17 hours ago, gokubb said:

When you look at the speed of the game and the types of decks that are top tier, it's apparent that the designers didn't really understand what exactly was powerful in this first block of sets.

Take a look at the 2-cost upgrades. These, theoretically, can be played the turn they are drawn, before opponent can remove resources and they get activated with a character. Now, compare that with a support card. Those cost usually twice the upgrade and require an action themselves to activate, which slows down your turn and provides opponent more opportunity for control. Yet, the die for a 4 cost support is usually just marginally better than that of a two-cost upgrade. It should be more than twice as effective as the upgrade. The power curve of resource plus opportunity cost just wasn't thought out well in this game.

Characters are another example. You start with them and get their die/ability from the get-go. There's no way the character die should be consistently more powerful than an upgrade or support that has to be drawn into, played with resources, and then rolled out.

I like the game system, but there are fundamental design flaws in the power/cost curve. I think power creep is inevitable, because, as I see it, the card designers don't have an accurate pulse on what makes one card better than another.

I think you're off the mark here.

Utility should be reflected in the cost of a card to some extent, but there isn't a direct correlation. I would wager that costs are based partially on utility and partially on when the designers believed they would have the most impact on the game. I wouldn't expect the IQA rifle to be three times better than a Scout just because it costs 3X more. Same with upgrade dice compared to character abilities. They should be symbiotic, the notion that upgrade dice should just straight up be better because you have to pay for them is a strange one.

With that said, I do think it's fair to say that some cards, like the AT-ST, probably ended up being used more during playtesting than they are in the current meta, which is not at all.

11 hours ago, KalEl814 said:

With that said, I do think it's fair to say that some cards, like the AT-ST, probably ended up being used more during playtesting than they are in the current meta, which is not at all.

There is always multiplayer games, cards or decks that may rock in a 1v1 game will not be so good in a 4 player game. Try and play 4 players and take a Vader Raider deck and see how long Vader lasts.

23 hours ago, DJRAZZ said:

I guess the power creep has affected some decks more than others. I am not talking about new all-stars like Force Speed, Vibroknife, Fast Hands, and so forth. I am thinking about some of the money cards that are fading away. I find it kinda hurts to stick expensive rare and legendary cards into my binder because they are just not cutting it at this time. Glad to see that the Awakenings Characters are still very relevant, maybe even more so than SOR.

Change does not equate to power creep, the cards you list are not replacing anything they are entirely new effects.

I find vibroknife an odd mention as many of the force powers in SoR deal ranged damage it would guide you back to cards from the previous set.

As for Force Speed and Fast Hands, here I am not sure at all you have picked the right cards. All the games I have played and watched have them being overwritten after having done very little. They rely on other dice for good effect and if those other dice don't do anything neither do they. I am also of the opinion that if you don't kill a character with all that extra actions you gain then your opponents response is largely uncontested too. I can't help but wonder if cards like Probe, Friends in Low Places and just plain will hurt back.

I was really siting those cards as example of non-power creep cards.

They're all non-power creep cards.

A poor Obi-Wan card that costs 20 pts more than he should isn't power creep.

Hopefully Ewan MacGregor's persona of the character will fare better in future sets.

On 5/10/2017 at 1:30 AM, DJRAZZ said:

So a different type post. SOR was definitely a power creep and an improvement. Many Awakenings cards are simply not being used in the current meta.

Thoughts.....

If you say so. I'm running an ePhasma/Trooper/Bala deck, which is still super Tier I, and like...hold on....ya, 22 Awakenings cards and 8 SoR cards, and all awakenings characters. Also, show me a deck with T1 prospects right now that has more SoR cards than Awakening cards.

Also, what in SoR is stronger than Sith Holocron, or more purely efficient than D-Pistol or Hunker Down? I'd say we almost doubled the amount of T1 cards we have access to (although Awakenings cards were better, on the whole), but I'm not seeing a ton of power creep. Force Speed is obviously too good for 0 but like...it's less busted than Holocron, so like...tell me the point from which we are creeping?

On 5/10/2017 at 2:40 PM, WonderWAAAGH said:

Uh, there is no power creep yet. Nothing from Awakenings was flat out obsoleted by a super version of the same card.

Take Cover was in Red Hero - Spirit of Rebellion.

7 hours ago, KovuTalli said:

Take Cover was in Red Hero - Spirit of Rebellion.

That's a case of 'faction' cards being better than 'generic' cards, which is to be expected. It's also a case of Take Cover being a bad starter card that players will drop once they get a better collection. Replacing bad cards with playable versions isn't really power creep, or at least not what people complain about when they talk about power creep.

On 5/10/2017 at 11:29 PM, Starbane said:

What money cards from Awakening do think are fading away?

Force Choke in the Vader deck.

52 minutes ago, DJRAZZ said:

Force Choke in the Vader deck.

Thanks for replying.

I think you're right that Vader decks won't be using Force Choke as much as they once did. It seems that the aggro version of Vader is becoming the primary style. Force Choke is better used in control decks and was only ever used in Aggro decks due to lack of options in a 160 card meta. The fact that there are better options now for aggro decks is not the same as power creep. Plus, there is always the chance that a new control deck will arise that can put Force Choke to better use.

3 minutes ago, Starbane said:

Thanks for replying.

I think you're right that Vader decks won't be using Force Choke as much as they once did. It seems that the aggro version of Vader is becoming the primary style. Force Choke is better used in control decks and was only ever used in Aggro decks due to lack of options in a 160 card meta. The fact that there are better options now for aggro decks is not the same as power creep. Plus, there is always the chance that a new control deck will arise that can put Force Choke to better use.

Palpatine wants to Choke.

It's funny you guys mentioned Force Choke... I always felt that card was weak for a legendary, even before SoR. Honestly, Immobilize and Force Choke are pretty much a wash, and Immobilize is one of those annoying "rare" cards that came in a starter set and then showed up with BB8-like frequency (along with Rey's staff.)

So, yeah, Force Choke is being pushed out of the meta, but I would argue it was mostly fluff anyway. My reason for saying this is that I think the only reason people love it is because there's an awesome picture of Vader on it! It's like the card Now I Am the Master... just because there's a cool picture of Vader on there doesn't necessarily make it a great card.

A rotation is likely and almost inevitable. The question is just how soon and how frequently sets will be rotated out.

For now, no power creep, just power combos. Awakening was really too small of a set and needed SOR sooner rather than later.

15 hours ago, Kieransi said:

It's funny you guys mentioned Force Choke... I always felt that card was weak for a legendary, even before SoR. Honestly, Immobilize and Force Choke are pretty much a wash, and Immobilize is one of those annoying "rare" cards that came in a starter set and then showed up with BB8-like frequency (along with Rey's staff.)

So, yeah, Force Choke is being pushed out of the meta, but I would argue it was mostly fluff anyway. My reason for saying this is that I think the only reason people love it is because there's an awesome picture of Vader on it! It's like the card Now I Am the Master... just because there's a cool picture of Vader on there doesn't necessarily make it a great card.

in a ccg mostly the ugly cards are the good ones

On 5/12/2017 at 11:58 PM, Starbane said:

Thanks for replying.

I think you're right that Vader decks won't be using Force Choke as much as they once did. It seems that the aggro version of Vader is becoming the primary style. Force Choke is better used in control decks and was only ever used in Aggro decks due to lack of options in a 160 card meta. The fact that there are better options now for aggro decks is not the same as power creep. Plus, there is always the chance that a new control deck will arise that can put Force Choke to better use.

Well said. So tempted to sell my Force Chokes to fund other more relevant cards for me right now.

On 5/10/2017 at 5:58 PM, KalEl814 said:

Yeah, I don't think SoR meets the definition of power creep at all.

This^

Already have most Villain and Neutral cards and I don't see anything so powerful. May be Inperial Inspection will get some changes one day when Red is more dominant, but right now I can't think of another SoR card that appears more powerful than the top cards from the previous set.

BTW, the game got slower, not faster, which is good.

31 minutes ago, player996970 said:

BTW, the game got slower, not faster, which is good.

9 hours ago, player996970 said:

BTW, the game got slower, not faster, which is good.

Perhaps we exist in different meta but would you expand and explain. In a game with Fast Hands and Force Speed, played on Rey it seems like a counter intuitive comment.

46 minutes ago, Amanal said:

Perhaps we exist in different meta but would you expand and explain. In a game with Fast Hands and Force Speed, played on Rey it seems like a counter intuitive comment.

While it's true fast strategies got faster, it would appear that control decks became more viable with the arrival of SoR. If control is better able to extend the game and win, it would mitigate the new speed.

In a weird way speed helped Mill decks tremendously. Early hand and deck removal and less worry about running out of time.

12 hours ago, DJRAZZ said:

In a weird way speed helped Mill decks tremendously. Early hand and deck removal and less worry about running out of time.

This exactly.

I currently run ePoe / eMaz which is super efficient and fast and also eJabba / Vader mill. I have to say, that the second deck is faster in terms of major decesions of game. Meanwhile with Poe, you play and your opponent still has whole turn of his actions, resources and reactions, with eJbba/Vader, you just start with Fast Hands Jabba roll, where you ideally disrupt his resources to clean their resource pool or you start with double or triple (Blackmail / Vibroknuckles), discard following with Vader activation as next action and usually resulting in 0 cards in opponent hand after 2 actions on both sides. Control mill decks currently definitely feels faster from an opponents point of view, as he is not running away from you, but he is disabling you to move.

14 hours ago, Amanal said:

Perhaps we exist in different meta but would you expand and explain. In a game with Fast Hands and Force Speed, played on Rey it seems like a counter intuitive comment.

More like control decks that caught up to speed too, but their role is disrupt, not fast end of the game, so in way - the game is slower.

Imperial Inspection if you play red? Survival also got better with Armor Plating and Personal Shield (well, there is the knife now too, so it depends), Red/Yellow Villains have at least 2 more cards to remove dice at zero cost. Yellow Villains got Unkar which is quite a boost in terms of resource generation, hand disruption and his added health for the cost, and two entirely new mill cards (Con Artist being neutral, and Loose End for the Villains). Krennic can also use Fast hands with Commanding presence (you want him claiming anyway). And then - not really hard to kill a supporting character at once (or even those with less than 6-7 health left) with Fight Dirty if you play mostly yellow like Jango & Unkar (which is speedy enough as it is). What I'm not sure about yet is Infamous, so far it's been good, but it's an action I can't afford sometimes.

Of course it's down to meta - if you play mostly against Vader and Rey decks, you would have to deal with their speed and probably play more characters or protection to endure.