I think the event was fun, but I feel that there should be bigger twists in deckbuilding. I liked the level-up system, though I believe the Earth bonus was a bit too strong; stronger than Water, at least. Fire and Air felt alright, but it would be nice to avoid the 1st turn skipping, too many autolosses because of that.
I agree with Kev that catching up is close to impossible. If I hadn't had perfect rounds from round 2 onwards, I couldn't have caught up either.
I also agree there needs to be some kind of grandmaster level after collecting the 3 levels required for winning, like you learn bloodbending/metalbending etc. with appropriate bonuses. These bonuses should be small however, otherwise it further increases the gap.
My main gripe about the event was the rounds dragging on for so long. I know summer plays a part in that, but it literally sucked to wait for two persons to play in Fire while everyone else has already finished every game 3 days earlier.
There is another concern that needs to be addressed though: RNG.
The RNG is already heavily present in Elements, so we shouldn't rely on her outside the game this much. I have two proposals that could perhaps ease this:
- Allow to 'rotate' one of your elements into the alphabetically next one either for free or for a small price. If it was free, you could do it only once a round and only with elements you do not already have (say, you have
- you can't rotate life since you already have light). If it wasn't free, I could imagine the small price being like losing an upgrade or having to use +2 cards in your deck for each rotation. Or combine the two: limited but has a cost.
- Bans. Bans are fun. They lower the luck part by the powerful cards automatically getting disabled, so getting powerful elements doesn't mean *that* much. This system could also eliminate the evil 3 shields rule. I have the following ideas about how to handle the bans for phase 1:
1. Individual banning vs Tribe/nation banning
The first is pretty straightforward, everyone bans some cards from their opponents and vice versa. The tribe banning is slightly more interesting however. You get together with your fellow elementals (
separated) and decide on a number of bans that every other tribe must suffer. The exact number of bans can be specified in a number of ways, I will get back to that soon. The person who has the highest level in their own element must send it to the organizer. If there are multiple people with the same level, total level is the deciding factor. Overall every nation receives 3 sets of bans (not necessarily public) which should encourage more creative deckbuilding.
2. The number of bans
If you go with individual banning, the number could be fixed (like always 5), changing randomly or with a pattern every round or maybe dependent on your bending levels. Not sure which is the best. If it is dependent on your bending levels, it can be further twisted, like you can ban thrice as many from an earth person as earth levels you have.
With tribe banning, you can also do the same. If unchanging, I'd go for about 6 cards/tribe. Otherwise I'd make it dependent on the number of people in the tribe and/or on their off-element bending levels. Just throwing out ideas so that you may get inspiration..
3. When the banning happens
Well the benning can happen either before the elements are given out - blind banning - or after you know your opponent's elements. If you go the tribe way I'd do it blind, since it would be too hard to cram another phase into the rounds. You could simply do it in phase 2 of the previous. Plan ahead while you beat each other up. I also think blind banning is more fun, especially if you have a larger number of bans to throw around. But that's just me.
If you go with individual banning, I'd still do it blind but you also have the option to do it after the elements have been given out since individually you don't have to organize anything. Give a day to send the bans in. No bans sent mean you are a masochist and don't ban anything.
For phase 2, I honestly have no idea at the moment, but it should probably use something different. Maybe tribe ban in phase 1, individual in phase 2.
TL;DR:
Fun, but needs more twists
Fix the catching up problem
Mastery levels
Faster rounds
Lower the effect of the RNG
- Rotating elements
- Bans
This is all I had in mind at the moment, I may post more later.
EDIT: Also, the character sheets of people who dropped out of the event in phase 2 should be kept, I think, just greyed out or in a spoiler. For archives sake.
