by: A. Joki/Talvi
As most learn fairly early, Star Realms is a game with deceptive depths. Over time, players often find themselves stuck on a plateau: unable to move forward and sometimes even backsliding. Typically, plateaus happen at similar points (around levels 6, 12, 17, 22) and come with realizations of key techniques or principles. If you are stuck, here are the most common reasons and the levels at which they often occur.
This week Matt and Dustin review their finals match up in the Pan Galactic League. We also announce the winner of the “Beat the Newburg” Contest. In strategy talk listen to expert analysis and strategy tips for how to win with the new Star Realms Expansion Crisis: Events.
EVENTS ARE HERE! We discuss initial reactions to the EVENTS expansion, Tournament and League play as well as a discussion on Professor HomerJr’s new article on the Megahaulin Strat Blog! TUNE IN!
by Scott Heise aka HomerJr
As fun as it is to debate Star Realms strategy, theory craft factions, and run countless simulations, sometimes there is no substitute for real-world empiricism. As much as I love playing the Star Realms app (and I do LOVE playing the app), one disappointment is I have is that there there is a gold mine of hundreds or thousands of games worth of data out there with no way to get at it: which cards do you buy, how many times have you played each card, opening hand distributions, opening buys, number of turns, number of cards scrapped, bases destroyed, faction preferences, etc. This kind of post-game summary data is just begging to be mined for correlations to win rate for both the individual player and the entire player community.
Unfortunately, currently the only way to get this kind of data is to keep track of it yourself using a spreadsheet or other tool, which can be quite laborious and difficult to keep error free over a large games . Nevertheless, my thirst for some kind of empirical data to sink my teeth into drove me to look for an opportunity to collect some meaningful real world data. Luckily, I was recently a proud participant of the Star Realms Pan-Galactic League s#1 and #2, founded by Remy aka Aweberman and generously run by Brendan aka Carnie. Given the league’s closed player pool, locked league format, and relatively large number of games, what better opportunity would I have to gather some data?
This week Matt and Dustin discuss who would be part of the first Star Realms Super Bowl! As always, tournament and league play. Additionally, there’s a special review of The Megahauler! All this and more!!
This week Matt and Dustin catch up with all the news and tournament news to start the new year. Also, a detailed review of HomerJr’s most recent strategy article!
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.
This week Dustin and Matt discuss an update on the COLONY WARS release as well as have a fantastic interview with recent Megahaulin Strategy Blogger and Top Player, DARKLIGHTER!
This week Dustin and Matt wish everyone a Happy Holiday and plenty of Star Realms! The show discuss lots of tournaments and league play as well as easy ways to keep track of your tournament history if you play a lot. Strategy discussion focuses on Managing the Redraw.
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.
Megahaulin Blog for Star Realm Strategy 