Happy Tuesday Knights of Ren. Today we want to talk about two cards you are going to see as you play this game. Block and Dodge. These two cards are the most basic examples of staples in this game.

1) Block and Dodge both state: "Remove all of an opponent's die showing _______ damage." Block removes Melee damage and Dodge removes Ranged damage. These cards are utility for die removal depending on the situation you are in. They also remove MODIFIED die faces so remember these cards are looking for symbols, not the type of die on the field.

2) What makes these cards so good? Dice removal. In any card game, removal is important. Having the option to remove choices from your opponent means you give yourself an advantage while taking it away from the opponent. Block and Dodge are very straightforward, they strip dice and mess up economy. They are much better than cards that force the opponent to re-roll their dice because these cards actually remove the dice from the field and render them useless until the next round. Removal is a very powerful form of control that can win games at the right moment or ruin your day when played incorrectly. To understand the power of these cards, you have to understand proper timing of when to play these cards...

3) Speaking of timing, when is it a good time to drop one of these on an unsuspecting opponent? Let's consider a couple factors, these cards both cost 2 resources and 1 action (unless you have a free action from Ambush or Rey or some card effect). Having to spend 1 action and 2 resources and 1 card means you are spending a good number of economy in hopes of receiving a good payout. So what are you looking for when you play Block/Dodge? The perfect situation would be playing Block/Dodge would remove all of your opponent's dice and essentially end their turn. In reality there are some minimum dice you want to remove to make playing this card cost effective. Personally I would want to see 3+ dice removed for this card to be cost effective and 2+ in order to break even. Obviously there are times when you have to use one of these cards to keep yourself alive, and that might mean playing Block/Dodge to remove 1 die. But in a situation where you get to pick when to play one of these cards, I recommend looking for at least 3 dice removed to get a positive net in your game economy after playing Block/Dodge.

4) So how do I deal with a Block/Dodge play? Well this is a little more tricky to discuss. A few things to look for would be the obvious, does the opponent have 2 resources OR do they have a way to get 2 resources and play Block/Dodge within 1 action? The best way to avoid your field getting removed by a single card is to run mixed damage decks. Running Melee and ranged damage decreases the value of playing either Block or Dodge against you. Now if you run a deck that is heavy in Melee or Ranged damage you have to be aware that you are vulnerable to the counter card being played against you. The best way to protect your dice is to deal damage in small bursts. Rolling each character to see what die faces you get is a bad idea because you are spending actions and filling up your dice pool and letting you opponent see what dice they want to remove. The better plan is to roll a single character, then as your next action resolve the damage. This forces the opponent to commit to removing few of your dice and spending resources in a very inefficient fashion OR let you roll and deal your damage with no removal.

Block and Dodge are very powerful cards, they remove dice and have the potential to cripple your enemy. However they are balanced with the price of 2

resources and you can only run 2 of each card in your deck. Timing is everything to making these cards help you and hurt the opponent. But remember that these cards are only as good as the person who uses them. Let me know your thoughts! Do you like Block or Dodge?

Are you planning on running them?

Nice write up as usual. While I agree with every thing you've stated, I still feel like I might go 'all in' ranged at times.

If your running a lot of modified damage, running one type of damage is better. You want to be able to make use of those plus 2's and 3's. So yes, your a lot more vulnerable to block/dodge. For me if I roll a +2 or a +3, then I want a damage roll to make use of it. Once I get it, I'm using it, so its up to my opponent to play dodge/black as soon as I get it, or BLAMMO!! I'll shoot you for 3-5 damage. If you play it, I'm out at least 2 dice, but hopefully your out of resources.

Single damage types means your opponent has 2 awesome cards to counter you with and 2 dead cards as well. If I go both damage types, then you have 4 pretty good cards and 0 dead cards. So as deadly as block/dodge are, I'll still go all ranged!

Edit: I'll be running both 2 copies block/dodge, but I won't let that stop me from going all ranged, I'll just have to be aware the counter is out there.

Nice write up as usual. While I agree with every thing you've stated, I still feel like I might go 'all in' ranged at times.

The key thing about destiny is that even if you can't use a card for it's effect it's not dead. Every card is at worst an event costing 0 saying "Re-roll any number of your die." It makes this a much lesser problem.

Edit: It also generally means that situational events will be much more appealing than they would be in another game.

This is my first time posting on the Destiny forums and I gotta say thank you thesug1 for the podcasts and forum posts I really enjoy it all and just can't get enough of this game.

I finally broke down and am posting now because these are 2 of my favorite cards. They are nothing flashy but can turn a game around if your opponent lets you and even when you don't have the card in hand they have to play as if you did if you are holding 2 resources.

My initial thoughts about your post were pretty much exactly what Ywingscum posted. I don't think running a mixture of damage types is necessarily better (or worse) than running all ranged damage. Running all ranged or all melee damage makes modifier dice faces much more reliable. Also the fact that you can trigger all of the same type of damage together gives an action advantage which, if there is a powerful battlefield, can make a big difference. Making the opponent use block for rerolling because you don't have melee damage is as close as you can get to a dead card.

I would also like to say on paper these cards are equal but in the games I have played I definitely prefer dodge. With Stormtroopers and Phasma or even 4 Stormtroopers there are a lot of smaller damage values on more dice compared to the stronger Jedi or Sith that have higher damage but will be rolling fewer dice. For dealing with melee damage I generally prefer cheaper cards that deal with a single die such as Use the Force, Flank, or Unpredictable although I still like Block. That could all change of course depending on some of the unspoiled cards especially the non unique characters such as Padawans or Tusken Raiders that could field more low damage melee dice but for now I have been running 2 dodge and 1 block.

I'm going to dodge your discussion in hopes of blocking some damage.

I have two minds on these cards..against aggressive characters it works fine...they are trying to stack fast damage against you, and taking 6 to the face from luke is a bit scary.

but the problem I have with them is they are not good to just okay early game against any deck looking to capitalize on advancing their board early. MOAR Dice = MOAR win. and sometimes its not reliable late game... And its not really something you want multiples of in your deck. playing it Turn 1 or 2 its a good way to get out tempo'd. Specially against Rey or Jango.

_{Good run down of the cards, they both seem to be part of a small handful of staple cards that should always be considered when building a deck.}

_{The key thing for me as to how many to play in a deck will be the tournament format that you play. If its anything like a lot of other card games each match seems to be best 2 out of 3, and at least with magic you have access to a sideboard for matches 2 & 3. if this is the case I can see running 1 of each in the maindeck with the additional copies in the sideboard that can be brought in or taken out depending on your opponents damage types.}

_{As has been mentioned above, due to the fact you can always discard a card for rerolls nothing is ever truly a dead card, which makes an interesting dynamic to the game allowing you to potentially run more maindeck silver bullets without them being dead draws if they don’t affect your opponents die.}

_{This is somewhat of a double edged sword for the game though. One could argue that these 2 cards are the epitome of mandatory staples and that every deck should start with 2 Dodge and 2 Block thereby immediately watering down any variance in decklists (4/30 cards is quite a chunk), especially as they can go in any deck due to their neutral type with no light or dark restrictions.}

_{I am eagerly awaiting the release of more cards to theory craft with and hope that there is enough diversity to keep things interesting.}

I don't think these cards will be nearly as powerful as some of you are making them out to be. Are they decent? Sure, they are. They help in the scenario where your opponent goes "MOAR DMGS!" if you get the appropriate one against the damage type they are going at the right time. They can also "guarantee" a game late by denying the killing blow damage needed.

That said, I don't expect it to be a high-level strategy to just try to spam damage. These cards certainly reinforce that, but what happens when I roll a character/support that steals a resource or two in advance? Or I try to rip cards from your hand (potentially your Block/Dodge)? Sure I have to do more steps, but these cards aren't really that difficult to work around. Hell, I could just roll one Character, wait for the cancel, then try to punish if I am playing smaller characters and supports.

That also precludes the idea that someone plays a mix of melee and ranged to minimize the impact all together.

These cards take an action, a card, AND all the guaranteed resources you get for your turn. That is a pretty hefty price unless you are preventing 3+ damage..

I think the fact these cards exist is far, far more important than actually ever playing them. Bluffing them will likely mess with your opponent more often than actually playing them will.

That said, I do think 1x of each isn't a bad place to start given what we have seen so far, and maybe go 2x of whichever damage type ends up being more common. As was said, you can always pitch it. I just think there will be decks that don't even care or play them, because the method that deck uses to control the game is more potent/reliable unless some blitz-y deck comes along that is too powerful and requires the block or dodge to survive. It would not surprise me at all if these start in many decks and are cut over time.

I tend to like to have the cards and build a deck, I am not all that good at pure theory. I like to lay out the cards, look at what stays in and what gets removed and then test the deck by shuffling and drawing cards in an imaginary game. As such I wouldn't think they are auto include in any way yet.

Both cards though do come with a negative, because the dice are removed and the timing of the play of these cards pretty much means you will limit the number of actions your opponent takes. Thus make it far more likely that your opponent will claim the battlefield. Nor, do these cards work if your opponent is milling your deck as his main strategy because you now have one fewer cards in hand.

This is my first time posting on the Destiny forums and I gotta say thank you thesug1 for the podcasts and forum posts I really enjoy it all and just can't get enough of this game

You are very welcome!! It's a lot of fun to get everyone excited a out a game we love and fully support

Great write-up man! Really appreciate the way you're jumpstarting the conversation in the community.

On that note, despite the opportunity for Block to ruin my day, I have to say that I'm currently still looking at lists with all melee damage. Why? Because the best counter to Sith Holocron is Close Quarters Assault. For those who don't know what Close Quarters Assault is, it's a 0 cost neutral event that says, "Count the number of dice you have showing melee damage. Discard that many random cards from an opponent's hand." Sith Holocron is insanely good... You might even argue that it's too good. For 0 cost, you have a 33% chance of exhanging it for something like a 4 cost Mind Probe upgrade ability in your hand, and only spend 1 resource to roll that die into the pool. THEN YOU CAN DO IT AGAIN ON SOMEONE ELSE.

I have to think that if you can get some good melee dice out there before they set up the Holocron Train (choo choo), you can either a) possibly get rid of the Holocron in their hand if they already switched it back or b) discard one or more of the upgrades they wanted to switch in. It's not necessarily the best counter, but I strongly believe Sith Holocron will be everywhere. (Granted, there are a lot of cards we haven't seen, but I can't imagine a scenario where this is not still a great card.)

So... That's a long answer to say, Block is good. Sith Holocron is better. Therefore, I'll risk it for the biscuit and run some mono-melee.

P.S. Really wishing it was already November!!!!

Yes the Holocron is bonkers. I thought you had to pay for the upgrade when you switched. Free is OP. At least it's limited to 2 a deck.

Holocron is a card we talk about a LOT at KoR and we agree, its very very powerful. The only way to really deal with it at the current state is hand removal, so yes CQA is effective as well as discard die faces. Left unchecked, Holocron is very hard to deal with since it boosts your board presence for nothing. It also eats up actions which leaves your opponent out to dry as they have to take actions while you just load up on better gear. However ago decks can punch down Holocron decks fast, so there is balance.