War #5 (proposed rules)

[majofa]

(worked on by ~Napalm & majofa)
[Auction Rules credit: TStar & Roles Idea credit: Jaymanfu]

(Part 1) General Information
12 Masters = 12 Generals
400 blank cards are given to each

(Part 2) Auction
Before the auction, each General may recruit one Lieutenant of their choosing. This player will join their team at no cost. (Recruit means the player would have to accept the invitation to be the Lieutenant.)

- Auction House -
Players who want to join War will each start their own War application topic where they include important information about themselves like their score and the number of rare cards they have.
In the Title, the player will include any elements they wishes to ban; the starting bid of this player will be 1+x, where 'x' is the number of elements banned.
Generals may not bid on any player that has banned their element.

The rest of the Auction House will remain the same as in the last War.

(Part 3) Vault Building
Vault building rules:
- at least 50% of cards have to be from your element
- maximum of 18 per card from your element (restriction doesn't apply to Pillars or Pendulums)
- maximum of 6 per card from other elements (restriction doesn't apply to Pillars or Pendulums)
- no Shards

(Part 4) Member Roles
General - 6 extra upped cards
Lieutenant - 3 extra upped cards
Strategist - May use a sideboard of up to 6 cards
Mercenary - 33% on-element rule
Scavenger - Salvages 3 extra cards after a win
Bulwark - Discards 3 less cards after a loss
Scout - Sees opponent's deck before match
Assassin - Your opponent discards 3 additional cards if you win

(Part 5) Round Matches
Opponents will be determined randomly by Warmasters using an online randomizer, with the constraint that no team will play another team more than once within a given round if possible. [[Only Generals will be included, the rest of the spots will be filled with the elements only.]]

In the google doc, each team will input which player will be fighting which element.

If there are uneven number of players fighting during a round the lowest ranked team that can field more than one deck gets a bye, meaning that one player in that team will skip the round. If that team already had a bye during the previous round, the next lowest ranked team gets a bye instead. No team may have a 2nd bye unless all other active teams have had at least 1 bye.

Sideboards
If you are to play an opponent with fewer players in battle in a given round, you may choose to include a sideboard of cards along with the deck. Your sideboard can contain 2 cards if your team has one more player in battle, plus 1 for each additional player in battle, up to a total of 6 cards. If you lose the match you can chose to discard from your sideboard instead of your deck, but your opponent can NOT salvage from your sideboard.

(Part 6) Decks Played

Decks Played Vault Range Extra Cards 8 286+ 46+ 7 246-285 36-75 6 206-245 26-65 5 166-205 16-55 4 131-165 11-45 3 97-130 7-40 2 64-96 4-36 1 30-63 0-33

(Part 6.5) Deckbuilding and Conversion
Deckbuilding rules:
- Any mark
- At least 50% of your cards have to be from your element
- All players may use up to 3 upgraded cards (unupgraded cards taken from the Vault are transformed into upgraded ones)
- You cannot change your deck until the round is over
- Player Roles may override some of these rules.

Teams can convert a maximum of 24 cards per round.

(Part 7) Discarding & Salvaging
ROUND 1: discard 6
ROUND 2: discard 12
ROUND 3: discard 18
ROUND 4: discard 24
ROUND 5+: discard 30

Teams may salvage 6 cards from each deck they defeat.

[Sevs]

I will fill this in with a review of the rest of it but i have to say what i like the most is the changed member roles.

Part 1
unless the master elects to not lead war.

Part 2
I like the idea of choosing a lieutenant because you would have someone to help you with the prewar work. or at least someone who you didnt have to risk paying huge cards for.

Also a fan of the 1+x part

Part 3
The maximum of 6 of each off element card is very harsh to decks that depend on other elements. Earth for example would be incredible weak if they  could only use 6 novas.  it should be at least 12.

Part 4
I really really really like this idea.

Part 5
Mmmm the assigning of the players is new. I almost feel it should still be fixed.

And the sideboard idea. I don't think, aside from the stategist, that the sideboard should be included in the regular event.

Part 6
When you calculate the extra cards, I almost feel it should be expressed on how many extra per deck. not just as a group.

Decks Played Vault Range Extra Cards 8 286+ 5+ 7 246-285 5-10 6 206-245 4-10 5 166-205 3-11 4 131-165 2-11 3 97-130 2-13 2 64-96 2-18 1 30-63 0-33

This kinda shows why it is hard to field decks with 3-7 players, because you don't really have that much wiggle room. I think the numbers could be increased a little bit.

Part 7
I have never liked the full 30 card discard, so i would stick to the 24 card discard but that is an opinion i guess.

[ralouf]

Tons of good stuff here, just too things I'd point out :
I really liked the fact that every one could play uppgarded cards last war, it opened many new deckbuilding option and I'd be sad to see it disapear.. Missed something in your post, sorry ! <3 those rules 

I also dislike to discard 30 cards after a loose but if we need to shroten the war I got your point.

The rest is very good !

[majofa]

There are many options to reduce the sting of discarding 30 cards.

[The_Mormegil]

In general, I like it. I'll provide further feedback when I have more time.

[Jenkar]

Part 4, i love. The rest, not so much. I don't feel that the rest adds (or detracts) enough from the event to be added. The only exception is the addition of a sideboard for all players, which i dislike.

[dragonsdemesne]

Part 6: I'd recommend changing the tiers so that the last one is higher than 30.  In war 4, we had the problem that at the end, everyone knew what single deck everyone else had left by the end.  If you used the same sort of tiering except that you were eliminated if you had under than, say 100 cards, but maybe started with more, like 500, this would not be an issue.

Part 7: This I think does not weight the earlier rounds enough, and with bigger vaults, there are more strategic decisions to be made, yet those are the rounds worth the least.  If people like having the earlier rounds worth less, I'd rather see something like rounds 1-3: discard 18, rounds 4-6 discard 24, rounds 7+ discard 30.

Everything else I like, especially part 4.

[TheonlyrealBeef]

just 400?I consider getting players inside the team other than the general her/himself rather bad. If said Lieutenant wants to get on said team that badly, win trials or pay up to the full 24 cards. I never really understood this suggestion, might as well draft the entire team if you want it that way :slooks fine especially when combined with card amount of 1.not bad per se, at least not on itself (see 7.)I assume this sideboard is on top of the usual sideboard? lots of complication for little gain imo, then again, I've never been leading a war :ppoor player #8 isn't even worth a single card, might as well make it 7wasn't there this whole discussion on not losing > winning? raising discard to up to 33 will enhance, not reduce this effect. I'm rather mindblown. The only way you'll fix this is by letting a win give at least as much salvage as a loss induces discarding, possibly including a set discarding regardless, to still slim down the vault.

[ddevans96]

Basic thoughts about the OP only:

2) I'm not sure about the idea of each general picking their lieutenant. It does have both pros and cons though. I do like the 1+x elements rule for minimum bid, though the number of elements should be capped, to maybe 6.

4) I really like these for the most part. Scout seems like it could be difficult to manage, while Assassin has the problem mentioned of raising discard to the point of playing not to lose, but the rest would be great.

5) I also rather like the ideas of only sorting elements, which would pair well with the varied bonuses for each member role and add more overall strategy. I also like the idea of a small sideboard for winning teams.

[The_Mormegil]

(Part 1) General Information
12 Masters = 12 Generals
400 blank cards are given to each

400 cards is very few. I'd like to see more cards in the starting Vault. I know War must not be too long, but having few cards means few decks means few variety and predictability is bad. I'd go for a higher amount of cards. To compensate for this, add the following rule:
"Every time a team loses all duels in a given round, they are eliminated from the event."

(Part 2) Auction
Before the auction, each General may recruit one Lieutenant of their choosing. This player will join their team at no cost. (Recruit means the player would have to accept the invitation to be the Lieutenant.)

- Auction House -
Players who want to join War will each start their own War application topic where they include important information about themselves like their score and the number of rare cards they have.
In the Title, the player will include any elements they wishes to ban; the starting bid of this player will be 1+x, where 'x' is the number of elements banned.
Generals may not bid on any player that has banned their element.

The rest of the Auction House will remain the same as in the last War.

Not much to say here. I like 1+x, Lieutenant not so much but eh.

(Part 3) Vault Building
Vault building rules:
- at least 50% of cards have to be from your element
- maximum of 18 per card from your element (restriction doesn't apply to Pillars or Pendulums)
- maximum of 6 per card from other elements (restriction doesn't apply to Pillars or Pendulums)
- no Shards

This incentivates having cards of your element rather than cards of other elements. However, it is an unfair advantage to Entropy and Fire due to Nova and Immolation.

(Part 4) Member Roles
General - 6 extra upped cards
Lieutenant - 3 extra upped cards
Strategist - May use a sideboard of up to 6 cards
Mercenary - 33% on-element rule
Scavenger - Salvages 3 extra cards after a win
Bulwark - Discards 3 less cards after a loss
Scout - Sees opponent's deck before match
Assassin - Your opponent discards 3 additional cards if you win

I like it.

(Part 5) Round Matches
Opponents will be determined randomly by Warmasters using an online randomizer, with the constraint that no team will play another team more than once within a given round if possible. [[Only Generals will be included, the rest of the spots will be filled with the elements only.]]

In the google doc, each team will input which player will be fighting which element.

If there are uneven number of players fighting during a round the lowest ranked team that can field more than one deck gets a bye, meaning that one player in that team will skip the round. If that team already had a bye during the previous round, the next lowest ranked team gets a bye instead. No team may have a 2nd bye unless all other active teams have had at least 1 bye.

This is cool. I like it very much.

Sideboards
If you are to play an opponent with fewer players in battle in a given round, you may choose to include a sideboard of cards along with the deck. Your sideboard can contain 2 cards if your team has one more player in battle, plus 1 for each additional player in battle, up to a total of 6 cards. If you lose the match you can chose to discard from your sideboard instead of your deck, but your opponent can NOT salvage from your sideboard.

This... not so much. I'd go for something like:
"Whenever you win a match, you can name two cards and learn in secret the amount of cards with that name in your opponent's Vault".
This rewards winning in a more interesting way.

(Part 6) Decks Played

Decks Played Vault Range Extra Cards 8 286+ 46+ 7 246-285 36-75 6 206-245 26-65 5 166-205 16-55 4 131-165 11-45 3 97-130 7-40 2 64-96 4-36 1 30-63 0-33

(Part 6.5) Deckbuilding and Conversion
Deckbuilding rules:
- Any mark
- At least 50% of your cards have to be from your element
- All players may use up to 3 upgraded cards (unupgraded cards taken from the Vault are transformed into upgraded ones)
- You cannot change your deck until the round is over
- Player Roles may override some of these rules.

Teams can convert a maximum of 24 cards per round.

(Part 7) Discarding & Salvaging
ROUND 1: discard 6
ROUND 2: discard 12
ROUND 3: discard 18
ROUND 4: discard 24
ROUND 5+: discard 30

Teams may salvage 6 cards from each deck they defeat.

This seems pretty much normal to me... If we go for a higher starting Vault + "lose all and you're out", though, we might tune the numbers so that they are spread some more, and you start playing fewer decks with many more cards.

[deuce22]

Part 1 = 400 cards
shorter war sounds good to me. While some may complain about decreased variety in decks, I say look at Part 3.

Part 2 = free Lt + ban 1+x
100% approve. Free Lt means larger starting vault plus the Lt of your choice. Ban 1+x has the capability of guaranteeing the element of your choice for a cost of 12, which is much needed imo.

Part 3 = more vault restrictions
I LOVE this new rule. This is drastically going to change war in a good way. People who have been clamoring for deck variety finally get their wish. And I bet a lot of people will complain about this, but I think this is exactly what war needs.

Part 4 = new member roles
I like the concept of this, but I feel that the current suggestion needs to be balanced. For the roles that affect gameplay, it should be very minimal to the point that it allows that extra 1 or 2 cards to give you a better chance but not be OP. My main concern with all these new roles is that an OP role could  Here are some suggestions for balancing
Gen and Lt can stay the same
Strategist - sideboard of 2 (or 3) instead of 6 - makes it not OP, but potentially gamechanging
Mercenary - 45% (or 43.3% or [50% - 2]) instead of 33% on-element rule - 33% is a bit overkill. 45% allows that 1 extra off-element card that could change the game. 43.3% allows 2 extra off-element. Obviously, the effect of % becomes much larger in stalls, which makes me wonder if a hard limit of only 2 less than 50% can be used.
Scavenger - looks good
Bulwark - looks good
Scout - Sees opponent's mark instead of deck before match - knowing exactly what is in your opponent's deck is going to drastically change your gameplay for at least the first 2 matches. Seeing the mark beforehand might be too underpowered, but it would allow you to focus your testing during the duel phase before your match. Another idea is to see some sort of stat about the deck. For instance, the scout could be given information regarding the # of creatures, pills/pends, spells, etc. in his opponents deck To make it more balanced, it would be a good idea for each scout to get the same type of info each round.
Assassin - looks good

Part 5 = nonGens are assigned opponents by Gens, new sideboard rule
I'm iffy on the assigning of opponents, but this does add more strategy given the new member roles, so I am ok with it. As for the sideboard rule, this helps to address the disadvantage top teams get late in war, which I like. But it might need more balancing, so I will have to think about it some more.

Part 6 = new vault ranges
works for me.

Part 6.5 = same deckbuilding and conversion rules?
I would like to suggest the ability to convert cards to any in-element card given the vault restrictions. Maybe this can be limited to 6 non-pill/pend per round. Also, you cannot convert it if there is already 18 copies of that in-element card. Note that salvaging is not limited by the 18-card in-element rule.

Part 7 = Discard/salvaging goes back to old rules.
This essentially brings up the same problems in war 3. Round 1 is basically a useless round since there is very little movement in rankings (unless round 1 is similar to last war in that only 2 players from each team play). I would be ok with starting at 12-card discards round 1, then progressing to a max of 24-card discards. Discarding full decks could absolutely decimate teams in a single round, especially with the new vault restrictions.

[CCCombobreaker]

may comment more later but...

limit 6 per off element card in the starting vault is rough.  It makes it nearly impossible to bring 2 of the same deck (or even similar decks) at the start of war.  - Although this is offset by the kind discard rules early in war... still would like to see it go to 12.

Opponents will be determined randomly by Warmasters using an online randomizer, with the constraint that no team will play another team more than once within a given round if possible. [[Only Generals will be included, the rest of the spots will be filled with the elements only.]]

In the google doc, each team will input which player will be fighting which element.

Really like this.  That event card was great last war and this is a good blend of it and the usefulness of the new roles.  Will all of the matches be posted at the same time?  I can definitely see some teams wanting certain role matchups so if people just sign up as you go it will probably lead to a lot of crunches right at the deadline.

Are there any changes that address subbing players "for free" after the discards hit 30 in round 5??