orynn that you may find in Antillium may not be too intimidating on their own, through the use of low-cost Accent Gears and stat-boosting Tactics, each Armada stands to become a severe threat.
Because it usually takes two cards (an Armada and a Gear) to make Antillium Armada hefty enough to pose a threat, Antillium Advents typically feature abilities to bring one of those two cards into the equation. Xi is capable of producing +1/+1 Gears through his active ability, Ely can fish for weaponry out of her discard pile, and Agent Nine is capable of deploying low-cost Armada directly from the deck.
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Antillium Armada are all about interactions with Gears. Orynn Weaponsmith and UGC War Dog are capable of searching for Gears and adding them to the hand, while UGC Private gains a boost for each of your in-play Gears. The higher-cost Unique Armada are usually weaker than those of other resource types, but feature abilities to protect the Gears and weaker Armada that are already in play. Whether you need to bounce a threat back to your opponent’s hand with Raijin, protect your Armada with Uilleam or protect your Gears with Asura, Antillium provides high-utility in lieu of daunting base stats.
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Battles in Advent Saga rely on your Armada surviving an attack in order to launch a counter attack. If the attack is negated or otherwise stopped, the original target does not get to mount a counteroffensive. What this means is Antillium’s ability to instantly boost the stats of in-play Armada provides a defensive utility that may be as (if not more) important as its attack power. Through the use of cards like brute force, you can lull your opponent into a sense of security, only to decimate an attacking Armada with a counter attack.
Antillium also provides a minimal level of control through negation. Court Martial, Decisive Moment, and Superior Tech allow you to answer Deployments, Tactics, and Gears respectively, but are so specific that you can miss the opportunity by simply not having the specific card in your hand for the specific situation. To further the danger, Decisive Moment allows the opponent to reveal the top 5 cards of their deck in order to add a replacement Tactic to their hand. When utilizing Antillium’s control, you have to be willing to let little things go to assure that you answer when it counts.
Check out current Tactics for Antillium Here
Antillium’s focus is Gears and that’s where it really shines. Featuring some of the lowest costs for the level of utility they provide, Antillium’s Accent Gears can turn any Armada into a threat that your opponent needs to answer immediately. Lionheart features the instant-play Keyword Override and can grant an Armada the first strike in a battle with Initiative. Sonic Blade provides a stat boost as well as damage reduction from ranged attacks. To sweeten the deal, when an Armada destroys a target by attacking with the Sonic blade, the player gets to draw a card.
Antillium Gears also provide the attached Armada some safety from counter attacks either through enhanced range, disallowing counterattacks, or pushing a target out of range for a counter attack. You won’t find a cache of weaponry that can stand up to Antillium’s impressive firepower.
Check out current Gears for Antillium Here
Cryonite’s main strategy is overpowering the enemy with a consistent wave of intimidating Armada, either through deployment or bringing them back from the discard pile. Cryonite’s secondary strategy is control through Resource management. Cryonite’s strength lies in building extra temporary resources to get stronger cards out earlier, or forcing the enemy to exhaust extra resources to maintain their battle strategy. By skewing the Resource totals mid-turn, it gives Cryonite carte blanche to earnestly respond to enemy actions with less fear of retaliation.
When you select a Cryonite Advent, you’re telling your opponent that any play area is fair game for deployment, Whether you’re deploying Armada from the Resource area with Prax’or or tricking useful Resource effects into play with Tycho, a strong Cryonite Advent makes use of the Resource area and the discard pile as much as it does the deck or hand. Alternatively, you can go the more manipulative route with V, granting yourself extra Resources or stripping them from your opponent at the end of your respective turns. Being fully exhausted in Advent Saga is a death sentence, and V can force that situation to come up way more often than any player would be comfortable with.
Check out current Advents for Cryonite Here
Featuring the highest stat spread for their cost, Cryonite Armada are physically daunting and often cost the opponent two cards to dispatch. Due to their dominance on the Battleground, Cryonite Armada also tend to feature a higher cost curve than the rest of the colors. You wont find many useful one and two-cost Cryonite Armada, requiring it to supplement the Resource pool in one of many ways. A lot of Armada feature the ability to move cards to the discard pile or Resource area, allowing the player to deploy necessary forces in a pinch when paired with Advent abilities.
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Mutual loss, threat assessment and recursion are the name of the game with Cryonite Tactics. While it may not feature any direct negation or targeted destruction, Cryonite has extremely potent means to set the Battleground back to a neutral state (either by wiping it out entirely or forcing the opponent to lose one of their cards in order to destroy one of yours), only to redeploy previously destroyed Armada. When it requires two Armada to decimate a single Cryonite soldier, purging the field entirely is almost always a greater cost for the enemy than it is for you.
Check out current Tactic for Cryonite Here
Cryonite Gears are few and far between, and often only provide defensive utility through Reinforcement or Pushing. When an Armada is already difficult to kill, taking away excess morale damage basically forces your opponent to weave through a slew of high-powered Armada to attack you directly. Once your opponent has traversed onto your side of the Battleground, even the most immobile powerhouse is able to lay down the hurt.
Check out current Gear for Cryonite Here
Expanding one's mind is as critical to this Resource's play style as creating mental blocks for the enemy. Psionic Energy can manifest itself in a number of ways, including ESP, clairvoyance, telepathic suggestion, telekinesis, pyrokinesis, and much more. This gives the Resource an incredible level of versatility and the potential for unmatched power.
Psionic Advents are easily the most controlling of the available generals. The more aggressive types (such as Giyet Han) manifest their abilities by controlling the Battleground, shifting Armada across the field to create openings in enemy forces. On the other end of the spectrum, Leona is capable of controlling exactly what cards she has access to at any given time. While she features no offensive or defensive capabilities, Ms. Kitcher is literally playing with twice as many available cards as her opponent at any given moment. V’s control is a lot more manipulative, using Psionic Energy’s propensity for hand control to manipulate the amount Resources available to each player.
Check out current Advents for Psionic Energy Here
Psionic Armada aren’t particularly sturdy, but what they lack in physical dominance they easily make up for in utility. The Nazael are featured heavily in this Resource, often stealing from the enemy in order to maintain an advantage each turn. Whether it’s sapping enemy Armada of their abilities, destroying Resources or removing cards from the opponent’s hand, every Nazael has the potential to leave your opponent feeling like their privacy has been invaded. To make up for Psionic Energy’s weak stat spread, a number of Psionic Armada have means to manipulate range and space to provide cover in combat. The Nazael Force mage is able to shift targets one space in any direction when it attacks, removing potential counter attacks and setting up for combos with other low-drop Armada. Use that in conjunction with Keywords like phasing (which lets you move through occupied spaces to the other side), and you can friendly fire your own troops to strike directly through the heart of enemy forces.
Check out current Armada for Psionic Energy Here
Psionic Tactics are all manipulating your opponent’s mind. Clairvoyance lets you draw a card if you guess the type of one of your opponent’s cards correctly, while Amnesia strips one target of its stats and abilities. In the case you know that you won’t be able to deal with a specific card, you can take it out of the equation entirely by banishing it. For their cost, Psionic Tactics are easily the best in the game.
Check out current Tactics for Psionic Energy Here
Psionic Gear is rather scarce and usually pretty inefficient. The reason is mostly because Nazael Tech is typically stolen from other races. The best Psionic Gear, Nazael Force Barrier, can negate the damage taken by one Armada, but costs 2 cards to do it. When you set up a Psionic Gear, it’s typically to set up for a scenario that you know is coming up.
Check out current Gear for Psionic Energy Here
With stalwart defense, attack negation and amazing draw power, Genetic Code strives to play for the late game. Featuring the lowest attack out of the five Resources, it almost always requires multiple damage sources to destroy enemy Armada.
When your opponent is likely to survive initial combat, Genetic Code’s low-cost survival tools are one key to maintaining a Battleground presence. The utilitarian gameplay strategy doesn’t stop there though, as Genetic Code features the largest number of cards with handy effects that can be activated from the Resource area.
Genetic Advents all focus on drawing the right tool at the right time. Failing that, it covers itself by cycling through cards fast enough to practically force itself to have the appropriate tools. Ely is able to discard Gears to draw cards instantly, where Leona can rearrange the order of the cards she intends to draw or send to the Resource area.
Producing the right Resource can be as important as drawing the right card, and that’s where the other side of Genetic Code Advents come in. Tycho and Sixx can use Genetic Code’s massive draw power to trick specific cards into the Resource area, giving a player control of the Resources they have available and granting direct access to Resource effects that would normally be left up to chance.
Check out current Advents for Genetic Code Here
There’s no sugar coating this, Genetic Code are the weakest of the five Resource types when it comes to offense. You have to be willing to engage enemies with multiple weak Armada to sometimes get the breathing room you need to bring out the bigger guns later in the game. High Defense and Keywords such as Stealth allow you to maneuver your troops into the fray.
When you finally have enough Resources to drop some of your stronger Armada, that’s when Genetic Code really gets going. Unique Armada often feature impressive stats as well as the ability to activate effects even when all of your Resources are exhausted. By discarding two cards, Legion can produce extra copies of itself instantly, and Rae the Ender can take a target out of the picture completely for a turn. Luckily they both have secondary abilities to allow you to replenish your hand, making these Armada absolutely devastating if the opponent lets them stay out for too long.
Check out current Armada for Genetic Code Here
This is where Genetic Code really shines. Draw Tactics serve a two-fold purpose, making sure you don’t burn out as fast as your enemy as well as producing Resources to get to the late game faster. Combine that with amazing control-swapping Tactics such as Soul Hack, and your enemy has to be ready to deal with their strongest troops suddenly becoming a threat.
Defensively, attack and ability negation are the name of the game. It may not provide you with a counter attack like Antillium’s defense-boosting tactics, but it keeps critical Armada in-play long enough to strike at the opponent directly instead. For its cost, Signal Jammer’s ability to shut down any in-play card makes it easily one of the best Tactics in the game.
Check out current Tactics for Genetic Code Here
Genetic Code doesn’t feature particularly wonderful Accent Gears, but its Support Gears are second to none. Restore your Morale and deck with the First Aid kit, or draw a card and blind your enemies with Flashbang. While most Support Gears only have one particularly useful effect, Genetic Code Gears are amazing both coming into and leaving play.
Check out current Gears for Genetic Code Here
Rage is all about wanton destruction. Featuring the highest attack and lowest defense of the Resource types, Rage establishes and maintains a dominant Battleground presence by decimating the opponent’s forces before they can properly set up. Your enemy’s defeat lies in dealing devastating damage, destroying detractors, and decimating defenses.
Rage Advents are all about the heat of battle. Featuring abilities that either cause or benefit from destruction, occupying and clearing the Battleground is the key to victory for Rage.
I typically don’t mention this to new players, but the Advent Saga rulebook is worded very specifically. When talking about combat, it never specifies that a ‘target’ has to necessarily be an enemy. Friendly fire is not necessarily something you want to just engage in without thinking about it, but Rage gains benefits from any type of destruction you trigger. Misfit actually gains Resources when you destroy your own troops, whereas Giyet Han can draw cards or gain Morale if he defeats any Armada in combat.
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Rage Armada are easily the most aggressive of any Resource type, featuring abilities that trigger upon destroying targets or upon their own death. Shotgunner Reject and Delta Gunslinger both gain extra attacks after destroying an Armada, allowing you to reach any part of the field if you have a target upon deployment. Lanceman Reject grants Rage some much needed draw power, and Volatile Grunt explodes when it dies, dealing direct damage to the opponent’s Advent.
As far as Keywords, Rage heavily features Initiative, granting an Armada the first strike when attacked. Typically there’s a downside to having Initiative. For example, the Belligerent Berserker hurts itself with any excess combat damage after destroying a target with Initiative. When played right, destroying oneself can be a huge benefit though. The biggest downside to being aggressive in Advent Saga is leaving an Armada in enemy territory with no cover, so why not destroy your own troop with the right amount of damage (gaining Resources, cards or Morale in the meanwhile) to avoid getting smacked around by a larger damage source?
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Explosives get the job done. Rage features easily the most demolition-type Tactics in the game, either to deal direct damage, limit enemy movement, or surprise the opponent during combat. In Advent Saga, the source of an effect still needs to be in-play in order for its effect to process, so blowing up a target with an override like claymore can be as good as negating their abilities!
Check out current Tactics for Rage Here
Rage Gears often provide battleground support by the way of field control. Placing a landmine under a target may not destroy it outright, but it will immobilize an enemy Armada long enough to launch a proper assault. Gear are likely the only defensive tools that Rage has access to, so they play a unique role to the Resource type.
Check out current Gears for Rage Here
