>> 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.

Khopesh of the Abyss is unique, controlling more than one unique card with the same title forces you to (either discard or sacrifice or destroy, cannot remember on the top of my head) the excess copies.

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

The time it takes to setup such configurations while under pressure.

.Zephyr. said:

You missed Thief for Hire, which is very effective for not just taking the Khopesh out, but for making a very resilient and dangerous Thief. Beyond that, any targeted character removal, or untargeted character removal if the Khopesh-wielder is the only one out, will work. Lord Jeffery Farrington works like a charm, for instance.

I generally agree, however, that by and large the Khopesh is worth it; the only real question is if it is more worthwhile than other restricted cards. Versus unrestricted cards, depends on the deck, but in many decks, it's almost an auto-include.

The main problem with it, I think, is the cost. Cost 1 and 2 cards are potentially very powerful, because they can be cast on a secondary domain rather than the primary domain. Once a card hits cost 3, it forces difficult decisions regarding whether or not to drain the primary domain (3-3-1 domain setups can happen I suppose, just not that frequently). As such, a lot of decks are built around having almost nothing but cost 1 and 2 cards, and in that light, Khopesh is enormously powerful, as it delivers a lot of firepower while staying at the magic cost 2 limit. Bumping its cost up to 3 would have balanced it, I think.

.Zephyr. said:

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 ]

PS Thanks. I knew that already. It was used as an example to illustrate how some cards are clearly better and why.

PS2 Judging by your recent opinions about cards, it seems to me that there are a LOT of cards you appear to think should be banned.

Which is why the lesson of Fetch Stick should not be forgotten… lest it be repeated by the newer community again.

IMO say small erratas would be enough.

I'd get Khopesh exhausted after use and remove restriction - then card wont be capable of clearing the table but still usable destruction/control that will eventually kill enough to be worth the price.

And forgot about unique, orginal idea i heard had Logan getting some other toughness support. I wanted to improve it by removing useless cards from deck but it didn't work (you cant even put into play/take control of/etc of another copy, not sure there is wierd enough interaction to break it, possibly not so i guess it should go back to where it came from) Other candidates are FleshWard/Getaway Vehicle for +2 but its neutral/wrong color; Heavy furs but even worse color and only +1; Patrol wagon, bad color but you get +2 and "pay 2 to cancel wound" that n this case is "pay 2 to deal a wound" In the deck i'd do i wouldnt bother those cards problems, but maybe in top notch deck drawing such support is a disaster and having 2 logans is enough of a threat to get wrong cards.

Hellfury said:

Many of us were not around in the CCG days, what's the deal with Fetch Stick?

I've heard the name, and vaguely recall it was considered a strong card, but that's about all I know.

I'd never seen Fetch Stick before. Yipes, that card is awesome.

Back on topic, though. I have to agree with most of the assessment in here. Khopesh is annoying as $#!+, but if you can't deal with it, L2P. It's not like The Large Man + Offer You Can't Refuse, so it's… manageable.

I think the most important thing here might be pro vs casual.

When i read the game ends at turn 4-5 and then look at my games that tend to be really long i see how much of a gap there is. I still don't know how big it is because i've seen no such games that ware not "my deck was leagues better" games.

If you really have that limited of a time frame and opponent puts that much pressure some cards will work completely differently then in casual play when you have time to buid up your domains and play characters and running out of cards that fast is more of an issue. There Khopesh breaks the experience completely.

Maybe the solution would be "not advised in casual play list" that would be an official suggestion of cards that work awful in more casual setting. Sure you can houserule, no one is going to stop you, but this would be aimed at less experienced players to aid them what cards have such dynamics and can be avoided. Especially with limited card pool some cards like Ravager from the deep can break your play experience really hard. I think Khopesh is an example of such card.

If Khopesh doesn't win tournaments than it seems not that good ban candidate for pro scene indeed.

You are still learning the game. As Graham pointed out, many of the people who have been playing for years are also still trying to master the game.

LCG's are like chess, short time to learn, a life time to master.

Khopesh is a card, much like Master of Myths that lets lesser players play up. It is like spotting an opponent a queen. If you are a better chess player giving an intermediate player that advantage isn't an insta-loss, it just puts you in a position where you have to pay attention. In this game knowing your opponent may have a Khopesh just means you come with a certain kind of deck or a certain strategy. Most players try to wipe out boards when they get the Khopesh rather than using it to snipe characters that are really troublesome. This is the first of many bad plays I've seen with this card.

Now the card itself while letting intermediates play closer to the level of advanced players does not continue to scale up. It lets them beat their peers, but advanced players recognize the tempo loss most frequently caused by spending multiple cards to get rid of other cards if there is not a immediate gain, essentially you are draining two domains, spending two draws, and spending two cards to get rid of the same. The 1:1 advantage becomes greater if you are killing off characters that are strictly better than the ones you are throwing away, but it does not get you beyond the 1:1 unless the character you put the khopesh on has toughness itself.

It isn't a bad card, but if you divorce yourself from the attachment of any given card and look at the math behind the cards you start to see it isn't nearly as amazing as a lot of the early hype made it out to be. It skews the metagame but only because we allow it. I predict the winning deck at worlds will not have it, and I'd be surprised if the winning decks at the continental championships have it.

dboeren said:

I wasn't either Dboeren. I only lurked on the FFG forums during that period (2006? 2007? before the switch to the new forum format) and saw tons of arguments about that very card. I didnt even play CoC yet, I only was starting to gain interest and then the game died and became resurrected in that time.

The arguments were what you would expect from histrionic wailing and gnashing of teeth about the end of the world. Long story short.

As you can plainly see from the image that AUCodeMonkey provided (thanks J) it has a neat effect… but even in the LCG people would hardly call that a broken card. I get better use of out Alhazreds lamp, for less.

i dont think you can ever really master a game which relies on any amount of luck ( unlike chess ). the way i see it the game boils down to this:

16% - making a deck that is actually capable of winning and exploiting weaknesses in others decks

16% - the opponents decks either a) not exploiting a weakness in your own deck and b) also having decks capable of winning

i'll also point out that this would be much easier when the games creator is feeding you detailed descriptions of the meta game in so far as giving you the ability to actually mark keywords and counter them - ( classic COCLCG comment )

16% - player ability

16% - opponents ability

16% - your own luck of the draw on the day

16% - your opponents luck of the draw on the day

if you have the majority of these then the win is yours.

the final 4% is reserved to equal decks with equal luck and ability, then its touch and go.

so really, how could you ever master it ??

the only thing to do is refine your deck building and ability over a long period of time, and simply play the game to enjoy it.

to continue with my above statement, i think most of us would gain a lot more enjoyment if we focused more on the social gaming experience and playing some fun decks. far too much importance is being given to being the creator of some magnificent deck and winning some dinky little tournament against a very small percentage of actual CoC players, or whinging and griping about cards and opinions. it can sometimes bring out the worst in people ( which i've experienced myself ) and to that end i'm back benching this game to play with friends only and going back to the boardgaming scene. this was my first foray into card gaming and i hate to say it, but if current attitudes towards the 'be all and end all of making unbeatable decks' persists, as opposed to just having fun , then it will remain a very small community. which is perhaps why every week i meet with a group of 50+ boardgamers, have a great time, and yet struggle to find more than 1 or 2 card gamers to play with a month. the whole idea of competative tournament games and the importance given to them is seriously a turn off, and this has come from many mouths, along with an unfortunate dislike towards the attitudes of card gamers ( believe me, i've tried to sway many boardgamers ). it potentially breeds self inflated egos, frustration and disappointment when one cannot possibly be included or be competative, and my advice would be to forget this facet, focus less on making competative decks and more on making fun decks to build a local community, experience and develop the game yourselves, finding out just how enjoyable it is to discover things instead of reading them, house rule any problem cards until someones generates a counter, and play the game like any regular one, for fun.

"i think most of us would gain a lot more enjoyment if we focused more on the social gaming experience and playing some fun decks. far too much importance is being given to being the creator of some magnificent deck and winning some dinky little tournament against a very small percentage of actual CoC players, or whinging and griping about cards and opinions."

I think many of us ARE doing that. We play casually most of the year, and then for some of us who are going to be in a Regional tournament there is a brief period where things get a bit more serious, and then we go back to casual gaming.

Also, there's a difference between complaining about cards and pointing out possible issues. Jenica for example has a clear flaw - she needs to be restricted to once per turn or else you can basically draw all your Supports and stack your deck every turn. This is one of those rare cases that goes beyond the "is it OP?" question into the realm of "yeah, they accidentally left that out". It sticks out just like a missing word in a sentence.

Also, it's HARD to build and maintain a play group. Many of us are concerned about how the game appears to new/casual players and if there is a card that looks like it might create a negative play experience we want to keep tabs on it. That doesn't mean spazzing out at the sight of a new card, but it does merit some discussion with the goal of keeping an eye on the new card or combo and making sure it doesn't cause a problem. Very few people are jumping to the conclusion that things need bans or restrictions right off, most of them just want to discuss and watch and make people aware of the potential issue so we as a community can test it out and determine whether the problem is real or imagined.

COCLCG said:

The game is almost entirely based around your deckbuilding ability, like any deckbuilding game. You should be able to counter your opponent's deck, if you build a good deck. Your draw will usually be good if you build a solid deck. If your opponent is a skilled deckbuilder also, then if you're better then you will beat them most of the time.

Occasionally you have a bad draw, but that's what mulligans are for. If you have 2 bad draws, then that's random chance as well. It's a known risk going in to playing a game. If I get bad draws, I analyze and see if I could've had a better draw if X card was in this deck instead of Y. If my opponent beats me, I try to figure out how I could adjust my deck to counter theirs, while still maintaining the balance I already have in place.

I love this game, both casually and competitively. I have built some fun decks that wouldn't be tournament viable that I thoroughly enjoy playing against my wife. My Things in the Ground deck was ridiculous if it got going, but it was just as much fun to frustrate my opponent when it didn't. Still, I love competition the most. Competition is what drives me to be better, and as I get a better grasp as to what cards work best with other cards, which are more efficient, etc. it drives me closer to mastering the game and it makes it more fun for me.

I would say this game is as much about play skill as it is about deckbuilding.

COCLCG you've popped into the game during the tournament season. Normally this group is more conversational and it is more about interesting deck ideas and and buzzing about the next expansion or latest spoiled card. Everyone right now is a little more buckled down because we're entering into GenCon with Liege around the corner.

I agree that skill is a major component. There are a lot of decisions to make during play and an experienced/skilled player will choose correctly more often. Just knowing what card to resource takes a fair amount of judgement, then moving up to more difficult things like recognizing what sort of deck your opponent is playing and anticipating cards you might have a more critical need for than normal.

Resourcing alone pretty much destroys most arguments I've seen about deck building being the most important skill in this game. I'm willing to bet that Giving Graham's deck to someone who has been playing for 6 months and giving Graham the 16th place deck from Liege would still have Graham winning 3 out of 5 times. It may be more competitive, but I have no doubt he'd come out the victor in a statistically significant showing.

Penfold said:

i'll pop back in for one more post, but the decks are already boxed and will probably never see the light of day again.

this to me is one of the problems with expanding the game. i came into this game filled with zeal and zest and thought it might be a way of pitching my intelligence against the intelligence of others, but unless you're from either USA or europe, then you're pretty much well left out of the tournament buzz and become something of a bystander to an event you'd give your left nut to be a part of. the game has been a classic FAIL here in australia. no-one wants to pay a huge amount of money for a game they get to experience only a part of, or test their abilities against what the rest of the world has to offer ( which has 2 sides, as the rest of the 'world' will never truly know if they're good enough to take on our best ). FFG has given absolutely no support to the game down here, the regional was something of a farce, and the players that attended have lost interest as soon as i defeated them, never returning any of my texts. and truthfully, it was somewhat a waste of my own money as i can go no further than a title which will never be taken seriously within the community.

over the past month or so, listening to all the excitement, i've become quite frustrated and aggressive about it all, and apologise for any provocations or incendiary comments that have been generated because of this, but yes, it is frustrating. i know that i'm an above average player, i've never been beaten, but i'll never know if i'm world champ material. and that to me is an unfulfilled question that is more annoying than productive. hence i shall play no more.

unless FFG does something about this and lends more support ( hell, i've paid enough for this game to pay for 2 tickets to the worlds event !! ) then it's only losing money because as things stand, there will never be a large australian community. why would we bother ?? the game definately induces a thirst for healthy competition and the trialling of our abilities, but here it just remains unfulfilled, unsatisfying and eventually, uninspiring.

I'm a bit confused here. First you were saying that you didn't like the over-emphasis on tournaments:

"i think most of us would gain a lot more enjoyment if we focused more on the social gaming experience and playing some fun decks. far too much importance is being given to being the creator of some magnificent deck and winning some dinky little tournament against a very small percentage of actual CoC players"

Now it sounds like you're saying that you're not happy because you're being left out of the tournament scene and casual play is unsatisfying:

"why would we bother ?? the game definately induces a thirst for healthy competition and the trialling of our abilities, but here it just remains unfulfilled, unsatisfying and eventually, uninspiring."

I think you were on the right track earlier, why not just enjoy the game for what it is?

one leads into the other.

the emphasis on tournaments drove me to want to compete.

the inability to compete drove me to give up the game.

That is too **** bad. Can I ask what kind of support you are wanting expecting from FFG? They don't do a heck of lot of major support, I suspect that hwat you got was what everyone else got in the US for regionals. The foreign partners have their own programs that they do for their nationals and for the EU championship.

Your decks were interesting and pretty innovative in comparison to what gets posted here on average. I for one will miss your thoughts.

OK, so you aren't in the US or Europe. What do you realistically expect FFG to be able to do for you? They don't have an official online version of the game, so they have to hold their major tournaments in person. Therefore, everyone who isn't local to where the tournament is being held will have to travel. Some will have to travel further than others. For me (as an example) Mapquest says it's 8 hours and 11 minutes to Indianapolis for Gencon, and 17 hours and 45 minutes to Roseville MN for their World Championships. That's a pretty significant journey, but it's entirely up to me whether I go or not.

Personally, I find the Gencon trip reasonable - but only because I can play a lot of other games while I'm there for 4 days. I wouldn't go 8+ hours JUST for a single tournament that's only going to last a few hours. I find the Roseville trip rather unreasonable, so I'm not planning to go. If I happen to win Gencon (unlikely) it'll be tough, but that doesn't change the basic economics of time off and travel expenses at a busy time of year. You've got the same choices, except that after deciding that the trips were unreasonable (which I agree with if you're in Australia) that this was somehow because of a deficiency on FFG's side (which I don't agree with).

They can't help where you live, or what cities or countries have the biggest fanbases. Nor is it reasonable to expect them to pay for your travel. Why should they? If they're paying for you, why aren't they paying for all of us to go too? How could they afford such extravagant measures? Even if you say "only the Regionals champions get free trips" that's still a lot of money and I'm sure it is nowhere near justified by and added sales of the game for having a little bit bigger tournament. So if we grant that they're losing large amounts of money, why would they consider such a thing?

I get what you're saying that you wish you could play against the "big dogs", but quitting in a huff doesn't seem to be the right solution. Have you looked into learning to use LackeyCCG or some other online method? You could potentially schedule some online games with other top players that way - will this scratch the itch enough for you?

Almost every last one of us feels your pain about not having local players, that's an issue nearly everywhere. Honestly, if a large community is necessary for your enjoyment then you should be looking at Magic or possible L5R - they're the only card games I know which have a well developed community. We can hope for Netrunner but even that will take lots of time to see what happens.

Edit: I should add that if I didn't think you were a valuable member of the online community I wouldn't bother trying to talk you out of it I know I haven't gotten to take part much in your deck design threads - I must (lamely) beg the excuse of a new baby in the house for that one but things seem to be starting to settle in a bit and I'm hoping to be showing my face a bit more often. I've also got some deck ideas I'd like to develop and post and I'll miss your commentary on them if you're no longer around.

i know. i know.

i'm being a crybaby. ( a lame haha )

its just a decision i'm going to have to make over the next few days. pump even more money into a game which in turns enthralls me and frustrates me, ( and given my mental condition is sometimes very unhealthy ), or devote my time to something else.

i do love the game ( been playing cthulhu since the 80's rpg ), but cost vs. time played and the effort FFG put into our country is a serious factor. and no, i don't expect them to fly regional champions around ( though it would be nice ), but it just ires me that not only do i have to spend all this money on their products, but being one of the main ambassadors in australia, i also have to put more time and money into spreading the word, so others can spend even more money on their products, all with zip support. no advertising, no campaigns, no fan base.

perhaps if they went to the effort of networking with local game shops to put on promo nights or gave them incentives to set up their own groups, then i see this as a way of increasing their sales and the community with little to no cost. i don't understand why they wouldn't be interested in doing this, but in australia its a "here's the product, you wanna play, you have to go and make us more money" kind of attitude.

its a HUGE country, with a MASSIVE board and card gaming community, and boy are we dedicated when given the reason to be. last boardgaming convention ( not tournament ) was held in a little border town called albury over a 3 day long weekend ( only a 3hr drive for me ). but people flew from brisbane , adelaide, even perth just to attend. no prizes. no titles. just 3 days of 9am - 3am ( 18 hrs ) of boardgaming. the surrounding hotels BANK on this annual weekend.

i dunno. sometimes i'm high as a kite on this game, others i'm completely demoralised when i look at the $1000+ dollars sitting on my desk doing nothing. sometimes i'm even fatalistic ( see "i'm giving up this game" ). and i'm sure you guys are getting crazy sick of my mood swings.

i'm trying to set up a community and it goes 2 steps forwards, 2 steps backwards.

i think i'll just leave the decks boxed, have some time off over the tournament season and see if i get back into it later this year.

and thanks for the encouraging words and reality checks. if i'm back i'll try to be a lot nicer and non confrontational. i've gotten my gripes off my chest and will try to refrain when people push my buttons.

EDIT: i'm also going to see where the game is headed before i decide whether to pull the plug. EG: if miskatonic start having willpower thrown all over the place without the AO factions getting investigation icons, then they're simply swapping one demon for the other. i'm sure there will be a huge rush of cthulhu/miskatonic destruction PLUS pumped up investigation decks.

EDIT2: i think what REALLY gets my goat, is the denotion of 'WORLD CHAMPION', like we here in australia and other far gone places aren't considered part of the CoC 'world'. perhaps if they changed it to 'CTHULHU CHAMPION' i might not feel so offended !! i know. petty as all hell.

NOW its all off my chest. its been a long time brewing, i'm sorry to all you folks for having to go through it, but i feel a whole lot better for it…………

EDIT3: and while i'm pondering what to do with the game, you guys can ponder the possibilities of LODGE DEFENCES setting up repetative loops with ritual of the lance / dedicated butler.

or for that matter, lodge defences / dedicated butler / dark secrets of the order.

COCLCD wrote some nonsense:

-->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"

This is not what was meant at all. The implication of that statement was that "if the Khopesh is so good, why did it not dominate the top 4". The reason I used myself as a comparator was that I was the only one with the Khopesh in his build in the top 4 - and I was probably also the only one who was resourcing it. If we follow the "Khopesh is broken" logic - I should have lost long before as I was resourcing it, and none of the other players should have even made the cutoff as they didn't have it in their deck, and they didn’t pack their decks with "Get it off", "Burrowing beneath" or other nonsensical cards. I never said I was the only one who knew how to use it, nor did I imply that.

-->"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"

The original article was actually about something quite different - it was about belief systems. I was at work when I wrote it and the post was actually dragging into the size of a book, so just before posting, I cut out huge chunks of it. The original purpose of the above (and the MTG references) part was a lead in to why I was unaffected by "khopesh madness". In my MTG experience, often the meta-game shifted wildly in nonsensical directions when new cards were released. Once in a blue moon the tournaments were so bizarre that by then end of the tournament, everyone was confused as to what had just happened (instigated by cards everyone thought was broken - and were not). The lead in the above and its following statement were an explanation as to why I wasn’t dragged into "khopesh mania". Not knowing anything about the current state of the game, I didn’t focus on it - instead I simply attempted to build an efficient, competent deck. The moral of the story was that "efficiency" and "standard deck building" beat "Khopesh is ubar". That is actually my fault as that was an aggressively hacked that part of the write up. After I read what ended up coming out - I was highly unhappy with it, I should have cut quite a bit more.

-->"since then I’ve built 5 decks even better than this one, without the khopesh"

If you were an analytical person, you would know that the first step in proving a point is building a proof of concept. This was conveying that I had taken my "new belief system" and had tested it via a proof of concept. Several people pointed out at the end of the tournament that "I won because I had Khopesh" - which was patently untrue. I was anticipating that response with the above. Note that as a competitor I am in a bit of a bind as I am not going to give up free deckbuilding ideas, so I am forced to do some hand waiving here. You can either take my word for it or not, I do not care. But given how obviously bad it has performed since Stahleck and the subsequent regionals, one would have to be a very poor player to not see it doesn’t take much to beat it. You are reading way more into this statement than was ever intended.

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

If you actually read it, the very next sentence said "Whom I would assume is a new player". The example I was directly conjuring, was a hypothetical person who may have played MTG and knew card games, but had just picked up COC and hadn’t had time to properly master it yet. In that case, if I were to help the new player - having to do intense sessions with him for a period of time till he got up to speed would outweigh any minor advantages that the Khopesh provided. Since it is a marginal card anyway, this is high risk/high work with low gain proposition. Thus I would avoid it and recommend they avoid using the card.

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

When I talked with people in Europe, some of them were dismayed by the amount of removal that was being carried around in a large portion of the decks. There were decks there that had well over 20 cards that were just kill. For newer players this can be daunting. I needed a concise way to "prove" that that strategy was inferior. I could have said "my opinion is" - but the whole point of the article is that opinions are meaningless. I thought it was a clever way to show data. I don’t know what other past winners played, nor do I have records of all the tournament decks ever played. By posting what I did know…e.g. what I had won with in the past…provided an absolutely data-driven "proof" that destruction heavy decks do not work - and that the people complaining about them, or finding them as "negative" play experience, should perhaps look at the game from a different perspective. I can think of no other concise way to convey this idea while avoiding opinioned statements (self aggradizement aside). When it comes to analysis and strategy, statements that begin with "I think" are meaningless and should be disregarded before the speaker finishes the statement.

-->"I won a tournament using a tech that I created and was later named 'jump tech' "

This was showing how people, who clearly don't know what they are doing, yet for some reason feel that they should have input into the game, have a very direct negative effect on the game. For those CCG era players who know what this was about, this reference may make more sense - it was a quite large incident at that time, and the result was a total disaster for the game. Bottom line - taking popular opinion and basing rulings off it has had disastrous results in the past, and one should expect the same for future rulings.

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

I will try to re-state in way that you can understand. The fact that most of the decks were Khopesh decks at this very large (and hence statistically relevant) tournament, and the relative performance of them during it, is undeniable proof that Khopesh is not overtly powerful - and in fact is clearly inferior. Since I clearly stated that - in fact it was the whole point of the article, I don’t know where you come to your parenthetical conclusion. At no point did I say that I have special powers known only to me that allows me to prove that. The whole point was the facts, and nothing but the facts and what those facts have to say.

Zephyr Wrote-->

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

I apologize if this came across as arrogant, it was not intended to be so. If there was any emotion underlying it - I would say it is frustration. Note that driving reason for even writing it was a larger problem I see coming down the road. Finally, after a long drought, we have a great game designer at the helm. Many of the new cards that are coming out are very creative and quite clever on a technical level. I initially had no intention of writing anything…but my fear was that if something as simple as the Khopesh was causing this much of an uproar - that it would de-facto lead to many of the newer cards also being nerfed. As far as I can tell the real problem with the Khopesh seems to be that it exacerbates poor deck building. If I had to guess - I would say that many of the people complaining about getting mowed down by it are losing because they have far too many unplayable cards in their decks and are far too in-effecient. The problem here is, that if you remove khopesh - they still have the same root problem - which of course means they will just get beaten over the head with some other card - causing a endless "ban it" cycle. If you continue with this logic, eventually we will be debating the brokenness of “Degenerate Serpent Cultist" because he runs over someone’s poorly built deck. We saw this happen at the end of the CCG era. I am simply trying to stop it before it gets too much momentum.

Darkman:

I was not implying that the European players did not have competent decks. My thought was that most of the players really got carried away with Khopesh and removal and at some point basic competent deck building went out the window. As mentioned above - I have seen this happen in other games. I think that it is very very hard to determine much else about deck building/strategy from that tournament as the results were very tainted by the removal overload. Ironically - it was somewhat obvious to me that Khopesh was an inferior card when decks like yours placed so high. In reality, Things in the Ground should intrinsically be overly susceptible to Khopesh (to be specific, since your chars come out insane and you had absolutely no way to deal with support cards, all that an opponent had to do was drop a khopesh and then wait for big characters to pop out and shoot them – this would have bought several turns easily). The fact that in-spite of a sea of Khopesh decks you got to second place, shows just how ineffective it really is. Had people just played normal rush/control/combo garden variety decks I think that the results of the tournament would have been different. My “negative view” of TITG decks is that it is intrinsically a lottery deck – statistically a non negligible portion of games, mulligan not withstanding, all 3 things will be at the bottom half of your deck, which is an auto lose situation. What I did like about your deck was that you correctly realized that focusing on the trigger of things and its effects, rather than the more obvious “I get big characters out”, is a much more potent effect – that is not an obvious conclusion and shows insight into the game.

Historically, European players have always been weaker than the US players in this game (I am speaking of CCG era times), I do think the Euro players have finally come into their own and are now the stronger meta-group. That is my opinion though, I do not offer any quantitative evidence to back that statement up.

Zephyr Wrote

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

You are missing the point. If your deck is built correctly you do not need these cards. NONE of the Stahleck decks had those in them that placed high (and while I am at it, most of the published regionals winners dont have them either from what I can tell – yet Khopesh decks lost to them. People going out of their way to dump these cards in their decks are

1) Not going to address the real problem, which is poorly constructed decks

2) Compound problem #1 by adding even more situational/unplayable cards to their decks

Take Burrowing Beneath as an example. If your opponent is smart, he will simply wait till you don’t have a 2 domain open then play it…he gets to khopesh and you get 3 wasted cards in your deck and dead cards in your hand. If you leave the domain open, he just drops more chars and runs you over as you bleed out momentum. Cards like this (and Power Drain being another optimal example) are really just engaging in siege mentality. Once you resort to this you are all but setting yourself up for defeat.

Zephyr Wrote

-->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

This has been tried and failed. Instead of recreating failure, it may be more prudent to search for why it lost and work backwards.

Penfold Wrote:

-->Resourcing alone pretty much destroys most arguments I've seen about deck building being the most important skill in this game. I'm willing to bet that Giving Graham's deck to someone who has been playing for 6 months and giving Graham the 16th place deck from Liege would still have Graham winning 3 out of 5 times. It may be more competitive, but I have no doubt he'd come out the victor in a statistically significant showing.

You give me too much credit here. I am still bound the laws of probability just as much as the next guy. You give me a deck with a hoard of situational/ low efficincy cards in it and I will go down just as hard as the guy who built the deck. It is my observation that most players seem to decide if a card is good or bad based on the visual effect and not on its mechanical function. For example, take "Cursed Skull". I rushed multiple people playing this card and was somewhat amazed they dropped it against me (or even had it in their deck). They burned 2 domains and 1 card, to kill my 1 cost 1 domain card and literally bled themselves to death from itterative momentum loss. Even worse, since I got to pick, they often cleared distribution problems in my draws by soaking off a double drawn Unique char. As soon as I see a card like that dropped against a certain board configuration, I change my playstyle immediately. Im not saying it has no place in the game, but when you have decks full of cards based on "I think its good cause it kills stuff" and poor mechanics, it is very hard to salvage that even if you are aware of what is happening. Another good example is "things in the ground deck" - if forced to play that deck and at least on of the "things" is not in the top 12-15 cards, I am going to lose badly. No saving throw.

I think that one the things that irks me most about the "ban it crew" it the level of disservice they do to the game. This game can be insanely deep. Just when you think you know something, you find a new mechanic or playstyle that breaks it. At each level the game just gets deeper and deeper. For people complaining about this card - it clearly isnt winning, so the obvious conclusion is - you must not be "getting" something. Instead of complaining, perhaps analyzing why you are losing might lead you to the next level. I find this to be the most enjoyable part of the game by a mile. Imagine being part of a group that gets Khopesh banned, only to find out a month or so later that you now "get it" and actually it isnt that great. If the game was so easy that someone who plays casual can be instantly intermediate or even master level, then what is going to keep the interest for the rest of us?

As an update to this article, I am currently purusing the Regionals reports and it looks like even more epic fail for Khopesh. Given that many of these tournaments were almost 50% khopesh - and at most it may have won 1 tournament (additionally I might add that the winners auspiciously had no "anti khopesh cards" in their decks that I can tell) - the only really amazing thing here is that people are apparently still talking about this card and putting it in their decks. I guess that success by repetition of failure must be a new strategy.

If I told you that in 15 major tournaments where almost 50% of the decks had a card in it and those decks may have won 1, would you be excited to have this card in your deck?

P.S-> For those of you who messaged me….I assumed this new board was like the old board and had a message que…apparently I was wrong, or at least I cannot find it through this new user friendly interface. If you still want to talk to me or find my last reply cryptic, please try again.

i apologise profusely, for most of the last weeks comments, including this one. just hurry up and start writing more topics so this embarassing airing of my psychotic laundry can be shuffled off the main page. it was a very intense week of frustration, mania and cthulhu impotence and if it happens again i will STAY OFF the forum until it stabilises. once again. a big massive sorry.