Board Thread:Plants vs. Zombies Heroes/@comment-30319281-20161027122234

Hi folks!

The idea for this came to me as I was slowly plowing my way through the diamond league. I am contemplating a series of threads in which to discuss theory and practice to improve our multiplayer game experience. In this first part, I'll go through some basic concepts that have helped me think about competitive card playing such as PvZH, Hearthstone and Magic: the Gathering. Most of my experience comes from MtG, so pardon any terminology that may leak from there :) I am however a big PvZ aficionado and have played since the first PvZ and still play PvZ 2 daily on the iPad (mostly for the hilarious piniata parties). No experience with Garden Warfare though.

Card Advantage

The first concept I'd like to talk about is card advantage (CA). Both players start with 4 cards and a hero trick, but then the war of attrition begins. CA simply means that you get more cards than your opponents. All other things equal, we assume that you can trade your cards for theirs in combat, which means you will eventually win the war of attrition and come out ahead.

The easiest way to gain CA is simply to play card draw, if your hero has it, and get ahead if your opponent lacks card draw. Professor Brainstorm is perhaps the best at this. However, don't fill up your decks with card draw just yet, because in many cases paying 3 to draw 2 cards (the typical fare) may cost you too much tempo (see below) unless your deck is specifically built to stall the opponent. So card draw is not for every deck, even if you have access to it.

Another way to gain CA is forcing your opp to trade more than one card for one of your threats, perhaps by having a superior creature that your opp can't handle without trading it for at least two cards (a blocker and a direct damage trick, for example). The opposite is also true, when a player has the opportunity to take out several opposing threats with a single card (through mass removal or certain card synergies etc.)

Cost Advantage

Another important concept is cost advantage. This simply means that you're trading a card with a lower cost against an opponent's card with a higher cost. For example, you gain cost advantage when you take out a huge fatty with a 3-5 cost removal trick. Cost Advantage is not only a tactical consideration in a game, but a strategic one when building decks as well. Are you getting maximum value for your sun/brains, or could you be running some other combination of plants/zombies that would do more with less?

Tempo Advantage

I find this the most difficult concept to explain, but one way to think about it is “winning quickly”. The goal with tempo advantage is simply to put damage on your opp's life meter as quickly as possible, card advantage be damned. Spending a card to move a creature to an empty lane so as to trigger anti-hero is a good example of tempo advantage. Of course, you can't do this in the long run when the battlefield clogs up, but the point with tempo decks is to make sure that there won't be a long run. By aiming for a kill around turn 4-5, you potentially make a lot of your opponent's cards irrelevant, and punish him for keeping a hand without good 1-2 drops. This strategy is the most difficult to pull off, but it makes for quick games against unchallenging opponents.

An Example

Consider this opening sequence in a game of Solar Flare vs. The Smash.

Round 1: The Smash plays an Arm Wrestler in the roof lane, with the plan to tempt Solar Flare to drop Shroom for Two to defend (a common mistake, which causes the Arm Wrestler to grow to a 4/4), or at least draw out the hero specific removal (Sun Burn/Wheed Whack) so as to protect an upcoming Snorkel Zombie in the water lane.

Solar Flare declines the quick kill of Arm Wrestler with Weed Whack, hoping to beat The Smash at tempo instead. He plays Shroom for Two in the next lane instead, with the plan to buff it round 2 with Buff-Shroom and follow that up with a Berry Angry!

The teammates all deal 2 damage total to the opponents. At this point, card advantage, cost advantage and tempo are still equal.

Round 2: Assuming that Solar Flare is indeed going for the tempo win, The Smash drops Snorkel Zombie with the plan to buff it with Galvanize in the trick phase. Solar Flare is now really tempted to take out the Snorkel Zombie with Weed Whack, but instead follows through with the tempo plan, assuming it will be hard for The Smash to keep up. He drops Buff-Shroom and The Smash follows through with Galvanize.

The teammates all deal 6 damage. Since Solar Flare is using many small plants, The Smash's shield triggers now with the last mushroom, and he helps himself to a free Heroic Health, putting him back at 20 life! Solar Flare is at 12 life with an almost charged shield. Clearly, The Smash now has the tempo advantage, but he used a card only to gain life and another to buff his creature, so he is down two cards. Arguably, The Smash also has +1 cost advantage, since he got a free healing.

Round 3: The Smash now drops Sumo Wrestler in the Shroom for Two lane, with the aim to move one to the Arm Wrestler so as to grow it, and then kill it with a Rolling Stone in the trick phase to clear the path. Solar Flare, realizing that he has lost the tempo game, now decides to take out the 4/3 snorkler with a Berry Blast instead, and uses the Weed Whack on Arm Wrestler for good measure.

Come the trick phase, The Smash needs to change his plan since there is no longer an Arm Wrestler to grow. He moves the Buff Shroom instead and takes out one of the shroom clones with Rolling Stone. The other fights the Sumo Wrestler and dies.

Buff Shroom deals 2 damage to the Smash and the players are left with a 2/2 and a 2/1 respectively. Solar Flare used 2 tricks to take out two zombies, and the Smash used a Rolling Stone to take out one of the two clones and killed the other in combat without trading, so nobody gained any card advantage this round. Solar Flare is still ahead on cards and The Smash is still ahead on tempo. It remains to be seen in the coming rounds if The Smash can finish Solar Flare quickly enough for the card disadvantage to not matter.

Hope you enjoyed this little guide and that it will inspire some discussion in the continued thread! Happy multiplaying!

/urdjur 