There are counters to Hyperloop. The question is are they enough? Right now, Hyperloop doesn't seem to be dominating metas, so the indication is that they probably are. If people choose not to run them, that's their problem.

Now, if it's an issue with people not liking the playstyle, well, that's another thing really. And you're never going to please everyone in that regard.

1 hour ago, Amanal said:

I don't agree that it is an unfair comparison, the constraint that drives most tournament systems isn't the mathematics of seeding or rankings as much as the constraint of time. Your 4-0 and my 8-4 both take about an equal amount of time. I like the system we have as you can for the most part go to the LFGS at 6:00pm and play 3-4 games and be home by 9:00pm or pick up munchkin #1 from FIRST robotics.

I think that's a perfectly fine dynamic to have in a non-competitive environment, but dumbing down a tournament system just so you can play half hour games seems like a waste. If you want to play FNM, play it like it's always been played. If you want to play a weekend tournament, be prepared to spend the better part of an afternoon at your LGS. If you want a handful of pickup games, well, that's a lot easier to achieve with this game than a lot of other FFG properties, and you can do it without taking away from the people who actually want something competitive.

The dynamism that sideboards bring to a game is too valuable to not seriously consider, but you can't have sideboards if you're not playing more than one game. I understand why this isn't feasible in X-Wing, and I feel like the people coming from FFG's non-card based franchises need their perspectives adjusted just a little bit. It's a wasted opportunity to say "oh look, I can finish a game in half an hour! Let's stick with that!"

There's only one other model I would consider adopting at this point, and it comes from Warmachine. Each player brings three different, unique lists to their matches, and the opponent gets to veto one of them, leaving both players with two of their original lists to choose from. Pretty much solves the problem of un-fun lists, regardless of how meta dominant they are (or aren't).

You want FFG to mandate that players bring three separate decks to compete in an event? You realize that's going to be immediately called out as a blantant cash grab.

Warmachine uses that system because they've over the years had far too many skew lists that create auto-loss situations depending on the match-up. It's really a poor system born of imbalance issues.

I said I'd consider it, but frankly nothing beats what I've already discussed.

I think sideboarding may become a hard rule at some point. Probably not this early in the game though. I was thinking about this exact thing in my first tournament, wherein I lost every game due to no packs to deckbuild with.

I really dislike side-boarding in collectable card games, because it dumbs down deck design, a major part of the game, for all players. In my opinion, side-boarding is just a crutch for those who cannot read the meta and/or lack the mental agility to find an another way to win with what they built.

So you guys that hate sideboards and say it dumbs down deck design think mtg has been doing it wrong for 2 decades? And before this isn't mtg arguements come out this isn't an mtg comparison this is a ccg one. It's not one rule for them and another for anyone else. You guys think sideboarding ruins strategy I think sideboarding eliminates loopholers that try to find some unavoidable advantage to win. Are you seriously telling me that being able to change a 5th of your deck, 3 cards or 6 cards as singles, is going to ruin your chances for a run away because you took something that requires a counter but you want to roll the dice they are smart enough and had the room to put the counter in there? Sounds like a better challenge is overcoming a counter instead of playing cheap mind games that you can rofl-stomp the afternoon.

It's funny to me. Indated with JV decks, someone brings a hard control/lock down deck and it's the end of the game. Put some dice control in.

Designers have already said they don't like infinite loops.

If it's a huge problem, it seems the easiest fixes would be to either make Millennium Falcon remove the card from play after you play it from the discard pile or rather than Nerf MF, make Hyperspace remove itself from the game after playing it.

There isn't a "removed from play" zone, but there is the concept of setting dice aside, seems like the same idea could work for cards too.

2 hours ago, Mr Fandango said:

I really dislike side-boarding in collectable card games, because it dumbs down deck design, a major part of the game, for all players. In my opinion, side-boarding is just a crutch for those who cannot read the meta and/or lack the mental agility to find an another way to win with what they built.

I agree that it is a poor way to handle anything

14 hours ago, [Ace] said:

Change the wording of Hyperspace Jump from "may" to "must" and it becomes way more balanced.

This deck and this deck alone is killing the game at the LGS and even started a small sell-off when some of the better players decided that one or more of the following must be true:

1) The designers don't know what they are doing. (When will game designers learn that allowing you to play things for free leads to nonsense and makes the game harder to design and future-proof going forward?)

2) They didn't properly play test this game. (Disconcerting to say the least as the next set might have more of this in it.)

3) The designers want the game to be played this way with brutal lockdown combos. (Super not fun and not what our LGS players thought it would be at first glance.)

Hoping they change it sooner rather than later but I respect the opinions of others as well who feel it is not a problem yet. Can only go on what I see at LGS right now which is not pretty.

It is possible the Hyperloop becomes a problem, but I'm with those that think it's too early to tell.

We don't really have national or global meta yet. All we have are a whole bunch of local metas. I'm not underselling the importance of local metas. The next big thing will originate at the local level before it gets vetted on a national or global stage. Local metas are important. The problem is the game is too young for there to be enough (any) large events that bring together the best of the local metas to see what emerges as dominant. The internet certainly helps share information and develop metas, but it can't do it alone without the big events.

Remember in the early days when people thought Sith Holocron was going to break the game. Here we are 6 weeks later and SH is still a great card, but it certainly hasn't broken the game and people hardly talk about it as being overpowered let alone broken anymore.

Who knows, since it's a problem in your local meta right now, perhaps the answer to Hyperloop will come from you guys.

2 hours ago, Mr Fandango said:

I really dislike side-boarding in collectable card games, because it dumbs down deck design, a major part of the game, for all players. In my opinion, side-boarding is just a crutch for those who cannot read the meta and/or lack the mental agility to find an another way to win with what they built.

Matches should be won by the player with the most skill, not the player who got a lucky matchup. Sideboards help mitigate that luck factor. Crafting a good sideboard actually requires a lot of meta competency, so I'm kind of forced to question your experience at this point.

2 hours ago, Keigi said:

It's funny to me. Indated with JV decks, someone brings a hard control/lock down deck and it's the end of the game. Put some dice control in.

Designers have already said they don't like infinite loops.

There's a reason why Wizards no longer prints counterspells or land destruction, and it's got nothing to do with how good those deck archetypes are. Marinate on that one for a second.

6 minutes ago, WonderWAAAGH said:

Matches should be won by the player with the most skill, not the player who got a lucky matchup. Sideboards help mitigate that luck factor. Crafting a good sideboard actually requires a lot of meta competency, so I'm kind of forced to question your experience at this point.

I played Decipher's old Star Wars CCG, which featured a 60 card deck, for as long as they had the license for it. In my opinion, the introduction of sideboards was when the game officially jumped the shark (For you youngsters, a reference to an episode of "Happy Days" for when that show officially stopped being good). While others were lobbying for it, I had little trouble winning, even against other nationally ranked players, by developing creative strategies featuring cards with multiple uses. I never resorted to "broken strategies" or blamed my loses on the rock, paper, scissors effect.

As for Destiny, both deck design and play skill are integral parts of the game. If side boards allow everyone to have the counters for everything without making any design trade offs, then it just takes away from one and adds to the other.

Jumping the shark is gimmicky; sideboards are actually a solid mechanic that's helped keep the best game in the market going for 20+ years. You might want to think about the old games you've played and reconsider the real reason for them going under.

Again, I'm having trouble taking your opinion seriously if you're going to sit there and tell me that a sideboard somehow diminishes every other deck-building decision you've made. Inferring that building a sideboard somehow takes away from the deck-building aspect rather than adding to it only underscores my point. Sideboards aren't even used until the second game of a match, and only under the rarest of circumstances do they fundamentally change the way a given deck plays. Swapping Block for Dodge doesn't exactly turn Jango/Veers into Jabba/Dooku, now does it?

I guess it depends on how big a side board we are talking about, as to whether or not it allows everyone to have the counters for everything. However, I would still favor the introduction of new cards to counter strategies that are deemed broken or to bridge the rock, paper, scissors effect. In this case, If I were a designer, I would introduce a support card that had a secondary function allowing a player to remove a discarded card from the game; thus, no sideboards needed.

As for Decipher's old SWCCG, which reigned for 7-8 years, it went under simply because WotC outbid them for the license. WotC then released Star Wars TCG, which flopped, got suspended, and was quietly cancelled four years later.

1 hour ago, Mr Fandango said:

I would still favor the introduction of new cards to counter strategies that are deemed broken or to bridge the rock, paper, scissors effect. In this case, If I were a designer, I would introduce a support card that had a secondary function allowing a player to remove a discarded card from the game; thus, no sideboards needed.

Did you actually just read what you wrote?

You just said that it would be better to print a card that specifically targets a combo piece in a deck and that you basically always need to have it in your deck.

That is actually constricting deck design because you are now building with 28-29 cards rather than allowing sideboards which allow a much broader design space whilst allowing your silver bullets to be tucked away in the sideboard for those games where your opponent brings the gimmicky combo deck (Hyperloop).

There is already enough luck elements in this game with the dice, currently we are now in a situation where playing silver bullets is virtually mandatory (Dodge is hard not to put in your deck with Jango/Veers doing the rounds) and if you pick the meta wrong on the morning of the event and didn’t play the right silver bullets, you might as well pack up and go home.

I'm being somewhat facetious obviously with my last comment, but the fact remains we now have a situation where tier 1 decks emerge and you have to run specific counters to them or you can just lose, making the meta 2 dimensional, you play the deck or you hate the deck.

I guess at the end of the day with the current tournament structure the game will never get to the lofty heights of MTG, and maybe FFG don’t want that.

Yeah, I actually did have second thoughts on that after posting. If I were to amend it, it would costs resources equal to the cost of the card removed from play, or something like that.

Sideboards are generally only effective against the greater deck archetype, not so well against 2 card combos. You'll side in your anti hyperloop tech, and they'll side out the hyperloop combo, leaving you with dead cards. They work well in magic because of the way decks are tied to certain colors and there are countless cards that target other cards by color. If they print more cards that specifically target cards by color, then I could see sideboarding being more viable. Things like "Spot a red character to remove a blue die".

But really, I'd just errata Hyperspace Jump to be removed from the game after being played. Or if they don't want to introduce a "removed from the game" area, just that it can't be played from the discard pile.

20 minutes ago, uhhsam said:

Sideboards are generally only effective against the greater deck archetype, not so well against 2 card combos. You'll side in your anti hyperloop tech, and they'll side out the hyperloop combo, leaving you with dead cards. They work well in magic because of the way decks are tied to certain colors and there are countless cards that target other cards by color. If they print more cards that specifically target cards by color, then I could see sideboarding being more viable. Things like "Spot a red character to remove a blue die".

But really, I'd just errata Hyperspace Jump to be removed from the game after being played. Or if they don't want to introduce a "removed from the game" area, just that it can't be played from the discard pile.

Uh, Pyroblast hasn't really been a thing since the mid '90s. We might be playing very different games if you think color hosing is the reason why sideboards are a viable thing in Magic (hint: nobody uses those cards).

4 hours ago, WonderWAAAGH said:

Uh, Pyroblast hasn't really been a thing since the mid '90s. We might be playing very different games if you think color hosing is the reason why sideboards are a viable thing in Magic (hint: nobody uses those cards).

My Imperial Painter deck is sad

14 minutes ago, Stranglebat said:

My Imperial Painter deck is sad

Nobody except this guy.

we built this deck and played it a ton of times, it is not consistent and a lot of other damage/ aggro decks/ dice removal decks kill it. I do not think it is tier 1

I agree with WonderWaaagh that people should be able to finish a best of 3 match in an hour. I disagree with WonderWaaagh about a best of 3 format and a sideboard because it seems the majority of people can't finish a best of 3 in an hour. I can pretty much always finish a best of 3 in an hour if someone goes 2-0, I can frequently finish if the match is 2-1. Most people I've watched couldn't finish a best of 3 match in an hour. My matches are usually aggro vs control. I think control vs control could struggle to finish also.

If we look at the few comments from tournaments actually played so far we pretty much see universal praise for the single round Swiss portion and concern over the best of 3 portion after the cut. It's still early so that could change, but it doesn't bode well for the viability of best of 3 prior to the cut.

Finally I'm not sure best o 3 is needed precut. In my experience winning in Destiny is less predicted on luck and matchups than people might think a dice rolling card drawing game should be. More often than not the following are true.

1. If you give an experienced player a bad deck he will beat a rookie with a good deck more often than not.

2. If 2 equally skilled players are facing off and one has a good deck and one has a bad deck, the player with the good deck will win more games.

3. If two players of equal skill, regardless of the skill level they possess, play with decks of comparable quality, the one who makes the fewest mistakes will win more games.

I have played a lot of games of Destiny. Some games will come down to a single roll of the dice, but it's the culmination of all that had previously transpired in the game that truly decided the outcome. It is a very rare occurrence when one player out rolls the other so badly through the entirety of the game that we can say a game was decided by rolling dice.

I personally don't feel I need a sideboard to play the game. This includes playing against Hyperloop.

I'm not sure how this turned into "should we have sideboards?" thread, that has very little to nothing to do with the OP. It is a solution I guess, but that has even more implications design and game wide than simply making the Falcon RFG the card it uses.

On 2/1/2017 at 11:25 AM, LordFajubi said:

So you guys that hate sideboards and say it dumbs down deck design think mtg has been doing it wrong for 2 decades? And before this isn't mtg arguements come out this isn't an mtg comparison this is a ccg one. It's not one rule for them and another for anyone else. You guys think sideboarding ruins strategy I think sideboarding eliminates loopholers that try to find some unavoidable advantage to win. Are you seriously telling me that being able to change a 5th of your deck, 3 cards or 6 cards as singles, is going to ruin your chances for a run away because you took something that requires a counter but you want to roll the dice they are smart enough and had the room to put the counter in there? Sounds like a better challenge is overcoming a counter instead of playing cheap mind games that you can rofl-stomp the afternoon.

Just because something has been done for a long time doesn't make it right. Just because everyone holds up Magic as being the pillar of CCGs doesn;t make everything they do the absolute best way to do it for every game ever. Do you think that Magic as a game would crumble without sideboards? I sure don't. It would still sell just as much as it does, and competitive people would still be competitive and find ways to mainboard around the loopholes as you say. It would be different, certainly, but hardly game breaking. Especially if WotC designed with the idea of no sideboards going forward. sure, people might complain initially if they tossed it now but only because people are resistant to change.

My personal issue with sideboards is that they lead to cards that can ONLY really be used in sideboards as silver bullets. Anyone remember Perish? or Gloom? Now, count the number of times those cards were main-decked vs sideboarded. This also meant that if I was playing a green deck I had to constantly accept that my opponent may just decimate my board in a given match. Which is not fun at all. Why is my deck being punished so harshly? While Block and Dodge are somewhat similar, you do see those cards in Destiny decks based on the meta and what people are playing right now. Adding a sideboard would mean those cards would only ever be sideboard cards, and would lead to other similar cards. I just don;t like the idea of playing the "I'm tech'ing against my opponent's tech" game. And while that is my opinion, I don't think it as an uncommon one

I am also not in favor of best of 3 really. Which is surprising, because initially I would have said I preferred it. You cannot realistically have 90 minute rounds (going off FFG's standard for it). Even X-Wing has 75 right now and that is a horrible, horrible beating if you have to go through 7+ rounds of it, not even including the cut. In the few tourneys I have played in thus far for Destiny, having the rounds be short and sweet has been really refreshing. You feel like you could actually go 7+ rounds and still be having fun at the end of round 7.

Back to the OP - I do think if something isn't done with the Falcon ability, it will be a problem at some point. I personally think it is already not very fun right now, but that is my opinion.