Deck Building: Beginners Guide

Deck Building: Beginners Guide

Building a proper attack and defense deck is one of the fundamental elements of Marvel: War of Heroes.  I see a lot of poorly constructed decks from beginners and veterans alike, and it always makes me cringe to see a powerful card paired with the wrong cards. 

There are 5 things to think about when building your deck.  They are as follows (in random order):

• Deck Center Card
• Card Alignment
• Card Ability 
• Card Faction (Hero or Villain)
• Special Combinations

I'll start out with some basic information that may be helpful.  The center card (or top card) of your deck should be your most powerful card.  The center spot is the only position in your deck that is given an increased chance to proc so you want to start with your best card in the center and build out from there.  I'm going to use my own attack deck as an example:

Photo 1: Rex's Attack Deck

Photo 1 is a screen shot of my attack deck.  I have a Legendary Red Skull placed as my center card.  Next to my center card I have two UR+ Chaos Kings.  My "wing cards" (outer most cards) are two UR+ Carnages.  In the deck edit screen it displays the cards from top to bottom rather than left to right. From top to bottom my cards are listed in the following order; Red Skull, Chaos King, Chaos King, Carnage, Carnage.  I chose my five cards based upon the five deck building items listed above.  I'll explain below how each card effects my deck relative to these items:

Deck Center Card:

As I said above, the only position in my deck where the card you select really matters is the center card.  I put the Legendary Red Skull in the center of my deck because he is my strongest card and I want him to proc as often as possible, and the center card has an increased chance to proc.  The other 4 cards can really be put into your deck in any order.  The game will choose them randomly and they will proc based off of their individual proc rates.  

Card Alignment:

Most proper decks are constructed with five cards of the same alignment.  However, you may have noticed that mine is made up of two alignments.  This is because I do not have any alignment specific boosts, but I'll explain that further below.  For now just know that you have to consider your card(s) alignment when building your deck and that most decks will be constructed of five cards of the same alignment.

Card Ability:

Your card(s) ability is the single most import factor to consider when building your deck.  There are all sorts of abilities.  Examples of abilities are; boosts to self, boosts to all, boosts to single alignment, boosts to single attack alignment, boosts to single defense alignment, boosts to attack faction, degrades to defense, degrades to attack, and degrades to alignment defenses.  That is a lot of information to take in, but if you have been playing the game for a while you should be comfortable with all the terms used.

It is very important to chose your cards based upon their abilities.  A card that boosts all Tactics Defense clashes with any card that is not of the Tactics alignment.  If you are going to use one of these cards you have to make sure that all five cards in your deck are of the Tactics alignment.

My deck does not contain any single alignment boosts.  Therefore, I'm able to have cards of two different alignments.  My Legendary Red Skull and two Carnages degrades the defense of my opponent.  My two Chaos Kings boosts the attack of my "villain" cards.  Since all of my cards are of the villain faction there is no conflict (I'll address card faction in more detail below).  Lets say that I wanted to get rid of one of my Chaos Kings.  Cards that I would want to consider as replacements would have to be of the Villain faction (because I still have a Chaos King that boosts attack of Villains) and either boost attack of all Villains, boost attack of all cards, or degrade opponents defense.  I would not put a Legendary (Friendly Neighbor) Spider Man in my deck because that card boosts attack of all Speed cards in my deck.  The Chaos King (bruiser) conflicts with the Spidey.  Similarly, I wouldn't want to add Legendary Thanos to my deck because he boosts attack of all Bruiser cards in my deck and that would conflict with the three Speed cards that I have.  I can consider adding the new Legendary Magneto though.  This version of Magneto boosts the attack of all cards.

I hope that you understand the logic in the paragraph above.  It really is important that you pair your cards with abilities that do not conflict with each other.

Card Faction:

Your card's faction is either hero, villain, or neutral.  Up until last month a card's faction was used only in special combinations.  With the release of new abilities (boosts to all Heroes and boosts to all Villains) card factions have now become more important.  I built my deck with card faction in mind.  My two Chaos Kings each boost the attack of all my Villain cards.  This is a powerful new boost and it is exciting because it gives me the option to have a proper built mixed alignment deck that isn't made up of all degrade ability cards.  

Special Combinations:

Certain combinations of cards can also give you special abilities.  Therefore, the potential of having a special combination should be considered when building your deck.  You don't necessarily need a special combination to have a strong proper built deck, but every little bit of extra boost counts in battle.  Figure 1 above shows that my deck has a special combo.  Because I have a deck made up of five Villains I qualify for the "Wild Villains" special combo.  This combo gives me a small boost to my attack deck.

The items listed above are the most critical factors to think about when building your decks.  Do yourself a favor and build yourself a proper attack and defense deck.  Also, using the "suggested attack/defense deck" option is a bad idea.  It does not build properly constructed decks.

Boosting: Beginners Guide

BOOSTING: BEGINNERS GUIDE

One of the questions that I find myself answering again and again is what is the most efficient way to boost a cards level.  Boosting cards in MARVEL War of Heroes is an easy strait forward process, right?  Wrong.  Even though boosting cards is one of the most basic aspects of the game, it is often done improperly.  I have put together this guide to educate rookie players (and some veteran players) on the most efficient way to boost their cards:

FARMING

Farming is a term used in many mmo games for the repetitive action of collecting multiple items.  In WoH players often farm Missions 2-3 and 2-4 for booster cards.  These two missions are used for farming because of the following reasons:  

• Each attack uses up only one energy attribute.
• Both missions reward players with common cards of each alignment.
• Both missions reward players with uncommon cards with special abilities.
• Both missions reward players with resources (Storm's Cape) which can be used for Alliance donations in the place of actual silver.

BOOSTING BASE CARDS

I see a lot of players boosting their cards without having a well thought out "game plan" of how they intend to maximize their cards level, mastery level, and special ability level.  All three of these should be put into consideration while farming for booster cards.  Here is an example of the "game plan" I use when farming for booster cards:

In this example I have two clean Bruiser SR base Colossus cards that I need to properly fuse into one pmm SSR+ card.  Before I start farming for boosters I want to take a few minutes to come up with my "game plan" on how I will achieve pmm status.  The first things that I note are the following:

• Each base card is a bruiser alignment.
• Both cards need to be boosted to maximum level and mastery points before I fuse.
• SR base Colossus has a special ability that when fused I will want to level up.

The first thing I will do is create a "mastery" offense deck containing both SR base Colossus cards.  I will set the priority of this deck to the highest possible.  I will use this deck to attack low defense opponents before, during, and after I farm for booster cards.  Also, since I have set the "mastery deck" at the highest priority I will randomly achieve mastery points while farming for booster cards.

The most efficient way maximize a cards level is to boost cards of the same alignment.  In this case the alignment is Bruiser so I will choose Mission 2-4 to farm for booster cards.  Farming mission 2-4 will give me an assortment of common Speed, common Bruiser, and uncommon Tactic (special ability) cards.  I will do the following with my farmed booster cards:

• I will save and fuse all of the uncommon Tactic cards into Rare+ cards.  I will hold onto the Rare+ cards until later on.
• I will start boosting each SR base Colossus with the common Speed cards, 10 at a time, until I reach card level 10-15 or until I run out of the common Speed cards.
• I will then boost each SR base Colossus with the common Bruiser cards, 10 at a time, until I reach card level 25-30.
• After I reach card level 25-30 I will begin fusing the common Bruiser cards into uncommon+ cards.  I will fuse the uncommon+ Bruiser cards, 10 at a time until the base SR Colossus is fully maxed out.  If I have any extra Iso booster cards I will use them to finish off the last 10 levels of the card to save my silver.

I will continue farming booster cards from mission 2-4 until I have boosted both SR base cards to the maximum level.  Once both base cards are at maximum level and are both at maximum mastery level, I will fuse them into one proper SSR+ Colossus.

BOOSTING FUSED CARDS

I follow the same basic procedure when boosting fused cards with one big exception.  The exception is that I now have to consider raising my card's special ability level.  I will continue using the same example as above: 

At this time I will once again take a few minutes to come up with my "game plan" on how I plan to achieve m/m status.  I will create a new "mastery" deck and include my fused SSR+ Colossus.  I will use this deck to attack low defense opponents before, during, and after I farm for booster cards.

Now that I have a proper SSR+ Colossus, I will want to not only boost it to maximum level, but I will want to try and raise it's special ability level at the same time.  Paying attention to raising the cards ability level while boosting will save me a lot of time and silver.  The most efficient way to boost the cards level and special ability level would be to farm Mission 2-3 for booster cards.  Farming Mission 2-3 will give me an assortment of common Speed, common Tactic, and uncommon Bruiser (special ability) cards.  I will do the following with my farmed booster cards:

• I will save and fuse all of the uncommon Bruiser cards into Rare+ cards.  Note that I still have a bunch of fused Rare+ Tactic cards that I saved from earlier.
• I will start boosting the SSR+ Colossus with the common Speed and Tactic cards, 10 at a time, until I reach card level 15-20 or until I run out of the common Speed and Tactic cards.
• I will then boost the SSR+ Colossus with the fused Rare+ Tactic cards, 10 at a time, that I had saved from farming Mission 2-4.  Each time I boost using a Rare+ card with special abilities I have a chance of having the SSR+ Colossus's ability level raised.  I recommend doing this now because it will save me a lot of time and silver.
• I will then boost the SSR+ Colossus with the fused Rare+ Bruiser cards, 10 at a time, that I had saved from farming Mission 2-3.  Again, doing this now will increase the chance of raising the card's ability level.  I will continue to boost with fused Rare+ Bruiser cards, 10 at a time, until the card has reached it's maximum level.  I do not recommend using Iso booster cards this time because you want to maximize your chances of raising the card's ability level, even if it means spending some extra silver to boost 10 Rare+ at a time to finish off the card.

Assuming that you achieved maxed mastery points and also performed 4 or 5 boosts of 10 Rare+ ability cards you should now have a Proper m/m SSR+ Colossus with an ability level of 2, 3 or maybe even 4. 

Using the method in the example above to boost your cards is the most efficient way to achieve proper m/m on any rarity card.  This method also uses the least amount of total silver and should (depending on the card rarity) give you a few ability level raises as well.  It should also be noted that you can substitute any of the Rare+ booster cards with any higher rarity card (fused or unfused) to increase the percent chance of raising your card's ability level.  I have included a link to to Lopezandym's Ability Leveling % Table in the Marvel WoH links section of the blog.  The table is handy tool to use to help you determine the percent chance you will have at raising your card's ability level.

Cards, Decks, & Alignments: Beginners Guide

Cards, Decks, & Alignments: Beginners Guide

Marvel War of Heroes is a trading card collecting game that is played via the internet.  Players earn, buy, sell, trade, and collect "virtual" trading cards that all originate in-game.  There are hundreds of cards available to collect.  Each card is unique and can be categorized in multiple ways.  This post will cover some of the basic terms associated with cards.:

Alignment

There are three unique alignments in Marvel WoH.  They are Tactics, Speed, and Bruiser.  Every card is assigned to one specific alignment which will never change.

Rarity

Every card has a specific rarity.  The rarity of a card often determines it's value.  A card's value increases as it's rarity increases.  There are seven different levels of rarity in Marvel WoH.  They are, in increasing order; Common, Uncommon (UC), Rare (R), Super Rare (SR), Super Special Rare (SSR), Ultimate Rare (UR), and Legendary (Leg).  It is very important to learn the card rarity levels in order.

Attack & Defense

Each card has it's own Attack (ATK) and Defense (DEF) points.  ATK points are used when you attack another player.  DEF points are used when another player attacks you.  

Ability

Some cards have special abilities.  These abilities are used when attacking other players or when you are defending another players attack.  Abilities usually enhance your card(s) ATK points or DEF points.  Some abilities degrade your opponents ATK points or DEF points.

Decks

A deck is the term used for a grouping of cards.  A deck consists of one to five cards.  The game will create for you both an offensive and defensive deck (Suggested Decks) based on the cards you have available in your roster.  However, you will want to create your own decks as soon as possible because the suggested decks are usually not the best decks that are available for you to form.