8 hours ago, Amanal said:

I think we'll see a lot of decks with rend, at the start of this meta.

True, for now for sure until people won't get shredded by those, but nor 9s (aside from Imperial Inspection maybe) nor Moe are affected by those

6 hours ago, Mep said:

While we have to wait and see to be sure I feel you may be right unfortunately, but hey, you never know, maybe mill will take off in a huge way and dominate from here on out. To be fair there was one mill that made top 16 at gencon. The real problem is these aggro decks have just too much potential to get perfect rolls and destroy a mill deck in a hurry while the mill deck is much more consistent and has that lower ceiling. Once that mill deck hits that perfect roll, and given enough rounds it will, it is done for the day. The best that mill deck is ever going to do is empty out a hand, which should happen every turn. So yeah, I can see how someone can get a winning record against some of these decks with a mill deck but luck is still a huge factor in this game, so there you go.

Until mill decks get the ability to knock out half a deck in a turn I don't see them hitting the same high ceiling potential as aggro decks.

I'm a huge fan of Mills. But while i can see how it can hurt 9s, as a main Moe player, i fail to recognize how mill is supposed to threat Moe. Moe can dish out its crucial special as soon as second action and then, hey - go ahead discard me. It still gives Moe 6 turns of dishing out damage. More than enough to kill anything And a agree Mills are to slow to oppose decks that just roll and does not care (emoKids - they can dish consistent 6-8 damage turn 1 without any upgrades).

7 hours ago, Joelist said:

In my opinion the same groupthink which just leads people to blindly play Poe-Maz also has led people to blindly assume Mill decks in Destiny don't work. And groupthink is why I do not trust the proverbial Hive Mind - I have seen all too often in too many different games where once the Hive decides a deck is killer they just run with it and all experimentation stops. I go on what I physically see in playthroughs because that is where I can see the decks in operation. And what I have seen is that given average luck Poe-Maz stalls out against a fast Mill deck for the exact same reason 9s does not like Mill - it takes their toys away.

If you look at those tournaments you'll see that by and large everyone is playing fast aggro courtesy of the Hive saying fast aggro is the way to go. Which is what I thought too until experimentation showed me another way to go.

You might get away with applying group think to a half dozen events that occur in quick succession, specifically in a localized area. Deck A does well at Event 1, Event 2 is a week away so people gravitate to Deck A, Event 3 is that same weekend so it snowballs more. But then the next event is a month away and no one is having to panic decide on a deck, and Deck A has become so omnipresent that the focus on testing becomes "what beats deck A"?

Tagging months worth of results involving dozens of events, and hundreds if not thousands of players, occurring over a large span of time as "group think" is illogical.

The idea that you have these playtest groups gearing up for Gencon or Nationals, accurately being able to pay the meta they will face, and not experimenting to come up with things to directly answer the exact meta they expect to face is nuts. You predict that Poe/Maz will be 1/3rd of the decks you expect to face at a big event, the first thing you are doing is spending an inordinate amount looking for anything rogue that will give you a leg up.

You want to hang your hat on limited results, occurring in a limited localized environment, with a small amount of players over exponentially more results, involving a much larger cross section of players, with varying metas intermingling, and much higher stakes. That's just not a sound foundation for interpreting data.

32 minutes ago, ScottieATF said:

You might get away with applying group think to a half dozen events that occur in quick succession, specifically in a localized area. Deck A does well at Event 1, Event 2 is a week away so people gravitate to Deck A, Event 3 is that same weekend so it snowballs more. But then the next event is a month away and no one is having to panic decide on a deck, and Deck A has become so omnipresent that the focus on testing becomes "what beats deck A"?

Tagging months worth of results involving dozens of events, and hundreds if not thousands of players, occurring over a large span of time as "group think" is illogical.

The idea that you have these playtest groups gearing up for Gencon or Nationals, accurately being able to pay the meta they will face, and not experimenting to come up with things to directly answer the exact meta they expect to face is nuts. You predict that Poe/Maz will be 1/3rd of the decks you expect to face at a big event, the first thing you are doing is spending an inordinate amount looking for anything rogue that will give you a leg up.

You want to hang your hat on limited results, occurring in a limited localized environment, with a small amount of players over exponentially more results, involving a much larger cross section of players, with varying metas intermingling, and much higher stakes. That's just not a sound foundation for interpreting data.

+1 that. I had been on receiving end of that. I took Moe to most of our local events, where in our group no one but me played it so people has not been teched heavy towards it - constantly tops.

Then i took the same deck to another area, where Moe already died out due to palps, vaders and lukes killing maz turn 1 (without knowing it... ) and bam got decimated.

I've been thinking about the errata I would like to see and for me there are 3 problem areas I believe need addressing, two specific to the current meta and the third to address design complications going forward.

FN-2199: Nines is a problem now, but he also cramps the design space moving forwad. The simple solution (and likely best) is limiting his ability to once per round. It's simple, he still has power, but isn't the abusive powerhouse we currently see dominating metas.

Another thought I have had for nines is placing additional play restriction on him or his ability instead of limiting it to once per round. Either only red weapons or upgrades can't be overwritten on him. The former limits his pool of weapons, but much like Holocron, cramps what can be released going forward because of internal power creep. The latter is in many ways a more severe limitation then even the limit 1 per round because it puts a hard cap at three upgrades and puts an end to the cheating out big upgrade after big upgrade with little cost associated for the way there deck wants to be played.

I believe the first option is the best, but I'm also bored and figured, eh why not lay out some ideas.

Poe/Maz: This pairing is so powerful because of the ability to have Poe rolled out and regardless of what he rolled resolve at least one special on your next action thanks to Maz's 2 dice resolve and high probability of landing at least one focus. There are two paths to take here. Change Poe's special, either adding an additional cost to pitching or modifying what is pitchable. Or we can change the way Maz work's; limit what she can resolve, how much, or whose dice. I like the idea of making the change to Maz because it is in line with the hyperloop change, i.e. Poe is Legendary (and at his price point should have a powerful ability) while Maz is rare (and cheap, so her ability should be limited in scope or effect).

The most straight forward change is often the best. If Maz could only resolve one die when she rolls in it severely weakens her. Another easy solution is make it so she can only resolve certain dice. I think making her only able to resolve other character dice to be most pleasing because it maintains her mentor theme while only providing action economy (you could have just resolved the dice instead of activating her) and it takes away the abuse of resolving 1 maz focus and 1 newly focused Poe special.

Rey: With the exception of Poe Maz, most other hero decks in the meta (of which there are very few) have the Rey action cheat package. Not because Rey has great dice or she has an above average HP/cost ratio, but because when paired with starship graveyard she provides on demenad action cheating typically at little cost. She isn't dominating the meta, but she almost certainly is dominating the design space. The thought of a 9/12 Character that can chain 3 or more actions regularly must be a design concern when balancing hero characters and hero/neutral upgrades. The easy solution is placing a limit, likely 1 per turn. But my problem with Rey is that I think recurrable action cheating with negligible costs is bad for the game. And a 9/12 should at most be bringing action efficiency not cheating. My solution to Rey is to have her give upgrades attached to her Ambush. She gets to play however many upgrades she can afford then you get your 1 action, not 2 or 3 or 4, just 1. Instances of ambush do not stack and so Rey becomes action economy and not an action cheat. Tactical mastery is fair because you have a one time use ability twice between the two copies. Force speed is recurrable, but it isn't instant. You have to hit the 50% chance and then next turn resolve it.

So I'm not going to proofread this because I've already spent too much time here writing it, but thanks for reading my thoughts, (hopefully I articulated them well enough).

On 2017-09-08 at 4:10 PM, Joelist said:

It's already losing potency and started to when Fast Hands was errataed. Plus the proper approach against it is:

a) Kill Maz

b) Mill tactics. My experience is Poe-Maz falls hard to a good Mill deck.

Thanks for this known strategy (a), but (b) is relatively false. Our playtesting group tried almost (By almost i mean all, but we never know) all kind of discard vs Paz and it doesnt work. Biggest problem against Paz is turn 2, maybe if mill is lucky turn 3... when the unused 4-6 ressources is used to throw a U wing in your face... and actually play it afterward... and roll u wing dice... Believe it or not, Paz kills turn 3 (Our calculation, localy is 70%), mill will never be that fast, or maybe...

On 2017-09-08 at 6:07 PM, Vitalis said:

You know that both both and maz need to roll something? And since FH errata you can mitigate that. Plus Maz is ultra squishy. Plus he is very card dependant. Come on its not even remotely cancerous as it used to. Now its very high risk, very high reward deck.

Lol, high risk... I think people posting for or against Paz should actually have played against it... There is no high risk in turn 1, hit and run, then activate Poe (33% at least 1 special), then Maz (66% at least 1 focus) mathematically speaking, it's 100% at least a special in your face. Then hurry with your mitigate mill player on your 1st move, because Paz second action will be claim throne room and use second special... And your lucky Paz doesnt planetary uprising turn 1.

Ok.... Paz has to be first and choose his battlefied... but Paz starts with 4 dices, with strong numbers on them. Again, most of the time, being 1st is higher than 50% chance.

Chak

1 hour ago, Chakan99939 said:

Lol, high risk... I think people posting for or against Paz should actually have played against it... There is no high risk in turn 1, hit and run, then activate Poe (33% at least 1 special), then Maz (66% at least 1 focus) mathematically speaking, it's 100% at least a special in your face.

Math does not work that way!

In reality, Poe has a 30.6% (11/36) chance of rolling at least one special. Maz has a 55.6% (20/36) chance of rolling at least one focus. They combine to create a 69.1% (896/1296) chance of allowing you to resolve a special based on just activating the two characters. High, but not 100%.