Dear friends, gamers from all around the world,

I need your advice about the lost of our past and the dead of the ccg... The rules grows up, some play in Legacy or mixt format (CCG and LCG), and FFG don't make any guidance for us...

Do you think they could make a last F.A.Q. for the CCG explaining how to put in all new rules for more understanding.

And for the CCG gamers from old, I have talked a long time with old gamers from CCG and they don't understand the banishment of the ritual because of all the metagaming option against them. May be someone remember why they banish them?

In advance, i thanks you all for your advice

Tolodine said:

Tolodine said:

You're touching a controversial topic here. My answer is not "Word of God" but it should approximate how that went down.

The centre of the game is domain/resource management. You built domains with resources to play the cost of cards.

What the rituals did is to allow you mostly ignore this foundation of the game. you could put cards in the deck that helped you not play the game while forcing your opponent to put cards in their deck that had nothing to do with their strategy just to have a chance of forcing you to play the game.

Games came down to: Do I have a ritual in my opening hand? Could I play it succesfully and utilize it first? Then I'll win. You had a good chance of 'lucking out' and not having to play the game using skill.

Rituals are a pro-active strategy, while Ritual-hate is a reactive strategy. This means that having rituals is always good, but having hate is not always good. It's like always asking a question until someone fails to answer it correctly. Asking a question is far less skill intensive than answering it. If I ask you something and my wincondition is that you fail to provide the right answer, and yours is that you answer correctly, I will most likely win. The same goes for the rituals. I play one, can you stop it right now ? There is a good chance you can. But there is a equal chance you can't.

This lobsided dynamic, combined with the fact that it totally bypasses a fundamental aspect of the game is probably the reason that the game would be better without it. Even though I enjoyed playing the rituals a lot (everyone likes winning!) I think it was the right call to make.

Thanks for your advices.

To jhaelen :

I don’t think that the CCG was dead. Not at this time, a lot of cards come from the CCG into the LCG. A lot of event use that format and an open format using all the cards, black and white border. I only wish a little guidance for that.

Ex:

(must be added in the CCG FAQ)

F.A.Q. tournement Legality

This F.A.Q. was made for legacy play. For Open format, using CCG and LCG cards the rules on the LCG F.A.Q. prevail. Banned List from the CCG F.A.Q. and for the LCG F.A.Q. were active in the Open format.

To Marius :

I think you were the one from Stahleck. I was glad to have your advice about that, but in this game we have a lot of cards that need metagaming in the deck build phase: counter the dogs, counter the descendant, etc… May be it was more difficult for the ritual… I found nine cards to take the best against the ritual and with three neutrals cards. May be it was more fun for those who loose against rituals decks for me it’s only an option in a lot of options.

Tolodine said:

Yes, I was at Stahleck...

The dogs do worry me, since they are far above 'the curve' for one-drops. Still, they are vulnerable against Terror (although not vulnerable enough) and they can be dealt with with ordinairy removal effects - not just with cards specifically made or only having the function in a deck to deal with them. They also don't stop you from immediatly play the game. (see: Theosophist Meeting + The Rip-Off or Dream Summoning + Calling the Great Priest into Discard Cthulhu.)

Descendant got some errata, making it's risk/reward dynamic more realistic. I wonder how it pans out.

Bannings are always controversial, since all cards can be answered in some way. and the cards that end up being banned tend to be the really popular ones; If your meta likes to include them in mixed border games, well, that's fine ofcourse.

Marius said:

I hope to be one of yours at Stahleck this year.

I have never meet a problem with those cards, I've seen those combos in action, and sometimes, against me. but not a problem if your think that could be... For the Rip-off, reducing cost is the key! and for the great priest they are a lot of options in all the faction...

For the descendant, it is a good errata. As we talk with friends, we think that the champions cards (all the three) look more like unique characters and not characters you can have three at a time in play. But, this is some other talking...

Yes, it is, always... And one of us think it is most controversial at this time because they banned them in the last FAQ they made for the CCG... No response or reintegration possible...

Tolodine said:

Cthulhu, Dead But Dreaming entering play after your draw puts you pretty much dead in the water early in the game, limiting severly your ability to resource and play things, and the lucky Cthulhu player could allready have resourced and developed a little board position, and be the first to draw cards again. Yes, the Rip-Off tactic was more popular, but still, it's these kind of things that sucked the skill out of the game.

Tolodine said:

Maybe for flavour reasons. Still, it wouldn't hamper their functionality by much. Almost always a singular one is all it takes, and multiples tend to be in each others' way anyway.

Tolodine said:

You're free to run tournaments using houserules. Popular solutions include having the rituals return at the end of turn to make 'm less explosive.

Another reason is that rituals made it quite difficult for the developers to create cool, powerful cards, since anything below cost 5 could easilly be cast 1st turn, since the card cost factor became totally elliminated. And cost plays an important role in how a card functions, and how the game plays.

Marius said:

Of course, it is the fact you need to think about 'how prevent that horror to arrive on the table' and use some metagamings cards. And in the case of a lot of them they can be used in some other way like the counter card in Hastur... We have just to manage to have one in the case of the worst come.

They do two good extension after that and wonderful asylum packs. I think they know the danger of puting this into an extension. they were greats cards to play a mono-faction deck and some surprising decks are bi-faction, with the item of the forgotten cities... all have options.

I admit that i have an ugly deck with ritual in agency, but a found a way to make it as ugly as it was in the past without the ritual by thinking around it. So, i think that was Brainstorming good during deck building that was the key and not 'ritual or not ritual...'

The games and events that my group play combine the old CCG cards with the new LCG, and the games run fine. Rather than ban cards we limited them to 1 per deck and that works fine. We have one player who did play ritual heavy (and did often win). Making them limited in deck building meant that he could still use them but would have to build new deck ideas.

Thanks for your advice, it is another possibility, it's look fine too.