This is a guide designed to get you from Beginner to Intermediate in Spellweaver. It is not a bullet list encyclopedia like my Unexpected Mechanics guide, but instead aims on training your mind to ask key questions at key points of a match along with specific homework assignments to build a foundation of knowledge and experience.

Any strategy game in its most basic form will always come down to decision making. The player who makes the best decisions wins. In Spellweaver, our goal to become a better player is one and the same as strengthening our decision making power and deliberately entraining our minds to ask the right questions with each and every decision that we come across. Eventually we will come to know the answers to most situations intuitively, freeing our thought power to focus on deeper nuances of the boardstate.

Some players are simply born with a gift. Like a savant, they see through the veils of the Matrix into landscapes far beyond what the average person is capable of. The possibilites they are weighing in their mind are not just 4 turns down the line, but in a parallel reality as well. They can never "teach" us how they do it. We can only watch in awe as the most subtle nuance of a play cascades down the road into insurmountable advantage and ultimate victory.

For the rest of us mere mortals, we have to manually train our thinking. And so, for our purposes get a pencil and notebook as you read this guide to write down key questions you should be asking yourself at each phase of a Spellweaver match.

Before we can even begin asking the right questions and making the best decisions, we first have to memorize the card base. Thankfully, Spellweaver is still young and the card pool is relatively small.

The exercise is simple: Every time you log in, spend 5 to 10 minutes memorizing the cards of the factions. You can stick to 1 faction per day to keep it focused. So for instance, open your collection, select Corruption, "show all cards" (if you don't have the full collection), close your eyes and begin asking yourself:

-What are all the 1 aspect 1 mana cards (one-drops)? "plague vermin, zombie, noxious fumes... ummm". Open your eyes and make sure you were correct. You forgot nightbringer. Now you know!

-What are all the 1 aspect, 2 mana cards? "rotten remains, consume spirit, dark portal, vulture, ummm... (see, I don't even have it internalized without having to think) infested survivor, word of pain, midnight cravings, flash of delirium." Phew. Now I know what to expect on turn two/ from 2 mana.

-What are all the 2 aspect 2 mana cards...Etc.

Don't take these exercises for granted. Remember, some players are born with this. They have a photographic memory and automatically know every card that can be played at every turn, so they never bother telling anyone to study. We are mere mortals and have to study manually. Just 10 minutes a day is all it takes.

The very first decision other than choosing our username is deciding which deck we should run and what cards to include. This is actually a huge topic and far beyond the scope of this guide, but a general video guideline is included (thanks to Boltor)
I myself am not a gifted deck builder. Believe it or not, not all great players are either. Some people are savants at deck building but mediocre at matches; some players are gifted at matches but not deckbuilding. Of course there is carryover either way and the card pool is still small so this isn't as important in Spellweaver.

One thing is for certain: The more experience you have playing a deck, the better you will be when faced against it. Thus, you should ideally play all decks at some point in time. Not all of us have the necessary cards, however. For now, our second daily exercise is:

-Every day after practicing your memorization of the card base, play 3 games with a deck you always lose to or have never used before. Coronis ravens, Hermelion elves, mono rage, etc. Learn to play the decks, strive to get good at them so when you face them you will be much better equipped to make the right decisions.

There is never enough practice to be had with a deck. Eventually the best deck for you will be one that fits your playstyle and thinking process. You will typically play some decks better than others despite similarity of power levels.

*Surprise, you find yourself in a match against a Top 10 player who also happens to be recording a video that hundreds of people will watch. Every single decision you make matters, and now is your time to shine.*

This is the mental state you should have for every match you find yourself in. Of course, if you are really new you should practice against the AI because people tend to get annoyed when players take an entire minute to play a shrine. That being said, there is nothing wrong with taking a little time to think.

There are fundamental questions you should be asking yourself (and answering to the best of your knowledge) at the beginning of each match and start of every turn. Your ability to actually answer the questions accurately will depend much on your experience and knowledge base, but what is important is to condition your mind to think in certain ways.

The very first decision we are faced with is the Mulligan. As soon as you begin a match, you should ask;

1) What Hero am I playing against, and what plays/aspects can I likely expect?
2) What is the opponent's win condition? What is my win condition?
3) What power cards should I be on the look out for?

Write those down on your notebook and literally ask them at the beginning of each match.

After weighing these out for a bit, you can carefully consider to keep your starting hand or mulligan based on your forecast.

So, for example, If I am facing basic Zash, I know he is very likely to be mono-rage and will be rushing face. His win condition is getting through my defenders and direct damage burn as soon as possible. My likely win condition will be to ramp into an early Cataclysm since he would likely kill any defending creatures I throw out anyway, and then from there establish board control.

This may sound very redundant and like common sense, but it is the habit of thinking in this way that we are trying to embed in our decision making. After weighing and considering the following, I decide to mulligan in search for a hand that has New Horizons and Power surge in it.

A few other exmaples: If you face Coronis, chances are high that you will see implants in the deck, and having a bounce spell or artifact removal would be useful. If against Hermelion, it's almost guaranteed he's running elves, and so cheap removal is favorable to keep, etc. These are just random examples of which there are many thousands to list. The scope of such is beyond this guide and frankly, is unnecessary because the focus here is on training ourselves how to become better at decision making, and not by memorizing a list of every possible interaction.

So rememeber to ask these questions at the beginning of every match.

When choosing to Mulligan or not, you also will have to face the possibility that your next hand could be worse off. No one has fool proof Mulligan skills. It is calculated gambling, no doubt about it. Thus, if it is close enough to good, keep it.

As a rule of thumb, if you have no Shrines or too many shrines you should probably Mulligan, unless there are cards so relevant that it is worth risking. If I had a perfect mana curve and relevant starting cards with an aggro deck but no shrines for example, I would take the risk and keep it and hope the next draw or Divine Offering grants me a shrine. The less shrines you have in your starting hand, the higher your odds of successfully getting a divine offering. It is gambling, but the rewards seem higher than the risk in this situation.

At some future point I might delve into statistics and mathematics of the starting hand and mulligan.

If you find yourself constantly having to Mulligan or getting crummy starting hands, you have to tweak your deck's mana curve.

Before you do anything, you should always do a quick run-through of the board state:

-Does my opponent have Spark?
-How much mana does my opponent have available for instant spells, and which instants can he possibly play?
-Are there any creature abilities I should play around?
-How many cards in deck / hand do we both have?
-What Hero powers does my opponent have and how close is he to using them?
-What game changing cards can my opponent play and how close is he to using them?

Write these down in your notebook and make it a habit to ask at every single turn.

Also:

-What cards are in my / the opponents graveyards? Does this affect play options?
-How much Time do I have left on the clock?
-Am I close to decking out?

These aren't as important, but it is good to get into a habitual scanning of both graveyards and clock timers and deck sizes just in case.

Once you fool-proof your turn for obvious mistakes, you can begin making the plays relevant to your win condition. Remember, the point is to win, and you must have a clearly defined win condition. Be aware, always, of your opponents win condition as well. Triangelica, Grand Reunion, 40 life, etc.

Homework assignment: Memorize every instant spell for every faction and how much mana it costs.

As the game progresses, you will gain more and more information about your opponent, such as aspects, combos, likely plays, etc. Make sure you keep asking questions. Before you play any card, you should be asking what card your opponent can play to counter it immediately.

There are two core concepts to understand in a TCG; Tempo and Card Advantage. Without getting too deeply into it, Tempo in its basic form is board presence, or the pace at which each player plays threats. Aggro and midrange decks typically win with tempo plays at the expense of Card advantage, dealing with everything that comes their way and then some but having to dump their entire hand onto the board.

Thus, if you can effectively play a threat while somehow removing your opponents threat, you have gained Tempo advantage. As an example, you play an elf warrior and save 1 mana in reserve then your opponent plays a Bloodwitch Harpy and you Tornado Outbreak it at the end of his turn. He effectively wasted his entire turn while you spent an extra card for the tempo gain.

If your opponent plays a Mezmerizing spirit however, you are forced to discard a card. If his spirit is then able to trade with one of your creatures he has gained a Card advantage.

And so obviously the ideal situation with every play decision is to gain the maximum Tempo gain and Card advantage. Example: If I face Rage aggro and he plays a Goblin Warrior, I could play Disquisitive Spirit in the hopes of trading with the goblin, balancing Tempo while gaining 1 card advantage. However the odds of him playing Word of Fire and killing the spirit are very high. He would then end up with Tempo gain and no card disadvantage due to the Draw from word of Fire.

Tempo, Card, and even life can all be seen as resources. What ultimately matters when deciding in making a play is: does it bring you closer to your win condition? Sometimes it's worth taking damage to the face for instance if you can use your creature on board to gain some advantage in the next turn.

One could write an entire encyclopedia on the myriad of interactions with Tempo and Card Advantage. What is important to ask is: Does the play I am about to do make any sense with regards to Tempo and Card advantage? Does it bring me any actual benefit? Is it worth losing a resource like Health, Tempo, or Cards to get closer to my win condition?

Some of the time the answer to these questions will be "no", and so in such a case the lofty art of not doing will actually be your best play. Yep, that's right, and it's one of the hardest artforms to master: sometimes doing nothing at all is your best play. Until of course you draw something that suddenly opens the possibilities for you.

You don't always have to be in a rush to dump cards onto the board. Sometimes it is advantageous, sometimes "keeping pace" with your opponents tempo is the right choice, especially if they have some kind of mass board clear like Cataclysm waiting for you.

Now that we understand a little about Tempo and Card Advantage, we can begin breaking down each and every decision we make as it pertains to "strong" plays.

There are Tactical plays and Strategic plays. A Tactical Play is a specific, individual exchange or action. A Strategic play is an overall plan or series of Tactics done sequentially to reach a desired outcome. For example, moving my FireBrand goblin to the back row so I summon 2 Gibo and Roni's the next turn and deal 10 damage to the face is a Tactical play. Slowly widdling away at my opponents hand and winning by card advantage is a Strategy.

And so as you can see, The best Tactical Player can still be beaten by a better Strategy, and the best Strategic Player can still be beaten by superior Tactics.

Our goal is to at least acquaint ourself with the myriad of Tactical plays possible in Spellweaver, and to effectively anticipate and play around the opponents Tactics. In this way we can free our minds to think more upon our overall Strategy and how to counter the opponents strategy.

Homework assignment: Pick 1 deck per day from the Asperia Cups[spellweaver-tcg.com] finalists and identify A) the core strategy of the deck and B) The various tactics possible with such a deck: train to be able to "spot" strategies/deck types/tactical possibilities just by what cards you see on the board and the opponents hero/powers.

Once again, an entire list of every possible tactical exchange is impractical and uneccessary. You simply have to get some games under your belt to expand your knowledge base of what is out there. We don't want to become mindless copycats of everyone else; we want to train ourselves to be able to spontaneously respond to new and different board states.

Normally with any given hand and board state, there are 2 or 3 optimal plays one can make. As for which one is truly the best, it all depends on your overall strategy. Since there is not enough time during a match to consider EVERY SINGLE counter play possible, some good questions to ask before choosing a course of tactics is:

-What are the obvious counter plays to this tactic, and does my opponent have the means to execute it next turn?
-Does this leave me with any follow through plays?

For example if you are thinking of Reanimating a Red Dragon, better play around an Infernal tribute by either playing additional creatures on board or luring it out before hand. Know your win condition, take the necessary precautions (if you are able) and play the safe yet sure way.

Another example. Your opponent is rage/wisdom. You've seen a flashfreeze, you've seen a Fia, dragon daughter. Well, you can expect a possible Freeze+Fia combo if you play your Karthas now. You know you haven't drawn any of your 4 assassinates, and decide to draw more cards until you get one. You get it, and can now safety play around this particular tactic by assassinating Fia should she come up.

-Divine Offering: this one mechanic could almost have an entire guide written for it. In a nutshell, you want to always be Divine Offering to make sure you have a mana for the next turn, in case it misses. If you have too many shrines, Divine offering one of them away in search for your Skill shrines.

When to play a skill shrine? Most often, the sooner the better, however there is most definitely the element of surprise and is sometimes worth waiting for. When you are low on shrines and cards however, it might be worth choosing a normal shrine over a skill shrine just for the additional card draw. Especially on decks that suffer from draw like mono zombies or Order aggro.

Divine Offering can also be used for advanced applications such as a limited form of Tutoring where you track the exact position of a card in your deck by knowing when you sent it to the bottom. This can be very useful for Angels for example, or decks with Overwhelming Forces.

When you already have the skill from a skill shrine, use extra copies to go up in aspect preferably over regular shrines, so that you can keep a consistent draw coming from the regular shrines.

Stop and THINK before you Divine offer away your cards! Recognize exactly where your boardstate is going and what cards will most optimally perform!

Screenshots:

Sometimes, it is helpful to take screen shots at key turns when you have a choice of making several different plays. Then after seeing how the match went, you can't look back and figure out in depth the dynamics of the choice that was at hand. There is no replay feature in spellweaver yet but recording your own matches and watching them back would certainly be helpful.

In conclusion, the daily exercises suggested here are:

-Everytime you log in, before playing spend 10 minutes memorizing every card of every faction at each resource cost, so that when situations arise you will know exactly what the opponent is capable of playing the next turn and how it relates to your decision making.

-Play a deck you lose to a lot or have never tried 3 matches each day

-Study a deck from the Asperia List[spellweaver-tcg.com] to identify core strategies and possible Tactical plays/combos.

-Memorize all the Instant spells

-Begin every match by asking these questions:

1) What Hero am I playing against, and what plays/aspects can I likely expect?
2) What is the opponent's win condition? What is my win condition?
3) What power cards should I be on the look out for?

-Begin every Turn by asking these questions:

-Does my opponent have Spark?
-How much mana does my opponent have available for instant spells, and which instants can he possibly play?
-Are there any creature abilities I should play around?
-How many cards in deck / hand do we both have?
-What Hero powers does my opponent have and how close is he to using them?
-What game changing cards can my opponent play and how close is he to using them?
-What cards are in my / the opponents graveyards? Does this affect play options?
-How much Time do I have left on the clock?
-Am I close to decking out?

-Consider the following before making any play:

-What are the obvious counter plays to this tactic, and does my opponent have the means to execute it next turn?
-Does this leave me with any follow through plays?

At first it might seem overwhelming given everything you have to consider, however what we are doing is retraining our brains to think specifically with regards to these influences. Try to not just ask the question but to actually think about the answers and pull up from memory all the possibilities. Whatever you do, do not fall into "auto-pilot mode" where you just play a match by habit. We are trying to break habit here and introduce new analytical processes. You might want to start against AI so as not to irritate players by taking too long.

Once you practice a few times, of course, all this becomes second nature. This is when you slowly but surely advance to the "intermediate" stage, everything becomes internalized and second nature, and you start to free up more thought power for strategy and nuance of play.

I hope this guide was actually useful to some of you. If you do use this guide and experience progress and catch yourself playing around tricks, tactics and anticipating what your opponent will play next turn, please leave a comment.

Until next time!