Pressuring life masterclass

 

Hello again everyone! If you are just finding this masterclass with no prior knowledge of who is writing it, my name is Joey Ross, also known as HeartPiratesTCG. I have four top 8 appearances, and countless top 64-top 16 appearances. The concepts I will delve into with this article are what I do every time I play in a tournament. If it works for me, I promise it can work for you!

 

After this masterclass you will be able to partially read board state and find a sense of direction on when and how much don to invest in characters

Life threshold

 

To start pressuring life you need to figure out what pressure actually is against the type of deck you are playing. When you get low enough in life and need to start countering hits even if they are relatively big, thats when you are really pressuring your opponent. We call this a life threshold. Once your opponent reaches this life threshold they need to start countering most attacks.

Now each type of deck has a different life threshold, or a certain amount of life they feel comfortable being at.

Its very difficult to categorize this concept because there are a lot of factors that play into it like events, blockers, leader effect etc. If you want to know about specific decks in the meta I highly recommend signing up for individual coaching with me.

For now I will give you some general examples.

Enel - 1 life threshold

Pluffy - 2 life threshold

Doflamingo - 2 life threshold

Shanks - 2 life threshold

 

Usually 5 life leaders reach their threshold around 2 life but it's not always the case so please keep that in mind.

 

Why it's important

 

The reason we're starting with life thresholds is because to accurately pressure life at the right times you need to understand how to get your opponent to a point where they feel under pressure. And if they are above their life threshold, then no big attack is going to scare them because it is null and void by just taking a hit.

 

Numbers

 

I’m sure you guys see people attacking for multiple 6k attacks at a 5k target rather than 5k and 7k. The reason being is because if your opponent is above their life threshold, they can eat the 7k hit and give you a 1k counter for the 5k hit. So with this route they are saving counter. 

Whereas multiple 6k attacks going into a leader will always warrant a 2k counter in response. The best thing about these attacking numbers is that it opens the door to a lot of small interactions to gather information. 

You could 

1. Take two 2ks out of your opponent's hand, making it easier to go for game later on when they have less counter in hand
2. Take 2 life from your opponent because they don't have any 2k counters
3. Deal one life and take two 1ks out of your opponent's hand because they don't want to go low in life (also giving you tons of information)
4. Take a life and a 2k from the opponent

 

The reason all of these options are fantastic is because when your opponent is healthy on life, you don't necessarily care about actually dealing damage in the first place. Not every life is hard earned. Sometimes people just take life because they want an extra card to play with. I see people going overboard every game to “guarantee” a hit when I was going to take the damage no matter what number they were attacking for.

 

The last reason why in the early game 6ks are better than 5ks and 7ks is because it makes sure at the very least, that the card you are getting from your opponent's hand is always going to be a 2k counter. And if you navigate the early game correctly, when you are going for game much later on you will see a graveyard full of 2k counters, and it will be much easier to calculate how much counter your opponent has in hand, and ensure your opponent has less counter when you are going for game.

 

Switching to 5ks/7ks

 

So we discussed why in the early to mid game it's better to attack 6’s. When you would switch to attacking for 7ks and 5ks is when you actually want to do damage or take a character off the board.

 Because if your opponent does not want to take a hit or let a character go, they would need 3 cards to counter those attacking numbers, rather than just two 2ks with a 6/6 split. That is why the life threshold is so important, once your opponent is at theirs you switch to these numbers and now you are telling them “you either take this hit and inch closer to death, or you give me 3 cards” 

 

Do what your opponent doesn't want you to do

 

You have heard me say this a lot so far but it's very important to this masterclass. Sometimes your opponent wants you to deal damage to them so they can have extra cards.

 

Sometimes your opponent counters the first couple attacks, knowing that they will be taking a hit from your biggest attack. So basically their mindset is “I know i'm going to take 1 damage this turn so I should counter the small attacks so I don't take even more damage this turn”

 

We can exploit that mindset. And the best part about it is, there isn't a great way to play around it. Because if you take small attacks to avoid your board being targeted, they can ignore your board and punish you by dealing extra damage.

 

But if you counter the small attacks to avoid taking damage, they can turn their attention to your board and punish you in that way.

 

So when I say “do what your opponent doesn't want you to do” I mean that if your opponent is expecting to take a life this turn, and is countering hits to prepare for that, then you should attack into their board instead. This way they technically starve themselves out of the game, and it forces them to make a decision. 

 

They already dedicated a few counter cards to defend life, and accounted to take a big hit. But now if you attack into their board instead, you actually force them into giving you EVEN MORE COUNTER! This comes up much more than you think, and is a massive way to gain tempo.

 

Do not forget to be flexible with your plays as well. To pressure life if they do decide to take the hit to save their board. A lot of the time this is a lose lose situation.

 

Feint right jab left

 

Shoutout to Melo for this perfect example when I was practicing GP Luffy last night. We talked about going for life and then going for characters, but you can also do the exact opposite. You can go for characters and after they counter you can go for life. This doesn’t happen too often but it can come up situationally. 

Example A - || I was playing GP Luffy vs Lucci || My opponent had a 3c brook on the field. I attacked into it for 5k. My opponent gave me 2 1k counters to protect it. Then (because I had cards in hand to rest blockers on my next turn) I attacked his leader for 6k and put him at 0. The game was over from that point on because he had no way of actually defending himself and he had no way of killing me either.

 

Game ending cards

 

If you have cards dedicated to ending games such as Hody Jones, Amaru, Perfume Femur; you should always look to put your opponent in a situation where they are playing on the backfoot to avoid playing into those cards. So for example if you ignore board just a bit and threaten a hody jones on the following turn, you might not be able to kill your opponent, but you can heavily pressure them and take a lot of cards out of their hand, and force them to play on the backfoot the rest of the game. 

 

Of course this is all situational, and while writing this article, there is no way to discuss every single match up in depth. 

 

Outro

 

Unfortunately since this is a masterclass article, I can’t go over each individual strategy when it comes to what turns to attack with what numbers, and what turns to go all in pressuring life. If you guys are interested in signing up for coaching to discuss that more, I would love to work with you. Go to the coaching section of this website to book! Much love to everyone!