Hello guys! Today we're gonna talk about blocking. It is very important to know how, when, and with how many units you need to block your opponent's attacks. If done wrong, it will not help you much but merely prologue your defeat. When you learn to know how to block, you will have a better understanding of how to attack also, so take notes because this will definitely give you an edge in your games.
Nexus Health is A Resource Too
Even though it is fragile and the most important thing to defend so that you don't lose the game, there is a good time to actually take a hit even if that means that you are going to take a serious amount of damage. Of course, that doesn't mean that you should always be doing that because if you are low on health your opponent might be running some direct damage to finish you off. This is primarily something you aggressive decks should be using since they are most of the time on the offensive, their nexus health will most of the time be higher than the opponent's so it can be crucial to know how to decide when to block and when to pass.
One of the best examples for this is when you have a wide board versus your opponent that has one or two bigger units that you aren't able to trade. If you have enough health to take those hits it will most likely be a correct play because after that attack you keep all of your units and they are immediately ready to attack the next turn. This gives your opponent a harder time to defend since you didn't sacrifice any of your units to block, you still have a wide board of threats and your opponent needs to expend their removal (if they have any) to fend off the attack.
This might be a bit more challenging to newer players because it requires you to know what cards your opponent has access to, depending on the regions they use and also being able to identify what decks they are playing helps a lot to make the decision if you can afford to take hits to your nexus.
Combat Tricks
With the right combination of cards, you can block two enemy units with only one of yours. This will require specific cards that enable us to do this. One example is in the picture where my opponent used their challengers to force me to block them but I hard to Single Combat spells and with them, I forced that my both units strike Garen. Since spells resolve before the combat, the result of this one is that Garen dies and kills both of my units and those challengers that originally should've battled my units now don't have the target to strike but now they don't attack the nexus, instead, their attacks whiff and they don't strike anything, and they effectively get blocked. Note that this doesn't work versus Overwhelm units because they still strike your nexus.
This is another example of how you can do this. In this one, I use a removal spell on my unit to kill it. Now, how can this help? Well, some units have Strike keywords that active their effect when they successfully, well... strike. In this case, since I removed my unit, Draven lost his target and didn't strike anything so he didn't generate Spinning Axe in the opponent's hand. Sometimes you really want to prevent your opponent from activating those abilities so this is one way to do it. You can even use this trick to block the Last Breath unit so it doesn't damage your nexus and prevent it from dying to activate its effect at the same time. This can be also used to prevent Lifesteal units from healing your opponent. There are a lot of use cases revolving around this but the question is always the same. Can I let this unit strike or not?
Don't Defend On The Backfoot
I say this because I see it a lot. What I mean by this, don't block your opponent's unit with smaller ones and then expect to remove them with the help of a spell from hand. Why is this bad? Well, because it essentially overextends you in a position where you are using multiple cards to trade which in turn gives your opponent a good opportunity to counter you, and possibly make you waste your unit and a couple of cards from your hand. Now, of course, there are situations where you just really need to remove a certain unit and hope your opponent doesn't have an answer but these are desperate situations and not something you should be forcing if you don't have to.
The best approach to defend and to trade well is by blocking a unit with something that can survive it or evenly trade it. If you defend like that, you are now asking your opponent if they are willing to try and use a buff or something to get an upper hand in the attack. In this situation, you are the one that is able to counter your opponent if they choose to invest spells into their attack and enable you to extract extra value from the trade. This exposes you to a much lower risk while defending and gives your opponent more opportunities to overextend which then you can take advantage of. But hey, sometimes you just need to be greedy.
Avoid Low Mana Vulnerability
I've talked about this in my last guide on proper mana usage and once again, this is really important to know. When you are defending, if you spend all of your mana, you lose the ability to surprise your opponent and now they don't need to play around anything so it will be much easier for them to make the most out of their attack. So, unless you are going to use all of your mana to remove threats or bring out the much-needed defender, just avoid doing that. Almost every time it will be better to have one less defender and the ability to counter your opponent's actions that to let them freely do whatever they want on their attack. Just by having some mana to spare can make your opponent go a bit more conservatively on the attack and this will be as effective as blocking their strikes.
Blocking Fearsome Units With Low Attack
This is something that isn't new for you but just in case I'm throwing it out there. In a situation where your opponent attacks with fearsome units and you only have 1/2 attack units, you can make them able to block. This is only possible if you have Burst spells that can buff your units attack over 2 so that they are now over the threshold of fearsome's block requirement. It's pretty simple, and you should now that it is possible.
Okay, that's it for today. I hope you learned something and that it will help you to get better at the game. If you still don't understand something please let me know in the comments so I can make it clearer. Also, if you think that I missed something important let me know. See you guys in the next one.
Thank you for reading!
,z3ll