By Civenge
Today I wanted to talk about something I have run into, and it took losing many games this way to realize what was happening. Let’s talk about balancing mana effiency, bridge control and the downside of always countering on your side of the field. If you have any questions, you can find me over at https://www.twitch.tv/civenge.
Mana Efficiency
In my Minion Masters Game Guide I talk about being efficient with your mana usage. It is true, that in general you want to spend less mana than your opponents do so that you build a mana lead on them. Playing a nice ranged unit in the top or bottom pocket alongside your tower is one of the best examples of countering and mana efficiency. Alternatively you can use a horde to kill Living Statue, Cleaver or other slow hitting units. Or, play a Defenso Chopper against hordes, any flying whelp or assassin unit will gain you a ton of efficiency.
However, I have had a lot of longer games where we look like we are winning, but ultimately lose. My teammate and I play nice counters to their units, we have them down to 500 or so health, they are barely surviving, and then we lose quickly. Why did I lose this game? Well it boils down to experience. In almost all of these losses, our team let the game go too long and we didn’t have bridge control enough because we were focused on countering.
Bridge Control
The number one way to lose a game, any game, of Minion Masters is to let the other team:
- Get to Mana Frenzy first and
- Hold bridges
That is literally the easiest way to lose the game. In almost every instance, outside of being in fireball territory (170 or less health of opponent), you will lose quickly if these two things happen. It is extremely critical to not only counter the other team’s units, but also watch the experience meter. If you are more than 30xp behind, you need to focus on more bridge control. In an ideal world you would be even or slightly ahead on experience so that your team gets to Mana Frenzy first.
The 2 screenshots in this article are from the same game. Notice that early on we were about even on experience and health. At only about 90 seconds later we have a sizeable lead on both experience and health, primarily due to efficient use of counters and our opponents doing inefficient things.
Summary
The worst thing you can do in Minion Masters is to play a unit right in front of your base that will immediately get destroyed without damaging the enemies push. It is better to take a few hits on your base, play a nice ranged unit in the pocket, my favorite being A.I.M. Bot due to his shield protecting from Fireball. Keep an eye on your experience and if you start to fall behind, focus more on bridge control and be okay with taking some damage on your tower. Follow these simple tips, and you will be well on your way to Contender.