The 180
by Carl Van Ostrand

Like any wholesome (or not so wholesome) form of competition, a good strategy for winning is to mess with your opponent’s head. When it comes Ophidian, I would not recommend actually touching any of your opponents during the game, but rather use that big brain of yours to throw them off balance mentally. One means to that end, is something called the 180.

Yes smarty-pants, as you may have guessed, the idea here is to make your opponent think you are playing one way, and then pull the emergency brake, spinning your game-strategy in the complete opposite direction.

For example, this could mean pretending to go for a cheer victory by hording cheer in the first two waves. As a result, when you have 10 cheer in the beginning of the 3rd wave, your opponent will predictably be trying to intercept, while also attacking first, and trying to gain cheer before you do. In other words, your opponent may overextend their self, thinking they are preventing you from winning. This is when you pull the 180.

Now go for a full offensive assault against their biggest gladiator. Make sure to pack your deck full of strong 3rd level beatdown cards (Soul Bleed, Molten Hammer, Draxile, Unborn) that you will have been saving since the first wave. They will not be expecting this full-fledged attack, and will not have the defenses available to them, because they were trying to prevent a cheer-win. Furthermore, now you will burn your cheer like a line of gunpowder. Every chance you get, steal the flow, and pound away, hopefully taking out their 6VP team leader.

Another example of a 180 would be disguising your deck as a defensive tank deck, but then spinning around to hardcore XDMG deck. For example you could play Lillith and Opac, making Lillith look like the tank, and using a lot of PSI and MYS in the first wave. You could play defensive, by healing, using pump removal, and using some hand disruption, to slow them down. You could then promote Opac in wave 2, continuing a defensive style deck, and hand disruption, hopefully minimizing their offensive. But then third wave, after they have come at you again, switch play style and start throwing down Alter Egos, and, Gandrel’s Axes, and Molten Hammers. You could even use Double Team to really throw them off guard.