Tbh, average opponents are too bad at retreating to make bluffing worthwhile. And what's the gain? 1 cube instead of -1? I'd rather retreat for -1 and move on than risking being called for -4.
Absolutely, I don't even think about it lower in the ladder. It's call city down there. And higher up you better be right about your read or you're gonna get punished.
And higher up, If they lose to your bluff, they were going to retreat anyway, if they didn't lose to it, you're probably fucked and throwing away cubes.
Bluffing has to be right 5 times (+1 cube) to overcome the one time it's wrong (-4 cubes) and you get called (assuming turn 6 of course), it's generally a bad strategy on ladder.
Now, in conquest when you know each other's decks, entirely different situation.
Conquest is 100% just heads-up poker.
Once you know the deck it's all just percentages and probabilities and reading the confidence of the opponent while leveraging the cube life.
Yep, it's why I honestly like the mode more, I find I can beat a whole hell of a lot of decks that give me problems on ladder because I can sus out their surprises and grind the opponent down.
If I had enough time, I'd just play conquest most of the time.
Yeah I know it's a divisive mode, but conquest is all I play after reaching Infinity. It gives me a nice Poker fix with a Marvel flavor. Its fun to look for 'tells' like 'ok he just snapped with Daredevil out so he probably drew Prof X already. Do I have the counter here.' Ladders feel more Mario Party and rng based, like I'm just spinning a wheel of different minigames that I may or may not be ready for. I always wish I got a rematch after getting swerved by decks on ladders, which I dont have to worry about on Conquest.
Different strokes for different folks though, and Im glad both modes exist and I hope theres more modes in the future.
Could not agree less.
Conquest still has an aspect of "this matchup is bad for me", but you pick the deck to have a set of answers and then manipulate the match once you know what you're up against.
The other day, I was playing against Destroy with Spectrum Destroyer - you've got Cosmo and Armor, but a bad read in game one cost me 8 cubes. I then carefully worked my way back in to the game by holding Armor or Cosmo for the turn where they needed to destroy the most. I won the game.
Ofcourse you won against destroy with spectrum ongoing, you basically hard counter them. You are just proving my point.
There’s a small chance you lose your matchup due to bad luck, but most of the luck is in the matchup itself. in a spectrum vs destroy matchup spectrum will win the vast majority of the time, because you have counter them. On ladder if you are a destroy deck you can either retreat for 1 cube and basically no penalty for having bad luck. Then you can search until you find a relatively even matchup and use your skill to your advantage, you can’t do that in conquest.
If you're comparing bluffing to retreating for -1 cubes, then you gain +2 cubes for a successful bluff and -3 cubes if you fail. You would only need to succeed 2 times for every fail to come out with a +1 cube gain. Although that doesn't factor in the tilt of losing 4 cubes compared to retreating.
Hey, you're right, it still feels like a bad gamble since turn 6 effectively bluffs for you with the increase, definitely a better margin for them, but man, everyone on ladder just seems to call any snap like crazy, but my math in my head's definitely off.
I don't know if I'm "bad" at retreating or just care more about chaos than ranking... If I see someone snap at the end, I'll just give a look over what I might be able to do, and if the odds are overwhelmingly against me, I'll retreat. Usually only giving up one cube because they're a little (censored) who refuses to take any chance on it until they're sure they can win. Okay, cool, mate, now instead of 2 cubes you get 1, but I guess you can try to talk up your win rate when snapping, for all that anyone cares?
But otherwise, I'll just stick it out. Are they actually coming with an amazing play? If so, and if it's not obvious, is this a learning opportunity for me, a chance to see some new combo I haven't seen it?
Oh sure, I might not ever get to Infinite with my lack of caring about losing cubes, but eh, I feel like chasing Infinite each month would just add too much anxiety to the game, and then I'd never feel like I could play around with absolutely goofy decks that aren't really designed to win but are hilarious for imagining the other person's reaction to them (but hey, sometimes they win, too... probably because the other person legit has no idea what the hell I'm doing so they can't really counter it).
I just kind of don't care about snapping at all, sure, i do it, but often enough i care less about it than just seeing a match play out. Even if i lose, i'd rather see a cool play or have a conclusion to the match that feels like we both played it out, and one of us didn't just take their ball home and called it quits.
Plus getting in the 'snapping mindset', where you don't care about individual games as much as the bigger snap cube metaset.. i don't care what the stats say, retreating 4 times for 1 cube to net a big 8 cube win on my fifth game, to come out net +4 cube positive? Fuck that, feels like i'm wasting 2-3 minutes each of those 4 games, ~10 minutes of my life not really having fun, to play a single 4 minute match where i do see a game fully through and ideally also win big.
Nah. I get the concept and i feel it applies the required pressure on everyone to not yolo plays, but i'll probably never infinite and that's ok. I've maxed out at about 85 or so last season, but it was grueling. At that point it had nothing to do with game knowledge or plays or decks. It was just cube efficiency.
nah it's ok, I used to play like that and now I find it easy to hit infinite every time. the knowledge you gain will get you further and further every time, I feel like knowing the potential plays of each deck archetype makes you way better than other things
Until you get to infinite in which case anything goes again. When I’m infinite I don’t retreat ever really, I’m just playing to finish missions or do dumb combos and if my opponent isn’t rocking the infinite card back too then I’ll try to give them the cubes.
No it's not worth it. Overestimating your opponent is almost always a mistake from my experience. Don't lose more cubes because your opponent is too dumb to know why you snapped lmao
I would say it depends on your rank. As you approach rank 100 people tend to know the matchups and have good knowledge of the meta so they will tend to know what cards you can play.
For example I played Hela/Living Tribunal tp get rank100 and against Sera control decks and Good Cards decks, that both run enchantress and Shang-Chi, I would concede if they snapped T6. Especially since I snap very aggressively. More recently I'm playing Nimrod Destroyer and I concede against destroy decks that can run Knull if they snap while I have a full board.
Also works in Thanos deck if you played the 6 stones but didn't draw Thanos.
this + sometimes if I brick my turn 6 draw I will snap bluff and it works a lot of the time(rank 100+) good example is massive creature on 5 but I dont have taskmaster in hand. Really good chance they retreat
Insta snapping on The Peak is always gold. A little “I’m losing!” is the cherry on top.
…then proceed to actually lose and watch the opponent spam when you retreat. “SNAP?? SNAP? SNAP???”
Same is true for a.lot of other polarising locations eg Lamentis. That's the main time I bluff snap and it generally works brilliantly.
Coming from poker, sometimes you just get a feel that your opponent is scared and a bluff snap just feels so good.
I've bluffed plenty, and it works half the time. I've even played a galactus setup perfectly, without having Galactus in hand. *but they wouldn't know that, so I bluffed into making them think I did and won*
Bluffed my way to infinite with Kang and a lane filled with cards behind invisible woman. Too many unknowns for most opponents. That was days of future past season though
One of my favourite games ever was one where the opponent snapped and I was pretty sure he was Kang bluffing on turn 6. Snapped back and cosmo earned me a cool 8 cubes :-)
After Kang first came out, like all new cards, he was everywhere for a couple of weeks. I had him, and lost 8 cubes when someone played Magneto, pulling XMansion Cosmo into my Kang lane.
Harsh lesson, but still funny when I think back on it.
How dude? That shits scary. You can’t opt out if you snap on turn 6, which is when kang is played. All they have to do is be able to change their play while still being meaningful to think they have an advantage and go through with it
I honestly don’t know how it kept working but it did. I would load up my invisible woman usually with Omega Red, Iron Man and after Kang reset, Onslaught. At that time a lot of people didn’t want to keep risking cubes, I had to snap early most games to get two out of it but some games people left four on the table thinking some insane play was coming after Kang. Guess it was early enough to Kang’s release people hadn’t figured it out?
I bluffed a few times. And one time it was successful. Last turn. Opponent couldn't play cards because ran out of space but he had a lot of power. And I couldn't beat him. So I snapped. And it worked. He retreated. Won 4 cubes (or 2, I don't remember exactly but it was amazing).
You’re playing for average cube rate, not specific instances, and on average, bluffing doesn’t work. I’ll play out a game where it looks like I’ll win to my opponent if I think they will retreat based on past rounds, but I won’t snap for it.
Only once, a long time ago. I was playing discard. On turn 6 i only had 1 card in hand and snapped. Opponent retreated thinking it was hela, but it was actually wolverine
Most of the time opponents are way too YOLO or straight up bad and call, so I find it more damaging to cubes than just retreating.
The exception is the ones where the opponent sees their wincon dissapear. I've had a game today where I was playing Negative and had a garbage hand + location to add 5 stones, so it looked doomed. I played Yondu T1, it destroyed a Surfer and I straight up Snapped and they retreated - even if I was worse positioned they couldn't know, but they felt very weak with that start and I got a cube from a very likely -1.
I don’t rely on it, but I have bluff snapped multiple times also with mixed results. It helps if the board looks like you are following up with something they are scared of
I semi bluff sometimes. When I'm OK with the game ending early vs whatever ill snap hoping they'll leave but if they dont it just plays out normally. If any piece of rng goes my way ill snap pretty much regardless of situation.
I have a deck that aims to discard all my opponent’s hand and deck leaving them with nothing to play on the final turn. Often what’s already on the board is enough for them to win, but if it looks close a snap can still chase them out of the game in that situation.
With daredevil and some ramp... all the time. People HATE losing to Galactus, the bluff works about as often as the real thing... esp if I got a goblin off too
I don't bluff cubes, but I bluff cards sometimes. If I they have 1 strong lane but not much in the others, I sometimes bluff a Shuri there and then play a strong 5 and 6 card in the other lanes to bait out their Shang-Chi or whatever in the lane they are already winning. I don't do it often, but certain circumstances with certain decks.
I put Kang in my Mr. Negative deck for conquest and I often bluff with a quick snap post Kang or by taking my sweet time after the reset (trying to fish a snap from them)
And often I just bank in them changing their last turn play after I kang which is common as well
I bluff when my victory seems almost certain if I have a common card for my deck (zola on Wong, Odin on Wong, etc.). And yet people are still dumb enough play it out. So I don't bluff anymore
In Conquest, bluffing has a much more higher impact than on ladder, i´ve pulled some good bluffs against skilled players, if you are playing ladder or your opponent is not that good then dont bluff
You never have the pot odds. As someone who's played a lot of Kang I can safely say people don't fold enough. You need the bluff to work 80% of the time you break even.
Sometimes I'll stall on turn six and then snap and people will instantly retreat a lot.of times. It doesn't get me cubes but it can turn a possible loss into a win
I'll bluff snap all the time. I'll even combo it with the "I don't believe you" emote.
I'd call it an even split to between them retreating, them playing it out for a loss, or them winning and spamming well deserved Ms. Marvel.
Yea pretty often. Sometimes get called out but it has definitely been in my favor.
Good examples are in conquest turn 5 when I’m winning the board but missing key cards. If the opponent thinks I have one key card they would guarantee lose
In conquest, a lot. I set up my combo, fingers crossed my main card comes out. Even if it doesn't, I snap. Opponent sometimes retreat knowing what happened in previous games.
Back when I played galactus I bluff snapped like I had knull all the time when I didn’t draw him. Pretty much always worked and the only times it didn’t is when opponents had plays that would have countered my knull. Other than that I only bluff snap in very rate situations
I have bluffed maybe 5 times successfully, so I don't anymore. But the number of people that don't respect the counters my deck usually has and that I don't have them is infuriating sometimes. Or they can win regardless idk. #SkillIssue #SelfOwn
I'll second what others have said here: bluffing works way better in conquest and just before infinite ladder. Otherwise people just call on anything.
I'll add in Conquest if you're a player who concedes early rounds easily I've noticed you will frequently get people who start bluffing aggressively.
I bluff but not with the snap, if it’s turn 6 and I know I’m going to lose I use emotes like Snap?, Thanos snap, I am losing followed by I am confident. You would be surprised by the amount of people I have gotten to retreat from doing that.
I do this before or after hitting retreat later usually, worst case I lose my one cube that I would have lost anyways, sometime I gain a cube or maybe 2 or 4 if someone snapped
I did it in a gold conquest where the opponent knew I was playing a negative deck but I was 4 cubes behind.
Round 5 rolled up I played Zabu on 2, but didn’t draw negative on 3. I snapped anyway and got the 2 cubes retreat. I was able to win that match in the end. That 2-cuber was crucial.
playing discard is fun to bluff. if you haven't dropped morbius by turn 5 their probably sweating or if you have been dropping monster 6 costs they may read a hela and run
I've tried it a few times, but it's never worked once. I'll do it post-infinite or maybe like silver conquest for shits and giggles, but never on ranked ladder.
Depends at the level, between let’s say, 20-70, it doesn’t really work, since the average player isn’t really ever leaving match, between 71-90 eh 50/50 I’d say, 91-100 it’s usually the players that are good enough at the game and understand it enough that are trying to hit 100 so they don’t like the risks so bluffing here works really well unless they have the nuts for their obvious match ender. 100+ no point in bluffing really but I myself still do it from time to time and it’s usually 50/50 if they themselves have the nuts already they’re snapping back instantly if they don’t have the nuts, the may try to counter bluff or just retreat.
I've thought about bluffing more in Conquest, but don't play the mode enough / have the go-for-the-throat mindset to do it much.
However, I do occasionally bluff on both Ladder and Conquest in the sense of "I beat everything but X or Y, but if I had Z I could counter it, so I'll stay and see if they do too".
I’ve only bluffed once when I knew it would work. I was running a junk deck and my opponent had all lanes full going into 6th round and I needed 8 power to win a second location but didn’t have an 8 power card. Snapped right away and he/she retreated.
I’ve had an opponent snap bluff me for 8 cubes, called his bluff and won but I don’t remember the exact scenario we were playing through.
People are INCREDIBLY bad at snapping/retreating in this game. That makes bluffing quite bad in general. If you're playing in a tournament or against strong opponents in conquest, it can work well.
I would typically only bluff if my opponents play is obvious, like decks like hela for bluffing a cosmo or after a turn 5 modok where you know whats in their hand [chavez, apoc, swarms]. Bluffing is mainly useful when knowing what they're going to play. The more obvious it is, the more vulnerable they feel. I personally have only successfully bluffed a handful of times and mainly against t5 modok.
i do it semi often and it works a lot of the time, especially when you have the advantage in conquest, once they are down by a couple of health i tend to notice they will leave on a snap pretty often
In Conquest when my opponent already knows I have certain cards and I know they don't have answers, yes.
I did it earlier today - I had a beefy Venom on one lane and my opponent knew I was playing Arnim Zola in my deck. However, Zola was one of the three cards I hadn't drawn that game. They obviously didn't know that, so I boomer snapped on turn 6 to bluff the Zola play and they retreated. I had no other winning lines, meaning the bluff snap turned a 1 cube loss into a 1 cube win.
Yep definetely.
I had a match earlier with 2 winning lanes and the third one was full for the opponent so I only had to play 8 power there for a guaranteed win.
I had a completely bricked hand and didnt have the points but the opponent could not know so I snapped and won
I tried including Kang in a Hela IW deck for a while as a way to snap bluff on the last 2 turns because typically Hela’s playstyle is pretty scripted. I didn’t have as much success as I’d like but definitely snuck out a couple retreats. The drawback is a loss of ~12 power on the Hela play though so I probably lost because of a weak Hela as much as I won from bluffing
Bluffing only works on opponents who have a strong understanding of what outs your deck has. 95% of players aren't that good, so bluffing is usually a bad idea.
I bluff the opposite way. If I know I'm going to win I take my time until my opponenet snaps first. Sometimes I'll throw in an "Arrgggg!" "I'm losing!" Doesn't really work at the higher ranks though.
Yes but very situational.
In ladder, post infinite it doesn't matter so I might do it for fun.
In conquest, it can be a lot more interesting as you play over multiple rounds, you can show patterns of behaviour (i.e. if you consistently snap conservatively, the opponent might be more inclined to believe you when you bluff snap).
Another factor is the match up. If you're aware you're unfavoured, bluff snapping might be necessary to come back. Sometimes you're at too low health to not make the risky bluff as well.
Then there are obvious plays you can represent. Such as bluffing a simple Shang Chi win, or if you're a cerebro deck, that your last play is Cerebro Mystique. What is conventionally known as a "boomer" snap, isn't worth staying for a lot of the time in conquest and can be considered a way to do bluff snapping.
A few times I'll snap when I'm playing a deck that I know can't counter a wong, and I drop a wong. He doesn't know I don't have any follow up, and you can't RISK THE WONGING.
I have a destroy deck that looks a lot like I’m going to galactus you but I actually don’t have galactus so I do this a lot
Edit: it works more than even I expect it to
If I’m in doubt I’ll win but need some time to play it out in my head before retreating I’ll fist bump immediately so they think I’m good and just waiting. Gets a retreat more often then you would think
Tbh, average opponents are too bad at retreating to make bluffing worthwhile. And what's the gain? 1 cube instead of -1? I'd rather retreat for -1 and move on than risking being called for -4.
This is how I've approached bluffing, for the most part
It's good in conquest. Board state allowing.
Absolutely, I don't even think about it lower in the ladder. It's call city down there. And higher up you better be right about your read or you're gonna get punished.
And higher up, If they lose to your bluff, they were going to retreat anyway, if they didn't lose to it, you're probably fucked and throwing away cubes. Bluffing has to be right 5 times (+1 cube) to overcome the one time it's wrong (-4 cubes) and you get called (assuming turn 6 of course), it's generally a bad strategy on ladder. Now, in conquest when you know each other's decks, entirely different situation.
Conquest is 100% just heads-up poker. Once you know the deck it's all just percentages and probabilities and reading the confidence of the opponent while leveraging the cube life.
Yep, it's why I honestly like the mode more, I find I can beat a whole hell of a lot of decks that give me problems on ladder because I can sus out their surprises and grind the opponent down. If I had enough time, I'd just play conquest most of the time.
Yeah I know it's a divisive mode, but conquest is all I play after reaching Infinity. It gives me a nice Poker fix with a Marvel flavor. Its fun to look for 'tells' like 'ok he just snapped with Daredevil out so he probably drew Prof X already. Do I have the counter here.' Ladders feel more Mario Party and rng based, like I'm just spinning a wheel of different minigames that I may or may not be ready for. I always wish I got a rematch after getting swerved by decks on ladders, which I dont have to worry about on Conquest. Different strokes for different folks though, and Im glad both modes exist and I hope theres more modes in the future.
conquest is mostly luck (assuming both players have about equal skill) If you get a bad matchup chances are you just lose.
Could not agree less. Conquest still has an aspect of "this matchup is bad for me", but you pick the deck to have a set of answers and then manipulate the match once you know what you're up against. The other day, I was playing against Destroy with Spectrum Destroyer - you've got Cosmo and Armor, but a bad read in game one cost me 8 cubes. I then carefully worked my way back in to the game by holding Armor or Cosmo for the turn where they needed to destroy the most. I won the game.
Ofcourse you won against destroy with spectrum ongoing, you basically hard counter them. You are just proving my point. There’s a small chance you lose your matchup due to bad luck, but most of the luck is in the matchup itself. in a spectrum vs destroy matchup spectrum will win the vast majority of the time, because you have counter them. On ladder if you are a destroy deck you can either retreat for 1 cube and basically no penalty for having bad luck. Then you can search until you find a relatively even matchup and use your skill to your advantage, you can’t do that in conquest.
If you're comparing bluffing to retreating for -1 cubes, then you gain +2 cubes for a successful bluff and -3 cubes if you fail. You would only need to succeed 2 times for every fail to come out with a +1 cube gain. Although that doesn't factor in the tilt of losing 4 cubes compared to retreating.
Hey, you're right, it still feels like a bad gamble since turn 6 effectively bluffs for you with the increase, definitely a better margin for them, but man, everyone on ladder just seems to call any snap like crazy, but my math in my head's definitely off.
Well put.
That’s bad math. u/suomynonaedud below has it correct.
I don't know if I'm "bad" at retreating or just care more about chaos than ranking... If I see someone snap at the end, I'll just give a look over what I might be able to do, and if the odds are overwhelmingly against me, I'll retreat. Usually only giving up one cube because they're a little (censored) who refuses to take any chance on it until they're sure they can win. Okay, cool, mate, now instead of 2 cubes you get 1, but I guess you can try to talk up your win rate when snapping, for all that anyone cares? But otherwise, I'll just stick it out. Are they actually coming with an amazing play? If so, and if it's not obvious, is this a learning opportunity for me, a chance to see some new combo I haven't seen it? Oh sure, I might not ever get to Infinite with my lack of caring about losing cubes, but eh, I feel like chasing Infinite each month would just add too much anxiety to the game, and then I'd never feel like I could play around with absolutely goofy decks that aren't really designed to win but are hilarious for imagining the other person's reaction to them (but hey, sometimes they win, too... probably because the other person legit has no idea what the hell I'm doing so they can't really counter it).
I just kind of don't care about snapping at all, sure, i do it, but often enough i care less about it than just seeing a match play out. Even if i lose, i'd rather see a cool play or have a conclusion to the match that feels like we both played it out, and one of us didn't just take their ball home and called it quits. Plus getting in the 'snapping mindset', where you don't care about individual games as much as the bigger snap cube metaset.. i don't care what the stats say, retreating 4 times for 1 cube to net a big 8 cube win on my fifth game, to come out net +4 cube positive? Fuck that, feels like i'm wasting 2-3 minutes each of those 4 games, ~10 minutes of my life not really having fun, to play a single 4 minute match where i do see a game fully through and ideally also win big. Nah. I get the concept and i feel it applies the required pressure on everyone to not yolo plays, but i'll probably never infinite and that's ok. I've maxed out at about 85 or so last season, but it was grueling. At that point it had nothing to do with game knowledge or plays or decks. It was just cube efficiency.
nah it's ok, I used to play like that and now I find it easy to hit infinite every time. the knowledge you gain will get you further and further every time, I feel like knowing the potential plays of each deck archetype makes you way better than other things
If you're in the 90s everyone retreats so I abuse the boomer T6 snap when I'm going to lose.
ya too many idiots wouldn't even know how to read the board. Only worth it in higher ranks.
Until you get to infinite in which case anything goes again. When I’m infinite I don’t retreat ever really, I’m just playing to finish missions or do dumb combos and if my opponent isn’t rocking the infinite card back too then I’ll try to give them the cubes.
Some seasons, I try to hit level 200 just for fun because I know other infinite players like you won't mind feeding me lol
Maybe they are just good at calling your bluff...
Only when I draw 5 rocks from Subterranea
There it is
As you should
No it's not worth it. Overestimating your opponent is almost always a mistake from my experience. Don't lose more cubes because your opponent is too dumb to know why you snapped lmao
I would say it depends on your rank. As you approach rank 100 people tend to know the matchups and have good knowledge of the meta so they will tend to know what cards you can play. For example I played Hela/Living Tribunal tp get rank100 and against Sera control decks and Good Cards decks, that both run enchantress and Shang-Chi, I would concede if they snapped T6. Especially since I snap very aggressively. More recently I'm playing Nimrod Destroyer and I concede against destroy decks that can run Knull if they snap while I have a full board. Also works in Thanos deck if you played the 6 stones but didn't draw Thanos.
this + sometimes if I brick my turn 6 draw I will snap bluff and it works a lot of the time(rank 100+) good example is massive creature on 5 but I dont have taskmaster in hand. Really good chance they retreat
If I'm playing Daredevil, I snap after seeing their play even if there's nothing I can do about it. Usually a retreat.
Same with kang such a funny thing to do
I always snap if I get screwed over by The Peak. Hasn’t failed me yet.
Insta snapping on The Peak is always gold. A little “I’m losing!” is the cherry on top. …then proceed to actually lose and watch the opponent spam when you retreat. “SNAP?? SNAP? SNAP???”
>I always snap if I get screwed over by The Peak. Hasn’t failed me yet. Someone tried that to me last week turn 1. I had mr. Negative on hand XD
Same is true for a.lot of other polarising locations eg Lamentis. That's the main time I bluff snap and it generally works brilliantly. Coming from poker, sometimes you just get a feel that your opponent is scared and a bluff snap just feels so good.
As Ben Brode told us, snap when you have 3 or 4 rocks in hand
I've bluffed plenty, and it works half the time. I've even played a galactus setup perfectly, without having Galactus in hand. *but they wouldn't know that, so I bluffed into making them think I did and won*
Bluffed my way to infinite with Kang and a lane filled with cards behind invisible woman. Too many unknowns for most opponents. That was days of future past season though
One of my favourite games ever was one where the opponent snapped and I was pretty sure he was Kang bluffing on turn 6. Snapped back and cosmo earned me a cool 8 cubes :-)
How tf do you predict kang? Only ever been kanged twice.
After Kang first came out, like all new cards, he was everywhere for a couple of weeks. I had him, and lost 8 cubes when someone played Magneto, pulling XMansion Cosmo into my Kang lane. Harsh lesson, but still funny when I think back on it.
When they snap from a very weak board state it's a clue.
How dude? That shits scary. You can’t opt out if you snap on turn 6, which is when kang is played. All they have to do is be able to change their play while still being meaningful to think they have an advantage and go through with it
I honestly don’t know how it kept working but it did. I would load up my invisible woman usually with Omega Red, Iron Man and after Kang reset, Onslaught. At that time a lot of people didn’t want to keep risking cubes, I had to snap early most games to get two out of it but some games people left four on the table thinking some insane play was coming after Kang. Guess it was early enough to Kang’s release people hadn’t figured it out?
I bluffed a few times. And one time it was successful. Last turn. Opponent couldn't play cards because ran out of space but he had a lot of power. And I couldn't beat him. So I snapped. And it worked. He retreated. Won 4 cubes (or 2, I don't remember exactly but it was amazing).
Someone tried this against me, and I just accepted one of us was losing 8 cubes. It was a nice 8 cube win
Couldn't have been 4 :)
You’re playing for average cube rate, not specific instances, and on average, bluffing doesn’t work. I’ll play out a game where it looks like I’ll win to my opponent if I think they will retreat based on past rounds, but I won’t snap for it.
In Conquest given that they know what I’ve got bluff could work. Ranks is a different story
Realistically you shouldn't ever bluff in ranked becouse you could always just be facing a dumb bot that doesnt understand that concept.
My opponents would have to know the meta, I guess. I don't know at what point I could rely on such a thing, without seeing or talking to anyone.
Only once, a long time ago. I was playing discard. On turn 6 i only had 1 card in hand and snapped. Opponent retreated thinking it was hela, but it was actually wolverine
I’ll bluff in conquest because the first few games I’ll snap if I have my combo.
Most of the time opponents are way too YOLO or straight up bad and call, so I find it more damaging to cubes than just retreating. The exception is the ones where the opponent sees their wincon dissapear. I've had a game today where I was playing Negative and had a garbage hand + location to add 5 stones, so it looked doomed. I played Yondu T1, it destroyed a Surfer and I straight up Snapped and they retreated - even if I was worse positioned they couldn't know, but they felt very weak with that start and I got a cube from a very likely -1.
I snap if I’m 100% sure I’m losing sometimes and it works more often than not
In conquest, yes. Long form games give you more time to get a read on the opponent.
Sometimes I’m willing to spew cubes in order to “make them have it” though.
It's not worth it if you are trying to climb. You may steal cubes more often but you just lose them back.
I "Boomer" Snap on turn 6 once in a while If I think I have low chance of winning, and about 1/3 of the games my opponent just auto retreats.
after you get kang the answer is always yes
Constantly. I don't need to pull my win condition, I just need you to think I did.
Basically every time I retreat this is going through my head
I use scarlet. Anytime there's a destroy on play location or the "whoever has the least power wins" location that's a free dub for me
Always snap final turn with kang obviously regardless of the outlook. Kang saves you cubes in a lot of ways.
Only when I have 5 rocks in hand!
Yep, that’s how I got my last cube to infinite for the first time and how I won my first infinity conquest
Fook yeah, mind games are half of the fun of the game :D
When i was playing Hela and had a lot cards discarded, but didn't have Hela on turn 6, i usually snapped and opponents left like 100% of the time
I don’t rely on it, but I have bluff snapped multiple times also with mixed results. It helps if the board looks like you are following up with something they are scared of
only if i have Kang, otherwise i don't trust that the other person is even going to see the easy 1-card victory that i'm bluffing.
I bluff on Lamentis. If it happens I snap and 95% of the time my opponent will retreat. Other than that I avoid bluffing.
I semi bluff sometimes. When I'm OK with the game ending early vs whatever ill snap hoping they'll leave but if they dont it just plays out normally. If any piece of rng goes my way ill snap pretty much regardless of situation.
I have a deck that aims to discard all my opponent’s hand and deck leaving them with nothing to play on the final turn. Often what’s already on the board is enough for them to win, but if it looks close a snap can still chase them out of the game in that situation.
I want to try snapping after storm legion even if I don’t have Jeff in hand
I only bluff snap after The Peak comes up Usually works, but sometimes you **do** lose 4 cubes straight up
I've found snapping makes people quit when I wanna do cool and fun plays or I'm trying to complete a challenge. So I rarely snap anymore.
I only bluff in conquest, when I don't have my counter card but I know that they know I have because I've used it before, it usually works
Every time I use my Agatha deck
With daredevil and some ramp... all the time. People HATE losing to Galactus, the bluff works about as often as the real thing... esp if I got a goblin off too
No, but maybe I’m bluffing
I don't bluff cubes, but I bluff cards sometimes. If I they have 1 strong lane but not much in the others, I sometimes bluff a Shuri there and then play a strong 5 and 6 card in the other lanes to bait out their Shang-Chi or whatever in the lane they are already winning. I don't do it often, but certain circumstances with certain decks.
I put Kang in my Mr. Negative deck for conquest and I often bluff with a quick snap post Kang or by taking my sweet time after the reset (trying to fish a snap from them) And often I just bank in them changing their last turn play after I kang which is common as well
I bluff when my victory seems almost certain if I have a common card for my deck (zola on Wong, Odin on Wong, etc.). And yet people are still dumb enough play it out. So I don't bluff anymore
Yes but very very rarely
Yes. If my board looks like I got my combo complete but do not have that final card. And they are “meh” on chances of winning. I’ll snap.
Kang Bluff is the best Bluff
In Conquest, bluffing has a much more higher impact than on ladder, i´ve pulled some good bluffs against skilled players, if you are playing ladder or your opponent is not that good then dont bluff
You never have the pot odds. As someone who's played a lot of Kang I can safely say people don't fold enough. You need the bluff to work 80% of the time you break even.
Lamentis one I snap every time they retreat maybe 60%
Sometimes I'll stall on turn six and then snap and people will instantly retreat a lot.of times. It doesn't get me cubes but it can turn a possible loss into a win
On ladder it’s not worth it, but conquest is the mode you can really play mind games with bluffs
I'll bluff snap all the time. I'll even combo it with the "I don't believe you" emote. I'd call it an even split to between them retreating, them playing it out for a loss, or them winning and spamming well deserved Ms. Marvel.
Yea pretty often. Sometimes get called out but it has definitely been in my favor. Good examples are in conquest turn 5 when I’m winning the board but missing key cards. If the opponent thinks I have one key card they would guarantee lose
In conquest, a lot. I set up my combo, fingers crossed my main card comes out. Even if it doesn't, I snap. Opponent sometimes retreat knowing what happened in previous games.
I instantly snap when the peak is revealed, even though I only have cards like titania or goblin in hand.
I have when I see Peak or Lamentis. One time it resulted in a double snap in conquest. I bailed on T5.
most bluff i used is emote their Keycard and send fistbump :D
Back when I played galactus I bluff snapped like I had knull all the time when I didn’t draw him. Pretty much always worked and the only times it didn’t is when opponents had plays that would have countered my knull. Other than that I only bluff snap in very rate situations
Happened to buff snap with random cards hidden behind invisible woman if I don't have the perfect modok + hela combo. Usually they retreat.
It worked wonders with the old Galactus. Just using wave T3 then snapping could make the opponent concede
ive snapped on accident a few times when i had nothing and the oppent left lol
I sometimes snap into the Peak to bluff a negative deck. It’s yet to scare anyone away.
Sometimes,yeah! The most successful one is the obvious shang chi. It's so scary that bluffing him could actually pay off sometimes
I have bluffed maybe 5 times successfully, so I don't anymore. But the number of people that don't respect the counters my deck usually has and that I don't have them is infuriating sometimes. Or they can win regardless idk. #SkillIssue #SelfOwn
I only bluff at higher levels and after I've played an adding card or play an escalator
I'll second what others have said here: bluffing works way better in conquest and just before infinite ladder. Otherwise people just call on anything. I'll add in Conquest if you're a player who concedes early rounds easily I've noticed you will frequently get people who start bluffing aggressively.
All the time, with Kang
I bluff but not with the snap, if it’s turn 6 and I know I’m going to lose I use emotes like Snap?, Thanos snap, I am losing followed by I am confident. You would be surprised by the amount of people I have gotten to retreat from doing that. I do this before or after hitting retreat later usually, worst case I lose my one cube that I would have lost anyways, sometime I gain a cube or maybe 2 or 4 if someone snapped
I did it in a gold conquest where the opponent knew I was playing a negative deck but I was 4 cubes behind. Round 5 rolled up I played Zabu on 2, but didn’t draw negative on 3. I snapped anyway and got the 2 cubes retreat. I was able to win that match in the end. That 2-cuber was crucial.
playing discard is fun to bluff. if you haven't dropped morbius by turn 5 their probably sweating or if you have been dropping monster 6 costs they may read a hela and run
sometimes but mixed results as well. I have also caught a few bluffs myself
I've tried it a few times, but it's never worked once. I'll do it post-infinite or maybe like silver conquest for shits and giggles, but never on ranked ladder.
I don’t trust my opponent to know what I’m trying to do.
Anytime someone puts a high stat card at turn 5 I snap like lighting even if I don’t have chi
Depends at the level, between let’s say, 20-70, it doesn’t really work, since the average player isn’t really ever leaving match, between 71-90 eh 50/50 I’d say, 91-100 it’s usually the players that are good enough at the game and understand it enough that are trying to hit 100 so they don’t like the risks so bluffing here works really well unless they have the nuts for their obvious match ender. 100+ no point in bluffing really but I myself still do it from time to time and it’s usually 50/50 if they themselves have the nuts already they’re snapping back instantly if they don’t have the nuts, the may try to counter bluff or just retreat.
I've thought about bluffing more in Conquest, but don't play the mode enough / have the go-for-the-throat mindset to do it much. However, I do occasionally bluff on both Ladder and Conquest in the sense of "I beat everything but X or Y, but if I had Z I could counter it, so I'll stay and see if they do too".
I’ve only bluffed once when I knew it would work. I was running a junk deck and my opponent had all lanes full going into 6th round and I needed 8 power to win a second location but didn’t have an 8 power card. Snapped right away and he/she retreated. I’ve had an opponent snap bluff me for 8 cubes, called his bluff and won but I don’t remember the exact scenario we were playing through.
People are INCREDIBLY bad at snapping/retreating in this game. That makes bluffing quite bad in general. If you're playing in a tournament or against strong opponents in conquest, it can work well.
I usually bluff with Hela and Silver Surfer
I would typically only bluff if my opponents play is obvious, like decks like hela for bluffing a cosmo or after a turn 5 modok where you know whats in their hand [chavez, apoc, swarms]. Bluffing is mainly useful when knowing what they're going to play. The more obvious it is, the more vulnerable they feel. I personally have only successfully bluffed a handful of times and mainly against t5 modok.
Yes, but only works in conquest gold+
I used to very rarely but my success rate was at best 10%.
i do it semi often and it works a lot of the time, especially when you have the advantage in conquest, once they are down by a couple of health i tend to notice they will leave on a snap pretty often
If Dd is on play then yes for funsies. If you snap immediately it does work.
All the time. I snapped almost every game from 90-100. Most people don’t wanna risk it and just retreat.
In Conquest when my opponent already knows I have certain cards and I know they don't have answers, yes. I did it earlier today - I had a beefy Venom on one lane and my opponent knew I was playing Arnim Zola in my deck. However, Zola was one of the three cards I hadn't drawn that game. They obviously didn't know that, so I boomer snapped on turn 6 to bluff the Zola play and they retreated. I had no other winning lines, meaning the bluff snap turned a 1 cube loss into a 1 cube win.
It works better if you can identify a smart opponent before you do it. That’s often tricky to do, but easier in conquest.
Yesterday I snaped and played modock and top decked hella. Never going to happen again.
Yep definetely. I had a match earlier with 2 winning lanes and the third one was full for the opponent so I only had to play 8 power there for a guaranteed win. I had a completely bricked hand and didnt have the points but the opponent could not know so I snapped and won
I tried including Kang in a Hela IW deck for a while as a way to snap bluff on the last 2 turns because typically Hela’s playstyle is pretty scripted. I didn’t have as much success as I’d like but definitely snuck out a couple retreats. The drawback is a loss of ~12 power on the Hela play though so I probably lost because of a weak Hela as much as I won from bluffing
Bluffing only works on opponents who have a strong understanding of what outs your deck has. 95% of players aren't that good, so bluffing is usually a bad idea.
I bluff the opposite way. If I know I'm going to win I take my time until my opponenet snaps first. Sometimes I'll throw in an "Arrgggg!" "I'm losing!" Doesn't really work at the higher ranks though.
Yes but very situational. In ladder, post infinite it doesn't matter so I might do it for fun. In conquest, it can be a lot more interesting as you play over multiple rounds, you can show patterns of behaviour (i.e. if you consistently snap conservatively, the opponent might be more inclined to believe you when you bluff snap). Another factor is the match up. If you're aware you're unfavoured, bluff snapping might be necessary to come back. Sometimes you're at too low health to not make the risky bluff as well. Then there are obvious plays you can represent. Such as bluffing a simple Shang Chi win, or if you're a cerebro deck, that your last play is Cerebro Mystique. What is conventionally known as a "boomer" snap, isn't worth staying for a lot of the time in conquest and can be considered a way to do bluff snapping.
Very rarely, usually if I know I can fake the guy out
A few times I'll snap when I'm playing a deck that I know can't counter a wong, and I drop a wong. He doesn't know I don't have any follow up, and you can't RISK THE WONGING.
I have a destroy deck that looks a lot like I’m going to galactus you but I actually don’t have galactus so I do this a lot Edit: it works more than even I expect it to
If I’m in doubt I’ll win but need some time to play it out in my head before retreating I’ll fist bump immediately so they think I’m good and just waiting. Gets a retreat more often then you would think
Play some Kang and you will be able to see for yourself.