I'm a new player that was drawn into the game by the LCG format and am very much looking forward to participating in upcoming league play. Presumambly, I'm exactly the type of player FFG is targeting with the format change. However, after reading through the recently posted Adventure League Guide, I have some concerns. Namely, I find the currency/faction head rules troubling.

As a new player, I expect to lose early while I figure out the game. This doesn't bother me all that much. The problem is, you receive less currency for losing than you do for winning, so for my next game, not only can I expect to be the less experienced player in the match, I can also expect to have purchased a less powerful faction head ability and be playing with a handicap. which most likely means 2 more currency for me and 3 for my opponent. Rinse. Repeat.

I really would like to see FFG reconsider this format. I think it's fine to add some flavor/twists to League play, but the head-to-head match ups should be even and determined by your deck building and hand play. Creating a mechanic that gives a player a leg up is really sours me on the format. At this point I can't see myself participating for more than a few weeks for the purpose of building an email list of like-minded local players that want to play the game straight-up.

its worse than that.......

"A player in a CoC LCG League starts off with a CoC
Core Set, 1 copy of Asylum Pack 7, and player’s choice
of any other LCG Asylum Pack. (AP5 and up.)"

we are basically stuck building highlander decks....... this means no mono decks. this league thing looks worse and worse every time ffg releases more info about it. coresets include only one-ofs. and some asylum packs factions only had one-ofs too. so they wont have a playset of anything.

why dont ffg just build and sell us decks? with all these deck building rules its rather pointless.

"choose your deck but you have to choose this one"

Thats also the reasons why I am not planning on running only LCG format events. If I get enough interest from new players I will run something just not the new League.

A group of us were discussing it today at our sunday gathering and generally it was decided that the league idea was "swings and roundabouts". Meaning that it has its benefits and drawbacks, but is ultimately a dull format that won't induce friendly competiton or unique decks. A major part of competition is seeing a half dozen different deck concepts and unforeseen combos.

on top of that i thought they wanted to do away with randomly winning the game. before it was who got lucky and drew the cards for the combos and now its who gets lucky and draws that 1 card that changes everything. there is no deck building strategy in the league, you have to use just about every card of two factions to meet the 50 card limit.

we've already heard the polar arguement but now its just worthless, 4 polar events in a 50 card deck.....wow, simply wow.

i signed up for the servitor thing but it might be completely useless, we have a small enough group as is, i cant imagine trying to recruit players with league rules like this.

ok newbie here is how it goes. you will be given a faction you must use to build a deck, and youre allowed to use only one other faction and neutrals to build a deck of 50 cards, now if that restriction wasnt fun enough youre only allowed to use one copy of everything in coreset (which is the majority of allowable cards) and only one asylum pack since ffg has said we have to use AP 7. have fun with picking one of the two asylum packs, and using somewhere around 7 cards in it to fit in your deck.

this is pitiful.....im sorry this league is the worst idea ive ever heard of for a tourney style enviroment.

Well, as someone new to the game I appreciate the league starts the way it does.

At the moment I have no interest to buy more than the Core Set and one copy of each of the Asylum Packs.

Yes, it means that there's almost zero variance in the decks using the same two factions.

And, yes, it also means that luck plays a more prominent role at the beginning of the league.

But this is exactly the kind of setup that will allow me to slowly learn the game while participating in the league!

If it continues like this, at the end of the league I'll have eight Asylum Packs and thus a total of 315 unique cards to choose from (+160 duplicates). So, after the first league I have the means to really start building decks. And maybe if I enjoyed the first league I'll also start getting more duplicates.

But I definitely wouldn't consider playing in that first league if I was required to buy three copies of everything. That would be too much of an initial investment for me.

I can understand why this may be frustrating for experienced players but this IS supposed to be a new start, right?

Don't forget ....

When we start a 6 week adventure we are each given a Main faction ( randomly of course). This means we have to bring all our cards to the event and build the deck there on the spot.

I hope Pearljamaholic just emails me a random faction so I can build my deck before the event and spend my time at the event playing.

jhaelen said:

im ok with the only coreset and 2 asylum packs or whatever, but the one of each part is too much. if they wanted to start the league with coreset only thats ok, or whatever they wanted to do. but they shouldnt force having 3 coresets any more than forcing only one. i know there is usually a learning curve getting into games because of experienced players, but these deck restrictions are just a big(or bigger) a learning blocker as the normal learning curve. new players wont see how cards really work together or how to build decent decks. and resouring....aye you resource a card and its gone for the game.

one-of decks will have to be almost all rush cause you cant count on any card interaction. victoria's loft is a great/fun card, but you have one chance of drawing that a game and there is only like 5 cards that force insanity now, hastur, victoria, bearer of the yellow sign, low blow, and rhichard the III.

wheres our stat wizard??? whats the chance of victoria's loft having any effect in a game?

like i mentioned in the deck construction i hope to play shub, but now miskatonic is like the best ally faction without doubt, all those draw effect are golden in my book. anything to get shocking transformation.

PearlJamaholic said:

The only potential counter to that is the fact that you can add in an Asylum Pack at weeks 2 and 4, and when you lose to everyone in the league. And it doesn't say you can't choose an additional copy of an Asylum Pack (and that's not really much of a counter).

Having said that: only one copy of Core Set completely hoses most deckbuilding ideas that came to my mind early on. It really is going to feel like a random luck of the draw.

My hope is that this is merely the first League, and that FFG is keeping it restricted because most new players won't have 3 Coresets or APs. They want to break players in slowly. Of course, we have to wait 3 months to find out if I'm right about that. In the mean time, good LUCK with your deck.

I think that some of the above posts are over-reacting. These aren't Tournament rules; these are rules to get people who happen to be in the game store to try out the game for six weeks.

If the first league is meant to get new players into the game, I would agree that limiting the first "Encounter" to items you can buy in the store that day is a good way to go.

I also think that some of the people are mentally extending the Encounter One rules to how the future league will work, when the first half of the rules clearly says this will not be the case. Yes, the first game is essentially Highlander, with only one core set to be used (all of the tuning from from neutral cards and Asylum Packs). And then there is another league coming along at some point after that.

Obviously, those that this Encounter was designed to serve won't have a say on this forum. They haven't played the game yet, so why would they be reading this? But I think that the first step should be to get new players in order to get the sales moving. Then after that we can make the Encounter rules more advanced for deck builders.

So, what should the second League offer? A full deck-build? Mono-decks? Should players be expected to buy three core sets to be competitive, and if so, how far down the line should that transition take place?

And, hey, while you have the League players there are the table with you, playing their "hamstung" game with you, perhaps you could suggest that some of them try out non-league games. That's the other benefit of gathering people together. You can make new friends and play more often.