What we call blitz, is a deck that allows the first player during the 6th resource turn(4th turn) to reliably deal 2 damage to your opponent. The motto is bash it down, hit it in!
Next, we will talk about the gameplay and tactics of blitz play. The battle field will be referred to through the use of the keyboard num pad. Your player square will be "2", your opponent's player square will be referred as "8".
Usually, the early stages of Z/X gameplay before the 6th resource turn will be as follows:
The first player will usually play a 3 cost Z/X to attack the opponent's player square, the second player will on his turn, play a 3 cost on the player square and counter attack. The first player will then counter with a 4 cost Z/X attacking the opponent's player square, or more aggressively, igniting the one charge to call a Z/X to deal damage to the opponent. The second player will follow up with two ignitions to clear the battlefield. During the first player's 5th resource turn, he may or may not ignite a ignition and play a 3-4 cost onto the "1" "3" position to remove the opponent's "4" "6" position's 3 cost Z/X. When the 6th resource turn arrived, the arrival of 9k-10k large Z/X will start appearing or swarming the battlefield with low cost Z/Xes. This is a typical opening early game sequence of a Z/X game.
From the above, we can see that before the 6th resource turn, it will mostly be a back and forth clearing of fields in order to enter the mid/late stage(7th+ resource turns) where more interactions and strategies will happen. Because of this, the appearance of blitz style attack, where during the normal monotonous early game, before the 6th resource turn where resources are scarce, aggressively dealing damage and increasing the tempo of the game.
Let's talk about the first player's situation. The first player, during the 4th resource turn may be able to ignite a Z/X during the ignition phase to deal one damage to the opponent, however, we shall not take this situation into account due to the extremely low probability that this will happen. We will take the average of an ignition happening as 3 charge to one successful ignition. (A typical blitz deck will consist of the usual 20 ignitions and 8 evolseeds, usually receiving an advantage in 2 charges used for ignitions, however, we will use 3 charge as an example instead.)
The key of a blitz attack is dealing the first damage during the 5th resource turn. However, the turn before is the opponent's 4th resource turn, where he will be able to play a 4 cost Z/X(usually however, opponents may play a 3 cost Z/X during a 4th resource turn as well). If the opponent played a 4 cost Z/X on the player square, and we did not ignite or ignite successfully, how can we deal one damage to the opponent on our 5th resource turn? 5 Resources, in a blitz deck, will allow us to play 2 3+2 cost Z/Xes. However, if the opponent plays a 4 cost vanilla Z/X, how would be we able to deal one damage to the opponent with a 3 cost and 2 cost Z/X? As a result, the following cards will be the cards that will enable us to bypass the barrier of the Z/X on the opponent's player square.
B02-007 - Swift Tourmaline, Tourmaline Hawk, [Auto] When this card appear, if there are only 6 or less cards in your Resource, until end of turn, this card gets Power +2000.
B02-064 - Assassin's Dagger of Abyss, Flame Corpse, [Auto] When this card attack your opponent's Z/X with Cost 4 or less and deal damage to it, destroy that Z/X.
B03-085 - Sheep Girl, Were-Sheep, [Auto] When this card appear, if there are 6 or less cards in your opponent Resource, choose a Z/X in Square, until end of turn, it gets Power +2000.
As above, these 3 cost Z/Xes will enable us to bash down the wall on the opponent's player square to allow the 2 cost Z/X to deal the 1 damage. On the 6th resource turn, because of the 2 3+2 cost Z/Xes which the opponent will try his best to clear the field, by using the 2 charges to ignite or playing a 3+3 or 6 cost Z/X, we will be able to deal the 2nd damage to the opponent.
The above situation is taking into account the fact that no successful ignition had happened. However, in the 5th resource turn, there will be 2-3 charges to ignite successfully to deal one additional damage to the opponent. However, the opponent would not sit by receiving all your attacks and not ignite successfully, any successful ignition on your opponent's part will disrupt your tempo. How do we cope in this situation in order for us to mercilessly attack the opponent while taking care of the opponent's ignitions in the squares? We will then make use of these cards....
B02-022 - Cross Sniper, Scheat, [Auto] When this card appear during Ignition Phase, choose one of your opponent's Z/X with Cost 4 or less in Normal Square, and return it to hand.
B02-062 - Falling Spear, Speer, [Auto] When this card appear during Ignition Phase, choose one of your opponent's Z/X with Cost 4 or less in Normal Square, and destroy it.
B02-001 - Flower of Warring States, Mori Ranmaru, [Auto] When this card appear during Ignition Phase, choose one of your opponent's Z/X in Normal Square, and deal 5000 damage to it.
The above 2 cost Z/Xes are able to respond to the ignitions that your opponents ignited and allow you to continue the assault. However, their effects can only be activated when they come into play during the ignition phase. However, If they come into play from hand or life, there's no effect, what use is there? Which is a common sentiment. These 2 cost Z/Xes' use is not only for the activation of their abilities during the ignition phase, which would bring about great rewards, but also used during the 5th resource turn for the dealing of damage as if you do not have any 2 cost Z/X during that turn, even if you can destroy the Z/X on your opponent's square, you would not be able to capitalise on it. Which is why, a blitz deck would often have two sets of 2 cost Z/X, the voidbringers and these ignitors.
Your gameplay before the 6th resource turn ideally should be as above, when your opponent reaches his 6th resource turn, your opponent will be able to play more cards from his hand, which will complicate the battlefield.
I will mention 3 scenarios here:
1) Your opponent's ignition is successful, when he clears the field, he plays a large Z/X into the player square.
2) Your opponent's ignition is successful, and plays 2 3 cost Z/X into his player square and either 7 or 9 position and clears as much of your Z/X as he can.
3) Your opponent's ignition is successful and plays a 3 or 4 cost Z/X into the 7 or 9 position.
Regarding the first scenario, Let's take a moment and look at teh battle field. First of all, we had a 2 and a 3 cost Z/X and an ignited Z/X on the 7, 5 and 9 position. If your opponent ignited successfully, he will place it on the 4 or 6 position, start clearing the field and reinforcing his player square with a high cost Z/X. We will have 3 dead Z/X and the 7, 5 and 9 position will be empty, while your opponent will have Z/X on the 4 and 6 position. In this situation, we will have 7 resources and 3 charges, according to the probability of getting one successful ignitions every 3 charges, we can reliably play 2 3 cost Z/X from hand and attack the opponent's player square large Z/X and used the successful ignition to deal the 3rd damage.
Regarding the second scenario, we can take it that during our turn, the opponent is occupying 3 of the squares in the 4, 6, 7 and 8 position, but the 5 and 9 position is still empty, in addition to hoping that we can get the above 2 cost ignitors, we are able to play 2 3 cost Z/X from hand to deal the 3rd damage.
The situation will be similar except the killing of one more Z/X in the third scenario.
As such, before your opponent's 7th resource turn, if he did not ignite any Z/X from his life, he would be down to 1 life, if he ignited once from life, he would still be at 2 life. Even if your opponent have Z/X on the 4 and 6 position, they would not have any practical use.
When your opponent reaches the 7th resource turn, some people say, they'll just cast a Destiny vein and discard a card to blast all your Z/X to hell and you can't do anything anymore. Although that is true, and the blitz strategy is afraid of Destiny vein or Evil Bane K2, because smaller Z/X cannot do anything to them, however, the Blitz deck do not necessarily only contain small low cost Z/Xes. Since we can foresee such situations, we can also add other Z/X into the deck to counter such treats. These are low cost but high attack power Z/X such as:
B02-072 - Black Sword, Cursed Soul, [Continuous] If there are 20 or more cards in your Trash, this card gets Power +3000.
B04-013 - Serpent of Chaos, Yamata no Orochi, [Continuous] If there are only 9 or less cards in your Resource, this card gets Power +2000.
Why are the above 2 Z/X recommended? It's because their high attack power is "virtual", your opponent's Tyrant Blade, Dragonic Flare would not be able to kill them. And they have the ability to destroy Destiny vein or Evilabane K2 which would counter our smaller Z/Xes and allow us to do a 6+2 or 5+3 play to attack your opponent's life.
The above is all about how a blitz deck should play, now I will talk about the strategy behind the Blitz style of decks.
The key to blitz attack are the three position 5, 7 and 9, because these 3 position will allow us to attack your opponent's life directly, and your opponent will not turn a blind eye towards them. He will almost definitely play Z/X into the 4, 6 position to clear your Z/X, but before the 6th resource turn, your opponent will not have any extra resource to play any Z/X into the 7 or 9 position after clearing the field and reinforcing his payer square, also, it is the 4 and 6 position that is the most useless. The Z/Xes on these two position is unable to protect your player square and will also not threaten your opponent's player square, we can well ignore the Z/X on these two sqaures. When it's back to our turn, our opponent will likely have 3 life and Z/Xes on the 4, 6 and 8 position and maybe one beside our player square as well, in this situation, normally we will place Z/X on the 1, 2 or 3 position, start attacking and clearing your opponent's Z/X and stabilise the board right?
No, in the blitz strategy, we do not care about our player square, so we still play 3 Z/X into the 5, 7 and 9 position to continue the assault and ignore the opponent's Z/X on the 1 or 3 position, if we are able to successfully ignite the 2 cost ignitions, we may even be able to get rid of it!). Continuing the assault and concentrate on attacking your opponent's player square, 1 damage if less, 2 damage dealt if more.
After such aggressive assault on your opponent's life, the situation will definitely be our player square being empty and having Z/X on the 7, 5 and 9 position with 4 life ( or 3). Your opponent will have 2 life (or 1). Thel ikely senario is your opponent having Z/X on the 4, 6, 3 or 1 position. During your opponent's turn, some people will say, what if your opponent ignites successfully and surround your player square and dealing 3 damage, wouldn't you be dead? That is right, however, during your opponent's turn, facing 3 Z/X surrounding your opponent's player square, the ignited Z/X will not be able to enter the 5, 7 or 9 position, it will likely be placed on the 1 or 3 position beside our player square, thus after the ignition phase, our absolutely worst situation is the opponent having Z/X on the 1, 3, 4, 6 four positions and we do not have any Z/X on our player square. The situation looks bleak for us as your opponent will be able to deal 2 damage to us and after destroying our Z/X on the 5 position, call another Z/X from hand and dealing the third damage, wouldn't we be GG?
However, in the opponent's perspective, usually it's not similar to the above. Your opponent will think, my opponent have more life than me, if out of the 4 (3) life there is an ignition that can be a meat shield, me having 2 (1) life will not be able to survive the next turn. Because of this higher possibility of ignition from life when there is more life, your opponent will usually deal 2 damage from the 1 and 3 position then clear the 5, 7 and 9 position and playing a Z/X to plug the hole at the 7 or 9 position, thus during our turn, we just have to get one 2 cost ignition from the 4 charge that we have to blow the plugged hole wide open and continue the assault to deal one more damage.
Although the above scenario may seem improbable, the scenarios are based on your opponent being able to have a lot of successful ignitions, almost having a one ignition for one charge ratio while our ignition ratio is at 3 or 4 to 1. When the ignition ratio is more similar between the 2 players, we would have an easier time attacking the opponent.
The above is a strategy for a blitz style deck.
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