New Player Advice

[shad]

Hi everyone, I just started playing this weekend and have never played a card game like this before. I've played a bunch and made it to rank 15 so far and with the double XP weekend I've stockpiled a decent amount of gold and wildcards. What should I be spending the gold on at this point and any suggestions for the wildcards?

[Sudhir]

My personal suggestion would be save up your gold while you learn the game and then spend it on Draft tickets to build out your collection. Playing multiple nations in ranked will teach you basic principals of the game, though note that Draft and Ranked are different. That said, the skills you learn in one will definitely help you in the other.

[General E. Drunk]

Get the Theater of War campaigns! They are fun and reward you with some useful cards!

[Pilgrim]

The game is quite generous with gold compared to other CCGs so I spent a lot of time in Draft getting the hang of it. That way you are (in theory but no in practice obv) on equal terms to other players as you all have random access to all cards.

That way you get to play around with all the different nations and do fun random stuff.

Once you know which nations what kinds of deck you think are fun to play, then set about making a couple and playing ranked.

Personally I only enjoy Kards (and other CCGs) when I'm playing for me to just have fun - and never worry too much about winning and climbing the ladder!

[CatGrenade]

If you can get good at draft that is the most time and gold efficient way to build a collection. If you can get 3-4 wins on average you should be coming out ahead. You get bonuses randomly with a decent probability of being limited-elite. You get a pack and a bit of gold that nets neutral. Together that's coming out ahead of just buying packs. If you can do better than that on average its no question draft puts you far ahead. 6-7 wins puts you at going infinite (5 wins gets you extremely close to infinite unless you play many hours a day).

The competition in draft isn't too bad in this game. If you study the cards and basic draft theory you should be able to hit the break even point immediately. I hit going infinite immediately in draft.

If you'd like, one of the better players in the game, ToDieIsGain, has a discord server with a good amount of resources available to learn draft theory. His draft tier lists at the least should prove useful. A number of skilled drafters reside there and will happily assist in whatever way you'd like. https://discord.gg/4DcDryVV That's the server if you wish to check it out. The newbie nook section has the information available. If you have any interest at all in draft I strongly recommend looking there first.

If you don't want to draft that's fine. There are a few approaches to take in that case. You can wait for the next balance patch to see what the next meta will be and focus all efforts on crafting the next meta deck to grind with. You could just craft the best aggro deck you can right now (aggro is cheaper to make and effective, barely more than starter cards can get you to field marshall with good aggro play).

Alternatively you could focus on crafting USA's powerful universally useful cards. The reasoning here is that USA is a viable to ideal ally with any nation and most archetypes. This gives you value almost regardless what you play at any moment until you have the collection to support more variety. It means you can play more things well enough in the interim.

If you have seen a certain deck archetype that appeals to you there is probably merit in just focusing on making that. You can ask in the Kards discord if its a reasonable choice and what the order of priorities should be. Along with how to make a more budget variant.

What path you take depends on what you want to do personally, but either way you can find some additional guidance to do so more efficiently.

If you are going the buying packs route with your gold there are arguments for both basic packs and officer packs. Generally speaking, most consider basic packs better initially until you have a solid amount of the commons and limiteds. Some say basics are technically better all the way, but you will experience dry streaks. This strategy leans on the wildcard rewards for opening 6 packs and the crate rewards down the line. The other school of thought is to switch to officer packs at around 30-50% completion of standards/limiteds.

Neither route is more efficient than just drafting at a merely decent level, but that is dependent on learning the game well enough to succeed to that level. Should be doable if you are willing to use the resources available.

Another resource for draft theory, a more high level one, is available in 2 parts here: https://playkards.com/news/read/44/The-ultimate-draft-guide

Its worth the read. Some specifics are outdated, but the theory and concepts are not. Its still a valuable resource.

Edit- P.S. If you go the buying packs route the general order of priorities should be Base set, Breakthrough set, Alliance set. This is pretty widely agreed upon. Mixing in Theaters of War for Nations you prefer or want the specific cards from can be done whenever fitting and is good value for gold.

[shad]

Thank you all very much for the help and particularly CatGrenade for the lengthy write-up; I really appreciate it. I briefly checked out the discord earlier, but I'll revisit it and take a more in depth look. Thanks again for taking the time to help out a new player!

[mudakonn]

Well , from lvl 10 up the ladder is all combo and aggro to counter combo. So while it could be more gold effective to run aggro or combo as well you first need to craft the deck (and maybe you dont even have all the wilds needed) and the experience is just plain boring. Draft still resembles little bit the original idea of combined arms warfare but of course You will meet pros who play very well and capitalize on your lack of experience.

But hey, in ladder you either wait the opp combo to resolve or rush your aggro. So like they say here "up to you"

[Complex Strategy]

Some tips I think will be really useful for pretty much all new users
1. Play each nation and reach level 7 with all of them. The cards gotten from national progression right at the start are great as a new player espeically the special and elite. These will right out of the gate give a good boost to your deck

2. Buy about 10 base packs from the core set. These give you a small boost to your collection and help you flesh your decks out a little bit. The starter bundle is also a really good purchase if you want to spend actual money in the game.

3. After that I would strongly suggest to save gold and buy the Theaters of War campaigns as these contain for the most part a set of good to really good cards for that nation. They are a great/consistent boost to a collection plus you also get some solo content and a lot of cosmetic stuff.

3.5 - Alternatively you could also consider looking towards getting the catalyst mini expansion for 250 gold which gives you a host of new cards for many different nations which would be another good boost to your decks.

4. After that the options kinda come down to two things. Either you could look into playing draft or start buying packs. Draft plays different but if you get good at it can reap massive rewards. Buying packs as the other option should roughly be done by getting regular packs until you get about 30% of the standards and limiteds of a set (can be checked in collection screen) and then moving towards officer packs which always give rare cards. As to which set you want it's probably going to be Base > Breakthrough > Alliegence although the May expansion is also coming soon which might fit into that somewhere else.
If you got to buy breakthrough packs ask yourself if you'll ever get the mini set catalyst as you have the potential to open catalyst cards in breakthrough packs. This will make the purchase of catalyst less useful.

[General E. Drunk]

Some pretty solid advice from Complex Strategy

[Hulk]

Originally posted by Complex Strategy:

Some tips I think will be really useful for pretty much all new users
1. Play each nation and reach level 7 with all of them. The cards gotten from national progression right at the start are great as a new player espeically the special and elite. These will right out of the gate give a good boost to your deck

2. Buy about 10 base packs from the core set. These give you a small boost to your collection and help you flesh your decks out a little bit. The starter bundle is also a really good purchase if you want to spend actual money in the game.

3. After that I would strongly suggest to save gold and buy the Theaters of War campaigns as these contain for the most part a set of good to really good cards for that nation. They are a great/consistent boost to a collection plus you also get some solo content and a lot of cosmetic stuff.

3.5 - Alternatively you could also consider looking towards getting the catalyst mini expansion for 250 gold which gives you a host of new cards for many different nations which would be another good boost to your decks.

4. After that the options kinda come down to two things. Either you could look into playing draft or start buying packs. Draft plays different but if you get good at it can reap massive rewards. Buying packs as the other option should roughly be done by getting regular packs until you get about 30% of the standards and limiteds of a set (can be checked in collection screen) and then moving towards officer packs which always give rare cards. As to which set you want it's probably going to be Base > Breakthrough > Alliegence although the May expansion is also coming soon which might fit into that somewhere else.
If you got to buy breakthrough packs ask yourself if you'll ever get the mini set catalyst as you have the potential to open catalyst cards in breakthrough packs. This will make the purchase of catalyst less useful.

Thanks!