World of Myths - Starting Out

The Beginner Player

Every new player in World of Myths starts out with the same card and default deck collection and the same understanding of the game, as gained from the tutorial. The starting collection, while adequate, provides decks that have inherent weaknesses that players will discover for themselves in time and will learn to eliminate as they open more packs or take advantage of some of the excellent offers in the Store.

The problem, as with everything, is that we all want it now - the new cards we get must all be good and obtaining them must immediately be followed by success in ranked play. It's rare that our reality matches such desires. This blog will try to help newer players by attempting to give good advice on understanding the game at its core, to build foundations solid enough that you will be able to trust your own instincts in future, regardless of the strength of your collection. This first article will cover the first decisions made in World of Myths, some tactical basics and will finish off with a discussion on how to use the Greek leader Poseidon as a means of building your collection.

The Starting Collection

Many people choose a starting Mythology based on its flavour or some particular affinity they may have for it, whether from historical works such as the Iliad or more modern works of fiction such as Percy Jackson. However, in World of Myths early progress is more likely to be influenced by one's card collection and the decks one can build with it.

Each player starts the game with the same collection once the tutorial is done: 1 "default" deck per Mythology (referred to as a faction hereafter) and 2 copies of the card Siege Tactics, as well as 1 pack of 5 random cards. The 5 default decks have been posted under the "Decks" section on the unofficial deck builder website www.womdb.net by Inedyalkov. Understanding how to play each of these decks, and more importantly how to improve them, will be critical to the speed with which you progress from the start. I will deal with each in turn as this blog series progresses.

General Strategy Basics

There are many different strategies in World of Myths, but mastery of some will be more vital than others. I will introduce these slowly. For now, we need to understand only two major aspects of play: the leader and managing the centre temple.

Pedestal

Each leader except for the neutral Dyadko has an ability that uses the keyword "Pedestal". This means that the ability is only active when the leader is on the pedestal, an area on the right side of the screen where it cannot be attacked or damaged by the opponent but cannot participate in battle for you either.

Entering the battlefield

By spending 3 faith during your attack phase any time after the first turn your leader may enter the battlefield, moving from the pedestal to the left side of the screen. Here it can either attack enemy temples or leader (if also on the battlefield) or can defend your temples during your defence phase, but not both! If your leader attacks it becomes "exhausted" (the image becomes black to indicate it cannot participate in battle for the moment). While "ready" (aka not exhausted) your leader may defend your temples but cannot defend itself if it is attacked by the enemy units and/or leader. The leader returns to the pedestal whether it participated in battle or not at the end of your defence phase. While it is true that not all leaders are suited to being on the battlefield, for tactical reasons even these leaders may get out there and do some heavy lifting themselves.

Attacking the centre temple

Many players are seduced by the +2 power spoils from successful attacks against the left temple, but in truth this is often the worst temple to attack first. The best choice, depending on circumstance of course, is the centre temple. Attacking with 1 power more than that possessed by the ready defenders, or with one's weakest unit against any number units with only 1 endurance each, will ensure that the opponent loses a unit (sometimes a good one!). This stalls the opponent's development, especially if you can exploit it, and sometimes one can win the game directly out of the "opening", as it were. While not always successful, this strategy punishes the opponent with a bad hand of cards.

Defending the centre temple

Against players who attack your centre temple as described above, if becomes necessary to understand what circumstances cause the strategy to work. Very often decks that can only play 1 unit per turn end up just losing that unit each time. Decks with many units with only 1 endurance suffer in the same way. Learn to find and play the efficient units with >1 endurance, and value the cheaper-costed ones that bring other units into play via a "Summon" or "Deathstare" ability, as these often give some cannon fodder to feed to the centre temple while you "go wide" in search of counter play.

Winning with Poseidon

Attacking the centre temple is a strategy that the starting Greek leader, Poseidon, is ideally suited to. It is natural therefore that we discuss him first.

Poseidon's pedestal ability exhausts the "most expensive" enemy unit when you play the first unit with a cost of 3 or lower each turn. "Most expensive enemy" is the unit with the highest faith cost, and in the event of a tie the game engine will choose one of those with the highest cost at random. It is important to note that "most expensive" does not necessarily equate to the unit that has the greatest threat to your position.

The Default Greek deck aims towards creating a "tempo" gameplay style for Poseidon. That is to say, it provides an endless stream of threats while preventing the opponent's army from getting maximum use out of its units by continually exhausting one of them. Sometimes the most expensive unit is not the one you want to exhaust, but if the deck is built and piloted correctly a lot of the time this does not matter.

For it to work, the deck naturally needs a high number of units that cost 3 or less - there is little point in playing Poseidon if you are not going to try get optimal use out of his ability! The Default Greek deck has 15 units that cost 3 or less, which is a decent enough start but could be better. The problem with the deck, however, is that these units are not only too few in number to continually use the leader's pedestal ability effectively, they also lack any long term impact since most of them have either 1 power or 1 endurance. While this deck is decent enough starting out and earning some gold with which to open packs, you will find that it will need major surgery before it is competitive in ranked play.

Rebuilding Default Greek on Day 1

Some of the cards in the Default Greek deck have no place in a strategy that relies on attacking as soon as possible. The primary offenders are Acropolis Guard and Apple of Discord. The former can neither attack nor trigger Poseidon's pedestal ability, while the latter spell requires a large unit to be in play first for its effect to work and then only provides a single hit with this power bonus. They should be substituted for the cards Siege Tactics and Chubby Stone-Eater, which are earned during the tutorial. These cards directly damage the opponent's temples, and while Chubby only has 1 power, it does have 3 endurance which can be exploited if you place him on the left flank (aka the leftmost unit) of your army so that it will gain the benefit of the +2 power spoils taken from dealing damage to the opponent's left hand temple.

The deck has many units with 1 power, so they aren't going to do much damage by themselves. To help them out, bring in the 2 copies of Praise the Sun in the starting collection in place of Stoic Spartan and one of the Cave Sirens. These cards should give your starting units some impact. Note that once you have used Praise the Sun to increase a unit's power, that change is permanent.

To help with "finishing" the game off, 2 Sneaky Goblins (which have Rush and can therefore attack the turn they enter the battlefield) can be brought in to replace the two Ghost of Plataea, as these have little impact on the board and do not trigger Poseidon's pedestal ability. Finally, the remaining Cave Siren should be replaced with the second Dark Paladin in the starting collection. The Paladins and Calydonian Boars will give the deck more late game sustain.

While it is true that the number of units that will activate Poisedon's ability has remained the same, the chaff has been replaced with cards that will have an effect on the board and therefore the game state.

The final deck list is here: Basic Poseidon

Tactics

Poseidon's pedestal ability relies on exhausting one unit and then attacking the opponent's centre temple with enough damage to either force the opponent to destroy a unit or block with a unit that has only 1 endurance. Either way the opponent loses a unit while you gained one that turn, no matter how small. Once the central temple is down, hopefully you will have enough force on the battle field to quickly destroy the side temples in mass attacks, or use Siege Tactics and Chubby to pick off the last few points of health. Don't forget that Poseidon's pedestal ability is a single use effect, so once you've exhausted an enemy unit the leader can freely enter the battlefield to contribute to the attack as an additional unit.

Cards for Improvement

Whether you choose to craft these cards or just wait to get them from packs, the following cards will greatly strengthen the Poseidon Tempo deck and make it less reliant on the late game heavy hitters: Priest of the Waves, Thirsty Emposai, Fearless Psiloi, Priest of the Melee, Bridgeburners, Untapped Potential, Complex Strategem, Tarantine Cavalry, Phoebe's Amazons, and Helen the Beauty.

Play-by-Play Sample Game

The following game was played in Ranked Mode, using an account I created specifically for this blog: ForScience. This game used the Basic Poseidon deck above, and highlights how attacking the centre temple in concert with Poseidon's pedestal ability puts increasing pressure on the opponent, until they are practically forced into making a game losing mistake. Click images for a larger view.

Turn 1

The starting hand, after drawing a card, shows some promise, with 2 units that can be used to exhaust enemy units, as well as Praise the Sun and the Rush unit, Sneaky Goblin. The first play is to use all 3 faith to summon the Cursed Impling and exhaust the opponent's Fresh Recruit.

Turn 2

The opponent did nothing on its first turn. While it is possible to play Warrior of Thebes to exhaust the Fresh Recruit and then attack the centre temple with the Impling to force destruction of the Recruit, it is better to bring Poseidon onto the battlefield to attack the centre temple instead. This allows us to keep the Warrior to exhaust a stronger enemy unit, the Impling retains 2 endurance, and we can leave 1 faith open to play Praise the Sun on the Impling and block if the enemy leader decides to attack on their turn.

Turn 3

The opponent played Anhanga on their turn, a 4 power unit that damages the weakest friendly temple. We can now exhaust Anhanga with the Warrior of Thebes, leaving 3 faith open for another centre temple attack, and the opponent loses another unit without us spending a card or any endurance.

Turn 4

The opponent again only played 1 unit, so we rinse and repeat - play a unit with cost 3 or less to exhaust the enemy unit, and kill it with a centre temple attack from the leader. This destroys the first temple, we have 5 power in play versus the opponent's zero, and while we can no longer force the opponent to destroy his own units we have 2 3-cost units in hand to help clear the way for the assault on the final two temples. We do not fear an enemy attack on the centre temple as we will have 3 ready defenders.

Opponent's turn 4

Desperate to get some kind of board presence, the opponent plays a unit and then brings the leader onto the battlefield. He decides to attack our leader. Two damage to our face is much less important than the endurance on our units, so we allow the damage and declare no defence.

Turn 5

Our opponent's last turn has exposed the leader to danger, however, and this was a game-ending mistake. With 7 faith available we can play the Sneaky Goblin, bring Poseidon to the battlefield, and attack with everything against the enemy leader. This is enough to kill the opponent's leader, whether he blocks with his unit or not. GG.

Winning within the first 5 turns unlocks the POGer title achievement - well done, ForScience!

Good luck opening those packs and don't forget to watch out for the cards listed above that can improve the Basic Poseidon deck.

I hope that you enjoyed this article and were able to learn something from it. Until next time. This article is authored by LordThundyr (@lordthundyr on the WoM Discord channel)