Pandora Guide - Beginner

Introduction

Pandora is one of the game modes within Faeria where you draft a deck of thirty cards. These cards create a temporary deck and are not built from your personal collection. You deck has three lives and can win up to nine matches to claim the best rewards. Figuring out what cards you want in your Pandora deck can be challenging but with this guide you will have no problem.

Pandora Opens!

You’ve open Pandora and ready to start drafting. You will be assigned three colours that will influence the selection of cards you’re given. One colour will always be locked out and won’t be featured in your draft.

Archetypes within Pandora

One of the easiest ways to build a solid deck in Pandora is to base your choices around an archetype. This becomes more apparent as you draft the cards and spot synergies with them. It’s best to stick with the three main archetypes:

• Aggro / Rush
• Mid-Range
• Control

Combo decks are much harder to build in Pandora so I wouldn’t recommend it. Yellow and Red are excellent colours for Rush thanks to the power of Axe Grinder and Shaytan Demon. Green is great for Mid-Range and slower decks because of their bulky creatures. Blue excels as a control deck shutting down your opponent with transformation and mobility.

Another tactic is to use pre-existing themes that are used in constructed. Red and Yellow have good synergies for Burn. Blue and Green can use Gabrian’s Enchantment on high health creatures.

This knowledge comes to you with time and you should always pick the best cards available. However once you start spotting these synergies you can try and weave them into your draft.

Picking your cards

Before archetypes can be spotted you need a core of good creatures. In your first ten cards I’d recommend trying to get several creatures that have good stats. You want your creatures to get as much value as possible and ideally take out multiple targets.

With that in mind left us look at an example draft.

The first five cards doesn’t offer much choice in colours but does offer us some solid creatures. Let’s take a look at them one by one.

• Farm Boy - Solid Faeria harvest and will more than likely pay for itself in one turn unless removed. Collecting Faeria is important, even in Pandora.
• Storyteller - Card draw for both players and life gain. This card is more used in combo decks and doesn’t offer much at the start of a draft.
• Syland Warrior - A 3/6 for 5 Faeria isn’t bad but not enough attack to be a real threat. With Red as one of our colour we would rather see a Shedim Brute.
• Blood Singer - Very solid 3 cost with a good health stat. This card is a good harvester and could support a burn strategy later down the draft.
• Ogre Dance - The only event card and a situational one at best. The cost reduction can be beneficial but not without seeing the rest of the draft. Creatures are a priority.

The two best picks are Blood Singer and Farm Boy. Picking Blood Singer would take us on a Red path where as choosing Farm Boy still frees up the other colours.

Treasure!

Every ten cards you will be given the choice of picking one of three Treasure Cards. Treasures are extremely powerful cards exclusive to Pandora.

Further on down the draft I’ve selected nine additional cards. I stuck with Red and now three treasures are available to be picked. Let’s analyse the treasures and how they would fit into the current ten cards drafted.

• Ring of Dominion - Stealing a land isn’t crucial for our current deck. The other two treasures are far more powerful.
• Void Guardian - A 0 cost 9/9 that destroys our deck. This can be a very powerful creature at the right moment however this card would benefit a more aggressive deck. Our current card selection is leaning towards Control.
• Secret of Strength - This looks like the best treasure out of the three. It gives out creatures Flying, Charge and +4/+4. This will empower our smaller creatures allowing them to contest the board with ease.

Secret of Strength is my pick because it can directly impact the board. There are many more treasures in Pandora and this pick of is only one of three for this draft.

Conclusion

Consistency is your goal when drafting a deck for Pandora. Having access to three colours gives you a lot of flexibility but you don't want to spread yourself out to much.

I'd recommend sticking with one colour decks to start off. This way you'll avoid having to dictate your land placement based on having too many colours. Once you’re more confident you can start experimenting with dual colours and maybe even tri-colour decks!