Hearthpwn

Welcome to Part 2 of the series! The goal is this section is to outline the trade-offs between the three resources associated with some basic plays.  Note that there is no implication in this section as to what constitutes a “right” or a “wrong” play; such judgments will vary based on the state of the game.  What’s important is to understand what is being gained and lost by certain plays, which may not be obvious at first glance.  Also note that in this section, it will be considered a tempo loss to not spend your full mana towards advancing the board position; this makes the analysis simpler.

Minions

First, start with the most basic cases related to minions.  On turn 1, imagine playing a standard 1-cost minion.  This results in an increase in tempo because you have utilized all of your mana in order to improve board position.  Your card advantage is not changed because you still have the same total number of cards in your hand plus on the board, though one card has moved from your hand to the board.  On turn 10, if your only action is to play a standard 1-cost minion, then you there is still no change in card advantage, but you have a drastic decrease in tempo since most of the mana for that turn has been wasted.  Neither of these situations should come as a surprise.  Another common situation is using The Coin to play a 2-cost minion on turn 1.  This is a dramatic increase in tempo since you are using more mana than you should be able to use in a single turn; this is doubly true if you couldn’t have made any plays on turn 1 without using the Coin.  If you operate under the assumption that The Coin is a card (which is technically true), this is a loss of card advantage since you played two cards to get a single card on the table.  Note that in general Player 2 will still have a card advantage at this point in the game, however, since Player 2 starts with 2 more cards than Player 1 (counting The Coin).

Situation	Tempo	Card Advantage	Hero Life
Turn 1: Play 1-cost minion	Improve	No change	No change
Turn 10: Play 1-cost minion and nothing else	Lose (but better than playing nothing)	No change	No change
Turn 1: Use The Coin to play a 2-cost minion	Large improvement	Lose (The Coin)	No change

Next, let us examine several situations related to minions attacking.  First, imagine the situation pictured below.  It’s your turn, and you have a single large minion on your side.  The enemy has a comparable strength large minion and also a small minion.  

There are several options you could choose here.  First, if the large minion attacks the enemy large minion, such that they trade, there’s no net difference between the players in terms of tempo and card advantage; essentially, you don’t gain any tempo, but it also removes the ability for your opponent to make you lose tempo (related to the large minions) on the next turn, and as such could be thought of as a “safe” move. 

The second option would be to attack the enemy’s small minion.  In doing so, you gain card advantage, since you’re destroying an enemy card without losing one of your own.  However, the tempo will vary depending on what the opponent does next turn.  If the enemy uses the large minion to attack your damaged large minion, then the total move gained you both tempo and card advantage, since you destroyed both a 3/3 minion and a 7/7 minion while only losing a 7/7 minion yourself.  However, if the enemy is able to use a spell to destroy your large minion, while you’ve still gained card advantage, the change in tempo is ambiguous, depending what strength of spell is required to destroy the large minion.  This also exposes your hero to large damage on that turn, since the War Golem will be able to attack your hero unopposed. 

Lastly, you have the option of attacking the enemy hero directly.  Doing this is, of course, gains you an advantage in hero life.  However, doing so is a tempo loss; as mentioned before, the player choosing the attacks has a tempo advantage, so by choosing use the large minion’s attack in order to not affect tempo, you are essentially losing tempo.  This, once again, becomes somewhat of a risk.  If the enemy uses their large minion to destroy your large minion, then the net tempo and card advantage is the same as if you initiated the minions killing each other, but in this case, you have extra damage on the enemy hero.

However, attacking the enemy hero with your large minion exposes yourself to the greatest risk in terms of tempo.

- Consider if the enemy has access to a “destroy any minion” spell in their hand.
- Losing your large minion while destroying the enemy minion prevents them from using the spell effectively (this turn at least).  Of course, if you have an even larger minion about to hit the table, this will simply expose that minion to the spell instead.
- If you used your large minion to destroy the enemy’s small minion, then you’ll have mitigated the enemy’s tempo to some degree since you were able to destroy a “free” small enemy minion in the process.
- By attacking the enemy hero directly, you expose yourself to all options.  If they have no spells to assist in killing your large minion, they can choose to trade large minions.  If they have a medium-strength spell in hand, they can choose to attack your large minion with their small minion plus use the spell.  If they have the “destroy any minion spell”, they can use that without losing any further minions.
- The net result is that attacking the enemy hero results in hero damage of course; in this case, a substantial amount.  It also exposes you to the greatest potential tempo loss since the enemy can tailor their actions to destroy your minion while minimizing their own tempo loss.  Keep in mind that this is not a judgment as to which option is best, as it depends on the overall situation 

So, to summarize these situations:

Situation	Tempo	Card Advantage	Hero Life
Your large minion attacks enemy large minion; both die	No change	No change	No change
Your large minion attacks enemy small minion; only small minion dies	Ambiguous: Usually an improvement	Improvement	Ambiguous: Either no change or a loss
Your large minion attacks enemy hero when other minions can be attacked	Loss due to giving enemy control of attacks next turn	No change	Improvement
Minion attacks hero when no enemy minion are on table	No change	No change	Improvement

The last type of minion this section will examine is what is often called a 2:1 minion (2-for-1).  These are minions which kill an enemy minion for free and still leave you with a minion on the table in the process.  This is called a 2:1 minion because, if that minion later trade with an enemy minion, you’ll have destroyed 2 enemy cards while losing only one of your own.  Usually, these conventional 2:1 minions have some sort of requirement for minions it can destroy.  For example, Stampeding Kodo can only destroy minions with 2 attack or less, but the effect is wasted if no such minions exist.  The obvious effect of a 2:1 card is that it generates card advantage when it destroys an enemy minion for free.  

The tempo change depends on the exact card stats and what enemy minion is destroyed.  In most situations, the 2:1 minion is only slightly weak stat-wise relative to its cost.  This means it is a small tempo loss if played without destroying an enemy minion.  There will usually be a tempo gain if the 2:1 minion kills even an extremely small minion, with a potentially very large tempo gain in the best situations.  However, such judgments may vary depending on the exact stats and cost of the 2:1 card.  A good comparison can be seen by comparing Stampeding Kodo to Stranglethorn Tiger.  Both are the same cost, but Stampeding Kodohas 2 less attack than a Stranglethorn Tiger.  If the Stampeding Kodo manages to destroy an enemy minion when played, this attack difference will usually be well worth it

Substantially rarer is the 3:1 minion, which follows the same concept of the 2:1 minion, but to a stronger degree.  An example of a 3:1 minion is Cabal Shadow Priest, which steals an enemy minion when played.  The reason this is a 3:1 minion is that you get the Priest itself, the enemy loses a small minion, and you gain a small minion; this generates a 3 card swing while only costing you a single card.  Comparison of this card to a card of the same strength, Boulderfist Ogre, indicates that this 3:1 effect is more heavily penalized stat-wise than a card with a 2:1 effect.  Thus, while the concept of a 2:1 and a 3:1 is the same, the 3:1 is much stronger when used correctly and much weaker when used incorrectly.

Situation	Tempo	Card Advantage	Hero Life
Play 2:1 minion with no valid target	Loss	No change	No change
Play 2:1 minion with on valid target	Improvement	Improvement	No change
Play 3:1 minion with no valid target	Larger loss	No change	No change
Minion attacks hero when no enemy minion are on table	Larger improvement	Larger improvement	No change

 

Damaging Spells

Spells will be an integral part of almost any deck.  The effects of spells can vary dramatically, but this section will only deal with spells which do damage to enemy minions.  The most basic situation is casting a spell which deals a specific amount of damage to a single enemy minion.  If you cast a spell which does roughly the required damage to kill an enemy minion without much overkill, then there is no change in tempo, card advantage, or hero life; essentially, you’ve just made an equal trade.  If you need to cast 2 spells (or combine spell damage with a minion attack) to kill a large enemy minion, in general, you’ll lose on card advantage (since it took you 2 cards to destroy a single enemy card), but usually there’s no change in tempo (since usually the cost of the 2 cards required to destroy the single large enemy card will be comparable). If you cast a spell which destroys an enemy minion with a large amount of overkill, then there is no change in card advantage but you have a loss of tempo (since it required much more mana than necessary to kill the enemy minion).  

If you choose to use a direct damage spell on the enemy hero, you’re sacrificing both tempo and card advantage to gain an advantage in hero life, because you have lost a card without destroying an enemy card and you spent mana which did not improve the board position.  One important point should be noted about all of these situations; direct damage spells in general cannot be used to gain tempo nor card advantage.  Direct damage spells allow for quite a bit of versatility and can save games from being lost, but in general they cannot be used to gain tempo nor card advantage.

Situation	Tempo	Card Advantage	Hero Life
Use a spell to kill an enemy minion with little overkill	No change	No change	No change
Use a spell + a second spell or minion to kill an large enemy minion	No change (usually)	Loss	No change
Use a spell to kill an enemy minion with large overkill	Loss	No change	No change
Use a spell for direct damage on the enemy hero	Loss	Loss	Loss

 

The next set of spells to examine is those which damage multiple minions.  The simplest versions of these are AoE spells, which are spells which hit all enemy minions, usually for a small amount of damage.  The ideal situation to use such a card is when the enemy has a substantial number of minions (perhaps 4 or more) which will all die from the AoE damage.  In this situation, you are gaining a massive card advantage and almost certainly a massive tempo advantage (pending the strength of the minions killed).  This is an inherent risk with over-populating the board with small minions, and can easily lead to a loss if it occurs. 

Good players will often be wary of putting too many minions on the board which can die from AoE for this reason.  Also, in the late game, the board is unlikely to be this populated simply due to the decreasing hand size of the players.  As such, a more common situation is that the enemy has 2 minions which will die from the AoE spell; in this situation, you still gain a card advantage, but usually this will generally be no change in tempo since cost of the minions will be roughly equal to that of the AoE spell; as before, however, this is dependent on the exact minions on the table.  If an AoE spell is used against a single large enemy minion, it is both a loss of card advantage (since it will take at least one additional card to kill it) and a large tempo loss, since AoE spells tend to be expensive and will not come close to killing a single large minion. 

Another set of multiple enemy spells are 2:1 spells.  These are generally spells which hit two random targets at a time.  These are generally far more mana efficient than AoE spells when the enemy only has two minions, but unlike AoE spells, they do not have the ability to hit more.  If a 2:1 spell kills two enemy minions, it is a card advantage and generally a tempo advantage (once again, pending the exact minions killed).  2:1 spells usually cannot be cast against a single enemy minion, so there is little point in analyzing this situation. 

Situation	Tempo	Card Advantage	Hero Life
AoE spell on many weak enemy minions	Very large gain	Very large gain	No change
AoE spell on 2 weak enemy minions	No change (usually)	Gain	No change
AoE spell on a single large enemy minion	Large loss	Loss	No change
2:1 spell on 2 weak enemy minions	Gain (better than AoE)	Gain	No change

 

Weapons

Currently, Rogues, Hunters, Shamans, Warriors, and Paladins have access to weapons; Warlocks can gain a weapon through use of their legendary card, Lord Jaraxxus.  The primary features of weapons are that they usually can be used multiple times, and the enemy usually cannot destroy the weapon until these uses are completed (though a few specialized cards can do so).  When attacking minions, the general theme is that trades your hero’s life in exchange for card and tempo advantage.  

In general, low-attack weapons are most effectively used to kill weak enemy minions.  Doing so results in card advantage, as weapons have multiple swings, each of which can be used to kill a minion.  This also generally results in a substantial tempo advantage, since weapons are usually very cheap relative to the total damage they can do.  The hero of course takes damage in the process, leading to a loss in this resource.

Weapons can also be used to attack the enemy hero; in this situation, just like spells, you lose card advantage and tempo in exchange for an advantage in hero life.  Since weapons are cheap relative to their total advantage, the tempo loss associated with attacking the enemy hero with a weapon is less than that of spells (with the limitation that the damage is spread amongst multiple turns). 

In order to gain maximum mana efficiency, high-attack weapons must be used on high-health minions; that is, using a high-attack weapon to kill a weak minion is a tempo loss compared to using a cheaper weapon.  The downside of this is that high-health minions tend to have higher attack, resulting in larger hero damage from using high-attack weapons on enemy minions.  Thus, using a high-attack weapon at its max efficiency (i.e. large enemy minions) still follows the same guidelines in terms of tempo, card advantage, and hero life.  However, the tempo and hero life swings are larger, with the hero taking higher damage but gaining more tempo.

Bear in mind in all these comparisons that weapons can be used multiple times over several turns.  Thus, players can mix-and-match using the weapon sometimes to attack enemy minions and sometimes to attack the enemy hero.  This is a common use of Assassin Blade due to the fact that it has a large number of attacks.

Situation	Tempo	Card Advantage	Hero Life
Weapon used to attack minion	Gain	Gain	Loss
Weapon used to attack enemy hero	Loss	Loss	Large gain over multiple turns

 

Card Draw Mechanics

By default, a player draws one additional card per turn.  The maximum mana a player can have is 10.  Most cards in a player’s deck will have costs well below 10 mana, meaning that if the game goes on long enough, a player will eventually run out of cards.  To attempt to compensate for this, there are many cards in the game which allow a player to draw additional cards.  While they follow different mechanics, most of these cards are characterized by sacrificing tempo in order to gain card advantage.   There are three common categories of card draw mechanics: draw X, cantrips, and draw on condition.

Draw X cards refer to cards that directly tell a player to draw multiple cards; such cards are usually spells.  These are the most straight-forward draw mechanics, and the simplest to use as they require no special conditions to utilize other than having the mana cost to spare.  It should be remembered that the spell itself must be spent to cause the draw, so the card advantage gained is one less than the card states.  For example, Arcane Intellect requires a player to spend one card (the Arcane Intellect spell itself) in order to draw two cards, so the card advantage is one.  The tempo loss is due to the fact that the player needs to spend mana that does nothing to alter the board state.  Draw X cards that draw small amount of cards tend to be less mana efficient than Draw X cards that draw higher amounts; for example, Arcane Intellect costs 3 mana per net card drawn, whereas Sprint costs 2.3 per net card drawn.  However, while less mana efficient, it tends to be easier to spare the mana required to play a small Draw X spell while being able to perform other actions that turn.  A high Draw X card like Sprint essentially costs the entire turn to play, so the tempo loss associated with playing it will be extremely noticeable.

The second class of draw mechanics is cantrips.  These are either spells or minions that draw a single card on use as well as performing an action.  Essentially, you can think of these types of cards as allowing you to perform an action without using a card.  Unlike Draw X cards which can be efficiently played anytime you have spare mana; cantrips are only useful if the minion or spell’s effect is useful at the time.  For example, you gain little by playing Hammer of Wrath if there’s nothing of value to do 3 damage to on the board.  The benefit gained by using cantrips is that they tend to be more mana efficient than Draw X cards, and thus, a lower tempo loss.  Usually minions will have a penalty of costing roughly one extra mana whereas spells will in general cost two extra mana in exchange for being a cantrip (either of which is lower than the cost of somewhere between 2.3 to 3 for Draw X cards).   

The final class of draw cards is limitless draw.  These are cards that provide no limit to the number of cards they can draw, but usually will only draw under certain conditions; examples include drawing upon casting a spell, drawing once per turn or drawing each time a minion attacks.  Like other draw mechanics, the player sacrifices tempo since such cards tend to have weak stats relative to their cost.  These draw mechanics tend to be the hardest to use but the most beneficial when used well.  Unlike Draw X and cantrips, there is usually no guarantee that these cards will draw a single card; if played at an incorrect time, they could be destroyed by the opponent before they get the opportunity to draw a single card, which causes the player to sacrifice tempo without even gaining card advantage in the process.  However, the bonus is that since the draw effect has no limit, the card advantage gained by such a gain can be massive, and can win a game by itself if it gets out of control.  

It should be noted that none of these classes of draw mechanics is “best”.  It is a matter of gaining enough draw power to allow the deck to keep consistent tempo, and most decks will likely mix-and-match several of these mechanics.

Draw Mechanic	Tempo Loss	Card Advantage	Difficulty of Finding Opportunity to Use Effectively
Draw X	Largest	Moderate	Easiest
Cantrip	Smallest	Smallest	Moderate
Limitless Draw (if used right)	Varies	Largest	Hardest
Limitless Draw (if used wrong)	Varies	None	Hardest

 

...Watch out for Part 3 Next Wednesday where Sar dives into more common situations with the three resources and how you can make the best choices given the circumstances! 

Wow great article!  Thanks!

Much of the info in here is stuff I've internalized already unconsciously while playing, but it's good to read it to understand it on a more logical level.  For newbs, it's a huge advantage to get this info right off the bat instead of learning through experience.

Looking forward to part 3...

I found a possibly typo in the spell damage chart. It currently says that if you use a spell for direct damage on the hero that Hero Life will be "no change". Obviously there would be a change. The change could be extremely small or extremely large in varying cases. Pyroblast will remove a third of the opponent's HP. :D <3 great article. I learned a lot.

Use a spell for direct damage on the enemy hero

Loss

Loss

No change

Quote from Exileinguyville »

I found a possibly typo in the spell damage chart. It currently says that if you use a spell for direct damage on the hero that Hero Life will be "no change". Obviously there would be a change. The change could be extremely small or extremely large in varying cases. Pyroblast will remove a third of the opponent's HP. :D <3 great article. I learned a lot.

Use a spell for direct damage on the enemy hero

Loss

Loss

No change

Thank you, this is a typo; it appears that this was copied incorrectly from the paper draft to the posted form.  I'll get that corrected as soon as possible.

In short you can reduce tempo to:
Cards drawn per turn
Cards played per turn
Cards discarded per turn

Since the spell you use to destroy a minion gets discarded as well, you discard the same amount of cards as your opponent.
In addition your other minions already have their tempo"value", no matter what happens around them. Their tempo stays the same. (it can change though if you trade with them etc. depending on circumstances).

It becomes more clear, when you just add numbers to the entire thing. Mind you this is a very abstract idea of showing it, and numbers are very off:

Basetempo: 0
Playing a card: +1
Discarding a card: -1
Drawing a card: +1

Scenario 1:
You have tempo 1, so does your opponent.
Now you play a card to destroy one of his minions: +1 tempo.
Opponent's minion gets destroyed: -1 tempo
Now your spell gets discarded: -1 tempo.
Your tempo: 1+1-1=1
Opponent's tempo: 1-1=0
So while you don't gain tempo, your opponent looses it.
Now he draws a card: +1
His new tempo is 0+1=1, equal to yours.

Scenario 2:
Your tempo: 0
Play a minion: +1
New tempo: 0+1=1

Of course this is a very abstract way to show it. There are tons of factors (current mana available etc.) which make it very complicated. Add in tempo is very fluent, so while reducing it to a single small scenario works with numbers, doing it for an entire match is hardly possible.

So what most likely "annoys" you is looking at it in a small scenario base, but the concept of tempo doesn't work that way.
What might be the best tempo move for a single turn, might be the worst thing you could do for the tempo during the match as a whole.
The best players understand that and find the best move for the game, rather than the turn.
(The time StrifeCro starts speaking to himself to check all possible moves, and what they add to the game.)

In addition: Unless you want to enter the competitive scene at a rather high level, just ignore tempo in detail.
Most players tend to play favourable to tempo anyway, it just mustn't be the best way to handle it for the match.

Quote from Gi0w »

Been reading the first article again and maybe this part is the key:

"Tempo will reference the rate at which a player manages to spend their full mana bar in order to gain minions which are purely focused on gaining control of the board."

This means that my earlier conclusion would be true, i.e. "removing the opponent's minion is NOT an increase in tempo, while adding a minion of my own IS"....

But even so I would still be confused, because that would also mean that both AoE-destroying multiple minions or killing a minion with your weapon actually aren't tempo gains - still, these are both identified as tempo gains in the article above.

Sorry guys, really don't mean to be a stickler for details but I really want to nail my understanding of these concepts!!

It's primarily just a wording type of thing.  When doing the comparisons in these later sections, you have to ask "Gaining tempo relative to what?"  Basically, purely for purposes of creating these tables, I considered, "Average" tempo to be a situation where you spend most of your mana each turn towards advancing the board.  To understand the reason why, imagine if it's turn 10 and all you did was play a Knife Juggler.  This is technically a tempo increase, since it's something you have on the board that you did not before; however, from a practical point of view, your opponent is almost certainly going to play more than 2 mana on the next turn, so your tempo is going to fall behind them.  As such, when creating the tables, I had to define a baseline situation, and I ended up choosing a situation where you spend almost all your mana.

 

As for the spell, what often happens with direct damage spells is that you kill a minion of roughly comparable cost to the spell.  So for example, if you use a Shadowbolt to kill a Raging Worgen, the effect is more or less tempo neutral, since you spent 3 mana to remove 3 mana of value from the table.  This may vary a little bit, and obviously if you can use a 2-mana spell to remove an 8-cost minion that's at full health, that will be a tempo increase for you; that's not the normal situation for removal spells however.