Hey all, new to the forums, apologies if this is covered elsewhere.

My wife and I have been collecting and playing Destiny for a while now, and enjoy the occasional game against each other.

As time has progressed our matches have become a bit one-sided. I'm a more serious gamer than she is, and my decks tend to be a bit more ruthless. I've played a few tournaments, and she has not.

It's got to the point where she hasn't won in a while and isn't enjoying playing as much. This is the first time we've both enjoyed collecting and playing a game, and I don't want to lose that.

So aside from the obvious suggestion of telling her to "get good", does anyone have any experience or suggestions for a handicap or balancing mechanic we could use?

Thanks in advance!

42 minutes ago, McSeb said:

Hey all, new to the forums, apologies if this is covered elsewhere.

My wife and I have been collecting and playing Destiny for a while now, and enjoy the occasional game against each other.

As time has progressed our matches have become a bit one-sided. I'm a more serious gamer than she is, and my decks tend to be a bit more ruthless. I've played a few tournaments, and she has not.

It's got to the point where she hasn't won in a while and isn't enjoying playing as much. This is the first time we've both enjoyed collecting and playing a game, and I don't want to lose that.

So aside from the obvious suggestion of telling her to "get good", does anyone have any experience or suggestions for a handicap or balancing mechanic we could use?

Thanks in advance!

Try giving her one more resource at the beginning of the game.

If it does not work try giving her always the initiative (free to chose the bf)

It depends on what she values. If you apply a handicap to yourself your blanket stating that she can't win without it, and that hurts a lot of people. What would be better, I think, is to help her get better by playing a few rounds open handed and explain your decisions / plays.

Something you could also do is the Chance Cube's Strike Teams format. Where the two of you play a 2v2 game. Deck building wise uniqueness applies and you have to be the same faction. Play order goes team A player, team b player, etc etc.

A little bit like golf, you should play with numbers:

For a while, you will start at -10 character starting points (Actually 20/30). Each time she wins, add 1 to your character starting points, when you win, substract 1 (Max. -10).

That way, you will know exactly where her knowledge of the game etc. is.

That works well with my wife, my starting points is currently 26 and usually varie from 24 to 28.

of course you have to change character, but most of my deck, i just choose weaker character when near 20 while keeping their same color so i dont have to change card in the deck.

1 hour ago, McSeb said:

time has progressed our matches have become a bit one-sided. I'm a more serious gamer than she is, and my decks tend to be a bit more ruthless. I've played a few tournaments, and she has not.

My advice to you would be to be less ruthless in your deckbuilding. You're playing casually with your wife, you're not in a tournament.

This is a Star Wars game, be more thematic in your builds. Don't min-max your decks. Instead of playing Han/Rey, try Han/Chewie instead. Instead of Kylo/Dooku, try Kylo/trooper/trooper, try to play withBaze/Chirrut, Emperor/Guard, etc... Use this time to experiment out of your confort zone.

29 minutes ago, player679937 said:

It depends on what she values. If you apply a handicap to yourself your blanket stating that she can't win without it, and that hurts a lot of people.

Or just don't play with her. It's flat out patronizing to have to change what you do to give someone else a chance, which doesn't leave many options if you both want to continue playing and preserve your relationship. Does she have anyone else to play with? Is she open to attending more casual events?

Build less good decks. Mess around with fun decks, chuck in cards you never use.

You know you want to see if you can get an AT-ST on the board...

Thanks for all the comments, very much appreciated!

I certainly don't want to stop playing with her, as mentioned it's the first time she's been excited to collect and play a 'geeky' game and that's something I really cherish.

I do occasionally build more experimental decks that are less ruthless. This does work in that she sometimes wins, but she feels the victory is hollow as I wasn't giving it my best! Tricky situation, I know!

I like the idea of a variable handicap like golf, might give that a go. But of course I'll see what she prefers so she doesn't feel patronised or hurt.

Thanks again to everyone so far, more ideas welcome too! Hopefully this will help anyone else in a similar situation.

Who builds her decks? If she's building her own decks, offer to sit down with her and work on improving them together. I play with my wife and two of my kids: I build decks based on what they want to play, although my son (11) is at the point where he will make nearly all his own decisions now. If you're building her decks, is there a reason why you can't also build ruthless, top level builds for her as well? Or are you building decks that just don't match up well for some reason?

Second, I'd not run your most ruthless decks against her. If she's not playing at the same level as you, it's really not doing you much good in terms of practice, and it's not going to be fun to her. Use your games with her as a chance to experiment and play styles that you normally don't work on. You never know, you might uncover one of the hidden killer combos, but at least you'll both have more fun.

I play with my brother, and he only really does it to be nice - war games like Memoir '44 and Axis and Allies are more his speed. So usually, I'll give him my tournament build (like eRey/eLuminara or eJango/eVeers) and then give myself something that I don't ever see anymore, like Rebel Troopers or, my latest, 3x Royal Guard. That usually evens out the playing field enough.

I know you didn't want the "just make her play better" answer, but I've also noticed that this game doesn't take so long to get good at - for me, it was a couple weeks of playing with a friend at lunch. Compare that to X-Wing, Axis and Allies, or any other strategy-intensive game, and it's pretty good. I've played a number of games against my friend's younger brother, and what I do then is play the game open-handed (avoiding cards that say to look at an opponent's hand, obviously) and offer suggestions and let him see what I'm doing and why I'm doing it. That's helped him catch on pretty fast to how the game is played.

The only part that's hard about this game is deck-building, and if you're having your wife build her own decks, that's tricky if she doesn't know the meta, tournament-style stuff (which I assume you do, as you're on this forum ). I have a friend who's a better player than I am but almost never wins at tournaments because he likes to play thematic decks, such as Admiral Ackbar with two Rebel Troopers. So what we've decided on is that we'll try to both use a "fun" deck when we play, I'll try out something experimental or a character I've still never pulled out of my binder. I'm looking forward to using that second Jedi Acolyte I pulled yesterday...

1 hour ago, McSeb said:

I do occasionally build more experimental decks that are less ruthless. This does work in that she sometimes wins, but she feels the victory is hollow as I wasn't giving it my best! Tricky situation, I know!

I like the idea of a variable handicap like golf, might give that a go. But of course I'll see what she prefers so she doesn't feel patronised or hurt.

Well, if she feels the victory is hollow when you build more experimental decks, I don't think giving yourself an handicap will help.... I know I would prefer to lose to an experimental build that is within the rules over one that is given an handicap in points...

Yeah, I agree with @Red Castle , if the victory seems "hollow" with anything but tournament-caliber decks, no handicap is gonna help either. You could try phrasing the question differently, rather than "how can I handicap myself", try to think "how can I make the game even?" That's why I suggested what I did earlier - both of you can agree to play more "fun" decks.

Maybe you could try sharing your information with her? Tell her about the tournaments you go to, and what's being played there. For example, almost all the winning decks are two elite characters (Maz/Poe, Rey/QGJ, Rey/Han, Jango/Veers, Leia/Ackbar, Vader(SoR)/Kylo, etc.) You could also tell her about the Chance Cube and their meta tracker, this forum, and just explain how the best decks win, i.e. the Rey/ForceSpeed/Vibroknife combo or the Poe/Support/Maz combo.

I think that the most important thing here is that whatever you do, try not to be patronizing. I can't even tell you how many games I've seen people scared off of by someone being patronizing or seeming smug while explaining the rules or setting up a match. Whatever you do, don't describe it as you're "giving her a handicap or balancing mechanic", but try to simply tell her what's going on in the game. If it sounds more like you're explaining rules when you're discussing the meta, it's less likely to seem offensive. Instead of describing the deck you're using that's beating her deck, try describing the decks that have beaten your deck at tournaments.

I deal with the same situation with my SO, so I'm sympathetic to your plight!

I'm of the opinion that you should probably run non-optimized decks. That cat is already out of the bag: your SO knows that you're probably a bit better at the game than her, so there's no real chance to "inconspicuously" lose games through a handicap or anything else. There are a bunch of benefits to using non-optimized decks: you don't have to pull punches or stop playing your hardest, you'll get to use characters and cards from your collection that would never fit in a tournament deck, and it will ultimately make you a better player with your tournament deck as you'll get better at making smart choices. The point-handicap is simply another way of running non-optimized decks, though I (personally) find it unsatisfying.

One way to do this would be to build a bunch of mono-color decks. It's a natural way to limit your deckbuilding options, makes sense, will let you use your full collection, etc. Powerful neutral cards, like Electroshock and It Binds All Things, will have to get split. In effect you can create your own meta, and have multiple decks on hand to play around with which might make it easier than running the same two combinations over and over.

Another option is to help build her decks. I'll find out what characters my SO wants to use, what kind of playstyle she'd like to go for, and then I'll put together the strongest variant I can for her to pilot. This way she gets input in the deckbuilding stage, but I've insured the deck is still potent and can stand up to our other decks.

Treat her as you would like to be treated yourself were the situation reversed.

If you were only just starting to play Destiny with people playing since December how would you like them to play?

I started playing on TTS with a friend that lives in a city 2 hours drive away. At first we played just starters, learning TTS was as much a problem as learning the game. From the starters we moved to our own decks, I would play test my deck ideas and see how they played as he improved so did they. Then as he got better those decks were replaced with tougher ones. We would play a couple of hands each week and after a time we played a few games with open hands and were able to discuss the choices each of us had.

I have been in a similar position with my 2 children, and have found that playing open handed is the best way to teach the nuances and card synergy of the game. I also help them build decks to try to get the balance right because at first my son just wanted to throw as many dice cards in his deck as he could. I play a lot and he is now at the point where he regularly beats me without any help, except with deck building, as he understands the role of each card in his deck.

Thanks all. My wife does build her own decks, but perhaps helping her build one might be good!

I'll try a combination of your suggestions and see what works!

Thanks again, you're all a credit to the community.

Your wife is grist for the mill as you improve your own skills. Crush her. Break her spirit. Revel in the agony you cause her. Bathe in her tears. Channel your marital strife into fuel used to defeat your opponents at tournaments. Do not stop until you are the world champion. Only then will your wife respect you as a man, only then will your sons want to emulate you, and only then will your daughters will be seen as suitable partners. Demand to be served food on your world champion playmat during every meal so that they all know that they are beneath you.

If that's not your speed, I think going over deckbuilding together is a good start, and trying different character combos that don't dominate the current meta is fun as well. I've had some of my most amusing matches by playing troll decks or thematic decks even if they're not optimal ones. Playing with a buddy as we were both rolling hyperloop decks just to see how long the pain would last was incredibly entertaining!

She should be open to you helping her build a better deck. If she really likes the game then she should except the help. There is no shame in excepting help and advise in this game. I do it everyday. Maybe tell her that you ask for help all the time and that is why you have gotten better. If she has no interest in doing this then she is kinda missing the point of CCG's and the nature of the people who play them.

My son get's his ego bruised when I help him with deck building and strategy but he get's over it when he starts winning. Sometimes he has to learn the hard way, which really means more money for me to have to spend. Every now and again we will trade decks. That way he can watch me play his deck and get ideas with-out admitting he needed help or he was wrong.

Stop playing tier1 decks....? Lol simple as that. Keep T1 decks for store events, use something funky with wife.