I just don't like the fact that you're forced to run certain cards in order to counter the same card every time. Cards like Nature's Force and Family Heirloom are ok, as you can use them on other things. You can get away with running Makai High Noble and Blinding Rage just for the great numbers alone, but the fact that you pretty much DON'T HAVE A CHOICE but to run it and answers to it annoys me slightly. I'll play the game whether it's there or not, but personally, I would prefer it if it weren't.

I think it might be an idea just to try playing the game in a meta where it didn't exist just to see whether it's impact was good or bad, I'm not saying that FFG should ban it and give it the LCK treatment, but we as players should independantly try and see what it's like without the own-faced man. I think I'll try it and see how people cope with it. If someone says "god I wish I had Olcadan's Mentoring around" then I'll admit I was wrong and that it should stay, but I would like to see how it would be without it.

If all else fails, release a balanced version of it, then ban it, like Without A Care, but less useless...

One of the things i dont like about owlface is that it gives a 0 difficuly 6 check to symobls that dont have access to many. While that on its face sounds silly, I've come to building my decks on a curve recently and find that if you can plan out your opening turn sometimes you can effectivley play out 7 cards turn one.

Usually you would play foundations, but symbols like void only have 2 legal 0 drops for the slot, so owlface provides another piece of the puzzle right there. Even if owlface turns out to be ineffectual in play because your opponent throws down blinding rage or whatever turn 1, Its still a card out of your hand to allow you to see more of your deck, a 6 check, and a 0 block. It can also act as cost fodder for some new and im sure upcomming cards like air stampede and if they were to ever reprint penny arcade.

I wont go and say its broken like some, i dont think the ability in itself is too much or that it dosent work as it should. Hell I'll even go as far as to say an ability of this nature is needed in the game. But being printed on a 0/6 asset with a +0 block was assinine. At its best owlface should have been a 3/5 and probably not had a block. How many people are using low attacks as kill cards now days that they can safley assume that everyone has 3-4 of these in their deck.

I hate it, because I can't get any, nor does anyone have any near us... if our group even tried going to a tournament there are far too many cards that we do not and will not have access too... some are $30 and some are oop.... but currently, we can't get spikes, owlface, LotM, etc...

I hate it because our shop never got our cards of the week, and we never will. That and no one trades Olcadans, and if they do, I have nothing they want. Sad day.

Lord Aries said:

lickly for you, olcadon's is 5 buck.

rulemonkey said:

PROTIP: Play 1 Gdot's in your deck.

not only wil owlface be unable to ruin you, you'll be surprised how effective it is.

Dude GDot's can be so risky. A 6/3 in most decks where three check or lower slots are taken up by:

Attacks

Seals of Cessation

Neat tech (like Yoga Adept or Flying Power Bomb or something)

Either way I've never been a fan of a card that not every symbol can stop in one way shape or form. At the moment the following symbols can't stop OM:

All

Water

Void

People say the best defense for Olcadan's in those decks is to "not run bad foundations." Well sorry but that doesn't work. No one foundation is going to be good for you at all points in the game. In a heavy control meta where the goal is to more or less commit your opponent's board out, what good is that Hulking Brute, Program Malfunction, or Glare into the Abyss going to do when I rip away your Blood Runs True, Chester's Backing, or No Memories, and then proceed to one shot you?

=/

You don't HAVE to run an answer for Olcadan's, you know. Sure, it's a good idea, but it's not always ideal.

Example - when playing promo Alex, splashing into Fire for Blinding Rage/Makai High Noble is a *bad* idea, because it's going to slow the deck down. A pure All deck will never have any problems chaining, whereas there's not a ton of All/Fire stuff available to allow you to reliably chain and shoot your usual 6 cards out of your hand every turn.

I played promo Alex for GCC Teams, right? I didn't lost a single game with him (ha, all two of them), and my opponents were getting out 2-4 Olcadan's every game. But the law of diminishing returns comes into effect (eventually), and so there comes a point where they stop playing it because there's no longer anything non-beneficial for them to give you. But this probably works because he's stupid. Whatever.

Point being - it's not a requirement to run an answer. How many people ran Heisheng Jian in their All decks (looking at you Alex) when it was still legal?

You dont need an answer to owlface unless your REALLY dependent on your foundations abilities. My hanzo Air deck for instance not only trys to win turn 2 before my opponent can even use thier owlfaces, but can win without even needing a foundation in play, not even to pass control checks. It all depends on your deck, but that being said most decks that can run Makai High Noble or Blinding Rage or even Red Lotus are probably better off to do so either because of thier fantastic numbers or other utility.

Protoaddict said:

Unfortunately this kind of situation is rare and in many cases undesirable. If your deck uses an ability to win, it is 90% likely that your opponent has a way to negate it somehow, either through seal, chesters, tag along, inhuman perception or no memories. SO if you decide to build a deck that doesn't rely on foundations, you are setting yourself up to be raped in the face by the slightest bit of negation. Nearly every deck that can run tag along will run tag along, TF, if you only have a character ability and dont depend on any foundation abilities, you are of the potential to be completely shut down.

This statement reminds me of what people said about yoga mastery back in the day. People would complain about it, so those who ran it in their decks just said: Just don't play E:'s. Granted, this sometimes worked if you just ran a throw deck, just like this theory will sometimes work with ibuki or hanzo. HOWEVER, it seems rather inconsistant at the best of times and I wouldn't just throw together a deck that couldn't handle the control that is incredibly prevalent in the meta.

Makingsenseofus said:

Except that now it is 100% possible to win without need of specific foundations, while with yoga it was virtually impossible to win without enhances. Of the negation cards you listed, chesters is useless if I don't have foundation abilities to cancel, seal can be canceled by your seals if you choose to run them and that is unaffected by owlface. Inhuman and no memories can be dealt with via cards like your owlfaces (not im not saying you dont need to run them, just you may not need to protect against them). Really tag along is the only card that provides issues to a lot of decks, and that is neither an Owlface or a protection card against it.

Im not saying dont run foundation protection mind you, hell I personally miss a quality board reseter like infiltrating (begin anew is so MEH), but once again not every deck is going to give these prime spots.

Protoaddict said:

This is really a matter of opinion. Some can argue this, however, most win conditions will REQUIRE some way to either make your attacks deal damage, gain momentum for powerful or multiple, or stop your opponent from negating your abilities. When these options are taken away by owl face, there is not much one can do, especially if your opponent is drawing a gigantic amount of cards that allow them to block many attacks on your turn (a stratagy that is all too prevelant in the meta). Decks like your hanzo deck are really a more specific case. You have a kill condition that is reliant on no more than your character card and attacks. There are not many decks around that boast this kind of versatility, and one can't just say "don't rely on foundations" when someone needs to win. Not everyone runs Hanzo. Not everyone runs Ibuki. I understand what your saying, for GCC teams I built an ibuki deck that got promo Alex down to 3 by turn 2 with 2 foundations and an olcadon's down. However, most decks characters do not have the ability to pull this off and HAVE to rely on foundation support to help them with their kill.

I don't think it'll be banned because I think it's already been established that, while it's AMAZING, it's more of a catalyst to either offense or defense; it isn't what actually WINS the games (persay)...

although, personally, I could live to see it get banned. It's just TOO good, and COMPLETELY makes Without a Care look WAC! 0/6 +0-LOW Infinite with no cost? Yeah, no, that's just not right.

Without a Care is perfectly fine as is. Its a free enhance for darkness blade and its is owlface 5-8 if you really need them. Runnign 4 owlface is good, but hainv 8 cards that can take care of foundations is probably better.

Makingsenseofus said:

I'm just going over this discussion and couldn't help but notice this. And the statement about just deal with it with your own olcodan's.
Let me preface, this totally reminds me of the higher calibur days and dont play responses. We all saw where that got us.

And because you can find one or two cases where olcodan's is not relevant doesn't make it any less over powered. I dont believe in any CCG theres been such a free "rearrange everything you've already played turn by turn to something else" type card.

Nfxon said:

Whoa Ben comparing mentoring to higher caliber is a bit to far but I know where you where you are coming from .

Easy there Scoobs.
I actually wasn't comparing mentoring to Higher calibur. I was comparing the arguement of "dont play foundations" b/c of mentoring with the old arguement of "dont play responses to HI-C"

But HiC compared to OM in regards of power level. I think OM should join HiC in the halls of banning. Just my opinion though.

Nfxon said:

I often dont even have my opponents mentor me since all my cards are a threat to them its the best way to counter it if you have no means of stopping it with abilities.

one of the best counters to olcadon's is promo bishamon. when you have no foundations in your discard pile, your oponent can't olcadon's you.

How on earth can you manage to have every foundation in your discard pile be a threat to your opponent? As far as I can see, it's almost impossible. You can't have an answer to every tactic your opponents have and have it out all the time, otherwise it would defeat the point of playing different foundations to one-another. Could you tell me your foundation lists for your decks, as I'd love to see what couldn't be Olcadan's into your staging area if your opponent were either going to try to kill you or stop you killing them. Olcadan's is ALWAYS useful, even if only to commit those pseky Red Lotus or Oral Deads leaving your other cards to play.

It's all very well you guys all giving us reasons to play against Olcadans, but can you honestly give us a reason not to run Olcadans Mentoring? In any deck, could you honestly say that running it would hinder the speed or the control speed of your deck?

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but wasn't the reason Concealed Shallow Swipe was banned because it was in every single deck rather than it's specific overpoweredness? Why ban that when Olcadan's ACTUALLY sees play in EVERY deck?

Nope. CSS was more than likely banned due to its very, very high power level. Literally,why run any other attacks at all when, once played, you're guaranteed to win (because you're not going to play it unless you can definitely force it through for fatal damage)? The only requirement was that you play foundations, which you're going to do anyway, ESPECIALLY if you're playing a control deck. And what deck style pushes through one-shot kills better than anything? Control.

It would be nice for Olcadan's to be banned. I wouldn't be surprised if it were...but neither would I be surprised if it weren't.

There could very well be answers for it for Void/Water in the next set, which could delay or seal off the chance of it being banned.

I wouldn't mind seeing it go. I don't see it as broken or unfair. I don't play in competitive tournaments and I understand that enviornment requires you to consider problem cards while building decks. I own 8 copies.

My problem with the card is that it's presence contributed to everyone quitting my playgroup included. The card makes the game less fun for those without it and those with it.

When Owlface debuted, my group gave this card out to new players because we want them to have answers to cards they don't own. However, like Kung-Fu Training, most veteran decks (including mines) either run answers to it or have decks that just don't care about its presence. Even with veteran help the newbies cannot do this. Also, like KFT, if both decks have it, the boring NPE control deck wins.

One team tournament, my bro attempted to play without it and just ran Blinding Rage, it's supposed answer. Every round, the minute the his opponent got two copies out, even Blinding rage was no match since they can sinking two copies of a foundation a turn (starting with Blinding Rage), and you can have at max four copies of a given foundation.

In the same tournament I did the same but splashed Death for Oral Dead in a Earth deck, and despite going 1-2 and our team (bro, me and friend) finishing last, 2 out of my 3 opponents called shenanigans on my deck. Here I am playing casual EARTH against your Promo Ukyos and Akumas, and you are angry because I stopped your 0/6 non-unique from tearing apart my deck?

Tepes said:

This is precicely my thoughts on why the card should go.

Scubadude said:

That would be because your opponents can't use Olcadan's Mentoring properly.

Protoaddict said:

WaC is good, but my one complain is this: it only destroys COMMITTED foundations AND replaces them with READY ones. As such, its use is not only a tad more limited, but, the foundation you wanted to get rid of probably wouldn't be a problem if it was committed in the first place. But yeah, it's not that bad, I just think it's a tad overshadowed by Olcadan's. Albeit a Water or Good .:Nakoruru:. can abuse it sickly with Shadow Blade and Father Bull.