This week Matt and Dustin review the news, tournament and league play. Special Guest AWEBERMAN gives his report on the BGG Leagure Season 14. Lots of discussion around the Construction Hauler!
by Scott Heise aka HomerJr
It is generally acknowledged that cards with strong trade and scrappers are some of the strongest opening buys in the game. (Freighter, Supply Bot, Patrol Mech, Cutter, Trade Pod, just to name a few.) However, as has been discussed in The Pace of the Game Part 1, economic cards and scrappers are “time-sensitive” in that they require an shuffle to amortize their value. For example, for a Freighter bought on Deck 1 (opening buy), the earliest it can be played is Deck 2 which means the earliest a card that bought using the Freighter’s trade can be drawn is Deck 3.
This time-sensitivity of economic cards and scrappers means that they are very sensitive to the bad luck of “bottom decking”, which is where a shuffle is triggered before you get a chance to play the card because it was near the bottom of your deck. If your opening buys revolved around buying economic cards and/or scrappers (which they often will), then it can be a complete disaster if these cards are bottom decked at the end of Deck 2. Such bad luck can literally ruin your game by delaying disrupting the timing of your deck and delaying the benefit of trade and/or scrap until Deck 4. In a game where you only get 4-5 decks on average, this bad luck can often be irrecoverable.
Bottom-decking is mostly just bad luck of the shuffle… but is it really that simple? Is there something that can be done to shift the odds in your favor and avoid your opening buys from being bottom-decked? Yes, there is.
by Rick DeMille aka Darklighter
The “reshuffle” in Star Realms produces some unique strategy considerations, particularly in the on-line game where you must play all cards in your hand.
For example, playing a draw card (e.g., Corvette) when your draw pile is empty will cause your deck to reshuffle during your turn. Any cards in your current hand will not be included in that reshuffled deck. Instead, the cards in your current hand will sit in your discard pile until the next time your deck reshuffles. In other words, when you reshuffle during your turn, the cards in your hand are essentially “lost” for one deck; you will have to wait until your deck reshuffles again to have access to those cards.
This can be good when you are “losing” starter cards for one deck; for one deck those starter cards aren’t diluting your deck. But this can be a bad thing when “losing” stronger cards. Let me set the stage with two examples.
By MarauderMo
“Endurance is not just the ability to bear a hard thing, but to turn it into glory.”
-William Barclay
Introduction
Ever lost a random game to a player who went all out for the kill on their final turn? Maybe you were already down to less than 10 Authority and they maxed out their hand to do as much damage as possible? Well chances are your opponent is one of two things: an evil megalomaniac who just likes to watch the world burn or a person who is preparing for the Endurance Challenge on Facebook.
I won’t give you an explanation for the problem of evil (although I’d love to I’m a different forum) but I can explain what The Endurance Challenge is.
By Brendan Lapsley aka Carnie
A lot of people in the Star Realms community love playing in the online events happening both on Facebook and on BoardGameGeek. For most people, this is all they really need. But for some, running their own tournaments (either online or in person) is something they would at least like to try.
by Scott Heise aka HomerJr
Star Realms is a race. To win the race, you need to build a deck that can reduce your opponent’s authority down to 0 in fewer turns than your opponent can yours. It doesn’t mean building the biggest, baddest deck. Nor does mean collecting all of the cards of one faction. It means finding the quickest way to accumulate 50 damage to your opponent’s authority (the finish line), while also slowing down his rate of damage accumulation if necessary.
In Part 1, “A Game of Four and a Half Decks”, we explored how the average “race” lasts for 25-turns (13 player hands) and the concept of “decks”. Now we’ll dive deeper into the different ways you can run the race… specifically, is it better to be the Tortoise or the Hare or something in between? Which strategy accumulates combat in the fewest number of turns? I assert that both the Tortoise and the Hare are capable of winning races, so knowing how they run a race is important to knowing which will be the winning strategy in a given game.
First, let’s define what I mean by “Tortoise” and “Hare” strategies in Star Realms. Then, we’ll try running a couple races and see who wins. 🙂
In Season 11 of the Board Game Geek Star Realms League (which just ended), I was fortunate enough to win the title of Platinum Champion. That seemed like enough of a good reason to post about how to compete in online Star Realms leagues.
For those who have not participated, the BGG League, it’s run by the excellent Commissioner Remy Gibson (IGN Aweberman) who has tirelessly contributed to the online Star Realms community. The league is composed of 5 Tiers (Platinum, Gold, Silver, Bronze and Iron) which are in constant states of flux. Why? Because in order to stay in the division, you’ve got to avoid relegation! At the end of each season the lower performers in each tier are dropped down a rank, unless at the bottom already. Likewise, the one or two top performers are promoted to the next tier until they get to the top.
The effect this has on the operation of the league is critical. It means that players who are able to stay competitive at ever increasing levels of play are rewarded. As a fan of the long tail when evaluating consistent good play, I’m a big fan of this. Everyone is aware that Star Realms has tremendous variance and that luck does play a big role in each and every game, yet many of these top players in the Platinum division are able to compete against the other best players in the league fairly consistently.
Everyone reading this post should go and become a member of the league if they are not already. Check this thread on Board Game Geek for more information.
Without further guilding of the lily, here are my Top Tips for success in Online Star Realms Leagues.
When playing a League match, I do not initiate any other challenges and I ignore any that aren’t about to time out on me. I want to put my full and total focus on my opponent. When you’re playing many matches, certain patterns will arise in your play and you have to avoid that. You need to be concentrating on this match as if it’s the only game you have to win for the next year. In the BGG League, each player gets one single game against their opponents, so concentrating is critical!
Often players will post thoughts or ideas about their play style. If you’re aware of this, you might get insight into how they think. The best tip I’ve used in the BGG League has been the specific Game Mode preference that a player has. Because of the variance, I always choose to play Vanilla Star Realms, while many of my opponents will play Type-S or S+G (Gambos). If they are playing Type-S, their meta mindset might betray them when they come back to the old game they haven’t spent time practicing on. When the GenCon tournament was announces as Vanilla, I switched and practiced only Vanilla. I started to notice I was winning quite often against folks. I believed then and now that part of the reason was my focus on a specific mode where my opponents were shifting concentration between many games. If it gives me a tiny fraction of a percent advantage, I’ll TAKE IT!
When I started playing Star Realms, I used to often toss around the “You got lucky!” or ” Just one more turn…” After playing in the Platinum Tier for a bit, I still recognize the luck, but also the significant skill with which my opponents defeat me. Yes, there are occasions where it’s just “one of those blowouts”, but in general, even with a huge starting advantage, the skilled player can bring it back to a game of just one turn. If you can do that, you give yourself a chance to get lucky and come away with the win.
When you do lose, try to seriously understand what happened. Did I not have enough scrap? Was my deck not fast enough? Due of the limitations of the game log and the weekly reset, those old games won’t be around to review in a month, so you need to take your learnings right after a game. Try to write down the key turns and consider how you might have played them differently. Also, observe how your opponent defeated you. Did he rush you? How could you have hate drafted to break up that momentum he was building?
The best league players in Star Realms know exactly how much damage your deck is capable of. They also know how all the cards/combos work together at an expert level. They are playing out your next likely turn before you take it. These are all good things to get used to learning about. How to do a couple of these things is enough for a second article.
Ok, so it’s cheesy to plug your own cast in this sort of setting, but I do believe that it’s true! Megahaulin interviews the top players in the game. Many of them share tips and tricks that are designed to help you be a better player regardless. Ignoring that resource is missing out on a constantly evolving understanding of the game. So listen in!!
Online Star Realms Leagues are a great way to meet new people, learn more about the game and just have a great time playing with other fans.
by greylag (originally posted at the Star Realms BoardGameGeek forums)
When I get matched in the app, sometimes I can tell by the avatar or the name if I’m up against a high level player. But not all high level players use Recycling Station, or Yacht, as their avatar. So if that doesn’t give them away, one of the biggest signs I’m up against a strong player is the way they play their cards, particularly their trade cards.
Imagine the row looks like this in the early/mid-game.
Fleet HQ / Cutter / Battle Pod / Defense Center / Blob Wheel
When I started playing (and often still now), if I had 4 scouts on a row like that, I’d click “Play All”, then take the Cutter, then probably the Battle Pod if nothing else good came up.
But what I notice is that higher level players will often play out their turn like this:
by Scott Heise aka HomerJr
Here are my Star Realms Card Tier Lists! The intent of these Tier Lists is to provide a quick reference to help players, especially newer or less experienced players, when deciding which card(s) in the trade row they should buy (or whether to buy a card at all). Every card that is available in the online app (base plus year 1 promos) is contained within these lists and grouped into one of three tiers based on the overall value of the card relative to the cost of the card.
While every card in the game can be valuable and help you win, not every card will have equal value over the course of the game thus there are separate Tier Lists for different phases of the game (opening buys, mid game, late game). Furthermore, many cards are highly situational or valuable only in certain decks. Please note that this is all just my personal opinion based on over 3500+ online plays, so don’t take anything in here as law. 🙂 I am always open to feedback, criticism, and discussion. I also hope to do a deeper dive into how/where/why many of these cards derive their value and how best to use them in future strategy articles.
I rank each card into one of three tiers as follows:
by Scott Heise aka HomerJr
The average game of Star Realms lasts 25 turns. That means each player only gets 12 hands on average with which to reduce their opponent’s authority to zero. With so few precious turns, it is therefore very important to make the most of each and every hand. More importantly, these 12-14 hands per player are distributed among the “decks” formed by each reshuffle and each card in your deck can only be played once per shuffle. Understanding how these decks affect the pace of the game, and thus your decision making, is one of the keys to becoming an advanced player.
Let’s break down a “typical” 25-turn game, and discuss how it should affect your strategy…
Megahaulin Blog for Star Realm Strategy 