I'll probably post one this week. I'm thinking of playing some standard again, it's been a while.

Totally agree on the Empire assessment. 4 hammers on turn 1 is sick and wrong and it happens quite a bit. The issue with Empire is that while your early game is amazing, the stuff that happens after that is not very exciting by comparison.

Clamatius said:

Not kidding... I demand better! Hehe, I'm not kidding. Chaos is worse/the same in my opinion and for the same reason I have a hard time with Dwarfs I have a hard time with Chaos.

Obviously Cannon Crew is an 'okay' start, the problem is it isn't gauranteed to be anything more than +1 power to a zone (I have luck wherupon a 2 cost support card won't come up...). The other problem here is that the support card needs to come into play in the same zone meaning that you aren't afforded the opportunity to develop Quest and Kingdom zone and sometimes this comes into play, I like to have my cake and eat it too!

Also, in order to have this 'okay' start you need to build the deck a certain way, commiting enough of the deck to support cards and of low cost, etc. Then you have this problem where Defender of the Hold becomes the only option to get a loyalty icon for 1 cost... And frankly the Defender of the Hold is fodder and a junk draw anytime after turn 3 in the game... Cannon Fodder is mostly useless later game too as it really offers the 'build' only option... I really don't like Battlefield only units or those that aren't flexible enough to meet my most immediate need/concern and I guess this is the reason Dwarfs come off poorly in my eyes.

Mining Tunnels is a great first turn card, but if you don't draw a contested village you are not maximizing a first turn, I'm just not a fan of the Dwarf early options at the moment... Then again, if they had a great start they would probably be a bit 'too' powerful all things considered.

And SF - High Elf also have a (I should say multiple) 4 resource start, but its not as neat and tidy.

- dut

I wont be going to Gencon this year due to my wife having twins, most likely within this week. I am also in Nursing school and that demands a lot of time as well. I am really just not in a situation to be playing games at the moment. I haven't purchased any of the new cycle, although it looks nice. I have been keeping up with the cards though. It seems like solo Dwarves have the tools to compete now, finally. A lack of opponents has also dwindled my desire to purchase anymore cards. Magic just has too much of a stranglehold on the card playing population in Terre Haute.

If this thread is still about the new BP, I have to say I like "Long Winter", mainly to counter an opponent's 1rst turn innovation besides the reasons mentioned by others (mainly to enhance Judgment).

Oooh..clever use of Long Winter - never thought of that (duh!). Cool! Thanks for sharing that idea, PlayerCharacter.

Yep. Similarly, in the late game it's pretty funny to "counterspell" your opponent's Innovation with Will of the Electors.

Yeah, I've used that trick before but it does feel like a bit of a waste of Will unless it really costs them a bunch of Resources...

Clamatius said:

Effulgent Boils is currently the only disease in the game making Grandfathers Call the worst card ever.

Andwat said:

Well bad as of right now... but if the other diseases are like Effulgent Boils it could be a reasonably good card in a deck that uses a number of diseases as the main method of character control. I've always wanted to see Chaos as a faction able to field tournament decks based on each of the Chaos Gods. If this becomes a real possibility cards like Grandfather's Call will likely be a very good tool in it.

That said until the final BP arrives for this cycle, I don't expect to see anything of the sort possible.

Grandfather's Call will never, ever be good. Chittering Horde picks up Deathmasters and doesn't make you lose a guy (or wait until you are about to lose a guy) and it barely gets played. Considering that diseases are extremely likely to be attachments, you almost certainly won't be running as many diseases in a "disease deck" as you are Skaven in a Skaven deck. The only way this card makes any sense is if we get a bunch of diseases that steal opposing guys, but have an upkeep or cause possession to switch back and forth or something. They've kind of already gone that route with DE, but I guess it is possible.

I'm not sure if Grandfather's Call is worse than Repair the Waystones or not. It's a tough call. You at least get a permanent loyalty out of Repair the Waystones. If we're imagining future cards, then RtW could get better with more self-mill stuff and some 'come into play' supports. Would also help if HE had a good "quester" like Walking Sac or Zhufbar Engineers. Even with all of that, I'm not sure it's playable, but it might not be the worst card ever anymore.

Maybe. If the diseases are good enough (and it isn't too difficult to imagine a tactic with the disease trait) that a player could reasonably run 6 or more of them, running a couple copies of GC could act as a deck thinner, putting control cards directly into hand and thinning your deck to increase the chances of drawing your finishers. The question is how powerful are the other disease cards? As to the lack of Chittering Horde in decks, getting units to hand is not the same as being able to put them in play. A 1 cost 2L card is a lot easier to play (though Nurgle only knows if the others will have this cost), and if it neuters a unit who cost twice the disease it has achieved a resource advantage.

The sacrifice is a bit more irksome and difficult to overcome. Might get Blue Horrors in to decks.

Even with six diseases, you're 50% to just outright whiff. Burning a barrel and two cards for absolutely nothing is really bad. Even if you pick up one card, you're not exactly ahead. You have to be running A LOT of diseases to expect to get a card advantage out of GC.

There would have to be a need for Chaos to kill their own or stolen guys (Blue Horrors not doing it for me) that is directly related to diseases (already have Brutal Offering, Offering of Blood, Blessings of Tzeentch, etc.). Maybe, MAYBE if there were some kind of Disease that hit all opposing units when the attached unit leaves play. Accumulates a counter per turn or does one damage for every disease in discard or something. It's weird... they seem to have given Dwarves all the cards that reward them for offing themselves, but no good way to do it, and then Chaos has all these ways to kill themselves, but no good reason to do it.