War #10 - Planned Changes (Discussion)

[Blacksmith]

About balancing Vaults. I agree with changing card cost based on the cost of Vaults for certain elements.

Average card cost last war counting shards was: 65.2
Average card cost not counting shards last war was: 59.7
For light I think it was 75 and 65. Unfortunately I didn't the exact stats for light.

So after your balancing you could make a test to see the average vault cost and see how efficient the card cost changes have been. If it's still not enough we could give some elements more money/cards/coins to start with to even out the cost in starting vault.

[inthisroom]

Altogether I think the changes/non changes sound all right.

Rebalancing the Market prizes is a good idea, last War they were slightly unbalanced even though our team had an advantage through this.

I also like the idea that pillars/pends will be unlimited, that way the vault only focusses on playable cards. Organising the vault takes a lot of time and makes War tedious, I'm a big fan of any simplification.

I'm actually particularly fond of the Sideboard. Many matches in War have a pre-defined outcome and you just sit there to get beaten three times in a row without any hope of winning. A small sideboard, not enough to turn a rush into a control deck but 2-4 cards (I'd personally like 4 but I agree it may be too much), would make things a bit more open.
It would also make player skill more important, therefore subbing should be restricted or people who are allowed to sub should be pre-defined by the War masters.
The importance of player skill would influence the auction as well, as the difference between a "cheap" new player and an expensive veteran would be even greater.
I'm not sure it would make deck building much more time consuming or difficult as it would give a bit more freedom instead of wrecking your head between two types of decks and eventually just gambling.

I understand mrpaper's concerns regarding new/inexperienced players and regarding the fact that the Strategist role was OP when it was used with a sideboard in War#6.
Regarding inexperienced players, the reduction to 5-man teams may help a little there, also most players who are still around the forums have at least some knowledge of the game through various pvp events, and complete noobs generally don't have the card base to join War anyway so I'm not sure we have many people around who couldn't handle a sideboard.
The Strategist's sideboard in War #6 was overpowered because only the Strategist had one, that did indeed give an unfair advantage to pretty much every other role including the Generals, for this not to be the case, everyone should have one imo.

I really think having a sideboard would make War more exciting and I'm a big fan, but again, I understand the concerns people expressed and they may be right, so Zawadx' suggestion to create an event testing this system sounds like a very good idea to me, it could give us all insight (and fun with a new and unexpected pvp event).

[Avenger]

Lieutenant is truly crappy, give sideboard to that role. I don't really like sideboard for all.
Majofa's scout idea would be nice.
Tinkerer's pends NOT PILLARS should count as in element. I really, really, really hated those off element monos.

[mrpaper]

Off elements monos are against the theme of war and should be prevented... what if for example, life won war because they won many times with a mono aether? Tinkerer pends only would prevent this easily... heck we could accept mark cards as well to have things interesting and funny, but no pillars please! 

[mrpaper]

I forgot to write a thing when I spoke against sideboard.... sideboard is a greater asset for a few elements.  It is where you usually put the steals or deflags you couldn't fit into 30 cards but that will come handy if needed be.  Hence you will find almost impossible to use PC against Fire and darkness while other elements will only get that advantage in those duo or in grabbows.  Needless to say that it would also mean more dark/fire duo played as well hence better salvage for em and weaker for every other team and fair salvage is already a problem for   roughly even  and  have only average salvage while  are all lucky! 

So for fire and darkness, no need anymore to guess if they face PC or not ever... which will make them insanely strong so unless you wanna triple the cost of deflags and steals (i'd rather not)... don't let those 2 already strong teams have an unfair advantage on others.   

[JonathanCrazyJ]

I forgot to write a thing when I spoke against sideboard.... sideboard is a greater asset for a few elements.  It is where you usually put the steals or deflags you couldn't fit into 30 cards but that will come handy if needed be.  Hence you will find almost impossible to use PC against Fire and darkness while other elements will only get that advantage in those duo or in grabbows.  Needless to say that it would also mean more dark/fire duo played as well hence better salvage for em and weaker for every other team and fair salvage is already a problem for   roughly even  and  have only average salvage while  are all lucky! 

So for fire and darkness, no need anymore to guess if they face PC or not ever... which will make them insanely strong so unless you wanna triple the cost of deflags and steals (i'd rather not)... don't let those 2 already strong teams have an unfair advantage on others.

That's actually an extremely good point. Well thought out. Especially true for darkness who also have Nightmare, which can be thrown into any deck, meaning you can never safely use fractal against them

[RootRanger]

If you really want to balance War, include a ban list voted upon by the generals at the start of the event, but that idea has always faced opposition.

[mrpaper]

If you really want to balance War, include a ban list voted upon by the generals at the start of the event, but that idea has always faced opposition.

I'd actually be ok with that,  though we would need to redo the market value post ban if we keep the market at all.  See Black hole having a lower value with discord out of war.  On the other hand, the pool card is already thin and it would only make it thinner.  Also, if it is accepted, it should be 1 or 2 card per element max that is banned... ideally 1.  What would be aether without Fractal AND dimensional shield for example... it would make it really lame.  If that idea was to go along, I'd say  6-8 cards total, with only 1 per element max would be good.  This way, weaker elements would be much closer to stronger ones.  Unless you guys think that losing  discord for entropy would hurt so much more then any water card (let's say shard of patience) so both elements would be much closer to be even after. Then it could be 1 card per element.  But I believe it would make weaker elements worse as they already have few good in element cards and sometimes not even 1 OP card. 

1 Funny and fair way to do this would be every team lose a card... based on the average war ranking they had... See aether has the best ranking, they lose the aether card that cost the most on the market.  Fire is second... they lose they're card that cost the 2nd most (using last war price to be fair).. all the way until life who loses the  life card that cost the 12th most for em.  This way, it would of course even things up a lot and it would be more simple as you don'T need to process through generals on a couple of rounds of voting! 

[iancudorinmarian]

I'm one of those "anti-ban" people. There's already the vault restriction, and with market prices that's increased even more.

How about "bans" not actually banning the cards, but increasing the cost by the % of votes on it? (or some other sort of vote-cost conversion)

Also, this came to my mind today: How about discards/salvage varying depending on the result of the match? (i.e. 3-0, 3-1, 3-2)

[JonathanCrazyJ]

If you really want to balance War, include a ban list voted upon by the generals at the start of the event, but that idea has always faced opposition.

There is a difference between banning arbitrarily cards which are in the game, and creating rules which favour already powerful elements.

Sideboards:

• elements with PC never have to worry about permanents again
• Darkness never has to worry about fractal again. Water never has to worry about poison again. Light and life never have to worry about spell damage again
• makes hard-counter cards with the drawback that they aren't always useful completely OP
• therefore, removes decks that have hard-counters from the meta, at least against some elements

I like it as a role. One sideboard deck per team MAX per round. Allowing sideboard for all is, imo, a bad idea that will shrink the meta, and heavily favour some (usually already powerful) elements.

[mrpaper]

I'm one of those "anti-ban" people. There's already the vault restriction, and with market prices that's increased even more.

How about "bans" not actually banning the cards, but increasing the cost by the % of votes on it? (or some other sort of vote-cost conversion)

Also, this came to my mind today: How about discards/salvage varying depending on the result of the match? (i.e. 3-0, 3-1, 3-2)

Varying the salvage discard is often used in event cards... not sure it's worth more then this.  increasing cost can be a bit  effective but it depends on how much it ends up costing.  See life had no high cost card so they had a huge vault at start, yet they went down anyway as they we're losing more then winning.  So if aether cards cost even more (they already do cost much more then life), what is likely to happen is an even smaller vault for them, but a similar ratio of winning for both, hence life going to be out before aether anyway (I could use many more weak/strong elements the same way).  So if fractal cost 170 instead of 100... life would not be over aether in the end anyway. 

If we are to do something that isn't banning, it could be a card that is more limited then others, like 12 copies of each card BUT only 6 copies of fractal/deflagration/discord/devourer/shard of freedom etc. 

[inthisroom]

I'd be completely against the idea of a single sideboard per team as it has shown last time (War#6) already that this position has a great advantage over others, to be fair, either everyone should have a sideboard, or noone.