Things that make Rainbow decks overpowered, solutions.

[brain9h]

Rainbow decks are not overpowered.

[brain9h]

Right now the only thing that matters in this game is killing gods to get upgrades, and Rainbow excels in it.

PvP is broken: its slow as hell, it is insanely buggy and unfair (with full upgraded decks being matched against starter decks). The fact that gradually the Top 50 list is getting filled with Rainbow decks has nothing to do with how well player versus player gameplay is balanced, or how well rainbow matches against other decks, but simply because a 66% win ratio against gods gives score easily and god killing is what everybody is doing.

Any discussion regarding rainbow "overpoweredness" must make clear distinction between those two aspects.

[brain9h]

Similarly with Earthquake, you need earthquake (and quite a few of them) early so you can stop rainbow from getting a lot of quanta. This basically means you have to run mono earth. Running mono earth means no shield capable of stopping attacks, and for the most part means no destruction of other permanents. Again, it doesn't work to the extent that you can say it beats rainbow. You only have to try for yourself.

Any other clever strategies to defeat rainbow other than using rainbow? If rainbow is not overpowered then surely someone can offer a non-rainbow deck to perform decently against a rainbow deck (by that I would mean a deck not reliant on quantum pillars/towers). By perform decently, I would say anything better than 40% win rate against the rainbow decks in the Top 50.

I do not think your affirmations are accurate. I have a rainbow deck that is fully upgraded and wins 60% against gods but I've played the top 50 decks and even the stupid AI can beat me just because the decks have steal/deflag/earthquake. You are seriously mistaken if you think one needs to go mono-earth to play earthquake. As I have pointed out, Quicksand costs just 2 quanta and any deck can have it. Steal and Deflagration are very effective against Rainbow as well, as are decks that do damage really fast. Rainbow takes a lot of time to build up and numerous strategies can neutralize it.

You are clearly simplifying the issue in order to solve it -- your way.

[brain9h]

Rainbow decks are not overpowered.

Agreed. Rainbow decks are based on stalling at the slow start and building up cards and quantum for the late-game win. If you have anything that can deny them quanta, draw, or stall (steal/deflag/devourer/poison), you'll be fine and dandy, and should be able to take down any Rainbow decks with easy. Sadly, those denial cards are limited to a few certain elements, which limits counters to Rainbow decks to a few specific elements (unless you can stall them enough to deck out).

Exactly.

Earthquake absolutely vaporizes Rainbow and costs 2 quanta to cast.

[icewolf35]

Is there any question that the dominant decks (PVP and god-killing) decks are all Rainbow decks?

The advantages of a Rainbow deck are obvious: you can play the greatest hits from all the colors, and your towers generate 3 mana per turn. The shallowness of the options available to mono-color decks exacerbates this problem -- most colors have 2-3 cards that you'd really want to play, and the rest is filler.

The weaknesses are that you usually can't rely heavily on one color, and your access to mana at the beginning of the game is unpredictable. Sundial is the main culprit that keeps this from being a balancing solution -- you can essentially delay the game by two turns while building your mana advantage, without even losing card advantage! Additionally, the come-into-play ability of Quantum Towers pushes the Rainbow player out of this weak beginning phase much more quickly.

So to buff mono- and dual- colored decks, we need to make the opening game (where Rainbow is weak) more relevant. We can do this by nerfing Sundial (increasing mana cost to cast, or making the card draw symmetric) and perhaps Quantum Tower, and increasing the number of low-cost options that each color has. Introducing more intra-color synergy is also important, to give mono-colored decks some other advantages. Cards like Drain Life and Scarab are a great start, but there are many other solutions as well -- for example, a pair of cards of a color that buff each other if both are in play, etc.

[icewolf35]

I don't get all the crying about rainbow decks. This game is not meant to played with mono deck. The colors are more for reference of cards. If you choose only one you limit yourself to 10% of the cards available. Even the started decks are mixed. Deal with it.

See, this is just ridiculous. How do you even know how the game was meant to be played? There are plenty of CCGs (the vast majority, in fact) in which you "limit" yourself to some narrow slice of the colors available. The "starter decks" are dual-colored, and I'm sure nearly everyone would love to see some more viable dual-colored decks.

I think that it's true that permanent destruction is a great solution to Rainbow decks -- the main problem here that Sundials are cheaper than their supposed counters. Anyways, I think brain9h is making some good, specific points about anti-Rainbow decks, although I'd argue that having to run a dedicated counter-deck is pretty good evidence that that decktype is way too prevalent in the first place.

Jumbalumba, I think that it depends on what kind of cards are released. If we get more aggressive creatures, more permanent destruction, and more cards that focus on intra-color synergies, the power of rainbow decks will decrease. If we get more shields and game-delaying cards, the power of rainbow will increase. In general, though, the release of new cards will help to solve the problem of shallowness in certain colors.

[Jumbalumba]

The issue is that rainbow is more effective to the extent that other strategies are very much weak in comparison. Would I be wrong to believe that it is no mere coincidence that we both run rainbow decks? Recently, I've even been playing Top50 to find decks that work against rainbows, so it's not only an issue of god farming. I have tried other (non-rainbow) strategies. They just don't work as well even if I only look at it in terms of beating rainbow decks. Rainbow is just the best in all situations; it has healing, it wins pretty quickly (although that needs supernovas), and it works the best at every level of the game. For me, that is the definition of overpowered.

[Jumbalumba]

There just isn't the variety to make effective mono-element decks. Previously mono-element decks worked decently. After the introduction of the upgrade system, with many cards being cheaper to cast or more effective for their price, rainbow decks, with their ability to use the best cards from all elements, just got boosted to the extent that mono-element decks don't work competitively. However, I agree that sundial is the biggest contributor to this problem.

[Jumbalumba]

I don't get all the crying about rainbow decks. This game is not meant to played with mono deck. The colors are more for reference of cards. If you choose only one you limit yourself to 10% of the cards available. Even the started decks are mixed. Deal with it.

Yes, we all see there are not enough cards per element to make mono-element deck work but were you not here when they actually did work? As I stated, mono-element decks (apart from mono-aether) fell out of favour after the introduction of the upgrade system. Are you saying that this game is not meant to be played with a mono deck because the upgrade system seems to demonstrate that fact? I don't think such an implication can be drawn.

As Mr. Jellyfish rightly pointed out, rainbow decks are based on stalling and acceleration using sundials, hourglasses and shields. Yes, it can be gotten past by Deflagration, Steal or the destroy ability available on pulverizer and on creatures if you are lucky. However, the fact of the matter is, stalling and acceleration are so much easier than stopping stalling and acceleration. There is also the point that in order to attempt to defeat stalling and acceleration to the maximum extent, you have to run a rainbow deck yourself, not to mention a deck base concentrated so much on permanent destruction would never work.

Similarly with Earthquake, you need earthquake (and quite a few of them) early so you can stop rainbow from getting a lot of quanta. This basically means you have to run mono earth. Running mono earth means no shield capable of stopping attacks, and for the most part means no destruction of other permanents. Again, it doesn't work to the extent that you can say it beats rainbow. You only have to try for yourself.

Any other clever strategies to defeat rainbow other than using rainbow? If rainbow is not overpowered then surely someone can offer a non-rainbow deck to perform decently against a rainbow deck (by that I would mean a deck not reliant on quantum pillars/towers). By perform decently, I would say anything better than 40% win rate against the rainbow decks in the Top 50. Top 50 is relevant because as I stated earlier, rainbow decks only became over powered after the introduction of the upgrade system and then later sundial. It is the upgrades and sundial that increased the potency of rainbow decks to a greater extent than it did for others. A decent non-rainbow deck can beat a crap rainbow deck. That's not for argument here. Through my experimenting and with the great amount of options I have with enough of all rares, I haven't come up with such a deck.

[RoKetha]

Protect Artifact only costs 1 quantum and completely shuts down Earthquake against Rainbow, but doesn't work as well for any deck that uses more than one type of pillar. Rainbow also has supernovas a lot of the time. Early Earthquakes destroy every element but Darkness w/ Devourers; it's not a disadvantage for Rainbow at all.

[taneugene]

From the point of view of god-killing, Rainbow is definitely overpowered. There is no deck that can match the potency of Rainbow vs-ing God, and its the deck that gives you the most wins.

What I'd like to see is more decks being made viable to kill gods, even if Elemental Mastery is not possible with such other decks (another gripe which I have about Mono-Rainbow arguments, but that'll be discussed some other day). Allow Mono-Pillars to produce 2 Quantums per turn unupgraded, and implement more Element Cards that requires a moderately high casting-cost and activation-cost. In doing so, Rainbow deck remains viable, but it gives Mono Decks a fighting chance both against god-killing and PVPing. There should be no reason why an unconcentrated multi-color deck owns single-coloured decks when single colour decks should, by right, produce a higher consistency rate.

The reverse argument would be to nerf the Gods instead, but that won't be happening anytime soon because the reward of god-killing is too great and every player is farming the gods everyday. The only thing in the player's mind now is "must get that next upgrade", which really shouldn't be the main focus of any card game in the first place. But the fact that it is the sole objective of the players makes it impossible for the developers to do anything to weaken the Gods.

Card games should be about deck-building, and trying as many combinations as you can imagine, and see how effective it is in real play. The current state of the game neither encourage nor allow for such plays, which is a really sad thing to see.

The way it is now, people farm gods day in day out with almost identical Rainbow decks. Only a small card pool will ever see play in a player's deck. It makes other cards completely and utterly useless. The problem will not be solved by introducing new cards, as players will then hop onto the "new Queen", the "new Sundial" and the "new Hourglass", abandoning old cards and replacing them with the better version.

[Uncle Jellyfish]

Rainbow decks are not overpowered.

Agreed. Rainbow decks are based on stalling at the slow start and building up cards and quantum for the late-game win. If you have anything that can deny them quanta, draw, or stall (steal/deflag/devourer/poison), you'll be fine and dandy, and should be able to take down any Rainbow decks with easy. Sadly, those denial cards are limited to a few certain elements, which limits counters to Rainbow decks to a few specific elements (unless you can stall them enough to deck out).