One decision that you’ll have to make over and over during a game of Solforge is whether or not to block. There are a lot of factors to consider, some more important than others and I’ve put together a list of questions that I find myself going through as I’m playing a game. They are listed roughly in order from most important to least important when playing in PL1. Take a look.



1. How do the creatures’ stats compare.

2. Is the card you would have to block with something you want to level.

3. Is it likely that your opponent will have a combat trick next turn that will change the trade.

4. Does your opponent get a big advantage if the creature is not blocked.

5. Do the creatures you’re blocking with need to be alive next turn.

6. Are you likely to draw a creature that will make a better blocker next turn.

7. Are you likely to draw creatures next turn that you don’t want to have to block with.

Let’s dig in.

1. How do the creatures’ stats compare.

This is pretty straight forward. Is your creature winning (or at least trading) in a fight. You don’t want to be making blocks that only damage creatures without killing them (also known as “chump blocking” or “chumping”). It can be tempting to put a creature in the way to prevent some damage but, in PL1, the amount of damage that creatures are doing is small compared to your life total. Chump blocking is a sure way to give your opponent lane advantage, which will end up costing you more of your life total in the long run. You either want to kill their creature or, even better, kill their creature and have yours survive. If you don’t have a creature currently in hand that will do, it’s often better to let the creature hit you once and look for a better block next turn. There are times when you will have to chump block such as later in the game when you are facing down level 3 creatures with a hand of underleveled cards, as well as some other cases that will hopefully become apparent as I get into the other points.

2. Is the card that you want to block with something you actually want to level.

In PL1, a significant factor in determining your plays is what you want to level. The cards you level early in the game set the tone for how the rest of the game will play out. If you are a midrange deck, you want to level up a lot of good value creatures that will help win control of the board in PL2 and PL3. If you are a late game deck, you want to get your game ending bombs leveled. If you are an aggressive deck, you want to apply as much early pressure as possible while also leveling one or two finishers.

So even if a card could win a trade early with a big body, it should also fit into your long term game plan. In many cases, it may be better to make an even trade and level the better card. Even chumping with a card can be correct if that card is really important for your late game plan. Scrapforge Titan is a good example of a creature that is often played this way. You can already see that the priorities I’m laying out are getting blurred.

3. Is it likely that your opponent will have a combat trick next turn that will change the trade.

Combat tricks are the main reason to avoid blocking defensive creatures. If you block a creature that isn’t attacking until next turn, you are giving your opponent an opportunity to influence the outcome of the battle. It’s generally a good idea to have as much combat as possible happen on your turn to give yourself more options and deny them to your opponent.

Combat tricks can be very effective for gaining board advantage, especially if the trick comes attached to a body. Top quality combat tricks include Gloomfiend, Grove Huntress, Matrix Warden, Nargath Bruiser, and other variations on those abilities. All of these creatures can have significant effects on who wins a combat step. Gloomfiend and Grove Huntress in particular can turn a trade that you are losing into one that you are winning, which is huge swing in tempo. If you’re playing in a draft format with these or other similar cards, it’s usually a good idea to avoid blocks where your opponent can get a lot of value from their tricks. Take a look at the example below…

If I press battle, the two Swampmoss Ancients will trade. I would also move the Kadrasian Stoneback to trade with the damaged Vault Intruder, play two creatures and pass the turn with the board being basically even. I could use Usrine Strength to save the Swamposs but that still leaves me with just two creatures in play. However, if I play Nargath Bruiser, I can still save my Swampmoss leaving me with a 7/2 in play in addition to the 5/4 body of the Bruiser. I now have lane advantage, or more creatures in play than my opponent. If you keep finding these small plays throughout the game, you can build up more and more board advantage, from which you start doing a lot of damage simply by having more creatures attacking than your opponent can block. This is bread and butter Solforge.

4. Does your opponent get a big advantage if the creature is not blocked.

The most common example of an advantage would be a lot of damage. If a creature would kill you if it isn’t blocked, then that would be considered a big advantage for your opponent. If a creature would not kill you but put you close to dead, that is still a big advantage. Fortunately, these situations don’t usually show until late in the game. In PL1 creatures aren’t dealing much damage so there’s not a huge penalty to letting one hit you for a turn.

But damage isn’t the only advantage that your opponent could gain from an unblocked creature. Some creatures like Ashurian Brawler demand blocks because they grow when they damage the opponent, making them harder to kill the longer you wait to deal with them. Growing creatures like Spring Dryad are similar and can get very large if left alone for a turn. It’s often better to block a Spring Dryad and risk a trick rather than let it get so large that it will require two full blocks to kill.

There are also some activate creatures which are better blocked immediately rather than waiting til the next turn. Creatures with really high toughness often require two combat steps to die so if you wait a turn to block, your opponent could get an extra activation from the creature. A good example is Tuskin Sporelord. With ten health it’s probably going to take two attacks to kill. Blocking immediately means it will likely die on your next turn. If you wait a turn to block it, you would have to deal ten damage in one shot to keep it from getting another activation. Not an easy thing to do.

5. Do the creatures you’re blocking with need to be alive next turn.

Many creatures get a lot better if they stay alive until the turn after you play them. For example, creatures with activate need to wait a turn before you can use the ability. Borean Stormweaver gets a lot better if you get the body plus deal two damage to something. Creatures with static abilities get more valuable the longer they are on the field. And mobility creatures won’t be able to move unless they’re alive when the turn is passed back. Even if the creature you want to play is just a regular joe, there still may be good reasons to have it survive until next turn. For example, let’s say you leveled a Twinstrength in PL1 and want to be able to play it in PL2. In that case, you want to make sure that you never start your turn with a clear board because you won’t have enough targets for Twinstrength. You may need to open lane creatures or avoid making blocks that you are only narrowly winning to make that happen.

All of this, of course, is in addition to the fact that most creatures need to survive a turn simply to attack and do damage, which is the most important role of a creature. So blocking when you need your creatures to survive can be risky even if it looks like you’re winning the trade as it stands. Your opponent could have a combat trick that kills your Borean Stormweaver, robbing you of some potential value. In these cases, you want to lean towards open laning the creature unless there is a compelling reason not to (for compelling reasons see the previous section).

6. Are you likely to draw a creature that will make a better blocker next turn.

You will often have hands where your plays can make even trades on the board but that doesn’t always mean you should make the block. If you have a high percentage of creatures still left in your deck that could make a better block, maybe win the trade, it could be worth waiting til next turn to make the block. For example, let’s say my opponent plays a L1 Nexus Overwatch in the center lane. I have a Soothsayer Hermit in hand that I really want to level and it would trade evenly with the 5/4 Overwatch. Trading a 6/5 for a 5/4 is not great value for me, however, because I’m losing more total stats from the board. If my deck has a lot of 4/7 creatures in it, which are pretty common stats, I may be better off waiting to see if I draw one of them next turn. If that 4/7 has mobility like Ionic Warcharger or Arc Wurm that’s even better. It can potentially eat the Overwatch, leaving behind a 4/2, which can move to trade with or damage another creature.

7. Are you likely to draw creatures next turn that you don’t want to have to block with.

This concept is starting to get a little advanced but can be very important to be aware of. In your deck, you will probably have a few creatures that are your all-stars. Cards with a lot of power if given the time to do their thing. Think Snowdrift Alpha and Tuskin Sporelord. But you’re not always going to have one of these creatures in your hand. Sometimes you’ll get all your filler cards and need to play some of those instead. In this case, it may be better to make some blocks and clear some creatures even if they are just even trades. If you spend the turn open laning your filler creatures, presenting mediocre threats, you’ll have to spend the next turn cleaning up the unblocked creatures, potentially using your big power creatures to do so. Open laned filler creatures are not going to be as powerful as open laned Snowdrift Alphas.

The list is currently ranked by how I prioritize the factors in the early part of the game, in PL1. But the cool thing about a game of Solforge is that the things you base your decisions on shift as the game progresses. For example, later in the game leveling decisions become less important because you may not even see the cards you level up. Also, the value of unblocked creatures go way up because they start dealing a lot more damage to life totals that are getting lower and lower. This helps explain why cards like Everflame Aura, which gets creatures through but doesn’t level well, can be a great late game play but not a good early game play. Figuring out these dynamic interactions is what makes Solforge such a deep and enjoyable game.

Well that was a lot of stuff and, unfortunately, it wasn’t even the hard part. Simply identifying the questions you should be asking yourself only gets you half way there. The tricky business, the stuff that separates top drafters from queue fodder, is getting the right answer to the questions. If I let a creature hit me, is the damage worth getting a better block next turn? What if I don’t end up getting a better block? How do you even compare damage taken to board position? How much damage is it worth to have an extra 4/3 creature in play? There’s no standard conversion rates for these things and games of Solforge are too complex to give any meaningful rules of thumb. What I want most of this blog to be is a place to share in-game examples that help illustrate the decision making process, using the above concepts as reference points.



Addendum: After getting this article up, another Solforge player pointed me towards an earlier piece written by The Notherian that covers much of the same material. He provides lots of additional examples which may help to further clarify some of the fundamentals of blocking. Check it out.

The Tactics of SolForge: An Introduction to Blocking

