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Winning a World of Warcraft TCG game comes down to the same basics as most TCGs: you have to play well and you have to get a little lucky. Everyone knows these basics, but what about the execution? That can be muddy for many. Can you identify the point during a game at which you begin to win? When watching most games, you¡¯ll notice that one player is usually ahead of the other; more often than not, the player who is ahead is the one with more cards on the board. This is because that player can afford to trade cards in hand for his or her opponent¡¯s future plays: if the leading player can preserve his or her board control, then he or she will win the game. When you have more allies than your opponent, maintaining the status quo is generally in your favor. It might not always be the case, but it¡¯s a valid overarching concept.
So, how do you achieve leading board position? You can do this in a number of ways. Luck can cause your opponent to have no play for a turn. If you make a good trade, say, one of your cards for two of the opponent¡¯s, then that will do it too. But these are very circumstantial examples. The easiest way to gain board advantage is to play two cards to your opponent¡¯s one. As long as the cards are similar in power level, you will gain the advantage. If you play more cards than your opponent every turn, and your cards are good, then the game should begin to significantly turn in your favor.
There aren¡¯t a lot of cards that forcibly enact this sort of position, but there are a few. One of them is Slow, a Mage ability from Fires of Outland that got a fair bit of talk but little actual action on the competitive circuit. Slow is deceptively powerful, because it does not immediately affect the game upon being played. Instead, it creates an incremental edge that you can take full advantage of as the game progresses. Card advantage will manifest itself easily as board advantage, assuming that your deck is approximately as powerful as your opponent¡¯s. Most decks are designed to make the majority of their plays during the owner¡¯s turn, which means a typical workaround (playing cards on the opponent¡¯s turn) will be difficult to manage. The momentum of the game, as might seem obvious based on the card¡¯s name, will shift dramatically in your favor.
Still, Slow needs help. On its own, it doesn¡¯t really merit much consideration. Its power, however, is easy to amplify, and there are a lot of ways to take advantage of the fact that you know your opponent can play only one card per turn. Some of the mechanisms to abuse Slow are clear, while others are a bit on the subtle side.
I¡¯m going to begin with the most obvious way to abuse the card: when Slow is on the board, interrupt opposing plays. If you have good board position, then countering your opponent¡¯s single play per turn will result in him or her falling even further behind. Because most of these effects are cheap, they will also allow you to play other cards on your turn. Fizzle costs the least and will safeguard your allies from most removal abilities, protecting the lead you have generated. It also stops most Burn Away effects that might remove Slow, an added bonus. For abilities a little heftier in scope, like Force of Nature and Spirit Healer, the ever-potent Counterspell continues to top the list of the game¡¯s most efficient interrupts.
Allies are generally going to be more dangerous, because once they are in play, they can kill you¡ªeven with Slow in play. The epic Instructor Antheol is a new ally that plays cardboard cowboy on any stable board very well. He doesn¡¯t stop an ally in response to it being played, rather he neutralizes the best ally on your opponent¡¯s board at all times. That¡¯s incredibly effective! Of course, if you¡¯re looking for an ability that says ¡°no¡± to absolutely everything, look no further than Nether Fracture. This new all-star ability will stop any play the opponent might make, a claim no other card can match. Any deck using Slow would be wise to pack a playset of the new gold standard in interrupt cards.
There are a number of ways for a sneaky opponent to evade the damage that Slow can deal. One of the most obvious is for him or her to play a card with an effect that can be used each turn, such as a weapon, an ongoing ability, or an ally with an activated power. Fortunately for us, this sort of strategy is easily dealt with. The Alliance has plenty of reasonable options that are tournament tested. The most obvious is abusing cards like Moira Darkheart and ¡°Chipper¡± Ironbane with Medoc Spiritwarden. A ¡°Medoc-lock¡± is already difficult to break, Slow or no: adding a one-card limit and opposing Counterspells will make overcoming the 1 / 5 powerhouse an unlikely proposition. The Horde has Zygore Bladebreaker to end the damage any weapon might have potentially done. Sister Rot, his ability-attacking companion, is equally disastrous should your opponent hope to ride any ongoing abilities to victory.
In fact, the Horde allies with these comes-into-play effects are devastating in a Slow deck, because you have simultaneously destroyed the fruits of your opponent¡¯s labor while adding an ally to your own board. Taken further, this theory means that any destructive power you can employ multiple times is a valuable tool. Crimson Shocker and Runesong Dagger are excellent examples of board control that require little investment to be effective. Devil-Stitched Leggings is a fine source of removal that threatens most of the format¡¯s commonly played allies. For something with a little more bite but a lot more risk, give Fuel for the Fire a try. Your opponent can play only one ally each turn, so any effect that permits you to remove multiple allies over multiple turns will be very strong. This is card advantage incarnate.
While the previously mentioned cards function on good trades, one of the Slow deck¡¯s advantages is that 1-for-1 trades are just fine. You can play multiple cards per turn, so if you trade one of them, it doesn¡¯t matter! If your deck employs enough significant forms of card advantage, then it becomes feasible to trade two of your cards for only one of your opponent¡¯s¡ªand still come out ahead! Efficient card draw is really tough to beat in conjunction with Slow. The Mage class has a few options. Mana Agate and Mana Jade are both relatively well-costed ways to draw extra cards. Generally, the bulk of your card draw is going to come from your quest base, just like in other decks. Going back to the old school, Zapped Giants should be a great fit that will dig for Slow or interrupt abilities. The choices will vary depending on your deck, so I¡¯ll leave that selection up to you.
The Alliance side has a lot of great ally-based card draw. Parvink and Bizzazz are competing with Slow¡¯s turn-3 resource cost, but they are great choices for card draw. On the higher end, you get Weeble, which is one of my favorite ways to draw cards these days. Like the Horde¡¯s bad boys of removal, these cards trade very favorably and can assist with the gradual gain of advantage that Slow enables. Another great perk of Slow is that it makes bounce effects much better: returning a card to the opponent¡¯s hand is akin to negating his or her entire turn. This means Karkas Deathhowl and even Ranthus Adler are fine options with Slow on the field.
Quests are very important when using Slow, though not in the way you might think. Sure, they increase your card quality and all that good stuff, but they are also going to be the principal use of your opponent¡¯s extra resources. Don¡¯t get too worried, as your opponent could draw thirty cards but would still be able to play only one, as long as you keep Slow in play. But your opponent playing the best card in his or her deck every turn is a bit more dangerous than your opponent playing the best card in his or her hand. Some quests, such as Finkle Einhorn, At Your Service!, can threaten to help your opponent claw his or her way onto the board. Reducing the effectiveness of your opponent¡¯s quests could be a good idea. Disciples of Bo¡¯ja, Arcanist Absolute have Thwarting Kolkar Aggression to go along with The Root of All Evil to ensure quest denial turns into a viable form of card advantage on your part, further reducing your opponent¡¯s options while he or she is locked under Slow. Toss in Freezing Band to really limit your opposition¡¯s moves, making classic playables like Parvink completely terrible. I think this would make a great angle if you wanted to go heavy control, because it makes so many of your opponent¡¯s cards so much worse.
These examples are mostly about going on the offense by taking advantage of Slow to weaken your opponent¡¯s ability to play the game. Let¡¯s think of Slow another way: it can put your opponent¡¯s aggressive curve of dropping multiple allies out of business. This means that some big fellows will generally be easy to top your curve with and use as finishers. I daresay it is impossible to beat Voren¡¯thal the Seer or Ishanah, High Priestess of the Aldor with a Slow lock in place, due to Mage¡¯s heavy interrupt count. Bigger guys, like Lokholar the Ice Lord, will also be an effective way to close out the game, thanks to your opponent¡¯s limitations. The Alliance¡¯s most annoying 4-drop, Archbishop Benedictus, is a promising card for some control decks. Typically, opponents will try to stockpile removal to force a turn in which they can overwhelm your resources and interrupts to turn their allies back on. Slow makes that impossible. On the Horde side, Panax the Unstable will, ironically, always be a consistent option for clearing the board. Because your opponent can¡¯t rush the field with Slow in play, plans that require more resources than usual are also fair ways to win the game.
You¡¯ll notice a lot of this discussion has centered on versatile allies that do a lot more than just attack and defend. In fact, any Slow deck should feel free to take advantage of a plethora of ally choices thanks to March of the Legion¡¯s Portal, which makes a strategy revolving around good trades via allies a very viable strategy. Toss in Chasing A-Me 01 to reuse your dudes, and you have an engine that will effectively protect Slow and answer any attempts by the opponent to affect the board. If you¡¯re playing Alliance, then The Missing Diplomat will be fantastic with such a plan.
Slow is a card begging to be built around, and it belongs to a much overlooked talent specialization. In the excitement of the March of the Legion release, everyone seems wrapped up in Fire Powers and Dragon¡¯s Breaths. No one seems to remember that Varanis Bitterstar and Ruby Gemsparkle have some of the better hero flip powers available and can use a lot of the same class cards. Constructing a strategy around Slow is itself a taxing process, but there¡¯s a light at the end of the tunnel. You get to prove to your opponents that the turtle was wrong: Slow and steady doesn¡¯t always win the race.
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