I was thinking about these two cards after attending my first regionals. I ran a Yog/Shub recursion deck, and being a fairly new player, I was oblivious to the ubiquitous nature of these two cards. Ironically, I did include them in my deck without realizing this, and this fact may speak to their OP nature.

Obviously putting Descendant on the restricted list has not changed the fact that he's overpowered, and has effectively "soft-banned" the other restricted cards (perhaps with the exception of Jeffrey, after reading the French report). Another ubiquitous card is Snow Graves - for a couple of reasons: to counter Descendant largely and because it's free...anyone can throw it in. The fact that it counters recursive elements I think is secondary to countering Descendant.

So a couple of questions:

1) Hypothetically, what are your suggestions for errata to Descendant and Snow Graves to allow for more diversity in the meta-game? I know suggestions have flown around the forums for a while, but it'd be interesting to consolidate them here.

2) If Snow Graves were added to the restricted list, which card would you choose?

Now for my opinions:

I think Descendant should be made unique and lose a combat icon and fast keyword. Snow Graves should have either a dual-Shub steadfast, or a Yog steadfast.

My suspicion, if both cards were in the restricted list, is that people would choose Descendant, because characters seem to trump control, and he's that good of a character to have to give up. But this would affect the meta since the best anti-Descendant tool would be removed, and what other option for Descendant is there? This reinforces that Snow Graves is really just an anti-Descendant tool.

I wouldn't restrict snowgraves. It is too situational to merit restriction. It is good for what it does and hinders descendant, but it's not THAT ubiquitous. Since Descendant has been restricted, I have seen the inclusion of snow graves lessened a bit.

If snow graves were restricted as well, then descendant would be even more pervasive than it already is.

I agree that descendant should be made unique like Mentor to Vaughn was. Giving snow graves steadfast to yog wouldnt hurt either.

Hellfury said:

I don't think SG will ever be restricted...My question was hypothetical. I just think that Snow Graves is so pervasive simply because Descendant is pervasive - the problem in my mind is clearly with Descendant. I was actually a little surprised that Snow Graves didn't get reprinted with any changes at all. I feel like there's been a lot of discussion about 0-cost non-steadfast cards. Snow Graves is the only 0-cost, non-steadfast card that really has no incentive to not play it. Servant Out of Time is at least rewarded for playing in Yog more than any other faction because of recursion; and Beings of Ib makes more sense to play with Bokrug, so you need cthulhu resources. But I think they should also be steadfast.

Suggested fixes for Snowgraves and Eibon

Snowgraves: Steadfast Shub

Eibon: Lose Willpower & add Unique

Snow Graves is not broken - it is not over powered, doesn't win games by itself, just tones down some other aggressive mechanisms. I don't think it needs fixing.

Descendent of Eibon - well that's a different story. Still one of those cards that just about every competitive deck uses. That suggests it is overpowered to me.

As a general rule, if a card is required by every deck to be competitive, and it's presence warps all other decks to have to include cards essentially for nothing else but to combat that card, then it is a problem.

For the Descendant there isn't really an option of changing the card as it is. The best option would be to just ban the card. Adding it to the restricted list just means that you effectively ban all the other cards on the list, as chances are none of them are worth running instead of the Descendant.

I always like to go against the general consensus so I say this: Eibon is good, but it is plenty of ways to deal with it.

- Agency: all wounding effects can take care of it. It is true that it can come back from the dead, but hey, there is a cost to pay and it is not always possible.

- Agency: Intettogration Center

- Miskatonic: Flux stabilizer (to avoid a sneaky entrance)

- Hastur: Infernal Obsession

- Shub: Snow graves

- Syndicate: all the exhaustion/uncommit effects

- Cthulhu: Call by Azatoth, bye bye willpower and fast.

(and I stop here just because the list is becoming too long)

It is clear that Eibon is a good character, don't get me wrong, but there are ways to deal with him that are general (for example, I would NEVER play Snow Graves BECAUSE of Eibon....this is a design mistake you do in your deck: 3 cards to take care of 3 cards is just wrong!).

Eibon is a character, first of all: your deck must have some way to deal with characters in general (not only Eibon), because CoC is a heavy character based game. You don't deal with problematic characters? you are very likely going to lose.

Instead of thinking: how do I deal with Eibon? try to think "how do I deal with what my opponent is doing to be able to accomplish my strategy?". You will see that an answer to Eibon is always already there, if you think like this.

Eibon was a total blast before the rewording and before all the cards we have available now. Eibon in THAT moment was too good simply because of a lack of good way to deal with it. Now the problem is less and less prominent. Sure, Eibon will always be an awesome card to play, but honestly I can already think (and the French guys proved that) of decks that can avoid to play it simply because for their strategy it is better not to have it (A thing that in Stahleck 2010 was probably not possible).

Before banning and rewording I would wait still some time. There decks, out there, that are still waiting for someone to break them and bring them into the meta.

The real problem is just that the community is too small and there is not enough interaction in the metagame creation...this is where I'm worried, not about Eibon, honestly.

my 2 cents

Konx

PS: let's make an example: you can think of a mono-Syndicate deck without Eibon. Perfect: now, all the exahustion effects, all the uncommit effects and skill reduction that you would anyway use are good answer to Eibon! You don't need to kill him, you just need to win the game. If it is always exhausted or uncommitted it can stays there as long as he likes...

Konx said:

While a good card, it does little against a sneaky Descendant, since it's gone once you can play Obsession.

That said, Performance Artist, Power Drain and Ward Philips are hilarious is the face of token payment...

Marius said:

Of course you are right: I was just mentioning some cards that are useful in general and usually are played within the faction (by me, at least ). All the other cards are again good in general and against Eibon, so no problem even for that

I think you should expect a revival of my Hastur/Cthulhu control for the next time we meet

Konx

Konx said:

It shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone if I mention what you will have to expect...

Regardless of having ways to deal with his text, he is still the most efficient character out there, being 3 cost, non-unique, with all his swag. Comparable characters at the same cost are mostly unique, and have at least 1 less icon, 1 less keyword, and/or one less skill. Examples include Harry Houdini, The Red-Gloved Man, Steve Clarney, Marshall Greene, and Obsessive Inmate (this is the only comparable non-unique, and his text is dramatically inferior). On top of that then, is his ability to keep bringing him back repeatedly, which although is counterable, is still OP compared to other comparable characters.

The problem continues to be that power creep across the packs has not kept up with the efficiency of this character, which is why I think he needs a nerf. If he is unique, 1 less icon (probably combat or investigation), and loses fast, he could even be taken off the restricted list imo.

LEts be honest here. That is never going to happen. It would be a completely different card. No new player could ever expect to remember all the stuff that should be "missing" from the card.

And, in continuing with my honesty, if you want to discard 2 success tokens to put one character back into play I'm going to let you. And laugh at you. Because I'll get rid of him again, and every time you do it I'm pulling further and further ahead in the game. Last year I would agree he was an auto include and recursing him was frequently a good choice... now he is an auto include who I'd recurse only if I hadn't drawn any additional characters that turn or thought I would be gaining 4 success that phase to offset the two I lost.

I think we as a player base just are not active enough competitively with enough dedicated participants to recognize shifts in the card pool that mitigate, weaken, or even invalidate long held assumptions about the game.

Eibon's uber tech is in the form of both Action: come into pay and built in recursion. Since this card hits you on both ends, removal or support card based control alone does not provide adequate meta. Eibon has so much flexibility you need multiple answers in the same deck to handle a single card. Eibon is usable in every deck. Eibon is an auto-include in any competative deck that does not require another card on the restricted list. What else needs to be in place to consider a card broken and worthy of ban or nerf?

Penfold said:

Yes, this is probably true. And it is probably these long-held assumptions that often prevent experimenting enough to affect the meta.

Again, this discussion is hypothetical: I'm not trying to convince anyone at FFG that there must be a nerf or ban. And you're right that so many changes would make the errata hard to remember. I honestly don't think errata would happen either, but it is interesting to see others opinions on what makes Descendant so good. It seems that even players who think they are easily destroyed or disrupted still consider him an auto-include. What do others think would bring him more to par with other comparable-costed (or comparable ability) characters in the card pool?

I think you only need to look at competitive decks and see that the majority include Descendent of Eibon regardless of the rest of the deck to recognize it as an auto-include.

In my little world view, anything that is virtually auto-include is not good for the game.

Penfold said:

I beleive that Penfold has successfully noted the crux of the matter. Judging by both the remarks of FFG game designers at Arkham Nights last year and the attendance numbers at various regional events locally and abroad, that the numbers are not enough to really define the shifts of the meta in a significant manner.

And when people do find good shifts, they tend to keep them secret so as to gain competitive advantage in competitive events rather than sharing the findings which would otherwise allow the game to grow further than it has.

This thread is a great example of that. I mean, we are discussing the interaction between snow graves and descendant for crying out loud. Cards that were around since the beginning of this game as an LCG. Not that it is bad, but it is indicative of the general lack of discussion about new cards and new interactions in public fora.

I agree with Hellfury regarding the lack of discussion about new cards (and how they could potentially change the meta). One reason I have stopped posting new AP spoilers is the level of response tends to include a few "thank yous", a half dozen opinions on the new cards, 100 views, and no more comments. Why is this? It would be easy to say it is because of the way the APs trickle out 20 new cards at a time. Even a full cycle of 6, taking over 6 months to release, has less cards than a typical ccg expansion. This means a deck type might only change by 1-2 cards per AP and perhaps by 5-6 cards over a 6 month period. However, I do not think this is the case. Even back in the ccg days of CoC there was huge gaps in discussing new meta and shifts in tiers. It may just be the nature of the player base to NOT want to discuss CoC from a powergamer perspective.

Tokhuah said:

Well, I'm kind of "glad" that you think this is a problem: I have the same opinion and actually I'm trying to solve it. I have 2-3 more strategic/basic articles on their way (about resourcing, deckbuilding, faction description, and maybe something else), and after that I already had the idea to start some discussion on a regular basis about single card, their impact on the game, "unusual" uses and stuff like that. I don't know yet in which format to start these discussions, though: an article on FFG website is not optimal for this kind of thing, and a discussion in the forum could help but then the risk is that it is lost after some time.

I was thinking that probably a discussion on the forum + a simple website to keep track (and maybe updated) the articles could be good enough. What do you guys think?

Konx

PS: I hope I have time this weekend to finish the article about the analysis of the regionals (at least, the ones I have a report and some decklists).

Darksbane at cardgamedb.com is trying to expand CoC involvement on his site. There is the ability to post comments on cards and post articles. If we get enough of a sea change of people regularly going over there, that would be a good place to discuss potentially. I think if a core few continuously post there and keep referring to is on these forums, articles could easily be "bookmarked" and stay at the forefront.

I also feel that more discussion is needed. Even after playing this for a few months, I still feel for the most part like I have no idea what are viable combos and the best cards relatively in the existing card pool, let alone stuff recently released.

@ konx: I wonder if you could get the powers that be to sticky a strategy discussion thread in the General forum. Since cards come out come out more rapidly but in smaller amounts than a typical ccg I think a different sort of discussion thread could develop around the way cards gradually change regarding the way they interact, particularly around certain deck types over time.

BTW, sorry I never responded to your request for articles but I would like to throw something out here. How about an article and discussion on cards that let you see normally face down cards. This sort of ability creates an interesting strategic situation for both sides, especially when the card is also able to manipulate what it lets you see. For example: Agency G-AAMX and Prism of Many Views.

*snip*

Instead of continually derailing this thread I have started a discussion in a new thread.

My observations from the Glen Burnie Regional was that discard pile recursion was really popular at our event. Obviously the descendant can bring himself back, but snow graves shuts down Yog shenanigans, Shub and the dreaded lock deck pretty well too. This was important in some degree for 5 of the decks that were played at Glen Burnie(I will see about getting decklists posted) the sixth deck snow graves would only stop descendant .

Having said that, I believe that when snow graves was first printed (yes it has been awhile) people thought development forgot to put steadfast on but I think Nate said it was meant the way it was. I am fine with both cards the way they are right know. I am more annoyed at the restricted list, but that is another topic. Descendant is powerful, and I feel the best card in white border, but with other exciting reprints like nodens and the mentor he will have powerful (if a little nerfed) friends to play with. I think the playable cards have risen in the last set of asylum packs and I am pretty optimistic that new exciting decks will emerge.

Ahh, a voice of reason.

The Champ cards should be over-powered and are not broken. I can understand why they are neutral

but would prefer they be factioned. The only real issue I have is that they are all not names and unique.

Despite what was said by the designer it was a mistake to not include Steadfast on Snow Graves but even

'as is' Snow Graves is not a problem to be dealt with.

sbmriatdh said: