This guide is to help players in Forge and incidentally Gauntlet.
Why Forge
Forge offers players a chance to earn cards, learn the cards and play them all at their own pace. Many players suggest "Go to draft!", knowing you'll be an easy victim not knowing enough to play.
When you consider that packs cost 1,000 or 1k this is how it shapes up:
When you pay 2500 for Forge, you get two packs worth of cards
2 packs - 2,000 gold. Win 3 matches, get a gold chest around 500 and the Forge pays for itself at 2,500. not to mention the 100 shiftstone gained from said pack.
So that's all you have to do. Win 3 in Forge, you're paid back.
Another thing about Forge is it's far faster than playing vs other players, besides if something calls you away from Forge, it's no problem, it'll wait there for you for about an hour unless you play something before that.
Justice
Getting Justice as one of your 2 factions,you'll always get 2 regardless, makes the odds of you winning 3 or more go up. For 2nd factions, if you haven't made another choice of them by turn 6, all 3 options will be other than the one you picked.
Time goes best usually with Justice followed by Shadow, then Primal, then FIre. Shadow/Primal is next in line currently.
*You will be automatically supplied with power in Forge. 4 of the 15 power is the "Seats" of the 2 factions you selected. The remaining 11 is 6 of what you got the most of and 5 of the least.
What Type of Cards You Want To Try and Grab
Flyers
Get at least 3 or more if at all possible.
Endurance
The AI plays a lot of stun type effects. Endurance units, or a spell or relic that gives endurance is always a good get
Lifegain
Not all THAT important, but snagging a couple always helps
Draw
Limit yourself to draw that gains power or influence. You're dealing with 40 card decks and if not careful, you can run out of cards.
Solid, sturdy ground units
Those that can block a lot of enemy units.
Removal
This is often tougher than you think. Quality removal tends to be in short supply so get what you can.
Contrary to what those pushing draft tell you, Forge does offer legendary cards. Once in maybe 100 you can get 2 or 3 in a single Forge selection. Of course, most of what you are offered are Commons followed by uncommon's. It's good to know what all of them do as some are a lot better than their rarity suggests. You will also come to note that while legendary's are good to great, Rares are often more useful than they look at first glance and often eclipse legendary's.
Iadria, Twisted Brewer is one example.
Playing vs the AI
The AI is tougher than you've read on the forums and a LOT tougher than those in other similar games. By being harder, it's actually a great teaching tool, except for GOD MODE which I'll explain later. however there are ways to beat the AI other than the usual
One is attrition, especially with Justice/Time. Sometimes the AI pulls out a lot of really good defensive units or gains a lot of armor or life, making knocking them to 0 very hard. Another option is to simply wait them out and win when the AI runs out of cards. This is another reason I said earlier to watch getting too much draw spells.
Another is trading off. The AI seems to love trading off units. For some reason, this seems to mostly give you an advantage. Trading off is defending and attacking with units even in stats to eliminate the AI's options.
Another one is Sneaky fast spells. Spells that up your stats or gives your units invulnerable or other advantages. Don't go overboard selecting these types of cards as you may have a lot in hand with nothing to cast them on. Same goes with weapons.
God Mode AI
If you're a beginner, don't worry about this. After a player reaches Masters, continued use of Gauntlet and Forge will often up the matchmaking ratio, or MMR and the AI will go into GOD MODE. At this it is extremely hard to beat. Often you'll feel a bit depressed when it beats you bad. I mean REALLY bad.
It goes away after a few losses. In Forge, you can't afford more than 1 loss so a trick that sometimes works is to go to gauntlet and lose til it cools down. Automatically conceding does not work, you'll have to play it out.
What to Avoid
Pay attention to those sneaky spells. Some look like they SHOULD be fast but aren't. I honestly think these are ones that were overlooked when designed. I report these in feedback. You wouldn't believe the number of changes that have occurred by me using the in game feedback option. I play a lot more than most as I'm disabled.
Relic weapons are often a good choice but no more than 2 or 3. If you grab this many, beware of getting too many removal or unit weapons. For some reason, Argenport, or Justice/Shadow, does best with these relic weapons.
Card costs. You'll want to avoid getting more than 1 card that costs 7 or more. Some of these can be cast for a lesser cost if you meet the conditions but there are very few. Of course, you'll want to select any 7 or above cost Legends that may come up if you need/want them.
Gauntlet
A bit of advice about gauntlet and using decks gained from Eternal Warcry. For some reason, what works for the goose doesn't work for the gander often. Also, upper Masters is a whole different ball game from the rest. Things that worked there before Masters will need to be upgraded. The best bet is to learn how to build your own decks or take advice on this very Reddit.
In the beginning, try to build "Mono decks", or decks of one color/faction. Yes, they can also win at times in PvP when a quest or first win of the day makes you do PvP. All colors can work but Primal can be hardest to do and Time is a bit hard until you've gained more cards.
Then move on to two color/faction decks. While playing Forge and learning the cards, you'll have an advantage over those that do not in deck-building. The AI has a variety of decks to play against and each match can be a teaching tool better than any PVP format. The PVP game, or meta-game, is very limited at times to what works. You won't see as many doing it as vs the AI.
A Bit About League
The price at 12,500 gold sounds daunting doesn't it. You're honestly paid back entirely and then some for your investment. I'm not kidding either. If you play and go 0-40, a statistical impossibility, you'll still net around nine packs at the end of the month.
You get 8 packs to start with - 8000
2 packs each week - 6,000
at least nine packs at end of month - nine K...yes my nine key is broken.
So 23,000 worth of cards and 2,300 shiftstone for opening the packs.
Example: I had rotten luck and went 19-21. I still finished in top 1000 and just barely missed top 500. My reward was 12 packs. That ought to tell you the value of League.
My Method of Collecting
I've tried explaining this before but everybody seems to deny it.
I start by collecting all of a new sets commons, then uncommon's, then rares, then legendary's. By doing so I get a good idea beforehand which ones are worth collecting first. Right now, for example, I have all commons, uncommon's and rares from latest set and at 41% of legends. I know which legendary's to prioritize into winning decks and those that are mostly just collectible for the sheer hell of it. As I play PvP and PvE I keep an eye out on how the next rarity cards work when others play them. The better format for that is Expedition due to its limits, forcing many to use the newer cards.
The way I do it also benefits in another way. As I open packs then cash in the extras for shiftstone, I get all the commons and uncommon's auto shifted, making way to get the higher rarities. Since that is mostly what you open in a pack, it accelerates. Now, I get all the rares added to that too, making it easier to obtain legends.
Does it work? yep. I keep my collection full after certain amounts of time of 4x every GOOD card, and 1x the legends I will never use... and also never see others bother playing. I don't know why there are so many useless legends but they exist nonetheless. I then start saving up for next set with gold and shiftstone. This set, for example, I had enough shiftstone on day 1 to go ahead and get 4x all commons and uncommon's and some left over for rares I saw as immediately useful, like
Helena, Skyguide.
*But here's a better way on day 1. use gold to buy the 5 ready made decks from the store. They are always worth it. No, the decks don't quite work very well on their own but they give you ideas on how to build a better one but similar. THEN use your shiftstone to get 4x commons, then 4 x uncommon's then so on.
Feel free to ask questions.
If it's true although it would be interesting to make deep research of this aspect of game (how to lose fast and effective).
Example: Lately I've ran a Time Dinos deck. It won it's first 27 in a row(deck is available here on Warcry) then vs the boss the boss gave it zero chance to even play. I got a good draw but when in GOD mode, that often doesn't help. I didn't get beaten, I got beaten like a "rented government mule" in 5 turns. The AI had perfect synergy.
It doesn't bother me at all. However, for new players this can be discouraging to the point of quitting. It is usually not the boss that does it. Decks like Dragon's Den or any Praxis sentinel ai is a tip off usually but it can go into that mode for any deck.