Have you been unsuccessful in your attempts to make warriors that win consistently? Are you unable to find fighting rhythms for your warriors that make them look like "studs" rather than "duds"? If you answered "yes" to either of these questions, then read on! This is another article in the endless stream of articles which focuses on how to be more competitive at Duelmasters. One of my first warriors when I started playing in 1985 looked like this: 13-15-10-9-11-16-10. He was a wall of steel that went 0-5 before I DA'd him. Obviously, if this warrior went 0-5 back then, he wouldn't stand a chance of winning today. Why? Simply because the amount of information available about Duelmasters has skyrocketed. This article will discuss:
This article will attempt to help "close the gap" between you and the managers you compete against. Typically, the only difference between teams at the top and bottom of an arena is the amount of knowledge their manager has about the game. As you learn more about DM, you'll be on a more level playing field with your competition.
Understanding some of the basics
The desire to succeed at Duelmasters has prompted many managers to do an incredible amount of research about the game. In doing so, the scientific method has taken over. Hypotheses have been formed and tested, leading to theories, which were tested some more. Years later, many of these theories have become "laws" in most manager's minds. Knowing some of these "laws" is absolutely essential to success in Duelmasters.
Wit & Will: These stats are generally thought to be the two most important in warrior design. You can do without one or the other in certain instances, but if both are below 15 (i.e. Wit-13 Will-13) your warrior will usually be at a disadvantage.
Warrior overview statements: The warrior overview tells you much more about a warrior's potential than meets the eye. "Wit Statements" (those little sayings under the intelligence statement-i.e. "is VERY INTELLIGENT") can tell you your warrior's starting skill levels in every area except decisiveness. If the overview starts out, "is BRIGHT" and has no indented lower case statements below it, it's time to visit the DA.
Skills "lost" by stat training: Some trained stats make your warrior "lose" skills. For instance: training your strength from 14 to 15 makes you "lose" an attack and a parry skill unless you already have 20 skills in those skill areas. It adds a skill onto your total in that area, but now that warrior can only train 19 skills instead of 20 so in essence, skills are lost (until they can be learned back in Gateway, but that's a loooonnnggg time away for new warriors).
This is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg of knowledge that is waiting out there for you. The next obvious question is, "How do I attain this knowledge?"
Ways to get more DM info:
Now that I've given you some examples of things you need to know, I'll give you information on how to access this pool of knowledge. The key here is to expose yourself to information. You can:
1. Attend a Face to Face Tourney: Far and away the most fun of the three options, attending a FTF can be quite exciting. You have lots of time between turns to discuss the game, and many managers who are willing to discuss it with you. In fact, some managers are too willing (e.g. Man in Yellow). It's a fun experience, but can also be quite expensive.
2. Join an Alliance: There are many alliances out there for you to join. I'm personally not in one (though I'm still considering it) but many great managers are so you can learn a lot from being in one. Unfortunately for newer players, some alliances are probably closed off from them since they are relatively new to the game.
3. Join the "aRt" (Roundtable): The roundtable is basically a mailing list (e-mail) where managers talk about DM. More often than not when you ask a question, it gets answered by many different people, giving you a wide variety of different views on the subject. I believe you can join the list by e-mailing a "Subscribe Duel-L Your Name" message to "listserv@ambience.com.au". If you start receiving a bunch of messages that say "[DUEL]" in the title, you're in! There are also some homepages on the web that deal with DM as well. Use any search engine (i.e. Yahoo, Webcrawler) and search for "Duelmasters."
Obviously, there is much more information out there than I touched on in this article. Without actively seeking out some of this information, your future in DM could be rather grim. Another way for newer players to learn more is the Duelmasters Sponsor program which you can contact RSI about. If none of this sounds interesting to you, but you still want to learn more, ask one of the other managers in your home arena. I've found that people generally like to talk about Duelmasters so it should be easy to get a response to any question you might have.
--Marty Bender aka Destitute Noble