|
Ugh, it's always so damned annoying to hit the "soft" paywall of free-to-play games - that point where you realize it's just Not Gonna Happen unless you invest tons of time or money. I was sailing through ranked with my Lyonar midrange deck just fine until level 12 or so, when suddenly everyone is running the "best value" cards, multiple Epics, and clearly netdecked builds. I'm still breaking even because the people at this level aren't especially great at actually playing the game, but I'm so close to gold and just can't get there...
|
#
?
Jan 8, 2016 03:03
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 19, 2024 21:51 |
|
|
...12?  My flailing-like-an-idiot Abyssian deck was on the brink of busting 10 last month, and I started sometime in December. Keep mashing your face against daily quests (and gauntlet, the actual fun mode).
|
|
#
?
Jan 8, 2016 07:08
|
|
|
Heal Lyonar is so loving tedious to play against. Somewhere around the point that you've healed your general for 30+ HP, we're both down to <8 cards, and 2 of your 3 Keepers have brought back Ironcliff Guardians, your general should just get sent to rehab for his Sundrop addiction and the other player wins by default.orangelex44 posted:Ugh, it's always so damned annoying to hit the "soft" paywall of free-to-play games - that point where you realize it's just Not Gonna Happen unless you invest tons of time or money. I was sailing through ranked with my Lyonar midrange deck just fine until level 12 or so, when suddenly everyone is running the "best value" cards, multiple Epics, and clearly netdecked builds. I'm still breaking even because the people at this level aren't especially great at actually playing the game, but I'm so close to gold and just can't get there... Honestly this game has better free rewards than almost every other f2p game I've played. Get the low hanging fruit (1 orb for each faction you level to 11, ~500 gold? for the puzzle challenges, daily rewards) and disenchant every legendary and epic outside of the handful you need and I'm pretty sure you can put together a tier 1 deck or very close to just by the time you hit gold. I think if there's a problem with their f2p system as is, it's that there's pretty severe diminishing returns on opening free boosters let alone buying them. I'm probably only a few epics and legendaries from being able to build every tier 1 deck in the meta, but it would take a huge amount of time or money to close that gap since I'd be disenchanting nearly everything I opened. GreyjoyBastard posted:Keep mashing your face against daily quests (and gauntlet, the actual fun mode). I think my favorite thing about the latest patch is that Gauntlet stopped being Magmar-Magmar-Magmar-Lyonar-Magmar-Magmar-Lyonar-Magmar.
|
|
#
?
Jan 8, 2016 09:18
|
|
|
Yeah, Magmar feels like 10% of the player base or less from my last few nights of playing. They're strictly worse than before due to the Mana Burn change (it's weird now, maybe just kinda bad), and the Plasma Storm cost increase. I have a hard time believing they're bad enough to warrant everyone dropping them the way they have though, and everyone seems to be playing decks that puke out a million small creatures with little fear, so it should be great at preying on them.
|
|
#
?
Jan 8, 2016 11:31
|
|
|
GreyjoyBastard posted:...12? Yeah, I know, I thought 12 was a weird spot to stall out too, but that seems to be where everyone runs things like 3x Jaxi, 3x Keeper, and at least 2x Scary As gently caress Legendaries. I, of course, have exactly zero of all of those things at the moment. I get that's how these things work, but it's frustrating to go from "winning deck" to "lol nope" in the same night. I'm actually not running a true Lyonar heal, I'm annoying in a different fashion by using something like 12 Provoke minions. As far as Magmar goes, I have seen exactly zero Magmar decks in the past two days of routine play.
|
|
#
?
Jan 9, 2016 01:15
|
|
|
Isn't jaxi a common?
|
|
#
?
Jan 9, 2016 01:33
|
|
|
GreyPowerVan posted:Isn't jaxi a common? I think so, yeah, which means you'd think it'd be easy to get. As Lyonar, I've got better things to craft than Jaxi, and since it hasn't dropped for me...
|
|
#
?
Jan 9, 2016 02:05
|
|
|
just ended a match with a wraithling at 69/64 
|
|
#
?
Jan 9, 2016 08:03
|
|
|
Avasculous posted:
I can't bring myself to disenchant my 2x Pandora / 1x Dark Nemesis because they're very adequate capstones for... uh, everybody. Too bad about that "the field still needs to be remotely contested at turn 7" thing.
|
|
#
?
Jan 9, 2016 09:38
|
|
|
GreyjoyBastard posted:I can't bring myself to disenchant my 2x Pandora / 1x Dark Nemesis because they're very adequate capstones for... uh, everybody. Too bad about that "the field still needs to be remotely contested at turn 7" thing. Don't disenchant them. They're still not horrible and can actually win you games sometimes.
|
|
#
?
Jan 9, 2016 11:14
|
|
|
orangelex44 posted:Ugh, it's always so damned annoying to hit the "soft" paywall of free-to-play games - that point where you realize it's just Not Gonna Happen unless you invest tons of time or money. I was sailing through ranked with my Lyonar midrange deck just fine until level 12 or so, when suddenly everyone is running the "best value" cards, multiple Epics, and clearly netdecked builds. I'm still breaking even because the people at this level aren't especially great at actually playing the game, but I'm so close to gold and just can't get there... I had the same experience bouncing up and down on 11 my first time. I posted about it pretty recently. Eventually I looked at what legendaries/epics I had gotten and put together a deck using them and managed to bust through. In my case it was a healonar with immolation and regalia. You might just want to look at what you've gotten and see what you can manage to put together because once you hit 10 the first time you can go back to playing what you want without worrying about it.
|
|
#
?
Jan 9, 2016 18:18
|
|
|
GreyjoyBastard posted:I can't bring myself to disenchant my 2x Pandora / 1x Dark Nemesis because they're very adequate capstones for... uh, everybody. Too bad about that "the field still needs to be remotely contested at turn 7" thing. Those cards are both playable in certain top tier decks so you shouldn't disenchant them. They aren't as good as Archaeon Spellbinder in terms of neutral legendary quality, but they are still good. I wonder if they will ever expand upon the Golem and Arcanyst unit themes. I have a deck of each, but they aren't really viable. The arcanyst deck is hilarious if you can get the owl out, since all your units end up with 20+ health. He's really the only card that makes it a cohesive theme at all though. They could do a lot more. Maybe we'll see them both in the first expansion. Megasabin fucked around with this message at 18:37 on Jan 9, 2016 |
|
#
?
Jan 9, 2016 18:34
|
|
|
Megaflare posted:I had the same experience bouncing up and down on 11 my first time. I posted about it pretty recently. Eventually I looked at what legendaries/epics I had gotten and put together a deck using them and managed to bust through. In my case it was a healonar with immolation and regalia. You might just want to look at what you've gotten and see what you can manage to put together because once you hit 10 the first time you can go back to playing what you want without worrying about it. I just played at a different time of day after adding jusssst a bit more healing to my mid-range Lyonar provoke deck, and it worked out. I also got lucky by only playing squishy aggro decks to accumulate a five game win streak, instead of the big-threat control decks that I was having trouble with. Still only running one legendary/epic, a lucky regalia drop that was my very first pack opening. quote:I wonder if they will ever expand upon the Golem and Arcanyst unit themes. I have a deck of each, but they aren't really viable. The arcanyst deck is hilarious if you can get the owl out, since all your units end up with 20+ health. He's really the only card that makes it a cohesive theme at all though. They could do a lot more. Maybe we'll see them both in the first expansion. Arcanyst doesn't seem to really work out yet, but Golem decks are terrifying as hell (at least in silver/gold level). Big fat threats that are essentially immune to all soft removal (except Repulsors)? Opportunities to give them Provoke and get them out even cheaper? Scary.
|
|
#
?
Jan 9, 2016 19:05
|
|
|
What should I be spending my first spirit points to craft? I've got about 530 right now, which doesn't seem like much. Should I be picking the coolest rarest card I can, or a smattering of solid commons? Sticking to one faction, or getting neutral staples? Specific card suggestions would be helpful as well. Not really into Leonar or Abyssian, but I see some appeal in the others, if I have the right cards to execute their strategies. Or should I not be spending a drat thing and focus on getting better with the starter decks first?
|
|
#
?
Jan 9, 2016 19:25
|
|
|
Craft the mechs for a mech vanar list and coast to rank s
|
|
#
?
Jan 9, 2016 19:32
|
|
|
Sup dudes, been playing since the beta (alpha?). Primarily Lyonar, some Magmar. I took about 6 months off, and when I came back a few weeks ago I discovered that Magmar got nerfed and my Lyonar decks are significantly stronger 
PaintVagrant fucked around with this message at 04:26 on Jan 10, 2016 |
|
#
?
Jan 10, 2016 04:21
|
|
|
why the dang is gravity well a legendary? 4 0/1 with provoke for a faction where the big combos either don't affect walls or don't affect multiple units maybe the real legendary is the guilt-free 350 spirit you get as you feed it into the chipper
|
|
#
?
Jan 10, 2016 04:46
|
|
|
Here's a tip for the 1/250 games where this actually comes up. I finally played a game (gauntlet) where we both ran out of deck. Mostly because he was Vanar and felt very strongly that I should run back over to my side to fight his Infiltrators and 3/3 walls, and I felt the exact opposite. The system in this game deals 2 damage to you whenever you try to draw a card from an empty deck (so 0/2/4 from your turn draw). It took me a turn to realize why I was taking damage and my opponent wasn't: in anticipation, he'd stopped playing cards a couple of turns in advance and filled his hand so that he couldn't draw anymore. It seems obvious in retrospect, but not knowing it in advance almost cost me the game in a stupid way. RoboCicero posted:why the dang is gravity well a legendary? 4 0/1 with provoke for a faction where the big combos either don't affect walls or don't affect multiple units It wouldn't surprise me if that card (or something that comboed with it) was totally overhauled at some point. For example, if the walls used to be a lot bigger or Razorback used to work on them. There's a few other "?" Legendaries like Decimate and Aegis Barrier. BigLeafyTree posted:Yeah, Magmar feels like 10% of the player base or less from my last few nights of playing. They're strictly worse than before due to the Mana Burn change (it's weird now, maybe just kinda bad), and the Plasma Storm cost increase. I have a hard time believing they're bad enough to warrant everyone dropping them the way they have though, and everyone seems to be playing decks that puke out a million small creatures with little fear, so it should be great at preying on them. I was thinking the same thing. Even with the slight nerf to Plasma Storm, they have more crowd control than everyone else combined: Kinetic Equilibrium, Spirit Harvester, Makantor Warbeast, Diretide Frenzy. It's not like the loss of Mana Burn deprived them of single-target removal either: Egg Morph, Metamorphosis, and even Natural Selection on an empty board are still pretty great "answer-ANYTHING" cards. I wonder if everyone was just sick of playing them.
|
|
#
?
Jan 10, 2016 19:09
|
|
|
This is a tempo-based game, +1 mana cost is enough to change cards from OP to unplayable. Comparing mana burn to egg morph is silly. One costs 2 mana and the other costs 4. Being able to mana burn away a jaxi for an even 1:1 is fine. Are you really going to egg morph a jaxi and be happy? Natural selection is too situational and metamorphasis costs a billion. Also magmar was already weak against songhai and they're now so much worse. Being able to kill a 4/4 gorehorn with mana burn + hero punch is good. Having to now spend double mana to kill a 3-drop from songhai is horrible. koolkal fucked around with this message at 20:03 on Jan 10, 2016 |
|
#
?
Jan 10, 2016 20:00
|
|
|
koolkal posted:This is a tempo-based game, +1 mana cost is enough to change cards from OP to unplayable. Comparing mana burn to egg morph is silly. One costs 2 mana and the other costs 4. Being able to mana burn away a jaxi for an even 1:1 is fine. Are you really going to egg morph a jaxi and be happy? No, obviously not. But Jaxi is also almost never going to be a "remove this or lose" situation. I wasn't at all disputing that losing Mana Burn is a nerf for Magmar (and a buff for Vanar), my point was just that Magmar still has several of the best, catch-all hard removal cards and board sweepers in the game. On the other hand, I'm not playing them either, so maybe the meta is just way too fast for their best cards right now.
|
|
#
?
Jan 10, 2016 20:27
|
|
|
This game's beta state is getting pretty obvious. A lot of cards have really odd power-curve jumps. Keeper of the Vale and Jaxi come out as the most egregious, though a lot of the artifacts also carry that issue. It just feels...it's fun, but like? Really unrefined and unbalanced, I guess?
|
|
#
?
Jan 11, 2016 21:50
|
|
|
James Totes posted:This game's beta state is getting pretty obvious. A lot of cards have really odd power-curve jumps. Keeper of the Vale and Jaxi come out as the most egregious, though a lot of the artifacts also carry that issue. It just seems odd that, considering how much more powerful they are than lower rarities, Legendaries aren't restricted to 1 or 2 in a deck. Maybe it's conditioning from Hearthstone, but it just seems like a bad design decision.
|
|
#
?
Jan 11, 2016 23:47
|
|
|
Yeah it's probably my biggest problem with the game. So many decks are defined by their faction's high rarity broken cards like mekantor or holy immo and it makes it really hard to branch out because budget decklists work fine until you get to higher ranks and start losing because your cards are just worse. My winrate with songhai after crafting 3x tuskboar went up ridiculously because the card is just straight up broken to the point that it will win you games because you just toss it out and charge face and your opponent is forced to smack it and take 6 damage from your 2 drop.
koolkal fucked around with this message at 06:32 on Jan 12, 2016 |
|
#
?
Jan 12, 2016 06:28
|
|
|
Broken cards: a 6 mana 4/4
|
|
#
?
Jan 12, 2016 06:53
|
|
|
James Totes posted:This game's beta state is getting pretty obvious. A lot of cards have really odd power-curve jumps. Keeper of the Vale and Jaxi come out as the most egregious, though a lot of the artifacts also carry that issue. As someone who plays 3 Keepers, it's the only card I find really egregiously-designed and it better be getting nerfed and de-RNGed hard in the next patch. I don't think Jaxi is anywhere near as oppressive, and which artifacts do you mean? The only one I see with any regularity in top tier decks is Arclyte Regalia, and it's both pretty uncritical and pretty far down the list of overpowered cards. bvoid posted:It just seems odd that, considering how much more powerful they are than lower rarities, Legendaries aren't restricted to 1 or 2 in a deck. Maybe it's conditioning from Hearthstone, but it just seems like a bad design decision. I'm pretty sure Jaxi is either common or uncommon. Hearthstone is almost unique among CCGs in having that kind of restriction and I think it's a really clumsy and bad way to mitigate overpowered cards. It may seem intuitively welcome to limit people to only playing Keeper (or whatever) once per game instead of three times. But you haven't actually reduced its power- you've just made it way more inconsistent whether or not it even gets drawn in the game. Before it caked its pants, Might and Magic: Duel of Champions had what I thought was a really elegant take on the same concept. Within each faction and each of the three card types, there were a handful of Unique cards that players were limited to running 1 copy of. However, for each card type there was a 2-cost neutral 1/1 creature that would tutor a Unique card (search your deck for it and put it in your hand). Serious constructed decks ran 3 copies of these. In effect, this meant you had 4 copies of the Unique in your deck for the purpose of drawing it, but could only actually play it once per game.
|
|
#
?
Jan 12, 2016 07:09
|
|
|
Every time a big legendary gets dropped on me and wrecks my board state I can usually reflect on the previous turn and realize I should have anticipated the play or that I had been cycling the wrong cards or that I just got unlucky with my draws for answers. Very rarely have I just sat there and said, "This is bullshit. That card is broken." Except when the legendary my opponent dropped is Keeper of the value. I play with budget decks across the board and sometimes I just hit an opponent who has a more expensive deck and that's ok - I'm probably going to lose. Magic is one of the best card games ever made and nobody complains about balance when Timmy brings his homebrew to Friday Night Magic and gets crushed by an $800 FotM standard meta deck. That's an inherent part of CCGs.
|
|
#
?
Jan 12, 2016 07:25
|
|
|
James Totes posted:This game's beta state is getting pretty obvious. A lot of cards have really odd power-curve jumps. Keeper of the Vale and Jaxi come out as the most egregious, though a lot of the artifacts also carry that issue. That's pretty much what made me stop playing ~4 months ago. I was just so tired of really efficient legendaries wiping me out with essentially nothing I could've done to stop it. CCGs must not be my genre.
|
|
#
?
Jan 12, 2016 17:31
|
|
|
koolkal posted:Yeah it's probably my biggest problem with the game. So many decks are defined by their faction's high rarity broken cards like mekantor or holy immo and it makes it really hard to branch out because budget decklists work fine until you get to higher ranks and start losing because your cards are just worse. My winrate with songhai after crafting 3x tuskboar went up ridiculously because the card is just straight up broken to the point that it will win you games because you just toss it out and charge face and your opponent is forced to smack it and take 6 damage from your 2 drop. This is a collectable card game. Decks with higher rarity cards are going to do better. There is no way around this. I mean gaining gold and spirit to use towards building your ideal deck is half of the gameplay in these types of games.
|
|
#
?
Jan 12, 2016 18:29
|
|
|
Kronikle posted:Don't disenchant them. They're still not horrible and can actually win you games sometimes. Yeah, any of those unanswered is a game-ender. Nemesis a bit faster, but Pandora just generates stupid amounts of value.
|
|
#
?
Jan 12, 2016 18:48
|
|
|
LordZoric posted:I was just so tired of really efficient legendaries wiping me out with essentially nothing I could've done to stop it. CCGs must not be my genre. Might not be. It irks me to often see digital CCGs in these threads misattributed as "pay-to-win" (not saying you did this). To me, that term strongly implies that there is no ceiling (or at least a very stratospheric one) on purchaseable advantage, and that the game mechanics are compromised if not designed from the ground up to nickel and dime the hell out of players every step of the way. See Clash of Clans. CCGs, digital or otherwise, do not fit this model because there's a very tangible (and in Duelyst very low) ceiling on purchaseable advantage, which is having a single tier 1 deck. Once you have that, you're on an even keel with the top players in the format, even if they have spent $100, $1,000, or $10,000 more than you. The better way to think about it is as the price of admission, at least for playing competitively. I honestly would much prefer it if they just sold the game with a playset of all of the cards for a set fee and I could build decks without going through the cynical random booster and rarity level bullshit, even if that fee was quite high. Fantasy Flight LCGs (Netrunner, Game of Thrones, etc.) do exactly this. But especially with Hearthstone in the mix, I don't think it's possible at this point to sell a CCG or MOBA without doing the F2P dance.
|
|
#
?
Jan 12, 2016 20:30
|
|
|
Avasculous posted:I honestly would much prefer it if they just sold the game with a playset of all of the cards for a set fee and I could build decks without going through the cynical random booster and rarity level bullshit, even if that fee was quite high. Fantasy Flight LCGs (Netrunner, Game of Thrones, etc.) do exactly this. That was essentially the pricing model they had when they kickstarted the game. I can see from a business standpoint why they changed it, but it was enough to eventually turn me off completely.
|
|
#
?
Jan 12, 2016 21:01
|
|
|
I loathe Tusk Boar so much. It's almost as awful as Keeper at this point. loving Songhai. That is all.
|
|
#
?
Jan 13, 2016 01:15
|
|
|
I think Songhai is actually really weak right now. If you know how to play against them (keep your back covered/against the wall, save removal for gorehounds and buffed ranged minions) then they pretty much lose barring them going some lucky OTC combo. I crafted almost all the good Songhai cards last month, and despite having all the legendaries and epics the deck is just so underwhelming to play. I lose to most people who play well, and only win when I get off some stupid Lantern Fox combo. Oh well. They were next on the list anyway. I have almost all the good cards for Lyonar, Abyssian, and Songhai at this point. Vanar doesn't even need their epics and legendaries to be effective, so I think I might do Vertuvian next.
|
|
#
?
Jan 13, 2016 02:35
|
|
|
What? Songhai is probably one of the stronger classes right now, Mega.
|
|
#
?
Jan 13, 2016 02:57
|
|
|
GreyPowerVan posted:What? Songhai is probably one of the stronger classes right now, Mega. Maybe I just suck at playing them, and also play against people who are equally as bad. I feel like the same thing happens to both me and my opponents. I'm almost always happy to get matched against a Songhai player. This is at Rank 5. Or perhaps I just built a lovely deck despite having the cards. Anyone have an S-Rank songhai deck list they've used? Megasabin fucked around with this message at 03:31 on Jan 13, 2016 |
|
#
?
Jan 13, 2016 03:22
|
|
|
Yeah, Songhai can do 8 direct spell damage with a single card - it's trivial for them to burst 15 damage, and not especially unlikely to burst 20+ - with an empty board. That is some scary poo poo right there. At least Abyssian usually needs a bit of board presence or multiple turns to burn you out. I play a cheap Lyonar midrange deck, which (despite a general lack of legendaries) should be at it's best against the burst/rush decks. I've got more than 25 points of healing in my deck, and still find myself consistently dead before turn 9. The only thing that makes slower control decks competitive is Keeper, but a) that's a legendary I'm not going to spend money on, and b) it works just as well for Songhai to pull out their bullshit rush/return boar the turn after I was forced to spend 6 HP to kill the fucker.
|
|
#
?
Jan 13, 2016 05:01
|
|
|
quote:The only thing that makes slower control decks competitive is Keeper, but a) that's a legendary I'm not going to spend money on, and b) it works just as well for Songhai to pull out their bullshit rush/return boar the turn after I was forced to spend 6 HP to kill the fucker. Also a legendary, but Archon Spellbinder is another firm dick punch to Songhai.
|
|
#
?
Jan 13, 2016 06:18
|
|
|
Songhai is probably the best faction in the game right now. It's been cleaning up in tournaments and ladder decks generally won't run anti-songhai tech like spellbinder due to both the dust cost and the mana cost. In a lot of matchups it's too slow or too weak of an effect for ladder. Here's an aggro songhai: 3 Inner Focus 2 Juxtaposition 2 Mist Dragon Seal 3 Saberspine Seal 2 Chakri Avatar 3 Flameblood Warlock 3 Jaxi 3 Kaido Assassin 3 Pheonix Fire 3 Tusk Boar 1 Alcuin Loremaster 3 Gore Horn 2 Killing Edge 2 Saberspone Tiger 2 Lantern Fox 2 Spiral Technique Here's what I run and I got s-rank with basically the same list last month (used to have onyx bear seal but I see way less fatties this season): 3 Inner Focus 2 Juxtaposition 3 Mist Dragon Seal 3 Saberspine Seal 2 Mask of Shadows 3 Jaxi 3 Pheonix Fire 3 Tusk Boar 2 Alcuin Loremaster 3 Gore Horn 3 Sword of Mechazor 3 Killing Edge 2 Twilight Sorcerer 2 Lantern Fox 2 Spiral Technique Mulligan for minions, keep inner focus if you have relevant minions (gorehorn, sword of mech), keep alcuin against vetruvian (a good way to deal with 3rd wish is your own 3rd wish). Throw out Tusk Boars to kill 2/3s and force a general swing or sometimes just send it face and force something. Basically if you have 2 mana and tusk boar you should probably be doing something with it. And keep a hand slot open although even people at S-Rank will often forget to check your hand size and waste effort in killing an already-dead Tusk Boar. Inner focus will let you make big plays around turns 3-4 because you can do things like gorehorn + inner focus and kill a silverguard knight from hand while developing a 4/4 all for 3 mana. Sword of mech + Inner Focus = your AoE for dealing with spammy vanar and abyssian decks. You can often race aggro decks especially if you get a good mask backstab hit, abuse lantern fox for slower matchups and spiral technique is just so much damage against decks relying on healing mystics and rejuvenators for weak heals. I have the most trouble with lyonar because sundrop elixir + martyrdom + tons of taunts mean they can just run your hand empty. In that matchup I find I usually need lantern fox + seal plays to burst 15-20 damage and maybe a spiral technique the next turn.
|
|
#
?
Jan 13, 2016 21:14
|
|
|
Is Jax Truesight any good? I feel kinda  I pulled a legendary in my first pack.edit: and in my second pack i got a rare and two epics! wow i sure am raking in the fancy cards for this game that i'll probably be Real Bad at Lutha Mahtin fucked around with this message at 00:28 on Jan 14, 2016 |
|
#
?
Jan 13, 2016 22:02
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 19, 2024 21:51 |
|
|
I believe since the third wish change the only place you'll see a Jax is in a later game vanar list using it to combo with razorback. Maybe if you're newer it wouldn't be bad in a buff based deck of any class.
|
|
#
?
Jan 13, 2016 22:33
|
|