I apologize if this is a silly question, but I don't fully grasp the concept of a random deck game. I have ordered the Starter Set and I'm waiting for it to arrive, but in the meantime...
What mechanism is in place to balance the power of decks? It seems like it would just be pure luck as to who gets the best deck, and since there is no deckbuilding, doesn't that just result in certain players having the best decks by pure chance? Am I missing something about how this works?
On 12/30/2018 at 3:11 PM, Sarg0n said:I apologize if this is a silly question, but I don't fully grasp the concept of a random deck game. I have ordered the Starter Set and I'm waiting for it to arrive, but in the meantime...
What mechanism is in place to balance the power of decks? It seems like it would just be pure luck as to who gets the best deck, and since there is no deckbuilding, doesn't that just result in certain players having the best decks by pure chance? Am I missing something about how this works?
Yes, and no. It is true that you will get some decks that are better than others. You are missing a few ideas. One is that some decks will do well against some types of decks but lose against others. What was a good deck last week may get trounced this week if others bring things that can beat it.
In addition, sometimes play skill trumps raw power. I just (within the last half hour) took an average deck online and beat a deck with two sets of Horsemen. There is a metric called the ADHD that evaluates decks, and by that standard, I should have had no chance.
Deck I was playing with:
Deck I was playing against:
My deck only wins one category, but once I saw Horsemen, I went to work removing the recursion loop (Mighty Javelin + Special Delivery), then started to keep aember manipulation around, forging keys when I could and denying keys when I could. I was able to sneak the last key in via Key Charge.
Even in cases where a deck is just plain better than the field, FFG is planning events where the shoe is on the other foot. Some events will be Reversal, where you bring the worst deck you have and play your opponent's deck against it each round. Others will be Adaptive, where you play one game with your deck, the second game against your deck, and if there's a Game 3, the players bid chains to see who plays the stronger deck. (A chain represents one turn where you draw fewer cards than normal.) Triad means you bring three decks, at the start of the match you look at your opponent's decks and strike one, then you play. Each win eliminates the opponent's losing deck from the match; the winner is the last person with a deck remaining. So your concern is valid, but there are plans to deal with it on the tournament scene.
There are two other threads on the first page already discussing this. A new thread to continue discussing it isn't needed. I heartily recommend you check out the other threads asking the exact same question.
My apologies! I should have linked those threads. Here you go!
Edited by TheSpitfired
20 hours ago, TheSpitfired said:There are two other threads on the first page already discussing this. A new thread to continue discussing it isn't needed. I heartily recommend you check out the other threads asking the exact same question.
My apologies! I should have linked those threads. Here you go!
I cut the person some slack here. The post said he has a Starter on order (i.e., he doesn't have it yet) and is trying to learn about the game before it arrives. So I am not sure how you would expect him to connect a technical jargon term (chains) to his very real concern about power levels in such a case. Notice that in my reply, I briefly summarized the technical terms (chains, ADHD rating, various planned tournament formats, etc.) because I was fairly certain they would make no sense to him otherwise.