First a caveat for the more argumentatively-inclined in these forums or for those who are so closely wedded to the LCG format that to hear someone bash it a wee bit might upset them (something I'm just as guity of doing): these are solely my opinions, please feel free to not be offended or feel the need to change them for me. These are based solely on my experiences, so far, with this very fun game.

I'm growing more and more concerned that this money-saving LCG format, while helpful financially, isn't so helpful to the game itself. The key problem for me is that the tiny monthly packs (which are really more like 5-weekly packs) do little to help fix issues with the current gameplay environment or (sigh) "meta." Not only that but these are each spaced out in 4-5 week increments so it takes even longer for a new theme to assert itself or provide new and exciting variety to deck archetypes.

At this rate, it'll take about 6 months to 10 months to really see new ideas take shape and/or find success out in the gaming world. I'm already finding myself growing a bit weary at the limited amount of cards to work with and with which to design decks. And even if you focus on "casual play" vs. tournament playing, you still find yourself having to either ban certain cards from your play group (in order to enjoy some semblance of balance and fun) or you have to make up house rules right now. Ugh.

The only solution I'm seeing right now is to step away from the game for several months (while still buying the packs) and then return to more consistent playing once enough new stuff has arrived. Sigh.

On the flip-side and to play a bit of devil's advocate to my own thoughts and remarks here, I do like the little excitement bump provided by breaking up what would have been a larger booster only delivered every several months into monthly booster shots AND I like how having monthly smaller packs helps player more easily mentally assimilate these new cards into gameplay and deck design.

Curious what other people think on this issue? Our little group has lost a bit of steam over the game as of late due to this...

Hi,

I somewhat agree with yo, but not fully.

My soution for the slow changing in card pool :

I focus for 1-3 months for a single deck type/faction, and work with that one, making different variations. I make something completely new only if I have a good idea.

For example first I played Chaos, then some mixed (mostly destruction) ideas. In the last 4 weeks or so I tried different dwarf decks (so far from what I used before) and I think some dark elves and chaos (with the new toys) will be next as I have already some ideas, and a prototype Chaos deck (with many cards and interactions I never tried before) for fun play.

So change capital board (and even switch between order/destruction) if you have enought from an "old" kind of deck and don't feel the urg to tamper wth only 1-2 new cards for your faction.

Just my 2 cents.

Cain

Well, W:I ends up having a lot less cards over the same time span as a card game like M:tG. A small set of M:tG is about 145 cards I think and a large set is 248. Typically it goes Large set (starts a new block), Small set, Small set (to finish block). Sets are released every 3 months. Then there is a base set printed every year that is also 249 cards. Each set that is 249 cards also has 20 basic lands that I won't count. The base set is mostly reprints as well and there are 2-5 reprints in the other sets. So I'll say there are about 540 new cards printed every year in M:tG.

In W:I, we get 20 new cards per month. Then a "base" every 6 months? The base typically replaces the battle pack for the month if I am not mistaken. So month 1 we got 127 unique cards, Then we had 5 battle packs for another 100 cards, then Ulthuan is 57 unique cards, and we will get 5 more BP's for another 100 cards. That is 384 new cards printed every year in W:I.

I will say that the more frequent release of cards in W:I keeps the metagame fresh though. There is a smaller chance that a deck will stay as its best if unchanged when new BP's are released. In M:tG formats get stagnant. Nobody likes going to a tournament and seeing the same deck for 3-6 months straight. Rush decks in W:I are kinda like that, but atleast they change and adapt to the new cards monthly.

The thing I worry about most in an LCG is the tournament scene. Once we get into the next cycle and the Corruption cycle is no longer available, if Skaven are still the most powerful deck, how are new people supposed to compete in tournaments? If they can't compete with the cards available to them, how many will keep playing? If they want to keep W:I tournaments competative and fresh(er) and more available to new players, they should implement a rotation for tournament play. A couple different formats, but the format for new players could be the 2 most recent cycles are all thats legal. So once the first BP of the third cycle is released and tournament legal, the whole corruption cycle would rotate from that tournament formats play. That lets cards be played for 6-12 months in that specific tournament format. BP's would remain in print until they rotated from that format making it even easier for new players to pick up what they needed no matter what point they started playing. This also puts a shelf life on certain dominating decks. Skaven would no longer be playable in its current form, in this format, once the Corruption cycle rotated out. They could always print new Skaven and even reprint some, but it keeps the play environment fresh.

When it comes to monetary investment, an LCG can be a lot more expensive than even M:tG if the player knows what they are doing. M:tG takes a much larger initial investment, but the cards have value and you can make your money back or even turn a profit. W:I, the cards are pretty much worthless. Its just like buying a board game. Nobody is going to want to buy the stuff from you, you aren't going to make your money back. If W:I cards go out of print and nothing changes about the tournament formats, there may be some value added from people who want the old cards, but the tournament scene will still be worse off. I think that is the main reason I can't get others into the game though. They don't want to invest in a game that they can't get their money back out of. Even tournament's aren't paying out in cash prizes. The prizes from what I have read are absolute junk. They could do Alternate Art promos, or gift certificates for a BP so the new one to come out will be free for you, or they could do Capital Board playmats (I want badly). Until there is real incentive for people to travel and pay to play in a tournament, they will always be small as they have been. Imagine going to a W:I tournament that had 120 players, and the top 8 prize payout was a combined $2000 plus promos/mats/tickets. Would that get people excited to go? At $25 a head, that is still $3000 for FFG so they still made the profit. 80 people broke even for the cash payout. It would be hard to take the chance if the company ended up getting less than that and taking a loss, but its things like that that grow the game.

As I understand it, the corruption cycle was designed all at once, then released in six installments. As such, the developers could not respond to changes in the gameplay environment until the next cycle. Essentially, if a problem arises in battle pack one, it can't be addressed (by new cards) until the first pack of the next cycle and, in fact, may get worse as more battle packs are released.

I think (and hope) that, each proceeding expansion will move the game toward overall balance. While I recognize that your concerns are very real, I think it's too soon to pass judgement. The next cycle (in its entirety) should give us a much better idea of the direction this game is headed.

RM

Wytefang said:

That's how I'm playing the game right now.

The main problem I see with the "rolling thunder" (as FRPG named it several years ago) is that each pack, you have to check all the decks you build so far and see if they can take advantage of any of the new cards, and/or aren't hindered by some of them. This is too much time consuming for me, so I'm keeping only one deck (a Dwarf Grudge one), instead of the 5-6 I'ld keep updated for a "classic" CCG.

First off you can't really compare the price to tournament level Magic deck, where just the mana base often costs you some $100 or $150 and you may also need several "must have" $50 cards ... and that's just T2! If you play Vintage, $500 is often considered money for a "budget deck". On the other hand if you got everything W:I released so far (one box each) it's about $100 total. But that's not the point - Magic tournament scene is HUGE and no LCG would ever reach that for many reasons.

I feel your pain Wytefang, but I think the problem is not in the quantity of the cards - it's in the cards themselves, as well as the rules. I love the game for what it is, but I don't see the deck archetypes could be as many and as interesting as in Magic. The reason I say this is because in Magic you're totally dependant on your deck and your draw, so viable archetypes must be always changing to keep the game interesting ... or we get a whole year of Jund (please excuse me if someone doesn't understand the reference). In W:I on the other hand in just one turn, we have more decisions and possible plays than a whole game of Magic. You're not as dependant on the deck and the game is not so routine. So basically W:I is less deck building and more actual gameplay as opposed to Magic.

Oh, I almost forgot why I am writing all this. The thing with current battle packs is that they hardly can offer a new archetype. Instead they reinforce existing ones. So in this regard, yes the game is changing slower than Magic, but each W:I game you play is much more dynamic and interesting than a game of Magic where most of the time you play to see if your deck wins.

By the way I'd also argue about the importance of the great numbers of Magic cards coming out every 3 months. Yeah we do get 250 (-20 basic lands) or 150 new cards three times a year (plus some more in each new core set) but how many of those see constructed play? Some cards are just significantly better than others even within the same set - for 5 mana we get both a 4/4 flying, vigilance AND a 5/5 flying, lifelink, first strike, protection from demons and dragons. So as everybody playing Magic knows, the actual additions to our decks each 3 months are not 250, nor 150, but more like 5 to 10... spread between several decks.

Finally I don't think that LCG's are viable for large scale tournaments - none of the three games so far is popular enough, so I guess tournament play is not a major consideration for FFG. The game is better suited for casual play - board game style. If someone gets everything, one box each, it's more than enough for building six balanced decks to hand out to the other players in the group. That's what FFG does best and I think it's wise they're not trying to compete with Magic. In fact I'd hate it if W:I becomes another game with super competitive scene and clear divide between playable and junk cards.

Anyway, I just hope W:I packs will keep on coming every month and FFG would keep this fun casual game... well, fun and casual.

darkdeal said:

A couple thoughts and I appreciated your lengthy and thought-provoking reply. (Also a thanks to Cain_Hu for his 2 cents!):

1. You raise good points about how the monthly BPs do help keep the "meta" somewhat fresh. While I agree that much is true, I don't think there's enough cards coming in a fast-enough fashion to keep it THAT fresh. But for the most part, you raise a good point, imho.

2. I think it's pretty sad that people wouldn't be willing to get into a game for the sole (and rather lame) reason that they might not get their money back out of it. Here's a newflash for those types of people - you get value (gasp!) from actually playing the game. No one expects nor should they that you're going to get your money back after playing and using a game. That's rather bizarre and unlikely. Even in Magic it's not that profitable - it can be, but not entirely...there's no guarantee that one hot card will stay hot once you're finished with it. I've checked out pricing and the after-market from time to time and while some stuff is worth $$ (particularly really, really old M:tG crap) most of the stuff from recent years isn't holding its value all that well. And that's not a slam, it's just a reality of the market growing a bit weary with the collectible format to some extent (imho). But anyway, it's really a piddling concern to not be able to sell your stuff back, imho. Plus why would you want to in the first place?? Personally I'd like to keep my cards so that even years down the road, when W:I is no longer a "living" card game but a "dead" one, I'll be able to bust out a bunch of cards and still have fun.

3. I love your idea of capital board playmats. Now I'm drooling for one, too!

4. I'll be honest, I love the smaller-sized tournaments. I hate the idea of showing up to a 100+ tournament, knowing that the way luck plays into things (in everything from the match-ups you have to card drawing), there's even less of a chance of making the finals. No, I'm happy with smaller-sized tournament, to be honest. Not too small but not too big, I guess, would be my sweet spot.

Thanks for sharing these interesting opinions. I appreciate it!

Iffo said:

Thanks for sharing these points and also a thanks to Deashira (good points made, sir)...and to Martin!

I, too, would rather not see W:I get too competitive and thus enhance the divide between good or fun cards.

Interesting post.

Myself I enjoy the format a lot, and not just for its monney savings. I agree with much of what you wrote, but here is my persepective.

When the game first game out, I was totaly in, and all about, "the meta" I was playing 20-30 games a week, sometimes more, and had a lot of different oppentents in a large play pool. Then I moved to saltspring Island and only play with my brother, although we play 4-5 games a night. So I play just as many games, but the "meta game" is no longer there. I own two of every set and battle pack. (I have play tested with proxies to get full comeditive game experience) I have pre-built about 10 decent decks, that are at this point resonobale balanced to each, and its lots of fun.

The slow release of the battle packs works well for us. I pick up thge new packs in vancouver, and I get home and we have fun triming down the decks making room for the new cards and making everything work. I enjoy it a lot and it works very well for us. But I do understand what youa re saying.

It is interesting though, on a board like this, many of the players will be "hard core" (I was) players that are hyper compeditive, good or excellent deck designers and into playing at a "high level". But my experience is showing that there are other ways to play this game, and the enjoyment is not less, and in some ways its more so.

For example. With 10 decks built out of 2 of every set. not every deck gets 3 warpstones and 3 contested villages and innovations for example. We kind of break up the neutrals into what "feels right" for them, and share them arround. As with all the good cards. In that set up, the decks end up being more netural. My skaven deck is still very fast, but just slow enough, that the order decks can sometimes hold them off long enough to win games.

I never thought I would play the game in such a manner, yet I find myself enjoying it just as much in a different way.

NOW for another way of playing.

I got a friend of mine into the game, and he refuses to buy multiple sets and just buys one of everything. He does a lot of out of town work and plays the game with his workmates. They through all the races cards into giant "race stacks" random deal or draft the neutrals into there decks, and just go at it. Like myself he has playd both ways, constructed decks and this pure race, good and bad cards mixed together decks, and he has more fun playing this way. I thought it sounded kind of lame at first, but gave it some thought, and remeber what a good time I had when I first bought the game and played a few dozen games with the races as is right out of the box, and remembering what a blast that was. This reminded me there was many fun ways one can play this game.

Hi,

Another thing : I often play draft with my brother (1 Core set + 1 BP of each but we will try 1 Core set + 1 AoU soon without BP-s) and it's a great fun ! Also, it is far from the regular "competitive" scene and decks.

I think I will recommend a draft-tournament in our gaming-club next time...

Also, while I'm one of the folks who compares W:I often to MtG, I think the comparison in card/year is wrong. The maximum of the new cards what get competitive play is less than 20%, and even many of those is only played because the better alternatives rotated out the "Standard" format. In the same time there is at least another 20% of cards which really almost never got played, even in casual play.

The designers in WotC are pouring out a lot of almost useless cards, to keep the pace with numbers, while include 2-5 cards in every set which is goes toward power creep... and sometimes they make big mistakes in the process (maybe no time to test that many cards ?) and making broken cards.

Somebody mentioned lands... for W:I players compare these :

A - current Alliance cards in W:I
B - "New -nonAlliance" card with a single loyalty symbol
C - Keystone Forge, Shrine to Nurgle etc.
D - A 2 cost support wich gives you no power or loyalty symbol, but could be sacrificed to get any of the above
E - the same as above, but you get the new support not right after the sacrifice, but after your next quest phase
F - same as a current Alliance... except it won't give you any loyalty symbol or power until the end of your NEXT turn

All the above have an equal in MtG. Would you ever use "B" above anyting else you currently have ? (those are the basic lands in MtG) And it's even worst in those rules at it seems from this comparison.

Or look at units :

A - Rat Ogres
B - Sick Rat ogres (the same as above, but with no ability)
C - Stupid Ogres (no ability, no Skaven trait)
D - Well-paid Rat ogres (almost same as "A", but cost 6 resources and restore only a single skaven)
E - Rat Ogres, which get +1 hammer until EOT for each Skaven restored

In MtG if all abovve would apear in the same set : "A" would be an uncommon, "B-C-D" would be commons (and used as coasters or for a house of cards) and E would be an expensive rare.

So please... don't compare the two cardpools in this regard EVER.

Cain

Iffo said:

This is already the case.

The environment at the moment is deformed. This is only the first expansion which in a CCG would mean sucking up the pain for three or four months before getting a raft of new cards which will balance things. One of the disadvanatges of a LCG is that what is effectively one expansion creates an environment that lasts for 6+ months and so the inequity lasts a lot longer. FFG need to ensure that they avoid releasing deforming cards (obviously), but also take the time to plan 2+ cycles of releases. If FFG knew that the Corruption cycle would favour blitz builds then the cards from the Enemy cycle that balance this should be released in the first Enemy battlepack. I'm hoping that this is the case, but I wonder if each cycle's cards are dividing into battlepacks without consideration being given to what the current environment needs to see, rather by how FFG want to evolve the future environment.

crowdedmind said:

Experiences say that you are not right about the comparison, as CCG-s also can't manage the "pain" as you would think. In MtG maybe it's maybe because they develop blocks, not single expansions in one time, all with a different research team. A good example is the faeries deck, which dominated standard from it's apperance till it rotated out of Standard-T2, or the creature Tarmogoyf which were used in every deck which owner could afford it, and it's cost still increases after it is rotated out of the most popular format. (between $45-$56/pcs based on a reliable site)

In W:I like games rush will always be one of the strongest archetype, except if you completely hose creature based decks with mass removal effects or something equal. that would hurt the game more than help it... as then unitless and almost-unitless decks would be on the top, which would be very sad in a war-oriented game.

Cain_hu said:

It's a good thing that I don't play Magic then. If designers aren't able to anticipate the environment they will create when they design cards then the design team are not able to do their job. I'm not referring to individual cards, but how an expansion in gerneral will shape the game. Equally, designers may not realise just how far they have pushed an archetype in an expansion, but they should be aware that they are pushing that archetype.

Cain_hu said:

Or, for example, you make mass removal effects that only target cheap units.

crowdedmind said:

Great point!! We're now seeing quite a lot of this type of cards in Magic.

Magic is not developed by blocks but by sets - they have the same general theme in all sets within a block but they're all developed separately. Also I think they leave slots for meta-fixing cards that get added in the last moment when needed. The problem with W:I is that it has a lot of time between the time anything gets designed and the time it actually gets to stores (that's what happens when you outsource printing to China I guess).

Another topic is if WotC realize they print broken and archetype defining cards or not. Even when they create an unbalanced meta for a year or two why would it bother them - everybody pays good money to join in the "Jace Lottery" (a.k.a. Worldwake boosters). Now they're printing more $50 bombs than ever AND the game sees its best sales ever too. So this business model seems to work perfectly for them.

Personnaly I'm not a fan of "mass-removing" (or mass "balance-shifting") effects. And WH:I definately has too many of those effects for my taste (Judgement, Vomit, Major Rune of Valaya, epic Spells, and so on). All those cards increase the "luck of the draw" factor in the game, and make the first 15 cards of the deck "game deciding".

So I'ld prefer the meta to be adjusted (i.e. to allow more deck archetypes to be competitive) by errata-ing the cards that pose problems (Elite Clan Moulder could arrive in play Corrputed, for example), or changing some of the basic rule of the game (Units in Battlefield could defend any zone, so that a "this unit can't defend" would be a true drawback). BTW, Elite Clan Moulder is just an example, they don't pose a problem to the meta by themselves, but they make it even more easy and brainless to play "rush".

@ Cain_hu : do you draft using the "official rules" ? or are you using rules of your own ? And if so, I'ld be interested in those, because the test I ran with a Core Set and the "official rules" didn't bring any fun to me (while booster draft is the only way I play MTG, for the above personnal preference about "mass-removers").

crowdedmind said:

Well said, Crowded...I, too, have been wondering the same thing about how they break up and present the cards for a Cycle??

While I do feel that Destruction Rush decks are overall the strongest deck archtype right now, I think that people have been overstating this fact. While it is true that the Regional at FFG only had this type of deck all of the other regionals had other deck types represented. Order decks have won some of the regional events and even with the small card pool that is currently availible new deck types have been showing up. Even if you cant find a deck that wins over 50% of its games vs a particular deck type (which I dont believe anyway) the dominant deck isnt winning like 80-90% of the time, it has been winning 51-60% of the time.

Of course none of my opinions stated above have anything to do with my opinion on warpstone excavation. I dont like banning cards and I dont feel like playing a first turn warpstone is so powerful that you cant overcome it. The real problem comes from multiple warpstones right away or warpstone + contested village + some 2 cost starts. Personally I feel like it needs to have limited keyword.

I also very much support the idea of adding removal that is either based on cost (like foot of gork) or alternatively based on capital affiliation (like zealot hunter).

Yeah, I think that the various Destruction rush decks are probably the strongest archetype right now. But not by that much - it's nowhere near as bad as it was right after the Deathmaster's Dance BP. The other factions have got a fair amount of stuff since then and I now have several other decks that are pretty competitive with Destro rush (including 2 Order decks).

I have to say that I wouldn't shed any tears if Warpstone Excavation got banned. It definitely helps rush archetypes a lot and adds significantly more draw dependence (i.e. luck) to the game. However, I should mention that in my opinion, having a decent amount of luck in the game isn't actually a bad thing, since it means that you actually have a chance of winning if you are playing someone who is better than you. That's a pretty controversial argument to make in strategy games, but Mark Rosewater managed to sell me on that one a long time ago.

Vitamin T, thanks for sharing your viewpoint. We don't quite agree on the percentages about the Skaven Rush decks % chances of winning consistently - I think they're much more potent (and I'm confident that I know what I'm doing as much as the next guy in both deck design and in how to play against and for those kinds of decks). While it's great that some other decks have done a bit better at other tournaments (not that we have a ton of data either - as Dormouse said in another thread, we'll definitely know a lot more after GenCon, too) most of those reports seem to also reveal some wonkiness in the way those decks achieved their success. The one deck that won never even played an Orc or Skaven rush deck on its way to the final game, so I don't consider that terribly convincing. That isn't to say that one of the very few Order decks that did well didn't deserve some of their success - I'm sure they did but I'm extremely skeptical that they were terribly effective against a potent Skaven Rush deck. I suspect that in most cases these Order decks simply didn't fight tough enough Orc/DE/Skaven decks on their path to some successes.

As for WE - I do think that the Limited keyword addition could really, really help while avoiding the need to ban a card (never a really good thing, in general, imho).

@Clamatius re: randomness in games, I agree that randomness is good for casual play. I do not agree that it is good in a tournament setting, especially a tournament format that is essentially single-elim. But that's more of a MTG issue until W:I gets more tournament support, so probably best to leave it aside.

On topic, I'd love to see Warpstone, Contested Village & Innovate "banned" or at least rotated out, so we could get a taste of a format that was a bit friendlier to slower strategies. The issue now is that any deck in the format can leave "stage 1" on the first or second turn, and the stage 2 game of the rush decks is so resilient and fast that it is rare to get to stage 3 unless you are playing a bunch of fogs.

For those unfamiliar with the "stage" terminology (I'm borrowing from MTG theory here, but its directly applicable), the concept is that in stage 1, you are severely resource constrained and your play is mostly focused on accumulating resources; in stage 2 you are no longer resource constrained and can focus on executing your gameplan; and finally in stage 3 you can essentially cast anything in your deck and the game becomes a sequence of trump - plays.

In a format with Innovation, Warpstone and Contested Village, virtually every deck mulligans hands which cannot leave stage 1 on turn 1. There are few similar accelerants to leave stage 2 in W:I, however (cards like Ancestral Recall, Dread Return, Oath of Druids in MTG Eternal play are perfect examples of this kind of design), so as a consequence, decks like Orc/Skaven are heavy favorites vs. most decks, even if Orc/Skaven will lose to their stage 3 game.

It would actually be interesting for FFG to design stage 2 accelerants as a solution to this problem; we already have some of these in cards like Mountain Legion, Contested Stronghold, etc. The issue for now is that these are extremely vulnerable to cheap disruption; anyone who has had their turn 2 Stronghold get Pillaged, or their turn 2 Mountain Legion get Lobber Crewed can attest to this. Cheap counterspells or tricks can help get around this to a degree (Stand Your Ground comes to mind in the current cardpool... and man, W:I sure could use a Force of Will/Daze equivalent...) but in general, some more resilient mid-game plays would go a long way toward stabilizing the format.

I suppose my point is we are alllmost there in terms of having a healthy eternal format. Dwarf midrange is actually a very real deck, albeit not what I would play competitively right now (amusingly, my choice there would be bolt thrower - the only deck in the format that can actually play a stage 3 game consistently vs. rush...), precisely because Dwarf midrange has the stage 2 accelerants to play a late game vs. Skaven. Of course, they still lose to Deathmaster (undoubtedly the best trump card in the pool right now), but thats sort of a separate issue.

Alternatively, FFG could opt to do cardpool rotations, new formats, and/or bannings to try and create a slower format that would allow for more stage 3 play. Either way, I'd like to see something happen soon, as there are lots of fun decks that are just being choked by Skaven/Bolt Thrower right now.

I don't know, I guess it depends on the meta.

In my area we did 3 tournaments (official, FOR US)...We usually are around 8-12 players and each tournament everyone built a different deck...Now, I'm not sayin' that we have 32 different archetypes, but I'm pretty sure that, even in M:tG you will NEVER be able to build 8 different archetypes with THIS SMALL AMOUNT OF CARDS...

When someone talks about M:tG and its numbers doesn't talks of something that's the most important thing: even with a pool of 700 cards per year (more or less) you see 4-5 maximum different archetypes and each one of them is playin' 10-11 DIFFERENT CARDS (20 Lands, 4x everything else).

HERE, we can play 15-18 different cards and still havin' more options.

If EVERYONE WASN'T playin' Skaven, we wouldn't be here bothering about choices.

Here are the archetypes I saw/played/faced:

- Thrower deck;

- Phoenix/Treasure with Big Guys deck;

- Reaper deck;

- Orc Skaven;

- Orc Bltz;

- Orc Aggro-Control;

- Dark Elf/Caos Snipe;

- Caos anti-rush deck;

- Caos Big-Guys deck;

- Dwarf Aggro-Control deck;

- Empire Verena decks;

- Empire Aggro decks;

- Empire/High Elf Control deck;

- Dark Elf Control Deck.

and a couple more...

I know that DE/SKaven or Orc Blitz can beat most of them, but these are TRUE builds you can try and play competitively and we're just AT THE beginning!!! The game is brand new, actually.

We'll gets lots of exiting things (I saw something that's coming for "work" reason and they're wonderful) and right now, each week we can spot everything new.

Let's have patience and play.

LCG format gave card players something they never got: the chance to play a game with a small amount of money and ignoring every "usual" trouble.

See AGOT: it's a very flexible and various game, with lots of different decks (even if Lannis are dominating right now, but it happens in every card game, from time to time...).

I'm playin' WHITE border only and still finding lots of different ways to build decks, as anyone around me and anybody can.

So, if FFG puts a little more effort on developement, tryin' to slow things down and increase the "challenge" level (that's what's gonna happen with the new cards, I think ) this game will get even better and the choices will spread without no limits.

I've never seen a game with sucha great amount of viable decks with such a small card pool and I'm ready to swear to god that anybody did.

ddm5182 said:

No clue what a fog is since the game doesn't have any cards using that term but I hear what you're saying in general here and agree.

ddm5182 said:

Some good points and I appreciate the Stages explanation from the M:tG background. Though I must admit it doesn't seem like a concept that is unique to M:tG...it makes sense in general in many, many games - I can think of several Euro-style board games for which this kind of term might apply as well. I guess I'd consider it more of an all-around descriptor, in that regard.

ddm5182 said:

A few thoughts - the Bolt-thrower deck is badly over-rated. I've built a few now, even using some well-regarded builds posted online, and it just gets smoked by any deck with any kind of cards that offer a fast start (WE, CV, Innovation...to name a few). This is the least impressive deck archetype I've seen posted online or discussed and I'm totally hoping that I run into a nearly endless stream of them at GenCon...easy pickins'.

I've had far, far more consistent success with a Dwarf/High-Elf hybrid snipe deck that I run (against Rush decks in particular)...and Deathmaster is never a real problem for me due to the Blessings of Isha and Dragon Mage Awakenings I run with in the deck. I have more trouble with the uber-perfect fast starts by Rush decks than anything in the later stages of the game when I'm playing the Dwarf deck.

DB_Cooper said:

If all these builds lose consistently to Orc BLitz and Dark Elf Skaven then they are not competitive. Every card game has a lots of different deck types, but if they're not competitive why bother discussing them in relation to the decks that set the competitive bar?

crowdedmind said:

I played 4 tournaments of our national league and Orc Blitz won just the FIRST one, were, as you can easily undersand, the game was really at the beginning and it's pretty common to see aggro decks have the best time.

There's a Dwarf deck around here that beats all these archetypes to a 40/60 rate and even if it's not THE solution, it's the demonstration that things are going to change.

Skaven wins NOT because there's no choice: Skaven wins because there's a major design flaw behind them. They obviously didn't test the game a lot before releasing it and that's the result.

But I trust FFG, I see the stuff that's coming out and I'm pretty sure things are gonna change.

Here, we don't play Skaven for a choice (someone does, actually, but it's like a deck out of 10) and the game is pretty awesome. And even with Skaven in a tournament, they never reached the end.

You see Skaven winning a lot because most of the players (that's what ALWAYS happens in M:tG) prefer to net-deck and build up Skaven. If 8 players out of 12 are playin' skaven, math's suggesting you'll see a Skaven deck.

Skaven are there and everyone can play them, but what I say is that if FFG does what I think in the near future (a couple of good erratas admitting their errors, as they always did) we'll see a brand new environment and all of those decks will be competitive.

So, IN THE END: the unique flaw I can see is a little "design" flaw around aggros.

Anyway, here are the lists that I saw winning against Skaven and Rush:

- Dwarves;

- Empire/Dwarves;

- Thrower Decks;

- DE Thrower Deck;

- DE pure control.

These are actual deck that CAN beat rush.

Rush is powerful because the game is at the start, mostly. When a new environment comes out, it's TOTALLY NORMAL that "simplier" decks has a simplier life. Control Factions and archetypes need time and cards to work well, so has always been.

What had been of interest to me at one point was what VTES (vampire the eternal struggle) was doing for a bit it seemed...

Once every long while there'd be a larger set, supposed to be a good entry point. After that there'd be two smaller sets. Each of these sets had starter decks which also had new cards in them as well. There were also reprints that were needed for players to be able to function effectively with the cards' themes released in that set. In all these three sets would release over the course of like 2 years. Larger sets might have 150 some new cards, the smaller sets would have 80 some new cards... The collation was random so the comparison here isn't any way similar, BUT I liked this release schedule as

1.) Sets were small enough that you could buy one booster box and still get 1 of most of the cards, if not all.
2.) They happened so temporally far apart that the meta was able to settle for a bit.
3.) However the game had no card limit, so one was able to continue to make purchases throughout the time a set was out and not feel like that pack was a wasted purchase, because THERE'S no limit to the number of cards in a deck! lols
4.) As a result of 3, it helps with deck types, because when a game has no card limit, things get weird in deck design.
5.) the game is multiplayer, which leads to very long games (1-2 hours per game), so things help stay fresh that way too.

Perhaps there is some relationship between the length of a game and the type of collation that is most effective... hmm...