Draconis 8 Puzzles: So your saying there’s a chance

One of my favorite things about Draconis 8 is its penchant for naturally forming in-match puzzles.  These are most obvious in situations where both players have already revealed their cards and its up to you to figure out where and how to use your card, in many cases there’s only one, but one very clearly, correct move for you to find.   Today, however, I’d like to present to you a different kind of puzzle.  One in which you know your hand and the board, but not yet your opponents play.  Because of this its impossible to know 100% if any choice is correct or will ultimately even matter.  Instead the puzzle is to find the move that gives you the best odds of success.  Thus far I’ve often found that its failing to solve these less black and white puzzles that differentiates the great players from the greatest players.  With that in mind, lets see how great you are!

Lets start by setting the stage, its turn 7 (the final turn), your down by 1, and you have the following cards in hand:

Mean while the state of the board is thus:

There are only 3 valid places you can play, 1 of which has nothing you can attack, the other two are under attack by your opponents dragon’s range so you’ll give up a point no matter what if you play to them.  In this moment, which card do you choose, and why?  Please stop here until you have an answer.

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Got your answer?  Good, lets evaluate your options, then I’ll show you the “correct” choice, and how this played out in the actual ranked match.

First things first, lets look at the far right spot.

Fear won’t do us any good, we can flip the cerebus to score a point, but its negated by the range, so even if we some how won speed with a 7 speed card, we’d still lose by half a point.  The ability to command there might look more enticing at first, after all, you can flip that aura witch around and while you can’t activate her aura, you can pull off a +2 point swing in your favor.  This would actually be a potentially game winning play if the score was tied, if you got the speed point and they didn’t play a strong stomp, but the problem is that your behind a point, and thus, since the 29 can’t clear the 31 of the cerebus AND their dragon is hitting you with range, you end up just a net 0, and guaranteeing yourself a loss.

So the far right is out, what about the far left?

Well because, again, we’re down by 1, playing to the left most space can only work out for us if our opponents card is both slower, has no useful ability, and its strongest side is weaker then our strongest.  Between the two cards are strongest sides are 29 and 27, and the faster card has the 29, so if we want to do this play, its the command card we go with.  It’s not a bad play per say, it has a chance of winning, but I’d argue its not the best, as it not only loses if they have 30 or more side, but if they have enforced or fear as well.  Ultimately, though, if there’s no other paths to win, better to take the long shot then give your self no chance at winning, so lets keep this in our back pocket.

That brings us to the middle left.

There’s lots of fear targets here, but unfortunately there’s no orientation of either target that improves our situation.  The only orientation of the enemy range champion that loses them a point, requires a 28 facing down toward us, which we can’t clear with our fear.  We can get +2 points, using the fear ability or not, but we lose 1 to range, putting us at best up a half point, and thats only if we win the speed battle.  If we DO win the speed battle, the odds are lower then they’d be in the previous position that they   can’t clear the 27  which is the highest power we can leave exposed, since that means they’re using an extremely slow (and thus high stat) champ, and we’d still lose to fear or stomp outright basically regardless of stats.  And a gain, all of this assumes we win the speed battle, if we lose it, which at 7 speed is more likely, they can plug this hole (or if they’re able, attack our witch) and then there’s no path to victory.

So what about the command?  Well the good news is the command can also take two points here, the bad news is you still take a point from the range and that doing so exposes a 9, and there is literally zero chance your opponent won’t be able to clear a 9.  Again, since we’re down 1 and this will only be a net 1 point play, we’re only bringing ourselves above even if we win the speed point, but at 19 speed we do have a very good chance at winning speed.  That said, being up half a point isn’t helpful when your relying a 9 to be too high to protect you from giving up a full point in return.  BUT there’s one other thing to consider.  You can command your enforced card.  While having the enforced side down right now protects it, its possible to rotate it with out losing any points such that the 43 is facing down.  This will mean that in order to attack the 9, they also have to attack the 43, and champs capable of clearing both a 43 and 9 on just the right sides of a corner are pretty rare.  Still not zero chance they have something, and enforced or fear again could beat you, but unlike playing in the left, the odds your opponent can’t clear a 43 are much lower then a 29 AND your throwing in the bonus requirement they clear that 9 as well, which on something min-max’d enough to have a 44+ side might actually be relevant.

Again, no option is a guaranteed win, but this is the play that gives you the best percentage chance at winning.  So what happened in the actual game?

My opponent drew an 11 speed range card, with a 32 side.  I gain the half point for going first, play in that middle left, and flip the enforced worm leaving my opponent no safe play to play.  Had I had played anything to the right and I lose, and had I played to the left I also lose, as his 32 would have cleared my 29.  But I found the move that gave me the highest percentage change to win, and on this occasion, it paid off.