Dark Nights

Will Clint City be once again plunged into darkness? After several weeks of relative calm, Ielena is once again heading up the Nightmare clan’s attack on the city. And this time round the clan can count on the reinforcements of Nerfeniti and Sargh. But in the heart of the Golden Mountain Monastery, the Fang Pi Clang are biding their time. Thanks to new recruits, Ryuichi and Yu Mei, they’re quietly confident they’ll be able to put a stop to Ielena’s dastardly plans.

Breakpoint’s Applied Theory: Beating Rescue

Introduction

Rescue is one of the newer clans that came out in Urban Rivals in the last year. This clan has one of the most powerful bonuses in the game because it not only gives its cards one of the highest +X attacks possible, but also is the only clan which truly rewards players for playing a mono-deck,  ensures a 100% activation of the clan bonus in all games. Combined with an average power level of 6, Rescue allows players to have the:

a. Ability to put out threats in ever round without the use of too much pills
b. Ability to turn even the smallest of cards into walls
c. Ability to give a player an almost 50-50 chance in most rounds

This article will discuss the strengths of the Rescue clan, the weaknesses of the Rescue deck and finally, the different strategies players can use to defeat Rescue.

Discussion

A. Strengths of Rescue

Strength #1: Resilience

In random rooms, the Rescue player strongly relies on luck since the Rescue bonus can really put a narrow margin between the Rescue card and its opponent, giving the Rescue player nearly a 50-50 chance to win in each round!

In no-random rooms, the strength of Rescue is even greater. In most games, the Rescue player often only needs to play a defensive strategy and wait for the opponent to waste pills before finally striking for the win.

Strength #2: Bonus = Save Pills

The rescue bonus also provides the Rescue user the privilege of saving pills since a +12 attack is almost always equivalent to 2 pills. These saved pills often means victory in future rounds, victory in the game (via a well placed Fury), and even valuable battle points (BP) to win the tournament.

Strength #3: No-random Compatible

Lastly, what makes Rescue the ultimate equalizer in Urban Rivals is that its bonus is nearly unmatched in no-random rooms. Compared to the Junkz and Sentinel bonuses, Rescue has + 4 attack more; Against Uppers and Sakrohm, Rescue still gives its cards +2 to +4 attack more, which is still significant in most games. Even the Montana cannot truly compete with the natural power of Rescue. Because of Montana’s “minimum 8” limit, the Montana bonus does not truly cancel the Rescue bonus.

B. Weaknesses of Rescue

Weakness #1: Limited Playability

Even though Rescue is flexible in both random and no-random rooms, the cards consisting that make up Rescue is very limited. This means that the Rescue user will only be able to choose from a small card pool if he plans to make a decent mono-Rescue deck.  This weakness can be very evident in T1 because there is a limit on the total stars a deck can have.  As such, T1 players should expect only the staple cards in T1 such as Elvira, Lea, Alec, etc.

Because of this limited card pool, there are only a small number of viable Rescue decks that are considered as threats. All other Rescue deck variations either lack enough power to overcome most opponent cards, or lack sufficient damage to win a game via KO.

Therefore in T1, players should build a deck that can handle the staple cards of Rescue namely Elvira, Alec, Marco, Lea or Kerry. If a deck can accommodate cards that can handle the Rescue staples, then it can be a good deck to battle against Rescue.

Weakness #2: Low Power

With all the new cards that are coming out nowadays, it can be seen that the average 6-power of Rescue cards are is very low. Power creeping today is seen in the shift from the mean power of 6 to a mean power of 7. Therefore, if other clans get more cards with power 7 or higher (at a low star cost), then these clans can become viable cards to counter Rescue.

A good example is Tyd of Piranas. At 3 stars, he sports an 8/4 body with SOB as a bonus. Tyd is a good wall to counter almost all Rescue card on its own, and is even resilient to withstand Lea’s and Kerry’s SOB.

Weakness #3: Shifting of Power Level

Rescue was a good contender in the last year because almost all of its staples had great abilities coupled with the Rescue Bonus. Marco had Support: Power +1; Alec had Support: Damage +1; Elvira had SOA.

However, it can be seen that the game balanced Rescue by either changing the power level of the abilities its cards receive (Damage = Opp’s Damage of Tanner), or by weakening the card’s stats to accommodate a good ability (Courage: Power +3 for a 3-power card). It can also be seen that the last set of Rescue cards released showcased cards with good abilities but low power (Denise – 4 power; Pam – 4 power).

The latest released cards, however, gave Rescue the needed 7-powered cards to give the clan a fighting chance, but as you can see, their abilities won’t allow the Rescue player to win the game in less than 4 turns. In addition, both of them are high-starred cards, which mean that the Rescue player will be sacrificing slots to put them in.

Weakness #4: Lacks Utility cards

Up until now, Rescue only has one SOA (Elivra) and 2 SOBs (Kerry and Lea), one of which is a Courage-linked ability. This means that Rescue has little answers against cards with crazy abilities like –X power, min Y (Rolph and Toro), and SOB (Clara, Petra, etc).

This leads us to the main topic in this article: How can players defeat Rescue?

C. Strategies to Counter Rescue

Strategy #1: Play in no-random

True, Rescue can be a lot annoying in no-random rooms, but with the proper cards and a little calculation, any clan can be equipped with the stuff to defeat Rescue. Playing in no-random will remove the pesky 50-50 “lucky” round the Rescue player can have just because he put enough pills to evade your sureshot.

Example:
In a random room…
Lea (with no pills) = 18 attack      vs.       Chiro (4 pills) 32 attack.
Lea has 36% chance of winning while Chiro has 64% chance of winning. The fact still remains that Lea has the chance to win, dealing 2 damage, giving bonus points to the Rescue player AND costing the La Junta user 3 pills.

In no-random, this will never happen.

Strategy #2: Use SOB cards

Rescue is Rescue because of their bonus. If you can somehow disable the clan bonus then you have less to worry about Rescue cards. Anti-Rescue staples include Lulabee, Vickie, the Stop-Alls (SOA + SOB), and cards from Nightmare and Piranas.

It is good to consider using cards from Piranas rather than cards from Nightmare because the former clan has more 7+ powered cards that are superior to most Rescue cards. Nightmare cards usually have a power of 6 and have low damage values which are really weak against an aggressive Rescue deck. Piranas also give you access to Tyd, Dahlia, Bloodh, Smokey and even Hawkins.  Once Piranas get a better Stop-All card, then it will surely become a good anti-Rescue measure in TQs.

Strategy #3: Out-power

Another strategy to defeat Rescue is to use high-powered cards, or by further reducing the power of Rescue cards. Cards with power values of 8+ are good candidates in this criterion. Also, cards that have –X Opp’s Power, min Y can really surprise the Rescue user. Examples of cards that are good in this criterion are Rolph, Lulabee, Tanaereva, Toro, Dead Eye, Blaaster, and even Mona.

Strategy #4: Play in Type 1

The +12 bonus of Rescue is strong in both T1 and T2. But this can be controlled in T1. Because of the star limit on T1 decks, Rescue players are forced to use a balance of strong and weak Rescue cards just to make a T1 viable deck, unlike in T2 where the Rescue player can practically put in any Rescue card he has.

In T1, you can actually encounter Rescue decks that are obliged to play cards like Larry and Slyde, which are predictable in battle and are vulnerable to SOAs. In T2, you have a higher chance of encountering Rescue decks that have most, if not all, of the nukes and walls of Rescue.

I mentioned that Nightmare and Piranas are good clans to counter Rescue, favoring Piranas. But in T1, since Rescue decks will be using weak cards as fillers, Nightmare now has a higher chance to survive and fight against Rescue. It is also interesting to note that Nightmare has two good and cheap [–X opp’s power, min Y] cards in the form of Eadh and Erzsebet. Nightmare also has Estalt, a good 5-star nuke with [–X opp’s power, min Y].

And let’s not forget about the Piranas which now has access to two [–X opp’s power, min Y] cards that are low-starred and have impressive damage values, namely Tula and Deadeye. Normally, these two cards are bad in T2, but in T1, they have killer potentials.

And for the last strategy….

Strategy #5: Play Rescue

If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em!

Yes, this is one of the options available to players if they want to beat Rescue. It seems that Rescue is so resilient that it is even an effective deck against itself.  The winner is usually just determined as to who makes the least mistakes and who has access to the highest powered cards and SOBs (Lea and Kerry).

There is even a *cheap* Rescue strategy that relies on a passive role in battle using reducers like Slyde, Steve and Denise to reduce the damage done to the player (w/o using pills in the process) and uses his nuke to deal enough damage to win the game (but not via KO). Again, this strategy is simple yet can be very effective against those players who are easily intimidated by the +12 attack bonus.

Another Rescue-vs-Rescue strategy is to equip the Rescue deck with Hugo as a leader. This can give the Rescue cards a potential +15 attack, while also supporting Hugo himself by his own +6 attack.

Conclusion

Undeniably, Rescue is and still remains as a very potent clan in any format. Because of its game-breaking bonus, players who wish to do well in TQs must check if their decks can handle Rescue, either in power level, bonus or speed in making KOs. But with the slow power creeping of cards in other clans, the small number of Rescue releases, and the changes in game rules (like the creation of no-random rooms), the power of Rescue is gradually being controlled.

Gone are the days where players fear the almighty random, when nukes like Kolos fall victim to a very luck Lea or Larry, when players avoid T1 rooms because of the prevalence of Rescue decks, and when winning a TQ relied greatly on how player “luckily” didn’t’t fight any Rescue decks.

I agree that Rescue is a good clan, but let me tell you that it is far from being unbeatable.

-Breakpoint

Breakpoint’s Breakpointers: 5 MORE Tourney Tips

Introduction

Playing in a daily tournament is a race against time. The saying “Time is gold”, or players may want to change it to “Time is clintz”, stands very true when a player is in a daily tournament.

This article aims to discuss 5 more tips on how players can maximize points in dailies, this time, focusing more on how players can really speed up their pace.

Discussion

Tip #1: Browser Power

Before you think of speeding up your pace, you should first start by assessing your web browser. I have come to notice that certain browsers, like Mozilla, actually have a significant effect on your net speed. Pages load faster, data gets transferred faster, and even the animations are quicker.

During a TQ, anything that can shorten the delay of data transfer will mean quicker games for you. I’m not here to promote any single browser but I do want to point out that anything that can help speed things up will definitely help you in the long run.

Extra: It also helps to bookmark key areas in this game such as the “Play Now!” tab, “Guild message board” tab and even “Message board” tab.

Extra2: You can also create a shortcut in your taskbar to a calculator program just in case you need some quick and exact calculations. ^^

Remember: “Time is gold.” Don’t waste time calculating big numbers in your mind if you can do it at a touch of a button. If you want to practice math, do it in another time! ^^
Tip #2: Spam ENTER

Yes. The ENTER button will be your ally. Imagine yourself in the TQ room. You are waiting for a challenge to be accepted, when suddenly, the message appears for you to accept the challenge. What do you do?

Moving the mouse to click the ACCEPT button costs time. Instead, go and simply press the ENTER button on your keyboard, and that will be enough to start the match!

At the end of the match, after the words BATTLE WON/LOST appear and the exp window of your characters start to appear, don’t bother waiting for all of it to finish! Press the ENTER button until you return to the game room.

This action also automatically starts an auto-challenge because the last message you will receive will ask whether you want to use auto-challenge or not. The ENTER button automatically answers “yes” and you may have just saved 5-10 seconds or precious time every battle!

Tip #3: Avoid Chatting

Focus is the keyword here. I know, you may be inclined to write “BJ” or “GG” after a match. In cases where you’ve just ended a match with a very slow player, you might be tempted to send him/her a long message expressing your frustrations. STOP.

Why bother sending a message to someone who probably won’t reply anyway, or worse, reply to you so that you both enter in a heated argument? It is simply a waste of time.

Instead, just follow TIP #2 (Spam ENTER) and continue focusing on the tournament. Don’t let anything distract you. Writing and sending a message in-game eats up time, especially the sending part.

Note: If ever your opponent messages you to taunt you or anything unsportsmanlike-like, IGNORE. Again, this is a waste of your time.

Note: If you opponents simply say “GG” or “BJ” or any form of sportsmanlike greeting, again, IGNORE. The tournament is a race and the race isn’t over until the final points have been taken in. If you want to talk to or thank your opponents, do it outside TQ hours. I’m sure they’ll understand as long as you explain.
Tip #4: Pill Clicking

During a match at the point where you choose the amount of pills to use, what do you do? Do you use the arrow buttons to input the number of pills you’re going to use? If so, STOP.

Did you know that you can actually click on the picture of the pills to simply add/subtract pills? And this is actually one of the greatest time saving techniques you can do. All you have to remember is to practice clicking the right number of pills on the input window.

Tip #5: Accelerate Button

During a match, do you notice two buttons on the lower middle part of the screen? Can you see a button with a picture of a running stick-man? If it is lit up, click it.

That button, when deactivated (dim), will greatly cut the animation time to nearly half!

Conclusion

These 5 tips can really speed up your games so that you can maximize your time playing the tournament.

Your browser and game settings will determine the maximum speed you can achieve. Even if you can play fast, your actual game speed will greatly depend on the speed of data transfer and the number of delays and distractions present.

If you can increase the speed of data transfer AND decrease the number of delays and distractions, then you can save a lot of time that can be used to earn you more points. Happy gaming! ^^

-Breakpoint

Sleam

Character Background

Despite a diet consisting of kebabs and pizzas and a yearly subscription to Gyro’s, Sleam just can’t seem to put on weight and although he dreams of an XXL physique, he seems forever destined to be trapped in a size Small body. But never fear, he hasn’t given up yet and one way or another he’s determined to fulfill his dreams…

Review

His 3/7 stats is really bad for his level, sure he can boost it to 9 with both his bonus and ability but the fact that it is a courage-based ability your opponent can possibly prepare for it and send out an SOA to counter him. Overall this Buck wannabe is the worst card in this new card release.

Naykee

Character Background

One evening when he was wearing his incredibly rare, favorite, Lamar Ultra Force VI special edition trainers, Naykee found himself up against two tough guys determined to steal his precious footwear…not a good idea! Watching from a distance, Bodenpower was impressed by the violent way Naykee took care of the two bullies and asked him then and there to join forces with the Bangers.

Review

Another decent 3-star for Bangers. He has 7 power which can be further boosted to 9 by his bonus and an ability to increase his attack by 7 when attacking makes him a solid wall. His only weakness is his damage that can easily be ignored. Which mean you could either get 1-3 free damage from him. by just using a few pillz or your opponent must waste a lot of pillz to overcome him.

Personally I wouldn’t use him cause the Bangers already have better option for a 3-star and most of them either have better damage or have damage reducing ability.

Scubb

Character Background

Scubb’s life changed radically when Naliah, the queen of the Aquanis, cast a spell condemning anyone who stole her treasure to a life under water. Since then, Scubb has spent his time swimming around the Piranas’ boat gradually turning into a sea creature. And all that for a rubbishy old, gold-plated trident and a miserable, silver statuette… Not such a great trade-off!

Review

Looks like the Piranas are not contended with Katan so they added another guy like her. Well atleast the situation is not the same as how Striker and Alexei exist in All Stars. If you would be playing a Piranas half-deck Katan is better cause her ability is not affected by the number of Piranas in you hand while on the other hand if you would play a mono-Piranas deck then Scubb has a slight advantage cause he can get you more pillz.

Tula

Character Background

In order to quietly rid himself of any potential trouble-makers (coastguards, enemy pirates or Tyd’s ex-wife) Bloodh makes full use of Tula’s talents. A swift and silent swimmer, she can slip under enemy boats without a sound and in a matter of moments pierce their hulls with an accuracy that will plunge any nuisances to the bottom of the sea no sooner said than done.

Review
Tula is a 3/4 2-star that counters a lot of the currently used card in today’s ELO meta. She have an edge over most power reducing cards like Mona, Prince Jr, and Robb. By taking thier bonus away because , reducing thier power and the fact that thier power reducing ability can’t touch her makes her a pretty great card just for that purpose. The only sad part about her is that she needs her bonus to be effective or else she is a dead card in your hand.

Troubled Waters

The Piranas made quite a splash when they first arrived in town but once they’d got over the shock, the other clans started to hit back and now it’s out and out war in the city’s streets. To regain the upper hand, Bloodh throws two new crew members, Tula and Scubb, into the fray, while on the other side of town the Bangers are cranking things up a notch with the recruitment of Naykee and Sleam.

Aurora

Character Background

Flying isn’t easy especially when you Don’t have wings… But what does that matter? With courage and willpower anything’s possible, especially if you also have time on your hands, quite a lot of money and are not worried about getting hurt (a touch of foolhardiness doesn’t go amiss either). And to prove it, after a dozen years of testing and a few stays in hospital, Aurora has finally managed to take off.

Review

As a 7/5 5-star her stats would remind you of Hax, but compare to Hax she is a better threat. Sure Hax can reach 10 power and could be a decent wall but he is not good enough to win you games. Aurora can win you games cause of her ability to gain you 3 life, that might not be much but any card that can do an 8 point life swing or more is a threat that you would want to block. Which is another plus for Aurora cause damage reducers doesn’t hurt her as much as if would hurt Hax.

In some situation where you would need a big brute Hax would serve you better but because Aurora is less predictable than the courage-based Hax, which makes her one step better. Just like Suzie, she isn’t better or close to the power level of the card she is meant to replace which is Marco. But at least she gives Rescue another option at 5-star and who wouldn’t want an angel in your deck?

Suzie

Character Background

Working as a waitress at the Big Fat Burger, Suzie thinks she’s really hit rock bottom when an enraged customer informs her that her fries taste of cardboard and plants a knife in her arm (in Clint City food is no laughing matter). To her great surprise, she realizes not only can she not feel any pain but the wound heals up miraculously. Deciding then and there to dump her dodgy boss and his rude customers, she joins the Rescue in order to offer up her magic powers to the service of others.

Review

Rescue hit rock bottom when both Alec and Marco were banned. They were not as hot anymore in ELO but still remains as force to be reckoned with at Daily Tournaments. So would an addition of an immortal super heroine and a beautiful angel put Rescue back on top? First to be reviewed is their replacement to Alec, the immortal super heroine, Suzie.

Suzie just like Alec is a 4-star with 7 power and their similarity ends there. While Alec is able to increase his damage based on the number of fellow Rescue cards with him, Suzie lets you gain life instead. Suzie who is a 7/2 4-star looks really bad, but if you would consider her ability to net you 4 life in a mono-Rescue deck she looks a lot better. She might not have any K.O. potential but she can win games if used right. And unlike Alec she isn’t badly affected by damage reducers but she is more affected by SOA cause her puny damage can easily be ignored.

Overall she is a decent card. She is not at the same power level as Alec but she is good card in her own right. Remember in this game you win as long as you have more life than your opponent just wish hard that you won’t face any SOA or she would be a dead card in your hand.