Exo's EVE CCG Strategy, deckbuilding and playing thread

[Exooki]

A couple of you have asked me to talk a bit about playing the game, strategies and deck building, so I figured why not throw out a thread and strike up some discussion.

Now I want to preface by saying I have only been playing since mid Sept, so I don;t claim to be an expert, but I have played several times with different groups, and I have used every starter deck at least once so hopefully my insight can be of some help/interest to come of you.

In order to have a successful game you need to know what your plan is. While that may sound trivial, you are thinking " duh we need to kill the opponents!" but that in itself is far too vague. While it is true that that is the strategy of MOST decks, the finer details of exactly how that is to be accomplished is important to have figured out. Are you going to rush them? Turtle up and wait until your fleet grows too large for them to stop? Maybe deprive them of income and just win by nature of them never assembling a fleet? Knowing exactly how you plan is to accomplish your goal is as important as having the cards to do it.

So, to start I will analyze what each of the start decks strategy seems to be. These are merely what I think of them, and what I try to do with them when I play. These are assuming unmodified decks.

Minmatar

Simply put, the minmatar deck is built for early game rushing. An abundance of cheap, quickly assembly ships, and some strong offensive power mneither of them compare to many of the other deck's cruisers and battlecruisers. The cyclone's amazing firepower is diminished quickly against a larger fleet, and the rupture's shields wont hold against any ship of the same class. That means from the beginning you need to know that your success has an expiration timer. Unless your opponent gets unlucky if you allow the game to drag on for too long you won't be able to compete with the muscle many of the other decks have. Your saving grace is many of their larger ships are costly enough that they wont be able to pull them out as quickly as you are many of yours.

First hand/mulligan

When you draw your first hand focus on a couple isk making cards, but more so on some cheap ships. If you draw  the cyclone or the rupture HOLD ONTO IT, if your lucky enough to get one of those then your entire strategy should shift to rushing it onto the field to just headshot your opponent. If you don't get either of them, then stick with some cheap ships. Don't bother with defensive cards, if you get forced onto the defense in the early game you have probably already lost.

Regardless of what your opponent is up to, you need to control the early game field. Immediately try and get some ships out, and ensure that they have to keep theirs docked. Harassing their mining vessels is a great start. While there isn't much you can do about their locations or star base structures, you can keep them from owning additional regions, and mining( unless its the navitas, screw those with their 6 shields).

Many of your ships have either kamikazi or retaliate. The minmatar deck is built with more, cheaper ships than the others, explicitly so that you can lose more then they can. If your opponent is building up a fleet, and you are able to try and destroy it, even if it means heavy losses for yourself.  As long as you can keep their fleet small you keep it manageable. A enemy with 1 good ship is a lot easier for you to handle than one with several weaker ships, so try and kill them as they come out, if they insist on keeping everything docked than hurry and get enough ships that you can kill their starbase. As long as you have enough attack power youll force them to lose ships to keep you at bay.

Regions:

Choosing your outer regions is tricky, and here I am sure many of you may have a different opinion, but for the most part I have seen two successful minmatar strategies.

1. Screw outer regions, believe it or not one of my buddies somehow manages to win plenty of games playing a unmodified deck, and just never worries about outer regions. He attacks you constantly, keeping you forced into your base, but doesn't bother with regions, keeping his fleet stationed right in home unless he is out raiding. He avoids keeping regions, pushing people off them only to return home next turn. The vigil's warp scramble is a huge part of his success, using it to pick of anything thats not in home with support. The weakness with this strategy is a rush of your own, so watch for opponents who seem to be focusing on smaller ships as well, to try and keep up with you. If they can force you into a draw, youll lose the late game as soon as their heftier ships start coming out.

2. Rush out some cheaper, but isk producing regions hoping to hold the field, and out generate your opponents. Having a large income allows you to alternate between taking your income, and drawing a extra card. This is mainly my strategy of choice, banking on getting that early game cyclone or rupture.Heaven does great here as getting 2 isk everytime a ship dies somewhere ( including your own) can make those suicide battles a bit easier to stomach financially. Metropolis is also a decent one, as as long as you keep your opponent poor you can have you armada sit in metropolis so that your opponent cant strike your base directly. With a steady stream of cheap ships you can make attacking your base easily cost 20+ isk, an amount high enough that its obvious the are saving up for it. If you have access to other regions Sansha's nation lets you pick cards back out of your scrapheap to let you keep replaying those ships that keep dying, and Society of conscious thought lets you draw an extra card, helping you get to those better ships even faster, without sacrificing your income.

Towers

1. Coercion Tower: To be honest, i have never seen the circumstance that this is useful. You could probably build a deck around trying to cause it, but in standard gameplay no one is every out of everything. For the unmodified deck I would avoid this tower.

2. Liberty Tower: If you think that you will struggle to keep this opponent under your thumb, go with this tower. It's ability to just pick back up an entire fleet that you lost will let you keep pressing on them, without needing to worry about replenishing your ships. Lose everything if it means they do too, only to suddenly pick them all back up!

3. Frailty tower: This tower gives you enormous offense, but remember that it's defense is awful. With only 5 shields you need to be absolutely certain that you can command the field before upgrading, because it isn't hard to  hit a tower with 5 damage, many a game I have seen a overconfident minmatar admiral deploy his fleet only to be headshot while his fleet isnt home.

to avoid this becoming a book I am going to leave it at that for now! the other 7 decks to come later!  Let me know what you think, was this helpful? not? What race should be next? Specific questions?

[Daniel Couture]

What an amazing post!!! Great sharing!

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[Exooki]

Alright, coming up next ...the Amarr! I am going to try and follow the same layout here, but also say upfront that I haven't used it as much as the minmatar.

Real quick clarification I throw the word "headshot" around frequently. In EVE TSG there are no limits ( unless imposed by other cards) on just walking right up to your opponents home region and knocking on their tower. This means that despite one players potentially total control of the outer regions, nothing stops you from flying right by all that and just cutting tier empire off at the head, thus "head-shotting".

 The Amarr Deck is basically the opposite of the minmatar. That is, the amarr deck is in it for the long haul. Thats not to say that you aren't completely capable of just rushing the enemy, but the amarr deck isnt built for it like the minmatar is. The ships the amarrian deck start out with have very high defensive scores/abilities, and specialize in holding off the enemy while reinforcements arrive. Of all of the start decks the amarr have some of the most powerful, heavy hitting brutes, they just cost a lot so don't expect to be throwing your omen out right away.

Starting hand/Mulligan

With the amarr deck you aren't as worried about getting out there as you are setting up some solid income. The amarr deck has a lot of cards, which combined will allow you to reap in some crazy income. As the amarrian emperor ( or empress) your main concern should be building up your fianances, you want to try and keep a good pile of isk on hand so get those ships.

Ideally you end up with some locations that can be mined and some mining ships. Tormentors are perfect because they can't be killed by most early ships. If you start off with a lot of ships consider tossing some away, you NEED a income, so if you dont start off with some income nothing else matters. Unlike the minmatar deck, if you start off with a guardian or omen I would consider tossing them away pending what the rest of your hand looks like.

Your overall strategy will be to get some income, then focus on building up your fleet. Your deck's 2 main power cards are the guardian and the omen. The guardian cannot be targeted directly, and so it is capable of holding regions all by itself barring news cards. Combined with a fleet it's ability to move damage to itself means you can shave off 5 of their damage every round without jeopardizing itself. Overall you build up some cash, build a fleet and conquer, while keeping yourself safe. The deck's starbase structures ensure that you can afford to leave your home region a bit lighter on the defense letting you press the enemy elsewhere without being as worried about getting headshot.

Outer regions

Dam Torsad is a income generating powerhouse. its ability to let you play a location into it every turn means that it can very quickly, society of conscious thought lets you draw extra cards and stain lets you control whop gets to play what. 

If you get off to a good start and think you could hold two regions consider playing stain first, holding that and then expanding slowly. As long as you control stain no one else can play regions, which lets you force them to remain in their home regions. Any region that offers some solid income is good, sansha's nation can help you replay cards so if you have it its always a good choice.

Towers

For the most part, which tower you choose is a simple decision of offense VS defense. Now it can be difficult to try and figure that out since you need to pick a tower before you even do anything else. 

Holder Tower: If your unsure, you can never go wrong with this tower. Since it offers no income only upgrade it if you ever need it. This tower is basically a news card, that allows you to surprise your enemy with a sudden increase of 4 shields, when played right it can spell disaster for them. Once the game gets going be sure to keep some isk on hand in case your opponent surprised you with a attack on your home region.

Empiric Tower: If your feeling confident this tower gives all your ships that have patrol ( which is most of them) a attack boost. While you can't use this during your opponents turn, it can give you that surprise you need to take your opponents base. If he/she has left themselves open, but thinks you dont have the muscle to take them down, flipping this over and gaining a pile more attack can catch them off guard, and many games I have seen this flipped over signaling the downfall of a player.

Reclamation tower: In a unmodified starter deck this card is useless to you. The base amarr deck doesn't have the starabase structures to get up to 20, so until you add in some more shield giving cards I wouldn't use this card. It is expensive and its effect can't help you.

I welcome any feedback! What deck should be next?