FOREWORD
Hey again, I hope you're reading this because you read my first article explaining Tactic Cards! If you havent seen that, you can check it out here! I was supposed to write about Traits, but this might need to come first since it's going to be about the basics: what you will expect when you first open the game! I realized I should've made this guide first, but here we are lol 😅 Without further ado, let's get into it!
INTERFACE
When first opening the game, you're going to want to click COLLECTION and load up your CyBlocs! Note that the picture you see below has mine loaded, so you'll have to click them once youre in the Collection tab!
COLLECTION
Once you're here, you'll be able to see your CyBlocs. Just click them and they get added to your roster. You don't have to worry about placement or anything like that because they all play in swappable positions on the field.
You will then want to click that "i" to the top right of each CyBloc to show their information! Once here, you will want to check out your CyBloc's Skills and Traits (This guy has Team Player which is a pretty decent Trait to have whenever you play this guy in a Tandem!). Once you're done reviewing this, you'll wanna go back and look at your team as a whole. This next part is IMPORTANT: You will need to compare your CyBloc's Skills and Traits with each other. While Traits play a huge part, which we can go in-depth in the next article, I will share with you the best strategy into maximizing your wins!
As a beginner, you're going to want to identify at least two stats from each CyBloc which are the highest. It will be more efficient to target the increase of those Skills over balancing everything out. The logic behind this is that you really only want to be able to dominate at least two Skills since each Key Event is at most a Tandem with two Skill requirements. For example, if the Key Event is a Tandem Shooting and Physical, it's better that one CyBloc has a high Shooting, and the other a high Physical vs having a balanced stat for both. While again, your Traits will always give a passive bonus depending on your playstyle, I would highly recommend for you to focus on just two Skills per CyBloc!
I started the game and noticed that this CyBloc below had Shooting and Crossing as his highest stats. I chose to focus my early levels to get his Shooting to 40, then balancing stats to 30, then going for Crossing to 40, then Shooting to 50. I felt like I might have made a mistake in the early game by allocating some stats to Tackling and Passing, but really I don't think there's anything horribly wrong with having a little bit more stats in everything - its just a bit inefficient. If I could do it all over again, I would probably just focus first on getting two Skills to 50 before putting a little balance to the other Stats. This would clearly put me in an advantage with CyBlocs that are my level, even at Exhausted state (more on this below) 👇
Another reason you should be focusing on certain Skills is because you want to be able to maximize the use of Tactic Cards. A large chunk of this principle of getting a Skill 10pts higher than everything else is just in case you get Exhausted, you can still potentially be useful depending on the Key Event! If you haven't read the previous article, Exhausted happens after you choose the CyBloc for a Key Event, or if an Exhaust Card is played by your opponent - reducing all your CyBloc's stats by 10pts. In the same regard, there are also Tactic Cards which double a certain Skill, so to maximize its effect, you'll want to make sure the skill you're targeting is at its highest value.
With all this being said, please note that in the current iteration of the game, there is no way to do a "Skill Reset" so your CyBlocs Skill Increases will be permanent - that's why it's great to plan ahead depending on your Traits and team composition!
GAMEPLAY
BEFORE anything, I need to let you know that currently, the matchmaking system is a bit flawed - your first few days will be a clear pubstomp unless you get lucky. You can get matched up with CyBlocs 20+ levels away from you with no clear way to win. But don't worry, since on your first ~3 days, you're really only after the EXP! Don't mind not earning $CBT (CyBall Battery Token, sort of similar to the $SLP you get in Axie Infinity) for now, because that will come easier in the next few days! ALSO, if you're bad at math like I am, I HIGHLY RECOMMEND playing with a calculator on the side when you start. This will help you calculate your opponent's total Skill for the Key Event (+applied Traits), and it helps a lot so you know when you should play certain CyBlocs and Tactic Cards!
So let's get into it! Get back to the menu and click the EXHIBITION 3v3!
When the game starts, this will be the initial screen that you see - you'll be able to size up your opponent and see if you'll be able to dominate in certain Key Events.
Next, we move on to which Strategy you're going to want to play. Quick tip: unless they fix this soon, in your first game of the day your hand will be blank, but in the subsequent games you can kind of see which Tactic Cards you start with! Based on experience, a lot of players choose Ultra Defensive at the start because the first half is usually when you want to try and gain energy and block some shots, then try to outplay your opponent in the next half. However this will mostly depend on your CyBloc's traits because there are those that give boosts if you are either leading or trailing by the 2nd half. Remember to read up on your traits and see which strategy works best for your team overall!
This table below shows the importance of choosing your Strategy. It's pretty self explanatory, but you just have to take note of the Match Balance values which affect the RNG Range. What this basically means is that if you both choose let's say Ultra Defensive, There is a chance that if one player is in the lead for 19 points, the other player will have the chance to block the shot attempt!
So now we begin the match. I chose the Ultra Offensive Strategy here because I saw that I was dominant in most if not all the Skills of my opponent's Cyblocs. Also, I saw that my Tactic Cards were optimal to rush in because I had an Backup Power, Supercharge Fuel and Stun. 🤠
The first thing that you should be reading is your opponent's Traits. This gives you an idea which CyBlocs they may choose for certain events, and how much more or less to calculate for an increase in Skills when they use it. Make this your habit whenever you start a match so that you also familiarize yourself with the Traits.
As you can see here, I went with Stun in my first round. Since Dribbling is generally where my team has the lowest overall stats, there's no point in me trying to win that KE. This is an important discipline to know when it's best to concede a KE, if it gives you clear dominance in the next KE - save your energy or Tactic Cards for when you can exploit your opponent better. Stun prevents my opponent from using any Tactic Cards in the next KE, so I will let them score a goal on me because I can kind of tell that I can win in the next KE! 🤓
This next KE, I decided to go with Goalkeeper Glitch because I wanted to decrease the GK's attempt to block my shot. I made a huge mistake! Note that when two CyBlocs have the exact same CyPower for that KE, it will result in an automatic out of bounds, which means no one scores for that round!
This next one I was pretty sure that I was going to dominate because my total CyPower is 68, and my opponent's would be 62- BUT, my CyBloc with 38 CRO has the Team Player Trait which gives him +4 to all stats when performing in a Tandem Event, and this bumps my total CyPower to 72! My Strategy is Ultra Offensive (+2) and theirs was Balanced (0), which means their RNG Range for the GK is 8, but I would have a 10 CyPower advantage, and guarantee the goal! This safely allows me to play the Backup Power card so that I can come in the next half with 4 energy!
We conclude the first half at 1-1, and now it's time to choose another Strategy for the next 3 Key Events. I was too busy taking screenshots, for this guide, but I would have chosen Ultra Offensive because I feel confident I can dominate with 4 energy. At this point, my opponent used two tactic cards, and skipped the last one, so I know they have 2 energy.
While I had the dominant CyPower in this round, I thought that it would be a better play to roll the dice and assume that my opponent would play a 1 energy Tactic Card, and if I went with Energy Leak as I did here, it would completely drain them of energy for the next two rounds, putting me at a clear advantage in the last two KEs.
Unfortunately, they managed to score one on me, but here's where it's time to dominate. I was up 4 energy, my opponent had 0, and I was ready to take it into overdrive. Turbo Boosts doubles my Dribbling Skill for this round and guarantees me the goal - the only way to prevent this is if my opponent had Perfect Save (another nasty tactic card which 100% blocks your shot), but since I knew that they didn't have energy, and I would still have 2 by the end of the round, I went in for the kill!
At this point, I was relatively sure I was going to score the goal since I had 50 SHO while my opponent had 40 SHO, and none of the other cards would have mattered playing, I just went with Perfect Save. Worst case if I miscalculated my opponent's energy somehow, and they managed to pull something like Advanced Targeting (doubles SHO for the KE), I would guarantee the save!
It's great that the GK RNG didnt work for his favor, and I went in and bagged the dub with 3-2. You'll see which events you won in this next screen 😁
Match rewards are where you can see how much $CBT you've earned, and how much EXP you won for that match. You can read up about how much you can earn here, since different Classes and participation in events give you incremental values of $CBT and EXP earned per match. This explains why certain CyBlocs have different levels- as you can see, my favorite one is the lv30 CyBloc since it performs the best especially in Tandem Key Events!
CONCLUSION
And there you have it! I hope I was able to explain a little more about game mechanics and gameplay basics so that if you still haven't been able to start playing, you can get a better feel of the game and read up on how certain things work! Maybe this ups your chances at a scholarship or increases your earning potential by a bit 😜 Catch you on the next one, I will try and go for Traits and what you should be looking out for in-game or in the Marketplace if you're ready to choose your CyBlocs!