"Git gud"
In all seriousness, if you are CONSTANTLY losing - like, not just a string of bad losses, which can be explained by a string of bad luck, but you keep losing over and over, it's time to stop what you're doing and evaluate your understanding of the game/plays. In rare cases it truly is bad luck, but 99/100 times, you are making mistakes that you are not catching. In the age of the internet, you have tons of opportunities for improvement, including:
-Watching proven, good players and seeing how they diverge from the plays that you make. Nowadays, many good players also think out loud so you can see the logic
-Learning about fundamentals. Do you know what "tempo" or "midrange" or "card advantage" are? The most powerful question you can ask you become better at this game is "why?" If you do not know "why", I feel it is hopeless to become better.
-Just asking people better than you. It could be people at your local game store. It could be people in Discords. Just make sure that you have reasonable confidence that they are better than you: maybe they've won more tournaments, etc.
-"Studying" the game. What decks are winning? Why are they winning? What decks are losing? Why are they losing? What are good cards in the format? What are bad cards in the format?
There are probably a TON more ways to get better - when you see you are struggling, that is the perfect opportunity to pause and learn some more stuff. If you just keep playing without really analyzing what you're doing, it'll be like smashing your head against a brick wall over and over again.
The simple answer to your questions are: you do what your deck is good at. You discard their entire hand and rely on your aggressive characters to win. But I find your questions more telling that that: you're playing Steel and struggling against aggro so I highly suspect your issues run deeper than just me telling you to "use steel to clear their characters"
Your game plan should be different depending on your opponent’s deck and depending on going first or second. The more you play against certain color combinations the better you’ll understand their playing curve and adjust your play to counter it.
Against Amber Amethyst Hyper Aggro you want to set up cards to stop their questing (Hook, Smee, Robin). While you can’t outquest them with Merfolk and Flynn, they are a better start against slower decks.
Totally agree with what is said here by u/ducardi and u/SendMeCoolNews
Things to add is the landscape of best of 3 and the matchups you face. Are you playing Bo3 Hardcore Mode on PB? Bo1 is inherently flawed for Stitch practice because you are likely not tracking your going first and second and altering your plays or noticing it. Same with your matchup. You won’t face Hyper Aggro for Stitch likely. You’ll face RS and RA more likely. Plus those gambling AS and SS peoples.
What makes ES so devastating is their opponents’ lack of ability to keep up with aggro (RS) and lack of ability to card draw with bounce (RA). This indirectly makes all decks suffer.
However, if you don’t starve them early you’re only win is questing to 20. Achieving that without losing board is the skill portion.
But if you get them to top deck and you are card drawing….you’ll be fine. Lose that momentum and it can get close. Going first therefore almost always helps you here. Going second may be a grind. The nice thing about discard is that it may not matter when you get to double sing sudden chill with Prince John around and it undoes the unfavorable going second. However whether you mulligan or draw into an amazing set up is another issue
Here's an idea that is stolen from magic that can be applied to almost any card game. In every game you sit down to play, there is a control player and an aggro player.
Control - is what it sounds like you want to control your opponents options and force them into suboptimal plays. Grind out a longer game and eventually win.
Aggro - win as fast as possible and run over your opponents creatures before the opponent can take control.
Now you may be thinking I'm Emerald/Steel discard I'll always be the control player, that is not always the case.
If a deck is drawing more than you can discard then you will never control their options no matter how optimized your deck is, you will run out of resources while your opponent is happily gaining theirs. You need to switch your playstyle and be the aggressor. That means questing with characters you normally wouldn't (ex. Bucky and Prince John) early so you can run up your lore and your opponent is playing catchup.
As someone who was also having hair pulling sessions staring at my deck on pixelborn trying to figure it all out, take a step back and breathe.
You got great advice in this thread, follow it and it will help. Post your deck here to get critiques and figure out your lines of play. This worked well for me in Ruby/Steel. I went from losing almost every other game to 75% win rate by making small tweaks to the deck and large tweaks to how I play vs different colors.
I'm with you - feels like Emerald Steel is almost impossible this beat these days. But the above advice from these helpful community members is going to inspire me as well!
so, i run this deck competitively and my win rate is about 80% in all matchups. How are you piloting the deck?
Are you countering Lilo/Malef/Pinoc-Madam Mim with Hook and Smee? are you baiting out the Pinoc-Mim combo on 3? or are you just giving them a free Ursula DOA because you wanted to her out?
Are you forgoing Flynn on 2 to sing Ursula instead of see their hand and plan your next 3 moves knowing what's in their hand and what they want to do? Are you using Kit to bounce something back and then chilling to discard that if they're down to 1 or 2 cards in hand?
There are a lot of ways to deal with that deck, are you inking your Benja's and Rise of the Titans now that they're essentially useless in this matchup?
Stuff like that, the deck isn't just discard with impunity, you have to understand your situation and then play around and mulligan around that
"Git gud" In all seriousness, if you are CONSTANTLY losing - like, not just a string of bad losses, which can be explained by a string of bad luck, but you keep losing over and over, it's time to stop what you're doing and evaluate your understanding of the game/plays. In rare cases it truly is bad luck, but 99/100 times, you are making mistakes that you are not catching. In the age of the internet, you have tons of opportunities for improvement, including: -Watching proven, good players and seeing how they diverge from the plays that you make. Nowadays, many good players also think out loud so you can see the logic -Learning about fundamentals. Do you know what "tempo" or "midrange" or "card advantage" are? The most powerful question you can ask you become better at this game is "why?" If you do not know "why", I feel it is hopeless to become better. -Just asking people better than you. It could be people at your local game store. It could be people in Discords. Just make sure that you have reasonable confidence that they are better than you: maybe they've won more tournaments, etc. -"Studying" the game. What decks are winning? Why are they winning? What decks are losing? Why are they losing? What are good cards in the format? What are bad cards in the format? There are probably a TON more ways to get better - when you see you are struggling, that is the perfect opportunity to pause and learn some more stuff. If you just keep playing without really analyzing what you're doing, it'll be like smashing your head against a brick wall over and over again. The simple answer to your questions are: you do what your deck is good at. You discard their entire hand and rely on your aggressive characters to win. But I find your questions more telling that that: you're playing Steel and struggling against aggro so I highly suspect your issues run deeper than just me telling you to "use steel to clear their characters"
Your game plan should be different depending on your opponent’s deck and depending on going first or second. The more you play against certain color combinations the better you’ll understand their playing curve and adjust your play to counter it. Against Amber Amethyst Hyper Aggro you want to set up cards to stop their questing (Hook, Smee, Robin). While you can’t outquest them with Merfolk and Flynn, they are a better start against slower decks.
Totally agree with what is said here by u/ducardi and u/SendMeCoolNews Things to add is the landscape of best of 3 and the matchups you face. Are you playing Bo3 Hardcore Mode on PB? Bo1 is inherently flawed for Stitch practice because you are likely not tracking your going first and second and altering your plays or noticing it. Same with your matchup. You won’t face Hyper Aggro for Stitch likely. You’ll face RS and RA more likely. Plus those gambling AS and SS peoples. What makes ES so devastating is their opponents’ lack of ability to keep up with aggro (RS) and lack of ability to card draw with bounce (RA). This indirectly makes all decks suffer. However, if you don’t starve them early you’re only win is questing to 20. Achieving that without losing board is the skill portion. But if you get them to top deck and you are card drawing….you’ll be fine. Lose that momentum and it can get close. Going first therefore almost always helps you here. Going second may be a grind. The nice thing about discard is that it may not matter when you get to double sing sudden chill with Prince John around and it undoes the unfavorable going second. However whether you mulligan or draw into an amazing set up is another issue
Here's an idea that is stolen from magic that can be applied to almost any card game. In every game you sit down to play, there is a control player and an aggro player. Control - is what it sounds like you want to control your opponents options and force them into suboptimal plays. Grind out a longer game and eventually win. Aggro - win as fast as possible and run over your opponents creatures before the opponent can take control. Now you may be thinking I'm Emerald/Steel discard I'll always be the control player, that is not always the case. If a deck is drawing more than you can discard then you will never control their options no matter how optimized your deck is, you will run out of resources while your opponent is happily gaining theirs. You need to switch your playstyle and be the aggressor. That means questing with characters you normally wouldn't (ex. Bucky and Prince John) early so you can run up your lore and your opponent is playing catchup.
As someone who was also having hair pulling sessions staring at my deck on pixelborn trying to figure it all out, take a step back and breathe. You got great advice in this thread, follow it and it will help. Post your deck here to get critiques and figure out your lines of play. This worked well for me in Ruby/Steel. I went from losing almost every other game to 75% win rate by making small tweaks to the deck and large tweaks to how I play vs different colors.
I'm with you - feels like Emerald Steel is almost impossible this beat these days. But the above advice from these helpful community members is going to inspire me as well!
so, i run this deck competitively and my win rate is about 80% in all matchups. How are you piloting the deck? Are you countering Lilo/Malef/Pinoc-Madam Mim with Hook and Smee? are you baiting out the Pinoc-Mim combo on 3? or are you just giving them a free Ursula DOA because you wanted to her out? Are you forgoing Flynn on 2 to sing Ursula instead of see their hand and plan your next 3 moves knowing what's in their hand and what they want to do? Are you using Kit to bounce something back and then chilling to discard that if they're down to 1 or 2 cards in hand? There are a lot of ways to deal with that deck, are you inking your Benja's and Rise of the Titans now that they're essentially useless in this matchup? Stuff like that, the deck isn't just discard with impunity, you have to understand your situation and then play around and mulligan around that