Do or Die: Knowing when to Block

There are many decisions that you will have to make in any given game of universus, and some of the most important decisions involve knowing what to block, what to not, and how to give it the right thought! If a player sees their opponent blocking incorrectly early on in the game, it is a weakness that they will exploit to help them win, so why give someone that advantage? There are a lot of ways to play blocks wrong, such as wasting a valuable off-zone block early, blocking too often, not blocking enough, or just underestimating your opponent. For the sake of the article we’re going to leave out issues belonging to deck building such as including a low number of blocks of a given zone, having too many nonblocks, and so on.

Blocking too often is most certainly the issue that I see most when playing with people. I will often throw out a poke attack on turn 2 or 3 to draw me an extra card or two, then I’ll build up a bit. The entire purpose of this turn from my end of the table, is to build up my defenses and to be in a better position to hold against my opponent’s attack turn. If my opponent blocks with a valuable attack just to stop my 4 damage poke, then I am gaining a free advantage here. Health is a resource that people aren’t using enough. You have just as much strength at 1 vitality as you do at maximum vitality, so take advantage of this! Learning to block a bit more conservatively could work secondarily as a bluffing tactic, too. Taking a solid hit from an attack that has an effect when it deals damage can be a great way to bluff your opponent into thinking that you do not have the proper block zone, making them want to over extend to try and secure the kill that you can stop easily with the fine block in your hand. If you think that you may be blocking far too often and you would like to try using your health more freely as a resource, try out a few games where you make it a point to never block with your own attacks, or maybe never block an attack until you are at single digit health. These aren’t exactly the set in stone strategy ideals, but they are a good way to get you started down a path of different thinking.

That’s not to say that never blocking is the proper way to go. A big weakness of mine is that I can get far too greedy and will pass up blocking attacks  and then get killed by an attack later in the turn of a different zone than I’ve been holding, or I’ve been stunned out. If you are planning to only block 1-2 attacks during your opponent’s kill turn, make sure that you can actually get away with that strategy. Have something to swap out incorrect block zones from your hand, hold a clutch omni-block without over relying on it, or just make sure to pay attention to the attack zones that your opponent is likely to be using on their kill turn. The discard pile is public knowledge, so there’s nothing wrong with looking through your opponent’s discard pile on your turn to help you determine which block zones that you want to keep. There is even the occasional card that casually lets you expand your opponent's discard pile, so maybe consider using this simply to get a better look at what your opponent has in their deck. If you don’t know all of the cards in standard too well, take a look at what your opponent is running during a match, and you can learn a lot about them. If you see that they have a low attack that makes it easier for them to play something bigger and more dangerous, you probably don’t need to be holding a low block. You can easily take two hits from these attacks, and you could still be taking less damage than if you didn’t block the big thing that it is helping your opponent play! 

The important thing isn’t that you need to KEEP blocking, it’s that you are blocking the right things. Sometimes it may be the right choice to play out your entire hand on turn 1 or 2 to build up, and just let your opponent hit you with whatever they can. If you are a high health character, or one with built in survivability, this can be a pretty viable option, otherwise it will be a bit of a risky play. You can certainly block your opponent once in a while on the grounds of stopping them from gaining momentum, but as much as people want to do that, it’s probably not the best idea in every situation. While pretty much every deck should have a use for momentum, that doesn’t mean that they will necessarily draw in to their momentum use, or that it will even be especially viable to their attacking gameplan. If a deck really wants to use momentum as a core part of their game plan, they should be able to snap-generate the momentum on a moment's notice, and not have to rely on their opponent not blocking their attacks to support their gameplan.

I believe that the most important piece of advice that I received for the game was that “1 ain’t dead”, and I lived by that creed. Soon after taking that advice to heart, and within the next year I was topping worlds singles, winning a PTC, and leading my team to victory at nationals, and in each of these events I had such a different mindset to blocking than I previously had. Go and try out some games with a new mindset, see how it changes how you play, and maybe even how you build decks in the future. Intentionally taking your first 10+ damage attack to the face could be a pivotal moment for you as a player and as a deck builder, so go try it out!