Who is very good at ascension and can coach me?

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Who is very good at ascension and can coach me?

Post Post #0 (ISO) » Thu Aug 24, 2017 8:34 am

Post by Thestatusquo »

Title.
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Post Post #1 (ISO) » Thu Aug 24, 2017 9:52 am

Post by Vi »

Define "Ascension". I suspect you're not talking about the deck-building game but it's the most likely suspect based on a cursory look at Wikipedia.
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Post Post #2 (ISO) » Thu Aug 24, 2017 10:01 am

Post by Thestatusquo »

Yes.
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Post Post #3 (ISO) » Mon Aug 28, 2017 5:59 pm

Post by DeathNote »

I played it once lol.
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Post Post #4 (ISO) » Mon Aug 28, 2017 9:36 pm

Post by GreyICE »

I'm top 100 in Dominion when I try online.

I think Ascension is generally an inferior Dominion, but can most certainly help. What sets are we discussing?
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Post Post #5 (ISO) » Tue Aug 29, 2017 1:58 am

Post by Vi »

I typed a pretty long response up but post 2 is stupidly ambiguous and I got really pissed off about how I put so much more effort into this thread than Shea did

so assuming this is a troll thread it was a success ggwp
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Post Post #6 (ISO) » Tue Aug 29, 2017 4:17 am

Post by Thestatusquo »

How in the fuck is answering your yes or no question with "yes" ambiguous?
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Post Post #7 (ISO) » Tue Aug 29, 2017 4:21 am

Post by Thestatusquo »

In post 4, GreyICE wrote:I'm top 100 in Dominion when I try online.

I think Ascension is generally an inferior Dominion, but can most certainly help. What sets are we discussing?
God Vi is insufferable.

Anyway, as far as I can tell its the base set only, though its unclear to me whether its going to be 1v1 or multiplayer pods.

Basically there's this really crappy tournament series called unrivaled, and they have a big mega tournament in vegas.

Long story short, I was given a free trip to vegas in order to play in it but I have never played before. I'm going anyway because free trip to vegas, but I'd also like to be at least competent in the tournament I'm going to play. Especially because first place is 10k.
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Post Post #8 (ISO) » Tue Aug 29, 2017 4:43 am

Post by Vi »

In post 1, Vi wrote:Define "Ascension". I suspect you're not talking about the deck-building game but it's the most likely suspect based on a cursory look at Wikipedia.
How is this a yes or no question? I read your response as "it's indeed not that stupid card game, asshole, now let's see if someone else is here who knows what I'm talking about".

Grab whatever lets you draw more cards. Grab anything better than Arha Templar that lets you grab cards without paying for them. Get something that banishes cards early (and then throw your Militia out the window) but don't overdo it. If you can buy things but nothing on the board looks good, get a Mystic instead. Mystics are worth extra buying power in a game where expensive stuff is way better than the other stuff. Mechana chains into itself if you're into that. Even if you're not, Mechana constructs are good lategame points cows. Always be on top of anything that could be construed as first-mover advantage (e.g. not taking mediocre cards from the center).
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Post Post #9 (ISO) » Tue Aug 29, 2017 4:50 am

Post by Thestatusquo »

I didn't read your "not."

which appears to be the cause of all of this.
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Post Post #10 (ISO) » Tue Aug 29, 2017 5:27 am

Post by GreyICE »

Okay, first grab either the IOS version or the steam version: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/ascensi ... 38733?mt=8
http://store.steampowered.com/app/32043 ... ding_Game/

Once you do that you can start getting a feel for the cards and playing some games. I'd really play 5 or 10 games then circle back to this (on either the games are quick, maybe 5-10 minutes).

Strategy: It's a deckbuilder, and deckbuilders follow a unique mechanic all stemming from Dominion: during the course of the game you acquire new resources. These are cards, and they go into your deck as permanent improvements. You start with 10 terrible cards in your deck (they give you one of each resource) and can purchase cards that give you 2 of each resource. Ascension has two resources:

Runes: Runes are how you buy cards. More runes, better cards, and in Ascension more VP. Thus the more you buy the more you can buy and the more points you can get in a snowball. Cards are bought from permanent piles that give you two Runes/Swords but more importantly from the center row. Every time you buy a center card a new one flips. This is where the tension of the game comes from, since revealing a really good card for your opponent is bad. More on that in the strategy.

Swords: Swords let you kill monsters, which give you VP crystals. These are what end the game. If you're going for these you need to quickly all in because if you jump off the snowball of runes, you will get run over fast. Of course the monsters you need to kill to end the game? They're randomly drawn from the center row, so you can set up to end quickly and then have the center flips mock you and lose you the game. Not that I dislike Ascension, especially vanilla ascension. You can also convert two swords to 1 VP, which is a horrid waste of time and really the last resort. Basically, swords suck in vanilla ascension. This changes later, but for now, don't go with the fucking swords. God they're bad.

How the game works is generally jostling for position that you don't know what you're jostling for. Vanilla Ascension is hilariously unbalanced, and there's a few key cards you have to get ahold of or keep out of your opponents deck. It's sometimes worth buying one of the (2) resource cards rather than cycling a card out of the center row to give your opponent a shot at some of this shit.

Avatar of the Precipice
- lets you trash your entire deck quickly. Trash 1, draw 2? Don't mind if I do! Remember, good cards in your deck are resources, but the resources are only seen as often as you draw them. Drawing cards makes you more likely to see them... so does trashing cards! Get rid of the useless 1 resource cards and you'll see 2 resource cards and better all the time. That's amazing! Avatar of the Precipice not only gets rid of your bad cards (making your deck better) it draws you into your power cards (making your hand better). It's busted, and one of the primary causes of concession (your opponent gets turn 1 Avatar, game is very hard now).

Ascetic of the Lidless Eye
- all draw cards are amazing. They're basically pot of greed from Yu-Gi-Oh. Please get them highly.

Mechana constructs
- so all mechana constructs do the same thing in base. They reward you for having mechana constructs or help you acquire more. But they all have very high VP. If you can get into them you can snowball VP super duper hard. Note to Burrower Mk II, which can make them all harmless in your deck, leading to severe snowball potential.

Oziah the Peerless
- most monsters cost less than 6. He's just free VP with a side of more VP.

Seer of the Forked Path
- lets you ditch monsters you can't kill, or cards you don't want your opponent having, and lets you see a new card at no cost. Really good value.


Snowball mechanics
:

Lifebound cards all trigger off getting more lifebound cards. It's luck of the draw whether you see them, but oh well. If you get them, keep getting them. They go from meh to insane pretty fast. Or at least that's the theory, but they only included one of those cards in the base set. Oops. Oh well! Green cards can generally be good, but don't bother prioritizing them.

Blue cards all get you more cards or improve your deck or just beat things. They have no self synergy in the base game. Oops! Buy them if they look good.

Purple cards are void. They have no self synergy in the base game. Buy them if they look good! Get one to trash with, probably don't need more.

Yellow cards are mechana, they all work really well together. They're how you win the game, they're all worth tons of points and do great things too! They're super good. Notes are Burrower Mk II for drawing you more cards every time you play one (including itself) also making them painless! Or just great if you get two burrowers! Yeah err, I think there's an obviously good thing here compared to the others.

So yeah, base ascension. It's a thing. Play lots.
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Post Post #11 (ISO) » Tue Aug 29, 2017 6:00 am

Post by Vi »

The All-Seeing Eye is a 6-cost Mechana Construct that basically says "draw a card". Every turn. Make sure that doesn't go into your opponent's deck.

The one thing about Mechana snowballs is that the deck is really big, so there's no guarantee you'll actually see a lot of Mechana cards.
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Post Post #12 (ISO) » Tue Aug 29, 2017 8:47 am

Post by Yaw »

Well, I wouldn't call myself good, but I do play the app quite a bit. (Which, seconded, app is very good. I believe these days the app + base set is free, and you're paying in-app for expansions only. Try to play online more than against the AI -- the AI is competent, but it's programmed to maximize the points it gets each turn, instead of thinking more long-term. Humans won't make this mistake.)

Always keep an eye on the honour pool. The game changes at about the point there's a third of the initial points left. Early game, play to set up your deck to do powerful things. Late game, that's irrelevant -- you need to make the plays that get you the most points right away. So a card like Arbiter of the Precipice is extremely powerful early (as above), but absolute crap late game. Paying 4 runes for 1 point is a miserable rate of return, and if you buy it late you're unlikely to even see the card in your hand before the game ends. On the other hand, Arha Templar doesn't do enough to be worth buying early, but 4 runes for 3 points is a great rate late game.

Every time you buy a card, another card comes out. This means if you're using up all your runes to buy something in the centre row, your opponent gets first crack at whatever replaces it. So if the centre row is weak, it may be better to take nothing from it rather than potentially giving your opponent a better card. Also, if you're planning to buy two cards on your turn from the centre row, a decent rule of thumb is to buy the cheaper card first. That way, you're the one who gets first shot at a new card. (This is also why Seer of the Forked Path is good. Essentially, Ascension is like an MTG booster draft. Seer is the only card that lets you hate draft without expending any of your resources.)

There's essentially two major strategies. The power strategy is kind of like an aggro deck in MTG -- buy the cards with power, focus on killing monsters and draining the honour pool as fast as possible. Since Void is the power faction, this usually also lets you get your deck very lean, since Void is also good at banishing cards. This strategy needs commitment -- you need to end the game before the stronger cards your opponents are focusing on matter. On the other hand, there's a rune-based strategy where you buy up cards that let you buy bigger and better stuff. This doesn't require the same commitment, but does require timing -- at some point you need to turn that engine into getting power to kill monsters (or Lifebound cards to gain points directly) so you can end the game. You need to figure out when to make that switch, based on what your deck looks like and how much time you think is left in the game.

As for factions:

Enlightened is best at drawing cards. Void is best at banishing cards. Either of these are oil for your deck's engine. You want to see the cards you buy as much as possible, and these get you there. Also, they're the most flexible colours -- you can just get a card and know it'll be good in anything.

Lifebound is best at runes, and can also get you points directly from the honour pool. These will clunk up your deck a bit (there's a bit of card draw but not a lot). Lifebound (the direct points part) and Void are the aggro colours.

Mechana has the most constructs, and the constructs here are always the same number of points as you paid. On the other hand, individually the constructs don't do much. This faction is by far the most parasitic. If someone's allowed to buy up all the constructs and make them into a synergistic machine, they'll usually run away with the game. But if they can't, either because the constructs don't come out or there's multiple Mechana players at the table, this strategy tends not to work out. (Though absolutely buy these on sight late game if possible. There's no better return on investment in the game.)

ascensiongame.com/board has a strategy section you may want to check out.

Finally, you're allowed to do nothing on your turn. This doesn't come up much, but there are spots when it's useful. (For example, you're the last player, you're behind and have a weak hand that could still end the game. It's probably better to just pass, in the hopes of getting one more turn with a stronger hand.)
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Post Post #13 (ISO) » Wed Aug 30, 2017 9:19 am

Post by GreyICE »

Also I'd happily play a few games, or if you want to play a much better game, Dominion.
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Post Post #14 (ISO) » Wed Aug 30, 2017 9:36 am

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I'm already quite good at dominion. If this were a dominion tournament I'd have no worries.
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Post Post #15 (ISO) » Wed Aug 30, 2017 10:17 am

Post by Thestatusquo »

I played against the AI ten times and beat the AI ten times.

I don't think this AI is very good at ascension, or there is a difficulty setting that I am missing somewhere.

You shouldn't beat an AI your first 10 games.
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Post Post #16 (ISO) » Wed Aug 30, 2017 2:27 pm

Post by GreyICE »

If you're good at Dominion, sure you should. It's just a bad knock-off of Dominion. All the usual principles apply.

Play any at Dominion.games?
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Post Post #17 (ISO) » Thu Aug 31, 2017 5:57 am

Post by Yaw »

There's a coloured box you can toggle between green (easy) and red (hard). Though as mentioned before, the hard AI isn't all that hard. Mostly, you'd want the app for online play.
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