M.T.M.’s Deck Building 101 — The Basics
Hi, I’m M.T.M., and these are my top 5 tips for…
Sorry, force of habit, let me start again. Hi, I’m M.T.M., you might have seen a few of my articles and videos here on the app before. I also maintain the Legendary Database (warning: giant spreadsheet), where I record all sorts of information on heroes, events, relics, and anything else I can think of…and I’m pretty active in various chats in the app and answer Questions in the app too. Yeah, I’m *that* M.T.M. Nice to see you again!
As a long time player who has managed to stay (mostly) free-to-play, I don’t have the luxury of getting a nice self-contained event deck each week. That means I had to figure out how to make the most of my existing cards. Honestly, I’d probably do that anyway, it is one of my favorite parts of the game, but it is also something that can be difficult to get into with all the different mechanics and options out there.
That said, I’m hoping this article can help! The goal of this article is to assist newer players so they can build more effective decks, while also giving advanced players some additional tips and insights too.
This article will cover Affinity and Event Skill, and Leadership. So yeah, without further ado…
Affinity & Event Skill
The ancients (i.e. long term Legendary: Game of Heroes players) speak of a time long forgotten (you know, 2016 / 2017-ish) when “Rainbow decks” (that is multi-affinity decks) roamed the land and Kafziel’s battle skill was good. Modern scholars of course know Kafziel was never that good, but “Rainbow decks” really were a thing.
By the end of “Legendary Generation 1,” however, these “Rainbow decks” had largely given way to mono-affinity decks, and now in “Legendary Generation 3,” those have largely given way to decks of a single affinity *and* event skill. The game’s mechanics are now set up in such a way to hopefully make deck building simpler and more rewarding, allowing players to do well even if they don’t want to delve into every hero and ability.
Yes, you can mix things up a bit — using a Slayer or two in a Commander deck is very common and there are even opportunities to combine affinities to create unexpected and powerful decks — but mono-affinity, mono-event skill is a good baseline to start from when looking to build your deck. It won’t work quite as well without the right event skill, but depending on what you’ve got, sometimes the best choice for an Earth Commander deck might be your Earth Slayer deck.
Leadership
In “Legendary Generation 3,” Leadership has kind of become the “is it plugged in?” of deckbuilding. Simple and straightforward, but something even advanced players occasionally mess up. Standard Leadership is now a 300% bonus to Damage and Health for all other heroes of that affinity and event Skill — such as all Dark Commanders or Water Slayers — so even without thinking about it you’ll often pick the right one. The problem is some heroes have *Guild* leadership, which has a higher bonus, but only applies during Guild vs Guild combat. Taking that into an event doesn’t tend to end well.
Older heroes have much more variety in Leadership. During “Legendary Generation 2,” the standard was affinity/type instead of affinity/skill (Dark God rather than Dark Commander), and the game went through a bit of an experimental phase back in college, i.e. “Legendary Generation 1.” Back then, the game tried out all sorts of interesting combinations, even esoteric options like a Goblin hero that boosts all the stats of Ancients. Look, I said “interesting,” not “good.”
As with affinity and event skill, some of these older heroes and their Leadership skills can still be useful, but many haven’t aged well or were never particularly useful to start. So, while it is another tool you can think about working with, boring old “Legendary Generation 3” leadership is the best place to start.
And speaking of “places to start,” this article is just the start in my longer series about Deckbuilding, the next one will be about Battle Skills, so yeah, get excited. And of course if you have anything you’d want me to cover in this Deck Building series, leave it as a comment to this story. Thanks for reading. See you next time!
