I agree with the card draw and understand the importance of the quest when puking a lot of low cost cards.

What I am saying is if you build for it, attacking on he first turn can be used to your advantage to immediately put your opponent on the defensive, especially if you can burn their battlefield early making them place units away from their battlefield. Burning someone's battlefield on your second turn is a beautiful thing and it is a little easier to do it you have already attack once in the game.

In general I agree with going first being a great option for a lot of decks, but to say that it is always better is like saying there is only one way to play. That just seems formulaic and boring.

Card Board Gamers said:

Explain to me how attacking after opponent's first turn is better than attacking after opponent's first turn with one additional turn for setup because I just don't get it.

Also there is advantage in this game for person who goes first. Yes, it is usually decided by dice roll. Deal with it

If you take a huge swing on your first attack it puts your opponent on the defensive, thus giving you the advantage. If you go second you may be trailing with resources, but you have the advantage in damage. Making it the perfect environment for a rush deck. Yes, if the first player can stall out the game you will loose, but you are playing a rush deck, and as the name implies, you are trying to win quickly.

Are you going to GenCon?

At this state of the game, i can say for sure, that nobody in my group of players or in a local competetive environment, will ever go 2nd voluntarily. Just in one case, which would be: You cannot start with the cards on your hand and you already took mulligan!

Just to clearify things, when talking about turn 1,2,3,4 now, it means: turn 1 you, turn 2 opponent, turn 3 you, turn 4 opponent and so on…

The 3rd turn of a game now, is a crucial moment, that is deciding over the rest of the game. The starting player gets the benefit of interacting first with his opponent at this point. Only few interacting cards are playable on turn 2, making this position less viable. You see, 3 gold/+1card isn't usually enough to support a harras and an economy boost unless you have warpstones (that's why they are broken btw!) or a super lucky hand - uncommon! Then obviously you cant harras on turn 1, because your opponent did not start yet :P It leaves turn 3 !! Most of the time, players on turn 3 manage to remove some economy of their opponents + boost their own, example: sacrifice to khaine and slave pen for 4 gold. This leaves behind a disbalance in the game, that cannot be resolved by the opposite player, most of the time…

I didnt like this evolution of the game either, but harrassing/controlling your opponent has become the most important part of the game. And the faster you can gain board control, the better your chances for a win are. Logical conclusion for competive players was: Starting is best!

Solutions to this problem could be:

- benefit the turn 2 player, e.g. let him draw 2 cards instead of just one.

- bring out more cards, that will either protect you from harrass (caution is needed here, iron discipline is kind of broken too), or bring out cards, that will get you back into a game, when behind in economy/control

Canceling a mulligan for turn 1 player is kind of unfair, then everybody would go turn 2 start ^^ no, but i like the card heroic task. bring in more of those quests, that will give you a bonus for canceling a mulligan.

Card Board Gamers said:

I still don't get what's the difference between:

"attacking after opponent's first turn is better than attacking after opponent's first turn with one additional turn for setup"

If you want to be extra smashy you can just drop units to the battlefield on the first turn, wait without attacking and then burn first zone on your second turn.

Card Board Gamers said:

I can't as I live in Poland. But I'll be probably going my second time on our championships in Semtember. Polish game distributor provides a trip to GenCon for winner, so there should be at least one Pole there

gr4ffi said:

When you're playing by tournament rules, player order is decided before you get to look at your starting hand.

Mallumo you're the one writing new articles for the FFG now, yes? I must say the quality has improved a lot

We always play by tournament rules so no peaking.

All I'm saying is this

1. no attack
2. player 2 attack
3. player 1 attack
4. player 2 attack
5. player 1 attack
6. player 2 attack
7. player 1 attack
8. player 2 attack

As second player you are always one attack ahead. If you make it count it can be used to your advantage. That's all I'm saying. I look forward to playing against the Polish ambassador whomever it is! Even though the tournament is on Friday instead of Saturday I hope there are more participating than last year.

A competetive environment doesn't imply playing with tournament rules every time and by voluntarily i actually meant voluntarily. The discussion was based on the assumption that you have the decision to start or go 2nd turn, or was it?. Tournament rules are no solution to this problem in my eyes.

All i'm saying is, when rushing burning zones is important. See it that way:

1. no attack, gather forces/economy

2. economy

3. attack, burn zone

4. reaction

5. attack, burn zone, win

Yours is:

1. economy

2. attack, but do not destroy zone

3. reaction

4. attack, burn zone

5. reaction

6. attack, burn zone, win

So you will give your opponent 2 full turns with much more economy to react instead of one… burning a zone on turn 2 is uncommon, on turn 3 is much more likely. So starting turn 2 actually is less pressure on your opponent, he has more time/economy to react.

This makes sense.

I concede and now feel sick that the game is slighted to the winner of the opening dice role.

I don't like that, feels pokemon-ee.

I dont see it being decided by determination of the start player. But 1st turn has its benefits and it is a problem, yea. Dealing with this via deck building brings a demanding component into the game though, which is fun again :) You could go different approaches: I usually play orc and will try to bring out a super big economy super fast in order to buffer the damage dealt to me from harrassing right before the 3rd turn.

Virgo said:

Some of them, yes. Thank you. 

Kaine, don't despair. There might be a discernible advantage to the opening player, but we're dealing with ideal scenarios here. No need to concede the match just because you lost the dice roll.

Yeah there's no need to concede the game just because of a dice roll lost.Games are still playable,my only gripe was with chaos starting first and getting a chaos sorc/marauders to end the game on turn 2 thats all.All other hands are still pretty playable even though you're going second.

I don't really think it makes that big of a difference. Really I think both are strategies to use depending on if you are the first or second player. Our league night is tonight so I guess I'll give it a go.

@Virgo: Your distributor will send your national champion to world championship, wont he? That's not gencon this year, world's takes place at FFG game center at november.