Board Games!

This forum is specifically for discussing non-Mafia games
(board, card, video, we're not picky)
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Playing
such games should happen in the Mish Mash forum, of course.
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Post Post #1 (isolation #0) » Wed Mar 14, 2012 3:29 am

Post by hitogoroshi »

I won't be making it to BGG.con.

I AM having serious board game withdrawal, though. I'm planning for what board games(s) I want to get this summer to help me deal with the cravings. Has anyone here played Eclipse, Ora et Labora, Earth Reborn, or Through the Ages? I'm specifically curious about them for 2-3 players because I sadly don't have a really big group to play with. :/
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Post Post #3 (isolation #1) » Wed Mar 14, 2012 3:50 am

Post by hitogoroshi »

In post 2, Thesp wrote:
I hated Ora Et Labora (which is a shame, as I love Le Havre & Agricola). A friend of mine really likes it, though.


Would you mind expanding on this? I'm hearing conflicting things looking around, with some people saying it "makes Le Havre and Agricola redundant" and being a huge return to form for Uwe, while others are saying it's shallower and a lot worse. It's hard to get a read on what sort of game it actually is.

I'm personally not a fan of Race for the Galaxy. I don't hate it or anything (I DO hate Cosmic Encounters, and sometimes I mix the two up >_<), but there just aren't enough times where I want to play RftG but not Puerto Rico that it's worth getting for me, especially when there's a pretty hefty list of games I DO want to get.

It's cool to know Through the Ages is strong with 2-3. Generally I assume any game with civ elements is going to want big numbers of people. But if 2-3 is a good number for Through the Ages that gives it a shot in the arm.
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Post Post #9 (isolation #2) » Wed Mar 14, 2012 10:09 am

Post by hitogoroshi »

I recently purchased the Dominion base set after spending time playing the game on Isotropic... and goddammit, shuffling is a pain in the ass and slows the game WAY down. Any tips for speeding up gameplay in Dominion?


get a chapel. a deck that is only 10 cards big is quick to shuffle and will also win you every game >_>

ghost stories is a super fun, very difficult co-op game. shorter than arkham horror but a LOT harder, especially at first. Its expansion White Moon is amazingly good. It takes up very little table space which is rad.

kingsburg is fun game with enough luck to accommodate disparate skill levels but a good strategy core to keep it interesting. Its "To Forge a Realm" expansion is good; if you don't get it, look up the rules on soldier tokens in TFaR and house rule them in, they help SO SO MUCH

agricola is fun but I wouldn't recommend it quite yet, it's a notoriously unforgiving game. ("In American games, you take tons of actions in a turn. In European games, you take one action a turn. In Agricola, you take a third of an action a turn, oh, and your family is about to starve to death.") Even once everyone gets the basics, it's a game where a player who just gets it a little more will consistently blow everyone else out of the water time and time again. it's fun if you've got like, a regular weekly group and you're all willing to dig in, but I'd pass until then. get Puerto Rico instead.

Twilight Struggle I have to give a shout-out to as it's probably my favorite board game at the moment, but it's only two player, so yeah. If you have two people, and you're willing spend a few hours per game, it's super rewarding.

runewars is pretty fun if you have a big enough table for it! it's one of those epic, plan your day around playing a war game games, but it's significantly easier to get going than Twilight Imperium.

don't get settlers settlers is trash. I would also shy away from Pandemic - it's fun for a few plays, but it's just kinda...solvable. :I

shadows over camelot is a lighter co-op strategy game. if you're looking for a co-op game you can play drunk or whatever, it's an entertaining game that isn't too deep but good for some chuckles
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Post Post #11 (isolation #3) » Wed Mar 14, 2012 10:34 am

Post by hitogoroshi »

In post 10, xRECKONERx wrote:I don't really "get" Puerto Rico, but I keep hearing about it.


Basically, Puerto Rico is famous because it's a very archetypal eurogame with lots of depth (not a "training wheels" game like Catan that quickly becomes shallow and silly), but it has a couple of mechanics that make it difficult to completely muscle people out (in Agricola, you can take animals you don't need just to have another players family starve - in Puerto Rico, the worst you can do is deny trader/captain ships). Also, it's a little more transparent than most. So it's a unique blend of being a eurogame that is relatively easy to pick up while still have tons of depth and strategy so you don't "graduate out" of it.

What's up with all the "everybody is on a team" games? I like games where there's actual competitiveness to it.


Co-op games have a few advantages. The principle one being that skill differentials aren't a big issue. For example, lets say I come to the Re-Reckoning and bring Ghost Stories. I've played around 50 games, you've played none. But all that means is that sometimes I'll need to give you pointers for your moves; there's no crushing of faces or "going easy".

Plus, I enjoy it sometimes that there's either the "Alright, we've triumphed" or the "Damn, that was a hard fight/Damn, that was some serious cheese". No one walks away from the table with sore feelings, which can happen in some games (aforementioned Agricola family-starving).

Don't get me wrong, I love competitive games too, but it's always good to have a couple of co-ops around for severely mixed skill groups or if one of your members is already really angry for whatever reason.
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Post Post #20 (isolation #4) » Thu Mar 15, 2012 12:17 am

Post by hitogoroshi »

also does anyone want to teach me twilight struggle


I love Twilight Struggle to death, but I'm not aware of any good online methods or whatever to teach it. I could answer questions you have, certainly.
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Post Post #23 (isolation #5) » Thu Mar 15, 2012 12:42 am

Post by hitogoroshi »

In post 21, xRECKONERx wrote:Cosmic Encounter, Pandemic


I would anti-nominate both of these games personally. Also if you really get Pandemic hankerings I don't ever use my copy anymore

Also that Dominion question still stands :)


how to make dominion a more interesting and engaging game, the guide

step 1 wait for the new edition of puzzle strike to be released
step 2 buy the new edition of puzzle strike
step 3 play puzzle strike

okay not being facetious I think certain expansions include cards with more player interaction, but yeah, when the only variable seed between the player is gold/province distribution, when there's no forced buy (meaning that slimdeck is just super strong in most banks), and with a wincon that has a bit of comeback advantage but not enough to stop massive lame duck, well there's only so exciting a game of Dominion is going to be
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Post Post #94 (isolation #6) » Tue Apr 17, 2012 10:17 pm

Post by hitogoroshi »

damn quarriors looks bomb as hell actually

hey there's no hidden information in that game right? clearly you guys need to set up skype and let me play quarriors at the next NC meet via satellite >>
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Post Post #97 (isolation #7) » Wed Apr 18, 2012 2:27 am

Post by hitogoroshi »

gauntlet games? oddly enough I found it completely by accident while biking once. (the guy was vaguely put out because he apparently spent a lot of time the previous week working on the website, and I found his store because I was looking for a mcdonalds.) it's alright, but I've been spoiled by the amazing board game stores in MN (The Source Comics and Games and the Fantasy Flight Event Center are like five miles from eachother...it's not even fair.)
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Post Post #99 (isolation #8) » Wed Apr 18, 2012 2:33 am

Post by hitogoroshi »

get a bike! lincoln is decently bike friendly. you can rent them from the rec center for pretty cheap too.
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Post Post #107 (isolation #9) » Fri May 04, 2012 10:46 am

Post by hitogoroshi »

I love the concept of Table Top but holy shit Wil's personality is really grating

if he gets like that for fucking Tsuro I can only imagine what would happen if Diplomacy/Rex/etc. were played on the show

edit: holy shit though ryan is amazing. "I'm really confident that these three are greens."
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Post Post #110 (isolation #10) » Fri May 18, 2012 2:40 am

Post by hitogoroshi »

Anyone have any opinion on Tigris and Euphrates? It looks pretty sweet.
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Post Post #204 (isolation #11) » Thu Aug 02, 2012 8:42 am

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I've only played Small World once but going off of general theory I'd guess that the fp advantage is a lot smaller in specifically two player, if you're playing with ONLY your boyfriend. The problem is Small World lets you choose your starting zone, so when first player goes down they get the best spot and race/power combo, and jumping all-in down their throat isn't intelligent for the other players because then they're super vulnerable. In 2p though going super aggro is viable turn one since your enemies loss is directly your gain. It's also possible to pick a race/power SPECIFICALLY to mess up the other person in 2p, whereas it's necessarily more of a transitive 'general goodness' property you're picking for in ffa.
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Post Post #206 (isolation #12) » Thu Aug 02, 2012 9:29 am

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Huh. Hadn't thought of that. It feels like it's a really easy fix (score for the last turn at the end of the game, not at the end of your turns), but again, only one game of small world so I don't know if that'd work.

edit: the real answer is to play Runewars instead. >_>
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Post Post #227 (isolation #13) » Thu Aug 30, 2012 5:33 am

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It's worth noting that position around the table matters a LOT more in Puerto Rico. Being first corn and/or being left of the worst player are both pretty big boons in Puerto Rico, and I can't really think of an equivalent in Agricola. Personally, I prefer Agricola but can never get it on the table, whereas my friends will put up with Puerto Rico.
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Post Post #230 (isolation #14) » Thu Aug 30, 2012 9:53 am

Post by hitogoroshi »

In post 228, zoraster wrote:I like Agricola, but there's something about fences that both bores me and makes me really angry as a game concept.


Really? I quite enjoy the tension between cooking animals and keeping them. It takes less setup to cook an animal than it does to fence and then house them, but housing them is better. So players without fences can still threaten the animal squares with a fireplace, but fences are necessary to house them. You DON'T need to choose in advance which kind of animals you're housing (so the cooking player can't simply deny you), but you DO need to choose the size and divisions when you build fences, which gives some insight into your plans. At least compared to the crop subsystem (plow get ingredients sow is like, NOT worth it unless you have at least one occupation/minor improvement in play that helps with it) I think the animal subsystem is pretty fun and elegant.
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Post Post #258 (isolation #15) » Fri Sep 14, 2012 1:12 pm

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Twilight Struggle is my favorite game ever. I haven't played it online. Would be willing to play if you modded, but don't feel like learning VASSAL right now.
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Post Post #269 (isolation #16) » Mon Oct 15, 2012 3:10 pm

Post by hitogoroshi »

The best gateway board games are Kingsburg for competitive and Space Alert for co-op.
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Post Post #319 (isolation #17) » Thu Oct 25, 2012 3:41 pm

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Well yeah there's one dominant strategy, it's to use tickets to get points.

TTR is a tactical game, not a strategic one. Not an especially deep tactical game, but more than nothing. Talking about the strategy of it is like saying there's a 'strategy' for Yahtzee. They're not really strategy games, its about mentally estimating probabilities. The difference is that TTR involves other people so it's a little less solvable.
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Post Post #373 (isolation #18) » Fri Dec 28, 2012 10:19 am

Post by hitogoroshi »

Speaking of Arkham Horror, I played that last night. Be careful about expansions. It will eat your table, and a side table...

Image

...and ANOTHER side table...

Image

But it's all worth it when you can put Bokrug in his goddamn place.

Image

Also, I have elevated storage of this game to an art form.

Image
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Post Post #392 (isolation #19) » Fri Dec 28, 2012 12:28 pm

Post by hitogoroshi »

In post 380, TheButtonmen wrote:If the the player count was capped at four any other suggestions?

We've already got Dominion + expansions, Power Grid, Blockers, Blockus, the bean game + expansions, Citadels and Pandemic.


Space Alert (best 4 or 5 player) and Ghost Stories are great co-op. Tigris and Euphrates is a pretty fun 2-4 player.

In post 377, xRECKONERx wrote:I still don't get the Arkham Horror love. :S


It's a mechnical mess, but the themeing makes it a fun way to spend an evening. You need to get in to it but it's rewarding.

In post 382, Shmugen wrote:Hito, is that...base and two city expansions in one box and one jewelry box?


Plano box, not jewelery. And it's base, two city expansions, Lurker at the Threshold, AND Miskatonic Horror. :3
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Post Post #590 (isolation #20) » Sun Jul 07, 2013 10:27 am

Post by hitogoroshi »

In post 588, Sudo_Nym wrote:
In post 586, zoraster wrote:why would people care what you buy? it's not like they can't buy the exact same things.
Because there's only 10 Villages in a stack, and I will ignore 4s and 5s until all of them are purchased. It's not so much about the Villages specifically, it's that I prioritize all of the +action/+draw cards (which i feel is the optimal strategy, really), so my turns tend to take a lot longer than anyone else does, since I cycle through my deck every turn.
It's really not.
Village earns its place on this list solely due to its notorious misuse by beginning players, an epidemic that carries its own insulting nickname. Many a tale is told by grizzled BSW veterans, in the days before Isotropic, of the endless Village chains they were forced to endure, usually culminating in the Village Idiot buying yet more Villages, never increasing their buying power. And yet it remains an inexplicably popular first-turn buy, despite the fact that players who buy it on one of the first two turns score well under 40% against players who don’t. (For reference, this is about two percentage points better on average than opening with Copper.)
If you're playing base Dominion, Chapel slim-decking is the best, and probably just Big Money after that. Boring but c'est la vie. Dominion gets much deeper as you add expansions, but skill differentials get really exaggerated in Dominion.

I second the Quarriors nom. It's simple, it's random enough no one has hard feelings, but with the expert scoring rule it gets just complex enough to be worth playing.
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Post Post #599 (isolation #21) » Sun Jul 07, 2013 1:04 pm

Post by hitogoroshi »

In post 598, Sudo_Nym wrote:That's an opening; I may pick up terminal cards later. I get Chapel+Moneylender because I really value slimming my deck in the early game, and I can always pitch the Moneylender later. What's with the third degree, anyway?
Your friends won't play Dominion with you because you stick to a strategy that's really tedious. It also happens to be pretty bad, so we're trying to help you transcend the villages that you may play Dominion with your friends once more. It's tough love, Sudo.
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Post Post #650 (isolation #22) » Fri Jul 26, 2013 6:02 pm

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In post 648, Axxle wrote:I'm not actually too much of a fan of Catan, a bit too much randomness with the dice rolls, especially since the dice that came with the set does not like to roll certain numbers (I've kept track and it's definitely a statistically significant difference)
Mind throwing down the stats? I'm curious as to which numbers.
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Post Post #833 (isolation #23) » Tue Dec 24, 2013 1:08 pm

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I just got Tash-Kalar, it's pretty darn swell.
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Post Post #1318 (isolation #24) » Sun Aug 03, 2014 3:57 am

Post by hitogoroshi »

For whatever reason I'm only playing board games involving space right now. Galaxy Trucker is probably my favorite game of all time, the campaign expansion for Space Alert is fun, and Quantum has finally supplanted Kingsburg as my "competitive game for new players". (Well maybe not supplanted - Kingsburg does have good indirect competition whereas Quantum is direct.)
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Post Post #1337 (isolation #25) » Wed Aug 06, 2014 7:00 am

Post by hitogoroshi »

In post 1333, Sudo_Nym wrote:By the way, Kingsburg is okay, but it gets way better with the expansion.


Also worth noting that the most important part of the expansion (solider tokens) is easy enough to hack together on your own. Not that I'm saying the expansion isn't worth it - it definitely is - but if you happen to only have Kingsburg base you can still have a fine time playing it by using playing cards as solider tokens.
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Post Post #2317 (isolation #26) » Wed Nov 25, 2015 5:59 am

Post by hitogoroshi »

I haven't played too much Resistance but my suspicion is that the rule "if three President/Chancellor tickets are rejected, a random policy is enacted" will help distinguish it from Resistance.

In Resistance, you trivially need to agree to the last team. In Secret Hitler, you might want to reject all three and take your chances with the random draw (which is somewhat Fascist weighted at the start but changes with the cards in play). It sounds weird, but I think this is a case when randomness actually helps the game. In Resistance, if you don't trust whoever is setting up that fifth team, your only recourse is to backwards induct to the last team you would care about. Having the nuclear option of rejecting all the teams is more interesting. After all, if you totally distrust the president, you have no reason to agree with
any
chancellor - the president is quite likely to be able to pass two fascist cards to the chancellor, and they get to pick what happens with the power. But as a fascist, you would love to have this option for every liberal president, because it makes fascist policies more likely AND doesn't let the liberal use the powers.

So both sides have incentive not to compromise, but fascists always know when refusing to compromise helps their side, and liberals don't. I like that.
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Post Post #2398 (isolation #27) » Wed Oct 05, 2016 4:55 am

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I mean technically Agricola is "indirect" conflict but it's cutthroat as hell. If your Agricola games feel like solitaire that just means your player group lacks resolve and will not survive the winter
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Post Post #2402 (isolation #28) » Wed Oct 05, 2016 6:19 am

Post by hitogoroshi »

Codex, Kemet, El Grande are all good examples of games where you spend a LOT of brainpower trying to anticipate your opponents moves.

Dungeon Lords is actually a funny one, because it's like...solitaire except when it very isn't. Sometimes you're just doing your own thing and letting chips fall where they may, but then sometimes you have to mastermind the entire draft and anticipate everyone to pull it off. It's very strange.
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Post Post #2966 (isolation #29) » Wed Aug 23, 2017 2:32 pm

Post by hitogoroshi »

In post 2928, zoraster wrote:Looking for a suggestion for my family's yearly week long vacation. Need to add a
5 player game
(6 players is also great, but 5 is our most normal number of players). We play a lot of board games while on vacation, but it's been sort of particular on what games have found major success.
As long as you have a table for it, Galaxy Trucker is perfect. You need the first expansion to play 5p, but you may as well get the whole big box, it's all great.
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Post Post #2989 (isolation #30) » Sat Aug 26, 2017 7:23 am

Post by hitogoroshi »

In post 2973, zoraster wrote: Seems big enough probably? Only played Galaxy Trucker once and many years ago, but I'm not sure if the older people would love the real time nature (as I recall it)
Yup, that table would work. It is real time, but the app has a turned based "points" variant (where you get points on your turn to take parts or flip up new ones) and it looks like folks on BGG have written the rules out explicitly, so that would be an option.
In post 2985, xRECKONERx wrote: Kingsburg is a great choice though I do think I wouldn't play it without the expansion nowadays?
It's worth noting that the most important part of the expansion (soldier tokens) is also trivial to proxy with playing cards or any sort of small bits of paper. As long as you do that you can get plenty of mileage out of just base.
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Post Post #3049 (isolation #31) » Sat Oct 28, 2017 3:29 am

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Yeah the game part of Dropmix looks like garbage but the tech looks outrageously cool so I just ordered it anyway
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Post Post #3247 (isolation #32) » Mon May 21, 2018 8:13 am

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Just won TTA against the hard bots without ever upgrading production

Image

Image

Impact of Industry was one of the endgame scoring events, even
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Post Post #3249 (isolation #33) » Mon May 21, 2018 2:10 pm

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So Hanging Gardens + Michelangelo + St. Peter's Basilica is a well established combo to get mondo points early. The main problem with this combo is that everyone wants to beat the everloving shit out of you. But I managed to secure Wave of Nationalism and use it from last place for six free ore on military units. From there, it's like...you can't do much but once you have the combo down and are minting 15 culture turn, all you need to do is be out of range for easy aggressions. I just prioritized urban growth / efficient upgrades / patriotism, and I could often go to 2nd/3rd row for them since I had 5 civils and fuck-all to do. It also helped that I could totally neglect food because Moses got me most of the pop I needed early. In fact, I actually had -1 food production for 3 turns...I just popped a Reserves for food and ate the reserves until I could get Selective Breeding and Efficient Upgrade in to it.

So the tl;dr is that Moses + Hanging Gardens is strong, and then Hanging Gardens + Michelangelo + St. Peters Basilica is strong. From there, I was lucky enough to get Legion and smart enough to get Swordsmen as my first tech so I couldn't be immediately dumpstered. The strategy also exploits what I think is the only big flaw of the TTA bots - they tend to overvalue colonization a bit, so if a lot of colonies come up they're not as able to punish greedy strategies. But yeah, the combo can be enough to win if you get an era I tactic and at least one Era 1 military unit. (Even with a sword only tactic, doing it with Warriors usually means you run out of growth potential and get smashed).
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Post Post #3392 (isolation #34) » Tue Aug 06, 2019 11:25 am

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To me the biggest problem with Mage Knight competitive is that tactics are nigh-essential to mitigate first hand RNG. When you're good at Mage Knight you can adapt where you go to what's left in your deck, and that puzzle element is super fun and puts control totally in your hands. But you have to choose where to end a phase with no idea what your first draw is like, so having tactics to change over your cards is totally necessary, and having the whole table discuss what their T1 hands look like and assigning tactics accordingly is one of the most impactful things you do. If you weren't working together as a table to assign tactics, you could get totally screwed by factors you had little influence over, aside from really unsatisfying second/third order controls (ie hard prioritizing movespeed skills).

You do pretty much need to memorize your deck but it's easier than it sounds after a few games because the starting decks are only two cards different
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