Hi! I've started Poxnora a couple years ago, but picked it back up only a few days ago. After replaying the tutorial, I opened some packs and got an exotic and sold it on Poxbox (no regrets) . Since then, I've built my first deck; I've been playing skirmish and vs my friend (who just started recently too, he plays the voil public deck) and I realized I've been using the same strategy over and over. I don't want to learn a cheese strategy, so tell me if I'm doing it right. PS I made this deck because I have the legendary Draksar Consulate and wanted to use her, so I made a almost full dragon team (with Vindrax , so expensive I use poxbase to just look up dragon cards and clicked randomly until I found cards that look like they have synergy. Here is what I got so far Step 1: Send a guy to the closest font asap. Usually its this guy because he's fast as hell. Step 2: I then make like 4 people and shove them to their forces, while making this guy buff (usually by spawning his sibling and then using Rage band, which makes him 19 atk) Step 3: Send that 1 dude to their base and then smash his base for 20 damage. If the base has stuff around it, I usually make Skywing Beacon and Dragon Artificer Portal to spam dragons. If I need more damage, I make this AWESOME guy, who often has 31+ atk when I make him. Step 4: I usually win or lose by then. I usually lose when they send my 1 Rambo guy into space and he doesn't come back for like 8 centuries. I feel like this shouldn't work in real games but I'm not sure; it seems solid enough but maybe its a weak strategy, I wouldn't really know. Opinions?
Your strategy is... slightly okay. It's rush, which can work against a number of unprepared players. It's not an ideal strategy, though, as you said: you often lose if they manage to deal with your champion at their shrine. From what you've posted, it seems like you basically let your front lines disintegrate and only focus on that one champ attacking. But you have a problem in that any slightly experienced player will have some form of champ control (which includes Vertical Push, which is what I presume they use to launch your champ away). This isn't ideal, because you winning is essentially decided by RNG (if they draw a suitable rune).
Yeah, sounds about right. Thankfully I invested in Skywing Beacon, and now its a lot easier to continue the final shove when its mixed with Stormwing Rumbler. Although is the only counter to a rush to just kill the rushers? Or will my opponent also try to rush his guys to my base?
Some people will try to out-rush you if they feel they have a better chance (I do it all the time), but most will just stop your rush and then press on.
Oh ok. Does Poxnora have factions specifically for rushing or one's that do it the best? Also who should and shouldn't use this type of strategy on?
K'thir, Forglar, Underdepths, and Shattered Peaks tend to be better at rushing than the others, but are also the most succeptable to being rushed themselves, whereas Forsaken Wastes and Ironfist are generally better at holding off rushes.
Gallio, when I was starting, the most frustrating thing for me was not getting enough feedback from experienced players. Everyone gave me only a bit here and there instead of helping me with more in depth stuff to this game. So I wanted to offer some insight at length. Here is a build for you. It is built around Valdac and Vindrax and incorporates some of the runes you already have. This build will require investment to get it and then to play it and upgrade, but it is not unreachable. http://poxbase.com/deck/c5oc5iC36cdnCdbcdQCi4CdmcgNcqic3-S7Ms73S7uS1Hs64R2Or3rPr3Qe4e1O There is a lot to this game, but here are some thoughts on strategy. There is a front game, mid game, and end game, all of which you need to consider. SL is great at end game because they are a mid-paced faction; almost everything is 6 speed. SL is not a rush faction as Spieky already stated. They are more of a phalanx faction where you group units together that support each other and are hard to take down. Small phalanx champs sets are your goal in this build. Each small group serves a specific purpose. Front Game No matter what, however you can, get to the closest font and protect it. SL is mid-paced, which means there are faster factions who will challenge your fonts to keep you from getting nora. Nora fonts are the best source of nora for SL since they lack a source of high nora generation. No matter what, deploy at least 3-4 champs before using spells, relics, and equips. Save your nora for champ deploys first. As your champs are revealed, look at your small group development. You will have two: a font grabbing group and a tanking group. If the tanking group is revealed in the rune dock first, start with it after capturing your first font. If the font grabbing group is, then go get another font with it. Go with what is revealed. The tanking group is Valdac and Vindrax. Give Valdac Healing Breadth 2 and Cleansing Aura for upgrades and equip him with the Rage Band. Cast Taint on him also ASAP. Give Vindrax Resist Phys 3 and Acid Breath 3. Let Vindrax lead the charge since he will resist physical damage and Valdac follow with Cleanse, Heal, and short range damage. Vindrax's Acid Breath is your main weapon, but it only happens every other round. Don't rush him. Go on offense one round and then defense the next to keep his stats maximized. Let his main weapon work for you and keep him healthy. Use your Dragoleechs and Skywings (except the Patrols and Rumblers) for support in this tank build. Each of these will bring extra damage for tanking, which is what this build is about. Move steady forward but not quickly. Attack one round and then defend. The font grabbing group are your Patrols, Ravagers, and Rumblers. To grab another font, start with your Patrols with Reinforcement 1 and Relocate Relic as upgrades. Move one of these to an adjacent square next to but outside of the font zone. Drop his Skywing Beacon next to him and drop the Artificer Portal in the enemy font zone. (The Artificer Portal will suspend your enemy's font ownership on the next round because it is within the font zone.) After you drop the relics, you can deploy two dragon champs, one from the Portal through summoning and one Rumbler or Ravager. (Make sure you have the nora to pull this off.) Now you will have 3 champs to contest the font; however, the summoned dragon from the Artificer can not grab the font after it is contested. Once the Rumbler or Ravager (both with Initiative 2) are deployed, they will have immediate AP to attack if they are within range. Use your Ravagers, Rumblers, and summoned dragons to kill enemies protecting the font and be willing to lose them. Use Touch of Vindrax and Taint, however, to protect your Patrols. If you need to get rid of pesky champs, equip your Rumbler or Ravager with the Fruit and destroy a target. Mid Game In the mid game, you need to do 4 things: (1) spam Taint; (2) kill with Kiss, Dragon Skull, and Quicken; (3) control/contest fonts, making sure that you keep at least one of them; and (4) protect your core dragons with Transmission Relay. First, Taint equips your dragons with Violent and brings upward mobility to your build, which you need. With Violent, every time you attack, if you have another champ within 2 spaces, it's damage will escalate +1 for every enemy champ hit. This means that Acid Breath will cause Vindrax to increase his damage by 2 if it hits two enemy champs. Second, Kiss of Vex and Dragon Skull amplify the damage of your units so that you can kill enemies quicker while Quicken allows a single unit to double hit for a guaranteed kill. Usually, you should only use quicken when it yields a kill. Third, Control/contesting fonts keeps you in the game while you spam Taint. Keep using your font grabbing strategy explained above. However, if the strategy can not work because you do not have those pieces in place, do whatever you can to contest and grab those fonts. Lastly, protect your dragons with Transmission Relay. Put this relic somewhere where it will most likely not get touched. This relic allows you dragons to be resummoned instantly if you have the nora. It is a must have in dragon decks. Three other things you need to know about mid game. First, this build has small area-of-effect damage (AOE) in Acid Breath. This, along with Taint, will get you to the end game. Spam this ability on multiple champs at once. Second, this build lacks AP generation except for Dragon Flight. Look at it and study how to use the extra AP to your advantage because it only occurs on deploys. Lastly, your main nora generation is from fonts, but your Flame Dragoleech with Flame Siphone can generate 15 extra nora ever other turn. That 15 extra nora could make a break a critical battle. Spam it, spam it, spam it. End Game If you survived the front and mid games, then you most likely finish the end game. However, a good opponent knows how to stall and rebuild; so do not over extend your mid-paced champs. Alone they are weaker. Keep your pace on move toward the shrine for a finish. Work down the shrines defense just like it was an enemy champ. If it morphs into an avatar, keep at it while protecting your main champs. Watch out for specialty turns from your opponent. Sometimes, right in the middle of mid game, your opponent may over extend and leave his/her shrine unprotected. If you have a chance to go for the end game with a few units right then, do it and catch your opponent off guard. It may just get you a win. Always, always remember, front, mid, and end game development only goes as fast as you can get it together, so some games will go quicker than others because your reveals were perfectly ordered and because your timing and positions were correct. Lastly, remember that SL is not fast paced but mid-paced. General Info You need to learn how to calculate nora and AP generation. Spend time doing the math as you play so that you can hone your skills with this build and better position yourself using its its strategy, which is true for any build. Get an avatar if you can. Upgrade your champs. Look for better alternatives than what I gave you.
Holy crap thanks for writing this all out, I really appreciate it! When I get my next expensive non-SL rune(s), I'll be sure to make the deck you gave. Also the little strategies and combos you put in here are REALLY useful, the only thing I've been doing is spamming portals and hoping my rumbler can smash the base fast enough. I actually neglected Flame Dragoleech, but I didn't realize it has the 15 nora :O . Thanks again for writing this all out, its going to make playing Poxnora a lot more enjoyable now that I know how to play SL's a lot more. Also thanks for linking the poxbase deck thing, I actually didn't know you could make decks on the site!
