Am I the only one that thinks this is a joke or a teaser for another release?

I am reluctant to believe that FFG would release a game with such a horrible design mechanic as unique and un-changeable decks. This feels like a limited format CCG but without any of the things that makes limited actually a fun format.

Maybe they are trying to compete with Lightseekers? Another game that seems to have almost no actual value, but a more coherent mechanic.

I just have this feeling that we'll see another announcement that says "psyche!" and we will get a game in the same universe but with a more reasonable deckbuilding or purchase mechanic.

I don't think this is a joke. It's always nice to see something new being tried. What if it is successful, I personally would collect those decks.

Just now, RedMageStatscowski said:

I don't think this is a joke. It's always nice to see something new being tried. What if it is successful, I personally would collect those decks.

I'm struggling to see why. Most of the decks you buy will, by definition, be of a playstyle you don't enjoy and be of vastly different power levels. Some will be oppressively good, some unplayably bad, and there will be no secondary market at all.

Most competitive card games get their community based on deckbuilding, stories of cool plays, and the concept of an ever growing card pool. Since you can't actually change decks, a new expansion means just throwing your cards away and buying an entire new deck. There isn't a practical way to "collect" decks. It's completely random. No finishing playsets or a collection of decks. Or even just buying one of each "faction". All entirely random.

I feel that is the point, it's a jungle out here. I might not get a playstyle I want, but I'll make do and LEARN the deck I happen to have. Besides, from my experience in TCG communities, I've always been told that my deck is trash, and top tier stuff would beat me, yet I always beat them. It'll just be the same here too.

Also, I can always just call it "collecting Archons".

It is something new and different. Deckbuilding is how TCGs get players, but this isn't a TCG. It is like taking a eurogame and complaining you can't paint miniatures like in Wargames.

If you don't like it, fine. But stop trying to complain about this game because it isn't another magic clone.

I don't think the term "collecting" is appropriate here. Collecting makes sense if you can have a full set of whatever you collect. Collection is a completionnist thing. With 10^25 different decks for just the first 350 cards card pool (yeah that's over 100 octillions decks ) good luck, it's stupidly too much. There is not enough raw materials in the whole galaxy to print that.

23 minutes ago, RedMageStatscowski said:

I feel that is the point, it's a jungle out here. I might not get a playstyle I want, but I'll make do and LEARN the deck I happen to have. Besides, from my experience in TCG communities, I've always been told that my deck is trash, and top tier stuff would beat me, yet I always beat them. It'll just be the same here too.

Also, I can always just call it "collecting Archons".

Oh man I wanna see somebody try to get a full set of Keyforge!

6 minutes ago, Radix2309 said:

It is something new and different. Deckbuilding is how TCGs get players, but this isn't a TCG. It is like taking a eurogame and complaining you can't paint miniatures like in Wargames.

If you don't like it, fine. But stop trying to complain about this game because it isn't another magic clone.

I love that comparison. It's like buying a vegetable sandwich and complaining that there's no meat inside.

5 minutes ago, Radix2309 said:

It is something new and different. Deckbuilding is how TCGs get players, but this isn't a TCG. It is like taking a eurogame and complaining you can't paint miniatures like in Wargames.

If you don't like it, fine. But stop trying to complain about this game because it isn't another magic clone.

AS I said I my post previously, it's not about complaining rather understanding the logic behind the concept, how the business model will work, the wquality of the gaming experience and who it caters to. And for the moment these questions don't have easy answers.

2 minutes ago, Hellvlad said:

I don't think the term "collecting" is appropriate here. Collecting makes sense if you can have a full set of whatever you collect. Collection is a sompletionist thing. With 10^25 different decks for just the first 350 cards card pool (yeah that's over 100 octillions decks ) good luck, it's stupidly too much. There is not enough raw materials in the whole galaxy to print that.

If I learned one thing from the trailer, it's that they are not afraid of hyperbole.

We'll probably have to take their numbers with a grain of salt.

1 minute ago, Hellvlad said:

AS I said I my post previously, it's not about complaining rather understanding the logic behind the concept, how the business model will work, the wquality of the gaming experience and who it caters to. And for the moment these questions don't have easy answers.

My guess is it's for people who:

• like to play draft/blind selection of cards.
• are Richard Garfield fans and buy whatever he comes up with regardless.
• hate deck building
• don't have much money and like the idea of having an entire deck for under 10$
• are me.

1 minute ago, Robin Graves said:

If I learned one thing from the trailer, it's that they are not afraid of hyperbole.

We'll probably have to take their numbers with a grain of salt.

Well first it make little sense to me to inflate this at this proportion. Humans don't have a brain to process and understand what such a big number means. Even a billion is hard to process as a physical representation. They could have got away with "over 1 billion different decks" and that would have been the same in that case. Reminds me the No Man's Sky case of 15 quintillions planets...

You can't collect everything because every deck will be different. There's no way for you to have the same deck as someone else. So unless this is some elaborate Highlander-style thing where you have to wrest decks away from other players until there's ultimately one guy owning every single deck, you'll never get a complete collection.

1 minute ago, Robin Graves said:

My guess is it's for people who:

• like to play draft/blind selection of cards.
• are Richard Garfield fans and buy whatever he comes up with regardless.
• hate deck building
• don't have much money and like the idea of having an entire deck for under 10$
• are me.

• like to try new stuff.

Am I right?

9 minutes ago, Radix2309 said:

It is something new and different. Deckbuilding is how TCGs get players, but this isn't a TCG. It is like taking a eurogame and complaining you can't paint miniatures like in Wargames.

If you don't like it, fine. But stop trying to complain about this game because it isn't another magic clone.

This doesn't seem an apt comparison.

We don't complain that there are not miniatures to paint in a eurogame because we understand what eurogames are and that they don't have miniatures. We understand what the mechanics are and we understand how to play them. We get who they are being marketed to.

This game looks like it is supposed to be marketed toward people that are typically TCG players. Sure, it is a new design philosophy...but it seems to be directly opposed to everything TCG players want out of a game. This is like making a game that looks like a eurogame and then telling people "the mechanics will be locked in a sealed envelope, a different one for each copy, and you won't know what you're getting until you buy it!"

I like many FFG products. I almost cried when Netrunner died. I want to understand who would want to play this game. But I can't see how anyone could possibly be interested in a deck of unchangeable cards that they can't even predict the core mechanics of.

I don't think those numbers are an exaggeration. A single deck of playing cards has more permutations than there are atoms in the universe.

We have a 350+ card set, with 36 card booster packs. There are a lot of combinations possible, far more than our brains are capable of comprehending. They could print s single set for centuries and still not even get half of them.

2 minutes ago, Hellvlad said:

Well first it make little sense to me to inflate this at this proportion. Humans don't have a brain to process and understand what such a big number means. Even a billion is hard to process as a physical representation. They could have got away with "over 1 billion different decks" and that would have been the same in that case. Reminds me the No Man's Sky case of 15 quintillions planets...

It worked didn't it? Everyone bought the hype... and then they found out there was nothing at the center of the universe. (Not even Azathoth) Ofcourse people don't realise that with such a large pool the chance of comming across duplicates rises aswell.

Honestly the game isn't even out, but I'm willing to bet, by random fluke someone will open two ident decks in a gamestore somewhere.

6 minutes ago, RedMageStatscowski said:

• like to try new stuff.

Am I right?

You are correct.

I was also gonna add "Locksmiths" to that list.

Or, juding by that "Yo mama" card in the trailer, "people with a sense of humor"? This game doesn't seem to take itself very seriously.

17 minutes ago, Robin Graves said:

It worked didn't it? Everyone bought the hype... and then they found out there was nothing at the center of the universe. (Not even Azathoth) Ofcourse people don't realise that with such a large pool the chance of comming across duplicates rises aswell.

Honestly the game isn't even out, but I'm willing to bet, by random fluke someone will open two ident decks in a gamestore somewhere.

Pretty sure. No Man's sky comparison again. They said "the chances 2 players ill be at the same time on the same planet are ridiculously low sow very unlikely to happen" And it happened just weeks later , confirming it was NOT multiplayer

So yeah, I expect this to happen and have mirror matches, even if ti will be " extremely unlikely". Statistics is a ***** when it wants. And Murphy's law works

2 hours ago, Izathel said:

This game looks like it is supposed to be marketed toward people that are typically TCG players. Sure, it is a new design philosophy...but it seems to be directly opposed to everything TCG players want out of a game. This is like making a game that looks like a eurogame and then telling people "the mechanics will be locked in a sealed envelope, a different one for each copy, and you won't know what you're getting until you buy it!"

Or, it's marketed to players like me who loved the idea of Magic... everyone would have their own deck. You'd constantly be seeing new and wonderous combinations and then-- well, you didn't. The internet happened and deck lists happened. Blah. Who cares about that? Well, apparently someone does, but I don't.

This feels to me like what Magic was supposed to be. Unique.

I'm looking forward to trying the game and seeing what happens as they explore the design. And ****, without deckbuilding maybe I'll even try a tournament or two, since for every other game I've been interested in they have been horrible experiences for me.

I'm not a fan of the blind buy aspect. I always prefer having control over my purchases and I almost always have factions I prefer in a game. But here it makes sense in a way that it's forgivable.

1 minute ago, RARodger said:

Or, it's marketed to players like me who loved the idea of Magic... everyone would have their own deck. You'd constantly be seeing new and wonderous combinations and then-- well, you didn't. The internet happened and deck lists happened. Blah. Who cares about that? Well, apparently someone does, but I don't.

This feels to me like what Magic was supposed to be. Unique.

I'm looking forward to trying the game and seeing what happens as they explore the design. And ****, without deckbuilding maybe I'll even try a tournament or two, since for every other game I've been interested in they have been horrible experiences for me.

I'm not a fan of the blind buy aspect. I always prefer having control over my purchases and I almost always have factions I prefer in a game. But here it makes sense in a way that it's forgivable.

I'll start by saying I don't mean this to seem sarcastic and I'm genuinely asking.

What makes you feel encouraged about tournaments when you know you have no inherent control over whether or not your deck is the best or even reasonably competitive among decks at the event?

To me, the idea of internet decklists is one that levels the playing field. Everyone has the ability to reach some level of competitiveness and some level of playability even if they didn't have the time to playtest entire decklists. With this purchase structure your deck literally can never improve or change - you just have to hope that no one that owns a better deck decided to show up to that tournament that day.

I liken it to esports that I love. People wouldn't be happy if a DOTA game allowed players to have a random, completely unique, combination of abilities at the start of the game. It would mean that you won or lost largely due to RNG, not due to any choices you made.

It's the same loot box garbage EA is always trying to dump on us in video games. This smacks of a cash grab. There is literally no way most decks will be competitive unless the card variety is so bland and samey that there is no point in playing the game anyway.

Really neat ideas here on the deck construction. It's a shame its hidden behind a paywall of $10 per chance at getting a decent deck.

How many times will you pay $10 to see if the deck is a) good enough to be worthwhile, and b) one that is made of houses you actually wanted to play?

No thanks, I love the LCG for excatly the reason I find this so... appallingly greedy. They didn't even try to hide the fact that most (some in their words) decks will be bad.

2 hours ago, Hellvlad said:

I don't think the term "collecting" is appropriate here. Collecting makes sense if you can have a full set of whatever you collect. Collection is a completionnist thing. With 10^25 different decks for just the first 350 cards card pool (yeah that's over 100 octillions decks ) good luck, it's stupidly too much. There is not enough raw materials in the whole galaxy to print that.

Try telling that to coin collectors, stamp collectors or rock collectors. There many things you can’t collect “all” of. I think rather that the point would be to collect a representative diversity.

13 minutes ago, Izathel said:

I'll start by saying I don't mean this to seem sarcastic and I'm genuinely asking.

What makes you feel encouraged about tournaments when you know you have no inherent control over whether or not your deck is the best or even reasonably competitive among decks at the event?

To me, the idea of internet decklists is one that levels the playing field. Everyone has the ability to reach some level of competitiveness and some level of playability even if they didn't have the time to playtest entire decklists. With this purchase structure your deck literally can never improve or change - you just have to hope that no one that owns a better deck decided to show up to that tournament that day.

I liken it to esports that I love. People wouldn't be happy if a DOTA game allowed players to have a random, completely unique, combination of abilities at the start of the game. It would mean that you won or lost largely due to RNG, not due to any choices you made.

Because I won't have people I'm telling me I'm a moron for not including this or that in my build.

Because I prefer the skill of working with a deck to play a game to the skill of building a deck. Because if you can't improve your deck, maybe you can improve how you play your deck. Because I don't believe the game is just two decks flipping cards until one wins, that players matter.

Because I enjoy getting to go places and play people I don't know, but the Buy till you Win element of CCG made me un-competitive out of the gate.

Maybe I can never improve or change a deck, but neither can they. And maybe this game will weed out a type of player that has ruined my experience at open gaming before. Maybe not, but a boy can hope.

41 minutes ago, Gamedog said:

Try telling that to coin collectors, stamp collectors or rock collectors. There many things you can’t collect “all” of. I think rather that the point would be to collect a representative diversity.

Yeah. Most basic would probably be having one of every faction representative. Even more ambitious would be having at least one copy of every card in the set.