4 hours ago, LordFajubi said:

Actually a fair comparison. Bard and a few others ruined tournament play because it was bring one of 3 options or die. Literally you were a fool to do otherwise.

That f#$ing bard ruined our local community. We went from 20 regular player to none It was like "oh surprise, another bard deck." just like it's getting to "oh surprise, another scum built " or "oh surprise, here come Miranda and Biggs again". At least before we could add "here are my Commonwealth defenders to give you some form of challenge" :-)

2 hours ago, LordBlades said:

If that were true, why are people still bringing (and winning with, see the European Championship for example) let's say Rebels?

Either Rebels have ships that are just as good as the Jumpmaster, or people don't necessarily bring the absolute best, sometimes they settle for 'good enough stuff that I like to fly'.

People are (and have been) complaining about the rebel built that won the championship as well. Miranda/Biggs (with or without Sabine) is just as OP as the JMKs are. Throwing around 5 red dices attacks at range 2-3 with no possibility of range bonus is just plain stupid design IMO. Assuming your opponent has 6 shields, she can do up to 6 dmg in a single turn and be worry free while Biggs protects her. No wonder why low hp ships are struggling...

What you saw was just an OP build winning the day... Also being unbalanced doesnt mean being invincible. It means having a much higher chance at winning assuming both players are equally skilled.

5 hours ago, Thormind said:

People are (and have been) complaining about the rebel built that won the championship as well. Miranda/Biggs (with or without Sabine) is just as OP as the JMKs are. Throwing around 5 red dices attacks at range 2-3 with no possibility of range bonus is just plain stupid design IMO. Assuming your opponent has 6 shields, she can do up to 6 dmg in a single turn and be worry free while Biggs protects her. No wonder why low hp ships are struggling...

What you saw was just an OP build winning the day... Also being unbalanced doesnt mean being invincible. It means having a much higher chance at winning assuming both players are equally skilled.

The European Championship finals was 2x Miranda/YT-2400.

If Miranda/YT-2400 is an 'OP build winning the day', what exactly would be a 'balanced' build in your view?

13 hours ago, LordBlades said:

The European Championship finals was 2x Miranda/YT-2400.

If Miranda/YT-2400 is an 'OP build winning the day', what exactly would be a 'balanced' build in your view?

My bad, i looked at the swiss rank.

IMO there are 7 things that need to be fixed for the sake of the game:

- JMK

- Miranda

- Fenn

- Biggs

- Asajj

- Sabine (or SLAM)

Mindlink is not there because on anything else than JMK/Fenn/Asajj im not sure it's really OP.

It's kind of ironic but even if the Imperials dont perform well, i would consider many of their top builds "balanced": Triple Defenders, Gambit (TieSf + Defender + X), RAC + X. For other factions: 4 Ywings, Heragator (VCX+shuttle+X), YYZZJess, Crack Swarm (Tie or Awing) etc. All those builds could fight against each other and have an almost even chance to win. There are many more like that...

3 hours ago, Thormind said:

My bad, i looked at the swiss rank.

IMO there are 7 things that need to be fixed for the sake of the game:

- JMK

- Miranda

- Fenn

- Biggs

- Asajj

- Sabine (or SLAM)

Mindlink is not there because on anything else than JMK/Fenn/Asajj im not sure it's really OP.

I think your list is mixing 2 issues:

1) You have JM5K and Biggs, which are a problem in themselves. JM5K is undercosted, so odds are whatever you give to Scum (upgrade-wise) it's going to go better on a JM5K than on everything else, and Biggs is so good that pretty much the entire Rebel faction is designed with Biggs in mind.

2) Stuff that's, IMO at least, not a problem in itself, but due to a 'perfect storm' of factors. Miranda herself is fine. Miranda with Adv. Slam and Sabine is not. Same goes for Fenn. If you drop the Attani and use PtL or Fearlessness, it's not vastly better than equivalent Imperial Aces, like Whisper or Soontir. Similarly, Assajj without Attani is also fine.

I also disagree that Attani is not a problem. IMO it's so good that it's a recreation of the Biggs issue, but at a lower scale: everything that FFG designs for Scum will need to be analyzed (and possibly toned down) because of how it interacts with Attani.

I didn't get to reply this week due to other stuff, so I'm a bit late.

Having a balanced format or a stable metagame does not mean that a game is balanced. I also strongly disagree that having only 2 or 3 tier 1 lists is in any way good for a game. When Standard drops to a 2 deck format attendance suffers. You should try and balance the options in a game as best as possible because it is much easier to ensure your format is good when things are balanced than when they are not.

I wish people who know next to nothing about Magic: The Gathering didn't talk about it. I stopped reading this thread when people started complaining about random packs – sure, because MTG players open random packs to acquire cards hoping to get lucky? Not even 10-year-olds do that. Packs are for playing Limited formats, not for collecting. The pack is the game, in one of its many facets (that is Limited). Do you really think pro players who live off the game open packs to find cards? C'mon.

Truth is cards are just tools, you need them to play and you acquire them in the same way tennis players acquire their gears (but a lot more cheaply at that). And you can have all the cards you want (which you don't need), just like you can buy the most expensive racket and shoes, but if you're not a good player, it'll do absolutely nothing for your win/loss ratio.

Rosewater's quote is not particularly meaningful, he's just stating the obvious. If you want a more in-depth take on why "bad" elements must exist in a game, read this article of his (but it's also important to understand his concept of psychographic profile , which informs all of his actions as a designer: you don't design a game for one type of player, therefore your game will always have elements that don't appeal to part of your audience; the trick is, for each profile, to balance those with elements that do).

By the way, OP, there's not just 2 or 3 decks that are viable competitively in a MTG format (assuming you were talking per format). The current Standard meta has about 20 different decks that ended Top 8 at some tournament. And Standard is usually the least varied format, and I'd say not one that people really play casually, since there's no real purpose in restricting your access to the game as a whole if you aren't trying to win at all costs.

MTG has been thriving since almost 25 years, keeps expanding its player base with each new year. They must be doing something right.

Me, I think buying specific cards for mtg is just as dumb as participating in the random draw of buying packs.

But that's my personal opinion and why I won't play that game anymore. In the meantime it is true, as it is with games workshop, they've got plenty of buyers.