Hello again and welcome! Tommy of Titan back to elaborate on the concept of the mulligan. In this game your hand operates in a considerably different way than it does in other games. That’s why we are first going to take a look at a few reasons why it is so different, and then what that means for how we should manage our opening hand.
The first thing we need to talk about is actually resources. Resources in this game are drastically different from the majority of other card games (see BananaCrapshoot’s article from earlier this week found here: https://thesidescheme.wixsite.com/thesidescheme/post/new-warriors-series-advantages) The primary way to generate a resource is to discard a card from your hand. This typically generates one resource. In addition to that, paying for a 3 cost card is quite often using 3 cards from your hand. This can really cripple your hand and make it so that you have very limited options for the remainder of the turn. There are many cards however, that can stay on the table, and generate resources for an extended amount of time. This can greatly relieve stress on your hand and open up your lines of play.
Ok, now that we got that out of the way let’s talk about your actual hand. In a lot of games your starting hand is often the most important of all the hands you will have throughout the game. It will set the pace for what you can do the rest of the game. So often in this game you may here people speak of getting setup or online. This typically refers to playing cards that build your board state. It can also refer to getting the tools in place to do damage or remove threat. Good examples of these things are Iron Man’s suit or Black Panther’s upgrades.
Possibly even more important than the cards we just referred to, are cards that generate additional resources or allow you to draw more cards. I cannot stress how important these cards are to play early in the game. Every turn that passes decreases the value of these cards and they become less and less impactful to play from your hand. Think of it this way, if you play Avengers Mansion on round 1 of a 10 round game, it will allow your team to draw 10 cards over the course of the game. If you play it on round 5 of a 10 round game it will literally give you half of the value. The same theory applies to any card that generates resources such as God of Thunder.
Now the same thing can be said about a card that sticks to the table and deals damage every round. The difference is that those cards have a direct impact on win conditions as opposed to an indirect impact. At the end of the game if you draw a bunch of cards that generate you resources it will certainly hurt your chances of winning.
The last type of card that you really want to see in your first hand are the actual resource cards. I’m talking about the cards that generate multiple resources when discarded from your hand to play a card. These cards are great for allowing you to setup more cards on the table round 1. Again, having these additional resources round 1 is going to allow you to play more cards on the table, which will maximize their impact on the game.
So the cards we want in our opening hand are the cards that stay on the table for the entire game, or at least a prolonged period of time. Ideally we want resource generating cards, draw cards, and damage dealing cards. Also the resource cards that will allow us to play more of these cards. Allies can be useful as well but aren’t as important as these other cards listed in most scenarios. Lastly, I typically place the least value on events for your starting hand. In most cases I would recommend aggressively discarding cards for your mulligan in order to find the cards I listed above. It’s also important to take into consideration the costs of the cards you’re looking at in your hand. You should be thinking about how you will play out the cards you’re keeping and what cards you are hoping to draw.
I hope this gives you some useful information and can help you sculpt that perfect hand at the start of the game. As always, if you are interested in more content please stay tuned here for more articles, as well as checking out The Side Scheme on FB, YouTube, Twitch, Patreon, and wherever you listen to Podcasts. I’m Tommy of Titan ominously drifting into the shadows.