The Hidden Cost of Playing Cores

When should you actually play Cores in Sorcery: Contested Realm?

Cores give you a powerful mana advantage, but that acceleration comes with a cost: you're putting a card into your deck that becomes dramatically worse as the game goes long. So when is that trade actually worth making?

In this episode, Zac and Phil break down the deck-building theory behind Cores and identify the kinds of avatars and strategies that can actually take advantage of them.

We look at:

• Why Battle Mage, Blade Dancer, Sorcerer, Persecutor, Witch, Ralmeter, and Wave Shaper can benefit from Cores
• Mana-hungry avatars like Imposter, Dragon Lord, Savior, Templar, Lava Mancer, and Frostmage
• Why Templar and Elementalist approach the resource problem differently
• The relationship between mana advantage and threshold
• Why the new exceptional double-threshold sites could fundamentally change Core math
• How Towers can be an indication that your deck may also want Cores
• Why Cores become less attractive as deck size increases
• The difference between aggro, midrange, and control when evaluating Cores
• Why two-spelling is one of the biggest advantages Cores can provide
• The hidden cost of drawing a Core late in the game
• How card quality and card quantity should influence your deck construction

The bigger lesson is that Cores aren't simply “good cards” that belong in every deck. You need to ask what your avatar and your strategy are actually trying to accomplish.

So: Do you play Cores? Or would you rather have another high-quality card in your Spellbook?

Let us know in the comments.

00:00 — When Should You Play Cores?
03:02 — Why Some Avatars Need Cores
07:50 — The Two Types of Core Decks
13:49 — Mana, Threshold & Deck Construction
18:38 — Will New Sites Change the Math?
21:37 — The Power of Threshold
24:10 — Why Early Cores Are So Powerful
26:30 — Aggro vs Midrange vs Control
29:38 — Towers, Cores & Getting Ahead of Curve
30:32 — Do You Actually Need Cores?

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