Basic Fundamentals and Strategy Tips for Beginners
The Fine Art of Placing
Placing cards can be one of the more deciding factors
that help determine whether you will dominate or be dominated this hand.
How to place cards well is usually difficult to learn. The main hang
up beginners experience is that you are revealing your cards to your opponent
with no obvious benefit. The bottom line for placing cards is to
place cards you draw that you really want to use. There is always
a chance you or your opponent will need to concede this battle before you
get to use that great special card. This is the first thing I consider
for placing cards, specials I cannot do without, especially if I only have
one of them. High level power cards I never place, unless that character
is the only one who can use it. Low level power cards I may place,
but it can create some openings for the opponent. For example, if
I placed a level 4 power card to Thing, it is a good bet my opponent will
not attack Thing with a level 4. Teamwork cards I usually place so
I can save them for a future battle. I will typically play the teamwork
card, but if I do not have the right follow ups or I think I can win this
battle without it and if I am pretty sure it will not duplicate next battle,
then I may try to save it to increase my power next hand. Placing
cards well leads to the next major topic I want to talk about, Card Advantage.
Card Advantage
Card Advantage is a general condition when you have
more playable cards than your opponent. Placing the right cards for
future use can become a major threat to your opponent, especially if you
never have to use them. But this is only one way to achieve card
advantage. You can also gain card advantage when your opponent must
discard more cards than you, but do not count on this too often.
The third major way to achieve card advantage is to use cards that add
cards to your hand or take cards away from your opponent's hand.
The loss of card advantage is the main reason why some cards are rarely
(polite for: never) used, like Doubleshots, Basic Universe and Training
cards.
Having card advantage does not necessarily mean
you will win, however. It may mean that you have less of an uphill
battle than your opponent, but never let it make you overconfident.
Determining who has card advantage usually also affects how much a player
will Venture. A tactic related to card advantage is stalling, or
burning a turn.
Turn Burning or Legal Stalling
A popular strategy that goes hand in hand with card
advantage is a legal form of stalling commonly called burning a turn.
Stalling this way can sometimes sway card advantage from one player to
the other. It is often used as a tricky way of forcing your opponent
to make the first mistake. If one player plays too many cards before
the other player does, then the first player may find himself in a position
where one or more of his characters may be KO'd without being able to prevent
it from happening. This situation will frequently cause a player
to concede. Burning a turn is usually accomplished by playing a single
card per turn. Sometimes this is a card that does not directly attack
the opponent but still affects the battle or game. Often it will
be a small attack that does not decrease your potential power. This
is a strategy that was only recently introduced and is rather difficult
to perfect.
Is my Venture too much, or not enough?
The Venture is perhaps the most difficult part of OverPower
to learn, let alone master. Card advantage is usually the major deciding
factor of your power this hand. After that it all comes down to the
specific cards you have and your playing ability. If I do not have
a good amount of defense available, I do not even think twice about conceding,
my decision has already been made for me. To me, if I cannot defend
what I think are my opponent's better attacks, I will be risking my characters.
Later in the game, after specific cards have been played, then I may consider
allowing a character to be KO'd, but usually not before then. At
one time, players used to total up the points for their cards and compare
that to their opponent's total. Each of the opponent's known cards,
those placed and those known due to duplication, were counted at face value.
Each unknown card would be given an average value of 6. After finding
your total and comparing it to your opponent's total, this would give a
good measure of whether it will be a close fight or a massacre. This
would then let you know if you should bet a little or the whole farm.
After Battlesites were introduced, this method was simplified to only counting
the number of playable cards this battle. If you have an "Avoid 1
attack" placed to a character you would not count this card as it is only
playable IF that character is attacked. Likewise, if your opponent
has a "Negate 1 Special" placed and you do not have any special cards that
could be negated, then you would not count that card also. Just be
sure you do not let your opponent know how many cards you are counting
for yourself. This is how placing cards drastically affects the game
and why card advantage is so important.
