The classical strategies of Faëria

Hi everyone!

In the first guide I made, we saw how to avoid classical mistakes when deckbuilding (here), and I told you we have to choose between events and structures and we shouldn't pick all of them because it would create a 1000 cards deck. Well it's great, but I never told you how to choose.

Basis : why should I choose a strategy?
The first thing to know before choosing any card is "which strategy am I trying to build?". Indeed, a strategy is crucial for your deck. A deck with a bit of everything can work, but you will then increase the luck-dependence of it, or add 100 cards. Plus, you are going to miss a lot of great combos. Indeed, a lot of cards a working well together if they are both trying to achieve something precise.

I just told you playing a deck with a bit of everything increase the luck-dependence, maybe it's not very clear, so I'll explain why : for example, take a deck with 10 rush cards (good for attacking fast), 10 economical cards, 10 late game cards, and 10 small creatures. Well, if you start with your rush cards in your hand, than draw your economical and harvesters (creatures costing no faeria and so able to harvest your firsts faerias), and then your lategame cards, you'll probably crush your opponent! But imagine if it's the opposite? You start by drawing your lategame cards, even with a harvester you are going to have some troubles if your enemy is rushing or playing mass economy. And when you are going to draw your rushing cards, you will be in lategame already and those cards will be completely useless.

Now with a deck where all cards are working for one strategy, let's say a rush, you don't have this issue, as all of your cards are supposed to be good for rushing! Of course some of them will still be better in your starting hand, and some later, but you shouldn't draw a card and say "crap".

The different strategies
All right, now let's see quickly what are the classical strategies known in faëria so far. It will help you pick one, but also recognize your opponent's strategy and so know better how to react and what you can expect from him.

1. The rush : a "rush" is a very fast attack. Rushing in faeria mean create land right to your opponent's orb without spending 2 turns to collect your faeria spot (you can collect it with flying creatures, swimming creatures, or you can create faeria with events or abilities). A rush can have multiple goals : the best is, of course, striking so fast you kill your opponent before he can react, but a good player will probably be able to at least survive. So a rush is more a fast attack to take an advantage for the rest of the game, or annoy your opponent to prevent him to play his strategy. Let's take some examples. 1. You can strike your opponent's orb hard to finally finish him later with an event, or an hast, etc. 2. You can use aquatic creatures to control where your opponent plays his lands, and so take the landcontrol for the rest of the game. 3. You can use flying creatures to prevent your opponent to harvest or create economical structures. And of course you can make a bit of the three.

2. The economical boom : a "boom" is playing a lot of economical cards fast (by taking some risks as you are spending everything in economy and nothing in defenses), to have a so strong economy you can then play tons of creatures in mid-late game and outnumber your opponent with medium or strong creatures. You can boom the gold, or the faeria, or both. A gold-only deck (where you need 0 faëria or barely) is often played with a gold boom.

3. The teching : teching is playing fast a lot of structures that gives bonuses to your creatures to then have stronger creatures then your opponent. Once again you take a risk as you spend all your money in teching structures who can't defend, and so are weaker in early game. But if your opponent don't stop you, you'll have incredibly stronger creatures than him and probably win the late game.

4. The death clock : a death clock is a special strategy who deal damages to your opponent orb every turn, forcing him to attack you if he don't wanna die slowly. As you are sure your opponent will attack you, as your long range weapons can't defend themselves well and as you don't need to leave your lands to win, this strategy is barely always played with a "fortress" deck, using a lot of defensive cards like walls, towers or high life creatures.

5. The turtle : it is a variant of the death clock. Here, you play very defensive but you don't deal damages every turn, so your opponent don't have a death clock in his mind. You are more defending yourself, waiting for late game where you are sure you'll win with some incredibly strong creatures. Or you simply stay in your base because you have a way to kill your opponent from there (without dealing dmgs/turn like in the death clock strategy).

6. The mass creatures : or "zerg mode", is based on playing a lot of small and cheap creatures you are going to buff later with events, structures or creatures giving a bonus to nearby allied creature, or simply to outnumber your opponent.

7. The backdoor : backdoor is a very perfidious way to win. Backdooring your opponent is waiting him to leave his base or even let only one spot free next to his orb to rush it with a creature and destroy the orb very fast even if your opponent is completely winning. For backdoor, you can use some haste creatures (creature who can move and attack the turn they come into play), or creatures with power bonuses against orb, and protect them with some structures/event to be sure they stay alive long enough to destroy the orb. Your opponent will probably don't like it, as he was sure to win one sec ago. This strategy works well with a first rush dealing a lot of damages to your opponent, to then finish him with a backdoor.

8. The clock control : this particular deck is using a lot of cards having bonuses during morning or night, and a lot of cards who can change the time of the day, so you always have your bonuses up. It is a very powerful deck, even if weak in start game, but a hard one to play! (The order of action is very important and you always have to plan your actions multiple turns fast). So it's better for more advanced player.

9. The land control : the land control deck try to use mass lands and abilities having an impact on lands to take the map control fast and then use it in mid-late game to win (by, for example, blocking your opponent or placing a land next to your opponent's orb, as we saw in the land placement guide). It is also a very difficult deck to play as you have to manage a hard mid-game (you spent a lot for taking the board advantage, and so you will be weaker than your opponent in the early mid game).

10. The land denying : here, instead of taking the board control with your lands, you annoy your opponent by reducing the number of lands he has/by making his lands completely useless. For that, you use conquest, destroy land, and turn all his lands into useless lands for him (for example, into lakes if he plays red green or yellow). This one is also harder to play.

11. The tradebase : a tradebase is when both player are striking the opponent orb without even trying to defend their own. The faster win. The tradebase deck is made so you are sure to win this tradebase. For this, you can use cards with bonuses against orb to be sure you deal more damages than your opponent, or prevent your orb to be attacked with several abilities/events/structures to be sure it survive longer than his (with healing events for example).

Which color for my strategy?
1. Yellow : rush, backdoor, clock control, tradebase, land control (possible but better mixed with other colors). 2. Blue : rush, mass creatures with bonuses (zerg), land denying, teching (better in mid-game, less efficient if the game last too long), boom (faeria; better when mixed with yellow). 3. Green : turtle, teching, land denying (less efficient than blue one), tradebase, boom (action points). 4. Red : boom (gold), death clock, turtle, teching.

But you are not forced to play a mono color deck, and some strategies works better when they are made with mixed colors decks. Note that having one card of another color don't mean your deck is bi-color. A bi-color deck is using several cards of each color.

5. Yellow / blue : boom (mass faeria), rush, clock control, land control. 6. Yellow / green : tradebase. 7. Yellow / red : boom (faeria + gold, less efficient than blue/red if the game lasts), death clock, land control. 8. Blue / green : teching, land denying. 9. Blue / red : boom (gold+faeria), (boom)-tech-healing (variant of teching, using red structures for power bonuses and blue heal to have very strong creatures ; very expansive, often need a boom first), mass creatures (using red gold production to cast even more creatures), land denying. 10. Red / green : teching, turtle.

Finally, some decks are even using 3 or 4 colors, but they are very exotic and should only be played by veteran players who exactly know what they are doing (and need a perfect deckbuild).