Defending Against Monsters

> Here's an open question: how do you deal with a well-defended ogre, troll, or
> giant? If your opponent isn't giving you any openings to get PSDD through
> unblocked, if your WPFDs are met with counterspells, how do you deal with it?
> Most people at least know that ignoring it is fatal, but what tactics do you
> use do get around your opponent's defenses?

Toyotami
Against an ogre, WWPS/PSDD is a pretty nice flow to get going...ive always found peppering a way to go if you can't slide in a cause heavy. Peppering is mixing up the missiles you send them and largely casting Charm person rather than charm monster.

Slartucker
The ogre is absolutely worth 2 health. If you have a chance to get rid of him for 2 health without losing initiative, say with WFP or PDWP, you should take it.

Obviously you should try to avoid taking damage, and I would probably avoid damage for solutions that only offer you a 50% chance of success -- i.e., staggering PSDs without a WWP opening. But if you attempt to "play around" an ogre you'll take far more than 2 damage, whether in damage to your health or your initiative.

Taliesin
Summoning your own monster has a certain wild-card value, especially a goblin out of Maladroit which will prevent them shielding their monster and let you attack it -- however, if you both have shielded monsters, the game becomes gambling-heavy quickly. Invis from Protection is a last-ditch stop-gap against really big stuff, and Blindness can be used similarly, but both of these will leave you very much behind on initiative.

> I'm also curious how multiple monsters work. Two Ogres actually seems worse
> that just one, because you can't reliably defend them both. Meanwhile, a
> single shield will still prevent all the damage. It's not always a bad idea,
> especially if you can hit him with Maladroit, but it seems much riskier.

Slartucker
I dislike having multiple strong monsters and will typically off one the turn before charm can be fired. However, if you can manage to prevent your opponent from getting to that point, they do exert extra pressure. Additionally, WFP and PDWP (and PPws, etc.) are not answers to two ogres. So really two monsters just focuses pressure even more on the possibility of getting to and executing PSDD. If you have enough initiative going into the second ogre to be able to prevent that with soft control, they can be useful.