Things to look forward to next time this event is run:
- Each player will have their own googledoc (similar to WoE/War) where they have a list of their cards. Selling cards will be done with a simple click of a button.
This will be good to help with the tediousness and hopefully to lessen mistakes. I'm sure everyone, myself included, has made mistakes in this event just because of the sheer number of cards and the pain of trying to organize them.
- Elements will be better balanced: As in, no more everyone playing monoFire.
I do think that the division of cards (common, uncommon, rare, ultra-rare) could be better balanced. It may be better to try to balance the division of cards based on their value rather than trying to make sure there are equal number of cards from each element in each category (i.e. having 3 rares from each element, 5 uncommons from each element, etc.). When you try to distribute the cards evenly by element, people will favor elements which have a higher percentage of good cards since they can get good cards at lower tiers.
Just one example of imbalance is Procrastination Shield and Dusk Mantle. How is it that Dusk is a rare and Procrastination a common? They both on average cause the opponent to do damage only half the time. I realize there are slight differences beyond that, but enough for a 2-grade difference?
- Card packs will be better balanced: Gold packs will give more rares and no Marks from lower level packs.
Yes, Gold packs should definitely be buffed. I still think that their investment-to-return value shouldn't be as good as Bronze and Silver, but you should get something more to help balance the value proposition (more rares, more foils, or something).
As for Marks, what is the purpose of having these? Is it just to make things more random? I think most of us prefer the game not to be decided based on who was lucky enough to get Mark cards regardless of what packs they may be restricted to. If Marks are designed to be a kind of wild bonus to help struggling players, then I think the possibility of getting a Mark should be restricted to the bottom X number of players.
Also, you might want to consider making Quantum Pillars uncommons instead of rares, at least if you plan on giving them in Pillar packs still. Pillar packs were definitely the best way to make money in this event.
- Better NPC balance.
I don't mind playing NPCs, but if we do use them again, I think that 1) they should increase in difficulty as the event progresses and 2) NPC players should be able to adjust their deck. I think that was the biggest complaint I heard from NPCs: it was just boring to play the same decks over and over. I also wouldn't mind if we tossed out NPCs and did more PvP.
Some other random thoughts and brainstormings:
I liked how the earlier rounds forced us to use some of the lesser used cards like the various element shields, weaker CC cards, and weaker creatures with meh abilities.
Along with that, I like how the meta evolved as people got more cards and better cards. Majofa mentioned that a lot of people used Mono Fire. I agree, it was used a good bit. But I personally thought that starting in Round 6 or 7, Mono Fire started losing it's advantage just as Maxwell's Demon lost it's edge starting in Round 4 or 5. As people started to get bigger card pools with better cards and more copies of cards, they began to be able to field decks that could beat the earlier strong decks.
I liked the choice of choosing more mediocre cards (uncommons) to broaden your card pool or choosing fewer higher-caliber cards (rares, super-rares). Unfortunately, most of these higher-caliber cards weren't useful until you got more of the mediocre cards to broaden your card pool and fill in the meat of a deck. I don't think there were enough rounds to make investing in Gold packs worth it. If it stretched out another 10 rounds, then yeah, maybe it'd make sense to buy Gold packs to help give you an edge.
I think that there should be a bigger difference between the amounts you get for winning and losing. In the beginning, I think that 100 to 50 is good. But I think that difference should increase by 10 to 25 every round. This will make winning matches a bigger deal than just working the system to eke out a net positive from buying and selling.
What if you took the Pillar, Bronze, Silver, and Gold packs and subdivided them into 3 more kinds: Rainbow, Quad, and Mono. Rainbow packs would give cards from any element or other; they would be the cheapest. Quad packs would give cards from only four elements (these elements can be pre-set or chosen by the player depending on which you think is better); they would be more expensive. And Mono packs would give cards only from 1 element of their choice; they would be the most expensive. So you can choose to get an early advantage by focusing on 1 element, or you can go for a later advantage by building a bigger card pool at the expense of weaker decks in the early rounds.
Spoiler for for example:
Rainbow Pillar pack - 8 random pillars, 4 random pends - 30
Quad Pillar pack - 6 pillars from 4 elements, 3 pends from 4 elements - 40
Mono Pillar pack - 4 pillars from 1 element, 2 pends from 1 element - 60
You would probably need to adjust the ratio and costs. This is just a quick example of what I mean.
I'm not sure what to think about foil cards. I liked them and they added more interest to the event. But by putting one in every pack, it encourages buying as many of the cheapest packs as possible. This also worked out well because a lot of the Uncommon creatures became much better if they were upgraded and you could get the most uncommon creatures by buying the cheapest packs. If you're wanting to encourage more people to consider buying Silver and Gold next time, you'll need to do something about this. Maybe give two foil cards in Gold packs, one in Silver packs, and a 50% chance for a foil in bronze and pillar packs?
I'm sure there's more I could say, but I think my wall of text is big enough. I'll pass the mic to the next person.
