War #6 - Suggestions and Feedback

[Avenger]

IMO blind auction sux. Maybe start a vote about its popularity? What is the goal? Speed? Or random teams with disgruntled members?

[hainkarga]

Those against blind auction, you have my vote!

[Jenkar]

@WMs,

given everyone's concern about blind auction and strategist role, what's the likelihood of these rules being modified?

Decent.

[Acsabi44]

I think a great nerf to strategist would be to disallow mark changing. I think this has been suggested before.

[Absol]

A few questions.
1. Regarding Propaganda, how will it be played this time?
2. Regarding this: http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,37526.msg491360.html#msg491360

I vouch for having a decent rule for how to deal with bugs. If a person is winning and thus has a chance of using a certain combo that causes bugs I find replaying until said person is losing, because luck doesn't allow said person to perform the bugged combo, to be a horrible solution.

The current solution has the advantage of the cause of the bug probably be forced into getting rid of said cards, but is extremely painful for the losing team. I'd personally find it ideal if the deck could be replaced with a similar deck that does not cause the bug. In the example of the occurrence this round: replace Black Nymphs with Black Dragons. It's not ideal but it would be great if both teams and/or wms could come to an agreement of a deck that is considered to be both similar as well as not causing the bug to replay with. I emphasize similar because this must not by any means be abused to change your deck into something counter-ish by purposefully adding a bugged combo into the deck.

This replacement deck would then replace the old, bugged deck in every possible way (vault, for the match etc.).

How will ruling regarding bugged combo be?
For reference, there was one incident like this too with Voodoo Doll IIRC. It was a new patch, so it's not tested yet, therefore banning the card is the reasonable choice. But there might be some other broken combo which is pretty much autoloss. Not that it's intentional, but it's unfair to the losing team if last incident (me vs mesa R1 War 5) were to happen.

Also, +1 to no blind auction.

[Avenger]

I like the new auction rules, they are better than ever.

[Helston]

A few questions.
1. Regarding Propaganda, how will it be played this time?
2. Regarding this: http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,37526.msg491360.html#msg491360

I vouch for having a decent rule for how to deal with bugs. If a person is winning and thus has a chance of using a certain combo that causes bugs I find replaying until said person is losing, because luck doesn't allow said person to perform the bugged combo, to be a horrible solution.

Sorry none of us have replied before now Absol:

1. Propaganda's been removed. This was a hard decision, but we felt that without the extra motivation of bonus cards for winning the vote, it wouldn't be worthwhile.
2. We'll discuss what rulings should be made for bugs.

[Anthraxx]

Berserker's per discard bonus seems a bit odd. Might be my love for symmetry though...

Also, no changes to support battles? Dis is madness!

[Avenger]

Berserker's per discard bonus seems a bit odd. Might be my love for symmetry though...

Also, no changes to support battles? Dis is madness!

"no team will play another team more than once within a given round if possible, including non-support matches"

This is a slight relief.

Also, it takes place in the battle phase. So, it is not a problem.

[Anthraxx]

Oh, my bad. I stand corrected. Thanks.

[10 men]

3. Strategist
Strategists may remove up to six cards from their deck before each duel. Each duel must have a legal deck, and their full deck must also be legal. Vault penalties are not incurred for mid-battle deck errors, provided the full deck is legal and the match finished.

That's still not a good idea, more powerful than General for sure. For example, swapping in or out Dim Shields is insanely strong, forbidden mark change now means... only Aether guy can do it, yay. Or Entropy Strategist switching between Speedbow and DiscEQ.

If there are uneven number of players fighting during a round, the team with the most cards has one player changed to Support for the round (unless they already have 4 Support players, in which case they will have a bye instead).

That's pretty bad, if the last 3 Wars taught us any anything about byes it is that their effect is far too powerful for something an individual team can barely influence. They need to be nerfed, the team receiving a bye has to get some sort of penalty (lots of possibilities there). Now with support battles being strictly upside, byes got even stronger instead.

SUPPORT

Speaking of which, why is this even still around? I've never seen a mechanic that failed its purpose as hard as support... It's intended for new War players but deckbuilding is actually more difficult than for normal decks (because it's new) so it's just one more deck to build for me. Also to keep people busy in later War rounds but instead it just makes the late rounds drag out hardcore... And then there's the blatant unfairness of the no rares rule, losing several key cards as say Entropy or Time vs Aether or Water going "hm whatever" gets old real fast.

After that the opposing team chooses how much salvage you win

Conspiring with another team in any way is forbidden

How many cards may the losing team allow until it's conspiring?

[deuce22]

3. Strategist
Strategists may remove up to six cards from their deck before each duel. Each duel must have a legal deck, and their full deck must also be legal. Vault penalties are not incurred for mid-battle deck errors, provided the full deck is legal and the match finished.

That's still not a good idea, more powerful than General for sure. For example, swapping in or out Dim Shields is insanely strong, forbidden mark change now means... only Aether guy can do it, yay. Or Entropy Strategist switching between Speedbow and DiscEQ.
I agree with 10 men here. I would nerf strategist a little more and have a 3-card sideboard.

If there are uneven number of players fighting during a round, the team with the most cards has one player changed to Support for the round (unless they already have 4 Support players, in which case they will have a bye instead).

That's pretty bad, if the last 3 Wars taught us any anything about byes it is that their effect is far too powerful for something an individual team can barely influence. They need to be nerfed, the team receiving a bye has to get some sort of penalty (lots of possibilities there). Now with support battles being strictly upside, byes got even stronger instead.
Kind of disagree. Byes are almost impossible to balance. This is our 6th war, and still haven't figured out a perfect bye system. It's not the WMs fault, it's just not all that possible. The one thing I do agree with though, is adding a support match to the team on bye being too much. However, WMs are supposedly working on nerfing support, so too early to say how that may influence this situation.

SUPPORT

Speaking of which, why is this even still around? I've never seen a mechanic that failed its purpose as hard as support... It's intended for new War players but deckbuilding is actually more difficult than for normal decks (because it's new) so it's just one more deck to build for me. Also to keep people busy in later War rounds but instead it just makes the late rounds drag out hardcore... And then there's the blatant unfairness of the no rares rule, losing several key cards as say Entropy or Time vs Aether or Water going "hm whatever" gets old real fast.
Agreed. I think WMs know my feelings about support teams, but I never really looked at the deckbuilding rules for this war. 10 men pretty much hit the issues dead on.

After that the opposing team chooses how much salvage you win

Conspiring with another team in any way is forbidden

How many cards may the losing team allow until it's conspiring?
I have no idea what 10 men is talking about here...