--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Might and Magic: Duel of Champions---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Game overview, guide for beginners and strategy tips-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------V4.12 By Robert Watts (robvalue).

Contact me: robvalue(at)yahoo.com Replace (at) with @ in the above! (Putting my email address in full has led to spam barrages in the past due to bots reading random webpages or something.) Feel free to send any feedback or corrections, no matter how small. (But please be specific!) All advice given about card choices and strategy are based on my own opinion after a large amount of time playing this game. Your opinion may differ, and that is fine! This is meant as a guide only. If you happen to play me and wonder why I'm not following my own advice, I may be either trying something weird out, or more likely having a bad day and not thinking straight! ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Using the guide-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------This is a very long guide, so I recommend reading it a section at a time. To jump to a section in this guide, look at the reference number beside the part you want to go to (for example #1.62). Press Ctrl+F to bring up the find function, and type in this reference. Now press the "next" button twice to get to the section. When I refer to a section during the guide, I miss out the # sign, so add this at the front to do a search. If you are cross referencing several sections, I recommend opening the guide in multiple windows. I will use the abbrevation DoC for Duel of Champions. If you come across a term I use that you aren't familiar with, please check section 8.02 for jargon. If you are still unsure what I'm talking about, please email me so I can explain what it means and add it to the jargon section to avoid future misunderstandings. If you have read the guide before, check out 8.05 for the version history, to see what is new. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Table of contents----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------#1.00 Introduction #1.01 #1.02 #1.03 #1.04 #1.05 #1.06 #1.07 Overview of DoC What is DoC? Is it a tradable card game? is it really free to play? Is it any good? How do I get the game and make an account? Picking a faction

#2.00 The tutorial levels

#2.01 #2.02 #2.03 #2.04

Boot Camp Orc Invasion Wolf Soldiers Spending your winnings

#3.00 Getting around the menus #3.01 #3.02 #3.03 #3.04 #3.05 The main menu News, notifications, friends and chatting The main menu buttons Profile / achievements tab Shop tab #3.05A Featured #3.05B Consumables #3.05C Packs, and which to buy #3.05D Decks #3.05E Redeem code, free gifts Cards and Decks tab #3.06A Viewing your cards and decks #3.06B Opening packs #3.06C Editing your decks #3.06D Deleting decks #3.06E Creating new decks #3.06F Spreadsheet to track your collection Infernal Pit tab Leaderboards tab Daily rewards

#3.06

#3.07 #3.08 #3.09

#4.00 Improving your starter deck #4.01 #4.02 #4.03 #4.04 #4.05 #4.06 #4.07 #4.08 #4.09 #4.10 #4.11 #4.12 #4.13 #4.14 Deck building guidelines Neutral cards Inferno faction Necropolis faction Haven faction Water spells Earth spells Primal spells Fire spells Air spells Light spells Dark spells Events What to buy from the shop

#5.00 Playing online and ELO ratings #5.01 #5.02 #5.03 #5.04 #5.05 #5.06 Finding an online opponent The reward system and using boosts Jackpot tournaments Swiss tournaments Practising against friends Procedure for players being abusive

#6.00 Improving your playing skills #6.01 #6.02 #6.03 #6.04 Rules and terminology Attacking Life totals, blocking and races to win Important cards to remember, formations

#6.05 #6.06 #6.07 #6.08 #6.09 #6.10

Order of actions in a turn When to take a mulligan Positioning flyers Bluffing Unusual plays Events

#7.00 More on deck building #7.01 General considerations #7.01A What is my overall strategy? #7.01B What Hero is right for my strategy? #7.01C How do I deal with my opponent's cards? #7.01D What maxout is appropriate for my strategy? #7.02 Stronghold #7.03 Sanctuary #7.04 Further spells and starter faction cards #7.04A Inferno faction #7.04B Necropolis faction #7.04C Haven faction #7.04D Nuetral faction #7.04E Water spells #7.04F Earth spells #7.04G Primal spells #7.04H Fire spells #7.04I Air spells #7.04J Light spells #7.04K Dark spells #7.04L Events #8.00 Extras #8.01 #8.02 #8.03 #8.04 #8.05 Known bugs Game and guide jargon Chatting to other players on the forum Achievement guide Version history and credits

------------------------------------------------------------------------------#1.00 Introduction ------------------------------------------------------------------------------This is a guide for the game Might and Magic: Duel of Champions, which is available on various formats. It is written from the point of view of the PC version, which is the one I have, but should be equally valid for all versions. It is aimed mainly at new players, explaining what the game is about and whether it is right for you. It shows you how to get started, explains the interface, and shows you how to build a good deck. It also contains strategy tips which may be useful not just to beginners but for current players who may find something they haven't thought about before! If you are already playing DoC and know all the basics, you may want to skip to the strategy section right away (6.00 onwards). I won't go through the very basics of the rules of the game- this guide is long enough! I would be mainly duplicating the help file which is already in the game, and the tutorial does a good job of teaching you how to play. To view the help file, get to the main menu and click the question mark in the bottom left corner. I recommend reading this, whether or not you already have. It will mean a lot more to you once you've started playing.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------#1.01 Overview of DoC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------These sections are for potential new players, giving you an idea of what this game is like and if it's a game you'd want to play. It hopefully addresses some of the most common questions about it, and then shows you how to get the game and start it all up. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------#1.02 What is DoC? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------DoC is a digital collectable card game. It bears some similarity to Magic: The Gathering, although it plays quite differently. Perhaps the most striking changes are the absence of any "land" cards to produce "mana", and the fact that you cannot do anything during your opponent's turn. You choose a Hero card, and this represents the leader of your army. Each Hero has various types of cards that they can use, from which you build up a deck. You then use this deck to battle another Hero, either against the AI or another player online. You use creatures to attack the opponent, and you win by reducing their life to zero. You use other cards to assist your creatures, kill the opponent's creatures, draw cards, and do various other things. You get given a free starter deck, of which you have a choice of 3. You then earn in-game currency just by playing, which you can use to buy booster packs to get more cards for your deck. You can see a list of all the cards in the game here: (spoilers!) http://www.mmdoc.net/card_list/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------#1.03 Is it a tradable card game? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------Games like Magic are called trading card games because you can trade cards you don't want for ones which will improve your deck. Currently there is no way of trading cards with other players. The reason for this, I believe, is due to the possibility of creating endless free accounts and giving all the cards from each account to one of these accounts. This would allow you to get cards at a much faster and unfair rate. It is possible trading may be introduced in the future, but it is not certain. There is a way of getting specific cards you want, called the Infernal Pit, which you can read about later in the guide (see section 3.07). ------------------------------------------------------------------------------#1.04 is it really free to play? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------Like me, you probably always think there is a catch when you see the word "free". But it is true; it's perfectly possible to play this game for free. I haven't spent anything on it, and I have managed to get a big collection of cards and created competitive decks. You always have the option of paying money to get more in-game currency, which is then used to buy more boosters. So by paying you are getting more cards quickly, but it is entirely possible to play the game, enjoy it, and be able to win without spending anything at all. It never asks for any payment details when you install or sign up. This will only happen if you make the decision to pay. I would advise against spending anything, at least intially, for a number of reasons:

(a) You may find you don't like the game after a while (unlikely though!) (b) It removes some of the satisfaction of earning the cards through play (c) You may win too many games too quickly and get to a high rank, which has its disadvantages, causing you to face experienced opponents It does take a lot of time investment to get a big collection without paying any money, but you will quickly get an idea by playing the game whether this is for you. You will always have the option of putting money into it at any point or continuing to pay for free as I have. I realized that from a financial standpoint free players are still valuable to the game company, as they provide opponents for those who are paying! Without someone to play the game would crumble. Also, the developers are pretty generous with free stuff. Check out the codes in section 3.05E for a nice boost. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------#1.05 Is it any good? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------Yes! I love this game. It is relatively easy to learn, but extremely hard to master. It has a full deck editor, from which you can experiment and build whatever you want (subject to the restrictions of your Hero.) The game design is really good, and it plays very well. I've had relatively few problems with disconnects or game glitches etc. The coding seems solid, and the number of real bugs in the game is pretty low. I have found just 3 serious card coding bugs, which I have reported and I am quite confident will be fixed soon. Other than this I've only found a couple of text errors, which I also reported but which don't impact gameplay, and a few very minor graphical glitches. On the whole it is extremely fun (not to mention addictive) and a great way to spend your time, involving a lot of strategy and decision making. I have found the community on the forum, and most online players, to be pleasant. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------#1.06 How do I get the game and make an account? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------Follow this link (cut and paste into your browser): http://www.duelofchampions.com/en/the-game/register.aspx You have some useful links at the bottom of this page: How to play, a link to the forum, and a button for support. When you are ready, click on "Download and start playing". Now on the right hand side of the screen, log in with your U-play account if you have one already. If not, fill in the form on the right, tick the box for "I accept the terms of service" and then click "Play for free". Don't worry, it won't ask you for any credit card details before you start playing. This only happens if you later decide to spend money, which you are never obligated to do. If it tells you any of the fields are invalid, go back and sort them out. If it says invalid U-play name, it's probably already taken so pick another one. Once you've made an account, it will say "Success!" and finally give

you a "Download" button. Click this to get the program. Run the setup.exe file that you download, clicking OK/accept at all the prompts. You don't need to do anything unusual. Then, finally, run the game. (It should put a shortcut on your desktop.) It brings up a news screen with a link to the forums (bottom left) and support (?, top left). When you launch for the first time, it will take a while for the files to update. Allow the progress bar at the bottom to reach 100%. This will not happen every time, just if new patches or content are released. Have a look at the top right of the window. If it says, "Servers online" then the game is ready to play. If it says anything else like, "Servers offline for maintenance" then you won't be able to play. Try again in a few hours! Now click on "Play" (bottom right.) Enter the U-play name you chose and your password, then click "Login". You should be ready to go! Now see the next section for what to do afterwards. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------#1.07 Picking a faction ------------------------------------------------------------------------------When you play an account for the first time and have logged in (see section 1.06 if you haven't done this already) you will be asked to choose a faction. For each account, you get to make this choice just once and cannot change it afterwards. But don't worry, this only affects the free cards you are initially given. Whatever you choose, you will eventually be able to play any of the factions, including the ones you didn't choose. But it will mean you are probably stuck with the faction you choose for a while, until you build up enough cards to try out other factions. I'll go into much more detail about these later, but here are your three choices. None of them are "wrong"! INFERNO: The easiest deck to play initially, this is my recommended choice. It uses fire spells to burn away enemy creatures, has ways to directly damage your opponent, and has efficient, hard-hitting creatures. NECROPOLIS: Probably slightly harder to play initially. It focuses on death and decay, it causes the enemy creatures to be crippled or die from poison, and is good at mass destruction. Also some of its creatures can heal themselves by attacking. HAVEN: I would say this is the hardest faction to play well at first, and probably the weakest starting deck. It uses a mixture of defensive creatures to keep the enemy at bay, and powerful spells to wipe out creatures. It is capable of healing its Hero- although this isn't very important! It has lots of ways of generating extra resources quickly. There are two other factions, Stronghold and Sanctuary, which are not available to choose initially. Don't worry about these for the moment, you will be able to use them later when you have more cards. Sanctuary is only available in the "Void Rising" and "Herald of the Void" expansions. If you find you dislike your choice of faction, the only current way to change it is to make another U-play account and start again. This is a valid option, and if you're going to do it, do it as soon as possible to avoid investing time into an account you are going to abandon. Another choice is to make three accounts, one for each of the three factions, and try them all out. Then stick with the one you like the most.

Note that there is no way of moving cards from one account to the other, so apart from casual play just using the starter decks (which is fine with your friends) stick with one account once you've decided on a faction. Again, you are not limited to that faction forever, only until you have enough cards to build other faction decks. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------#2.00 The tutorial levels ------------------------------------------------------------------------------Once you have picked your faction, you will be presented with the "daily rewards" screen. See section 3.09 for more information. Then you will be taken to the campaign levels. Although it is possible to skip these and go straight into fighting people online, I would highly recommend you play through the tutorial first. You learn a lot about the game, and you earn a big amount of currency which you can then use to improve your deck. If you go straight in to fighting online with your starter deck, you are likely to get crushed by anyone who has tuned their deck somewhat. If at any point you are really struggling in the campaign, you can either: (a) Read the strategy sections of this guide to see if you can improve your playing skills (section 6.00 onwards.) (b) Go to the shop and buy Reinforcement Packs with gold if you can afford them, and use the cards to improve your deck (see sections 3.01, 3.05, 3.06 and 4.00 to 4.13). Also get your free gifts, giving you some packs for nothing! See section 3.05E. (c) Send me an email with your specific problems and I'll try to help. You can find my email address at the top of the guide. Or try asking for help on the forum! (d) Forget about the campaign for now, spend your riches, play some games online for a while and come back later with a stronger deck. Don't let the final few irritating campaign levels put you off the game! They do not represent a normal balanced duel. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------#2.01 Boot Camp ------------------------------------------------------------------------------You get a bunch of story during the training. It's pretty tedious but listen to it if you want. Keep clicking on the blue arrow to move forward until things continue. Once the duels start though, don't skip anything without reading it as it's useful rules information. At the end of each duel there is some congratulating/moaning; you can safely skip that too. To begin, click on Boot Camp, then Start Mission. At any point in the campaign, use the blue back arrow at the top left to move out of missions, and eventually to the main menu. To get back to the tutorial from the main menu, click Play and then select Boot Camp/Campaign on the right hand side. For this part, the deck you have chosen makes no difference. You are given set cards in order to learn the mechanics. You should find these levels very easy. They are just there to help you. It starts off with a smaller playing field before building up to the full rules. You must complete each mission before the next unlocks. In case you need some help:

DENSTADT BARRACKS- Just follow the instructions, then afterwards attack with the Lesser Air Elemental to win. DENSTADT TRAINING GROUNDS- Follow the instructions, then attack the Ghoul with your Griffin. Raise your Might to 3, then cast a Radiant Glory anywhere except opposite the other Ghoul. End your turn, and next turn attack for the kill with whatever is unopposed. BORDERKEEP- Follow the instructions, turn. Next turn attack and kill both so it is unopposed if possible. Just needed until you win. [By unopposed, creatures.] then raise your might to 3 his creatures, then cast a keep attacking and casting I mean in a row containing and end the Radiant Glory more Glories if no enemy

WHISPERING FOREST NORTH- Follow the instructions, raise your might to 2, cast two Griffins unopposed and end your turn. Next turn attack and kill anything in front of your Griffins, then attack the opponent when you can. Deploy two more Griffins, raise your magic to 3 ready for Lightning Bolt next turn, and end your turn. Next turn, if needed raise your magic to 4 so you can cast Lightning Bolt to remove a blocker. Attack for the kill. DENSTADT WEST- Follow the instructions, then attack the Demented with your Archer. End your turn. Next turn, attack and kill whatever is in front of your Archer, raise your might to 2 and cast a Griffin in front of your Archer. Cast the Crossbowman unopposed, and end your turn. [This isn't really necessary but is good practice anyhow.] Next turn, kill whatever is in front of the Archer, then raise your magic to 3. Cast Bless on the Griffin and attack for the kill. ROAD TO FLAMMSCHREIN- Now you finally get your own deck, the faction that you chose. Follow the instructions, then... just try and win the duel. Raise your might to 2 and cast your best creature that you can. End your turn, and next turn raise your might to 3 and again cast your best creature, unopposed. Attack blockers/the opponent with your other creature. Repeat this next turn with 4 might, and then after that start raising your magic skill and using spells as well to clear the way. This is a very rough guide to the general strategy of a duel! For this stage don't oppose the enemy creatures unless your blocker has at least 3 more health than the attack value of the enemy, so it can't get finished off by a Fire Bolt. Play recklessly, as you will get his life down from 10 way before he gets yours down from 20. Keep on attacking, casting creatures and killing his stuff until you win. If it goes wrong, just keep trying. I have made video guides to beating this stage with any of the three starter decks. Just follow my moves exactly and you will win! Watch them full-screen to see the cards better. Necropolis starter deck: http://www.twitch.tv/robvalue/c/2852951 Inferno starter deck: http://www.twitch.tv/robvalue/c/2852958 Haven starter deck: http://www.twitch.tv/robvalue/c/2852966 Now a prompt will come up asking you to test your skills in a multiplayer duel. You need to play a couple of online games at some point before you can finish the campaign, so it's up to you if you want to play them now. If you accept, press Fight at the bottom right hand corner of the screen, and wait for an opponent. After two duels, win or lose, you should have the XP you will need. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------

#2.02 Orc Invasion ------------------------------------------------------------------------------From the Boot Camp screen, click on Orc Invasion and Start Mission. For these four levels, you use your chosen deck just like in the last level of Boot Camp. Follow the same guidelines, summon as many creatures as you can and study the situation to see what best moves you can make. Once your skills are high enough, start using your Hero ability to draw extra cards. Again if you are struggling, consider buying Reinforcement Packs or reading the strategy section of this guide. VRADEK'S CROSSING- A straight duel, except your opponent has 10 life. Summon creatures unopposed where possible, and keep up the pressure until you kill him. SERPENTINE RIVER- Crag Hack is cheating by having two crummy Pao Hunter units already in play. You want to kill these ASAP, either with spells or a creature. Be careful because he can play another creature in front of his Hunter to defend it from melee/flyer creatures of yours. So if you're going to put one in front of a Hunter, make it a fairly large creature if possible. This can get tough, but with a reasonable deal and solid play you should be able to win. He doesn't seem to use spells to kill any of your creatures so pile them on. Give him a kick in the face from me for cheating. TWILIGHT FALLS- He comes out quite slowly in this duel, so get as many creature down as quickly as possible and keep the pressure on. Build up to big creatures, and keep attacking. He uses several spells to mess with you and your creatures, but given a decent draw you should be able to put too many threats down for him to deal with. If he puts Wind Shield on a creature to stop you killing it with shooters, either take it out with spells or just move your creatures to another row and ignore it. DARKWOOD FOREST- This is a straight duel against a Haven faction deck. Continue with what's been working for you, and keep the pressure on him until he crumbles. Watch out for annoying melee guard creatures that reduce your attack damage from melee creatures; take them out with flyers, shooters or spells instead. And avoid putting two units in the same row, both because of charge creatures and his Sunburst spells. Try to kill him as quickly as possible, as he will build up to putting big units out. If you haven't got a good hold on the game by that point, you're probably in trouble. If you lose just try again and hope for a better deal. This also seems to be the opponent you face when you have a practice duel against the AI. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------#2.03 Wolf Soldiers ------------------------------------------------------------------------------As I mentioned at the end of section 2.01, this third part of the campaign will not unlock until you get to level 3. And completing parts 1 & 2 will get you almost to level 3, but not quite. So if you haven't already reached level 3 by this stage, you need to go and play a couple of games online. It doesn't matter if you win or lose, as long as neither of you quits right away which results in no XP being awarded. You'll still get the XP you need to level up whoever wins, and once you get to level 3 it unlocks this part of the campaign. Keep clicking the blue arrow in the top left to return to the main menu, click the left hand tab (Duels) then click "Fight" in the bottom right hand corner. Once you finish the games, return to the campaign screen (right most tab) and start these levels. I really recommend finishing all these, even though some of them can be quite tough. The rewards you get are well worth it.

FLAMMSCHREIN- You start with a free unit here, and the opponent has 18 life. But he has annoying creatures which gain life when they attack, making them hard to kill. If you can't easily kill them outright, just ignore them and move your creatures to open rows. You need a reasonably good deal to win here, either with spells for dealing with his creatures or just good quality creatures of your own to out-race his life gainers. Keep trying, or if you get desperate buy some Reinforcement Packs to improve your creature base. WHISPERING FOREST- Fleshbane fills the screen with incorporeal creatures, which take only half damage from non-magic creatures. He doesn't do much else, so all that really matters is how many magic creatures you draw. If you don't draw many, you will probably lose. Especially as they get an extra health from the Hero's ability. Either keep trying until you get enough magic creatures in your draw, or buy some Reinforcement Packs and load your deck with as many magic creatures as possible for this duel. (To tell if your creature is magic or not, right click on it to zoom in on it, and read the line just below the picture. It will say creature - melee/flyer/shooter if it is not magic, or creature - magic melee/flyer/shooter if it is magic.) He also uses a lot of Wretched Ghouls, which have 2 power for 1 resource. Block these with units with more than 2 life to keep them at bay. Block the incorporeal creature with your magic creatures. You have to survive the onslaught of his creatures to be able to win, then things will open up for you to launch your offensive. Use your spells to kill the incorporeal creatures as they are harder to take out in combat. Any mass damage spells will be really helpful, such as Insect Swarm, Earthquake or Word of Light. ALTAR OF THE SPIDER GODDESS- Nergal starts with a 2/0/4 shooter in play, which is annoying. Ignore it at first, then once you draw a creature big enough to kill it by trading blows, play it in front of it. Watch out for him playing another creature in front of it to defend it though. This can be a tricky encounter, so there is no shame in buying some Reinforcement packs to improve your deck. You need a pretty good deal with a starter deck to win this. If you use Necropolis, Mass Grave can remove his creature on turn 1 for you evening things out. With Inferno, if you get some impact creatures out like Juggernaut and a good deal, you may be able to totally ignore his creature and beat him down to zero before he does it to you. DENSTADT- In this final encounter, the opponent starts off with three units in play! This makes things very tricky. You want to try and kill them all, obviously, ASAP. Chase the Maulers around with your creatures until they have nowhere to hide, by putting a creature on each row. Use any spells you have to kill their guys and level the playing field. If you manage this, you should be OK. I find he often doesn't even move his guys out the way when you threaten them with a unit, letting you walk up and kill them next turn. With a decent deal, and if you've got your play skills together, you should win. Congratulations, you've finished the campaign! Yes, that's all there is, unless they add something more in the future. Now see the next section about spending what you've earned. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------#2.04 Spending your winnings ------------------------------------------------------------------------------Once you've finished all 3 parts of the campaign, you should have around 1000 seals and over 60,000 gold (minus any you already spent on boosters). If you are playing for free and don't intend to put any more money in at this stage, this is what I recommend doing: click on the Shop icon at the top of the screen, it looks like a stall. Click on "Packs". Scroll down to find "The Box"

and click "Instant Buy". Now scroll down to the bottom, and buy as many "Reinforcement Packs" as you can with your remaining gold. This will give you the best chance to get as many good cards as possible to help improve your deck. Your gold is in yellow text, your seals in blue. They are shown under your experience bar at the top-left of the main menu. The next section shows you how to how to get around the menus and explore all the screens the game has. If you just want to get on with building a good deck and then playing some games, jump ahead to section 3.06, then onto section 4.00. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------#3.00 Getting around the menus ------------------------------------------------------------------------------Once you have finished the tutorial, this section will guide you around the menu screens, showing you all the screens that are available. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------#3.01 The main menu ------------------------------------------------------------------------------After finishing the tutorial, this is the screen you will be dealing with most. Note that this game times out relatively quickly, if you leave it unattended it will log you out for safety (to stop some irksome member of your family messing with your cards.) You can just log in again- this is no problem. If you are doing the tutorial levels and want to go to the main menu, press "go back" in the top left corner. At the bottom right of the screen, a message comes up when you move the mouse over many of the icons on the main menu telling you what they do. There is a question mark at the bottom left of the main menu. This is a very useful introduction to the game, which teaches you the basics of the rules and has a handy glossary. It is probably worth skimming over this before you start playing, but the tutorial will cover most of this anyhow so don't get dismayed if it seems too much to take in at first. The game isn't that complex and you'll get the hang of it in no time. I recommend coming back and reading this help file again at least once. The "card types" section will mean a lot more to you then especially. Once you bring it up, left click on one of the example cards to see a breakdown of the important information on each type of card. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------#3.02 News, notifications, friends and chatting ------------------------------------------------------------------------------The first thing you will see is the "News" section. It presents some items of interest; keep an eye on this for new things. You can find out more about them on the forums or in this guide. At the bottom left of the screen, there is a scroll icon, to the right of the question mark. This is your notifications. Click on this to see any messages you have. This will be things like letting you know you've completed achievements or the results of tournaments you've entered. Keep an eye on this from time to time for new information. A number appears beside the scroll to tell you how many new notifications you have. With this and all the other windows you bring up from the bottom of the screen, you can click on the "-" at the top right of the window to minimize it. To the right of the notifications button is the friends button, click on the

two heads icon. This brings up your friends list, which starts out empty. If you know another player's U-play name and want to send them a friend request, type it in at the bottom where it says "Add friends" and then press the arrow to the right. It will send a request if the name is valid. If they turn out to be a jerk, click on their name in your friends list then click on the red icon to the left to remove them from your list. You will see a list of all your friends, first those that are online and then those that are offline below that. If the circle to the left of their name is green, it means they are online. You can start chatting to a friend by clicking on their name, then on the speech bubble to the right. Or you can challenge a friend to a practice duel by clicking the crossed swords instead. You can spy on your friends to see what they are up to. It will say under their name what they are currently doing, such as playing a game or looking at menus. You can also see their ELO rating and their level. At the top of this window there are two other tabs, Requests and Challenges. If there is a number beside either of these, it means you have new things to look at. After clicking on Requests, click on a name and then select either the blue icon to accept the request, or the red one to deny. There's an achievement for having 50 friends! If a friend has sent you a challenge request, click on Challenges and then accept or deny the challenge just like with friend requests. If you accept, you will be taken straight to the practice duel screen where you can select your deck and then start playing. To the right of the friends button is the chat button, a speech bubble icon. Here you can find all the chat windows that you currently have open. Choose from the list on the left of the window to pick who you want to talk to. You can close any of them that you have finished with by pressing the red X to the left of the window. During a duel you can open a chat window with your opponent by pressing the "return" key. There is a red mute button to the left of the window if you don't want to hear them talking on their mike. The window remains open after you have finished the duel, in case you want to keep chatting. If you don't, you can close the window. There is a limit to how many chat windows you can have open at once (around 30). If you can't have any more open, you won't be able to chat to your opponent during a duel. Notice that the notifications, friends and chat buttons remain whatever screen you go to. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------#3.03 The main menu buttons ------------------------------------------------------------------------------There are several things you can do from the main menu. See the following relevant sections for more information about the screens they take you to. They contain probably more information than you need intially, so you may want to come back to them after getting some experience. At the top left of the screen you will see your banner, XP and progress to the next level, your current level, and your amount of gold, seals and tickets. Gold and seals are in-game currencies. Tickets are used to enter Swiss tournaments. Gold is yellow, seals blue, and tickets brown/grey. PLAY (Big red button at the top!): Click this to bring up the gaming menu, where you can do the tutorial, play against the AI, or fight others online. See section 5.00.

MENU (Cogs icon, bottom left): Click on this to bring up "Quit game" (I'll let you work out what that does for yourself) and "Options". Feel free to fiddle with the sound and graphics tabs here if you want. More important is the gameplay tab. Here (below language selection) you have three useful tick-boxes. The first two are intially turned off, and the third on. I would advise leaving them as they are for now, but come back to review them after you are comfortable with the game. Some cards just require clicking on to play, and there is an automatic "Are you sure?" prompt each time you use one. This is handy initially, but becomes tiresome once you are competent. So come back and untick this box when you've had enough of that message. Similarly, the game will let you know if you are attempting to finish your turn without using a Hero ability. Once you don't need this prompt any more, come back and untick this too. NEWS: (Scroll icon to the right of the PLAY button): Click here to return to the news page from any other page that has come up. PROFILE: (Red banner icon to the right of the news button): This has two tabs. It shows you some basic information such as progress towards the next level, the currencies you have earned, and lists the achievements you can get in the game. SHOP: (Stall icon, to the right of the red banner): Click here to buy everything you need: boosters, decks, currency, special items, and to redeem promotional codes. CARDS AND DECKS: (White cards icon, to the right of the stall): This is where you can look at all the cards you have, and edit and create decks to play with. INFERNAL PIT: (Red cards icon, to the right of the white cards): This is not initially available, it unlocks at level 5. This is a place you can "burn" your unwanted cards to get more gold. Be very wary about using this! I recommend staying firmly away from it for a long, long time, until you've started to build a big collection and have a feel for the value of the cards. If you burn a card you can't get it back, and the gold rewards are pretty tiny. There is however the chance of getting a free card when you burn them. LEADERBOARDS: (Feathers icon, top right of the screen): This is where you can see your standing in the world based on your ELO rating and success in tournaments. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------#3.04 Profile / achievements tab ------------------------------------------------------------------------------After clicking on this icon from the main menu (red banner icon) you will be presented with a lot of information. Profile tab: ---BANNER: On the left is the flag you will display during the game. It makes no difference at all to gameplay and is only for show. You can use the blue left/right arrows to change it any time you want. Some are locked and become available after completing certain achievements. ---NAME: Your name, that being your U-play name. You didn't forget what it was already did you? It's to the right of the banner. ---EXPERIENCE BAR: This shows your XP points, and how many you need to get to

the next level. I'll talk more about what this all means later. Your level is shown at the right of the bar, you start out at level 1 but you should get to level 3 after finishing the campaign. Basically gaining levels earns you more gold and seals (the in-game currencies) to buy more cards with. It also makes you look good. ---SKILL RATING (ELO): Under the experience bar is your skill rating, given as a number. It starts off right at the bottom- possibly zero I think! If you win games this goes up, if you lose it goes down. Whatever you do, don't worry about your ELO rating to begin with. it really doesn't matter until you're at the point where you want to try being hardcore and shoot for the stars. Until then, just disregard it, but feel happy if it does happen to go up. You don't lose anything from your ELO rating going down, it will go up again. Once it reaches 1000, you become "locked in" to playing other people who are rated 1000 or more. This also happens at 1500 (you really don't need to worry about that just yet though, I'm not threatening 1500 yet!). Some people get to 1000 too quickly, mainly I think by buying loads of cards by putting money into the game, then find themselves brutalized by more experienced players. Don't be in a rush to try and get to 1000. It cannot go below zero. ---COLLECTION: Under the skill rating it shows you how many distinct cards you have in your collection (that you have at least one of) out of the maximum amount possible. Just for information as to your progress as a collector! ---CURRENCIES: To the right of your name is a currencies window. It shows you how much gold and seals you have, and tempts you to "Get more". This is what you click on if you do decide to put money into the game, which rewards you with more gold and seals instantly. You earn gold through playing anyway, even if you lose, and you get seals every time you level up. You also get bonuses after you have completed certain achievements. Seals are the more valuable of the two, each being worth about 100 gold. The more amazing things tend to be purchasable with seals only, the more mundane things with gold. It is possible to turn seals into gold, but I wouldn't recommend doing so, ever! The process is not reversible. Read about this in the Shop section of the guide, 3.05. The "Get more" button will send you to the shop. ---CURRENT MISSION: This shows your progress in the mission you are on during the campaign. The campaign is relatively short, so this will quickly just become 0% after you've finished it and stay that way. Achievements tab: ---ACHIEVEMENTS: To see this, click on the Achievements tab under the Play button. There is a large number of achievements here. You can browse through them all any time and it shows you how close you are to getting each one. It also tells you the rewards you get. You will complete many of these just by doing the tutorial levels, and will get more as you start to play online. Later you may come back to look here and decide to work towards specific goals. A lot really just need you to keep getting more cards, as you can't directly control what kind of cards you get (except in the Infernal Pit). Many others reward skillful play, to the point of magically adept play in some cases! Often the rewards are in the form of boosters, gold or seals. Occasionally the reward can be something more unique like a specific Hero card. These should all be pretty self-explanatory, but feel free to email me any questions you have about them. See section 8.04 for a guide to getting the achievements. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------#3.05 Shop tab -------------------------------------------------------------------------------

There is a lot going on here, so don't spend any of your currency without first reading the advice in section 2.04. You win a lot from the campaign, and you only get to spend it once! To get to the shop, click on the stall icon, to the top-right of the main menu. To the right of the screen there is your current gold and seals, the in-game currencies which you spend in the shop. If you want to spend real money to buy more currency (note that you never have to do this, it's entirely up to you) then click on the "Need more Wealth" button below. This allows you to purchase gold and seals directly, and also to convert seals into gold. I advice against doing such a conversion, it is one way only and seals are rarer and can buy a bigger variety of things than gold. The shop is presented in 5 tabs, which I will detail below: ------------------------------------------------------------------------------#3.05A Featured ------------------------------------------------------------------------------This gives you a little more news about the current/upcoming sets, any special deals, or cards you can unlock. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------#3.05B Consumables ------------------------------------------------------------------------------There are currently three things you can buy from here, all costing you seals. Tournament tickets are the first one, the amount you already have is shown under your level at the top of the screen. You get given 5 for free when you make an account. You use these tickets to enter Swiss tournaments, at the cost of 1 per tournament. The next two, XP and gold boost are items you can buy which will increase how much XP/gold you get for the next 5 duels, by 100% and 50% respectively. My advice is leave all these things alone to begin with; you have better things to spend your seals on. Come back to these later when you are more experienced. If you buy one of the boosts, it doesn't activate automatically: you need to set it off in the dueling menu (see section 5.02). These are called consumables because once used they disappear. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------#3.05C Packs ------------------------------------------------------------------------------This is where you will be spending most of your riches, if you are wise. There is a big variety on offer here. Click on the icon of any of them to be given details. The contents of all of these packs/boxes are randomly generated. You won't know what you're going to get until you've bought them and opened them. Note that the packs do not get added to your collection until you go to the cards and decks screen, and open them up. See section 3.06B. Here's my advice on what to go for, and what not to: TO BEGIN WITH FOCUS ON THESE The Box: You end up with enough seals from the campaign to buy this, and it's a good purchase in the future too. You get a lot of cards here, beefing out your starter deck and even putting you some way towards having enough cards to make other faction decks. No Heroes available here though, so you would need to get them elsewhere. But I highly recommend this to be your first purchase.

Reinforcement Pack: The most cost efficient way to spend your gold. It focuses just on the original 4 factions, giving you more chance to get cards you need to help your starter deck. You always get 1 rare/epic and 3 uncommons. Once your collection is big, it's these 4 that you are really paying for, but it's still worth it. (Epic cards have an orange name and the rarest of the rare, rares have a blue name, uncommons green, and commons white.) If you are struggling with the campaign, spend whatever gold you have on these packs and use them to improve your deck (see sections 3.06 and 4.00 to 4.13). LATER TRY THESE Heroic Pack: This is an upgrade of the Reinforcement Pack, although it gives you less commons. After playing a while this won't bother you though, and you are also guaranteed a Hero card. It will be random though! Chances are you won't already have it to begin with as there are many different Heroes you can get. These will help you start building new faction decks. You still get your rare/epic, and 2 uncommons instead of the usual 3. Heroic Box: This is a great purchase, giving you a bunch of Hero cards along with all the standard cards, but you won't be able to afford it right away. So if you want it fast, you have to either keep playing until you earn enough seals (through levelling up) to buy it, or put some real money in to get more seals. I wouldn't recommend this, I'd go for The Box to begin with. You can always buy this later once you're more settled and earning lots of seals. The Serious Box: Very expensive in seals, but you get a lot for it. To get this initially is realistically going to require putting real money into getting lots of seals. Later on, if you save up a huge number of seals, this is an efficient purchase. But no Heroes in this box! Void Rising Box: I recommend initially staying away from Void Rising completely. Not because it has bad cards, but because it is mainly focused on a new 5th faction, Sanctuary. To start with you'll be wanting to get cards for your starter faction, and you're even less likely than normal to find ones that you can use in here. But once you have a sound collection from the base set, this is the place to go to dip into Void Rising in an efficient way. Void Rising Pack: This can now be bought with gold, so if you have lots of base cards already you may want to give this expansion a go. Herald of the Void Box: This is the second expansion, offering more cards for each of the 5 factions. No new faction has been introduced. I would recommend dipping into this expansion before Void Rising, especially if you are less interested in Sanctuary. There is a new Hero for each of the 5 factions in this set. Emilio's Pack: This offers a mix of base cards, Void Rising and Herald of the Void cards. It is the only way to get Herald cards using gold. AVOID THESE Small Pack: Just don't. It's really tempting at only 2000 gold, but the problem is that you are not guaranteed any uncommons or rares in your 2 cards, and epics/Heroes do not appear at all. Put your gold into reinforcement packs instead- it will be better in the long term than wasting money on these. Herald of the Void Pack: It is more efficient to save up your seals and buy a box than spend them on individual packs. Premium Packs: Alternate versions of packs. You are paying more than you

normally would for the non-premium packs, and all you get is more of the premium shiny cards. They hold no extra gameplay value, they just look a bit sparkly, but in fact they annoy me rather than look good. The only real reason to try and get premiums is to go for the achievements that involve them, but this really isn't worth the effort until you've done just about everything else you possibly could with this game. The rewards for the achievements are just not worth the extra costs. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------#3.05D Decks ------------------------------------------------------------------------------Here you can buy pre-made decks. Instead of being random like the packs section, these are all standardized decks and you know exactly what you are going to get. I wouldn't recommend spending anything on these to begin with as the amount of powerful cards you get for your money is inefficient. However, if you desperately want to start in a new faction, then you are guaranteed to get enough cards for a new deck you can play. These are all generally expensive (some very expensive) so think carefully before spending a huge chunk on these. Click on an icon to read the deck contents, and compare it to the card list below (spoilers!): http://www.mmdoc.net/card_list/ The deck will appear in your Cards and Decks screen as a new seperate deck (see section 3.06A). If you don't want to play with the deck as it is and just want to add all the cards to your collection, delete this new decklist (see section 3.06D). Don't worry, you won't lose the cards, quite the opposite, they are released into your card pool for use in other decks. While they are still in this pre-made deck, you can't access them for use in other decks. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------#3.05E Redeem code, free gifts ------------------------------------------------------------------------------If you are lucky enough to find a promotional code, you enter it using this tab. If it is correct, you will be rewarded with a gift! Don't even bother trying to type in some random stuff, it's not going to work. However, there are several well-known codes that do work. Copy these, one at a time, into the redeem code tab and you'll get rewards! Cutting and pasting works, and avoids accidental typos. For some reason you don't seem to be able to enter these codes on the iPad version. So just download the game onto a PC and log in there, and enter the codes. They will be then available when you log in again on the iPad. It's worth the trouble! MMDOC-H4S-THE-B3ST-FANS 5ORRY54TURD4Y TH4NK5FBF4N5 WE-ARE-NO-TROLLS A Herald of the Void Pack A Premium Reinforcement Pack A Reinforcement Pack A Reinforcement Pack

You will then need to open your packs (see section 3.06B). I know some of these look like a joke, but trust me, they're valid at time of writing. If you find any of these no longer work, please let me know. The "Facebook Luv" code was given to fans because of 20,000 likes on their facebook page and they said maybe we get something at 30,000. Let's whore it up people! We got another one for 25,000 which I have added above.

https://www.facebook.com/MightMagicDuelofChampions There were more codes, but they seem to have expired, among them: THANK5-4-THE-F4CEBOOK-LUV HAPPY-BIRTHDAY-DOC Penny Arcade code generator ------------------------------------------------------------------------------#3.06 Cards and decks tab ------------------------------------------------------------------------------This is where you can see all the cards you have, and edit your deck(s). To get to this screen, select the white cards icon near the top-right of the main menu. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------#3.06A Viewing your cards and decks ------------------------------------------------------------------------------The first thing you will see upon entering this screen is a big window called "Collection". This contains all the cards that you have. There are two numbers under each card. The first number shows how many of that card you have available, which means they are not currently in a deck. The second number shows the total amount you have of that card, including those currently in a deck. You can filter the cards in your collection in various ways. By selecting any of the tabs just under the Collection title, you can look just at particular card types within you collection. Right click on any card to zoom in on it to be able to read it fully. (Right click again to zoom out.) To the right of the Collection window title, there is a + and a - icon, shown in magnifying glasses. Click these to zoom in or out of your collection. There are three levels of zoom, the middle one being the default. You can use the up and down arrows on the right of the window to scroll your cards if they can't all fit in the window at once. When you have zoomed in on a card, you can press and hold the middle mouse button to remove all text and see the art in all its glory. When you hover over any card, the right hand side of the screen will display the important features of that card to save you always having to zoom in. On non-Hero cards, it also displays flavour text here! This text does not even appear on the cards, so this is the only way to see it. It has no game meaning but adds some background to the game world. While not over a card, the right hand side of the screen shows the "Filters" window. Move to this section to narrow down the selection of cards you want to look at, within the category tab you have selected. The top part is the factions filter. This has 6 icons, the 5 factions plus the neutral cards available to every faction. Just like with the main menu, a handy explanation appears in the bottom right of the screen as you hover the mouse over an icon here. From left to right they are Inferno (ring), Haven (plus), Stronghold (hand), nuetral (diamond), Necropolis (spider) and Sanctuary (corals). Those descriptions in brackets are what the icons look like to me- I'm sure you have your own, probably better descriptions! By default all these are lit up. Click on any to turn them off (and again to turn them on again). Then the cards

displayed in your collection window will only be of the lit up faction(s). The faction of your deck's Hero determines what faction creatures and fortunes you can use (plus neutral creatures and fortunes). Under this are the magic schools. Again they are all on by default, and can be toggled. From left to right (here we go again) are water (wave), earth (leaf), primal (infinity), fire (flame), air (cloud), light (explosion), and dark (half-moon). Note that the schools of magic are not directly linked to factions, it is the Hero that specifies which schools of magic can be used, regardless of what faction he is. However, I have noticed some combinations just don't exist (such as an Inferno Hero using water magic.) There are no neutral spells. Under this is the expansions filter. These are tickboxes, and there are three at time of writing. (A new set is due out soon!) They are all on by default and can be toggled to filter your cards. The first one (dragon) is the basic set, the cards bought from Reinforcement and Heroic Packs. The second icon (corals?) is Void Rising, the first expansion set which you get from Void Rising Packs. The third icon (keyring?) is the second expansion Herald of the Void. The fourth icon (jewel) is Rewards: very rare cards which are awarded to you usually through achievements (such as the Hero Kieran). Lastly is the miscellaneous filter, with 8 tickboxes you can toggle. By default the ones on the left are on and the ones on the right are off. The left hand ones filter cards by rarity, with Heroic (Hero cards) having its own category. The colour of the text for each corresponds to the colour of the title of cards of this rarity. On the right are three more filters. If "New" is ticked, only cards just obtained from opening packs etc. will be displayed, helping you to see if there is anything you might want to add to your deck(s). If you tick the "Unusable" box, then when you are editing your decks (see section 3.06C) cards you cannot put into your deck are still shown, but are faded into red (such as creatures from a different faction to your Hero). Lastly "Premium" means that only the special sparkly cards that you have are shown if you tick this box. They have no extra usefulness as cards, but count towards some achievements and are worth double towards your % chance of getting the Infernal Deal card in the Infernal Pit (see section 3.07). At the bottom left of the Cards and Decks screen are the names of the decks you have. Initially you will have just one deck, which is automatically named after the faction you chose, such as "Inferno Deck". The names of decks are only for your reference; your opponents cannot see them at any point. If you have more than two decks, there isn't room for them to be displayed (weird huh?) so use the left and right arrows either side to scroll through them. Click on any of your decks to open its contents. When you do this, the Collection window will get smaller, and there will now be a second, very similar window under it. The name of this is "Decks" and it shows the contents of your deck. Use the tabs on this window just as with the collection window, in combination with the filters on the right hand side of the screen. Use the up and down arrows as before to scroll through the cards. To stop looking at your deck, select "Cancel" at the bottom of the screen. This exits without making any changes, so is useful if you accidentally moved some cards around, or started doing so and changed your mind. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------#3.06B Opening packs ------------------------------------------------------------------------------You buy packs, and boxes of packs, in the Shop screen (see section 3.05). You

are also awarded them from achievements. When you have bought or are given a pack, you have to open it before the contents are added to your collection. This simulates the experience of opening a real booster. On your Cards and Deck screen, if you have any packs to open, in the bottom right of the screen it will say "Packs N" where N is the number of packs you have. It won't let you know what packs these are exactly, so if you got several different sorts before opening them, they are just piled together. You open them one at a time, by clicking on this Packs button. The screen then shows the pack being opened, and the contents revealed. Cards not already in your collection are given a yellow border to help them stand out. (This counts premium/non premium versions of cards as separate, so you may already have the card but not the premium/non premium version you are now getting). To continue, press "Update" in the bottom right hand corner. Now the number of packs you have will have reduced by 1, and you can repeat this process to open them all. Or leave them to open at a later date, although I don't know why you'd want to do that! Are you weird or something? When you are achievement, contain that just earned, awarded a single specific card, from a promotional code or an it will be given to you in a pack. When you open it, it will just pack. If you are wondering where your ****ing card is that you it is in a pack waiting for you to open!

------------------------------------------------------------------------------#3.06C Editing your decks ------------------------------------------------------------------------------To make changes to one of your decks, click on it at the bottom of the screen to open it just as before. If you want to change the name of the deck, click the "Rename" button below the window. The name has no meaning other than as a reference to you, and opponents never see it. (This doesn't mean I condone rude names!) If you want to make changes to the cards in your deck, you do so by using both the Collection and Decks window. Use the tabs on both windows to help you look through what you can put in and take out. Drag a card from the top window to the bottom to add it to your deck, or from the bottom window to the top to take it out of your deck. Alternatively, you can double-click a card on the PC version of the game to move it in or out of the deck. Note that the top window now automatically filters out any cards which cannot be used with the Hero in your deck. So everything you see in the top window is available for the deck you are working on. To help you keep track, there is a number on each tab in the Decks window showing you how many you have of each type. To make a valid deck, you must have exactly 1 Hero card, exactly 8 Event cards and 50-200 other cards in any combination of creature/spell/fortune cards. Usually you will have some of each of these three types, but you don't have to. You could use 50 creatures, or 25 fortunes and 25 spells. I always advise sticking to the minimum of 50, because by adding more you are only diluting your deck and reducing the amount of times you will see your strongest cards. Therefore, I suggest each time you put a new card in, take one out. If you follow this advice, the number on the "All" tab at the top right of the window will always be 59. See section 4.00 for advice on how to make a good deck. If you haven't yet acquired any new cards, you won't be able to change your deck! Come back later when you have got some. If you want to change the Hero in the deck, first move your Hero from the Decks window back to the Collection window. Now all the other Heroes should become available from your collection; drag the new one down. This may mean

some of your cards now become invalid in your deck because they don't work with the new Hero. They will be faded into a red colour. You need to remove them, and replace them with valid cards. If you keep the same faction hero this will only affect spells, if you are changing faction you may as well just delete the deck or make a new one, as most of the cards will become invalid. Note that each card in your collection can only be in one deck at a time. This is very annoying and I hope they change this soon. To use them in another deck, you must first remove them from the deck they are in. Once you have finished making changes, select either "Done" to save what you have changed, or "Clear" to cancel without accepting any changes. These buttons appear below the Decks window. If you select Done and your deck is invalid, a warning message will come up telling you why the deck is invalid. The deck is still saved in this invalid state, however it won't be possible to pick it for a duel. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------#3.06D Deleting decks ------------------------------------------------------------------------------Because, as I mentioned in the previous section, each card you have can only be in one deck at once, at first it can be easiest to just remove all cards from your current deck and start a new one. To do this, click on your deck at the bottom left of the Cards and Decks screen, then press "Delete" at the bottom. Don't worry, you don't lose any cards by doing this! All you are doing is moving them from the decklist back to the main card pool so that they can be put into another deck. You can always make the deck up again exactly as it was at a later date. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------#3.06E Creating new decks ------------------------------------------------------------------------------See section 4.01 for tips on making decks. To start making a new deck, click on the "Click to create" button at the bottom of the screen with the book icon. You'll then get an empty Decks window below your Collection window. First of all, drag down the Hero you want to make the deck with, then the Collection will automatically be narrowed down to the cards that work with that Hero. Use the filters in the Collection window to help you pick out 8 event cards, then go through the creature/spell/fortune tabs, dragging down each card you want into the bottom window. Your deck will be valid once it reaches a total of 59 cards. You can go above this if you want but I don't recommend it. If you are wondering why you can't select certain cards, even though they work with your chosen Hero, it's probably because they are already in another deck you have. In this game a card can only be in one deck at once, so you have to either delete the other deck or remove the card(s) you want from it first (and then click Done to save changes from it). Note that the faction of the Hero you choose (icon at the top-right of the Hero card) dictates what creatures and fortunes you can use in the deck. They must be the same faction, or neutral (pale blue diamond sort of thing in the top right of the card). You can use whatever event cards you want with any Hero. But spell cards are a bit different. They vary depending on each individual Hero and aren't tied in to a particular faction. The icons on the right of the Hero card, under the faction icon, tell you what schools of Magic you can use for that Hero. It is normally 2 schools, but it can also be 3 or even just 1. The icon in the top right of a spell card must match one of the spell icons on the Hero card for you to be able to use it. See section 3.06A

for how you can view what spells you have of each school using filters. Along the left hand side of the Hero card are its starting skill levels. The number inside the fist is might, the bottle is magic and the purple curtain is destiny. The absence of an icon indicates a starting skill of zero in that area (it can still be raised above zero as normal.) At the bottom left of the Hero card is its starting life, this is usually 20 but can be less. All Heroes have the basic 4 Hero abilities (raise might, raise magic, raise destiny, and spend 1 resource to draw a card). Some also have another ability under these, which can either be ongoing (applies all the time and doesn't need activating) or has a cost to activate. In the second case, activating the ability means you can't use any of the other basic 4 Hero abilities that turn. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------#3.06F Spreadsheet to track your collection ------------------------------------------------------------------------------Nightangelbeta posted a really good spreadsheet you can use to tally how many of each card you have and kindly gave me permission to post it here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Ai37jaj7CoMfdGU2ODdQYzE3ak1OWVZrOV dsblFqRFE#gid=0 You can download a copy to your computer using the File menu. It has tabs at the bottom of the screen to change betweem expansions. It's a great way to keep count of how many of each card you have, and helps you decide what packs to buy based on the holes in your collection. It's also a faster way to email someone the details of your collection. If anyone wants to fill one in and email it to me, feel free, and I'd be happy to suggest possible decklists you could make! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------#3.07 Infernal Pit tab ------------------------------------------------------------------------------This screen is locked until you get to level 5. Its icon is three red cards, near the top-right of the main menu. This icon will be blanked out until level 5. Click on the icon to visit the Infernal Pit. Be very careful about using this feature! It involves offering some of your cards as sacrifices, and this process is non-reversible. In return you get given gold, and the chance to win a specific card. The amount of gold you get is relatively small, making it only a minor source of income and I would say generally not worth the loss of the cards you burn in it unless you're totally sure you will never want them. I would advise staying away from this feature until you have quite a big collection, as you may deeply regret early visits to the Pit. You are presented with a screen similar to that of the Cards and Decks screen. All your cards will be in the top window, named "collection". You can click on any of the tabs under the title to just see certain types of cards from your collection. Unfortunately you cannot use the filters from the Card and Decks screen to narrow things down further. Below each card will be two numbers. The first number shows how many of that card you have available, in other words not currently in one of your decks. The second number shows the total amount of that card that you have, including ones already in decks. If all copies of a card are currently in decks, that card won't appear at all on this screen.

To offer a card as a sacrifice, drag it into the bottom window, marked "Infernal Pit". It will put in only one copy at a time, so if you want to offer multiples you must move the same card several times. You cannot offer cards that are in one of your decks. If you really want to do so you must remove them from the deck (see section 3.06C.) Moving a card like this will not cause it to be sacrificed yet, there are two more steps to take to give you the chance to change your mind! The amount of gold the Pit offers you if you decide to follow through with the sacrifice is shown on the right of the screen. You can drag cards back from the bottom window to the top too to cancel them. At the bottom of the Infernal Pit window are three buttons. The first, which I recommend staying totally away from, will move all cards currently selected in the Collection window into the Infernal Pit window. The second button "Clear" will move all cards currently in the Infernal Pit window back into your collection. The third button, "Make the Sacrifice" is what you want when you have decided you really want to sacrifice the cards in the Infernal Pit window. If you do select Make the Sacrifice, it will then give you one more chance to change your mind. You'll get a warning message telling you that the sacrifice is permanent. They are not kidding! Think carefully before making your decision. If you select "decline" then the sacrifice is cancelled. If you pick "accept" then that's it, your cards are gone, and you get the gold added to your coffers. There is another feature to the Infernal Pit, and I consider it the most important. At the bottom right of the screen, there will be a card displayed. This "Infernal Card Deal" is a card that you could get as a bonus to your gold for your sacrifice. To the left of the card is a percentage, which starts at 0%. As you put cards into the Infernal Pit window, this percentage will increase. The amount it goes up by depends on the rarity of the card you are offering. Epics (red name) are worth the most, then Heroes and rares (blue text), then uncommons (green text) then commons (white text). Also if the card you are offering is premium (it looks all shiny and is kept in a different pile to other cards of the same name in your collection) it is worth twice the usual amount of percentage towards the Infernal Card Deal, although the same amount of gold. The rarer the card on offer, the less percentage each of your offerings will be worth. Currently Hero and epic cards do not appear in the Pit, except at times specially announced on the forums and on Facebook. This is a feature to use when you have a pretty big collection, as the amount of cards you have to put in compared to what you win is about 20:1 in each rarity. If you do use it, I advise putting in just enough cards to bring the percentage up to 100. Then you are guaranteed to win the card. Anything less than this is a gamble, and if you're putting a lot of cards in you may not get another shot to get the card on offer for a long time. It may also ruin your chances of getting a future card. Once you make the sacrifice, you'll be told if you were successful or not in winning the Infernal Deal card. If you are, it will be added to your collection. It will also disappear from the Infernal Pit window, and no card will be available any more. However, every 8 hours, whether you win the card or not, a new card becomes available in the Infernal Deal. So even if you plan to sacrifice cards to the Pit to get money, it is best to hold onto them until you can use them altogether to buy yourself a card you really want at the same time. You still get the same amount of gold you would get, plus this card for free. When deciding what to sacrifice, the safest thing is copies of cards

exceeding 4, or exceeding 1 in the case of Heroes and Unique cards. This is because any deck you make cannot have more than 4 of any card, and not more than 1 of a Hero or unique card. It is possible to decide you are only ever going to play one faction, and that you're going to offer as a sacrifice any card that doesn't fit that faction. I would advise against this, as you will probably regret it in the long run. As you buy boosters you will inevitably get a large amount of cards for other factions, and eventually these will piece themselves together into playable decks. The small amount of gold you get, even coupled with specific cards from the Infernal Deal, is not in my opinion worth giving up completely on all other factions. But that's up to you of course! Be aware that even for one faction, there are various Heroes, who have access to different spell schools. So even if your starter Hero cannot use a particular spell, another Hero you may get from the same faction might be able to. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------#3.08 Leaderboards tab ------------------------------------------------------------------------------To get to the Leaderboards screen, click the Feathers icon at the top-right of the main menu screen. This has three tabs. "Skill" shows your position in relation to other players based on your ELO rating. This is a number which starts at 0 when you begin playing, and goes up when you win. It goes down when you lose, but you can't go below 0. This is used to match opponents of similar skill when duelling online. Once at an ELO rating of 500, you cannot drop below 500 again unless you lose 10 duels in a row. Similarly at 1000. Don't get stressed out about your rating, as you get better cards and gain more experience with the game, you are bound to have more success. This is a deep game that cannot be mastered overnight. Both deckbuilding and play skills take a long time to fully learn. The next tab is "Jackpot Tournament." If a tournament is currently underway, this shows you standing within the tournament. See section 5.03. The rating shown here is an ELO rating just within the tournament, where everyone begins again at 0. The last tab, "Swiss Tournament" shows your general performance in Swiss tournaments compared to other players. See section 5.04. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------#3.09 Daily rewards ------------------------------------------------------------------------------This is a new incentive that came along with the Herald of the Void expansion. When you log in for the first time each day, you will be presented with the "daily rewards" window. You are offered a prize, and you can either collect it right away (click on the left button) or stash it for later (click on the right button). If you only log in occasionally, it is better to collect your prize. If you stash it but then don't log in the next day, you will lose it. If you log in every day, then you are better off stashing it. It will then be offered to you the next day, along with another prize. You can then either collect it or stash it again, and so on. You can continue to stash your prizes for a whole week, at which point you have to collect. It is well worth doing this as each day the quality of the prizes generally increases. As well as gold you can get tournament tickets, gold and XP boosts, and eventually some seals if you wait the whole week. I believe patience will pay off, stash your rewards! If you just collect daily, all you will ever get is a small amount of gold.

It tells you as you go along the "value" of your prizes, measured in gold. This is telling you how much they are worth if they were translated into gold. It's meant as a guide so you can see how much you are getting if you stash or claim now. You don't get given the amount of gold in this "value". Some of your prize will be in gold, but some of it will be in other things such as tickets or seals. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------#4.00 Improving your starter deck ------------------------------------------------------------------------------If you haven't already, make sure you get your free gifts! See section 3.05E. This section is aimed at improving the card quality in the starter deck you chose, so it covers the 3 starting factions, as well as neutral cards which can be put into any of the faction decks. Once you have completed the tutorial and spent your riches that you have earned (see sections 2.04 and 3.05) these sections will help you decide how to use the new cards to your best advantage. It can also be used as reference as you buy more cards to come back and see how you can continue to improve the decks. I advise reading the whole of section 3.06 before using this section, as it will familiarize you with the deck editor. I will assume here that you already know how to use it. The advice given here is very general in nature, and is aimed mainly at starting players and those with limited experience. As you grow more confident you can and should decide what works for you. This advice is meant only as a guideline. Once you have been playing for a while and feel like taking your deck building to the next level, see section 7.00 onwards. Sections 4.01 and 4.02 will be useful whatever faction you have chosen. You should then concentrate on the relevant section from 4.03-4.05 for your chosen faction, but later it is well worth reading the other factions, both for playing them yourself and knowing what to expect from an opponent of that faction. The spell sections you should read depend on the Hero you have chosen. These are not directly linked to the faction of the Hero. You can find these as icons on the right hand side of your Hero card. For the starter Heroes this will be: Inferno- Fire, Primal Necropolis- Water, Dark Haven- Light, Air Also you should look at section 4.13 for every faction, as they all need event cards. For each section 4.02-4.12, I will separate the cards that appear in starter decks into three categories: Good- These are the stronger cards which you will want to hang on to, and include more copies of when you find them. OK- These will do to begin with, but are not ideal, and you can look to replace them when better cards become available. Poor- These are the cards I consider really cruddy, either just because they are not very good, or they don't fit into the starter decks well. Replace these as soon as possible, even with an average card.

Others- These are cards which don't appear in the starter decks, but which you should look out for as they are good cards to improve your deck with. They are also cards to get to know as your opponent may have them! I haven't listed cards which require a very high amount of might or magic, or more than 3 fortune, as they are unlikely to be useful to a starting player. I've included the best 3 destiny fortunes in case you do decide to go up to that level. For those cards which are in the Void Rising expansion, I have put [VR] after the name. These come from Void Rising Packs or Emilio Packs. Herald of the Void cards have [HV] after them. I put a * next to the very best cards from those available. I have left out those categories where there are no cards I would put into them for a given section. Remember to apply all this advice in combination with the guidelines in section 4.01 below. A deck full of good cards may not be a good deck overall. A card list for the game can be found here (spoilers): http://www.mmdoc.net/card_list/ Use this to read more about the cards I recommend using. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------#4.01 Deck building guidelines ------------------------------------------------------------------------------The advice I give here will mainly be aimed at using the starter Heroes, but much of it will still be valid once you start using other Heroes. I am going to give very general principles with which to start. I believe you will find them useful. But they should not be regarded as fixed: as you get better at understanding how to build a good deck you can vary or just ignore parts of this advice as you see fit. But to begin with, I think these will steer you in the right direction. As I've mentioned several times in this guide, I recommend always using the minimum number of cards in your deck, 59. This is 1 Hero, 8 events and 50 creature/spell/fortune cards in any mix. This is to help you draw your best cards most often. The next important thing to think about is what I will name the "maxout" of your deck. To find the maxout rating for the cards you have in your deck at any point, work out how much you have to increase each of the starting skills of your hero to be able to use every card in your deck. The total of these three is your maxout. For example, I am using a standard Hero, which begins with 1 might, 1 magic and 2 destiny. The cards in my deck go as high as 4 might, 4 magic and 3 destiny. So I need to raise might 3 times, magic 3 times and destiny once. This is a total of 7 raises needed, so maxout=7. My advice is to aim for a maxout of no more than 6 to begin with. If you go beyond that, you will often find yourself too stretched in different directions. You may well have to choose between using the higher level cards of one sort, or the high level cards of another. This will leave a group of cards redundant for possibly the whole of that duel, as you just won't have the time to get the skills up before your opponent overwhelms you. To make this even easier, as a general rule, you can ignore any creature that

requires more than 4 might to cast. They may look great, but the fact is most of them are not worth the investment, and if you put high level might creatures in, this will require a reduction in the level of magic/fortune cards you can use for a given maxout number. You will find initially that magic in particular is extremely important, and it's better to have access to higher level spells than to push for the higher level creatures. On top of this, I would also suggest not worrying about increasing your destiny level at all to begin with. For starter Heroes, this means forgetting about anything requiring a destiny of 3 or more. I find fortunes, especially higher level ones, are the hardest cards to use effectively so I would avoid them until you really know what you are doing. If you do want to use some higher fortunes, then I suggest not raising it any more than 1. If you follow the advice in both the above paragraphs, this will mean you only need to raise your might by 3 and your destiny not at all. This leaves you with being able to raise your magic by 3 points. So in summary, you can go up to 4 might, 4 magic and 2 destiny for a starter Hero. This gives you a good range of powerful creatures and spells, backed up by the occasional fortune. I have found this to be an excellent template for a standard deck. The next very important thing to consider is the amount of cards you have for each resource cost. You ideally want to have a nice mix of cheap cards, leading up gradually to expensive cards. Too many cheap cards can leave you lacking in power later in the game, and too many expensive ones can cause you to be overrun before you even get started. Go for a nice curve, that aims to make use of your available resources every turn for the first few turns. This will usually be with creatures, so the curve for them is especially important. As you go up the curve, you want generally less cards at each resources level. Event cards are sometimes the trickiest of all. They are interesting because they can be just as beneficial to your opponent if you are not careful. You can sometimes make sure a card cannot possibly hurt you and can't help the opponent. (For example, Week of Taxes makes fortunes more expensive to cast. This works well in a deck with no fortunes.) But often it will be a matter of picking a card which is more likely to help you than your opponent, based on the rest of your deck. The last thing to consider is your ratio of melee creature to shooters. You want to have roughly an equal amount of each. Too many of one may lead to running out of space on a crowded battlefield to deploy more units, as well as falling foul of cards which penalize melee/shooter creatures. The more flyer creatures you have in the deck, the more you can relax this rule, as they can go in the back or the front line, filling holes as needed. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------#4.02 Neutral cards ------------------------------------------------------------------------------These are cards with the pale blue diamond icon in the top right corner, they are creature and fortune cards that can be used in any deck. ----OK---Creatures: Angry Wyvern: Quite versatile and tough, he can be handy initially, but as usual he's not quite worth the stretch to 5 might in your deck. I would suggest replacing him with a decent 4 might creature when you get one.

Lesser Air Elemental: He is quite versatile being a flyer, and his 2 retaliation becomes relevant given his high 6 health. Unfortunately he does not quite pack the punch you want for a 4 might creature, these are meant to be your game closers. But until you find better ones, he will do. He can provide fairly good offense and defense, especially when backed up by another unit in the same row. Lesser Fire Elemental: He is not too bad as a high level shooter to begin with, you will be glad to see him in your early games. His stats are alright, but you can look to replace him when you get better faction creatures. Rogue Mercenary: 2 power and 4 health for 2 resources is pretty good, but it's a shame you have to pay to attack with him. Remember to take this into account when planning your moves each turn. He is alright for attacking and defending until you find something stronger. Sea Elf Archer: A pretty decent all round shooter, which can hold its own in most decks. Its main drawback is just 3 health, but most of the time this will do alright for a mid range shooter. ---POOR--Creatures: Lesser Shadow Elemental: Although he is quite hard to kill in combat, he is too defensive and expensive. You want to be putting pressure on your opponent with a 3 resource creature, and your opponent can safely ignore this one and just move creatures out of his way. Pao Hunter: He is just too weak. 1 power is bad for 2 resources without a good ability to back it up. All factions can do better than this. Wild Griffin: Although handy as a flyer, his stats are just too wimpy for a 3 resource creature. He is too easy to kill, and doesn't hit for enough. Fortunes: Ambush Spot: A fortune that can be handy in certain situations, but I feel is too narrow in focus to merit keeping. If your deck is running well, you should be able to cope fine without cheap tricks like this. Campfire: This is actually a really good card, but I list it as poor here only because I initially don't recommend using anything that requires increasing your destiny, to focus more on might and magic. I don't think it's worth stretching your maxout just for Campfires, even if you have 4. But if you have several other good 3 destiny fortunes you are using, then by all means include this. It is a great way to gain resources and keep your cards flowing. It is eventually a must include for all decks using 3+ destiny. Dragon Vein: Not really use these "skill raise" almost useless later in If your maxout skill is suited to a starter deck, and to be honest I don't cards hardly at all. The problem is that they can be the game, and tie up your resources in the early game. not too high, you don't need this.

--OTHERS TO LOOK OUT FOR-Creatures: Dark Assassin*: If you are lucky enough to get one of these, it is one of the most amazing 2 resource creature which is brilliant for any aggressive deck.

Dealing 1 damage a turn to you is not a big deal when he is doing 4 to the opponent, and he is extremely hard to stop with creatures as they need 5 or more life just to survive his attack. He is vulnerable to many cheap spells like Fire Bolt and Sunburst, but if the opponent doesn't draw one of these they will probably lose the game in short order. If they do draw one, they have to pretty much use it right away which can mess with their timing. Note that the damage to the attacker is dealt first, so if you have 1 life and attack with Dark Assassin, you will lose the game before he can deal his damage to the opponent. Pao Deathseeker*: I call him Deathstreaker- look at the picture! He is an extremely versatile creature, acting more like direct damage which can be aimed at a creature, or the opponent given an open row. You can use him to deal the final points of damage to win a game, and can even pump him up with spells first for more damage. You can use him to kill a small creature, or finish off a bigger one. Be aware of the opponent having these; any time you are at 3 or less life with an open row, if he has one of these you are dead. But you won't see too many of them to begin with. If you can find a way to return him to your hand before end of turn, such as Broken Bridge or Town Portal, you can attack with him again, either on the same turn or a following one. If you don't get any of these in packs for a long time (like I didn't) it is possible to buy the pre-made Crag Hack deck from the shop for 125,000 gold to get one of these as it is included in that deck. It's a very steep price to pay for one card so don't do it until you are desperate for one of these. Magic Peddler [HV]: If you are lucky enough to get one of the unique epic HV spells and it works really well in your deck, including one of these gives you another chance to find it during a game. I wouldn't recommend using more than one or two of these unless you have two epic spells as you increase the chance of drawing a redundant Peddler after already finding your epic. Fortunes: Arcane Academy: Very good for decks which rely on getting a particular spell to deal with situations. Can be a bit slow for aggressive decks. Broken Bridge*: The best affordable neutral card for dealing with creatures. This has many uses, the most obvious of which is to return one or hopefully two enemy creatures to the opponent's hand. If you have a creature on that row you can move it out the way first. But you can use it to your advantage to also return one of your creatures, moving into that row first if need be. You may want to do this because your creature has taken a lot of damage, has a nasty ongoing spell from an opponent on it or has annoying counters on it. Also to rescue it from being stolen by Puppet Master. Gold Pile*: This is the most reliable way for almost any deck to quickly gain resources. It gives you a free resource, but remember it does actually cost 1 resource to cast, so don't go down to zero counting on your extra resource first! Watch out for the Week of Taxes event that is popular, which makes this card temporarily useless by making it 2 to cast. This card helps get out a big creature/spell quicker, especially if you have gone first so you can raise your skills above your resource level. Or you can use it to get out several things at once early on. Observatory: For any deck with a lot of fortunes that needs to get a particular one in a hurry, this is useful. But can be too slow for very aggressive decks. Inheritance [VR]: A good way to get resources, but not as reliable as Gold Pile. Note that even though it is free to use it requires 3 destiny. When

it works it is really good, but it sometimes ends up useless in your hand for long periods. Pillage [VR]: A relatively cheap way of disrupting the opponent, making their next turn much less productive. The later on in the game you use it, the more of a difference it makes, so pick your point carefully. Best used when you have an advantage on the battleground. Revised Tactics [HV]: Good for starter Heroes as they already have 2 destiny which you need to cast this. You can remove cards from your deck that are not going to be as useful against the particular Hero you are facing, or the situation you find yourself in. For example, you may remove dispelling cards from a deck that seems not to be using spells, or Gold Pile later in the game when you no longer require it and would rather draw something else. This works best in slightly slower decks as the 1 resource cost, although cheap, can still mess up your curve sometimes in a fast deck. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------#4.03 Inferno faction ------------------------------------------------------------------------------These are cards with the red/yellow ring icon in the top right corner. They are creature and fortune cards that can only be used with Inferno faction Heroes. ---GOOD--Creatures: Cerberus: A bigger Demented, with one more on each stat. Uses all the same strategies and combos. Although he is very good, I am slightly more drawn towards taking him out of the deck eventually, but only because the 3 resource slot is overflowing with amazing creatures for Inferno, and there are just so many melee creatures that you want to include. But certainly always worth considering. Demented: A slightly disappointing 3 health, but other than that this is a great creature, highly suited to aggressive play. He combos really well with Teleport, moving him into position for a big sweep attack, hopefully hitting 3 creatures at once. And also with buffs like Inner Fire, to hit with a huge sweep attack. Immune to retaliation means he can attack recklessly and is hard to block effectively. Juggernaut: One of my favourite creatures in the whole game, he pretty much nails the damage to resource ratio. He is very hard to block, and to ignore. When backed by a Fire Bolt, he can take down a 6 life blocker. Your opponent will fear this creature! Lilim: An amazing top range shooter, with an unbelievable 8 health making her stupidly hard to kill. She can even be put in the path of a Juggernaut quite effectively. One of the best shooters in the game. Maniac: A must for any aggressive deck, 2 power for 1 resource is amazing. Later in the game if you are desperate for a block he can provide a cheap roadblock. He is hard to block from the outset when backed up by Fire Bolts and Inner Fire. Pit off the may Fiend: A nasty piece of work, he can pick off cheap enemy units or finish bigger ones. Works well in combination with Hellfire Cerberus. Sadly 4 might slot is overpopulated with amazing creatures for Inferno, so you eventually find yourself replacing him as I did, but I kept him for a very

long time. Great when backed with damage spells and buffs. Remember he does take retaliation damage if he doesn't finish off a creature completely. Succubus: Excellent stats for 2 resources, this works in just about any deck. The best cheap shooter available. ----OK---Creatures: Breeder: He only just makes the OK column, because he helps you get your magic skill up quicker to cast big spells like Fireball while providing a bit of damage. But I would still replace him fairly quickly, as he doesn't provide enough early punch for an aggressive deck. Hell Hound: He looks good, and is alright for a very fast creature, being the only 1 resource creature besides Maniac for Inferno. But most of the time he proves a bit too weak and you end up babysitting him to keep him alive if you can't back him up with spells to force him through. Only keep him in for the long term if you plan on being super aggressive; even then I have just found he doesn't quite do what you want him to most of the time. Fortunes: Altar of Destruction: This is a powerful card, and one of the few in the whole game that can easily deal direct damage to the opponent. Use this exclusively as a finisher card- I forbid you to use it at any other time, unless you are certain you'll kill the opponent next turn and want to use your last resource point. The reason for this is you are giving away card advantage, and the 2 damage to the opponent may not be as important as that card loss before the game is over. I put this as OK rather than good only because of its lack of versatility; if you are losing, it is totally useless. And sometimes you just don't need it, as you crush your opponent with your creatures anyway. It's one that's always floating on the borders of cards to include, you'll come to your own opinion on it. The more aggressive the deck, the better this is. Chaos Rift: A nasty card when it works, but quite risky. The faster your deck, the more likely this is to work. But if you come out slower than the opponent this ends up being just an expensive single card draw. It can work very well, but be careful about whether your deck really is fast enough to be likely to benefit. Especially considering there is only one creature I consider worth using at the 1 resource level, unlike some other factions. House of Madness: This is a disruption card, providing an annoyance to the opponent. It is best played when you are in a strong position, and/or you expect the opponent to need to play several cards in their next turn. In those situations it is very good, making the opponent lose cards for playing them, and if they cast more than 1 you have gained card advantage. It's not that much use when you are losing, or in a stalled situation, or early in the game, which is why I rate it only as OK. Can work very well in some decks though. --OTHERS TO LOOK OUT FOR-Creatures: Chaos Imp: Works well in combination with other discard strategies, but is pretty annoying on its own. It's a bit of a gamble as some Heroes have abilities which can kill this guy. But usually at the least your opponent has to kill it right away and discard a card too, giving you card advantage. When they can't kill it, they will probably lose unless you are in a very

bad position. Ravager: The bigger brother of Juggernaut, this guy is absolutely lethal if the opponent can't do anything about him. The only problem is that his health isn't any bigger, 4 makes him a bit fragile. Once you have 4 Lilim, probably the best 4 resource creature you can get. 2 of these is probably enough to complement that. Unless you are going completely creature crazy! Caller of the Void* [VR]: Inferno lacks a tough 3 resource shooter, and so if you are lucky enough to get this, it fits nicely. It works well in any kind of aggressive deck, especially with direct damage strategies. To keep the direct damage going you can move her around to get out of danger when she is threatened. Hellfire Cerberus* [VR]: Although 2 power is low, the attack anywhere ability makes up for it. Combined with damage spells and boosts, this can take out big creatures, as well as being useful for finishing things off. As it takes no retaliation, it can be used to pick away at something too. If you can move it behind a big melee creature, you can keep it defended. If the opponent can't kill this, they are in for a rough time. Hellfire Imp [VR]: Although tricky to use due to the unusual casting requirements of 2 might and 2 magic, when he works he is very powerful for his cost. 3 attack is unusual for 2 resources, and he is one of the few flyer creatures Inferno has. Chaos Seer [HV]: This is very easy to cast for Garant as you already have the 2 destiny required. Although this is a smaller and more expensive Succubus, the opponent must either ignore it forever and keep taking damage, or typically trade 2 cards for 1 by taking it out. Even if they kill it in combat you haven't lost any card advantage. It also has the benefit of hosing stalling strategies that rely on having a lot of cards in hand at once. Hellfire Maniac* [HV]: One of the few 5 might creatures worth considering, as it has an immediate effect. It makes the creature(s) opposite it attack it right away when you pass your turn, and then they take 4 damage. If two creatures oppose him, the one that was deployed first will attack first, as far as my testing has shown. This guy is very useful as his 4 damage goes through most protections such as magic resist, incorporeal, melee guard etc. If the creature has 5 or more health it will survive, but as long as your Maniac survives you can often attack with it and finish off the creature in your next turn. It works at its best against creatures with low attack, or even better: zero attack, such as Tithe Collector. It can sometimes survive 2 or even 3 attacks if they are chosen carefully, giving you huge card advantage. But most of the time it's going to be good for 2 attacks at most before the opponent manages to kill it somehow or it succumbs to combat damage. But even then you have usually gained momentum and card advantage. It allows you to control your opponent's turn in a unique way, because the berserk creatures don't get to be buffed up before attacking, they don't get to be teleported, they don't get to move around and they don't get to attack your friendly creature behind the Maniac. Note that even if the Maniac gets killed by an attack, it still deals the 4 damage. Fortunes: Garant's Purge*: Good against any deck, but can be lethal against certain deck types that rely on a few cards for victory. By counting up how many copies there are in the deck of each card, plus those that the opponent has already used, you can often work out of the opponent has any in their hand. For example if you find 2 Fire Bolts and the opponent hasn't used any, it's a fair bet they

have another 2 in their hand so using this will knock those two out of their hand giving immediate card advantage. Twist of Fate*: This is a great discard spell because it is guaranteed to pull something out of the opponent's hand without needing it to be of a certain type. It also gives you important information, knowing what is in the rest of their hand helps you plan what to do on the next few turns. Have a good look at the game situation and your opponent's current skill levels before deciding what to pick. It is tempting to throw out their biggest creature or spell, but it may be that they won't be able to afford it for several turns so a more pressing concern should be dealt with instead. Halls of Amnesia [VR]: A cheap and easy way of removing spell threats from the opponent before they wipe out lots of your creatures. Be warned that not every deck uses spells, so this is a slight gamble to include. Maws of Chaos [VR]: Exactly like Halls of Amnesia, but with fortunes. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------#4.04 Necropolis faction ------------------------------------------------------------------------------These are cards with the green/blue spider icon in the top right corner. They are creature and fortune cards that can only be used with Necropolis faction Heroes. ---GOOD--Creatures: Fate Spinner: An upgraded Plague Zombie, he is extremely hard to kill and he will wipe out almost anything that blocks him through infect. The only problem is the relatively low 2 power, meaning the opponent can sometimes just ignore him. But still a solid creature. Lamasu: Really good stats at 2/2/6, hard to kill, a great blocker and very useful being a flyer. Good to provide pressure, or be a stop sign for early enemy creatures. Lingering Ghost: Another flyer, and very cheap, extremely useful. The stats are not amazing, but being incorporeal makes him surprisingly hard to kill with creatures, especially early on. They need 4 power to wipe him out in one go, and you can safely attack non-magic creatures with retaliation of 1 because that will get rounded down to zero. He is a great creature to drop in front of an enemy 2/1/2 early creature. They will probably have to just move their creature away. Neophyte Lich: Excellent stats for 2 resources, this works in just about any deck. The best cheap shooter available. Plague Zombie: A nice high 5 health makes him hard to kill, and your opponent will be worried about blocking him. He will cause most creatures to die pretty quickly if he can damage them thanks to infect. Wretched Ghoul: A must for any aggressive deck, 2 power for 1 resource is amazing. Later in the game if you are desperate for a block he can provide a cheap roadblock. Fortunes:

Mass Grave: A very handy fortune, which cheaply disposes of both powerful early creatures your opponent puts out that you can't handle, or cheap blockers put in your way when you want to kill your opponent. Putting a card onto your library from your hand is a serious disadvantage though, essentially handing card advantage to your opponent. This fits in most decks, but not all. ----OK---Creatures: Plague Skeleton: Just 1 power is not good for 2 resources, but his infect ability coupled with immunity to retaliation means the opponent may leave him unblocked for most of the game. Putrid Lamasu: He looks quite frightening, and he's not bad really. But like most creatures over 4 might, he's not quite worth it unless you are focusing on a seriously creature heavy deck. He will kill most things that block him, but often he will take retaliation damage before the infect finishes off the creature, and he can only take so much of that. I suggest pulling him for a decent 4 might creature when you get one. Skeleton Spearman: These are handy just because they are fast, and can pick away at your opponent if ignored. If blocked by a melee or flyer, you have the option of dropping your own melee/flyer in front of him to protect him. You may find him too wimpy once you get more cards, but for a really fast deck he is good. Fortunes: Graveyard: This is a pretty decent fortune, one which can help you recover from a bad situation by getting back your best dead creature, or can be used to draw a card later if you don't need it. The problem can be that if your deck is very fast (like this one is) you may often not be able to use the first ability. Consider this when deciding whether or not to keep this card in. No Rest For The Wicked: A variation on Graveyard, but without the chance to cycle it for another card. If you are playing a very fast deck, chances are the opponent will have more cards than you, and it's a cheap way of getting access to a useful dead creature. --OTHERS TO LOOK OUT FOR-Creatures: Archlich*: One of the best Necropolis 4 might creatures, having good attack, high health and being very hard to kill due to life drain. Suitable for virtually any creature strategy. Atropos, Weaver of the Dead*: Out of all the 5 cost creatures in the game, I would rate this the best, and most worthy of including in a deck. His ability to get back creatures is devastating, and he is no slouch in combat either. You can sometimes even recur his ability by getting him back to your hand, either from the battleground or from your graveyard and casting him again. Vampire Knight*: A great mid range creature, 5 is high health for 3 resources and it just keeps getting filled up thanks to life drain. Throw in flying and this is a reliable creature that fits into most decks. Vengeful Spectre: The big version of Lingering Ghost, and much, much harder for

the opponent to deal with. Where possible always put it in front of non-magical creatures. It will take them an age to kill it and when you hit back you take half retaliation also. The only problem is 2 power isn't great. Moonsilk Skeleton* [VR]: A handy aggressive 2 resource unit which the opponent is unlikely to want to block with anything that will take damage from it. Even if it doesn't kill the creature, the crippling counter will mess it up badly. These counters are cumulative also. Moonsilk Spinner [VR]: A possible alternative to Archlich, it is something the opponent will be unwilling to block as their creature will get seriously ruined even by just one attack from this. I would probably rate Archlich as better overall, but there may be room for both in the right deck, or if you don't have access to the full amount of Archlichs yet. Note that this is one of the few shooters that takes retribution damage after its attack. Decay Spitter* [HV]: It kind of makes me sick having to recommend this creature as it is in my opinion very overpowered and is unbalancing creature combat between the factions. It is one of the very few creatures for 4 resources that has an instant effect, and boy is it a big one. The 2 poison counters will cause a small creature to die right away after you pass the turn, and a 4 health creature will only get to attack you once before dying the turn after. On top of this, 2 attack and 5 life with infect is a decent creature too. It can cover 2 creatures, by poisoning one so it dies right away, or very soon, while blocking another. It is really hard for any creature deck to do much about this, the poison tokens go through almost everything, and leaves an annoying creature behind to deal with. And when it gets killed, you can reanimate it in one of the many ways Necropolis has, the real ace being Seria's Legion, giving you up to another 3 in hand! I have won many games just through this. Also it works wonders with returning to your own hand, especially Broken Bridge. You can move your almost-dead Spitter in front of an expensive enemy creature (or preferably two creatures) and return them all. Then you get to cast your Spitter again at full health, and poison another creature. Or, you could like, give your opponent a break? Note that this is one of the few shooters that isn't immune to retaliation. Hangman Tree: [HV] A very nice blocker creature, suitable for any deck which isn't too focused on a rush strategy. It works particularly well with Ariana, helping you buy time until your powerful spells kick in. It will really frustrate a first turn 2/1/2 melee creature, as it will hit it back and then start regaining health if attacked. The opponent often has to put ridiculous amounts of effort into killing this if they want to do so early in the game, otherwise you just follow their creatures around with this... hang on, since when do trees walk? Anyhow, this also works well in combination with Earthquake and Insect Swarm, as long as it survives. If it's almost dead, it may be worth moving it out of harms way for a couple of turns to let it regenerate, before putting it back into action. Living Nightmare [HV]: I feel this card could have been a little stronger, but it is still fairly effective. Necropolis doesn't have much going on at the 5 resource level (other than Atropos) so this can be a stop-gap towards raising might for Banshees, or just a top-end way to control the board. It works best when your opponent has doubled up small creatures against you, which they may do if your Hero and strategy make it look like you have no way of punishing this kind of formation. It is powerful enough to pick away at small creatures that decide to stay in front of it, and you know they can't attack it back and kill it, even a surprise Pao wouldn't be able to! So with 6 health it is going to be a real pain for the opponent for some time. Skeleton Archer [HV]: The 3 resource slot is already overflowing with good

creatures, and this is yet another one. It's hard to put them all into a strict order of power, but this is a good choice if you just want millions of 3 slot creatures, or are looking for more shooters. It's the only 3 resource Necro shooter, and has nice retaliation and health. Soul Consuming Lich [HV]: This guy has a tendency to never die, with a massive 7 health and getting 2 back every time something dies. And you don't realize quite how often stuff dies until you see something benefiting from it! He is strong on his own, but works really well with Earthquake and Insect Swarm as these are bound to put him back to full health. When playing against one of these, make sure you kill the opponent's other creatures while this is at full health. Don't damage this and then kill other creatures if you can avoid it as some of the damage will be removed. Untamed Wraith* [HV]: Along with Decay Spitter, I feel this is a creature that has pushed Necro over the edge. This is super powerful! It is cheap, it's magic so it benefits from Week of the Wild Spirits and its 2 retaliation is very relevant especially due to incorporeal. It can block really well almost any melee or flyer. I feel this are a must for almost any creature deck. Fortunes: Asha Uses All*: Although it puts you down a card to use this, it is often well worth it to pull the specific fortune you need from your graveyard. Only include this if you are using a large amount of fortunes in your deck. Shantiri Ruins*: Just like Asha Uses All, but with spells. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------#4.05 Haven faction ------------------------------------------------------------------------------These are cards with the grey/blue plus icon in the top right corner, they are creature and fortune cards that can only be used with Haven faction Heroes. ---GOOD--Creatures: Loyal Griffin: Cheap, sturdy and versatile. An excellent 2 resource creature. Radiant Glory: Yes, yes, yes. This is one of Haven's best creatures in my opinion. Very nice stats, the retaliation is relevant with high life, and a flyer too. Nice for getting in the way of small units, or providing a decent threat. Sun Rider: One of the best 3 cost units for Haven, having high life, charge, and being immune to retaliation.It is able to attack recklessly. When pumped up with things like Bless, it can skewer things to pieces. Works well with ways of moving him around, like Lightning Speed. Tithe Collector: Normally when you go first, you are always behind in the resources race. You get 1, the opponent gets 2, you get 2... and so on. But if you can cast this on the first turn, you jump ahead. You'll have 3 available on your second turn. This is very useful for all sorts of things. The extra resources make things easier for you. They stack in multiples too. Although he has no power this doesn't matter: if threatened with a creature just retreat him to an unopposed row. Only when you run out of places for him to hide is he in trouble!

Warrior Seraph: Although stat wise this is worse than Radiant Glory, this is still a solid creature to be your top-end. With 5 life she has a decent chance of surviving some combats and/or spells, and can stick around to be a real pain for your opponent. While she is recharging you can move her around to keep her out of combat. The opponent must commit to killing her off cleanly or else dealing with her hanging around. Note that she regenerates her health before taking damage from poison counters, making her even harder to kill. Fortunes: Fortified Outpost: Handy for the starter Hero as he can use this fortune without having to raise destiny- unlike Campfire / River of Gems. It can help you catch up from a fast start by the opponent by letting you get out bigger creatures or more at once. Later in the game you can cycle it for a card if it's no longer useful. ----OK---Creatures: Imperial Crossbowman: Haven lacks the 1 resource 2 attack creatures that every other faction has. This and the card below are Haven's cheap attackers, and sadly are never going to be as effective. But this is alright for cheap damage and to get the pressure on the opponent from the start. You can move him around when threatened, and hide him behind your other creatures. Probably when you get a sound cast of creatures you'll no longer need this unless you are concentrating heavily on rushing the opponent from the start. Imperial Sentinel: This guy's not bad. He provides some decent defense, especially early on, against a weenie melee rush. By having a creature above and below him, he can protect 3 creatures including himself. And this stacks with multiple melee guard creatures, meaning 2 next to each other will reduce melee damage by 2. A little too easy to kill and a bit wimpy, but still a fair choice for an "aggressive" deck, as far as any Haven deck is ever aggressive! ---POOR--Creatures: Devoted Sister: This would be maybe half decent if it healed itself as well. This really isn't very good, it does nothing on its own, requires a lot of adjacent positioning to work which sets you up for things like Fireball, and often your creatures will just be killed outright rather than wounded if the opponent knows what they are doing. Fortunes: Fountain of Youth: As is the case with many CCGs, there are not many Herohealing cards that are worth it in this game. The opponent just may not care about giving you life back, or if they do they have the option to not cast more than 1-2 cards. Generally this life gain is not worth it. It's more important to focus on winning rather than not losing. River of Gems: This is a good card; the only reason I put it in the poor category is that I suggest taking out all 3 or more destiny cards to begin with to help you focus on creatures and spells. But if you do use this, then it gives you a big resource boost, usable fairly early in the game. It can help you get more threats on the table, or help you cast one or

more expensive cards. --OTHERS TO LOOK OUT FOR-Creatures: Elite Squire*: His ability to keep up to 3 of your creatures (nearly) safe from shooter damage can be really important. He's very cheap, and 2 retaliation can be relevant when small units want to attack him. Remember his ability also applies to retaliation damage, so you can safely attack a shooter with 2 or less retaliation without actually taking any of that retaliation damage, both with this creature and the adjacent ones. It's a good idea to space out your melee creatures initially so that he can go in between them. Even if you haven't drawn him yet, you may do soon. Expert Marksman*: A very solid 2 resource shooter, good for most creature strategies. Holy Praetorian*: A bigger, better version of Imperial Sentinel. His 4 life makes him very sturdy, and he can seriously dampen a melee onslaught. 4 of these is probably overkill but 2 or 3 are a great addition to most decks. Wolf Captain*: Possibly the most overpowered creature in the game, this is ridiculous for just 2 resources. Quickly growing to 2 or 3 attack and with 5 life, this causes chaos for the opponent while being hard to get rid of. And retribution just adds injury to insult. If you are lucky enough to get one they are amazing. Play them as soon as you can, then start ganging your creatures around her. [This has now been given a might requirement of 3 making it slighter harder to use and more balanced, but still very good.] Wolf Marksman [VR]: Although not fantastic, this provides a good mix of attack and defense, and is a headache for anything other than enemy shooters. Wolf Praetorian [VR]: A seriously tough melee unit scariest retaliation in the game. Anything that is is going to get badly hurt attacking this, even if biggest down point here is the low 2 attack, so it defensive rather than aggressive strategy. which has probably the isn't immune to retaliation it manages to kill it. The leans more towards a

Angel of Mercy [HV]: This is somewhat hit and miss due to the random element, but it is at least guaranteed to get you card advantage whatever you get back. Note the unusual destiny requirement. The stats are not great for the cost, but they are enough to cause some trouble and it makes a decent blocker at least. If you end up with several of these on the go and you get lucky, you can get an already dead one back when you cast a new one, then use it to get back something else as well. Combined with The Light of Tomorrow, you can almost endlessly recycle creatures. Griffin Knight [HV]: It's a nice addition to have a flyer guard. However, it's effectiveness is rather dependent on what faction you are facing. Sanctuary, Inferno and Stronghold do not have a lot of flyers, and that is 3 out of the 5 factions you could face. But at the moment Necro is being played a huge amount, so it could be a good counter-choice. It's more expensive than the other guards, but is at least quite durable and can be set up exactly where it is needed to guard up to 3 creatures. Remember it protects against retaliation damage from fliers, helping you attack them more easily. Griffin Marksman* [HV]: This is my new favourite 4 resource Haven creature. I have felt that slot was a weakness of the faction so this makes a lot of difference. He is a sturdy shooter with nasty retaliation, and gets the

job done. I would recommend 4 of these for any deck that can support them. Griffin Mounted Spearman [HV]: Not quite as strong in my opinion as the Marksman, but still a very useful creature and my new second favourite. He is a combination of a nimble attacker and a sturdy blocker. Where possible use him to finish things off, to avoid him getting whittled by retaliation. Any kind of buff like Bless will make him a nightmare. You can also set him up after attacking so as to avoid a dangerous formation. See section 6.04. Be careful if you are playing a deck which tries to keep many of your melee creatures alive, such as with Holy Praetorian. He may quickly run out of room to move about in, so may not be the best choice. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------#4.06 Water spells ------------------------------------------------------------------------------These are spell cards with the light blue wave icon in the top right corner. They can be used by any Hero with a matching icon on the right hand side of their card. It is used by the starter Necropolis Hero. ---GOOD--Icy Weapon: Very expensive, but it provides a sizeable and permanent attack boost. This can be used as a finisher, or more often to help a creature kill a big blocker and come out keeping the bonus. Don't just randomly throw this about due to its cost- make it count. ----OK---Refreshing Spring: This is a handy, cheap way to either land an extra point of damage to finish the opponent, or help your creature kill a blocker slightly out of its normal range. May prove slightly underwhelming in the long run, so depending on your strategy you can look to replace this. ---POOR--Ice Wall: This is handy in some situations, and can help you win a "race" situation by ignoring some enemy creature for a turn. But given the aggressive nature of the Necropolis starter deck, it's a bit too defensive. Useful in decks that don't want to go high into the magic skill as a way of stalling, but not great for the starting deck particularly. --OTHERS TO LOOK OUT FOR-Blizzard: A fairly cheap way of dealing damage which can end up getting spread around and weakening several enemy units. Be aware that this can be passed on to one of your creatures, not just enemy ones. Spaces opposite each other from the two front lines are considered adjacent. Also note that if Blizzard kills a creature, it won't get a chance to move on to another creature. Geyser*: A mini Fireball for water magic, probably its scariest overall spell. Being so cheap it's easy to include knowing you'll be able to do something with it, at worst just 3 damage to an enemy creature. But when you can hit multiple ones, it can be very nasty. Be aware that "adjacent" does not include diagonals but that it does include your creatures too if you aim it at their front line. Your front line is considered adjacent to theirs across the centre. Ice Spikes: Rather expensive, but has the potential to hit up to 4 creatures. Not normally worth casting until you can hit at least 2 at once.

Clashing Tides [VR]: This is a way of potentially crippling or wiping out the opponent's whole army. It works best of course when the opponent is using their front line a lot, but be careful because this will also hit your front line. If you have fliers, move them to the back before casting so they can avoid damage. Ice Splinters [HV]: I would only recommend using this in a Sanctuary deck. It can be used to set up a row for you to outmanoeuvre creatures in to so that they are forced to take the damage. If you cast it on a row where you already have a creature, your creature won't take any damage and the creatures you move in to the row get the double whammy of 2 damage plus your attack. There is a nasty combo going around where you cast Ice Splinters, then use The Song of the Lost to move the opponent's creatures into and out of the row until they all die. Ouch! The Strength of the Sea* [HV]: This works well in any deck, the permanent extra attack is great for any creature deck. But it works amazingly well against any deck that relies on fortunes to deal with creatures (Mass Grave, Broken Bridge etc.) by making them all redundant. You can even use this to your advantage by having your own fortunes like Broken Bridge or Throne of Renewal which will affect your opponent's creatures but not your own. The real strength of this is against stall decks. It makes your opponent's Altar of Shadows useless; your creatures can attack anyway. They can't bounce your creatures with Throne of Renewal or Broken Bridge. This shuts down a lot of their strategy, and will make things really hard for them if they can't get rid of this. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------#4.07 Earth spells ------------------------------------------------------------------------------These are spell cards with the green leaf icon in the top right corner. They can be used by any Hero with a matching icon on the right hand side of their card. It is not used by any starter Hero, but you earn an alternate art Kat Stronghold Hero fairly quickly who can use earth. --CARDS TO LOOK OUT FOR-Earthquake*: It's cheap and capable of wiping out an early ground assault very efficiently. Useful in combination with flyers and life drain/regenerating creatures. Use more than one at once to take out bigger creatures, or in combination with Insect Swarm. Insect Swarm*: One of the best spells in the game, a relatively cheap way of potentially wiping the board clean. Two cast one-after-the-other will almost always be enough to kill everything in sight. Save it in your hand for when things are going badly, either because the opponent has come out faster than you or has just killed a load of your stuff. Stone Shield*: Obviously this is quite defensive at first glance, but it can be used aggressively also as a way to ignore the opponent's creatures for a turn while continuing your own assault on other rows. It will last for the whole turn, even when you take damage, so unless the opponent can otherwise remove this card, they cannot hurt you at all for the whole turn. A great way to secure your victory as well if you are on low life to defend against a surprise Pao. Even better: If two Shields are active simultaneously, only one will absorb damage and become destroyed, leaving the other to protect you over the next turn! The Might of Nature* [HV]: This is amazing for keeping your melee creatures alive, especially if they have high health to begin with. This makes it very

good for Stronghold with its War Oliphants and Tainted Orcs. It works against all damage, even damage you inflict yourself so your melee creatures only take 1 damage from your Insect Swarm. This can be a real game winner if the opponent can't get rid of it or otherwise deal with your melee creatures. You can attack almost freely, only getting half retaliation back, rounded down! This is a great defense against poison counters: if there is just 1 counter on your melee creature it won't even take any damage. 2 or 3 counters will only deal 1 damage a turn. Your melees will also take no damage from Immolation- even multiple copies. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------#4.08 Primal spells ------------------------------------------------------------------------------These are spell cards with the dark blue infinity icon in the top right corner. They can be used by any Hero with a matching icon on the right hand side of their card. It is used by the starter Inferno Hero. ---GOOD--Teleport: Great in any aggressive deck, it can help you get the last bit of damage by moving to an empty row, or to get a surprise attack by moving your creature into position first. Especially good with sweep attack creatures. if the enemy isn't expecting it, this can be lethal. ----OK---Dispel Magic: When you need it this is really good, but sadly it will often sit in your hand the whole game and not be used. It's really a gamble putting it in. It depends on how much continuous spells bother you with your deck setup. --OTHERS TO LOOK OUT FOR-Spell Twister: This is the ultimate way of addressing spells, using them against the opponent. They don't have to be ongoing, so there's a much better chance you will find something to use. Also use the information you get, you will find out what other spells the opponent is holding at the time. Use that to plan your strategy. This can be devastating when you use your opponent's big spell against them, not only getting rid of it but making them suffer the results, often at less cost than it would normally be. If the opponent happens to have a Spell Twister of their own when you use this, always pick that first. It will use it up, and then let you pick another spell! Town Portal*: An amazing card which is useful in almost any situation, with the exception of facing combo decks that don't use a creature until they kill you with it right away. Its main use is as an aggressive weapon, to clear a blocker out of the way and make the opponent waste time casting it again. Use it on the most expensive creature you can, to cause maximum disruption. But be wary of using it on a creature that does something after being cast, as the opponent will get that benefit again. You can also use this on your own creatures, to either cast them again with refreshed health or get rid of an annoying spell or counter on them. Also to rescue them from being stolen by Puppet Master. Mass Dispel [VR]: A grander version of Dispel Magic, but it requries 3 magic skill instead of 1. It hurts a deck relying on a lot of ongoing spells at once, however this is quite uncommon. You will most likely be getting rid of just 1 spell at any one time with this, and it also kills your own ongoing spells. It's best used in a deck with no ongoing spells that will hang around for more than a turn. I think this card is worth mentioning, but I can never

quite justify recommending cards which only work on ongoing spells as there often just isn't any worth worrying about in your average duel. Spell Steal [VR]: Like everything that deals with ongoing spells this is hit and miss, so is a gamble to include. But at least with this one, if you do find something you not only get rid of it but steal it, which is usually better. It works great on Stone Shield particularly, or stealing permanent creature buffs like Bless. But it can't steal the new powerful unique ongoing spells from Herald of the Void. Minor Recall [HV]: I feel this is overpriced, but it gives you a way to ignore an ongoing card that is annoying you for a turn. It can help you break through a Stone Shield, or remove an Altar of Shadows or Wasteland. Whether this is worth it or not depends on how much you expect to see ongoing cards, and how much you are bothered by them with your deck, especially fortunes. If you are just worried about spells, then going for Dispel Magic or Mass Dispel would be better. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------#4.09 Fire spells ------------------------------------------------------------------------------These are spell cards with the red/orange flame icon in the top right corner. They can be used by any Hero with a matching icon on the right hand side of their card. It is used by the starter Inferno Hero. ---GOOD--Fireball: A great spell, its downfall being it is so well known that good players know how to avoid it. Sometimes you just can't avoid it though, and are forced to put creatures close together due to the situation, knowing if the opponent has a Fireball you are in big trouble. Save it for a situation where it can cause a lot of casualties. Be careful when using it, since it can also hurt your creatures if you use it on an enemy creature in the front line. The slot in your front line the other side of the middle is considered adjacent, so you will hurt a creature you have in that slot. You can always move them first, or by hitting a back row creature you can't hurt your own. Due to its notoriety and cost, I wouldn't recommend having more than 2 in a deck. Be aware that "adjacent" does not include creatures touching by diagonals. Fire Bolt: A must for almost any deck that has access to fire magic. This is probably the most efficient way of dealing with small creatures, and is also very useful at softening up a blocker ready for you to finish it off with an attack. It should be a card that's constantly on your mind when playing against a fire Hero! Don't waste it on something that isn't bothering you much; it can be much more devastating to take out something big in combination with an attack. ----OK---Fire Trap: A cheap way to stall a fast opponent, but one which they can get round by just moving their creatures and can sometimes end up hurting you if things go badly. Replace it with better spells when you can. It's best used when you have a decent shooter out, to make it harder for the opponent to attack it while you freely shoot away. The attacker still gets to do their damage before getting hurt by the Fire Trap. ---POOR---

Fire Shield: Looks good at first, but there are too many ways round it. It is handy because it makes even shooter creatures take some damage, but if your creature is killed by a spell or even returned to your hand, you've lost this spell and it probably didn't achieve much. --OTHERS TO LOOK OUT FOR-Frenzy: This is a bit hit and miss, and to be honest not that great, but it can be handy at first to fill the gap in the spell scale at 3 resources. It's at its best when the opponent casts a really big creature, but sadly you can't make it hit itself. I wouldn't recommend using this long term, but if you get one early it will suffice. Inner Fire*: A nice cheap way of bumping up a creature, to either kill a big blocker or do more damage to the opponent. I would only recommend doing the latter when you can kill them or put them in range of other things you have, otherwise the difference it makes in combat is usually more important. Great with the attack anywhere creatures, and with the sweep attack ones. Mass Inner Fire [VR]: In a creature heavy deck, this can be an amazing finisher. It's a bit expensive and of course relies on you having a decent number of creatures in play to work well. Fits in nicely with attack all and sweep attack creatures. The Forbidden Flame* [HV]: I feel this is blatantly overpowered, and is an auto include for any deck that goes up to 3 magic. 6 Damage is usually enough to clear the board, but if you need more than that waiting until your magic skill is 4 will almost certainly do the job. It gives you amazing control over the game, so save this for the absolute best moment to use. This is usually when the opponent has over-committed with their creatures, and wiping things clean will leave you with more cards in hand than them. As everyone is so focused on watching your magic skill creep to 4 for a Fireball (whether you have one or not) it is easy for them to overlook the fact that you have such a potent spell for just 3 magic. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------#4.10 Air spells ------------------------------------------------------------------------------These are spell cards with the light blue cloud icon in the top right corner. They can be used by any Hero with a matching icon on the right hand side of their card. It is used by the starter Haven Hero. ---GOOD--Cyclone: Very handy to begin with, and you may like keeping this one in your deck at least for a while. The 1 damage can be crucial in finishing creatures off, and if you can stun lots of the opponent's creatures it can seriously mess up their assault, helping you win the race. Wait until you can land it on a decent number of creatures. Lightning Bolt: Expensive, but will take out most creatures in one go. So don't waste this on a small creature unless there's a very good reason. It can even soften up a huge creature with more than 6 health, to be finished off by your attacker. ---POOR--Wind Shield: This is too narrow I feel, it doesn't even stop all the damage, and most players will have melee/flyers which this does nothing to stop.

Too risky for what it does. --OTHERS TO LOOK OUT FOR-Chain Lightning: A card people often forget about because it affects creatures that aren't adjacent rather than are adjacent. It can hit up to 3 enemy units, but watch out for it hitting your creatures as well as the front lines are considered adjacent. Diagonals are not adjacent. Try and hit at least 2 creatures with this, and to try and force the opponent to set themself up for this with the way you use your creatures. Lightning Speed: This is like a permanent Teleport, and although expensive I have found this quite effective. When put on a big creature, you can usually right away kill something in another row, giving you no loss of card advantage. If the opponent then can't do something to stop your creature, they are going to have a hard time as you go around picking off anything they cast. It can also be used to repeatedly find an open row to get damage through. Storm Wind: Don't get caught out by the 2 resource cost, unusually this needs 3 magic skill. But once you are at 3, this is a cheap way of moving your opponent's guys around to your advantage. It can be used to move something in front of your creature so you can kill it, line up two creatures to receive charge damage, set up a Chain Lightning or Sunburst, or just move something out the way to get damage through. For a big creature that is in front of one of your units, you can attack it first, then move it in front of another creature with Storm Wind, then attack it again. Lightning Strike* [HV]: This fits nicely into most decks, needing a magic requirement of only 2. It is quite expensive, but it can kill outright even some medium sized creatures like Juggernaut, and will finish off bigger creatures when followed by an attack. Save it for these worthy targets. Don't hit something little unless it is really important to do so (say to get some vital damage through to the opponent). ------------------------------------------------------------------------------#4.11 Light spells ------------------------------------------------------------------------------These are spell cards with the yellow explosion icon in the top right corner. They can be used by any Hero with a matching icon on the right hand side of their card. It is used by the starter Haven Hero. ---GOOD--Bless: A pretty cheap way to permanently power up your creature. Unless you can kill the opponent with this extra damage, I would generally only recommend using this to help your creature win a fight. This means you have swapped one card for another, and leaves the opponent with a big threat to deal with afterwards. Especially good on charge creatures. Sunburst: A devastating cheap damage spell. Remember this hurts your creatures too in the chosen row, but sometimes this doesn't matter if you're trying to get the last bits of damage through. As long as your creature survives and theirs don't on the row, you will get to attack and win. Otherwise you would generally be better moving your creature out the way first before using this on a row. Even doing 3 damage to a single enemy creature is efficient for 2 resources, but try and hit two creatures whenever you can. One of those key cards you quickly become very aware of when playing against Heroes with access to light magic. If you can use another card to line up two enemy creatures first, you can make your own "double hit."

Word of Light: One of the most powerful 4 cost spells in the game in my opinion. A mass removal spell that doesn't hurt your creatures. With this in hand you can plan ahead, weakening any creatures the opponent has with more than 2 life, ready to wipe out their whole population with this in one go. Casting one after the other, even in subsequent turns, can be truly devastating. Don't waste this on just one creature. It is at its best when the opponent thinks they are doing well with lots of creatures out. ---POOR--Heal: A lot of the time a good player will be wiping out your creatures in one turn anyway, in which case this card is useless. Even when you can use it, I think it is too defensive and ineffective to be worth having. A nearly-dead creature can still attack, so I would rather just put out more creatures than waste a card on a one-time heal. --OTHERS TO LOOK OUT FOR-Cleansing Light: The cheapest way for light magic to remove ongoing spells. It will cripple a deck relying on a lot of ongoing spells at once, however this is quite uncommon. You will most likely be getting rid of just 1 spell at any one time with this, and it also kills your own ongoing spells. Use it in a deck with no ongoing spells that will hang around for more than a turn. I think this card is worth mentioning, but I can never quite justify recommending cards which only work on ongoing spells as there often just isn't any worth worrying about in your average duel. The Light of Tomorrow* [HV]: This is so strong that if your opponent can't remove it, and you're not already in a close-to-losing situation, it becomes extremely hard for the opponent to win. It gives you card advantage every single turn, no matter what creature you get back. You can continue to recycle creatures over and over, and eventually you are bound to overwhelm the opponent and win. It works best with creatures that have an immediate effect like Pao Deathseeker, or outmaneouvre creatures, but really this works with anything. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------#4.12 Dark spells ------------------------------------------------------------------------------These are spell cards with the blue half-moon icon in the top right corner. They can be used by any Hero with a matching icon on the right hand side of their card. It is used by the starter Necropolis Hero. ----OK---Agony: This is handy for putting creatures in a bind, especially cheap ones with only 2 health. Unfortunately they still get to attack and deal their damage before getting hurt themselves, but this is still often worth it to limit a fast creature to just one attack, or weaken a big creature ready for killing in another way. Not quite good enough for the long run, replace this with more potent spells when you get them. Death Seal: For a fast, aggressive deck like this, this card can be useful. It will set up any blocker to die instantly to your attacker, no matter how small, and without a chance to retaliate. The drawbacks are the fairly high cost, and when you are on the defensive or the opponent just want to race you on other rows, this is of little use.

---POOR--Purge: Although cheap, this is very narrow and may well not be of any use for the whole of many duels. --OTHERS TO LOOK OUT FOR-Shadow Image*: In the right situation, this is devastating. Ideally you want the opponent to have just cast a creature that you can kill with the copy, possibly combining with another spell or another creature attacking. Then it becomes harder for the opponent to deal damage to your copy without using a spell, and even if they do they have often lost two cards for one. Soulreaver*: The most efficient single creature kill card in the game. The only drawback is you will often find yourself spending 4 resources to kill something that costed your opponent less, so try to focus on expensive creatures. It's cards like this that make creatures requiring 5+ might seem unappealing. Weakness: A nice cheap way of shutting down a small creature or severely hampering a bigger one. It does suffer from being vulnerable to ongoing spell destruction though, and the creature can still be pumped up and used as a blocker. Moonsilk Fetters [VR]: Note that this requires 3 magic skill even though it only costs 2 resources to cast. This is a cheap way of making 2 creatures less scary, either so you can kill them easier or ignore them while attacking with your own creatures. Although not amazing, I find it can be very useful in most creature conflict situations. The Silent Death [HV]: At first glance this seems totally unfair, but the important thing is that the creature that gets enchanted will normally get to attack before it dies. This means you either have to accept damage from it, or have a blocker on hand. I feel this card is more suited to a control deck, which has more ways of keeping enemy creatures at bay. Things like Hangman Tree would work well with it, soaking up the damage from the creature before it pops off. Combined with mass destruction if the opponent over-commits, this card can give you unlimited card advantage. In an aggressive deck I feel that Soulreaver is generally better as it instantly removes the blocker and you don't have to worry about getting damage back. But in any crowded battlefield scenario, or where you are way ahead on life points, it can draw out a slow victory for you. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------#4.13 Events ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------OK---Celebrations: This is alright, as it can't be easily used by your opponent to get an advantage so is low risk. But similarly you must be careful about using it yourself, as you give cards to your opponent. In a desperate situation this may provide a card you really need, and later in the game where you have a lot of resources, you will at least be able to use the card you draw before the opponent gets to use theirs. Day of Fortune: I quite like this one. It's not very risky as it's expensive to use for either player. It works well in any deck that has cards which you may want to get rid of in some situations, like cards which deal with ongoing spells and none have turned up, or resource gaining cards later in the game. It can also be used in a tricky way to plant cards in your graveyard for later

use by one of your cards, for example to bring them to the battleground with Resurrection. Week of the Weaponsmiths: A pretty safe choice, and one that is alright for most aggressive decks, especially those favouring cheap creatures. It can give them a bigger late game punch, and it especially good for decks with "attack anywhere" creatures. ---POOR--Week of Knowledge: This doesn't suit the aggressive nature of the starter decks, it is much more for slower, card drawing control decks. You may help out your slow-playing opponent with this card, and you probably won't activate it much yourself unless you get a really bad initial draw. Come back to this later if you create a much slower, control style deck. --OTHERS TO LOOK OUT FOR-Mana Storm*: Great for decks that use few or no spells. Market of Shadows*: Great for decks that don't care about hurting themselves, or for encouraging the opponent to hurt themselves. Also great for cheap decks that quickly have more resources than they can use, to turn this into card advantage. Or for decks that don't always do much even on their first or second turn as an alternative/backup to Week of Knowledge. Market of Wonders: Great for decks that generate a large amount of resources to help them use this to find specific cards when there's nothing else to do with the resources, and decks which rely on getting certain card(s) to deal with some situations. Month of the Dancing Flames: An alternative to Week of the Mercenaries. It is better in one way, in that it can never fail. But it is more expensive to use, and giving your opponent an extra retaliation point can be annoying. In a mega creature rush deck you can make use of both Week of the Mercenaries and this card. Week of Taxes*: Great for decks that use few or no fortunes. Week of the Mercenaries*: Great for decks that use a large amount of creatures (as a rough guide, at least 25, preferably 30+.) This can be used effectively with any method of drawing cards or putting cards on top of your library. Cards like Altar of Destruction can be used to put a creature on top of your deck if one isn't already there when you activate this event. You can activate Week of the Mercenaries, before using any Hero abilities that turn. If the top card is not a creature, you can use your Hero to draw a card, giving you another chance to make the top card a creature. You can also use other card drawers like Campfire in the same way. Path of the Ancestors* [VR]: Great for decks that use few or no targeted cards. Note that this event does nothing against your creatures being attacked, as that does not require choosing a "target". Week of the Tamed Spirits* [VR]: Great for decks with few or no magic creatures. Week of the Wild Spirits* [VR]: It used to provide its effect for free, but even at its current 1-resource cost, it s a bargain (especially compared to Month of the Dancing Flames).

Blind Arbiters [HV]: This is useful for decks that don't tend to use many cards in a turn, as a defense against combo decks which require a flurry of cards to achieve a big finish. Or for a slow deck to generally put the brakes on faster ones. Day of the Sanctuary [HV]: An alternate to Path of the Ancestors, which applies only to one creature but it doesn't matter when it came into play. This is again best in a deck which doesn't do a lot of targeting itself, or one that likes to get out a big creature and keep it out. It is useful to interfere with the opponent's spells which hit adjacent creatures. For example, I have my creatures in this formation to avoid a Fireball: *C C* *C C* If I put down another creature, it's going to create a group of 3 or 4 that can all be hit by a Fireball if my opponent's magic skill is nearing 4. But if I put a new one in and am able to use Day of the Sanctuary on it, I can stop them doing this: *C CN *C C* N is my new creature, which I target with the event. Now I am safe from losing more than 2 creatures to a Fireball, at least for 1 turn. Note that this event does nothing against your creatures being attacked, as that does not require choosing a "target". Hail Storm [HV]: This is an interesting card, the only event so far that directly damages creatures. You have to be prepared for your opponent to use it right back at you, though. So it tends to work better in decks with one or more of the following: -Fewer than normal or no creatures -High health creatures -Creatures that can get health back in some way Don't put it in a deck with Shadow Image, as your opponent can use this event to kill off your creature copy. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------#4.14 What to buy from the shop ------------------------------------------------------------------------------In section 3.05 I have given an overview of what to buy from the shop and what to avoid. Please read that first. This section gives some more help about when to try out buying different things. Always refer to this great website to see what cards are available from each set, using the filters at the top: http://www.mmdoc.net/card_list/ Stage 1- Beginning the game Spend all the gold you have earned from the tutorial levels and games on

Reinforcement Packs. Spend your first 1000 seals on The Box. This will give you a decent selection of base set cards with which to improve your starter deck. Use the above sections to find out what cards to look for. Don't forget to use the promotional codes, see the end of section 3.05. Stage 2- Your first few play sessions Continue to spend gold on Reinforcement Packs. Save up your seals until you have at least 1000. If you feel desperate for more base set cards, buy "The Box" again. Otherwise I would recommend getting Herald of the Void boxes with your seals. I feel like this is a much more user-friendly expansion than Void Rising. You are much more likely to get cards you will want to use for your starter deck. There are lots of powerful commons and uncommons, so your decks should improve quite a bit with the new card selection. Stage 3- Starter deck shaping up, ready to try other factions Once you feel like your starter deck has improved to a decent level, you may want to try out other factions. Use the deck editor screen (see section 3.06A) to see what creatures and fortunes you have of a different faction to your starter Hero. If it looks like these may be enough to put together a reasonable deck (remember you'll be able to add spells to this too) then you can start buying Heroic Packs. These will give you a Hero in each pack, and let you start building different decks. See section 3.06 for how to go about this. If you think your cards don't look ready for that yet, keep buying Reinforcement Packs until they do. Stage 4- Got most of what you need out of the base set Once you feel you have a large proportion of the base set and in enough numbers that opening more Reinforcement Packs is unlikely to give you more useful cards, it's time to start spending your gold on something else. I would recommend now using your gold on Void Rising packs. This set has a lot of powerful cards in it, along with some not-so-good and hard to use cards. But after buying a number of packs, you should find some great cards to improve all of your decks. Also it has a large amount of Sanctuary cards, the fifth faction. You will need a Sanctuary Hero to be able to make a deck with it, if you are lucky you will get one in a Void Rising Pack. The only other way to get one if you just can't seem to pull one out of a pack is saving up your gold and buying the Sanctuary premade deck for 75,000. This will have a lot of useful cards in it too. It's up to you whether you stick it out with the packs, eventually you will pull a Hero but there's no guarantee when. If you are really lucky, you will have got the Sanctuary Hero from Herald of the Void. I suggest you continue to spend your seals on Herald of the Void boxes, as you can use gold to get access to both the base set and Void Rising. Seals are more precious. Stage 5- Got most of what you need from Void Rising The other use for gold is Emilio Packs. These are good because they offer cards from all three sets, including HV. This is the only way to get HV cards with gold. It is the most expensive pack however. But still worthwhile in my opinion once you have bought a lot of Void Rising packs already. It is good for trying to fill the holes in the base set and VR, while also dipping into HV. The other alternative is to save up your gold for when HV becomes available to buy using gold.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------#5.00 Playing online and ELO ratings ------------------------------------------------------------------------------This section covers moving on to playing against people online. If you haven't already, I highly recommend completing all three levels of the tutorial (the last being Wolf Warriors) and spending your riches to improve your deck. You will struggle an awful lot initially if you don't do this, as the starter decks are pretty weak and badly designed. See sections 2.00-2.04. You should also re-read the help files by clicking the question mark in the bottom left hand corner of the main menu. If you are looking to improve your playing skills, see section 6.00 onwards. Press the big PLAY button to begin looking for games. If you have a campaign screen up, keep pressing "go back" in the top-left corner first until you return to the main menu. Look at the "choose your deck" section at the bottom of the screen. If you have more than one deck, use the left and right arrows to pick the one you want. Only valid decks will be available, if you saved an incomplete one, you can't select it here. If this section isn't visible, first click on the "duels" tab near the top-left of the screen. When playing online you always have the option of surrendering; click the cogs icon at the bottom-left of the screen, and select surrender. Be warned, there is no confirmation message! As soon as you click this, you will lose the duel. You have being in time you see your and look something called an ELO rating which measures how successful you are your games against others. It starts out at 0, and goes up every win and down every time you lose. However, it can't go below 0. To current ELO rating, click the red banner icon at the top of the screen for where it says Skill rating (ELO) in the middle of the screen.

You shouldn't be concerned with your ELO rating. Don't let it frustrate you. Concentrate on learning the game. Sometimes you will lose just because the opponent has access to much better cards than you currently do. Don't worry about all of this, just keep playing and earning more riches to buy cards. Concentrate on building better decks and learning strategies rather than trying to get a great ELO score. Over time, when you are ready, you will find it starts going up as you find your stride anyway. You still get XP and gold even when you lose. Once you get to 500 ELO points, you cannot drop below this by losing unless you lose 10 games in a row. Similarly for 1000 and 1500. Be wary of reaching 1000 too quickly, as you will find the difficulty of opponents will grow dramatically once you get above this number. Don't be disheartened if you start suddenly losing a lot at this stage, you are facing some of the best players the game has to offer. I have heard recently that even going above 500 ELO can get you into some hard matchups, particularly because of people deliberately losing to keep their rating down. See section 5.06. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------#5.01 Finding an online opponent ------------------------------------------------------------------------------Press the PLAY button, and then click the "duels" tab near the top-left if it isn't already selected.

Once you've chosen your deck (see section 5.00) press the FIGHT button in the bottom right-hand corner of the screen. A timer will then appear, and the game will try and find you an opponent. The timer will keep counting until one is found. Once it gets one for you, the game will start automatically. If you change your mind, press the button underneath the timer, which will cancel the game. During the game the ELO rating of both players is shown under their name. After the duel is finished you will see some statistics relating to the duel, and see how much gold and XP you earned. Unlike playing against the AI, you have a two minute time limit for each of your turns. Once the timer is getting close to running out, it will count down at the top of the screen. If it runs out before you end your turn, the turn will be automatically passed. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------#5.02 The reward system and using boosts ------------------------------------------------------------------------------Each time you finish an online duel, unless someone quit right away, both the winner and loser are awarded gold and XP. The winner will get more of course. The amount awarded generally increases the more turns the duel took. This means that even if you are losing, it is worth defending for as long as you can rather than surrendering. But of course if someone is about to win and is clearly deliberately messing about to gloat over it without passing the turn, you may as well go ahead and surrender instead of waiting for them to finish being an idiot. Don't worry about losing, all you actually lose is ELO rating and you really shouldn't be worrying about this for a long, long time. You can relax while playing knowing that even if you lose, you will still get XP and gold. That's what is important. XP will cause your level bar to progress, shown at the top-left corner of the main menu. To the right of the bar is your current level. When this fills, you level up and your level increases by 1. In addition to this, you will be awarded 10,000 gold and 100 seals. Gold and seals are the in-game currency, and are shown just under your level progress bar. Gold is in yellow, seals are in blue. Once you have at least 12,500 gold you can buy another booster pack to improve your deck and work towards being able to use another faction. And once you have 1000 or more seals, you can buy a box of boosters which will be a tremendous help! I recommend mainly saving up your seals for boxes rather than spending them on other things, particularly individual expansion boosters, as boxes are a more efficient use of seals. See section 3.05 for how to use the shop. As you play you will also unlock various achievements, getting a reward each time you do so. See section 3.04. You will unlock them quite regularly as you begin playing. This will slow down as you reach higher levels but every so often you will unlock another one. There are boost items which can be used to increase the amount of XP or gold you get from duels. You can be awarded these from achievements and from promotional codes, as part of daily rewards, or by buying them in the shop, under consumables (see section 3.05). Once you have pressed PLAY, you will see a "boosts" window in the bottom-left of the screen. If you have any boosts in your possession, they won't do anything until you activate them here. Click on "use" for the relevant boost and it will be activated. If you don't have any of that type, the button will instead say "get more". Clicking on this will send you to the shop. Each boost lasts for the next 5 duels after you activate it, then disappears. The XP boost doubles the amount of XP you receive, and the gold one awards

you an extra 50% of gold. I don't recommend activating either of this when you are taking part in tournaments, as you may face tougher opponents than usual, and the gold output in jackpot tournaments is lower than normal. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------#5.03 Jackpot tournaments ------------------------------------------------------------------------------Note that until you reach 200 ELO, tournaments are not available. I advise staying away from tournaments until you have been playing for a long time, and have had a chance to build up your collection and make a really good deck. You will face players who have honed their deck over time and you'll be disappointed if you rush into a tournament as you will most likely just not have the cards to compete. However, jackpot tournaments are free to enter, and except for earning less gold than usual during duels, there is nothing to lose by taking part. Every other day there is a jackpot tournament. Click the PLAY the "tournaments" tab underneath. If the "jackpot" tickbox is under this, then it is a jackpot day. Otherwise it is a Swiss 5.04. The tournament will start at 13:00 GMT and will run for button and then highlighted just day, see section 23 hours.

Click "enter tournament" in the bottom right of the screen. Then this button will change to "find opponent", click this to start looking for someone to duel just like a normal online duel. You have a two minute time limit per turn as normal. You receive less gold than normal in a jackpot duel, because some of the gold is being put into a pot. The size of the pot is shown on the left of the screen. You can continue to play as many duels as you like until the tournament finishes. The amount of time left is shown above the "find opponent" button. You are allowed to pick a different deck or make a new one at any point in the tournament. Everyone who enters the jackpot tournament is given a jackpot ELO rating of 0. So it is like you have started again with the ELO system within this tournament. By winning your jackpot ELO will go up, and it will go down when you lose (but again cannot go below 0). Your tournament rank is shown on the middle-right of the screen. As your ELO within the tournament goes up, this rank improves (goes down) as you climb the leaderboard. Click the blue button below to see your standing. Once the timer for the tournament has run out, the tournament closes and the results will be calculated. If you are close enough to the top of the leaderboard, you will receive a share of the jackpot. It is split into tiers. You get a bigger cut the higher tier you are. To stand a chance of getting a cut, you need to be roughly within the top 500. The exact figure will depend on how many people have entered. Until you are getting into the tiers, sadly you will get nothing. However, you lost nothing by trying, apart from earning less gold during your duels in the tournament. You can always try again in two days. The results of the tournament will be sent to you as a notification. It takes a while after the tournament has finished; usually about an hour. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------#5.04 Swiss tournaments ------------------------------------------------------------------------------Note that until you reach 200 ELO, tournaments are not available.

I advise staying away from tournaments until you have been playing for a long time, and have had a chance to build up your collection and make a really good deck. You will face players who have honed their deck over time and will be disappointed if you rush into a tournament as you will most likely just not have the cards to compete. As a rough guide, I would say wait until you have an ELO rating of 1100+ until entering Swiss tournaments. Every other day there is a Swiss tournament. Click the PLAY button and then the "tournaments" tab underneath. If the "Swiss" tickbox is highlighted just under this, then it is a Swiss day. Otherwise it is a jackpot day, see section 5.03. Unlike jackpot tournaments, Swiss tournaments are not free to enter. They require the payment of one ticket for each tournament you enter. The amount of tickets you have is shown to the right of your seals in the top-left corner of the main menu, in brown/grey text. You should be given 5 for free when you create an account. Currently this is the only use for tickets. More tickets can be purchased in the shop, see the "consumables" part of the shop. See section 3.05. Swiss Tournaments begin at 13:00 GMT on alternate days, and are available for 23 hours after that. Click the button at the bottom-left of the screen to enter the tournament, it warns you that a ticket is required. It will then show you how the queue of players for your tournament. 8 players are required before the tournament can begin, wait until this has filled up and then the tournament will start automatically. Note that you cannot change or edit your deck during the tournament so make sure you have your best deck in place before starting. Also you should make sure you have an hour of free time to play, as Swiss tournament can last up to this long. Swiss tournaments are run in individual groups of 8 competitors, and consist of 3 duels. You are randomly paired within the group of 8, and have a standard duel. The big difference here though is that you have a time limit! At the top of the screen will be a timer in red for each player. It will begin at seven minutes, and when it is your turn to act it will count down. Note that while you are choosing whether or not to take a mulligan, it will not count down, so you don't need to rush the decision. Once the game has started, keep an eye on the clock! If this timer runs out, you will lose the game instantly, regardless of how well you are doing in the duel. So don't rush too much, but don't take a really long time over any one decision as you may have got used to in general duels with a 2 minute timer per turn. After the duel has finished, you'll be shown the league table of the 8 players in the tournament. You may need to wait for other players to finish their duels. Keep on this screen. You are then paired off with another player, who is close to you on the league table. Then after this you will play a third and final game. If you end up winning the tournament (probably by winning all three duels) you will win the first prize, a premium Herald of the Void Pack. If you come second, you'll get the second prize, currently a Void Rising Pack. If you have played all your three games without quitting the tournament, you may be lucky enough to be awarded an Emilio's Pack, which contains a mix of base set cards and expansions. It is worth playing all the three games just for this chance. You will gain XP and gold just as normal anyhow for these duels. I am not totally sure, but it seems to me that the Emilio's Pack is awarded randomly to one of the players who did not finish first or second but played all three games. I have finished third many times and not got the pack, so it's certainly not just for the third place finisher. And I have only got one once out of several chances, leading me to believe that only one is

being given out randomly amongst the non-winner players. Once you have finished the third duel and are returned to the league table, you will see a message saying you have completed all three duels. At this point it is fine to leave this screen and start playing other duels or going to the deck editor etc. It will not boot you from the tournament for doing this before all players have finished their duels. A little while after the tournament has finished, you will get a notification telling you how you ranked in the tournament, and if you won a prize. Coming first is simple, but deciding who comes second is surprisingly complex. Instead of just awarding it to the player who lost in the "final" after winning their first two games, it can instead be awarded to any of the players with a record of 2 wins and 1 loss. It is decided using a "break points" system. In my opinion this is really stupid and it should just go to the loser of the final. But anyway, this is how it works: When you win a game, you get 5 points. If you lose, you get 1 point. (Don't know what happens if you draw... but this is exceedingly rare.) In each of the three rounds, you get matched with someone who has the same amount of points as you. Your break points are the total number of points of all the players you faced in the three rounds, added together. So for example, say I played against player A in the first round, then player B, then player C. Player A ends up losing all 3 of his games so has 3 points. Player B won 2 out of 3, so has 11 points. Player C won 3 out of 3, so he has 15 points. My break points are 3+11+15=29. Then out of all the players who are tied for second place (this will be those with 2 out of 3 wins) the one with the highest break points gets 2nd place. Why do they use this system? I have no idea. Its purpose seems to be to get the "finalist" to be second anyhow but it is messed up by people quitting the tournament early, because they then receive no further points, lowering their opponent's break points. The moral of the story is that if you don't win all 3 games, you are not guaranteed a prize. So make sure you feel you have a decent chance of winning all 3 before you start playing Swiss. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------#5.05 Practising against friends ------------------------------------------------------------------------------You will notice that playing duels online involves a random opponent. If you want to play against a specific person, you need to first send them a friend request, and have them accept. See section 3.02. Press the PLAY button, then click the "practice" tab underneath. Your available friends are shown in a list at the bottom of the screen. You must both be on this screen and have "Play versus friend" ticked before you can send a challenge. Note that you do not receive XP or gold from practice games, nor does your ELO rating change. There is an achievement for winning 30 games against friends though. Be warned that wins from direct challenges through the friends list do not count towards this achievement! Which is very weird. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------#5.06 Procedure for players being abusive ------------------------------------------------------------------------------At some point while playing online you will most likely come across some bad behaviour from other players. There are procedures for reporting this, which I

will detail below. Please DO NOT go on the forum and start a topic accusing a player of bad behaviour, even if you have proof. This is against the rules and will only get you into trouble. If you feel someone is being unduly hostile or abusive to you and you want to report it, you must take a screenshot. Without this kind of proof, the game team can't do much. If the opponent is acting weirdly, for example doing nothing at all each turn or just using a Hero ability every turn and nothing else, you are probably facing a "bot". A popular choice for this is the Hero Belias, and they will just use his damage ability over and over. You will win the game of course. A bot is not being controlled directly by a human, it will be a program someone has made to play for them following a set of basic rules. The reason they do this is to generate free XP and gold, because they get it regardless of the fact that they keep losing. By doing some damage to you with Belias' ability, they get a bit more gold. So when they are not playing the game themselves, they set their bot to play. This is against the rules, and you can take screenshot(s) of this behaviour and report it. They can ban players for doing this. How to take a screenshot: 1) Press the button on your keyboard marked something like "PrtSc" which is short for "Print Screen". It should be somewhere to the top-right, after the function keys F11, F12 etc. It will seem like nothing has happened. What this does is copy the contents of the screen onto the clipboard. 2) Open up a document in Microsoft Word, Open Office, or whatever program you like to use. 3) Paste the screenshot onto the document. You can use Ctrl+V, or right click and select "paste". Or however your program does it. 4) Save the document to your computer. You can now submit a report to the game team, and they will take the appropriate action. This is how to send a report: 1) Use this link: https://support.ubi.com/en-GB/AskQuestion.aspx 2) It says "Submit your question to the support team" near the top of the screen. Under this, it says PRODUCT, and there is a box that says Platform with an arrow to the right of it. Click on the arrow. 3) Select what you play the game on (probably PC or iPad) from the list that comes up. 4) To the right of this is another box, with Product written in it. Click the arrow to the right of this. 5) Scrolls down the (big) list of games, to find MIGHT AND MAGIC DUEL OF CHAMPIONS. There are five games listed under MIGHT AND MAGIC, this is the last of those 5. It appears just above MIGHTY QUEST (whatever that is hehe). 6) Underneath there is a window marked CATEGORY, with Category written in the box. Click on the arrow to the right of this, and select what you are writing to them about. For abuse, people losing on purpose, or bots, I'd say select Multiplayer or General/Feedback.

7) Under this is a text box marked SUBJECT. Type here a summary of the problem, for example "Abusive player" or "Bot found". 8) Underneath is another texbox marked QUESTION. Type in here, in as much detail as possible, what you are experiencing. Be specific, listing as much about the situation as you can. You have up to 4000 characters to do this, the counter is shown below the window. 9) Click on the Choose File button underneath the QUESTION textbox. Find your document on your computer. You don't have to do this to file a report, but the chances of action being taken will be much higher if you do. 10) When you are ready, click CONTINUE at the bottom. If it works, you'll get a screen saying your question has been submitted and telling you that you'll get an email soon. (I recommend highlighting and copying to the clipboard your text in the QUESTION box in case there is a problem before pressing continue.) 11) If you get a message into notepad for now and text back in to save you worked fine for me. Only saying there's a problem, paste your question text save it. Try this all again later, and copy your typing it all again. Most of the time this has all once did I get an error.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------#6.00 Improving your playing skills ------------------------------------------------------------------------------This section is aimed at both new players and current players, giving you ideas on how you can improve your play. There are many aspects of the game, and I hope by sharing my experience I can help you think of new things. Very experienced players will probably find nothing they do not already know here! This is a deep game, do not expect to master it overnight. This section addresses the strategies used during duels. For help with improving and building decks, which is just as important, see sections 4.00-4.13. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------#6.01 Rules and terminology ------------------------------------------------------------------------------The help file (the question mark at the bottom left of the main menu) gives an excellent overview and introduction. If you haven't already, read this through again as it covers most of the rules you need to know. I won't repeat them all here, I will just add to them with things I think are either not stated or less obvious. (1) There is no maximum hand size. You do not have to discard cards when you have more than a certain number, like in many card games. (2) Only one ongoing spell can affect a row or a line at once. If there is already one affecting a row or line, you cannot cast another one in that position. (3) A creature can have any number of ongoing spells attached to it, and you can have any number of general ongoing spells and fortunes at once, which appear above your Hero. (4) You get one chance to "mulligan". This means that if you do not like your starting hand, you may choose to be dealt another one. If you do, you must stick with your second hand.

(5) You can tell who is going to go first before you decide whether or not to take a mulligan. Look at your resource circle, just to the left of the END TURN button at the top. If the blue number at the bottom of your circle shows a zero, you will go first. If it shows a one, you will go second. Use this information when deciding whether or not to mulligan. (6) By hovering the mouse over your deck or your opponent's, you can see how many cards remain in the deck by a message that appears in the bottom-right corner of the screen. Similarly by hovering over your opponent's hand, a message tells you how many cards they have. (7) You can right click on your opponent's Hero to zoom in on it. This should be the first thing you do each duel, to find out what their abilities are and what schools of magic they have access to. (8) When you run out of cards from your deck, you don't lose the game. Each time you are required to draw a card from your deck (the standard draw each turn, or any other effects that make you draw cards) you take 1 damage. You are still in the game until you reach zero life, so can in theory continue with an empty deck for a long time. Of course you will not be getting any new cards so must rely on what you already have in your hand. (9) Cards that affect things on the battleground by default can affect both your cards and your opponent's cards. If it can affect only one or the other, this will be noted on the card, using the terms "enemy" or "friendly". (10) When a card refers to creatures that are "adjacent", this means creatures directly to their left and right, and those directly above and below them. It does not include creatures at diagonals. Both player's front lines are considered adjacent, as if the centre partition did not exist. This means if I use a Fireball (4 damage to target creature and each adjacent creature) on a creature in the opponent's front line, it will also damage a creature that is in my front line to the left of that creature. When hovering over the potential target for the spell, the affected adjacent creatures, including yours, will be highlighted. (11) Damage from creatures is not removed at the end of each turn. (12) To "deploy" and "cast" a creature are two subtly different things. When you cast a creature, you then deploy it. But there are other ways of deploying creatures which don't require them being cast, such as bringing them back from the graveyard by Resurrection. Most of the time this distinction doesn't matter, but occasionally it does. If a card says you cannot cast creatures, you can still deploy them with other methods. If it says you can't deploy creatures then you can't even put them onto the battleground using other methods. (13) If a creature is "immobilized" this means it can't be moved from where it is like normal, but it can be moved in other ways such as with Teleport or outmanoeuvre abilities. It can still attack. (14) When you cast a creature with outmanoeuvre (Sanctuary faction) you don't have to move a creature if you don't want to. If you'd rather leave all the enemies where they are, click the cross to the top-right of your Hero to cancel the ability. Your creature will then just get deployed without doing anything else. (15) You cannot "heal" a creature to above its maximum life total. (This is usually the value on the creature card, but can be increased such as with Month of the Emerald Song.) You cannot "heal" your Hero to above its starting life

total. (16) Crippling counters from an attack take effect before retaliation is dealt. So for example, I attack your 4/2/4 creature with my 2/1/3 creature with crippling 1. My creature deals 2 damage to yours, and the crippling counter is put on your creature, making it 3/1/2. Then your creature retaliates, and only deals 1 damage back to my creature. (17) Regeneration happens before damage from poison counters is applied. So putting a poison counter on a creature that has regenerate and 1 health left isn't going to kill it. It will gain its health back first. The same is generally true, if a creature's ability is competing with another effect to see which applies first, the creature's innate ability is always first. (18) Magic creatures always require at least 1 level of magic skill. Check each card to find out the requirements. If a creature doesn't say that it is a magic creature, then it isn't one. Being magic or not magic is not related to whether the creature is a shooter, flyer, or melee. (19) The Hero Kieran has an ability that deals 1 damage to creatures that deal him damage. For creatures with the life drain ability, the life drain happens first. So a creature with 1 health left and life drain 2 will survive, because it gains its 2 health back putting it at 3, then it takes 1 damage from Kieran putting it at 2. (20) If something "cannot be targeted" then it can't be chosen for cards and effects which specifically use the word "target", such as "deal 2 damage to target creature". They are still affected by things that don't target, such as "deal 3 damage to all creatures" and can still be attacked. Choosing which creature to attack does not count as choosing a target. Note however that ongoing spells that enchant creatures do target, even though they don't use the word "target". (21) If something says you "put a card into your hand" rather than drawing a card, then it doesn't count as drawing a card. This can be important because some cards like Void Arbiter stop you drawing extra cards, but they won't stop you "putting" cards into your hand. Less importantly, attempting to "put" a card into your hand from your library when it is empty won't cause you to take damage whereas attempting to draw a card will. (22) The fear ability can prevent a creature being hit by being adjacent to a sweep attack. For example, you attack my Maniac with your Demented, which requires 2 might and has sweep attack. I have a Lurker in the Dark (fear 3) adjacent to the maniac. The Lurker takes no damage from the Demented, because he is "scared" to sweep his attack into him. However, fear will not stop a creature getting hit by area blast or focused blast abilities. (23) If a card is "banished" it means it leaves the game and cannot come back. So it won't be in the graveyard, it is just gone for good. (24) The "owner" of a card is the player whose deck it started in, even if control of it has changed (such as with Puppet Master). A card will always go to its owner's graveyard when it leaves the battleground. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------#6.02 Attacking ------------------------------------------------------------------------------You can attack with your available creatures in any order you wish. But the order in which you do so can be crucial. In general, you want to attack with

creatures immune to retaliation first. This includes almost every shooter. For example, I have a 2 power shooter and a 2 power melee creature in the same line. I want to attack and kill the enemy creature opposite them, which has 4 life and a retaliation of 2. The correct way to do this is to attack with the shooter first. Because he is immune to retaliation, he won't lose any life. Then I attack with the melee creature, finishing off the enemy. Because the enemy loses his final 2 life from this attack and dies, it won't deal any retaliation damage to my melee creature (unless it has retribution). If I had attacked with my melee creature first, he would have taken a needless 2 points of retaliation damage before the shooter could then finish off the enemy. Sometimes the order you attack the enemy creatures is important too. Say I have a 2 power melee creature opposite an enemy creature with 2 life. Directly below both these creatures is my 2 power flyer, and the enemy's creature with 2 life and melee guard 2 (prevents 2 combat damage from enemy melee creatures to this and to adjacent friendly creatures). I should attack with my flyer first, killing the melee guard creature (since flyer doesn't count as melee). Now I can attack with my melee creature, and kill the other creature. If I did this the other way round, my melee creature would not even damage the creature facing it as the melee guard from the creature below would prevent it. As another example, if the opponent has creatures with enrage you intend to attack, you generally want to do this first. Otherwise, if you kill another of their creatures first, the enrage creature will gain a counter and so its retaliation goes up and you may take more damage than you needed to in return. If you are going to use a spell in combination with an attack to kill an enemy creature, do the spell first. This will mean that your attacker won't receive any retaliation damage, since it will be finishing the creature off. Be careful about attacking before making your plans with spells. Sometimes an attack can sabotage the effectiveness of your spells. For example, I have a creature ready to attack and kill an enemy creature. There are 2 enemy creatures adjacent to that enemy, above it and below it. If I have something like a Fireball (deals 4 damage to target creature and all adjacent creatures) then it is better to use this on the enemy creature, so I can hit all 3 at once. If I attack first and kill the creature, I will have lost my target in the middle of all the other creatures. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------#6.03 Life totals, blocking and races to win ------------------------------------------------------------------------------A common mistake in games such as this is worrying too much about your life total. Of course it is important, because if it runs out you lose. But what is more important is that as long as you kill the opponent before they kill you, you still win. It doesn't matter how much you have left. This means that if you "trade blows" with them, and you are doing more damage than they are each turn, you will eventually win. It often happens that your opponent will leave open one or more of the rows you occupy and let you attack them, while you similarly leave some rows open for them. As long as the rows you have free have more potential for damage, then this is in your favour. Even if they are not, you may still win if your opponent has already been reduced to a lower life total. Play out a few turns in your head to see whether a "race" like this is going to work out well for you or not. One of the reasons to get into races like this is because blocking a creature

gives the first attack between creatures to your opponent. In the most obvious case, putting a creature down which can be killed right away by your opponent's creature has only achieved preventing one attack from that creature and nothing more. You must consider whether that is worth it in the current situation. Unless your life is very low and you are in danger of losing soon, this is usually not worth it. It is better placed somewhere that is can deal damage back to your opponent, and try to win a race- after fixing the race with spells at some point as needed! Even if your creature cannot be killed right away by the enemy creature, it may still be a poor tactical decision to block it. Consider how a "back and forth" between the two creatures would play out, given that the enemy gets to attack first. For example, I put a 2/0/4 creature in front of my enemy's 2/0/3. This may seem good at first glance as my creature is stronger. But unless I am planning to interfere with a spell, the opponent is going to kill my creature first. He attacks dropping my creature to 2 life, I attack back dropping him to 1, then he attacks again killing my creature. This is bad for me, again unless I am desperately low on life and require the defense. So effective blocking usually means putting a creature in front an enemy one that will win a "back and forth" with it. However, depending on the magic schools the enemy is using, even this can be dangerous. It is very important to familiarize yourself with the magic schools the enemy Hero has at the start of the duel to help you make this kind of decision. If the enemy has access to fire magic, then they will very likely have Fire Bolt. This only needs 1 resource and 1 magic skill, making it instantly available. This can interfere with your intended "back and forth" by knocking two life off your creature. Also Inner Fire only costs 2 resources and 2 magic skill, and boosts their creature by 2 attack. With both these potential threats, I generally suggest taking into account 2 damage on your creature before deciding whether a block is good or not against a fire magic player. So for example, to block a creature with 2 power I want to have a creature with 5 or more life. Otherwise I risk them using a cheap spell, most likely cheaper than my creature, to rig the fight and win right away. I would usually rather put my creature in an open row and trade blows with their Hero than take this chance. Of course this is only a general rule, and is less important the cheaper the creature you are using to put in front of the enemy. This rule also applies when playing against enemies with access to light magic, although not quite as strictly. Bless is a popular light magic card, and it applies a permanent 2 attack bonus to a creature. By using this, the opponent can easily rig a fight just as above, meaning I prefer to make sure my blocker can win a back and forth even after taking this into account. But since Bless needs 3 resources and 3 magic skill, it won't be available in the first few turns of the game. Keep an eye on what skills the enemy raises so that you know when to start taking this into account. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------#6.04 Important cards to remember, formations ------------------------------------------------------------------------------There are several cards which should govern the way you play, so as to avoid getting wrecked by them. They are generally cards which work best when your creatures are in a certain formation, but I have included some others to be aware of when planning your strategies. For each card I suggest strategies to play around it. They are only guidelines, it's not always possible to do exactly as I suggest here. But when possible, these can save you a lot of grief. Get familiar with these cards! I put a little diagram underneath some

to demonstrate the formation I suggest. C=creature placed here, *=empty space. These are just examples, you can use lots of variations of these. It may be that the specific combination of magic schools the opponent has means that preparing for one card leaves you vulnerable to another. It is then a judgement call as to which you are most worried about given the current situation and what is in your hand. If you feel you have to create a "bad" formation, make it as much to your advantage as possible. For example, I know the opponent is playing with Broken Bridge which returns all creatures in a row to owner's hand. I feel I need to double up my creatures in one row. I can make this undesirable for the opponent by doubling up cheap creatures which can be easily cast again, creatures which have taken a lot of damage so I can replenish them, or creatures which have an ability when they are cast so I can activate it again. Or say I need to put two creatures in a row even though I know the opponent has Sunburst which deals 3 damage to all creatures in a row. I choose to put one small creature which would die in the row, but also a bigger one which would survive. If it has life drain or regenerate, better still, so it can recover from the damage. In this way I reduce the advantage of the "double hit". The very first thing you should do when you start a duel is to look at the opponent's Hero. Right click on it to zoom in. Look at what schools of magic they have access to, and then the list below will show you what potential important cards they may have. Neutral cards in the list can be found in any deck, so you always have to look out for them! Pay close attention though to the skill requirement for each card. The higher it is, the less you have to worry about initially. But as you see the opponent raising their skill near to the required value, you need to start thinking about what would happen if they do have the card. Also pay attention to how many of these cards the opponent has already used. If they have played 3 Sunburst already, there is a much lower chance than normal that they have one still in their hand. Also keep an eye on how many cards are in the opponent's hand. The more they have, the better chance they have one of these problem cards. You may wish to gamble on them not having it if they are very low on cards. It is good to become familiar with as many cards as possible eventually, but I have listed here the ones I think you are most likely to come across regularly and that you should be initially aware of. These are the cards that you can do most about by the way you play. It may be the case that your opponent does not use higher level spells and/or fortunes at all. You may be able to figure this out after several turns from the way the opponent raises their skills, and the type of events they are using. If you see them not raising magic and using the Mana Storm event, you can be fairly sure they aren't going to have Fireball in their deck. If they don't raise destiny and use Week of Taxes, you can bet they won't be using Broken Bridge. You can then adjust your strategy accordingly. Because of the way some of the spells below work, you are sometimes better not playing a creature at all, and just holding it back. Some examples: (a) I have several creatures with 3 or less life out already, and am doing well in the duel. My opponent is playing with Earth magic. I would decide not to play any more small creatures as he may play Insect Swarm and kill them all. If he does eventually play it, I then have backup in my hand to cast afterwards.

(b) I have 3 creatures out against an opponent using fire magic. This is the state of play, C being my creatures, E being an opponent's creature and * being an empty space: *C C* *C ** ** ** ** EE

I have allowed him to keep attacking unopposed in the bottom row, while I control the top rows. I have a shooter creature I am considering playing. I notice his magic skill is at 3. Considering that he will be able to raise it to 4 next turn and may well have a Fireball, it could be a big mistake to play my shooter in the first or third row. Even though it would appear to improve my position, it may give my opponent a better target for Fireball, being able to hit 3 creatures instead of just 1 as he currently can. So if I do play the shooter, it should probably be in the bottom row, as a speedbump to the opponent to help me win the life race (see section 6.03). If my life total is quite safe, then I may instead choose to just keep it in my hand to replace my current shooter if it gets killed. ---Inferno faction---General: Watch your life total! ALTAR OF DESTRUCTION, destiny=1, deals 2 damage to opponent, put a card from your hand on top of your library Be very careful of Inferno players when deciding whether or not to race them to low life totals (see section 6.03). They can finish you off with these, even using them in multiples to kill you from higher life values. -----Water magic-----Generally: Zigzag! GEYSER, magic=3, deals 3 damage to target creature and each adjacent creature Use a zigzag formation, having just one creature per row, and alternating between front row and back row as you move down the rows. *C C* *C C* or C* *C C* *C

ICE SPIKES, magic=3, deals 2 damage to all creatures in target line Spread your creatures out between the front and back lines. -----Earth magic-----Generally: Don't over-commit! EARTHQUAKE, magic=2, deals 2 damage to all non-flyer creatures Don't have two many low health ground units at once, especially if the opponent just has flyers or high health units out.

INSECT SWARM, magic=3, deals 3 damage to all creatures Don't have more creatures on the battleground than you need, keep some back in case of a mass kill. Use as many high health creatures as possible. -----Primal magic----Generally: Double up! Primal spells can't directly damage your creatures, and Town Portal threatens to remove your blockers. Having two in the same row gives extra security. This needs to be balanced by considering your opponent's other magic shool(s) and if they can take advantage of being doubled up. Also, Minor Recall is dangerous against you if you are playing a stall deck as it can remove your Altar of Shadows, Stone Shield etc. to your hand for a turn. -----Fire magic------Generally: Zigzag! FIRE BOLT, magic=1, deals 2 damage to target creature Avoid blocking a creature unless your blocker has at least 3 more health than the attack of the enemy creature (so block a 3 attack creature with a 6 health creature). INNER FIRE, magic=2, increase the attack and retaliation of a creature by 2 until your next turn Same strategy as for Fire Bolt. FIREBALL, magic=4, deals 4 damage to target creature and each adjacent creature Use a zigzag formation, having just one creature per row, and alternating between front row and back row as you move down the rows. *C C* *C C* -----Air magic-------Generally: Bunch up! CHAIN LIGHTNING, magic=4, deals 3 damage to all creature adjacent to target empty space Put your creatures in lines, or pack them close together so as not to leave spaces. C* C* C* C* CC CC ** ** CC ** ** CC or C* *C C* *C

or

or

CYCLONE, magic=4, deals 1 damage to all creatures in target line and stops them attacking for a turn Spread your creatures between the front and back lines (favouring the second

and third formation examples for Chain Lightning above). -----Light magic-----Generally: Avoid doubling up in rows! BLESS, magic=3, increases attack of a creature by 2 Avoid blocking a creature unless your blocker has at least 3 more health than the attack of the enemy creature (so block a 3 attack creature with a 6 health creature). SUNBURST, magic=2, deals 2 damage to all creatures in target row Avoid putting two creatures in the same row. WORD OF LIGHT, magic=4, deals 2 damage to all enemy creatures Avoid having too many low health creatures out at once. -----Dark magic------DESPAIR, magic=3, deals 2 damage to all creatures not adjacent to another creature Keep creatures adjacent to each other. I haven't seen this an awful lot but thought it may be worth pointing out. -----Neutral---------Generally: Avoid doubling up in rows! BROKEN BRIDGE, destiny=3, return all creatures in target row to owners' hands Avoid putting two creatures in the same row. PAO DEATHSEEKER, might=3, 3 attack, can attack right away, dies at end of turn, immune to retaliation Don't leave any rows unguarded when you are at 3 or less life. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------#6.05 Order of actions in a turn ------------------------------------------------------------------------------You have a lot of choice over what order you do things in a turn, and it can make a lot of difference what order you choose. Here is a rough gameplan for each turn that I recommend. (1) Don't make any hasty clicks. Stop and assess the situation. Take into account the new card you have drawn, and the new event card that will have been turned over. Think about what your opponent is likely to do next turn, based on the level of his current skills. (Refer to section 6.04.) You usually have two minutes per turn, and while I'm not suggesting you play like a snail, there is no need to speed through your turn either. (2) Develop a plan for your whole turn, deciding what you are going to do with every creature and every point of resource you have. Don't click on any cards in your hand before you have thought it through. If you do select a card then the opponent gets to see what it is, and if you then decide to not play it

you have given away vital information. (3) Remember when creating your plan that the event card currently on the right of the two will be available to your opponent in their next turn. (4) If the plan involves anything with an uncertain outcome, you should do those first. These are things such as activating Week of the Mercenaries or casting Monastery of Helexia. If you intend to definitely do them as part of your plan anyway, it is best to find out the results right away. The outcome may lead you to alter your plan or come up with a new one. If not, you've lost nothing by trying. (5) If your plan involves drawing one or more cards (say you work out you will have 1 resource left that you will use with your Hero ability to draw a card) then draw the cards next before you do anything else. Upon seeing this new card, you may be able to develop a better plan than the one you already had in mind. If you had drawn it last after doing everything else and using up your resources, it will be too late to take it back. If no new plan emerges from drawing the card, you have lost nothing by trying. (6) Now execute your plan, either your initial one or the new improved plan based on card draws. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------#6.06 When to take a mulligan ------------------------------------------------------------------------------You get one chance for a mulligan each duel. It is an important decision, so don't rush it. You want to consider several factors: (1) Do I have cards in hand to be able to make use of all my resources in the first few turns? (Or an alternative plan such as using your first turn to draw a card using Week of Knowledge.) (2) Do I have a sensible proportion of creatures/spells/fortunes that I can survive on? (3) Am circle shown. a one, I going first or second? Is this hand good for that? (Look at the to the left of the PLAY button at the top, where your resources are If there is a blue zero at the bottom, you are going first. If it is you are going second.)

(4) What Hero is my opponent using? Is my hand good against it? (Right click on your right-most card in your hand to zoom in and to allow you to see past it to the enemy Hero.) (5) Most importantly, based on the answers to all of the above and your knowledge of the contents of your deck, how likely is it that I would draw a better hand if I take a mulligan? If the answer to question 5 is greater than 50% then mulligan, if less than 50% then keep your hand. This is all very much a rough guide, but hopefully it will give you some things to think about. You must know your deck very well to be able to decide. When going first, you either want a very fast start (like a 1 resource creature or Gold Pile to bring things out quickly) or else you will most likely be on the defensive (as your opponent gets to play 2 resource creatures before you, and 3 resource creatures etc.) So if your hand isn't suited to either of these strategies, consider taking a mulligan.

When going second with any kind of creature strategy, you normally want to be the aggressor. This means a good 2 resource creature is important for your first play, followed up by either a 3 resource creature or multiple small ones. Otherwise you will be handing the initiative to your opponent. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------#6.07 Positioning flyers ------------------------------------------------------------------------------This is pretty fundamental, but something easily overlooked in a tense game. When choosing whether to put your flyer in the front line or back line, take into account the following: (a) Which placement gives a good formation for dodging key cards the opponent may soon use? (See section 6.04) (b) How many creatures do I already have in each line? Will I cause "overcrowding" in one of the lines which may cause one of my small creatures to be caught with nowhere safe to run? (c) How many shooter and melee creatures do I have in my hand? Where will I need space in the next few turns for my creatures? (d) If I end up putting two creatures in a row, is this flyer good to have in the front or the back? Regenerating, life drain, incorporeal and high health flyers can be good at the front, to take punishment. Smaller ones can be protected at the back. (e) Can I gain an advantage from my creatures being adjacent? Some cards like Wolf Captain or those with the honour ability get more powerful (or grant power) when surrounded. Flying creatures give you the perfect opportunity to do this as they can be deployed in any possible adjacent position, to make room for melee and shooter creatures which are restricted. Remember when moving a flyer already on the field that it doesn't have to stay in the same line. It may be better to move it backwards or forwards as well as changing rows. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------#6.08 Bluffing ------------------------------------------------------------------------------Don't forget that your opponent won't know what exactly is in your deck, so you can try to mislead them. Some turns you may find the only thing you can do with your Hero abilities is raise a skill, because you can't afford to pay the resource to draw a card, or do anything useful with any other ability they have. In these cases, even if you don't need to, it's worth raising one of your skills more. You know that this is pointless for your deck, but your opponent does not. If you do have at least 1 resource spare though, always draw a card rather than try to bluff. For example, I have my might/magic/destiny skills at 5/3/3 and I know I don't need them any higher than this to cast anything in my deck. I find myself in a turn where I can't draw a card with my Hero (after needing to spend all my resources) and have no useful "free" Hero ability. So I can think about what skill to raise as a bluff. I would probably raise my magic skill to 4, because it then looks like I may have level 4 or higher spells in my deck. This may cause the opponent to adjust their strategy to account for the spells I might be setting up for, and cause them to be over-cautious. If they pay no

attention, then you've lost nothing by trying. Think what looks most scaryusually I would say this is raising your magic skill, if not then your destiny skill. There are not too many more opportunities for bluffing in this game, but you may come across some. Just think about what the opponent actually knows, and what you could do to mislead them- legally of course! Keeping more cards in your hand gives you the image of having a lot of options, even if you know they aren't useful cards in the present situation. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------#6.09 Unusual plays ------------------------------------------------------------------------------Sometimes there is the opportunity in a duel to do something that would normally be considered bad, or just weird, to make an imaginative play. Once you learn to think about all your options, these kind of things will become easier to spot. Some examples: (a) I've attacked with all my melee creatures, and I have a quick attack creature in hand that I could use to finish off the opponent. Trouble is all the spaces that could hit the opponent are occupied! To deal with this, use whatever means you have to kill your own creature in that spot so that you can play the quick attack creature and win. If it means you win the game, it doesn't matter what you do to your own creatures. (b) Similar situation to the above. The battleground is pretty packed out, and I need to try and get my last hit through with a quick attack creature in my hand. The opponent's defense is solid, except for one row with just a 2/2/4 creature. I have in that row a 2/1/2 melee creature and a 3/0/3 shooter. I would usually attack with the shooter first, so that the melee creature can finish off the enemy and survive. But here I actually want my melee to die because I need his space. So I attack with the melee first, he dies, then I finish off the enemy with the shooter. Now I can play my quick attack creature in the empty space. (c) In my hand I have Wandering Bard which fetches my unique creature. Trouble is, I've already drawn my unique. I notice I have in my hand Mass Grave, which requires me to put a card on top of my library to cast. If I put the unique on the library to cast it, I can then cast the Bard and search for the unique again. Doing things this way I have gained back the card disadvantage you usually get from Mass Grave. (d) I've activated Week of the Mercenaries, and a creature didn't come up on top. I drew a card with my Hero, and it still didn't produce a creature. I must get a creature on top in order to win or my opponent will crush me next turn. I have Arcane Academy, which searches my library for a spell in my hand, but I know I have no spells left, I've used them all in the game. However, I can still cast it anyway because it allows me to shuffle my library after I have "searched". This gives me another chance to get a creature on top of the library. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------#6.10 Events ------------------------------------------------------------------------------It is very important to be familiar with all the events in the game. Even if they are ones you don't plan to use yourself in decks, your opponent might and chances are they will occur in a game at some point. So you need to have an idea how they work, and be ready to use them to your full advantage if they

do come up. This is true both of activated events which give you another option, and ongoing events which may alter or restrict what you do. A really good opportunity may present itself from an opponent's event, and you don't want to miss it because you aren't paying much attention to opponent's events that come up, or aren't sure what they do or how they work. I've given commentary to many of them throughout the guide- see sections 4.13 and 7.04L. You can see a full list of events here: http://www.mmdoc.net/card_list/thumbs/type_card/event/ For any that you don't already feel familiar with, click on them and have a good read. It may be worth making a deck using events you don't normally use just to play it against the AI in practice mode to get more comfortable with them. A good opponent will be using your events to their advantage, so you must be doing the same. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------#7.00 More on deck building ------------------------------------------------------------------------------This section is for when you have got a good grasp of the basics of the game and have built up a decent collection of cards. I advise beginners to concentrate on section 4.00-4.13 until they feel ready to take it further than what is written there. I will cover the two non-starter factions here, Stronghold and Sanctuary, giving some basics about them, and recommended cards. Section 7.04 covers cards that I didn't mention as cards to look out for in section 4 because I didn't think they suited beginners, but which you may like to consider when you become more advanced. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------#7.01 General considerations ------------------------------------------------------------------------------These are some more things to think about when building any deck. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------#7.01A What is my overall strategy? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------Although every game will play out differently, you should have in mind the kind of situation you want to achieve with your deck. You should think about how your deck will win, and how it will deal with whatever the opponent may throw at you. Try to choose cards which work well together and back each other up rather than blocking each other's potential. When playing, watch out for cards which conflict in some way. If this is happening, you should probably remove one of them. Some examples of simple strategies: -Casting as many fast creatures as possible to rush the opponent -Producing fast resources to get out many threats early -Controlling the game early to build up to big creatures -Stealing creatures from the opponent -Gaining time advantage by returning your opponent's creatures to their hand -Using attack anywhere creatures to try and kill off everything You can create much more in-depth strategies than these as you get to know the card pool really well. But the point is to have some sort of plan for the deck rather than just sticking a load of good cards in it.

Some strategies just won't work as well as you think they would or should. In those cases you can think about why they aren't working, and to see what changes you can make to address the problems you are having. Don't give up right away, every deck gets bad deals. And don't change too many cards at once, as it becomes harder to see what difference you have made. Developing your own interesting strategy can be much more rewarding than going with a generic deck or copying ideas from others. Even if you don't win as much, you will learn a lot and have fun too! Also, using a home-made deck rather than a popular deck build gives you a level of advantage against experienced players. They will be much less likely to predict what you are going to do next, and are more likely to make a mistake. A deck can have more than one strategy. For example it may focus on fast creatures and forcing the opponent to discard key cards. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------#7.01B What Hero is right for my strategy? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------The Heroes break up very roughly into four categories. After each category I list the starting skils for Heroes in that category, for example 2/0/1 shows a starting might of 2, starting magic of 0 and starting destiny of 1. All Heroes except the seekers will also have either an activated or ongoing ability. Non-Sanctuary Heroes come from Heroic Packs (1 guaranteed each pack) while Sanctuary Heroes come from Void Rising Packs (randomly). The special Heroes (bottom of the list) can only be gained from achievements or from buying decks with them in. On top of this, there is one new Hero for each of the five factions in the Herald of the Void expansion. -----SEEKERS 1/1/2, 20 life, 2 magic schools, no extra ability Cassandra, Seeker of Light (Haven) Garant, Seeker of Discord (Inferno) Seria, Seeker of the Lost Souls (Necropolis) Kat, Seeker of Freedom (Stronghold) Yukiko, Seeker of Honour (Sanctuary) These are balanced, with the highest overall skill values. Can work with most strategies, and finds fortunes easiest to use. These can also be obtained by buying the approprate deck from the shop. -----LORDS 1/1/1, 20 life, 2 magic schools, activated ability Sandalphon, Lord of Power (Haven) Belias, Lord of the Kennels (Inferno) Nergal, Lord of Pestilence (Necropolis) Kelthor, Lord of Fury (Stronghold) Ishuma, Lord of Dragons (Sanctuary) Balanced alternatives to seekers, with different magic schools. Trades the 1 point of destiny for an activated ability. Can work with most strategies and are strong choices. The 5 new Herald of the Void Heroes are also lords. They have their own quite unusual 2 magic schools, and an expensive activated ability that costs 6. You may want them for their magic school mix, or to make use of the activated ability late in the game. -----CHAMPIONS 2/0/1 20 life, 1 magic school, activated or ongoing ability

Siegfried, Champion of Faith (Haven) -ongoing Xorm, Champion of the Abyss (Inferno) -activated Fleshbane, Champion of the Misshapen (Necropolis) -ongoing Acamas, Champion of the Bloodhorn (Stronghold) -activated Takana Osore, Champion of the Tides (Sanctuary) -ongoing With only 1 magic school and 0 starting magic skill, these Heroes are usually best in decks with few or no spells. You may not raise magic skill at all, or perhaps just once for some level 1 spells or to cast magic creatures. These Heroes work best when focusing on creatures and fortunes. These kinds of decks are harder to build effectively in my experience than the previous two groups, so I recommend leaving these for a while. It is possible to use these Heroes to build a deck using magic, but you're usually better going with another Hero for that. -----INVOKERS 0/2/1, 18 life, 3 magic schools, activated ability Jezziel, Invoker of Hope Kal-Azaar, Invoker of Agony Mother Namtaru, Invoker of Death Shaar, Invoker of the Skies Kaiko, Invoker of the Depths There are without a doubt the hardest Heroes to use, so I recommend leaving them alone for a long time. With 0 might they struggle to get creatures out, especially when going second. These Heroes work best when focusing on magic, making use of the high 2 starting skill and 3 schools of magic to choose from. They are then usually backed up by some low requirement creatures and/or high level fortunes. These are often used in the "one turn kill" (OTK) strategies which you will eventually see. They stall the game until they can pull off some combo and kill you in one go. Apart from this kind of strategy, playing with low ranking creature or none at all is very difficult. There just aren't many cards that allow you to win without creatures. The most successful strategy is often stealing your opponent's creatures, relying less or not at all on your own. -----SPECIAL (varies) M=number of magic schools Kieran, Knight of Negation (Haven) 2/1/0, 20 life, Phrias, Prince of Annihilation (Inferno) 1/1/0, 20 Ariana of the Severed Fates (Necropolis) 1/2/0, 18 Crag Hack (Stronghold) 2/0/0, activated, M=1 Akane, Mourner of Lost Memories (Sanctuary) 1/2/0, activated , M=2 life, activated, M=2 life, activated, M=3 20 life, activated, M=2

These Heroes do not appear in any booster packs. All can be obtained by completing certain achievements: Kieran- Win 30 duels with each of the 5 factions. you have already won 30 with, as you unlock their initially locked, and can be viewed/chosen in the 3.04. The very last 5 banners are new rewards for 5 before these are the ones I am talking about. You can tell which factions banners. These banners are profile screen. See section Herald of the Void, and the

Phrias- Own 120 premium cards from the Void Rising set. These are the shiny ones which appear in premium boosters, and you have a chance to get them in standard boosters. Doesn't have to be 120 individual cards- in fact this would be impossible! Ariana- Own 5,000 cards.

Crag Hack- Win 500 ranked duels. Practice games don't count. Akane- Own a copy of every card in the Void Rising set. Ariana and Crag also appear in pre-made decks in the shop. These lend themselves to a deck with no fortunes, typically using as many Week of Taxes events as possible. They then use their good starting skills in might and magic to concentrate on these areas, finding it easier to reach the higher level cards in both. They may use occasional 1 destiny fortunes, especially Ariana. When you get these Heroes, they are mostly strong choices. Such decks are relatively easy to build. I have found Crag and Phrias to be the weakest, and require the most effort to make a successful deck. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------#7.01C How do I deal with my opponent's cards? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------You will almost always be facing creatures from your opponent. (There is one deck design that uses very few, but don't worry about that too much. You won't see it until you get above 1000 ELO most likely.) That means you should have some ways of dealing with your opponents creatures. As a standard, you should be able to kill or otherwise stall Dark Assassin. It is so powerful that if you can't deal with it, you will probably lose in short order to anyone who gets one out. You won't see many to begin with, but as your ELO rating goes up you will encounter them more and more. Dark Assassin is a neutral creature costing 2 resources, with 4 attack and 2 life. It deals 1 damage to its controller when it attacks. Because it is neutral any deck you face can use it, and at 2 resources it comes out fast. And because dead creatures can't retaliate, it takes something with 5 life to even survive its attack while trying to block it. Therefore you need something quick and reliable which can wipe out an Assassin before he rips you into shreds. It should preferably not cost more than 2 resources. Here are some examples. The ones you can use will depend on your Hero. Very good (kills Assassin outright): Fire Bolt (fire magic) Sunburst (light magic) Earthquake (earth magic) Teleport (primal magic) [requires a creature with 2+ attack] Mass Grave (Necropolis fortune) Sacrificial Altar (Stronghold fortune) [requires a creature with 2+ life] Kal-Azaar's activated ability [but this will slow down your skill raising] A cheap spell that immobilises (such as Slow) combined with Ishuma's activated ability Not quite as good (will allow at least one attack before Assassin dies): Eternal Winter (water magic) Agony (dark magic) Holy Praetorian (Haven creature) If you don't have access to any of these, at least make sure you can either stall the Assassin somehow or deal with him when you have 3 resources. If you think I am being too paranoid here, wait until you get your first caning at the hand of this little guy!

On top of these ridiculous considerations is how you're going to deal with bigger creatures too. Are you going to return them to the opponent's hand? Or kill them with a big damage spell? Try and ignore them and life rush your opponent? Steal them? You should also think about whether ongoing spells are a problem for your deck. At the moment, I generally do not include cards for dealing with these, or just put in one copy in case of a desperate situation. Many duels will end without a single one appearing, or causing any trouble if it does. But if you can think of particular ones which could ruin your strategy, then it's probably best to pack some dispels. It is more likely that your opponent will cause you trouble now that Herald of the Void is out, as it has several very nasty unique ongoing spells. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------#7.01D What maxout is appropriate for my strategy? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------See section 4.01 if you haven't already read about maxout. It is the number of times you need to increase your skills in order to be able to cast anything in your deck. If you are using a basic Hero, you can generally afford to be more lenient with your maxout. Because you have no alternate ability to activate, it is easier to focus on raising your skills. The same is true of Heroes with an ongoing extra ability, as you won't need to use a turn to activate it. As a rough guide, 6 is a good starting point. But if your Hero has an extra activated ability, which you plan to use with any regularity, you should consider cutting your maxout down somewhat. This allows you more flexibility to use this ability without slowing down your development too much. You may want to drop your maxout to 5. The more regularly you plan to use the Hero ability, the more this is important. Think about how long you expect the game to last with your deck. If it is explosive and you intend to win fast or burn out trying, then a lower maxout makes sense. You probably won't reach your higher cards in time otherwise. If you intend to drag out the game for some time by stalling and killing things with mass removal, you will have more time to raise skills so a higher maxout makes sense. There's no right or wrong answer. It comes down to personal preference and experience. If you find you are maxing out too quickly and require more powerful cards, raise it by 1 and then test it out for several games. If you find you're not getting time to get to your big cards, try dropping it by 1 and then test it out. Don't alter it by more than 1 at a time, as such a drastic change will make it hard to see what effect you are having and you may lose the focus of your deck. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------#7.02 Stronghold ------------------------------------------------------------------------------This is a faction which appears in both the base set and expansions. Once you have a Stronghold Hero, you can make a deck of this faction if you have enough cards to match that Hero. To make a good deck though, you need more than just "enough" cards, you need a good selection of the strong cards. I will discuss the creatures and fortunes here; for spells refer to the relevant sections from 4.06-4.12 for the schools of magic your Hero has.

Stronghold has an unusual style of play, in that it benefits from its creatures getting killed. Usually this is a bad thing, and it still is normally, but Stronghold generates useful side effects from it. These are sometimes so useful that you actually want to kill your own creature! It features many creatures with the Enrage ability. This is the core feature of Stronghold and what most of its decks are built around one way or another. Creatures with Enrage have a number after it, for example Enrage 1. The number tells you how many Enrage counters the creature gets each time one of your creatures dies. (It must go to the graveyard to count, not returned to your hand.) One creature getting killed can trigger several Enrage creatures, giving them all counters according to their Enrage number. A very popular Hero for this strategy is Kelthor- he is my personal favourite. He has an activated ability which does damage to an enemy creature based on the number of Enrage counters on one of your creatures. Enrage gives the creature an extra point of attack and retaliation per Enrage counter. This bonus remains until the creature next attacks; after this the counters are removed. There are other ways of adding counters too other than your creatures getting killed. Certain cards add counters directly to your creatures. This gives Stronghold a very odd playing strategy, but one which I find very interesting. You should generally cast any Enrage creatures you have before doing anything that adds counters, including getting one of your creatures killed. That way you get the maximum benefit from the death. The creature may die because you use it for Sacrificial Altar, because you run it into a big creature and it dies to retaliation, or if you are desperate and you kill it with a standard spell like Fire Bolt! This last is usually only for setting up a finishing kill turn. Make sure you attack with any creatures you intend to kill first, to get the most out of them. So in a turn you may attack with a creature, then cast Sacrificial Altar killing it, to remove a blocker. This pumps up your Enrage creatures. You may then run a small creature into an opponent's big one to soften it up, and it dies to retaliation damage, putting more counters on your creatures. Then you could use Kelthor's abililty to deal damage based on your creature with the most enrage counters to the softened up enemy to finish it off. Then finally you attack with all your Enrage creatures for massive damage. As you can see, the order you do things is more important than normal with Stronghold. Here are a selection of cards to watch out for to build a good first Stronghold deck. I would recommend concentrating on either a creature/magic build or creature/destiny. Either way, lean towards a high number of creatures. It is possible to just raise might, and only use spells and fortunes needing the base amount for your Hero. Cards marked as * are what I consider to be especially good cards. Cards maked with [VR] are from the Void Rising set, [HV] are from Herald of the Void. CREATURES Centaur Archer*: This has really good stats for a 3 resource shooter, he shames the industry standard, Sea Elf Archer. Good for most strategies. Crusher*: Although his stats are not great, I feel he is a key card because of his magic resist ability. Most decks rely on spells to control creatures, and he is very hard to kill with them. So if the opponent manages to kill lots of your other creatures with spells, they are left with a hugely enraged Crusher to deal with. He is also great to put in front of a magic creature, because they won't be able to do him a lot of damage. Keep him out of combat with

non-magic creatures though. Against them he is poor and won't last long unless he can kill them off cleanly. Dreamreaver: I don't normally recommend 5 might units, but in Stronghold there is more scope for going up the scale. This is a nice way to get even more Enrage creatures, and he is very sturdy and reliable. I have found having 2 or 3 of these as your top unit works well in putting real pressure on the opponent. Dreamwalker*: This is what I consider to be the key Enrage unit. He is cheap enough to get out early and cause some trouble while benefiting from any casualties you pick up. If you already have some Warchanters around, he will pick up steam fast. Goblin Scout*: The most efficient and aggressive creature available, he puts pressure on the opponent right away. Unlike the 2 attack 1 resource creatures from other factions, he can be defended with a melee/flyer when threatened by an opponent's melee/flyer. Pao Deathseeker*: Although neutral, I had to mention him here as he is even more ridiculously good than normal. His death at end of turn will give you Enrage counters, and with Week of the Dead he doesn't even have to wait until end of turn. Ranaar Harpy*: The only cheap flyer, it is tough and versatile. Works great for early pressure or guarding a Goblin Scout. Ranaar Mauler: The only cheap Enrage creature. Sadly he has 0 power when not pumped up. I feel that if you use these, you must also use Blackskull Warchanters, or else he just doesn't have enough punch. I also personally would only use him with the Hero Kelthor. He can benefit from other fast creatures you play that get killed, making the opponent think about whether to kill this first. If you're using Kelthor, you can leave this to collect Enrage counters without attacking, so you can use Kelthor's ability to kill creatures. Attacking with him will lose all the counters. In this case it's probably not worth it unless you're desperate for the damage. Tainted Orc*: for his cost, down in front be able to do and watch the An absolute must-have- luckily he is a common. He has huge stats and is really hard for the opponent to get rid of. He can be put of most creatures and it's fairly safe that they aren't going to enough to take him out. Or if you're winning, put him unopposed opponent scramble to get something that could stop him.

Blackskull Clan Warlord* [VR]: He is absolutely huge and very hard to stop. He gives one of the few reasons to ever raise your might above 6! With high life and retaliation, taking him down is hard. If you're going to raise your might in a turn, remember to do it before attacking with him to increase his damage. Blackskull Warchanter* [VR]: An excellent cheap way to get lots of Enrage counters going. Only use if you are playing with a large amount of Enrage units. 3 life is high for a 1 resource creature too. He won't normally be doing damage but with the backup of spells or events, he may chip in. The unusual 2 might requirement shouldn't ever be a problem, even when going first you can raise might to 2 to cast him. This is most likely what you would be doing anyway with your skills. Just move him out the way if he is threatened. Blackskull Vulture Rider* [VR]: He fits in with the "kill your own stuff" strategy. On a turn when you kill some of your own creatures and/or your opponent's, he can be very cheap or even free to cast. There are not too many flyers in Stronghold, so that is a handy addition. And he is still reasonably

good even for the full cost, although not fantastic. Blackskull Centaur* [HV]: His stats are small, but his strength lies in his Swift ability. This allows him to move around each turn, picking off small creatures or finishing off big ones. It also allows him to attack a creature threatening him, and then move away to safety. And when you are going for the kill, he can move to an undefended row and damage the opponent directly. I have found he works great with Kelthor, as you can combine his damage with Fire Bolt, Lighting Strike, Inner Fire etc. If you desperately need a blocker, you can attack first, then move him in front of the biggest threat. Or you can move him so that you avoid dangerous formations (see section 6.04). Blackskull Shredder* [HV]: This is similar to the Centaur above, but is even more dramatic because it can also attack right after you deploy it. Again the stats are low, but he can rush in and finish something off right away, or do some damage to the opponent if you need it. Then he can rush around like the Centaur in following turns. They work well together as a team, allowing you to gang up and deal 4 damage. If you need to kill the opponent with damage but only have one unopposed row, you can pull some tricks with these guys. Say I have 2 of them in hand, I can cast the first one into the row and attack with him. I then use the Swift ability to move him out of the way, and then cast another one in the same spot and attack again, and so on. If I have a Pao Deathseeker, I can finally cast him too for a massive finish, all down one row. Bloodfrenzied Wyvern [HV]: Most 5 might creatures are not quite worth the resources or the stretch in your maxout, but this one I feel does hit the mark. An insane 8 health makes it really hard to kill, coupled with a huge retaliation once it gets some counters. If you are going to be killing any of your opponent's creatures, make sure you cast this first so that it picks up as many counters as possible. You can use Kelthor's ability to deal damage based on its Enrage counters, but it doesn't actually count as a "creature with Enrage". So things that add counters to Enrage creatures and so on won't benefit this. War Oliphant* [HV]: This is the highest health creature for 3 resources in the game- that can attack! I think of it as a mini Tainted Orc, and it will be able to block almost any melee or flyer creature effectively, especially in the early game. If it gets blocked, you can often trade blows with the blocker and come out on top because of the huge 7 health. If you have put down a small shooter early and it is threatened by an opponent's melee/flyer, this is a great way to defend it. FORTUNES Blood Shaman Hut*: This gives you a way of boosting your creatures to get through big blockers, and also a really cheap way of extending your damage for a quick kill. You lose card advantage by playing it, but the tempo you gain is worth it when played at the right time. It's also a way of forcing Week of the Mercenaries to behave. Sacrificial Altar*: Gives away card advantage, so make it huge amount of damage for one resource, and with multiple the kill on your creature will benefit you. Usually it is the creature you want to sacrifice first, unless it would damage which would lower the damage this card can do. count. It can deal a Enrage creatures out best to attack with take retaliation

Surprise Attack [VR]: If you are looking to raise your destiny, this is a great way of having some creature control. Your creatures are typically huge, so this will probably wipe out or finish off just about anything.

EVENTS Week of the Dead*: Not normally a very useful card, but in Stronghold it is very powerful. The ability to kill your own creature can be crucial in some situations, and the added resource you get is just a bonus. Use it carefully, when you can give maximum Enrage tokens by the kill. Week of the Mercenaries*: You are likely to have a high proportion of creatures and this combines extremely well with that. It gives you access to more ways to kill enemy creatures by punching through, and to go for big finishes. Week of the Tamed Spirits [VR]: It is possible to make a completely non-magic creature deck making use of many of the new great HV creatures. This generally abandons the enrage strategy, but has the bonus of using this event to cripple any deck relying on magic creatures, which is most decks. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------#7.03 Sanctuary ------------------------------------------------------------------------------This faction and most of its Heroes are only available from Void Rising Packs. It is a new faction that was created for that expansion. It has two main focuses, Honour and Outmanoeuvre. Honour always has a number associated with it, for example "Honour 2". An Honour creature gives a bonus equal to this number to each adjacent creature's attack and retaliation. Diagonals do not count, and enemy creatures are not buffed. To take advantage of this, it is good to set your creatures up around where you are going to cast the Honour creature. Even if you haven't drawn one yet, you may do by the time you've set up. For example, if I put my first melee creature in row 1, I would put my next one in row 3. Then I could cast an Honour creature in row 2 between them, and they would both get boosted. I can do the same by casting a shooter in the row above or below my melee creature. I then cast the Honour creature in front of the shooter buffing both. Be careful though, as these setups make a perfect target for a Fireball. Outmanoeuvre applies only when the creature enters the battleground. This can either be when you cast it, or put it into play in other ways such as with Ressurection. You pick one enemy creature, and you can move it to any other valid position. This means a melee creature must stay on the front line, and a shooter on the back. If there are no available slots, you cannot move that creature. You do not have to move any creatures at all, if you would rather leave them where they are, click the cross to the top-right of your Hero and the ability will be cancelled. Your creature will just enter play as usual. Outmanoeuvre plays a huge part in the strategy of Sanctuary. The two main uses are moving creatures out of the way so that you can attack the opponent, and moving them in front of your creatures so that you can attack and hopefully kill them. If the opponent casts a creature in front of one of yours, you can get a double whammy by attacking it, then playing an Outmanoeuvre creature. You move the enemy in front of another of your creatures, then attack it again. Generally I would suggest using Outmanoeuvre to kill creatures early in the game, and using it to get free attacks later when you feel you are close to winning. Some of the Sanctuary creatures have the new ability Hypnotize. This stops the opponent moving any creature that is in the same row as a Hypnotize creature. They can still use other effects to move them though, such as Teleport. This makes it harder for them to get around your creatures. My favourite Hero is

Ishuma, as it can make use of the Hypnotize abilities to deal damage to immobilized creatures. Hypnotize is also useful for trapping small utility creatures like Tithe Collector, so that they can't do their usual trick of running away when threatened. I recommend a creature heavy build, going up to 5 might if you have worthwhile creatures at that level. This can be backed up by lower level spells and/or fortunes. Here is a selection of cards I recommend for building a deck. Ones I mark with a * are ones I consider particularly good. For spells, see the relevant sections from 4.06-4.12 for your chosen Hero. Cards maked with [VR] are from the Void Rising set, [HV] are from Herald of the Void. CREATURES Coral Priestess* [VR]: The cheapest Outmanoeuvre creature. She is essential for taking out early creatures by moving them in front of the creatures you have already got out. Kappa* [VR]: This has very high life and retaliation, meaning you can safely put it in front of small/medium creatures and it's unlikely they can break through him for several turns. With a melee/flyer they may not even want to attack him, as the retaliation could put them in a position to die on your turn from his attack. Kenshi* [VR]: Although he is weak, he makes those around him very strong. This is the highest cost Honour creature I would generally recommend using. If you have 3 creatures ready in place, he can immediately offer a 6 damage increase that turn. Kirin [VR]: On his own he is only OK, but along with Outmanoeuvre creatures he can be nasty. Try and see the best way you can set up a creature so as to affect as many creatures as possible with the blast. This may mean moving one in front of him to connect with others nearby, or moving one alongside so that it gets hit as well. Note that changing his attack value in any way does not change the damage of the focused blast. Also the blast damage isn't combat damage so melee guard won't stop it. Focused blast never hurts your own creatures. Naga Tide Master* [VR]: A brutally powerful shooter which also has the Outmanoeuvre ability. Well worth the unusual step of raising to 5 might to be able to use her. Nyorai Sairensa* [VR]: If you are lucky enough to get her, she is the only 4 resource Outmanoeuvre creature, with the added benefit of being harder to stop thanks to her special ability. The opponent can still move stuff in front of her- they just can't deploy them. She is also the only melee outmanoeuvre creature. Pearl Priestess [VR]: A smaller Naga Tide Master, but with the bonus of Hypnotize. Overall I'd say this is worse than Tide Master, but there is room for both in a deck and Ishuma can make good use of the Hypnotize. Shanriya Guard* [VR]: A good creature on its own, one which the opponent won't want to block because the blocker will get frozen and hacked up each turn until it is dead. But you can make the opponent block it by moving their creatures in front of it with an Outmanoeuvre. Shark Guard* [VR]: Like Inferno and Necropolis, it's the most efficient and

fast high-damage attacker. Crucial for any Outmanoeuvre strategy, and to set up quickly for an Honour creature. Shinje Warrior* [HV]: This is an alternative to Shanriya Guard and Kappa. It is more defensive than the Guard, so which you should use depends on your overall strategy. Compared to Kappa, it is easier to kill with spells but against creatures it is always guaranteed to take down at least one creature with it. It poses a problem to Necro, which is very popular at the moment. Necro relies on lots of low attack creatures that stick around a long time, so it will usually take two creatures to finish this off without additional cards. Note that even if a creature kills this cleanly, the attacker will still get killed. That is the strength of this card. Snow Maiden [VR]: Not great stats, but 4 health is reasonably high, and you can trap a tricky little creature early on with it. Remember that this isn't a magic creature, even though the picture looks suspiciously like it is to me! Spring Spirit* [VR]: This is what you always want to get out when you hit 2 resources. Very strong stats, and unusually it is a magic creature. This can be a good or bad thing, depending on the situation. Great for getting ready for Outmanoeuvre creatures, to provide a beating. Yuki-Onna [VR]: The 5 might level has a lot of good potential creatures for Sanctuary. This is very tough, and holds creatures still while it shoots them to pieces. Like Snow Maiden, it's not a magic creature! Tell me that picture doesn't look magic! I would generally recommend using Pearl Priestess or Naga Tide Master for the Outmanoeuvre strategy, but until you have access to enough of them, or if you prefer a different strategy, these will be fine. Wanizame* [VR]: The cheapest Honour creature, and it's good. Great stats, and a nice durable 5 health. He can have a big impact on the game relatively early on. It is often a good idea to prepare your first creatures in a configuration that this creature can fit into if/when you can cast him. Naga Yokujin [HV]: If you are playing any Hero other than Ishuma, this is generally a better choice that Snow Maiden, swapping the hypnotize for bigger stats. However, I have found that if you play with Ishuma, you will really miss the hypnotise ability which allows you to use Ishuma's 2 damage, so I would recommend holding on to your Maidens. Kabuki Tei [HV]: This is a variant of Wanizame, with different casting requirements too. The 2 destiny favours a fortune deck, or Yukiko. I personally prefer Wanizame in general to this, just because of the extra attack power. But you could include both in a deck, especially if using Takana. Kabuki's ability to return your own creature can be handy, as a way of getting an injured creature back to cast again. It works especially well with Nyorai Sairense, allowing you to use her Outmanouvre again. Stream Singer [HV]: Although this is a cheap unit, you would almost never want to cast this early on. The point of the card is to hold back in your hand to deal with an annoying ongoing spell or fortune at a critical moment. So if you are about to kill the opponent and they drop a Stone Shield thinking it will save them, you cast this and return it to their hand, allowing you to get your damage in. Or against a stall player, you can return their Altar of Shadows or Wasteland to allow you to ignore it for the turn. However, if the opponent doesn't happen to be using any ongoing spells/fortunes, or none that he cares about you bouncing, this can be a fairly useless card. But at least it is a creature. It's a gamble whether to include it so it depends on how much you expect to see, or worry about, such ongoing cards. It can also be used to return your own ongoing cards to your hand (for example, to move Bless

around). FORTUNES The Frozen Maze [VR]: A way of keeping your creature advantage, stopping the opponent getting to attack back with 2 of their creatures. Hopefully this should buy you enough time to hack their creatures up. If they are also Hypnotized, they can't run away from your creatures either! Underwater Fortress [VR]: I have found this useful, mainly as a way of getting out even more Outmanoeuvre creatures. Unless there is something like Week of Taxes affecting things, this basically lets you cast another copy of a creature you already have, for the same cost (if that cost is 2 or more). Often getting another Coral Priestess is good, to keep on killing the opponent's creatures. If you are on the defensive, you can fetch another Kappa to help hold the fort. You generally want to cast what you fetch right away to make use of the discounted price. But sometimes you may want to use this when you have 2 free resources in your turn as insurance against your creatures being wiped out. That is the downside with this card: no creatures to copy (or worth copying) makes this useless. So getting a spare creature into your hand can be worthwhile. Yukiko's Shrine [VR]: A way of catching up, and since you may well be using up to 5 resource creatures, you can save an awful lot by using this. For 6 resources you could get out 3 Naga Tide Masters for example, hopefully causing a lot of kills by all the Outmanoeuvring that this brings. Whirlpool [VR]: This becomes a free spell, unless it is weighed down by Week of Taxes. It can be used to recast a creature to give it back maximum health or remove spells/counters from it, and/or take advantage of its Outmanoeuvre ability again. Don't use too many of these, as they are quite situational. Battle Trance* [HV]: This is pretty outrageous, allowing you access to any card in your deck for the cost of 1 card disadvantage. Later in the game you can cast this, then right away activate your Hero's ability to draw a card (or use another card draw fortune) so you can use it right away. Or you can prepare for the next turn by setting up the card you need, knowing you will draw it next. Make sure you don't use anything that shuffles your library after casting this! If you desperately need to get your Week of the Mercenaries activated, you can ensure this by picking a creature. I'd advise generally saving this for the mid/late game, as the card manipulation is usually not worth missing out on getting out your vital early creatures. Hall of Fortune* [HV]: I think this is a fantastic card for any deck that can support 2 destiny. I would say you generally want to use it as soon as you have 1 resource spare in a turn, to help you stock up for the next turn. But when you have a lot of resources later on to play with, it can be a good thing to cast first, allowing you a choice of cards, and then more possibilities for using your resources that turn. As with the other fortunes that shuffle your library, this can be used as another way of trying to get a creature on top of your deck for Week of the Mercenaries. EVENTS Week of the Mercenaries*: With a deck full of creatures, this is always useful. In the mid/late game, this helps you take down bigger creatures with your Outmanoeuvre antics. Week of the Wild Spirits* [VR]: This deck will often have a higher than usual amount of magic creatures. So this event can help them deal lethal damage after

moving something in front of them with Outmanoeuvre. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------#7.04 Further spells and starter faction cards ------------------------------------------------------------------------------This section will cover the good cards which I didn't mention in section 4. This is mainly because of their requirements, making them difficult to use in a starter deck. Some need a more focused deck build. Only read this section when you have a reasonable collection of cards and feel you are ready to incorporate more cards and strategies. Because of the higher cost of most of these cards, this will generally mean raising your other skills less than you normally would (see section 4.01 for guidelines). The other cards I don't mention I don't recommend using at all. But of course you should experiment and you may find they work for you better than they have for me. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------#7.04A Inferno faction ------------------------------------------------------------------------------CREATURES Doom Bringer: He is reasonably tough, but not good as a general creature to include in any given deck. Certainly not in a very fast deck. He can work in a more control based deck, where you look to maintain a presence over time and keep your opponent in check rather than kicking them to pieces right away. He works especially well with the Week of the Dead event, letting you kill him yourself for just 1 resource. If you catch the opponent over-reaching and you can pull off this combo, you can get a massive card advantage. If you're waiting for the event to show up, you can still use him as a roadblock the opponent won't want to kill. But don't generally cast him if you are in a better position than the opponent, it's too risky. Chaos Lacerator [HV]: This guy is a bit crazy, and I wouldn't recommend using him to begin with. But I have found he has a lot of interesting uses, and have built decks which feature 4 of these effectively. You will quickly see that if he attacks a creature in the front row, he is going to die. That puts a lot of people off this card, and I understand that. But the bonus is that when he dies, it is your turn so the opponent has to discard a card at random, as well as doing some damage to the blocker and any adjacent creatures. So you haven't lost out on cards, just on the resources to set him up. He works great with Teleport, allowing you to pick a spot to make great use of his Area Blast. This ability makes blocking tricky for the opponent, but they will generally adopt the zig-zag formation that works against sweep attack and Fireballs. I have been using this in combination with Week of the Dead, so I can kill him whenever I want on my turn to cause a discard. This allows me to control the flow of the game, and I can decide when he is most important as a creature and when I would rather use him as a "spell" to discard. He is also useful when you draw too many melee creatures (often a problem in Inferno) because you can swap him off for one of your opponents card (with a suicide attack or Week of the Dead) giving more space for your other melees. He is tricky to use, but worth it if you find the right kind of deck. Hellfire Bloater [HV]: Be careful about the odd requirements here, it needs 2 magic skill. That makes it tricky to use early when going first, as it will hold you back from raising your might. But this doesn't have to be cast earlyit will be useful at most points in the game against a creature deck. Sadly it will be virtually useless against stall decks, so is a gamble to include from

that point of view. This is a more defensive and controlling creature so it lends itself to slower decks, but I have found I can also use it in rush decks. I have been using Week of the Dead as a way to kill it when I want to, allowing me to use it like a big Sunburst. If you are desperate you could also kill it with a Fire Bolt to set it off. A lot of the time though it can be used to take the heat off you by getting in the way of a small/medium creature and chasing it around to stop it attacking you. Lurker in the Dark [HV]: I have found this very effective, but I would only recommend using him with Xorm. With any other Hero, the 4 might requirement is too high for him to come out very quickly. With Xorm, if you go first you can raise your might to 3 and then on your second turn to 4 and be able to cast him. Going second, you can cast him on your third turn. If the opponent happens to have doubled up quick creatures against you thinking you can't do anything to stop that, you can drop this in front of them and halt them both. If they move them away, you have to judge depending on the situation whether it's more important to attack and deal damage to the opponent, or to keep chasing those small creatures to stop them attacking you. This depends on both your life totals, and who has more creatures out. The better your position, the more likely you want to attack directly and go for the kill. Void Arbiter [HV]: This is a shooter which is tricky to cast and also has bad stats. So it's abilities better be good! The magic channel is handy, but its real strength is in its card-draw halting ability. It changes the game so that apart from the card(s) you draw at the start of your turn (things like Blind Brother can make you draw more cards) you cannot draw any cards. So both Hero's card draw abilities become useless, and any cards such as Bonfire or Stone of Enlightenment will not draw you any cards. They will still do any other effects (for example Bonfire will still add 4 resources). You want to be very careful about when you cast this, because it affects you just as much as the opponent. So you usually want to use it when you have a superior board position, and more cards in your hand. You then use this to "lock down" your opponent to 1 card a turn, so that they cannot draw their way out of trouble. It will also be a trump card against stall decks which rely on using loads of fortunes and events to draw cards. This is really tricky to use, so leave this one for a long time. I think it would work best with Dhamiria because she has access to Earthquake and Insect Swarm to reset the board prior to playing this, along with her discard ability to gain hand size advantage late game. Don't use this creature with Garant, as late game you'll have nothing useful to do with your Hero ability after casting this. FORTUNES Void Rift [HV]: I'm still trying to get my head around this card. It has the potential to be very powerful in the right situation, but it can also turn out to be an overcosted Twist of Fate. It will work wonders against stall decks which are likely to have duplicates of the Altar of Shadows or Stone Shield that is on the field holding you back, allowing you to attack that turn and know no more are coming soon. If you have used a Twist of Fate recently, you will have a decent idea of what is in their hand and when this is going to work best. For example if they have 2 of a big creature in their hand that they are likely to cast soon when you cast the Twist, leave them both and choose a different card to be discarded. Then wait until they cast one of the big creatures, and hit them with the Void Rift to kill both at once. Make sure they won't have enough resources to cast both of them at once, or else they will be able to get around you doing this! You can combine this card well with anything that returns creatures to the opponent's hand (Town Portal, Broken Bridge etc). If you have enough resources, you can return 1 of a creature the opponents has duplicates of on the field, then use Void Rift to kill them all. This is a very hard card to use effectively and to build a deck around,

so I'd leave it alone for a long time. I feel it would work best with the new hero Dhamaria where you will be looking at the opponent's hand frequently later on in the game. Works well in combination with Minor Recall! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------#7.04B Necropolis faction ------------------------------------------------------------------------------CREATURES The Banshee*: Easily the best 6 might creature, and the only one that is regularly used in competitive decks in my experience. It takes out your opponent's best creature (or clears the way for damage) and is good at blocking another. If you can find ways to get it back to your hand from the battleground or the graveyard, you can use its kill ability again when you re-cast it. There is a horrible combo where you sacrifice this to Necromatic Transfer to deploy Atropos. You can then get back this Banshee, plus another creature, ready to cast again. FORTUNES Seria's Legion*: You will need several creatures in your deck that you have 4 copies of to make this work well. It can be devastating, generating card advantage and allowing you to control the flow of the game. Classic choices are Pao Deathseeker and Banshee, although it will work reasonably well with any decent creature. Seria's Last Order [HV]: Firstly, note the unusual 4 might requirement. This is a powerful new way of getting another use from your creatures. It will work with any creature, although it will be rather expensive for the damage it will inflict. Its most effective use is with a creature with an entering play ability. You then get to both use that ability, and attack with the creature. The new Decay Spitter is my personal favourite here, it can be devastating. You get to put 2 poison counters on something, then attack something else for 2 damage and it gets a poison counter. Also Banshee and Atropos work really well. For sheer damage, Dark Assassin gives the most efficient punch. You can get around the drawback of your creature being banished by either killing it to return it to the graveyard (for example by Week of the Dead) or even better by returning it to your hand so you can use it again (Town Portal, Broken Bridge etc). ------------------------------------------------------------------------------#7.04C Haven faction ------------------------------------------------------------------------------CREATURES: Wolf Justicar [VR]: This is usually used in decks where retaliation is used heavily to your advantage, with cards like Truce of Elrath. Multiples have a stacking effect! In a standard deck it's not quite worth it, I feel- it's annoying rather than efficient. FORTUNES Cassandra's Imperial Devotion: This is the only card that heals your Hero that I think is worth using. It heals a significant amount, and also generates a lot of resources. Try to time it so there is the maximum amount of creatures in play, and when the extra resources are going to be most useful. Remember you cannot heal your Hero above its starting life total.

Prison: This is mainly used in stalling decks, as a way of completely shutting down the opponent's turn. It is best used when the opponent has little or nothing in play, so that they can't even do much attacking. It can be used in aggro decks as a way of shutting down the opponent's defenses for a turn to make it harder for them to stop you. Truce of Elrath [VR]: A very specific card for decks built around creatures with high retaliation. Usually Wolf Justicar is used as a way of pumping this really high. Most decks don't focus too much on high retaliation, so it makes their creatures go tiny as well as pumping yours up. Note that once this is in effect, trying to increase a creature's attack value in the normal way won't work. You need to boost the retaliation to see a difference in the attack value. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------#7.04D Neutral faction ------------------------------------------------------------------------------CREATURES Helexian Librarian: A useful card for control decks to be able to cycle through cards, giving them more chances to find the ones they need. At the same time it provides a blocker for a turn. It can also be used in Enrage focused decks to get Enrage counters without losing card advantage. Wandering Bard: As you can only have one copy of a unique creature in your deck, this gives you a way of effectively having more copies. However, once you have drawn the unique creature, extra Bards are going to be redundant except as puny attackers or blockers. So I don't advise having too many in your deck, unless it is really important you find your unique. Blind Brother [VR]: A great way for control decks to continually gain card advantage. You can move him around when he is threatened. Void Wraith [VR]: This is useful in extremely aggressive decks, and particulary in decks with direct damage, usually Inferno. It puts the opponent in a difficult situation: do they kill it, take 3 damage and risk getting killed by your Altar of Destruction cards? Or do they let it live, and either have to babysit it with their creatures wasting their time, or let it damage them? Watch out for the hero Nergal: he can put a poison counter in this and it will die in your turn instead of his. You can force the opponent to take the damage by causing it to die in their turn- for example using Immolation. FORTUNES Altar of Asha*: A tricky card that causes you card disadvantage, but can be very powerful in the right situation. It can be useful in Enrage decks because your dead creature will pump up your Enrage guys. Often it is good to get back something with an immediate effect like a Pao Deathseeker that can attack again, or a Banshee to kill another creature. Altar of Shadows: This is used in stalling decks, particularly one-turn-kill decks, as a way of buying time. Unless the opponent can get rid of this, they won't be able to deal you any damage in their turn apart from direct damage cards. Campfire*: An absolute must for any deck that is going to raise to 3+ destiny. Time its use so that the extra resource is as useful as possible. Later in the game, or if you are desperate, use it to just get another card and give yourself more options without using up resources. It's also another way to

manipulate the top card of your library for things like Week of the Mercenaries. Crystal Cavern: The ultimate way of generating large amounts of resources. On its own this is not going to work very well until you get late enough in the game to have a big resource pool. This is because the cost of the card is taken off before doubling your resources. This makes it pointless to cast unless you have at least 9 resources, otherwise you will end up with the same or less resources than you started with. Use your Gold Piles and Campfires to first to build up a big resource pool, then use this for maximum effect. Crystal of Power: The only use I have seen for this card is in combination with cheap mass removal cards like Earthquake and Insect Swarm. It will then act as a copy of the card you cast, giving you effectively more in your deck. Note that creatures with Magic Resist apply their reduction before the damage is doubled, so Insect Swarm's 3 damage is reduced to 1, before being then doubled to 2. Stone of Enlightenment: Almost essential for any deck that goes as high as 4 destiny. This is very efficient and offers immediate card advantage, as long as the cost doesn't mean you lose a lot of momentum in board position. Best used in the middle/late game when you have established some control of the game. Or if you are desperately looking for a certain card! Wasteland: This is mainly used in heavy control decks which aim to stop the opponent doing very much, particularly by stopping them casting creatures. This is effective after having killed them all or returned them to the opponent's hand. It can also be used by aggro decks as a way of stopping the opponent's development and allowing you to win without opposition. A good assessment of the situation and the opponent's strategy is needed to decide how and when to play this card. Cosmic Reallignment [VR]: This is a way of getting card quickly into your graveyard, and getting huge card advantage. If you have at least 1 less card in your hand than your opponent, you will gain card advantage. The less you have in comparison to your opponent, the more advantage you get. Playing it when the opponent has less cards will be bad for you though. But decks that rely on finding certain cards quickly may not care if it sets them up to win. This card can also be used in decks that try to run the opponent out of cards and can be good for ruining the day of combo/stall decks that are building up a way to kill you in their hand. Stolen Supplies [VR]: Mainly used in decks which stall the opponent, by using cards like Wasteland. This stops them using many cards and leaving them with unused resources. The stalling player then takes these for himself for a big play. Throne of Renewal* [VR]: This has been the core of many one-turn-kill decks for a long time. They stall you with all sorts of cards making it impossible to deal any damage, then return everything to your hand with this. It almost always eventually leads to a kill using Tower of Oblivion to punish you for having all those cards back in your hand. Outside of such a deck it is a reasonable "panic button" for a deck that can handle 5 destiny. Note that this has now been changed so that you lose all remaining resources when you cast it. Tower of Oblivion [VR]: Used mainly in one-turn-kill decks as the finishing blow, often by delivering two in succession. Using Throne of Renewal to put everything in the opponent's hand, and things like Celebrations, the opponent's large hand size becomes their downfall. Almost useless outside

of strategies like this. Some decks use fast creatures and other damage cards to soften up the opponent for a quick kill by just one Tower. Altar of Wishes [HV]: This is a crazy new card which I feel has potential. I think it will work best as a cheap way to cast expensive cards. Unfortunately most of the time you are not going to know what the top card of your library is! So using it like this is going to be a bit of a gamble. You may turn over a cheap card, or one which isn't useful yet or that you can't cast. The best strategy I think is to use it in combination with cards that allow you to know what the top card of your library is. Week of Mercenaries will do this, after activating it you can decide if you want to use your Altar to play the top card, and you will know if you're able to cast it. Also the new Sanctuary fortunes Battle Trance and Scrying Pool will allow you to set up a card on top of your library to use. The last idea I have is the fortunes in each faction which you activate by putting a card on top of your library: Altar of Destruction, Mass Grave etc. You can put whatever you want on top of your library when you cast these, then use Altar of Wishes to cast it. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------#7.04E Water spells ------------------------------------------------------------------------------Tsunami: This can be used as a control card by just wiping out multiple creatures, or as an aggressive strategy by having lots of flying creatures in your deck which will survive the blast. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------#7.04F Earth spells ------------------------------------------------------------------------------Earth's Grasp [VR]: This is mainly used as an anti-Pao Deathseeker measure. If you are building a deck that suffers greatly against this card, or other quick attack creatures (mainly Stronghold, and there are some good new ones) then this can be an insurance measure. You may want to have events like Day of Fortune to be able to discard it for another card if you find you're facing a deck not using these strategies. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------#7.04G Primal spells ------------------------------------------------------------------------------Time Jump*: This is mainly an aggressive spell, great for decks that can afford to raise their skill high enough. It can be good to include one copy, even if it falls outside your normal range of cards, as it can pay off in a long game. Its main use is to give you a second attack before the opponent gets a turn. This means you can either attack twice with creatures, or first move them where you want to attack from, then attack in your extra turn. You can often win in the right situation by just moving creatures into empty rows, and using Time Jump to allow them to attack right away. In a more tense state of play, you can take advantage of the extra attack to clear away the opponent's creatures and gain momentum. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------#7.04H Fire spells ------------------------------------------------------------------------------Armageddon: This is mainly for control decks, it is a way of killing everything at once. This will work against almost every creature in the game. Watch out for creatures with magic shield or fire heal, as these will survive. That can be to your advantage if you are the one using them! This is the easiest

way to get the "Not the end of the world" achievement. Try and bait the opponent into casting as much as possible before you cast this. Firestorm: This is a bit on the expensive side for aggro decks, so tends to be more in control decks. It's one people often forget about, too. Look for ways to force your opponent into an unbalanced formation by the way you use your creatures. Immolation: Quite a specific and slow way to control the board, it needs a particular deck build to make this work. In combination with creature with Immune to Magic, Magic Resist or Fire Heal you can keep it going forever. This is normally the focus of the deck, using the creature that survives as your way to win. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------#7.04I Air spells ------------------------------------------------------------------------------Sandstorm [VR]: This is mainly used by slow control decks, especially one-turn-kill decks, as a way of stalling the opponent. If the opponent has no shooters, then you can't be attacked at all. So obviously that is the best time to use this. This is going to be a temporary measure, so will be backed up by countless other ways to stall in the deck. It can be used in an aggressive deck as a way to win the life race. The Song of the Lost [HV]: This can be used to move creatures out of your way to deal the opponent damage, and/or set them up for you to attack them, exactly how you want. To get maximum damage through to your opponent, first attack with every creature that is able to hit the opponent directly. Then use this spell, and move as many creatures as possible into the rows you already attacked from. This will open up more rows for you to continue to attack. This can also be used as a nasty combo with Ice Splinters, moving creatures into and out of the enchanted row until they die. It can also be used as a way to set up other cards, for example putting creatures into the perfect formation for you to hit them with a Fireball or doubling up creatures to be hit by your attacker with charge. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------#7.04J Light spells ------------------------------------------------------------------------------Celestial Armour: This is like a mental version of earth's Stone Shield. It stops you or your creatures taking any damage. When damage would be dealt it is prevented, and the Armour lasts the rest of the turn. Until that turn has ended, you and your creatures are still untouchable by damage. At end of turn it will disappear. Your creatures can still be returned to your hand, or messed with in other ways that don't involve damage. But on the whole, it's going to make you and your army totally safe for at least the next opponent's turn, if they can't dispel this card. This can help you win a life race, or just block a big kill spell you expect to take out many of your creatures. Resurrection: This can be difficult to use, since the 5 resources you pay is generally going to be bigger than the cost of the creature you get back. But it doesn't have to be. If you can use some method to get a huge creature into your graveyard (say discarding it to the Day of Fortune event) you can then bring it back at a reduced cost and without losing card advantage. I used this card for a while in a Sanctuary deck too as a way of getting back Outmaneouvre creatures to trigger their ability again. Late in the game, this card can give you a big selection of possible creatures to get back.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------#7.04K Dark spells ------------------------------------------------------------------------------Curse of the Netherworld: Expensive mass destruction, but it heals your creatures instead of hurting them. At the right time this can be devastating. Save it for when you can kill several creatures and bring back lots of yours from the brink of death. Puppet Master: This can be the worst nightmare for the opponent. It works best when the opponent has not too many creatures out, and at least one of them is really big. When you steal that big creature, it can turn a balanced situation severely in your favour. It doesn't work well when the opponent has a lot of smaller creatures out, as taking one won't help that much. Also watch out for Town Portal and Broken Bridge as these can get the creature back to the opponent's hand to be re-cast. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------#7.04L Events ------------------------------------------------------------------------------Day of the Fallen Wolf [VR]: Good for decks which revolve around creatures with high retaliation, usually focused on Truce of Elrath and Wolf Justicar. Week of Austerity [VR]: This is useful for decks that either don't much rely on creatures, or don't need to put out lots at once. It slows the opponent down making it harder for them to rush you with lots of small creatures. It is also good in direct damage decks as a way of generating some more damage early. Cosmic Balance [HV]: This is mainly a defense against stall decks, which tend to hold a lot of cards in their hand at once. They also sometimes like to win by forcing you to have a massive hand size then whacking you with Tower of Oblivion. This addresses both of those issues. It is costly to use, but it will be well worth it for the disruption it will cause. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------#8.00 Extras ------------------------------------------------------------------------------Odds and ends that don't fit into any of the main sections. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------#8.01 Known bugs ------------------------------------------------------------------------------These are the issues in the game which I consider to be flaws. In the end it's up word in what is and isn't correct, as we rules. But these are what I feel deserve not been justified. can personally reproduce, and which I to the developers to have the last don't have access to comprehensive attention and as far as I know have

(1) Imperial Phalanx should say "If no friendly melee creature has attacked since the beginning of your most recent turn..." (2) Week of the Wild Spirits is missing the text, "Until end of turn" as is written on Week of the Mercenaries etc. (3) Week of Austerity has a serious bug (details withheld until fixed). (4) If a creature enchanted with Fiery Weapon attacks Blackskull Crusher, no

counter is put on the attacking creature. I don't believe this can be treated as an extension of the Crusher's ability. (5) The hypnotize ability has text errors, it reads: "Enemy creature of the same column can't move." It should say, "Enemy creatures in the same row can't move". (6) Shadow Image's text starts with "Permanent:" which is only meant to be used for an ongoing spell. These are the bugs that have been fixed: (1) Blood Pool is missing the text which states it only lasts until end of turn. FIX: missing text added. (2) Maws of Chaos and Halls of Amnesia are not castable if the opponent has no fortunes/chaos in their deck, and the "choose from hand" option is greyed out if they have none in their hand. FIX: you must now choose your option first and then the spell does nothing (except reveal cards) if you find no relevant card where you have chosen. (3) Spell Twister is not castable if the opponent has no spells in hand. FIX: you can now always cast this, and it does nothing (except reveal cards) if there are no spells in the opponent's hand. (4) I use Puppet Master to take control of an enemy creature. I then use Week of the Dead to kill it and gain resources. The opponent gains resources even though it was me who used the event's ability, the "you" in its text must surely refer to the player who activated the ability. FIX: correct player now gets the resources. (5) There is no rule in the help file that stops you attacking with a creature stolen by Puppet Master. The only reference is where it says a creature cannot normally attack the turn it is Puppet Master does not deploy the creature. FIX: now mentioned file. immediately in the tutorial deployed. But in the help

(6) Throne of Renewal should state that it returns all *other* cards on the battleground to owners' hands. Currently the wording suggests it would return itself as well. FIX: it's now an instant so correction no longer applies. (7) I use Garant's Purge to put your Stone Shield into the graveyard from your deck. You get back the Shield using Shantiri Ruins. You cast the Shield. The shield now stays even if you take damage! FIX: shield now falls off as normal. (8) Avalanche states that its effect applies during the next turn, but it should be until your next turn. FIX: text corrected. (9) Void Rift has a typo in its last line, it says "card" instead of "cards". FIX: text corrected. (10) After I choose what card to take out of the opponent's deck with Garant's Purge, I get to look at their hand. But if I now right click on their library, I can go back and change my choice now I have seen their hand. FIX: you can no longer go back after making your choice. (11) I put Ice Shell on my creature which is being protected with melee guard. I attack with it, and take zero retaliation from a melee creature thanks to the melee guard, whereas I normally would have received 1 damage. Yet the Ice

Shell still falls off the creature as if damage had been done. FIX: it now works in line with similar cards, letting other effects like melee guard have the chance to prevent the damage first. (12) I use Puppet Master to steal your quick attack creature that you attacked with last turn. I can't attack with it even though the wording says I should be able to! If you didn't attack, I can attack though. FIX: you can now attack right away. (13) Front-back/back-front attack order for doubled up creatures with Fiery Rage on them dependent on whether the same player cast both FR or not. FIX: it appears it is always back-front. (14) Hellfire Maniac, which causes both creatures in front of him to be berserk, sometimes makes the front one attack first and sometimes the back one. This is a crucial distinction, as it can mean the difference between both creatures getting killed or just one. I can see no pattern as to which one attacks first. It has nothing to do with the order creatures were deployed. FIX: it appears the creatures now attack in the order they were deployed. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------#8.02 Game and guide jargon ------------------------------------------------------------------------------These are some abbreviations you might meet when playing or reading forums. Or terms I have used in the guide that you may not be familiar with! See the in-game help file (question mark in bottom-left of main menu) for the most common terms used in the game and this guide. Also see section 6.01. ****: Whoops! Someone typed a word into the ingame chat window which it didn't like and censored. Some weird examples of this are "kill" and "xxx". ADJACENT (TO): Two squares are adjacent if one is next to the other, except by diagonals. The two front lines are considered adjacent as if the central bar for ongoing spells wasn't there. AGGRO: An aggressive strategy (or card) that aims to kill the opponent as quickly as possible. Usually this is cheap, efficient creatures. ALTERNATE ART: Some cards have more than one possible artwork. In all other respects, these variations are identical and work exactly the same during a duel. However, in the deck editor they are however treated as distinct cards. You cannot toggle the artwork for a card. It's possible to have the alternate art version but not the normal version! BASE (SET): The original set of cards before any expansions were released. They come from Reinforcement Packs and Heroic Packs. Does not have any Sanctuary cards. CARD ADVANTAGE: The total amount of cards you have in play and in your hand compared to your opponent. Whoever has more has the card advantage. If I use 2 cards to take out 1 of my opponent's creatures, they have gained a card advantaged of 1 over me. If I use a spell to wipe out 1 of my creatures and 4 of theirs, I have gained a card advantage of 2. (2 of my cards for 4 of theirs). Try where possible to keep card parity, or gain card advantage. In a long game it is often what decides who will win. CONTROL: Cards or strategies that revolves around killing or stalling the opponent's cards, hence controlling the situation. Usually this leads to a long game.

DIRECT DAMAGE: Cards or abilities that can damage the opposing Hero directly, without having to rely on creatures to deliver damage. For example: Altar of Destruction or the Hero Belias' ability. EFFICIENT: A term I often use for a card, meaning that is does a lot for what it costs. For example a creature with high stats, or a spell with a great effect in relation to their resource/skill requirements. Or in terms of using cards in general, being efficient means getting the most out of them and maintaining or gaining card advantage. ELO: A measure of how well you are doing in ranked duels, see section 5.00. GG: Good game. It is a polite thing to say after a game is finished/about to finish. HV: Herald of the Void. The second expansion of cards for this game. They come from Herald of the Void Packs. IRC/MIRC: Internet relay chat. See section 8.03. MAXOUT: My term for how many times in total you have to raise skills to be able to cast every card in your deck. See section 4.01. META: General term for what decks types are popular, and what decks can be played to counter those types of decks. NERF: Make a card worse in some way. This is something that the developers may do on occasion to balance an overpowered card, or to deal with unforeseen interactions with other cards. OP: Overpowered. A card that is considered to be too good and requires a nerf. OTK: One turn kill. It is a type of deck that stalls the opponent for many turns until it is able to deliver killing damage in one turn. PREMIUM: Shiny-looking special versions of cards which mainly come out of premium packs. They have no impact on gameplay, but are kept in a separate pile from the regular version of the card in your deck editor. They are worth double towards winning the infernal deal card (see section 3.07). RUSH: See aggro. STALLING: Cards or strategies which stop the opponent doing much, or from being able to attack with creatures they have out. TARGET: Cards and effects that include the word "target" use targets. Choosing which creature to attack does not count as choosing a target. So events like Day of the Sanctuary help against cards like Fire Bolt which target, but not against being attacked, or non-target cards like Earthquake. Note however that ongoing spells that enchant creatures do target, even though they don't use the word "target". VR: Void Rising. The first expansion of cards for this game. Introduced the Sanctuary faction. They come from Void Rising Packs. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------#8.03 Chatting to other players on the forum -------------------------------------------------------------------------------

There is also a chat room specifically for DoC players. It uses something called IRC (sometimes written mIRC) which is internet relay chat. Go to this website: http://www.mmdoc.net/chat/ If you click login to services, you'll need to enter your password. I don't know what difference this makes, doesn't appear to do anything! Either way, click on connect and you'll be taken to the chatroom. This is a website with links to lots of FAQ sites about (m)IRC, you'll quickly become better at it than me! http://www.irchelp.org/irchelp/faq.html The first one on the list is particular good for newcomers to (m)IRC, telling you the basics, and commands and such: http://www.irchelp.org/irchelp/new2irc.html ------------------------------------------------------------------------------#8.04 Achievement guide ------------------------------------------------------------------------------This is a guide to help you get the achievements in the game. The list of those you have completed and those you have yet to do can be found in the profile screen (see section 3.04). The incomplete ones are listed first in this screen. Each achievement has a "level" which gives a rough idea about how hard it is to achieve, and how much you will get as a reward for completing it. Many will take an awful long time, I still only have 56/94 unlocked! So don't expect to do these all in a day, or even a month. Some achievements are just about having certain cards in your collection. When this is the case, just keep buying packs of the appropriate set and hope you get the right cards. Also check the infernal pit deal which can help fill holes in your collection (see section 3.07). You get 1st base set cards from Reinforcement and Heroic packs, Void Rising cards from Void Rising Packs and Herald of the Void cards from Herald of the Void Packs. All three appear in Emilio Packs. For achievements that require premium cards, these appear in premium packs and occasionally in other packs. The Infernal Pit also sometimes has premium cards available. This is a good way to pick up specific ones you need for an achievement. For the "reach level..." achievements all you need to do is keep playing online duels (not practice duels) and you will eventually reach the required level. You get more XP for winning, but you still get some for losing games. You never lose XP, so the more you play, the higher you go. Some of these achievements are so hard there's no real advice I can give, such as finishing first place in a jackpot tournament. I've not done this myself, and doing so is going to require an expert level of play and an elite card set. Or else a very lucky day! If anyone wants more specific advice about an achievement, please let me know. I've included advice below for other achievements:

-Wolf Soldier: Finish Orc Invasion and reach level 3, unlocks Wolf Soldiers You will earn this while playing the tutorial/campaign, with the help of a couple of online duels. See sections 2.00-2.03. -Friend or foe: Win 30 practice games against friends, 9,000 gold The direct challenges from the friend list do not count towards this! To get this achievement you need to do it the old way, both going to the practice screen and challenging from there. If you and a friend are both trying to do this achievement, make sure that someone performs some kind of action before surrendering the game. As long as you do something as simple as raise one of your skills, the win will count after a surrender. If you don't do anything, it won't count. -Devoted companion: log in 25 days in a row, 1 Small Pack If you play this daily, you will earn it for just logging in for 25 days. You don't even need to do anything each time to earn this, although you may as well at least stash your daily reward before logging out again. -Tournament Regular: Enter 10 jackpot tournaments, 2,000 gold You just need to enter the tournaments to progress this. You don't even need to play any matches in the tournament. See section 5.03. -Why can't we be friends?: Have 50 friends, 1 Premium Heroic Pack You can find names of people willing at accept friend invites here: http://forums.ubi.com/showthread.php/724046-Friends-thread -A Rising Champion: Reach 300 points on the Swiss leaderboard, 1 Emilio Pack See section 5.04 for Swiss tournaments. Once you have good enough cards and play skills to place highly in Swiss tournaments, keep doing well and you'll get there eventually. You can view your points on the leaderboard (see section 3.08). -The Big Cheese: Win 25 Swiss tournaments, Void Rising Box As above, if you get to the point where you can win these, you can get this achievement just by keeping on winning. You can now get access to many tickets from daily rewards (I seem to be getting around 6 each week) so you may not even have to purchase any tickets. -The Hills are Alive: Complete your first Swiss tournament, 1 tournament ticket You just need to enter a Swiss tournament and play through all 3 duels without leaving the tournament. Once you get the "3 duels complete" message, you can safely leave. -Army of the Void: Win 10 ranked duels just with Herald of the Void cards, 1 Heroic pack A small reward for a difficult task. You're going to need a big selection of cards (and at least one Hero!) from Herald of the Void, so this will mean several boxes at least. I would recommend trying to use Stronghold as I think it has the strongest selection of new creatures. Apart from Bramble Beast and

Kitten Warrior they are all decent. You're going to have to add a large amount of neutral creatures and fortunes to make up the numbers. Revised Tactics is good as it lets you remove some of the weaker cards you have had to include. -Mastering Diversity: Win 10 ranked duels with a singleton deck, 6 tournament tickets This is hard work! You can't have more than 1 copy of any card in your deck. having 8 separate events isn't too bad, but only being allowed one of each creature, spell and fortune makes things tough. I would recommend using a Hero with 3 magic schools (preferably Ariana) to give you access to the maximum range of cards. The bigger your collection, the more chance you have, but even with a big collection this is hard. Keep at it, and eventually you'll get lucky when an opponent gets a bad draw and your cards happen to come together well. Note that premium cards are considered distinct cards for this achievement. That means that if you have say a regular Wretched Ghoul and a premium Wretched Ghoul, you can include both and still get this achievement. This makes it a whole lot easier, as you can double up on the better cards so you don't have to include so many poor cards. And of course stick to the minimum 59! -Pimped out Deck: Create a valid deck from 1st base set premium cards, 500 seals This required you to not just own premium cards, but to have enough so that you can put together a deck just consisting of premiums. So this will require a premium Hero to begin with, any 8 premium events (although you can't use more than 4 of the same one) and a mixture of 50 premium creature, spell and fortune cards that fit your Hero. Once you have premium Hero(es) you may want to start picking up cards (especially commons) from the Infernal Pit that help you complete this deck. Don't worry about doing this until you have a big collection and plenty of cards to spare! -A New Herald: Win 20 ranked duels with each Hero from Herald of the Void, alternate art Seria, Seeker of Lost Souls (basic Necropolis Hero) You first have to be lucky enough to get each Hero: keep on buying Herald of the Void packs until you get them. Then build a deck around them using your usual strategies, but adjusting to their magic schools. The reward is only a visually different card, no actual play value. -Not the End of the World: Cast Armageddon and have at least 1 surviving creature on your side of the field, 1 tournament ticket For this you need a creature that survives Armageddon. This will be either Moonsilk Spider, Greater Fire Elemental or a creature enchanted with Arcane Ward. Don't even try to win the duel, just build your whole deck around stalling and killing the opponent's creatures so you can stay alive long enough to get off your combo. Then apologize and surrender. ;) I would recommend using for your Hero Kal-Azaar or Shaar, and not having any creatures besides Moonsilk Spiders if you can. Then you can concentrate on lots of spells and fortunes to kill or bounce away the opponent's things. Arcane Wards give you other ways for your creatures to survive. Use searcher cards like Arcane Academy to find your Armageddon, and Call to Duty to find the creature you need. -The Cherry on Top: Finish in the 1st tier of a jackpot tournament, 1 Reinforcement Pack

A very small reward for a very hard achievement. You need to finish in the top 1% of all the players in a jackpot tournament (see section 5.03). This means having a combination of a great deck and playing really well. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------#8.05 Version history and credits ------------------------------------------------------------------------------Version 4.12 -Forgot to also remove penny arcade code from 3.05E as it no longer works. Thanks to Luca for this information, and to Alpas for reminding me. Version 4.11 -Updated section 3.05E with information about codes that have expired recently. Thanks to Luca for letting me know about this. Version 4.10 -Added coded HAPPY-BIRTHDAY-DOC to section 3.05E. -Removed from section 5.06 the part about losing on purpose being against the rules, as I've since realized I have no evidence for this. Thanks to Manx Turtle and Daron for pointing this out to me. Version 4.09 -Added new promotional code: MMDOC-H4S-THE-B3ST-FANS. Thanks to B4ldry for bringing it to my attention. Version 4.08 -Added more to 6.01 and 8.02 about targeting to include creature enchantments. -Added about Shinje Warrior in 7.03. Version 4.07 -Finished all the corrections from Manx Turtle, thanks again! -Added links to my video guides for Road to Flammschrein in 2.01. -Added more about mulligans in 6.06 regarding going first or second. -Added hypnotize and Shadow Image text bugs to 8.01, thanks to Clementx for noticing these. -Added "friend or foe" to the achievement guide in 8.04. Version 4.06 -Many more corrections, again thanks to Manx Turtle for his hard work. -Added links to my video guides for Road to Flammschrein in 2.01 Version 4.05 -Made many, many corrections and alterations to spelling, grammar etc. Huge thanks to Manx Turtle for his amazing proof reading. -Updated section 3.02 to reflect the changes in the patch to friends list, challenges etc. -Added tip to 3.06A about holding middle mouse button to remove text from a zoomed card. Credit to Cucu99 for finding this, and thanks to Manx Turtle for bringing it to my attention. -Updated commentary for Hellfire Maniac in 4.03 and removed it from the bug list 8.01. Thanks to Manx Turtle for helping me with extensive testing on this issue. -Added details in 8.01 for fixed issues about how they have been fixed. Version 4.04 -Updated "mastering diversity" achievement guide in 8.04. Thanks to Manx Turtle for sending me this tip.

Version 4.03 -Updated section 8.01 after new patch, thanks to GustavXIII for helping me with lots of testing. Version 4.02 -I had Cosmic Balance and Hail Storm listed as a VR cards, changed to HV. Version 4.01 -Added new code THANK5-4-THE-F4CEBOOK-LUV to 3.05E. Thanks to Hantzz for posting it on the forum. -Added 3.06F: Spreadsheet to track your collection. Thanks to Nightangelbeta for creating this and letting me link to it in my guide. -Added Herald of the Void cards to sections 4.02-4.13 and 7.02-7.04. -Changed the order of cards in the above sections so that base set cards appear first, then Void Rising, then Herald of the Void. -Added to section 4.02-4.13 a guide to the best available non-starter cards by putting a * next to them in their description. -Separated out creatures and fortunes in sections 4.02-4.05. -Added an explanation of break points to 5.04 -Added 5.06 a procedure for players being abusive or losing on purpose. -Added about fear/sweep attack interaction, "owner" and "banish" to 6.01. Version 3.05 -Removed from 5.03 about jackpot games not affecting your regular ELO rating as I have since discovered that it does. -Added new promotional codes 5ORRY54TURD4Y and TH4NK5FBF4N5 to 3.05E. Thanks to Smash for emailing me this. Version 3.04 -Added about drawing cards/putting cards into your hand, 6.01. -Added more about being forced into bad formations in 6.04. -Added a "general" strategy versus each magic school in 6.04. -Removed Clashing Tides from 6.04 because I realized there's not much defense against it. I had misread the card. -Added section 6.09, unusual plays. -Added Garant's Purge bug, 8.01. -Added Void Rift bug to 8.01, thanks to Fire-sn4kE. Version 3.03 -Split up section 3.05 into categories for easier browsing. -Added the new promotional code website to 3.05E. Thanks to xaxanouliss and Infernal_Wisdom. -Added schedule for jackpot/Swiss tournaments to 5.03 and 5.04. Thanks to Izachiel. -Added about tournaments needing 200 ELO to 5.03 and 5.04. Thanks to Furios-Bartes. -Added details about targets to 6.01. -Added Hellfire Maniac/Fiery Rage problem to 8.01. Thanks to Captain Jake for helping me test this, and MNM versus Smarties. -Added more terminology to 8.02. Version 3.02 -Added achievement guide 8.04, version history becomes 8.05. -Removed the promotional codes that no longer work, only 1 left. Version 3.01 -Added link to Psychobabble's HV review. -Added about iPad users not being able to enter codes, 3.05. -Added more explanation to daily rewards, 3.09. -Added section 4.14, what to buy from the shop.

-Added MNM vs -Added -Stone

Puppet Master/quick attack bug to 8.01. Thanks to Captain Jake and Smarties for testing with me. Ice Shell bug to 8.01, reported by MoritzBradtke. shield bug fixed, 8.01. Thanks to MNM vs Smarties for testing with me.

Version 3.00 -Added about referencing the jargon section at start of guide. -Changed "bonfire" to "campfire" at certain points, whoops. -Added more advice about the campaign to 2.00. -Updated 3.02 to cover the new notification and chat systems, removing this from 8.03. -Added 3.09, daily rewards. -Added Clashing Tides to 4.06 and 6.04. -Added about crippling, regeneration, magic creatures and Kieran to 6.01. -Added 6.07, positioning flyers and 6.08, bluffing. -Added which achievements give which bonus Heroes in 7.01B, and about HV heroes. -Added 7.04, further spells and starter faction cards to consider. -Added Avalanche and Imperial Phalanx bug to 8.01. -Several bugs have been fixed, updated 8.01. -Added more jargon to 8.02. -Added about chatting to other players, 8.03, version history becomes 8.04. Version 2.00 -Added more tips about Altar of the Spider Goddess in 2.03. -Added about getting the cards out of premade decks in 3.05. -Added about Moonsilk Spinner taking retribution damage in 4.04. -Added details about healing in 6.01. -Added more explanation and examples to 6.04. -Added about considering rotation of events to 6.05. -Moved Version history and credits to become section 8.03 to make room for new section 7. -Added 8.01, known bugs and 8.02, game jargon. Version 1.01 -Added information about immobilized and outmanoeuvre in 6.01. -Added enrage example to 6.02. -Added [VR] to cards from Void Rising in 4.00-4.13. Thanks to Arsym for prompting me to do this. -Added Mass Inner Fire to 4.09. Written in whole by robvalue using Notepad. Thanks to everyone on the DoC forum who have been very welcoming and friendly. Special thanks to hydramarine for some great advice and testing which has helped me understand the game much better.