Urban Rivals guide and tips
Urban Rivals is a browser-based massively multiplayer online (MMO) card game similar to traditional trading card games such as Magic: The Gathering and Legend of the Five Rings. Your goal in Urban Rivals is to collect as many cards as possible and use them to defeat your opponents. The following is a guide that will help you understand the finer details of the game and set you on your way to becoming an Urban Rivals champion!
Game Formats
There are four different game modes to play in Urban Rivals. Each of the formats has rules regarding deck construction and play. Type 1 and Type 2 formats differ in the number of “stars” or character points allowed in your deck. Type 1 decks allow a maximum of 25 stars, while type 2 decks are for 26 stars and above. The Survivor format is an offshoot of Type 2 and the goal is to have the longest winning streak possible.
The most popular format is known as ELO, which has a tournament ladder. Its rules are similar to Type 1, but include a list of cards that have been banned due to being overcome. The ELO format has weekly rewards based on how well you rank in the tournament ladder. Each game format will have its own deck building strategies, but this guide provides general deck building and play strategies that should be applicable to all game formats.
Building a deck
Your deck of 8 cards – a random 4 of which will be used in each battle – is the key to winning battles. No matter how good you are, a bad deck will almost certainly cost you the battle. As such, deck building strategies are very important and most of the decision making happens before the battles actually take place.
* Clans – The first thing you need to decide is which clan to choose. Each clan has a bonus that applies to all its members. The Bangers, Junkz, Rescue, Sentinel, and Ulu Watu clans have attack power bonuses. All Stars, Montana, Sakrohm and Uppers give their opponents attack power penalties. The Fang Pi Clang and La Junta clans have damage increases, while the Pussycats reduce damage to opponents. The Gheist, Nightmare, Pirana, and Roots clans cancel opponents’ powers, while the Skeelz clan protects their powers from being canceled. The Freaks clan deals poison damage to their opponents, while the Jungo clan gives themselves more life. Which clan you choose will depend on your playstyle preferences.
* Clan Identity – Not only does the clan perk need to fit your playstyle, you also need to consider which Urban Rivals clan identity, history, and ideals resonate with you. If you don’t like gangsters and guns, Montana Mafia Clan will definitely not appeal to you, no matter how good their clan bonus is. Likewise, if you like the idea of military superiority and guerilla warfare, then the La Junta Clan will appeal to you.
* Mono vs Dual – There are 2 deck compositions that are played most often: Mono-Clan and Dual-Clan. Mono-clan means your deck of 8 consists of characters from only one clan (plus maybe a leader). Dual-Clan means your deck contains cards from 2 clans. The choice between the two arises because a card’s clan bonus only works if you have at least 2 cards from that clan in play. So using a Mono-Clan deck ensures that your clan bonus is always active, but suffers from a lack of variety. On the other hand, a deck with two clans will face battles where one of the cards will not have its clan bonus. However, this disadvantage is offset by the fact that you are using 2 clans whose bonuses work well together or cover each other’s weaknesses.
* Card Cost – Once you’ve decided which clan you want, the next step is to choose which cards go into your deck. When you’re starting out, you’re unfortunately limited by the cost of the cards. Power cards usually cost a lot of currency in the Urban Rivals game, but you will be able to afford them the more you play and the more tournaments you enter.
* Star Allocation – In Type 1 and ELO games you are limited to 25 stars or deck points. Choosing what combination of star levels goes into your deck is important. Do you want more 5-star powers in your deck, knowing you’ll have to field a lot of weak 2-star cards to balance them out? You might get lucky in a battle and have all of your 5 stars in play, or you might have to play 3 or 4 2-star cards, effectively handing the game to your opponent. The other option would be to fill your deck with mostly 4- and 3-star cards to make sure you’re fielding a decent team in every fight. Again, the choice will depend on your play style.
* Card Abilities – The next step is to find out which cards work best in your deck. It’s best to choose cards whose abilities complement their clan bonus. For example, if your clan bonus gives you a huge attack bonus, then you can use cards that don’t have that much attack power but do a lot of damage because the clan bonus already boosts your attack. You should also add cards that are more specialized, such as ones that stop abilities or bonuses, or walls that reduce damage taken. In general, you should have a common goal for your deck, and the majority of your cards should support or work toward that goal.
Gameplay
Once the deck is ready, the next thing to focus on is how to fight well. Both you and your opponent start with 12 life and 12 pillz, and your goal is to finish the battle with more life than your opponent. As you might expect, there are many ways to achieve this result.
* Poker – You can treat the game of Urban Rivals just like a game of poker. The man who knows how to read his opponent best and bets wisely usually wins. Pillz, which you use to increase your attack or damage, are just like poker chips. Are you going all-in with a powerful card? Or do you save your pills for when you’re waiting for your opponent to launch their big attack? Just remember that pills are actually more important than life and should be stored and used wisely.
* Objective – When the battle begins and the cards are revealed, the first thing you need to do is decide what your objective and plan of attack is. Do your cards have enough damage to do a 2-hit knockout (ie deal 12 damage using only 2 cards)? If so, then you should focus pillz on those 2 cards. Are you going to open with a poison card and defend while it deals its damage? You then need to make sure you have enough walls and defense cards to do so. In any case, you must also be aware of your opponent’s plan of attack and be prepared to counter it.
* First move – The first move of the battle is perhaps the most decisive. The player with more stars/points on the table will start first, giving the weaker player a chance to see their opponent’s play before deciding what to do. It is common to open with a bluff playing a strong card using very little pillz. If the opponent responds by using a lot of pillz, they may have won the first round, but will be at a pillz disadvantage. If the opponent isn’t spending pillz on defense, you’d deal a lot of damage with just a small investment of pillz.
* Pillz Advantage – During each round, the player with more available pillz usually has the upper hand and can dictate how the battle goes. A player with less pillz has fewer options and usually has to either go all-in or concede a round. Therefore, it is very useful if you can spend pillz more efficiently than your opponent (provided you still win fights). This follows from the first-turn bluffing strategy: if you bluff successfully, you’ll have a pillz advantage, and you can extend it throughout the fight by constantly putting your opponent on the defensive.
We hope this guide will clarify some of the less obvious aspects of the game and make your experience playing Urban Rivals more enjoyable! As expected, practice makes perfect and you will start to see how others play and be able to change your strategies accordingly. And don’t forget there are nearly 20 different clans to experiment with, so don’t be afraid to play with them!
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