The Metagame: a multi-purpose community project

[OldTrees]

There are cards which aren't Rps like.
'Heal' gives 20 hp and  the player, who knows who is going to battle, will choose if this card is worthy or not.
In RPS any thing you play has the same chance of winning, while heal is a bad choice almost always if you are going to battle fake gods.

Then experienced players wouldn't make pure Papers or Rocks, because their deck will surely lose against one kind of deck.
In arena and tournaments is way better to have few chances to beat all that a sure chance to beat few.
This way rps element is countered in arena and tournaments, by the gameplay itself.

However this kind of deckbuilding will come out often with superdecks, which can even beat Rocks and Papers.
When this happens, some of the key cards of that deck get nerfed, and begins the search of another superdeck.

The thing that I dislike about this cycle is that nerfing those keycards will choke other potential decks.
I'd prefer much more the  superdeck to be countered by having more counter cards or counter strategies, because the deck became so powerful not because of the cards but because there where few or no counters.

The RPS nature of a format is format dependent. FGs are not a format. Only PvP variants are formats. In RPS 25 any of the 25 options are viable. A 26th option will not be viable. Heal is useful in some formats to some extent against some decks.

In EtG R is disadvantaged against P but it is not a sure thing. Additionally the EtG metagames do not operate on a simplistic RPS 3 system. Those hybrid options are included in any accurate model resulting in a much more complex RPS. (RPS 100+)

Agreed: Adding cards > changing cards > removing cards.

[Pineapple]

I disagree with silux.

First, you are claiming "if it can be countered, than it is balanced"
I personally do not agree with this statement. If we make an overpowered card that, when put into a deck, defeats all other decks and the make a card that can counter it, then all decks would either use that overpowered or the card that counters it. This contradicts the "balanced" idea you outlined, where each player has 3 choices and an equal chance to win with each choice assuming the opponent chooses a choice randomly, for a skewed interpretation where rock can beat scissors, knives, forks, and peace signs and paper can beat rock.

Second, there are three ways to counter strategies:
- prevention
- mitigation
- reversal

prevention is obvious. set up the environment so that the opponent cannot set up the targeted strategy.

mitigation is also obvious. after your opponent has set up the targeted strategy, you try to destroy the environment/strategy the opponent has set up so that the opponent cannot continue to use the targeted strategy.

reversal needs a bit more explanation. after the opponent has set up the targeted strategy, you have to set up an environment where, if the opponent continues to use the targeted strategy, it will backfire or you will win.

I'd prefer much more the  superdeck to be countered by having more counter cards or counter strategies, because the deck became so powerful not because of the cards but because there where few or no counters.

now, let's try to counter the hypothetical super-deck of rushes that get out 33+ damage on the first turn
prevention - does not work, because rushes will always be faster (unless you have cards that activate from the hand, without the need to wait to get quanta from pillars or such)
mitigation - unless you can completely wipe their field within two turns and then set up prevention, you're screwed. and with the ability to wipe their field comes the ability to pwn EVERY creature-based deck, not just the hypothetical super-deck.
reversal - sacrifice. however, everyone thinks sacrifice is OP. so what do you want us to do, make a way to counter sacrifice? as you've seen from this example, prevention and mitigation are too slow without making something else to yell OP over. heck, even reversal may cause something OP to yell over.

we know that the current meta-game is balanced. the introduction of game-breaking cards shifts the meta-game by forcing changes in players' card choices. whether the resulting meta-game is more inclusive or less inclusive is completely independent on how the meta-game has shifted. however, note that shifts cause the meta-game to become less stable (because the current, balanced meta-game is tried and tested). in addition, players view large shifts in the meta-game as bad.

Conclusion: game-breaking cards can only be countered by game-breaking cards. The introduction of these cards causes shifts in the meta-game that will result in a game that some players may view as a completely different game.

[OldTrees]

we know that the current meta-game is balanced. the introduction of game-breaking cards shifts the meta-game by forcing changes in players' card choices. whether the resulting meta-game is more inclusive or less inclusive is completely independent on how the meta-game has shifted. however, note that shifts cause the meta-game to become less stable (because the current, balanced meta-game is tried and tested). in addition, players view large shifts in the meta-game as bad.

Conclusion: game-breaking cards can only be countered by game-breaking cards. The introduction of these cards causes shifts in the meta-game that will result in a game that some players may view as a completely different game.

All metagames balance themselves by players adopting strategies viable for that metagame. Cards that shift the metagame and thus the viable choices are not UP and could be OP or balanced. It is natural for the metagame to shift as part of its growth. The more significant the update the larger and longer the shift. Players tend to complain for a while before being convinced by the larger more diverse metagame. (players love new cards more than they dislike the transition periods) OP cards shift the metagame but to a smaller less diverse metagame. Mild to moderate OP cards can be nerfed indirectly by increasing the frequency of its vulnerabilities in the metagame. This can be accomplished directly by adding a new vulnerability or indirectly by adding a card that protects some of the vulnerabilities from their vulnerabilities. OP cards can also be nerfed indirectly by decreasing the frequency of their victims. This can be accomplished directly by adding cards that protect potential victims or indirectly by adding cards that buff cards that protect the potential victims. However some OP cards deviate sufficiently from the balance that these measures are insufficient. Since adding new cards is insufficient to fix these game breaking cards, the game breaking cards should be changed.

TLDR: Come on, it was 1 paragraph. Metagames balance themselves. Metagame shifting is natural. Most OP cards can be fixed in one of the myriad ways adding cards can nerf cards. Some OP cards are OP enough that adding new cards would not work.

[silux]

What I like most of elements is that cards are open to other cards, while all the system is a closed environment(cards are a finited number).

What i was trying to say it's not that any deck need to be countered, but every closed environment will eventually get a state where all is cold and dead.

Once players get to know what the best decks are and use them, the deckbuilding system gets his final state and the game begins to be boring for players.
This thing is 'countered' adding more energy to the environment as destroying best decks, as adding more cards or as organizing events.
All three things are doable and extend the game's life, but adding more cards will heal metagame as miracle (as long as they are useable and enough common to get)

[OldTrees]

What I like most of elements is that cards are open to other cards, while all the system is a closed environment(cards are a finited number).

What i was trying to say it's not that any deck need to be countered, but every closed environment will eventually get a state where all is cold and dead.

Once players get to know what the best decks are and use them, the deckbuilding system gets his final state and the game begins to be boring for players.
This thing is 'countered' adding more energy to the environment as destroying best decks, as adding more cards or as organizing events.
All three things are doable and extend the game's life, but adding more cards will heal metagame as miracle (as long as they are useable and enough common to get)

Agreed except on one point. When a closed environment metagame becomes sufficiently stable, players transcend to playing the next higher tier* of that metagame which is inevitably much less stable.

*People can play EtG PvP without any understanding or knowledge of the EtG pvp metagame. People who play the EtG PvP metagame want to play EtG AND play with the consequences of the PvP rules. The next metagame tier is playing with the consequences of playing with the consequences of the PvP rules. These tiers continue on forever.

[The_Mormegil]

Ok, it's been a while since the last update, so we can start arguing about the new.

FIRST PROBLEM: The New Fire

Fire has been nerfed. How much? Was the step in the right direction? What about Firestalls? Will Shard of Conscience help? Will it not? How does nerfing Fire impact other elements? What about the Deflagration splash decks? What about PC in general?

SECOND PROBLEM: Shard of Sacrifice

Shard of Sacrifice (SoSa for short) is the most controversial card in the new patch. Is it balanced? Is it not? What works against it? What doesn't? How about the AI farming issues? Is it too strong? How can this be fixed?

[ralouf]

For me :  The new fire is fine. It isn't better than every other elements as before but it is still a very good element. Firestall are still very boring to face but can't OTK you with 200 fire quanta that is rather good. Nerfing fire make the arena more varied. Deflag can't be slpashed in a nova deck for me but as we can use upped cards in war we can explosion and still use this card in nova deck. For me it make steal a viable choice in rainbow deck with QT.

SoSac is really really OP. Even loosing 40 HP isn't enough for me I tried 6 plat games and win 6.. Moreover it isn't fun at all to face. for me the card needs a reworks. The AI buff is better though and the AI play fine vs this shard (ie it doesn't use UG for example).
Something works very good vs Sosac : healing. it is very easy to deckout vs any deck with lot of healing. the matter is that deck with tons of heal aren't fun to face at all and suxx vs any control deck. Otherwise any classic rushy deck will loose if the Sosac deck get a fairly good hand. Sosac is way too good for farming Platinum league or FG. Deck are rather fast, EM often and with an awesome win rate. Moreover the awesome rewards in platinum league is a reason which make deck with this shards very good farmer.

[The_Mormegil]

I disagree on Fire Bolt OTKing: with 75 quanta you deal 16 damage with Drain Life and Ice Bolt, 24 with Fire Bolt. That means you need 5 Fire Bolts to kill an opponent with 100 hp, while other Bolt spells deal at best 96 damage even if you have 6. Fahrenheit damage further exacerbates this issue.

[ralouf]

What I meant is that it is harder to do because you need 5 fire ball to OTK, and to have 5 fire ball you need to keep them in the early game hence you can't kill creature in the beginning.

[plastiqe]

So I finally got around to reading TMorm's dissertation in the opening post (ok well, I skimmed a little).  The entire metagame is an ambitious topic to say the least, but it's great to have some discussion on it.

I have a problem with two of the conclusions in particular so allow me to illustrate:

ROUND OUT THE ELEMENTS WITH MID-RANGE ATTACKERS

ROUND OUT THE ELEMENTS WITH SPLASHABLE CARDS

Yes, adding powerful, cheap cards will strengthen individual elements, but it will strengthen rainbow decks moreso because they aren't restricted to one element.  The problem lies in the quanta generating cards that are faster and more efficient than standard pillars and pendulums (I'm looking at you Nova and Quantum Pillar).  I agree that Fire shouldn't have the best rush and the best stall, but as a corollary Rainbow decks shouldn't have the best quanta production and access to every card in the game.  There ought to be a tradeoff there.



That being said I don't think it'll ever be changed.  Rainbows are fun to play... and imagine the uproar if they were nerfed.  Speaking of uproars, when Graboid was almost gonna be , enough people whined and zanz relented... Well, I don't think us Fire players complained loud enough.  I mean we've had nerfs to Phoenix and Immo and Lava Golem (twice!) and the slight to Ash Eater when the gnomes and dragonflies got buffed.  It's not fair! /sniff

.................................................

An important aspect to the metagame that Elements lacks is value.  Adding more mid range attackers would be helpful because they're more valuable than expensive creatures, which take longer to come out and are just as easily dealt with.  In the same way that a 2 cost PC card taking out a 7 cost shield is too good, a cheap rewind or delay or bolt taking out a 10 cost Dragon is unbalanced.  Even thematically, you'd think that Dragons would be the supreme creatures... they should be way better than a weak little blowfish or mummy.. but they're not.

One problem that zanz has mentioned before is that HP doesn't matter enough.  Between all the CC and shields it is too easy to get around having to deal with a high hit point creature.  Another problem with our wealth of creature control is the diminutiveness of buff cards.  Buff cards by their very nature are a two card combo and they can be dealt with at a fraction of the cost.

Restoring value means that the most expensive cards should be the most powerful cards.

.................................................

I'm not liking the new cycle of Shards.  I didn't ever really like Shards to begin with and now that there is gonna be one per element they should just become part of that element.  SoS would be a lot more balanced if it was an actual Death card and required a heavy investment of Death quanta to utilize.

[The_Mormegil]

Yes, adding powerful, cheap cards will strengthen individual elements, but it will strengthen rainbow decks moreso because they aren't restricted to one element.  The problem lies in the quanta generating cards that are faster and more efficient than standard pillars and pendulums (I'm looking at you Nova and Quantum Pillar).  I agree that Fire shouldn't have the best rush and the best stall, but as a corollary Rainbow decks shouldn't have the best quanta production and access to every card in the game.  There ought to be a tradeoff there.

This much is true. However, only rush rainbows are truly dominant - you don't play CCYB in a PvP format, for instance - and that is because they are by far the stronger ones. I have heard of competitive PvP rainbow deckers, but for those the competitive cheap cards would matter a whole lot less. As for the rushing grabbows, the usefulness of splashable cards depends a lot on which those cards are. The cards I suggested (back in the day when this thread started... I really should update my post by now) were not really that useful in a grabbow. For instance: Shame is surclassed by Lightning and Gravity Pull as fast CC, Vines and Lignification are less than useful when compared to cards from other elements such as Deflagration or, again, Lightning, Dessiccation only helps water duos and it's better to splash freeze... It depends on the cards themselves. In fact the above cards would be absolutely awesome in their element, but would be pretty bad in a rainbow deck.

An important aspect to the metagame that Elements lacks is value.  Adding more mid range attackers would be helpful because they're more valuable than expensive creatures, which take longer to come out and are just as easily dealt with.  In the same way that a 2 cost PC card taking out a 7 cost shield is too good, a cheap rewind or delay or bolt taking out a 10 cost Dragon is unbalanced.  Even thematically, you'd think that Dragons would be the supreme creatures... they should be way better than a weak little blowfish or mummy.. but they're not.

To be fair, this War has demonstrated some decks are really far better with dragons. Besides, they kill Wings, round out a duo offense, pack more punch in only a few cards, and are generally more useful in stalls. However, it is true that they are easy to dispatch. But imagine the contrary: what if every dragon was as hard to dispatch as Emerald, or even worse Stone Dragon? They would be terribly strong, with or without all their checks and counters. (Speaking of which, this would probably turn Gravity Shield in a very powerful shield...)


That's my two  , and apart from that I agree with you.

[aristalis]

Ok, it's been a while since the last update, so we can start arguing about the new.

FIRST PROBLEM: The New Fire

Fire has been nerfed. How much? Was the step in the right direction? What about Firestalls? Will Shard of Conscience help? Will it not? How does nerfing Fire impact other elements? What about the Deflagration splash decks? What about PC in general?

SECOND PROBLEM: Shard of Sacrifice

Shard of Sacrifice (SoSa for short) is the most controversial card in the new patch. Is it balanced? Is it not? What works against it? What doesn't? How about the AI farming issues? Is it too strong? How can this be fixed?

Fire: Quite effective vs both the voodoo counter bow that I run and instosis. More so instosis. Having played a v2 back at it's peak, I'm glad to see it toned.

SoSa: Fun to play against. It comes to board control such as silence and SD to win in a battle with it. I may make SPlat for a 3rd deck to practice with


My worst problem is quanta control. BH + disco and t1 pests are sadquits for me. I'd need to pack 2 sancs, which may be worthwhile..