User:Polavux/Strategy:Bloons Card Storm
Card archetypes
- Board clears: cards that damage all of the opponent's Bloons, like Spike Storm!, Super Monkey Storm, Thunder Druid, and Firestorm. Almost every viable deck is going to run at least a few of these.
- Scalers: Monkeys that get stronger over time, like the Wizard Monkey and Spike-o-Pult. Typically run in control decks to allow ample time for them to scale.
- Tutors: cards designed to draw cards of a specific group from a deck, such as Signal Bloon, Bloon Reinforcements!, and Rare Power. Decks using these will typically be set up so the tutors will always draw specific cards (e.g. Extractor Bloons being the only Basic Bloons in a deck running Reinforcements).
Deck archetypes
Aggro
Aggro is all about winning as fast as possible. Aggro decks focus primarily on sending bloons often, and only utilizing Monkeys and defensive Powers to leverage against an opponent's aggro push. Some aggro decks don't even use Monkeys at all, just to have enough variety of bloons. Bloon-boosting cards such as Booster Bloon, Fortify, and Bloon Embiggen are commonly picked alongside lots of Bloons worth 3 or less Gold, and will often pick Pink Bloons and/or Bloon Strike for finishers if the opponent's health is critically low. The most common Heroes for this archetype are Zee Jay, who buffs the first of his bloons sent per round, Quincy, for his cheap and flexible defenses as his Bloontonium grows from sending bloons, and Amelia, with her Bloon Shield reducing bloon damage and her discounting Act of Power aiding bloon combos. Aggro decks are almost never designed to last past Round 6.
Control
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Control is all about outlasting the opponent.
Midrange
Midrange decks, as the name implies, lie between aggro and control. They focus on surviving the earlygame Bloon spam from aggro players and attacking in the midgame before control players can fully set up. The most common Heroes for this archetype are Adora, who uses Sun Shield to prevent OTKs and Ultimate Sacrifice to weaken lategame Bloons, and Gwendolin, who uses Heat It Up / Firestorm to defend in the earlygame and Flame Strike / It's All On Fire Now + Extreme Heat to eliminate stronger Bloons from control decks. These decks typically run a few cheap attacking Monkeys to handle aggro, like Dart Monkey Twins, Burny Stuff Mortar, and Tack Shooter, but few to no expensive attackers. Support Monkeys like Monkey Investigator, Cash Drop Sniper, and Banana Farm are used to build pushes in the midgame. In addition to the usual board clearers to handle aggro, midrange decks typically handle control with Quick Ready / Hastening Bloon as finishers and Return to Sender to counter scaling Monkeys and Bloons.
Combo
Tempo
Deck-building
The most important element of building a deck is having a specific gameplan in mind. Not all viable decks fall into an archetype, but many do because they have clear plans for setting up wins that they can consistently execute. The key is not to pick cards that are good in a vacuum, but to pick cards that can execute a plan and/or work with other cards in your deck. For example, Pink Bloons are good cards, but they are rarely useful in control decks built to win in the late game by pushing large Bloons, and will often be wastes of card draws in those decks. Control decks will want to run cards that can enable those large Bloon pushes, like scalers to survive for a long time and Expert Negotiator to weaken the opponent's damage output.
It is important to consider the number of copies of each card in a deck. More copies means a card can be drawn more consistently, but also that it is more likely to be drawn when you don't need it. In general:
- Run one copy of cards you never want multiple of (e.g. Super Monkey).
- Run two copies of cards you typically want only one of, but can work with two (e.g. Dart Monkey Twins).
- Run three copies of cards you want multiple copies of in most games (e.g. Spike Storm!), or cards that can't be tutored that are required for specific setups (e.g. Bloon Embiggen).
- For even more consistency, decks often run multiple different but similar cards. For example, lategame decks will typically carry multiple copies of both MOABs and BFBs.