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