Thankfully,
@Easha has written a set of comprehensive guides about our intro decks and how to improve pre-constructed decks - we are extremely happy that we can share them here with you. Please make sure to also read the
general overview in addition to the specific guides.
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My name is Easha Dustfeather, member of the Lodge of Sorceresses and co-author of the Glittering Girly Gwent Gaming blog. As author of the starter deck guides I already explained how to play the free starter decks provided to every player. With the addition of pre-constructed intro decks for sale in Shupe’s shop, I decided to write a guide for them as well, just like I did for the Syndicate starter pack deck.
It is meant for players who just started the game and decided to buy those intro decks. This guide explains how to improve and use them.
First of all the leader ability has been changed from
Mahakam Forge to
Guerilla Tactics. While the armour helps to prevent some damage, barely any card in the deck has inherent synergy with one point of extra armour. The leader ability itself is only worth five points in a vacuum.
Guerilla Tactics is more flexible as you can use it offensively to interrupt the effect of row-restricted engines (cards with ongoing effects like
Xavier Moran) and improve the value of your
Lacerate; and defensively to boost your fragile engines and keep them in the right row if they are row-locked.
The Stratagem has been changed from
Enchanted Armor to
Tactical Advantage. There are no cards that benefit from being buffed in your hand and five points are simply better than three.
The original list also lacked interaction with the opponent’s side of the board. While it is easier for a new player to focus on their own plays, completely neglecting what your opponent is doing is not advised. For this reason cards which can meddle with your opponent’s game plan like
Milaen,
Dorregaray of Vole and
Geralt of Rivia were added to the deck.
Points over time
In general the deck aims for long rounds.
Dwarven Berserker,
Mahakam Defender and
Xavier Moran are engine cards that generate value over time and they need a long round to shine. You can enable all of them using
Miner’s Order ability: It provides Armour for the Berserker and an initial boost to the Mahakam Defender.
Pavko Gale is another engine, but not focused on getting points like the ones mentioned above, but removing points from your opponent’s board. Try to kill their engines with it and mind the second part of his effect – preferably play it in a round where you do not want to use Dorregaray of Vole or Geralt of Rivia as they are non-Scoia’tael units and would weaken its damage.
Resilience
Zoltan Chivay and
Gabor Zigrin’s Melee effect is Resilience which means they will not be removed from the board after the round they were played in has ended. This means that you should use them in either round 1 or 2 to benefit from it. If you get Gabor in Round 3 you can still use the Ranged effect, as Resilience is no longer necessary – there won’t be a 4th round after all. Resilience will only work once, so if you already used that effect from round 1 to round 2, they will not stay on the board after round 2 has ended. It is of advantage to start a round while already having points on the board. If you used Resilience Round 1 and the cards at your hand are good, you can attempt to 2-0 your opponent (preferably if you already have nine points from both resilient units.
If your opponent won round 1 and passed without playing any cards (also known as drypassing), those resilient units are a good card to take the round and start with a small advantage into the next one.
Resilience will also carry over all Statuses applied to a unit into the next round, which enables you to do the following: If you use
Dryad Enchantress on Zoltan Chivay, it will get four Vitality, so if you pass early enough after playing Enchantress, Zoltan will continue boosting itself in the next round. The other good target for the Enchantress is Dwarven Berserker before it expended its Armour.
The more, the merrier
Try to put all your dwarves in the same row to improve the effects of
Barclay Els and
Mahakam Guard. While this makes your deck vulnerable to
Lacerate, it also improves the Ranged effect of
Dennis Cranmer. To have enough room for those, play other cards that are not row restricted into the other row but also consider the circumstances: Play Milaen where she has the better effect for you depending on the situation, even if you lose one point on your dwarves.
Other cards
Make sure to place
Mahakam Horn in the centre of a row filled with units, so your opponent does not kill a unit adjacent to the trap before passing which would only give you four points instead of the expected eight.
Do not forget to only have one copy of
Mahakam Volunteers in your hand and the other one in the deck so you can use their effect. Sometimes it is wiser o not take the last Mulligan if you already have one copy in hand. You will regret it if you draw the second one.
