General Discussion

[jmizzle7]

I think it's weird that people are surprised that beat in this format...

[TheIdioticIdiot]

I think it's weird that it's in this format...

[xdude]

I think it's weird that it's in this format...

It makes most sense theme-wise. Please propose a better format which to be still mono vs mono and we will analyze it for the next Masters' Tourney.

[TheIdioticIdiot]

you need at least 50% of your cards being your element, any mark, any card not your elements has to be unupped (any card of your element can be upped or unupped), one ban from each player

[xdude]

you need at least 50% of your cards being your element, any mark, any card not your elements has to be unupped (any card of your element can be upped or unupped), one ban from each player

So basically Master of Aether and Master of Darkness can have a Mirror match? Not OK. The theme is having the Masters prove the superiority of their element, by pwning everybody with it. Not using some of your element's cards as fillers and playing half a deck (which we'd get, as you can see in the War).

[OldTrees]

I have a suggestion that would help the mono deck problem a little but is impractical.
Instead of a double elimination tournament you could do a double round robin tournament. (2-0=1, 1-1=.5, 0-2=0) Elements with the highest score suffer a tiebreaker system.
Maybe a limited round robin where each Master only faces a subset of the total. (subset chosen randomly and changes every Trials)

A Swiss tournament could also work

[TheIdioticIdiot]

not mirrored
darkness with have upped dark cards
aether would have upped aether cards

or make it 80% or 90% percent...

mono with bans is just not fair in a lot of matchups, as u can see in all these battles....
or remove the ban system, but then earth would rule due to EQ (I suppose immo can be that...)

[Essence]

I really liked Trials 2, where IIRC we could use 6 cards of any element and the rest had to be mono.  That really opened up a lot of options, especially for the heavily focused elements like and .   I don't know what was wrong with that idea.

[Amilir]

The problem is, as demonstrated, no brilliant play could save some of these matchups.  The point is NOT to prove your element is superior, but to use your PvP ability to get a better position for the final battle of the trials.

[Essence]

Exactly -- the thing about your element being superior is neat and all, but these rules literally just unnecessarily benefit the Masters with strong PVP elements and hamper those without them. 

I think after 2 Wars and 2 Trials, we can all admit that some elements just plain PVP better -- and there's no particular reason why that fluke of game design should mean that those Masters consistently get more upgraded cards to fight their Trials with.

[Terroking]

Exactly -- the thing about your element being superior is neat and all, but these rules literally just unnecessarily benefit the Masters with strong PVP elements and hamper those without them. 

I think after 2 Wars and 2 Trials, we can all admit that some elements just plain PVP better -- and there's no particular reason why that fluke of game design should mean that those Masters consistently get more upgraded cards to fight their Trials with.

This. The fact that some elements can just take 1 deck every game and be unbeatable is just stupid and a huge disadvantage to the losing masters while a big advantage to the winners.

I agree with Essence: Up to 6 off-element cards would fix pretty much all the problems. People could splash any control they needed and most elements (e.g. Time) could actually make some real decks.

(Not to bash Time, but all it gets in the mono-rule is Pharoah or Dragon Rush. Easily counterable)

[Demagog]

A minimum and maximum would work well. Minimum of 50-60% your element, maximum 70%-80%. Just depends on what the trial master wants, and they wouldn't need to fall under those ranges, either. Also, it might be more interesting if masters could ban one card from each element before the first round, then those bans are permanent for those masters. So if you banned all of the alchemy cards, none of your opponents could use them.