Guest posts by Friedrich Psitalon

1

The Arena / Re: [Poll] The worst deck (aka the most uninspired and annoying) to be seen.

« on: March 13, 2012, 03:53:34 pm »

Take right now for example: I've got a Ghostmare deck up (Oracle was Ghost, fwiw) and it's rank 51, 18-3, 148 electrum. (How I got 148 instead of 145 or 150, I have no idea, since this is Gold league, but whatever.)

I just did my Oracle for the day, and I've been handed adrenaline. My Ghostmare is on Day 2. Now, I'm pretty sure I could build something solid with Adrenaline, but I'm not POSITIVE of it. I am positive that my Ghostmare will continue to turn in similar results for another 2-3 days. I've got a lot of other things on my mind today as well. Given these circumstances - which are hardly atypical for the vast majority of casual players...

Why would I switch out? Some aesthetic idea of "doing something nifty?" Yeah, sure, if I had a full set of upped cards and the spare time to try and come up with something nifty. I don't in either case.

So: ride on, slightly-altered-from-base-variant Ghostmare.

The system, not the players, is the root of the problem here.

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The Arena / Re: [Poll] The worst deck (aka the most uninspired and annoying) to be seen.

« on: March 13, 2012, 03:47:48 pm »

I'm going to be the token voice of dissent here:

If you are not a highly creative deck builder - and many people are not, or choose not to expend the energy on any given day - it is entirely to your benefit and smart to build an obvious staple deck. The system as it stands dramatically favors this conduct, and it's shown in natural player habit trends. If you're hating what lots and lots of players are doing, it's not the players who have the problem. (It's also not you, to be clear: stagnation in deck design benefits no one.) The problem is the system itself - it encourages stagnation.

I could build a creative experiment that might go 3w/2L and out...it might also go 35W/0L, but realistically, the true "power decks" are well-known, and I'm not going to discover the next through an epiphany...

...or I could build an obvious power deck and go 35w/3L and retire it on day 6.

One version gets me, at best, 30 gold in my current league. The other guarantees me 165, and since some people still appreciate and rate up those decks, I can pocket 200. If you're playing on a daily basis, that's meaningless. If you're stuck with very little time due to real life obligations, that's significant. Much of the time, I'll go with a minor variation on the power deck theme that's at least vaguely close to what I was given by the oracle. Why? Because as a player, there is absolutely no benefit to doing otherwise.

There are also people who are aiming for the highest rank that they can get, and 3W (with 3 thumbs) versus 35 wins (with NO thumbs) will still have a very clear distinction on the higher rank. In short, cliche though it may be:

Don't hate the player, hate the game.

Is there a problem? Absolutely. The problem does not lie with the players - the problem lies with the system which encourages stagnant deck design.

3

The Arena / Re: So what did you just take down from the Arena?

« on: December 20, 2011, 07:24:40 pm »

by Friedrich Psitalon

Hover over cards for details, click for permalink

Deck import code : [Select]

5lj 5lj 5lj 5lj 5bs 5bs 5bs 5bs 5bs 5bs 5bs 5bu 5bu 5bu 5bu 5bu 5c0 5c0 5c0 5c0 5c0 5c0 5c6 5c6 5c6 5c6 5c7 5c7 5c7 5c7 5c9 5c9 5c9 5cg 5de 5lj 5lk 5lk 5mq 5mq 5mq 5mq 5mq 5mq 5mq 8pn

Card was Lucifern. Didn't think this would pick up a single win, but since it did grab one win, figured I'd post it. Don't imagine it'll pick up any more.

It's 190 life, double draw, double mark, no upgraded cards. (Mostly because I have absolutely no upgraded life.)

I dunno. Figured it was either this or a rainbow-no-ability deck with hopes, and this gave me a chance and excuse to bring out my green nymph.

4

Deck Help / Re: Dune Scorpion against platinium

« on: December 20, 2011, 05:17:12 pm »

Platinum is definitely adjusting to Splat - I'm noticing that my Splat deck is struggling a great deal more than it used to.

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The Arena / Re: Arena loss feedback (thumbs up/down)

« on: December 20, 2011, 02:59:09 pm »

I believe the thumbs up/down would be more effective if thumbs down gave no electrum and thumbs up gave at least 20 electrum. Making it so clone decks actually suffer for being put in the arena and encouraging deck building. Right now a clone can make it to the top ten and still gain electrum. For my idea the only benifet for getting that high with a clone would be bragging rights.

That said, I thumbs up everyone if they used thier oracle card properly or at all.
I'll thumbs up a ghostmare if it's oracle card was nightmare.

See, that's the thing - most people won't. I had a Nightmare card and built Ghostmare with it last week. 85% of my wins were thumbs down. One guy said "Well, you should've built it with weapons." Yes, I could do that, and have a vastly inferior deck. The problem with the thumbs-up/thumbs-down system is that people want to punish you for building things that are effective. I'm sorry that effective decks are popular, but y'know what, I'll make a lot more money building ghostmare and breaking the top 20 on wins, than building some weapon-mare and going 3-losses-and-out.

I've stopped worrying about whether what I build will get a thumb one way or another. There are too many different criteria people use for anything to be predictable in whether it will please or anger. It's a crapshoot you can at best skew slightly. I build what I think will win. If people enjoy playing it, great. If not, too bad. The internet has way too many people with random pet peeves for me to chase thumbs. I'll do a lot better building a ghostmare when I get Nightmare, or building a SoSa when I get handed poison, or what have you, than I will trying to build a Weaponmare or Poison-Puffer-Chryso deck. Just how it is.

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Game Suggestions and Feedback / Re: Handicap System for the arena

« on: December 16, 2011, 04:13:41 pm »

C'mon, surely one of the Masters in this thread can bend Zanz's ear?

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Gold League Decks / Re: What deck did you submit today? ( Gold )

« on: December 16, 2011, 02:45:22 pm »

Welp, I was going to start contributing to this thread more, but since the card I got after the Nightmare was a Emerald Shield...

I don't have high hopes for this one. 

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Gold League Decks / Re: What deck did you submit today? ( Gold )

« on: December 14, 2011, 08:06:31 pm »

You could have made a deck that used Nightmare on flying weapons.

Neat idea; unfortunately, I don't have a large stock of most weapons yet - at least not one I'd want to hand to the opposition. I'm low on Tridents.   Deck's up to rank 16, though, so I'm still not feeling too guilty.

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Gold League Decks / Re: What deck did you submit today? ( Gold )

« on: December 14, 2011, 04:25:16 pm »

by Friedrich Psitalon

Hover over cards for details, click for permalink

Deck import code : [Select]

5rr 5rr 5rr 5rr 5rr 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q4 7q4 7q4 7q4 7q4 7q4 7qe 7qe 7qe 7qe 7qe 7qe 7th 7th 7th 7th 7th 7th 8pt

Hate me for it, but if you get Nightmare as your card, what else are you going to build? Day Traitors? The AI can't handle that. 30-3 at the moment, ranked 25th now on day 4.

165 hp at the start, double-draw.

Unsurprisingly, a very low number of thumbs-up, but like I said, what're you gonna do?

Got Fire Pillar today; not sure if I want to convert or let this run a bit longer. Ghostmares don't generally need a whole lot of bonus health to run.

10

Forge Archive / Re: Magnet Tracer | Magnet Tracer

« on: December 13, 2011, 07:25:21 pm »

Respectfully, do we really want people to be able to instantly draw Steals, Miracles, Shards of Sacrifice, etc on a whim?

This is an extremely powerful card. It's already becoming somewhat hazardous to not have permanent control in your deck; this card would move it into the realm of the permanently suicidal. Being able to immediately draw whatever card is needed for the occasion, over and over and over? Yow. I suppose this might allow/make it wiser for people to play decks larger than 35 cards, but this could be a pretty big boost to Rainbow decks. (Draw Supernova, have mana for two traces, use one for another supernova, dump card of choice into play.)

This is both card draw advantage AND topdeck-ability. That's a tremendously powerful combination, and for one gravity when upped...yeow.

I don't know if this is a concern, but this would also pose some pretty interesting AI problems in terms of the AI recognizing what to play when.

It does have draw advantage and topdecking, but your example is invalid since this card can't target spells. (Or any card in your hand for that matter)
(Overall the card is slightly weaker than Hourglass in early game with a limited selection of cards but gains power as the game progresses - by late game you can grab any card you need provided you still have it in your deck, whereas Hourglass is useless when you're down to ~3 cards.)

Hmm. Apologies, I must have missed the 'doesn't target spells' portion of the ability. All I see is "target card" and that to me equated to anything existing in Elements. On further review, I still don't see where the indication is that this wouldn't affect spells? That's not a remark of defiance, it's a remark of "You're understanding something I'm not, so show me" so that I may understand as well.

So if we're assuming permanents only, I suppose it's not quite so scary a beast. It still makes me wince a little on the idea of someone pulling the Gravity Nymph  at the bottom of their deck right from the start, but that's still not nearly as beastly as what I originally saw.

11

Game Suggestions and Feedback / Re: "Choose" the league for your deck

« on: December 13, 2011, 07:03:22 pm »

Well, right now there already is pretty profound overcrowding in some leagues. Take Gold for example - you can go 0-3 in Bronze, Silver, or Platinum and you'll get one more game, if not two. (I've seen Plat decks appear before me at 0-4, for certain. I'm not positive about Silver, but I don't remember having problems there.)

You go 0-3 in Gold and you're done. Heck, 0-2 puts you on the brink.

So the overcrowding is already there. I think that the rewards for winning at the higher leagues need to be increased if we're to encourage people not to go to the league with the most play (highly likely to be bronze) rather than the best they can reach, but even if we don't do that, I'm guessing some people in Gold would step back to Silver if only to get out from under the brutal competition at that league level.

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Buff This Card! / Re: Fate Egg | Fate Egg

« on: December 13, 2011, 06:22:42 pm »

I'd agree with the possibility of it hatching Mutants. It won't overshadow the Fallen Elf/Druid (repeated applications of that effect from one source) or the spell Mutation (unpreventable/lobotomizable, also usable in mono-entropy). It's fine for the effect to remain  instead of  .  Any card which has absolutely no use in any form of competitive environment does not contribute to that environment, and therefore might as well not exist.

"Fun" decks can come in a billion flavors, and a billion themes. You don't design cards for "fun" decks - theme decks can pop up anywhere, and always will. You want cards to have a specific, meaningful choice attached to them - even if it's a choice many players reject - for competitive play.

This one, right now, clearly does not.