Hello, I am Angel Deathbringer, welcome to Chapter 1 of the "Understanding..." series that I will be publishing on and off.
I would like to start off with a bang and introduce a concept that's known in most competitive gaming/sport; it's known as Tempo.
Tempo is really just another way to judging the speed and effectiveness of a Strategy/Spell/Deck/Wizard. Most of you have felt the existence of "Tempo" in PvP but maybe had failed to qualify it as an entity worthy of researching.
Tempo in layman's term is "How fast can you do damage?" or "How much damage can you do in a given turn?". These two statement read alike but they are technically different. "How fast" measures the amount of time it takes to do a fix amount of damage whereas "How much" measures the amount of damage done in a fix amount of time.
When talking about Tempo in PvP, you are asking yourself either "How fast can I deal X damage", where x is my opponent's max health + possible heals OR "How much damage can I do in this X amount of turns?".
If you are asked to analyze four spells, Scorpion, Monstrous Scorpion, Lightning Bat and Monstrous Lightning Bat... How would you rank them (mathematically)?
Scorpion, 85% of the time, will do an average of 180 damage for 2 Pips; Lightning Bat, 70% of the time, will do an average of 265 damage for 2 Pips.
Assuming both Players keep getting power pips turn after turn, what is the Damage/Turn (Tempo) of the Players using only those two spells?
Scorpion will do 180 * 85% = 153 Damage/Turn; Lightning Bat will do 265 * 70% = 185.5 Damage/Turn. One can see that Lightning Bat is more powerful than Scorpion Tempo-wise by 32.5 Damage/Turn. This is no surprise seeing how Storm is the most damaging School in the game.
Monstrous Scorpion will do 355 * 85% = 301.75 Damage/Turn; Monstrous Lightning Bat will do 440 * 70% = 308 Damage/Turn. This is a far LESS Tempo difference than the previous example. I will leave it to you astute readers to logically deduce why in the replies :-D
Understanding Tempo will help you choose cards and spell combos that can best achieve a goal. If you want a deck that attacks right out the gate and ultimately kills your opponent that way, which spell combo should you use and why? Question like that can be mathematically analyzed and the most effective method will be crystal clear in numbers once you do the math.
A more advanced application of Tempo can be used in this situation... If you have 3 pip now and you have 2 Monstrous Lightning Bats and one Faerie in your hand. You know your opponent will kill you after exactly 3 turns if you don't heal, what is your best course of action? If you calculated that your spell Tempo is fast enough to kill the opponent in 3 turns, then you don't have to heal (because healing gives the opponent time to perform other opinions that can change the dynamic of the game, such as healing or shielding). Knowing exactly the limits of your Tempo can improve your game by leaps and bounds; I do not recall how many games I won by Judging exactly the right amount of Damage to kill my opponent 1 turn before he can get to me. If I decided to heal/wait for more pips, I would have lost for sure.
I hope this guide helped you guys understand the importance of Tempo and be on your way to PvP glory.
You might also want to add in a selection about amount of cards they have. If you know they only have three lightning bats and have used two, it is much easier to calculate their tempo. If you know a myth at that level could only have four of each card, you'll know you only have to beat the minion four times before he is out of that kind of minion.
