Greetings motor sports fans.

Overview:

In response to the current level of outcry against the Khopesh, the comments at Liege and the countless emails that I am sure Damon is getting, I decided to do a simple back-of-the-envelope evaluation of the card to determine if in fact it is broken, or requires restriction at this point in time.

In an attempt to make this "Scientific", I will be using the results of the European Championships (the largest ever COC LCG tournament) as data. It is also important to define "broken/overpowered" beforehand. For the purposes of this analysis, I will consider "broken/overpowered" to be defined or symptomized as:

" Cards that win games by simply being on the table (If I have it and you don't - I automatically win, immediately or inevitably) , and thus require specific consideration in any deck build. In essence, you must play this card or loose. Mechanically this means the the board configuration will now permanently slant toward the player who played the card."

The Data:

Recently, the largest COC LCG event in the history of the game took place in Liege, Belgium. Overall there were 26 players, representing quite a few countries, at the tournament. I think roughly 50% had Khopesh in their decks (at least 12 decks, maybe 13). In the top 4 decks, only I had the Khopesh in his respective deck build (that I am aware of). Now, by definition, if a card is "broken" it should dominate the metagame...but here we have 3 of the top 4 in a tournament dominated by Khopesh not having Khopesh - and even more damningly from what I saw none of the top 4 had any particular "anti" Khopesh cards.

This has to be the poorest showing ever for a "broken" card. It is well over a standard deviation below what even random card flipping should have produced (with 50% of the decks containing Khopesh, random card flipping expects 2 (or just a tad lower..1.7-9ish) of the top 4 to be Khopesh decks). To complete the data set, I had the Khopesh dropped 2-3 times against me in a situation where I didn’t drop it- and I always just let it go off (I didn’t destroy the attached char or the Khopesh or cancel wounds etc...I'd say that I basically ignored it, but the reality is I was always praying for my opponents to drop it as it was (at least for this tournament) always an auto-win for me).

Unfortunately for the Khopesh, the story is even worse.

The Play:

Being the only Khopesh player in the top 4, my experience with the card should share some light on why the card performed as poorly as it did. (The following part is subject to my memory’s accuracy, which is starting to cloud over a bit do to the amount of time passed)

I played a total of 7 games. During my first or second game, I watched as my opponent mangled himself with the Khopesh (*1). When I realized what was going on (*2), I shifted my style of play, and began resourcing the Khopesh when I drew it. For the tournament, out of my 7 total games, 2 games I didn't draw it, 3 games I resourced it and in 2 games I played it.

The two games I played it:

Game #2 or #4:

I was playing against a ST/Hastur "bounce" deck. Strictly speaking (and I am not trying to be petulant here), Order is not playable in a tournament backdrop, so this game was essentially over before it started. On the second turn I dropped the Khopesh (I can not remember if I actually used it, I do not think I did), but the reason I dropped it was to force the opponent to go to 3-1-1 instead of 2-2-1 on domain building. If he had dropped multiple chars on his next turn he might of held out till turn 5 instead of turn 4 (with excessive suicide blocking). By playing the Khopesh I forced him to go 3-1-1 to drop either Jeff or the Housekeeper (he gets his 2-1, but gets overrun next turn as he doesn’t have enough chump blockers to survive the next hit). Khopesh net result: I give up a 2-1 trade to the opponent, but have a 50% chance of winning the (already won) game 1 turn earlier.

Final:

This game was a "showcase" for Khopesh of the Abyss. On the 3rd turn I dropped a Double Khopesh and removed most of his defenders going for an unopposed win.The evaluation was "I won do to the Khopesh". While it certainly provided fireworks for the finale, the actual analysis of the situation is quite different.

From an analytical point of view, the game ended T1 (*3). I went 2-2-2, then 5-4-4. On T2 I had overwhelming superiority in Skill, T and C and I icons with a flood of chars. The Khopesh was more an insurance policy, and had no actual material effect on play (Had I not played the Khopesh, I still would have achieved the tokens needed to win the game, the best that could be hoped for in that situation was to stall the game 1-2 more turns). Khopesh net result: Similar to the previous Khopesh drop, the net result was to basically take a 50/50 T4 or T5 ending and shift it to 100% T4.

The Shivan Khopesh

The tournament at Liege was, for me, a fascinating event. I have only played COC a very finite number of times...6 or 7 at most. I don't play on the internet, and have no meta, so I only do large tournaments. I have however played copious amounts of MTG (though a long time ago - starting in Beta, and sticking with it through until "the Dark"), including at least 30 large tournaments throughout that era. What was so fascinating was the way Liege overlaid with my early MTG experiences. I think this was do to the simple fact that there were enough players for the classic "player patterns" to manifest themselves.

The very first MTG tournament I went to was about 70 people. Gathering inside the doorway was a small group who were into "analyzing" the game. Their conclusion: "The Shivan Dragon" was the ultimate most ubar card ever invented - it should be banned as its too strong and dominates their meta (an exact quote was something along the lines of “whoever gets the Dragon out first wins”). About 50% of the players had adopted the "anti game" stance and packed their decks full of kill and cancels...a group were playing "The Dragon", and a handful had what I refer to as "lottery ticket decks", and the remainder playing a montage of traditional rush/control type decks. I didn't have a Shivan Dragon, nor did I have "anti dragon" cards, nor did I pack particularly much removal, but the ensuing slaughter was epic (*4). Note that throughout those 30+ large tournaments (and they were spread out over a couple of states with all sorts of different metas/playgroups), I never once saw a Shivan Deck win (or place....or even make a cutoff...and actually I never even saw or even heard of one winning a game)…in fact, at least in my games, I never even saw one hit the table, yet the “Dragon” always lurked in the shadows, and was always rated as “powerful” by lower tier players.

As I mentioned above, I basically threw my deck together on the plane. As I had not played in such a long time, I had no idea what the environment was like, and even didn’t know the entire card pool, so I asked the tournament organizer (Damien) for a description of the current metagame. Damien sent me back a page or so description; a snap shot of the current metagame - and, and as it turned out, it was beyond perfect (I should probably post it as it was almost scary accurate). I printed it out and on the plane ride over, marked up the key words, and then noted every key word that appeared more than once and interpreted the results.

When I was done, I was surprised to see the classic “MTG decktype distribution” appear (primary decktypes of “destroy everything”, lotto, and “Big effect”). Normally I build decks that interact with the game on a mechanics level, but I really had no time to do this, so instead I made the following assumption: Do to the "big effect of the Khopesh" most players would be Khopesh or anti-Khopesh, and the rest would be an assortment of destroy decks with 1-2 “other”, and I decided to "play the players". The destroy decks basically dictated what my deck distribution/flow had to be (Good distribution beats heavy removal every time: they have to pray you get a really really bad draw or its over before the cards hit the table). I took a risk and choose to ignore the “big effect” group (I already had an inkling I was dealing with “The Dragon”), and the “other” group almost always beats itself. Ironically, for my deck building analysis, the Khopesh ended up a non-issue. The result? - the tournament played out as expected, and I won!

Analysis Complete :

There is no tangible evidence that the Khopesh is broken, in fact, it is doubtful if it is even an auto include in mono C. My own impression is that the card is somewhat hard to use properly, and should not be included in deck builds unless you really understand how it interacts mechanically (going even further, I would venture to say that even vanilla MonoC builds should not include it as a default card). I think it would behoove players complaining about this card to spend more time understanding the basics and less time screaming about nerfing. From time to time I have built decks for players to be used in large tournaments. If I did such a thing now, I would most certainly not include the Khopesh in the build, as I don’t think the player (Who I am assuming for this argument would be a novice player with potential) would be able to discern how to play it correctly, and in all reality, doesn’t need it to win. To be complete, I do think that the Khopesh is a great card, and I would certainly include it when the analysis calls for it . I would not blindly throw it into any deckbuild. In fact, as a deckbuilder, while I knew it was going to be somewhat "dicey" to set up correctly - even I was amazed at how useless it was to me. I could have replaced it with 3 blank cards and the most that would have happend is that 2 of my games would have continued for an extra turn or 2. To a deckbuilder, this is the definition of useless . I would have been better off just dropping 3 copies of a random Cthulhu char into the build.

Before demanding “action” against cards, players should first be asking themselves why they can’t beat the card. If you are still adamant it’s broken, then you should be able to provide a proof with all the evidence and analysis in the fashion that I have presented here (including a detailed mechanical breakdown why the card is a problem), and be able to back up the claims with real data. We have gone down this road before, and once the nerf bat starts swinging (especially when its in the wrong direction) the game has suffered. Poor nerfing do to people (poor players) stating their opinions ended up nerfing the wrong cards and wrecking the game in the CCG (*5). Do people really want to end up playing Hastur-Agency flip-the-“small price to pay” again? Damon’s card design ability is excellent - very creative and intelligent. I personally can not be more thankful that we are lucky enough to have such a designer at the helm (especially considering this games history). I have a strong feeling the new cards are going to generate a lot of nerf calls in the future, so I think this issue needs to addressed sooner rather than later. Can you imagine the train wreck MTG would be if they decided to ban every “Shivan Dragon” that came along? There will be cards that need nerfed along the way. Designers and Playtesters can't forsee everything. Damon is really pushing the envelope with his designs. I expect some chafing on the rules and possibly a few broken cards along the way (when you release good cards this is inevitable). If something proves to be a problem it should be cleaned up in the FAQ. But it should be done so intelligently - and with enough evidence to prove that there is actually a problem (and additionally: what the actual problem is). The alternative, is to degenerate the game back to an Agency/Hastur flipfest, and packs of cards that do nothing. In the case of the Khopesh, people are calling for the banning of a card that had no material impact on a tournament, and provides new functionality to the game that may enable new decks in the future (or even make unplayable factions playable). It is always possible someone will break the card in the future with some newly released card, and when that happens then it needs to be determined what the problem is and how to fix it, but as at this moment in time it a near certainty that the card is not broken or even overtly powerful.

As a corollary to this, a lot of people were complaining at Liege about the large amount of removal that average decks were now carrying. I mentally went through all the large COC tournaments (defined as 15 or more players) winning decklists that I have created in this game and tallied up the number of removal each deck packed:

Stahl CCG 2008 Euro Championship: 0

Stahl CCG 2009 CCG World Championship: 1

Stahl LCG 2009 Euro Championship: 12

French Nationals 2009: 3

Italian Nationals 2011: 12

Liege Asylum 2012 Euro Championship: 9* (+ 6 qualified removal): *I would have optimized this to probably 6-8 total removal if I had tested it before playing.

This yields an average of 6.1 removal per deck. Clearly, the game is not dictated by the amount of removal you have in the deck. For people complaining about “too much removal” – you should rejoice! Since these decks are clearly inferior (they certainly aren’t winning), they should be easy tournament wins. Never complain about easy wins!

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(*1) Definition: "Self Mangling" (Action): (1) To play a card or series of cards where the resultant board position is better for your opponent than it was before you played the card/s. (2) Self Slaughter. Often accompanied by exclamations containing the word "Ubar!".

(*2) I found out about this tournament about a week before the tournament. I had made a combo deck the day before the flight, but decided that I had no time to really analyze it/tune it, so I dropped it and made a deck on the plane ride over. When I drew up the deck matrix (I build decks via a matrix method, it is a bitstrange but it works --> its kind of like a rendered Karnough map), I realized that the Khopesh "didn't work as advertised". Without testing I couldn't be sure if it was even playable, so I made a mental note to sluff it off as a resource if its use cases did not manifest. Unlike most deck builds, I used this card as a part statistical soft lock I found in the game (I T2 soft locked the game 3 times in the tournament; soft lock here is being defined as "nothing the opponent can do to materially alter the board configuration, but is still free to play cards and interact).

(*3) While I really like how Vincent built his deck, unfortunately from a meta-game perspective "Things in the Ground" isn't actually viable in any realistic sense. A competent deck should be able to beat it 90+% of the time. In this case, I had 9-12 cards that "auto won" against it. Also, my icon density was orders of magnitude higher than his, so, irrespective of hitting AOs, the average "Things" action was producing more icons/skill in aggregate for me than him (I also had an oversized # of chars for my deck – more than he did, which would yield far more "hits" over time for me than him). Given this, even if he hit all his AOs, I would still have overwhelming Skill/Icon superiority do to shear density (in essence, his Things was working for me not for him). In order for him to win, I would have had to fail the momentum game (NOT draw one of the 9-12 auto-win cards and have a terrible hand), and also have extremely bizarre card distribution problems with the order of my deck (have some strange arrangement of chars that allowed him to out produce me).

(*4) This was probably the best tournament win in a game I ever had. The local “guru game store owner” had his wife take decklists and entry fees. She actually *laughed* at my decklist…..”This is the big leagues..we don’t play these types of decks…we play for blood!”. I won the tournament, slaughtering her husband-lord-of–the-tournament before his second turn with a scryb sprite that did 22 points of damage. To this day, I get a few emails a year from friends who claim they still have nightmares about my sprites! OK…I will try to stop reliving MTG now….

(*5) In the CCG, I won the original Stahleck Asylum with a deck using something later dubbed "Jump" tech. Players - and some Playtesters - who really did not understand even he basics of the games underlying mechanics - screamed to nerf the Rituals. Bowing to populist sentiment, FFG -who rejected our submissions and board pleas- nerfed the rituals. Ironically, this helped the broken decks instead of hurting them as the rituals were part of the solution not the problem. So I ended up building 2 more broken decks (Tsath, The97%T1RipOff) in addition to reworking the Jump decks (which still worked) and another player built the Messenger deck. Without rituals the metagame was left defenseless. FAIL

The_Rip-Off said:

Hi Graham,

well done with the article, for sure one of the best read in the last period on this forum. Since I agree completely with your post, I'll just make a couple of comments.

The_Rip-Off said:

I would like to point out here that I wasn't playing Kopesh because I didn't have the time to playtest the card (I received the pack the day of the tournament). After the tournament it was quite clear to me that the goal of my deck was completely sinergyc with Kopesh. So, I think you can count 2 decks on top-4 with Kopesh (this doesn't change the rest, but just to clarify)

The_Rip-Off said:

Here there is at least 1 mistake. When we played (it was round 4 or 5) you played Kopesh on turn 2 (turn 1, Albino Goat Spawn, turn 2 Kopesh on it). Since I knew you were playing Kopesh, I resourced in such a way that I had a DoA available for your character immediately. That gave me time to develop my domains and then keep in check your character count on the board, so that even if you had another Kopesh I could easily remove the character. Against my deck, Kopesh was a soft-almost-hard lock, due to lack of toughness, so for me it was a card to keep in check.

The_Rip-Off said:

It would be really a good idea to have the metagame description. Not really for metagame considerations (it might already have changed a bit, even though I doubt it) but just to see what other people think

The_Rip-Off said:

I disagree on the Shub-Cthulhu as meta dominant. In fact, the combination of factions as you were playing (for qhat I've seen, of course) was vulnerable to a card that was played that day (but you probably didn't see against you) namely the Y'ha-nthlei Statue (Aspirations of Ascension F66). This card alone could have caused you some problems, I can imagine. In fact, I didn't draw it, that is the only reason you didn't see it I agree, though, that the destruction routine is largely abused right now in the metagame. (see next comment)

The_Rip-Off said:

I think that the whole point of discussion is here. We had the chance to talk (and I'm really happy about it) and I can clearly see that the way you think about the game and the deckbuilding is far different (and, in my opinion, superior) to everyone else that is playing this game that I know. I go a bit further (and I hope noone is offended about what I will say, even because I include myself in this category) and I say that the average player level is not high enough to make an analysis like this and understand if a card requires specific counter-measures. You, on the other hand, have an astonishing ability in breaking down cards (and the game itself) to their basic components. This makes all the difference in the world.

The problem, here, is that the community is so small that we don't have enough good players to "guide" the metagame or to prove that some strategies are viable or not. And this is underlined by the fact that the proposed deck all follow, somehow, a recognizable pattern. (and again, I include myself here!)

The_Rip-Off said:

This story, on the other hand, shows another thing: that you are an amazing combo deckbuilder and, again, since we don't have a large metagame, the moment combo show up in a tournament it is going to cause a lot of complaints. This because a "combo" deck somehow bends the rules of the game to an extent that the regular player (again, including myself) cannot see; and if you cannot see this, it is even difficult to find solutions. Better: it's not difficult, but the player, trying to find a solution, feels forced to play some cards that otherwise he wouldn't play and this makes him feel uncomfortable.

And, concluding, I invite you to post more on this forum, because I think that the entire community has only something to gain if you will post! (and of course, if you want to share some amazing super tech you have found we will all happy to see it )

See you for the next tournament, hopefully!

Francesco / Konx

The_Rip-Off said:

A remark: Due to some bad draws Titg indeed helped you more then me but I did try to prevent bad draws by minimizing the events and supports (33 characters of 50 cards). You won fair and square and I think I will lose the majority of games played against your deck, but losing more then 90% of the time with this deck against any competent deck seems hard to believe. As I really did not take much time to prepare the deck I believe Titg decks can be even made better then the deck I was using and imho can really stand a good chance against many competent decks.

So in short: yes, you had the better deck, but no, I dont believe Titg decks will be that bad against competent decks. Else we have to conclude the Liege championship did not have many competent decks or I just was really lucky to reach the finals.

Ontopic again:

I do not think Kopesh is really, really broken because it only truly shines when you build your deck around it (characters with toughness) but when using it in these kind of decks it is too **** good. It should have been nerved down by including a cost to activate the ability (not exhausting the character, but at least draining a domain for it). Because of this free activation you really must have a support destroy-card ready in your hand else it is just too late to save your characters. Most or all of them are destroyed in one single turn. Also the **** card never really goes away as its a relic. Its far out the best relic out there.

Nice post, even though I am not playing the game competitively I still like to read articles from people who really like to take an in-depth look at the games underlying structures and current meta-game.

Well done and keep them coming I say.

The Khopesh is a scary card. Far more so than when I first read it... but scary and dangerous (as in destroying my decks) are too different things. I think every deck should be running *some* sort of removal tech, and keeping it in hand until someone running Cthulhu drops the Khopesh isn't the worst idea as long as you pay enough attention to use it against active threats rather than unused waiting for potential threats.

What it seems to boil down to is when I play thematic social decks I end up fighting for my life against the Khopesh and have to include cards just to keep it in check... that said when I play a serious deck intended to win or achieve lock as fast as possible the Khopesh is a road bump. I haven't put enough time to analyzing the metagame to determine why, though. I am very interested in anyone who thinks they can shed light on why it seems to have some problems.

Hey! Shoot me an email man. Been tryin to contact you.

Onto the Khopesh... While I can't say that I agreed with 'everything' you said... the end result I think we feel the same.

Its an unrestricted 2 for 2. Not that great. The unrestricted part makes it playable. Shooting a guy with toughness gives you diminishing returns. Equiping a guy with toughness makes it a good idea. Even when equipped on a guy with toughness +2 you're still only getting a 4 for 2. Which... is exactly equal to playing a pair of 2 for 1s. For those missing the point I'm doing a terrible job of alluding to... 2 for 1s are not that uncommon in call of cthulhu. AKA, not that special.

So I guess I'm confused. Who thinks its broken? Useable, strong perhaps, but broken? I rather spend my time on 3+ for 1s.

Oh, PS. We're not really counting 2008 are we? I mean... come on. Completely different world back then.

lol, let the good times roll.

Magnus Arcanis said:

This might be a dumb question, but what do you mean by 2 for 2, 3 for 1? Wounds per cost?

2 for 1: I remove 2 cards of yours at the cost of 1 card for me. etc.

Bump.

This was a very interesting article. I have only really played CoC casually due to a lack of meta, but it's interesting that this metagame suffers from nerf-rage similar to AGoT. It's frightening to me that the designers bend so easily to the outcry, although I think it's getting better after they got burned a few times (unfortunately also to the detriment of the metagame). Players should have better data than "I feel like it's NPE" before they create a virtual mob.

Stupid forums...

Will you bump now?

The_Rip-Off said:

Would you mind talking a little more about your matrix method? What variables do you input?

How long after Khopesh was released was this tournament?

What did Khopesh accomplish when it did hit the table?

How does the pro lv game look like, especialy how long it is and how important are struggles compared to card effects.

Becouse i have a hypothesis that Khopesh players just didnt have enough exerience with the card and did not that efficent things with it. Kopesh is great for eliminating fragile targets that hurt you for a price of weak char and for mass removal if you get sth really nice to wield it. Playing it early just becouse you can can do much more harm than good.

Shocking transformation into Logan with khopesh and toughness +2 is playable form turn 2 (turn 1 if u transcient, but 5 wounds turn 1 are completly useless) and gives 5 wounds for character, event and 3 domain… or 3-4 wounds and Logan stays…

[logan and toughness +2 can screw your draw though]

What are 2 for 1 and 3 for 1?

And Khopesh it makes less competitive play awful. If it doesnt work in competitive and hurts casual, great card indeed…

against player i use to play with, kopesh is really a strong card because you just need to put your attachment on a creature and let's begin the show:

unlike a shotgun, you don't play the card to wound another creature: you play the cards to wound LOT OF others creatures.

When you use a shotgun blast, you need to pay a cost equal to skill : a sacrifical offering let your opponent wound the character he wants in return.. with kopesh you wound many characters and the opponent have just eyes to cry :

you can play a counter card against a shotgun or sacrifical, but against kopesh.. you can cancel the first wound.. and what? the owner will activate a second time the ability …yeah

when you play kopesh, you often play with museum curator, so you play it for free and activate it for free : jackpot

Not really free, with curator you played curator - so you played 2 for it anyway, and its not even reliable. You played Khopesh so you didnt get to hand or play other cards, you wounded your character as much as you wounded your opponent, to get an edge you need to wound and destroy many characters or snipe really important ones (in a way too easy fsion, it shuts down so many chars with no toughness that already have problems staying in play), otherwise its not worth it. And all support removal is a direct counter to khopesh as it destroys the card before it does anything. (but its Shub-only option i guess)

man. and people think i sound egotistical ( original post )…….

that, in all honesty, was 5 minutes of dribble that i'll never get back. all i heard about was YOUR secret decks, YOUR game winning new techs, YOUR spectacular wins, YOUR revolutionary ways of designing decks, and YOUR opinions, without providing an ounce of help to anyone else or sharing any of these ideas. as if it might impress me. i also vaguely remember amongst the mind numbing that YOUR decks are far too superior for an average player to understand or be able to utilise, and i physically cannot make myself go through the post again to find it, but if i wrote what i thought of that comment, then this post wouldn't remain. if the truth is that the game is filled with sub standard meta game groupies, then your ability to win simply makes you the best of an average demographic, so nothing to be bragging about.

MY opinion will be short and sweet, and not be a complete waste of time.

i've only used the khopesh once, and that was in a deck that employed laboring gug. so it became more of a "pay 2 to sacrifice a character, deal 3 wounds, and draw 3 cards, then shuffle this card back into your deck". which in my opinion is a bit more worth it.

there. i named a card and described a situation where it could be used. was that hard ??

COCLCG said:

The difference being that he is an old school CoC player with a ton of experience. That and his posts are cogent, have a point and are not some schizophrenic glimpse into manic depressive insanity.

What was the point you were trying to make again? Or was that just another troll post in a long line of trolls without adding absolutely anything to the conversation other than vitriol?

i'm not denying that there was a point SOMEWHERE there within the self glorification, but it could've been done in a much more succinct and humble manner.

COCLCG said:

The irony of your post is thick.

this is what i read.

"i went to the tournament in liege and since i was the only one who knew how to use the khopesh, i was the only one who made it to the top 4 with it"

"i never play CoC and only do large tournaments but am good enough to win them anyway"

"i built my deck on the plane ride over and still won"

"since then i've built 5 decks even better than this one, without the khopesh"

"if i built a deck for someone, i wouldn't include khopesh as they wouldn't be able to discern how to play it"

"these are all my tournament wins, and the amount of khopesh like cards included in my decks"

"i won a tournament using a tech that i created and was later named 'jump tech' "

"oh, and by the way, the khopesh isn't broken ( but really its hard to tell because no-one knows how to use it but me )"

Hellfury said:

hey, i am what i am and don't deny it. people jump all over my posts when i dare to sound egotistical and that's cool with me. but when i call a spade a spade suddenly its sacrosanct.

COCLCG said:

whatever, miss morisette.

The author might have been more humble. But his analysis is still valuable, and bragging when youre contesting current meta seems like a way to be treated seriously, especially when its not made up and you realy are a good player that saw sloppy Khopesh plays.

I really cant see how can this powerfull of a card that costs 2 be not worth it. Even early when its not that powerful you can still play sth like Gibbering Soul with khopesh and trade them for 2 opponents characters and a search. Or wait and see if opponent has support control. Maybe not first or second turn, as there are more important things when character cnt is low, and one targeted deep one assault can get rid of both character and khopesh, but later on making youre weakest characters deadly seems to be a solid play (no characters that lose its function late game in tournament play?)

And there are really not that many cards that can get rid of it directly (missed any?) :

Burrowing Beneath
Deep One Assault
Thunder in the East
Grasping Chthonian
Jade Salesman (for cost 3 and possible counter be sacrificing this i wouldn't play khopesh)
Political Demonstration

Dimensional Rift
The Dunwich Horror

The problem might be killing the guy that wields it, but he gets additional toughness, would be nice to have toughness on him in the first place, so it forces a destroy card or short fuse, still not worth it? If it doesn't get destroyed fast it gives powerful control - any nice effecst no toughness character will not see the day to use his ability.

What analysis shows this is not worth it? Are other restricted cards just better?

.Zephyr. said:

Some other restricted card are better. For many reasons. It's not just the cost of the card and the effect it brings that make Khopesh good.

You also have to take into consideration the amount of cards it takes to make khopesh good.

For instance, Descendent of Eibon is good on his own. He doesn't require any cards to function. Same thing with Magah Birds which not only gives you a 3 for 1 deal, but it is extremely cheap and gives you card advantage along with thinning your deck by 2 more cards making drawing other cards fractionally more efficient.

The most efficient way to get the effect of the khopesh is to play it on a character that enters play for free, such as a being of ib or a chacater that jumps into play for free like Dreamlands fanatic. You are only paying two resources for causing two wounds. This is pretty efficient but not as efficient as a single card that does a single wound. The reason why is because it doesnt require a second card in order for the effect to be realized.

If you want Khopesh to be really good, then you need to pay a higher cost (say 4 for a Hideous guardian which is off suit and requires a different type of resource) or to add another card into the mix in order to play it cheaply (say twilight gate which is another off suit card). The more expensive or more extensive the engine becomes, the less efficient it is in the short game.

This is one of the points that Graham is trying to make. There are more subtle reasons why the card is good and not good and why the entire issue of "Khopesh is broken" arguments amount to nothing more than "Fetch Stick part II, Electric Boogaloo".

I have never disagreed that Khopesh is powerful. The entire argument regarding the format of Destruction tactic being too uber I feel is valid.

But I do think that any competent player can find a way to combat it with the tools they have at their disposal within their deck if they are aware of the card. It transforms the meta, but it doesn't break it.

While Khopesh is definitely no Master of the Myths and needs a deck that is designed to get full use of it. It might make already strong destruction impossible to stop.

The two combinations i think make sense for Khopesh centered deck are Cthulhu-shub or cthulhu-yog. Shub because of shocking transformation, cheap strong and tough ghouls to defend early and shocking transformation to get stuff like Terror of the tides for cost 3. I'd also add 1,2 Logans, as shocking transformation into this guy wielding two Khopeshes gives you 3 wounds without killing him and nice surprise char that can serve a while, Heroic is a problem, but i think the benefit of making Shocking a card that gives 3 wounds is worth trying, especialy as when he gets 4th wound Khopeshes return to deck and he goes to discard.

Yog is good because of twilight gated Hideous Guardian. Its not reliable but is crazy 4 wounds available from turn 2. The deck has to have normal "Cthulhu-Yog" destruction with many angled things, Cursed Skull, deep one risings, deep one assaults etc. But in late game one swipe of the khopesh can clear the board of all thats not invoulnerable. And yog can bring back those Hideus gueardians with Opening the gate or other discard searches if desperate.

Cards like Duch courage help only temporary, just wound all to 1 and deep one assault/grasping cthoninan the support.

I dont really see how Khopesh doesnt make already strong destruction much better.

[i dont play that well, just theorycrafting, i wonder what makes those ideas not work that well]

PS magah birds are banned

PS2 and descendant of eibon should be [i wonder if i end up wanting to ban half the card pool ]