A House Divided is every bit as good as Things I do for Love

My regional experience was a blast, even though I only had a 2-3 joust record. I am a casual player, definitely, but I can say first hand that games can be decided turn 1.

My first loss of the tournament was decided turn 1 when I was counting -3 gold + river blockade before my first marshall. I collected a total of 2 gold over the course of 6 marshalling phases. I agree some matchups will be a negative play experience, but there should be an element to playing the game and an element to deck building as opposed to two people playing solitaire and seeing who hits the win condition faster. I'm not bitter about it, that is just the way it was. I personally don't think there should be a tier 1 competitive build that requires zero decision making and zero player skill. I was complaining about it with a designer in a casual pick up game and he actually said to me "if you can't mulligan into your win condition your doing it wrong."

I am not saying I don't do the same thing to a certain extent. My first game of the tournament would have been over on the second plot if I had not botched a simultaneous Rule By Decree/Search and Detain order as the first player making my Rule By Decree fizzle when I bounced before discard. Still, that isn't quite the same extent because my opponent does not have to intrigue me turn 1, and I can still make a mistake. He fell into my turn 1/turn 2 trap… I just didn't spring it properly. So we had another 7 or 8 turns where he was on the verge of winning the whole time and I had to fight my way back. That was the best game I had in the tournament all weekend. When you are in a game like I was against that GJ choke, if the choke happens before I even get to marshall a single character, what am I even doing there? I might as well have just forfeited before drawing my setup seven. I went seventeen plots in a casual game against a Martell Summer deck where it ended at 15-12. That is the kind of play I signed up for.

HoyaLawya said:

Especially since, back the day, discarding dupes couldn't save from it. Though it was always having armies targeted that hurt the most. Lord, did it suck when I had to pay for War Host of the North all over again.

Mathias Fricot said:

That is exactly the play ethos that made me stop playing Magic.

If that's what the competitive environment is like for this game, maybe I won't bother ever going to regionals.

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KristoffStark said:

I think we are (unfortunately) getting closer to the point where a couple of cards make the big difference, and having them in hand can decide a game, rather than the mid-game strategy that *should* be more decisive. Case in point, I played a couple of games against a Bara deck that runs Val + The Laughing Storm. Two of the three games the opponent had both on setup, and proceeded to draw 3 + Threat from the East on round 1…knocking my hand down to 4 cards while he had 10 in hand. If that is the "right" way to play this game from the designer's standpoint who stated this ("win condition after mulligan"), then I'd say the designer is taking the game in the wrong direction. I certainly hope this is not the ideal way to play the game…it's pretty frustrating to feel like you are fighting uphill before the game even begins.

If you need a win condition in hand at the start of a game (and you don't like that mindset) then stop playing shagga decks

That is all.

Mathias Fricot said:

What a ludicrous statement. The competitive game is nowehre near this point.

My sympathies on the Choke. Control has always been ridiculously easy in this game.

Mathias Fricot said:

Wouldn't the card returned to your hand not count as being in your hand until the end of "when revealed" plot resolution? The chosen returned card is only moribund:hand so Rule by Decree wouldn't include it in your "cards in hand" total.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding your predicament.

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Hold on, that doesn't make sense to me. "When revealed" Plots don't resolve simultaneously. Wouldn't one plot effect have to completely resolve before the other plot starts to resolve? In which case, the card would have already made its way into your hand.

sWhiteboy said:

Each "when revealed" plot is a passive effect that conflicts with other "when revealed" plots, so the First Player determines the order in which they resolve. True. And each one must go through the "initiate-save/cancel-resolve" sequence before the next one initiates. True. But remember that when an effect resolves and forces a card to leave play (ie, go from "in play" to the dead pile, discard pile, hand, deck, Shadows, etc.), that card becomes moribund - remaining physically on the table until the end of the window. So when a passive "completely resolves" before the next, conflicting passive initiates, it only goes as far as putting cards in the moribund state since both passives are happening in the same window.

So, when the effect resolves, returning the card to your hand from play, it actually stays on the table in the "moribund:hand" state until the rest of the passives and all the Responses are played before physically making its way to your hand.

(This is the same reason Golden Tooth Mines still gets you a card, even if it is discarded for Fleeing to the Wall.)

I was assuming that the resolution of each plot was a separate framework action. After looking at the flowchart, I see that it is not. Thanks for the help.

Stag Lord said:

I remember Ethan once telling me that every card in the deck should be able to work on its own and be a win condition. I don't know which designer you played with. Doormouse IIRC played martell and typically played control, while SerAxelRose played a knights of the realm deck that sat there killing and board wiping for 6 or so turns until he went and began playing knights and winning the game.

Neither of which decks satisfy what a magic player would think of in terms of mulliganing into a win condition. Magic on the other hand, especially in eternity formats, either favor decks where the player mulligans down to either a hand with the 1-2 cards out of 60 he needs to win the game (Bridge from Below for example), or decks that do not mulligan into the win condition, instead they use redundancy, heavy probability calculation, and small effects that just build up a win condition before the combo deck goes off. (Counterspell, Lightning, etc).

Dan that combo does not cause a one sided win if the opponent has GTM, or other forms of draw that replenishes their hand, so the 6 card advantage is only around for 1-2 turns before the opponent catches up. Then turn 4 and onward in most cases the bara player is losing card advantage.

And if as Staton says Dragon's Tail is a viable draw source, run Counting Favors.

___

@Maester_LUke - What about immune to triggered effects? That counts too, right? That throws a few other characters into the melting pot of immune to events. And don't forget, "Immune to opponent's card effects."

finitesquarewell said:

That was one of the funniest posts I've read in a while. Thanks dude. See you in D.C.

I have to admit to some…grey feelings about the current meta-state. To be honest, I usually do when the card pool just gets too big. I am not trying to open that lid again, I think I know how 99% of people on the boards think about either rotation or just keeping everything legal but limiting deck building - but at a certain point it just seems like certain themes have been supported too much…and certain 'holes' as people were saying are getting filled too well.

There isn't enough variety, even to varied decks. Common themes (Stark Murder, Targ Burn, Bara rush, Maesters) have so much 'juice' that unique decks have a hard time.

I don't think it is a neutrals problem - most of the best decks I see don't use a ton (Wildlings? Brotherhood?). I really can't put my thumb on it. Maybe it is just because two of my least favorite ways to win - burn and income denial - are so good. Add in ~everyone's favorite of Maesters and the meta doesn't interest me much…although it was good to see the 30-person Kubla regional not won by one of those.

And that's why MtG has rotation (as I understand, Standard is by far the most popular format there giving MtG about 3 years span of cards). Just 'cause sooner or later designers can (and probably will) make a mistake of publishing an archetype which will be extremely hard to destroy. And once you get to let's say 10 years of game without rotation, you can potentially have 4-5 major archetypes that will be almost impossible to win against. Just because the human factor is involved in design and playtesting of cards.

Plus, this kind of rotation makes it easier for new players to play the game (less mechanics involved, less cards involved, hence easier to get into)

Isn't there already a thread about the pros and cons of rotation? I don't think we need to repeat the same discussion here.

KristoffStark said:

There is a saying about a squeaky wheel that might apply here, but can't quite remember it right now.

Is that saying, the squeaky wheel drowns out the interesting conversation in favor of a rehash of a well worn one?

Regarding Dormouse's Martell Icon manipulation deck. That was a beast. Not exactly what I'd call tier 1, but a serious tier 1.5. He smashed all but my rush and Lanni kneel decks with it on multiple occasions. Ser Axel Rose's deck had me split between laughing with glee at how innovative it was and rage quitting. Still a game that I laugh at while wishing I could set fire to his cards.

Dormouse's Greyjoy mill deck was by far the one I hated the most of his. Four turns I'm deck, the board has been reset two times.

I can't really imagine either of them saying if you can't mulligan into your win condition you are doing it wrong with anything other than cheekiness (unless they did mean you should have representative cards of your rush or control or counter rush or counter control in your hand). They certainly could have changed, but when I played Damon in March he was playing a Targ Army deck and talking about a Bara rush deck he was having good results with. I'm pretty sure neither of those decks uses locks for first turn control/win.

Anywho, I like where the game is at balance wise, though the speed of the game and competitive play style seems to be a little off. I can't quite put my finger on why.

dcdennis said:

Winning in Joust is decided by what cards you draw. Winning in Melee is decided by how many friends you have. We saw this at last year's Gencon.

As long as king-making exists, Melee will be a NPE.

sWhiteboy said: