About FG proposals

[DrBla]

Now that FG proposals are somewhat revitalized thanks to Cygnia, I've been wondering about the characteristics of FGs. As far as I know there are no direct "guidelines", except for maybe this:

Spoiler for Hidden:

- A False God should have a theme and at least one core unique card

This means that the FG shouldn't just be a standard Grabbow. There should be a theme (like how Dark Matter's theme is being like an "advanced creature that has learned how to separate light from a black hole, keeping his own light alight while all other light is sucked in by the black hole" or something like that). Also, the theme generally should have a core card that isn't used very much by other FGs. They should be unique because honestly, having separate FGs for Fate Eggs, Mitoeggs, SoR eggs, Eggtal, etc. would be very boring and repetitive.

- False Gods shouldn't be able to do everything

FGs are not meant to be indestructible; they're meant to be challenging, not impossible. And having a FG with extensive CC, PC, quanta denial, healing, and fast unblockable damage is not a challenge; it is near impossible. Try to purposely leave a weakness that can be exploited. Maybe leave any PC out so that Dim OTKs can win, or maybe get rid of all CC and healing so that a rush could potentially be used as a counter. Just leave a way to win somehow.

- Don't use overly powerful decks

This should be a given, but please don't make a FG that uses Ghostmare or Firestall or decks like those. They aren't fun and will almost always be skipped simply because it isn't worth facing such a powerful and frustrating deck when you could be facing fun, interesting FGs like Destiny or Chaos Lord.

What do you guys consider an ideal FG proposal? Naturally there is the theme. Every FG has to have one that is unique, but asides from that... Is it more important for the new FG to use cards that are currently unused or would you consider adding new combos to the FG pool more important, even if they require cards that are already used?

[AD TienzuStorm]

I think that either is fine, as long as theme is sound and the strategy is good and typically (not always) well known.

For example, look at JCJ's Aftershock.

It has a good strategy (Discquake) combined with a side strategy of buffing Wardens with CP for control. It's also flexible, since it contains both nasty PC and CC and creatures are very CC resistant.

It's countered pretty well by a PA'd Gravity Shield with decent healing (perhaps a stack of PA'd SoG, or just straight up Stone Skin). While it is very powerful, it can still fall to counter decks, which I personally believe to be important in designing. A FG should at least be able to be countered reliably if known beforehand; otherwise, your FG is likely too strong and needs to be toned down a notch.

And that's just mechanics.

Thematically, it's not as concrete as others (like Dark Matter or Ferox, two of the FGs that I believe to have some of the best themes compared to their name and deck), but still sound. It's concept is almost based on the butterfly effect in real life, where one thing can lead to a mass chain of events that ultimately end in your downfall. It's theme is great (at least, IMO).

And concerning card usage:

Having new cards is always nice. After all, having different variations of speedpoison gets boring.

But obviously, including cards used by other FGs is perfectly fine AS LONG AS that card is either:

- A main card in your FG and a minor card in the other FG (think taking Cloak from Serket)
- A minor card in your FG and a main card in the other FG (think taking Forest Spectre from Elidnis)

A "main" card would be one that has 5/6 copies, is almost always seen in games against that FG, and is a key thematic and strategic card in their deck.

Puffer Fish is a prime example from Scorpio, it's Scorpio's trademark card.

A "minor" card would be one that has 1-5 copies, is sometimes/rarely seen in games against that FG, and is typically more of a strategic card for the deck.

As mentioned above, Cloak from Serket would be a minor card. It isn't particularly thematic (unless you take into account the lore behind Serket, but I'm not), and it is mainly there for the mechanical benefits in creature protection.

[andretimpa]

Make a deck that's fun to play against (unlike plat arena decks) and that is not redundant. The rest is just knowing how to add flavour

[DrBla]

My problem with this is, that while I'm sure I understand quite well why a good fg is good, but I still can't put this into effective points, based on which a proposal could be judged somewhat objectively. What's more I feel like much of making a good fg is more of a personal preference thing right now than having a good set of rules to work woth. Let me go into a bit of detail on this.
What you listed above would be something like this:

• Sound, good strategy
• Can be countered if known beforehand
• Thematically solid, has a good concept
• Preferrably the use of new cards

Based on this however something like ghostmare would be a good FG deck. Ghostmare has a pretty damn good strategy, which involves a good amount of damage via creatures and messing up the hand, so strategy check. Can it be countered? Sanctuary does a pretty good job at that. Check. Does it have a theme? Time+Darkness= dark past, corresponts well with the name of the main cards of the deck ghost of the past and nightmare. The combo inherently has theme to it. Then again this is where I somewhat fell that personal preference starts coming in. But let's leave this for now. Finally does it use new cards? Neither cards of the main combo are used currently in any quantity, so that's a nice plus too. Check. On top of this all, even without delibarately dumbing down the deck you can put a lot of weaknesses into it: No cc/pc inherent to the combo, no healing, no protection on either the creatures or permanents. It would even have the benefit of teaching new players new possible playstyles that can be played with or played around, but... Would it actually be fun?

Even without adding any pc, cc, ghostmare would be a pretty damn hard and annyoing deck to go against with almost any deck. Not impossible to beat with a decent amount of luck. I'm pretty sure swallow for example could sometimes win, but  even if you won against it, that wouldn't really be a fun experience. At least in my opinion.