Just started playing Deckstorm: Duel of the Guardians and wonder how to win more battles and get ahead? Check out our beginner’s guide for building decks and winning battles, here.
I was just about a year ago when I encountered and fell in love with my first CCG and since then have been nursing a pretty sad addiction to Hearthstone, with a side of Clash Royale. Though I’ve tried a couple other mobile CCGs none of them quite caught my attention in the same way as these other two have. I think I can safely say though that Deckstorm:Duel Of The Guardians is quickly becoming another brick in the wall of my favorite mobile video games. While some critics on Reddit and around the web call the game "pay-to-win" (add, of course, it probably is to some degree), I think the assessment is a little unfair – at least in the early stages of gameplay.
I’ve been dorking around with the game for about a week and in that time have picked up a few tips and tricks for advancing through the game without spending a dime. As I get further along it’s possible I’m going to run into that dreaded paywall, but for beginners, I think I can offer some reasonable tips to guide them through building a good deck, upgrading cards and winning battles. I’ve thus far completed 6 of the initial 11 campaign stages with three-star proficiency while in normal mode (I haven’t attempted the hard mode yet, which I’ll do once I’ve completed every campaign stage in normal mode.) I’ve also completed 31 stages of the Trial of the Provenants special campaigns with three stars on each as well. In arena battles, I’ve generally come out on top unless I’m insanely outmatched (I’m currently only at Bronze IV in the arena).
‘Deckstorm: Duel Of The Guardians’ Beginner Guide
Deck-Building
Ok, so the object of the game, whether you are playing a campaign or against live player in the arena, is to destroy all of your opponents’ cards before they destroy yours.
The best way to do this, of course, is to have a winning deck. To start building a winning deck you need to look at a few things.
- Choose Your Strongest Cards – Obviously, the newer you are to the game the less card options you have for your deck, but as you continue playing you’ll add more to your collection and have to make decisions about your deck. If I’m building a general deck, I typically select the “Auto” button to ensure I have the strongest (cards with the most stars) cards in that deck as they’ll have the greatest chance of winning against your opponents.
- Make Your Deck Balanced – Once you’ve auto selected the strongest cards, you may want to take a quick look at your deck and make sure it’s somewhat balanced. Deckstorm cards are elemental so they fall in the categories of water, earth or fire. Similar to a rock paper scissors game, each element is strong or weak against the other two elements. In this game, water is strong against fire, fire against earth and earth against fire. As a result, it’s a good idea to make sure your deck has at least 3 cards from each element type. This will help with gaining the upper hand against your opponent more frequently.
- Test Different Decks For Effectiveness – As you progress along, some of the campaigns are heavy on a particular kind of card (ex: earth) and so you may want to prepare special decks for these campaigns that may have a greater number of elemental cards that are most effective. You have the ability to put together 5 different decks in the game. I usually reserve one deck that remains auto populated. This means it includes only your strongest cards. Every time after each battle I actually tap the “Auto” button on that deck just to make sure any new cards I’ve acquired are taken into account.
- Fuse Essences and Runes – Runes and essences are used to increase a particular stat for a card or its spell, respectively. You can win or buy runes and essences in battles or through the shop. Anytime you get a rune or essence, you should go ahead and fuse it to a card of your choice. You can always move them to other cards later if you wish, but to begin with, I would begin fusing them to the cards you use most frequently that might need a boost. For example, if you have a card with a high attack but low HP, you may want to fuse a pendant, armor or helmet to increase the amount of time it can stay in the game.
- “Buy” Card Packs Anytime You Can – To continually improve your cards you want to try to evolve them. To do this, you have to fuse 5 copies of a card together and get it to a certain level. Getting new cards or extra copies mainly happens when you purchase them. You can purchase cards without spending actual money by using the Starstones you win in battles (Tips for getting more starstones coming later). As to card levels, they do increase every time you fight a battle using them or if they aren’t leveling up fast enough for you, you can train cards using gold won in battles.
Winning Battles
Tip #1 – Examine Your Opponents’ Deck Elements
Ok, so when you first begin a campaign battle you will get to see your computer opponents starting hand. It’s very important to inspect the opponents’ cards carefully before selecting yours. Remember, different elements are strong or weak against each other, so if you notice, for example, your opponent’s hand is heavy on fire cards, you’ll probably want to have mainly water or fire cards in your starting hand.
Tip #2 – Consider Speed
While you shouldn’t look only to speed, it does play a role in determining who gets to attack first. If your have the higher speed level then you get to go first. I typically take into consideration the over HP and ATK of the opponents cards first before deciding to throw a card out for slow speed. If my opponent has a really strong deck, then I want to keep more powerful cards or cards with higher HP in my deck even if they have lower speed.
Tip #3 – In Battles, Always Think Worst Case
In campaign battles you have plenty of time to think about your moves, so definitely ponder before throwing down a card.
If you attack first -- If I am attacking first, then I will quickly examine my cards with the highest ATK vs. my opponents’ card with the highest HP. Since destroying your opponents’ hand is the name of the game, when I have a card that can easily take my opponents’ card with the highest HP, that’s the one I generally want to throw down first. If I have a few cards that could kill my opponents’ card in the first move, then I go with the one that has the lowest HP and ATK but that will still get the job done. One thing to remember though is elements as they do impact the effectiveness of you hit. If you cards’ element is strong against your opponent, your ATK effectiveness increases by roughly 40 percent. If it is weak against your opponent, though, the effectiveness is decreased about 40 percent.
(Ex: Fire card with 50 ATK increases to 70+ against an earth card, decreases to 30 against a water card).
For my second card, I’ll want to follow a similar strategy as I do when selecting my first card, but this time, I want to make sure the card I choose has high enough HP that it cannot be destroyed by my opponent, but will deal the highest amount of damage – of possible destroying the opponent in that round. I also take into consideration the element I’m competing against and make my decision accordingly.
If my opponent attacks first – First, I try to find a card that has high enough HP that it won’t be destroyed by my opponent’s most powerful card. If a few cards could qualify, then I look for one with high ATK as well to get the best bang for my buck.
When it comes time to choose my second card, where I get to attack first, then I want to look for a card that can destroy my opponents’ card with the highest HP. If several cards apply, then I look for the card with the lowest HP but will still get the job done. This saves my cards with high HP for when my opponent attacks first.
Use spells carefully – I’ve seen some people advise that you use a spell any time you can, but this isn’t always the most effective strategy. Different spells do different things. It’s also important to remember that using a spell takes the place of an attack. So, for example, if you are set to attack first, but you’ve equipped the card you are using with a healing spell, then that turn it will simply give the card more health but it won’t levy an attack. This could be potentially fatal for your card if it doesn’t have enough HP to take on your opponents’ attack. If I’m attacking first and I know spell on a card I want to use will increase the power of my attack or attack multiple targets then I’ll go ahead and equip it, but regardless of the spell, they should all be considered carefully before you use them.
Of course there's about a thousand other things I could say about the game, but this is the most consolidated form of starter tips I could come up with. I'll be adding more guides as I continue to play the game. If you are playing Deckstorm: Duel of Guardians and have some killer beginner tips or strategies of your own to share, please send them to c.harbison@idigitaltimes.com and we'll add them to a future post with props to you for the advice, of course!
