Dungeon Twister: A Lesson in Bluffing

[The Dude]

How to not Bluff

As many of you many know, I was fortunate enough to attend Gencon to work for the incredible company Arcane Wonders which you all may or may not heard of. They are kind of a big deal. While there, I happened across a game I had heard a lot about since my first adventures into board game, but I had not played or purchased. That game was Dungeon Twister. So, on my way to purchase Takenoko to try and strong arm m'lady into board gaming through the subtly of bamboo, pastels, and pandas, I came across Dungeon Twister 2: Prison. They couldn't tell me a price, so I closed my eyes and pulled the trigger, playing Russian Roulette with what normal people call a "budget" and bought the game. I can tell you that I have never been more disappointed to open sixty dollars of game in my life. I mean you get 16 minis, unpainted and poorly molded, a little more than 80 cards, most of which are for solo play, about 60 small cardboard tokens. And 8 tile rooms. It makes you kind of appreciate the sixty dollar price point of Mage Wars a little bit more, dig?

But, as I started reading the rules, I realized... there's a game here! And it's not a bad one, at all! For those of you who have never heard of Dungeon Twister before, the premise is that you have to score 5-6 victory points before the opponent does in order to win the game. You can do that in one of two ways: Either by killing the opponents characters, or by "escaping" the maze that is created by the 5x5 grid tiles. This is done through the allocation of Action points that you will get so many of per turn, depending on the card you play. For combat, every character has a base strength stat that you will add to with a "combat card" that is discarded after use, meaning your combat cards dwindle after a time.

You've read this far, and nothing about Mage Wars so far? I should be shot. But I promise, I'm getting there, I promise. At first glance, just like "Go", there seems to be nothing about this game that compares to Mage Wars at all. I mean, sure, you are moving dudes around and attacking, but that's about it. Right? Right guys??! Wrong. You know how I said comparing Chess to Mage Wars was kind of inaccurate in my Go Study? Well, Dungeon Twister is the Chess of Ameritrash. But, Dungeon Twister does have one very, very important lesson to teach us.

Before I go any further, let me explain the basics of combat in Dungeon Twister:

Your dudes all have a base strength. This can range from 1 to 5. To this, you can add a combat card. This can be a +0 added all the way up to a +6. This is where the "bluffing" comes in in Dungeon Twister. If you have a strength 2 guy and your opponent has a strength 3 guy, is he going to play that +6 to automatically beat you (as your +6 would only make it strength 8, his +6 would make it strength 9), or is he banking that you will plan for that and just play your +0 combat card, so you don't have to lost a good card just to lose?

It is this line of thought that we will expand upon today and relate back to Mage Wars. In the situation, what is the only surefire way to win combat for the 3 strength fellow? I'll give you a second.


Ready? Yes! It's playing the +6 card. Although your opponent may account for this by playing their +0 card, the object of the game is to score victory points, and killing opponent's characters is one of the ways to do that .  You don't want to put something to chance that you don't have to. As well, as you are guaranteeing that you will win combat, you might be wasting an opponents combat card. It's a win win for you. So why don't players do that more often? It's because players are greedy. If they can justify not playing their best card, they won't. And they will find any reason not to. ANY. Why spend resources that you can save? Isn't it inefficient to overextend so much for just one combat? Well, the true answer is that is inefficient to spend multiple lesser resources to overcome an obstacle that one larger resource could have handled.

So, how do we get greedy in Mage Wars? In many, many, many ways. Mostly we ignore what enchantments do. As a general rule of thumb (or rule of wrist):

If there is a facedown enchantment on the target, it is whatever I don't want it to be. Murphy's Mage War Law, I guess.

How do I handle that? Well, there are a few different ways you can handle that. The most obvious is Seeking Dispel. Cheap, easy, and does the job. There's more you can do, though. Making your attack unavoidable to get rid of that block, or attacking with a chump.

There is much more than just "Is that a block" though. For example, if I tanglevine you now, what are the chances that you will have a Teleport next turn? If you follow my rule, you should be saying 100 percent of time. Have an answer! Anything that you do, your opponent will probably have an answer for, and you need to account for that. The smartest play is the play that has accounted all possibilities and plays to the one with the greatest chance of success with the least path of resistance through the opponents arsenal of tricks. When using Murphy's Law in Mage Wars, don't just take into account that something bad will happen. Plan so that there is little to nothing that can go wrong.

A lot of this may seem obvious to you, and a lot of it probably is. But, as players, we are often far too greedy in our assumptions of strength and cleverness of our opponent. You cannot just blindly do whatever you want without fear of what the opponent is going to do. You have to realize that they are thinking, intelligent beings who have put just as much thought into the game as you have. This is why you have to account for everything your opponent could be doing to disrupt your strategy, because chances are, they are.

What does always playing your surefire win teach us? That the best bluff is not to bluff. Why your opponent is agonizing in agony and redundancy over whether you played your best card or your worst, you can set there in apparent bliss, getting a slight reprieve from the more difficult decisions you'll have to make. Often, players will bluff when they don't need to at all. Why waste your time bluffing when you can just have the actual thing? I'm not going to play a decoy on myself if I can just play a block or a null, unless I want to secretly hold up two more mana.

So when should you actually bluff? I think the only time you should actually bluff what you are doing to your opponent is when you are so far behind that only risk/reward can save you. And even then, look for something better to help your position before attempting to bluff. As well, you have to time your bluffs just right so that they will either stop the opponent from what they were doing, or screw the opponent completely. Often a better play is to play around the opponent's play completely, either through clever positioning of your mage, your creatures, your conjurations, or your spells, you shouldn't have to bluff in any given situation.

This small, but important lesson, is one that Dungeon Twister has drilled into me, and I hope it came across clear enough for you people! (Yes I said you people, and I meant every word) c: Learning how to not bluff and to not take risks on opponents play is vital to winning and I think is something every player should learn at one point or another. If you have any questions, or comments, feel free!

As always,

Dude.

[sdougla2]

I can think of a reason to play Decoy on myself. If I have Enchanter's Ring equipped, and I need 1 more mana to get that big creature down this turn. Or I need to check if any of the face down enchantments my opponent has on my mage are Nullify/Reverse Magic.

On the whole I agree with you that you should focus on doing things that strengthen your position rather than trying to play mind games with your opponent. That doesn't mean that there aren't times to keep an enchantment face down, just have a use for it. I'll play a face down Bear Strength or Rhino Hide and only reveal it when it becomes useful. Keeping the information hidden prevents your opponent from operating on perfect information, and lets you keep that mana in case the enchantment doesn't become relevant for a while. Maybe your opponent will waste resources treating it like another card, you haven't invested much mana, and it furthers your game plan. The difference between this and bluffing is that you may benefit from your opponent thinking the card you played is something else, but you're not relying on it, and it benefits you regardless of whether your opponent correctly identifies the card or not.

[jacksmack]

I like to play Decoy as a bluff with a certain ratio in the following scenarios

Your opponents build up early with Spawnpoint and crystals / flowers.
You rush forward and turn 2 or 3 you summon a big creature and then decoy it.
If you think he will: turn to stone, sleep, banish or teleport etc then it can be worth it.

Because all these spells costs a fortune compared to nullify, he is more or less forced to seek dispell the hidden enchantment. Compared to playing a nullify you essentially saved 2 mana, and forced the opponent to spend mana (2 or 1 if wizard). Action wise your even.

What im trying to say is, that if you present a threat to the opponent he is forced to deal with by incantation or enchantment, then using that decoy can be alright. Just remember, never to do it too often.

Also i like to put it down in a zone when its obvious that you are putting a spiked trap or teleport trap.
It has to be when the opponent doesnt have a creature he can sacrifice to trigger the trap. So you must be sure he will play around it, or simply seek dispell it.
If he plays around it, you essentially gained 2 mana a couple of rounds later when you reveal and if he dispells it you get it back right away and he spend mana.

What im trying to say is... decoy is fine when your opponent is forced to treat it as a nullify or trap simply because of the mana difference on nullify and whatever incantation he wish to use, or the bad position a teleport trap would put him in.

[Fentum]

This is all good fun and getting quite specific with the Decoy options.

I like it when I am psyched out, or I psyche out my opponent, by 'bluffing', or mind games, in a more general sense.

When I play Charmyna, I know that we are both efficient practitioners of the Wall of Thorns, Force Push, Wizard's Tower, Jet Steam malarkey. If we ever end a turn near one and other, and we have no armour on, it becomes a 'blinking contest'. Should I put on the Eagleclaw Boots? Will he disrupt his current build to drop a push on me?

I laugh out loud every time I put on Boots to find that he has some other devilment lined up for me next turn, and the boots are useless.

Is that a kind of bluffing? If so, I love it!

[ringkichard]

One of the big introductory lessons in poker is similar: bluff from a late position. In poker, players act sequentially and bluffing is a much stronger strategy from a late in the order than early; bluffing late is bluffing from a position of strength.

Very similar to Jack's point, the best time to bluff is when the structure of the game is asymmetrical. By keeping the timing of your opponent's risk/reward decision in mind you can shape his or her later plays.

I recently played a game against RedDawn where I ended my turn by casting Hawkeye face down on my Wizard during my final Quick Cast. By doing that, I bluffed a nullify/block and that influenced my opponent's card selection for the next turn. I didn't have to worry about Red choosing double Fireball with his Warlock, because I knew that the if he decided to play double attack spells the first attack would be a Flameblast. I didn't have to worry about a combo like Teleport + Force Hold either, because he'd have to strip off my potential Nullify first. Since I  wanted it to be a damage race at that point, I got a head start by bluffing, getting a free die for every attack spell I cast for no net action loss, and letting me play double Fireball myself.

I should point out, though, that I lost that game in part because I didn't know how good Purify could be against the Warlock's poison curses and missed a good opportunity to avoid damage. I'm simplifying a bit, but RedDawn outplayed me and I ended up one turn too slow: a clever bluff didn't save me from inexperience.

[wolf88]

I disagree about it being a great tactic to always choose the sure win card in Dungeon Twister.

Cards are limited in quantity except the +0. If you start playing predictably, your opponent will always choose his zero card when overmatched and thus will be able to come right back at you when you run out of the bigger cards.

In that game you have to correctly evaluate your opponent or outmanuever him completely.

[The Dude]

Hmmm... that is interesting. According to what I've read/spoken to about the game, they basically said only bluff when you might lose the game. As well, if you set up properly (Arguably the most important part of the game), you should be able to initiate group combat during the first action card cycle. The point I was trying to make with the post was that you should not bet your opponent is going to play a losing card. You have to force them into +6ing to keep their cleric or wizard alive.

Anyways, thank you for the interesting response!