Blitzkrieg, An Efficient Card Pull for Strahd

[Odysseus2011]

This method for pulling the cards in part 2 of Strahd is simply an extension of the previous method "Blitz the Crypt" which has been the method of choice for end game guilds on Ghallanda in recent months, and was devised by Torvis; of Upper Caves of Anthia.

Blitz the Crypt had everyone open preassigned doors before DDooring and returning to the entrance before returning to light the cards. It was an efficient method that yielded great results for what was widely considered the hardest part of the raid.

Blitzkrieg is a method that devised by Hsoftl, who had been urging us to try for quite some time; when he tried to convince us to try it out in our R3 Strahd run we didn't want to alter our plan midway through the raid, however some of our friends in Omnipresence watching that video thought it sounded good and gave it a try. The results were spectacular; with a phase 2 completion in under 50seconds of talking to Ezmerelda. Blitzkrieg simply cuts out the middle man, when you find the card you need to light, you light it. There are 10 sets of assigned doors (8 people pull 3 doors, 2 people pull 4), leaving 2 people free to assist each side as necessary. The breakdown for where we assigned doors is shown below



There are a few things to note with this layout; people in positions 1,2,3,6,7,8 should all start at the south end of the column. Positions 4, and 5 should start at the north end of the column in order to avoid the set of flameskulls that spawn in the north. Finally the person in position 10 should start at door 1,4 in order to avoid the flameskulls that spawn there. For our first run of this method we did a phase 2 completion inside 35seconds of talking to Ezmerelda; the video for that run is shown here below.

[Shadow_Jumper]

NOTE: It is actually detrimental to pull the cards AFAP. It takes roughly 40-45 seconds for the trash to fully spawn. If it is not fully spawned when the torches are lit, it will stay alive, as evidenced by the greater shadow being alive after the card pull in the video. While possibly not that big of an issue in low skull reaper, I could see it being an issue above 3 skulls. FYI, the card pull time in the video was 36 seconds from when the doors went green.

I recommend that you hold off on pulling the final card until 45 seconds have passed.

[Bolo_Grubb]

another method we have used with good success is to assign a person a column. 8 people start at the north end of the columns, 2 people start at the south end of column 2 and 7. Light the first card as soon as you find it, the rest as needed, holding the last card until the trash spawns.

Also column 7, crypt 4 (starting from the north) and column 8 crypt 2, has never had a card in it for us.