2 hours ago, ScottieATF said:

#2. If a deck were placing and winning 25% of the time you don't necessarily have a balance problem that needs addressing. Provided the other 75% is made up of 6-8 different decks you'd have in that moment a fairly balanced game by CCG standards. Poe/Maz was only over preforming by a bit.

Define "a bit"? Because I get the feeling that the problem threshold will always be just a bit above what it's performing.

Poe/Maz is currently tracking 32%. No other single deck is running at even half that. If we filter out all the random one-offs that have only won a few events, it's taking almost half the wins. Is that still overperforming by "a bit"?

12 hours ago, johnwiser said:

How many times has Poe/Maz won a big tournament?

Winning isn't the whole story. Poe/Maz may only win 33% of the all tournaments, but there are other factors too, how many Poe/Maz decks are played and how well they positioned overall. My local SC saw 36 players, 17 Poe/Maz decks and while it was won with a Palatine Deck, 6 of the 2-8th placed decks were Poe/Maz. (75% of the top 8 were Poe/Maz) If the deck wasn't doing far better than it should you would expect that players end up dotted all over the spectrum of results.

9 hours ago, Kieransi said:

Yeah!!! Since Maz is so good, I might want to try out eJyn/Maz now! That might be a wicked good control deck.

I'm putting together an eJyn-Maz deck now. It should be an interesting Control/Mill deck.

I've seen Poe-Maz in action now enough to understand that the key (especially after the Fast Hands errata) was always to go after Maz first. I think a lot of players made the mistake of targeting Poe first which plays into the hands of the deck. Before the errata Poe would have Fast Hands so that the impact of losing Maz was minimized - also it meant Poe would play an upgrade capable of focus to use with the Fast Hands. but even then the consistency of the deck goes down a good amount once Maz is gone - and she happens to be the weaker character too.

Now that Fast Hands can only be played on Yellow killing Maz really hurts this deck. And there are quite a few builds able to kill her on the first round (EMO Twins, Vader-Raider, Jago-Veers and others).

2 hours ago, Joelist said:

I've seen Poe-Maz in action now enough to understand that the key (especially after the Fast Hands errata) was always to go after Maz first. I think a lot of players made the mistake of targeting Poe first which plays into the hands of the deck. Before the errata Poe would have Fast Hands so that the impact of losing Maz was minimized - also it meant Poe would play an upgrade capable of focus to use with the Fast Hands. but even then the consistency of the deck goes down a good amount once Maz is gone - and she happens to be the weaker character too.

Now that Fast Hands can only be played on Yellow killing Maz really hurts this deck. And there are quite a few builds able to kill her on the first round (EMO Twins, Vader-Raider, Jago-Veers and others).

While i agree it will be the choice more often than not i don't think kill maz is an always rule. Poe is still plenty reliable if they have the throne room.

You will need to get rid of maz as cargo bay will allow you to move fast hands from maz to poe

1 hour ago, Plymouthdean86 said:

You will need to get rid of maz as cargo bay will allow you to move fast hands from maz to poe

I don't think any Poe/Maz decks will run Cargo Hold > Emp's Throne Room to try and just get FH. Too much to leave a Poe die out when you can just claim, turn to special, and then do 4 dmg for Planetary Uprising.

~D

19 hours ago, Buhallin said:

Define "a bit"? Because I get the feeling that the problem threshold will always be just a bit above what it's performing.

Poe/Maz is currently tracking 32%. No other single deck is running at even half that. If we filter out all the random one-offs that have only won a few events, it's taking almost half the wins. Is that still overperforming by "a bit"?

I defined the threshold in the post you qouted. 25% of the meta share would be the limit of what I'd say is acceptable for a single deck to occupy, provided the other 75% of the field is made up of at least 6-8 other varied decks decks with at least 8%. That's assuming you're going to have you standard 5-10% random 1 of winners.

I'm not sure why you are insinuating that I'm going to shift the goal posts when I gave you a number in the intial post.

I think people's expectations for a balanced meta are vastly out of sink with what is realistic to expect from, not just FFG, but any publisher making a customizable game. Having a deck that has a larger share them the others is completely expected and acceptable to a certain point. So if 32% is where it is at now I'd define a bit as 7%.

22 minutes ago, ScottieATF said:

I'm not sure why you are insinuating that I'm going to shift the goal posts when I gave you a number in the intial post.

I was actually insinuating that you set your goal posts based on the current performance. But yes, I believe that if it were performing better, your target would be higher.

23 minutes ago, ScottieATF said:

I defined the threshold in the post you qouted. 25% of the meta share would be the limit of what I'd say is acceptable for a single deck to occupy, provided the other 75% of the field is made up of at least 6-8 other varied decks decks with at least 8%.

There are only 3 other decks that break that threshold. So that means you see a problem, right?

3 hours ago, Plymouthdean86 said:

You will need to get rid of maz as cargo bay will allow you to move fast hands from maz to poe

ETR and Frozen Wastes are still the strongest two options. Cargo Hold, while interesting, suffers a lot in the late game when either you or your opponent is down to 1 character. Then it's effectively useless.

57 minutes ago, Buhallin said:

I was actually insinuating that you set your goal posts based on the current performance. But yes, I believe that if it were performing better, your target would be higher.

There are only 3 other decks that break that threshold. So that means you see a problem, right?

I never said there wasn't a problem. I responded to a poster that stated that one deck winning 25-30% of the events is too much. I provided parameters where a deck winning the low end of that percentage would not be an issue. I disagreed with that poster's general assertion the any deck winning a quarter of the events is too much. I never stated Destiny was there, nor that the recent changes weren't warrented.

Do you disagree with the parameters I provided in which you have one deck with a 25% share and yet still end up with a successful meta in terms of balance?

Though I'd say there are 4 decks above that threshold as I'd consider 3 character FN-2199 builds to be the some archetype even with minor adjustments to the characters. The decks end up very similar and mostly do the same thing.

4 minutes ago, ScottieATF said:

Do you disagree with the parameters I provided in which you have one deck with a 25% share and yet still end up with a successful meta in terms of balance?

I actually do, for a few reasons. A 25% win rate means that you're probably capped at 4 competitive archetypes. That's just dull. Maybe it's normal for CCGs, and that's why I generally don't play CCGs, but I think you need at least 6 and preferably 8-10 to keep it interesting. That doesn't mean they all have to be tied, but that they're in a tight competitive band. The first year I played at the X-wing Nationals I got through 6 rounds without ever seeing the same list twice. At the SC last weekend I faced Poe/Maz three games out of 4. And there weren't even minor differences - they were exactly the same deck, and I lost the two games in pretty much exactly the same way (I just conceded the third rather than go through that again).

But I also think that the threshold is off for Destiny. The dice mechanics SHOULD introduce a larger amount of variance in success rates, making it more difficult for a single archetype to accumulate big numbers. I think this shows up in most other decks - Vader/Raider has consistently and reliably been one of the best decks out there, but it's only running a few percentage ahead of both EmoKids and Palpatine. Poe/Maz is blowing everything else out of the water though.

So yes, I disagree - both in what the threshold should be, and what the "just 7%" means.

12 minutes ago, ScottieATF said:

Though I'd say there are 4 decks above that threshold as I'd consider 3 character FN-2199 builds to be the some archetype even with minor adjustments to the characters. The decks end up very similar and mostly do the same thing.

This isn't really true. Unkar/FN/Trooper is by far the dominant use of FN, at 7%. The only other deck to use FN which shows more than a single win is Bala/FN/Nightsister, which is a completely different approach.

By the way, between the need to win the opening die roll and cards like Ascension Gun and others I would not count on the Battlefield to provide die consistency.

I'm relatively happy with new errata's, especially since they didn't completely destroyed the card, it still 100% as effective, but more narrow oriented.

I don't think it affects Poe/Maz that much. I played so many match against it now, and most of the time, FH wasnt out.

I agree with Poe/Maz having a % too high in tournament, why? Maybe itself it wins only 32%... but we have to take its twin deck into account (i.e. Emperor), because emperor wouldn't be so strong or popular without poe/maz at 32%, so adding the 2 decks we are near 50%.

Overall, FH errata was good, but I expect something done to Poe eventually.

Tonight I took my very incomplete eJyn-Maz deck for a test run. I faced the EMO twins and beat them by decking them. This turns out to be a good Mill deck, and running Lone Operative and Second Chance made Jyn and Maz less easily killed. And Rebel came in very handy too.

As to Poe-Maz, I still think (and saw in both my own meta and on the net) way too many people were making the mistake of targeting Poe first. Once our meta (for example) switched the target to Maz the success rate for the deck dropped even before Fast Hands was errata'd. What the Fast Hands errata does is remove the "insurance" feature of the deck. not only would one be on Poe in the event Maz bought it but one on Maz meant she could actually resolve three dice after rolling (one of her own with Fast Hands then two more from her power).

Once our meta made the mind shift the approach to Poe-Maz became (especially in heavy power aggro decks) to blast Maz on Round One with all available assets. More than half the time so far under such an assault Maz was either dead outright or died almost immediately in Round Two. Once that occurred the Deck previously would lean on Fast Hands Poe to operate - but now that is gone. I suspect a Maz-less Poe now is going to be in deep trouble,

1 hour ago, Joelist said:

Tonight I took my very incomplete eJyn-Maz deck for a test run....

Which seems to touch on an interesting point. How many decks have strengthened in the meta with the changes as opposed to how many fell out of the meta?

My gut feeling is that we have had more decks enter the competitive meta than left. So in that sense the change has been good too.

So, how many people think that Ammo belt should have been changed to "a Weapon or Equipment upgrade" instead of just weapon upgrade?

13 minutes ago, Traxlenak said:

So, how many people think that Ammo belt should have been changed to "a Weapon or Equipment upgrade" instead of just weapon upgrade?

Not I. Ammo is for a weapon.

Now if they just change Ace in the Hole to be a weapon/equipment (basically anything BUT an Ability), then that'll be better. I don't get how you can Ace in the Hole a Crime Lord or Cunning...

~D