Last week, we wrote about an addicting new Star Wars game called Star Wars: Force Arena. We noted that the game was still in soft launch at the time, but the game has since released worldwide on Android and iOS, so this week we’re back with some tips for starting out in the game.
Build a Balanced Deck
This won’t be too hard at the outset since you won’t have too many choices to make, but proper deck building is key to your success in Star Wars: Force Arena. Broadly, you’ll want to follow some basic principles, such as keeping your average energy cost in check, and also ensuring that your deck covers all the bases in terms of being able to deal with various threats you’re seeing on the ladder. As far as energy balance goes, most players in the top ranks seem to keep their decks within a 2.9-3.4 range (you can see your average cost to the far right of the screen when in the deck builder), so this is likely a good rule of thumb to follow. For the rest, you’ll want to go through your various units, click on them, and then head over to the Advantages tab. Force Arena works on a sort of rock-paper-scissors balance system, and this tab will show you which units the selected unit is strong or weak against. Use this knowledge to make sure your deck has answers to what you’re seeing out there.
Those are some solid broad goals to keep in mind, but things get a little bit more complicated when you think about how units synergize with particular leaders. Some leaders have some fairly specific traits, lending them well to certain types of units. For example, Sabine Wren passively buffs units who use explosives, Darth Vader heals all units on a leader’s death by 12% of their max health (which is great for high health units), and so on. Pay close attention to what your leader can do and build your deck around it.
Join a Guild
Guilds are a new feature in Star Wars: Force Arena, so they’re not incredibly robust just yet, but they’re great for helping you find teammates to go into 2v2 matches with. Guilds also fill the role of your friends list, so if you’re planning on playing with your friends, you’ll want to make sure you join the same guild, since you can only do premade 2v2s with guild mates. You’ll need to be level three to join a guild.
Trade Often
Once the trade tab unlocks, you’ll likely want to trade early and often. You can trade once every six hours and this feature is great for helping you fill out your leader roster. If you’re gunning for a particular leader character, you can use the trade tab to trade a legendary (leader) card for a random legendary. It only costs 1,000 credits to do this, too. This is a great way to expand your roster or even get additional legendary cards to dump into upgrading existing leaders.
Monetization
Don’t buy packs, at least not early on. If you are going to spend money on Star Wars: Force Arena, using crystals to buy credits will be the best bang for your buck for a good while. Credits are needed to upgrade your units and can also be spent in the Shop tab to directly purchase units, which gives you a lot more flexibility in focusing on upgrading the units in your deck over leaving it to random chance. Once you get to around Tier 5 (1900 rating), packs become more efficient, and it’s not such a terrible idea to pick them up.
You can also purchase a Premium booster that gives you an extra pack slot and reduces pack unlock times by 50%. If you are planning to monetize and want to use crystals to open packs, this is a great way to do it. Since the Premium booster halves card unlock times, this also means it halves the cost to open them via crystals.
Do Missions!
Missions are a great way for earning resources (cards, crystals, credits) early on to help you build out your deck. They’re also an excellent way of unlocking leader. Each mission will award you a new leader (except for Mission 5) when you complete all of its tasks. Completing them all will net you seven new leaders to choose from, so don’t neglect missions. You can find your mission log at the top right of the screen, just to the left of the options button. Be sure to also tab over to the Special mission tab for time limited missions. Currently, the mission “A New Hope” is running, and it will reward you with a legendary selector pack for completing all of its tasks. This pack will allow you to select any leader on the entire roster, so if you’re not having any luck getting that one leader you wanted through trading or the standard missions, this is your fallback plan.
Play Smart
When I first started playing, I just spawned units as soon as I had the energy for it, but this will only take you so far. It’s important that you look at the cards available in your hand and decide what you’re going to do based on what your opponent has played or by giving him something to react to. If you notice your opponent has spawned an MLC-3 Light Tank and you have the choice of spawning in Stormtroopers now at 2 energy or Devaronian Bladesman in another second at 3 energy, you’ll want to wait for the Bladesmen, since they hard counter the tank. This goes back to learning unit counters from earlier.
Also, make sure your units have aggro of a turret before engaging them yourself. This is sort of MOBA 101 here, but it’ll save you a lot of unnecessary deaths if you aren’t familiar with the genre.
Oh, and don’t just spawn units at your feet. You can drag and drop units around the field. If you’re pushing a lane and your opponent has sent units down the other lane, you don’t need to run over to deal with it. Just drag the unit into the lane and drop it in.
Upgrade
Upgrading is how you earn player experience and leveling up is what determines the strength of your base turrets. This means you’ll want to keep an eye out for unit upgrades, even if they are for units you don’t actively use. You’ll often find a ton of low hanging fruit this way and earn a bunch of extra experience towards the next level. That said, you should absolutely prioritize upgrading units you do utilize in your decks. In fact, upgrading units is critical to being able to move up through the ladder. It won’t matter if your Devaronian Bladesmen hard counter that MLC-3 Light Tank if your Bladesmen are level one to your opponent’s level six tank. Aim to have your most commonly used units at levels four to six in tiers three and four.
Have you been playing Star Wars: Force Arena? Share your own tips with us in the comments below!
