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I do agree that it feels a lot rougher as a non-IAP player -- a lot of legendaries are crazy efficient relative to other cards of the same level. For example, compare Slithdar Elder with Dragonbone Golem. I've run into my share of decks with 3 copies of 3 legendaries and it sucks. On the other hand, I like the base game enough to keep playing, but it's understandable if it's not your cup of tea. Btw, for the beginner's guide I feel like Vetruvian is a faction all about synergy -- individually each card is a bit weak but they have absolutely ruinous 2-card combos. Doesn't hurt that they have the most accessible card draw in the game. Their 2 cost obelysk is crazy annoying for being something you can summon 2 of the first turn, and nothing is more annoying to play around than a turn 1 pyromancer on the center row. Eventually, you will suffer a ton of humiliating losses to Stars' Fury. I also think Vanar is the classic control faction -- a lot of ways to control pacing with Hailstone Prison, Chromatic Cold and Aspect of the Wolf. Every time I play a good Vanar half my units turn to wolves and half their units turn into other units when they die. Anyway, nothing to add. Running an Abyssian and getting carried by the Bloodmoon Priestess + Shadowdancer combo
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# ¿ Oct 24, 2015 06:20 |
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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 17:37 |
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I don't really disagree with a lot of the points made above, but I do believe that new cards are on their way -- at the very least they're going to be doing 4 cards per month for the near future as ranking rewards (one of each rarity, first 3 rarities for silver, all four for gold and higher) and there's been some teaser art of new generals. Also I keep getting destroyed by Mechazor decks, but drat if I'll start running lightbenders or crossbones for them
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# ¿ Oct 27, 2015 20:32 |
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The puzzle missions are a bit misleading in that way -- Vanar can get some hilarious plays off of Hearth Sister, but I think a lot of them play more in the "i just returned all your best units to your hand, and now all your other units are wolves". They're pretty combo-heavy, I'll give you that. I think Magmar's starting deck is one of the easiest, along with Abyssian I believe.Roland Jones posted:For leveling up to 11 for each faction, should I just keep using the starter decks or try to make custom ones for it? I've gotten Magmar to 11 already, but I'm not sure what to go for with deckbuilding in this. They also released the November rewards: Jaxi seems like a incredibly strong 2-drop. Might experiment with an Abyssian deck with it + Shadow Reflection for some really rude plays. The others seem very specific in the decks their built for -- Grailmaster is noteworthy in that it seems to count summoning minions so Vanar, Abyssian, or Vetruvian might give her 5 keywords by the time she can act. Khymera seems built for Magmar rush decks and summons sub-2/2 cards 12/13 times, and Mechaz0r 1/13 times
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# ¿ Dec 1, 2015 18:40 |
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God, I feel like such a scrub but I pretty much always lose against Mechaz0r decks. A good one can pop one out on turn 4 or 5 and I can't get all my pieces into place by then. If it lost any one keyword it'd be a lot less threatening, but the combination of Airdrop, Ranged, and 'can't be targetted' is such a kick in the shins.
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# ¿ Dec 3, 2015 03:57 |
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I think I'm getting better at Gauntlet Either that, or I'm just pulling wins out of my rear end due to lucky card draws! It can be both. So does anyone have any strong opinions on Gauntlet? It seems in general you want to pick Magmar if at all possible, but any other faction can work, with Vetruvian and Songhai being stronger and Vanar, Lyonar, and Abyssian being slightly weaker? I have no scientific basis since I don't have that many Gauntlet games under my belt, but it definitely seems that for the format you want a good number of solid whites and blues, while also prioritizing a healthy amount of answer cards (Saberspine is *really good* in this format, while ephemeral shroud and repulsor beast are solid seconds. Lightbender has actually saved multiple runs, despite being much less good in constructed). Magmar is naturally great for this format because you have Plasma Storm, Natural Selection, Mana Burn, Fortitude, etc. It's really easy to get rolling with Magmar while the other team tries to stop your slowly advancing tide of shitbricks. Slithdar Elder is pretty much an instant-win if you drop him (unless you're against Vetruvian, in which case there's a 50/50 chance they'll take control of it). Vetruvian too, since you have a lot of easy buffs and card draw -- Star's Fury is a great finisher and a turn 1 Pyromancer is always going to cause headaches for the other team. Best case scenario you can start wiping minions with Scion's First Wish, worst case you force them to spend 2-3 mana on their first turn on a Saberspine, Mana Burn, etc. Obelysks are nice if you get some early tempo going, though the average lifespan of one on the front lines is about two turns. I've actually had a lot of success with Songhai, though I made the awful decision to draft Eight Gates and Kage in my last run. The relatively slower pace of Gauntlet means if you manage to grab a Lantern Fox you can work towards the Songhai Lantern > Inner Focus > Killing Edge combo, find extremely rude finishers with Spiral Technique, or just be a huge pain in general with Killing Edge, Mist Seal, Inner Focus and whatever neutrals you hit the board with. Lyonar is a bit weaker since you aren't guaranteed access to reliable Divine Bonds (you can and will lose to a double-bonded Ironcliffe though), but Tempest and Martyrdom gives you a lot of ways to back up your relatively beefy units. Holy Immolation is huge here. Vanar You can get some good plays by strangling the opponent with Hailstone Prison and wolfing their strong creeps, but I haven't really given them a recent try. Really struggles to finish a game off. Abyssian is also territory for me. No reliable access to Bloodmoon Priestesses means you're relying on Horn of the Forsaken and Wraithling Swarm for bodies to fuel stuff -- I've seen successes with Nightsorrow Assassin + Shadow Reflection for nasty 9 damage one-turn burst. Man, I haven't really played these guys in Gauntlet either.
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# ¿ Dec 15, 2015 01:34 |
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Funnily enough, I've had some solid runs with Songhai. You never want to try to draft spell Songhai, but if you grab every Inner Focus, Killing Edge, and Mist Dragon Seal that comes up you can still get a pretty strong burst with any number of lower-rarity dudes. At the same time, I do admit I got lucky and managed to get at least one Lantern Fox / Spiral Technique so I was able to really aggressively replace for those as finishers.
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# ¿ Dec 16, 2015 20:45 |
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I'm garbo and I don't play enough to hit gold, but it's alright. Blisster posted:I've been playing Abyssian wraithling and I think I'm in love. I always loved token decks in MTG so covering the board in infinite minions is definitely my jam. pre:.XXX GXBX .XXX
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# ¿ Dec 18, 2015 09:19 |
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LLSix posted:Just started playing, mostly with Magmar. Any suggestions for drafting gauntlet? Magmar is far and away the best faction for Gauntlet -- people talk about 'answer' cards, which means cards that instantly remove a problem from the board and Magmar has a ton of low-rarity cards that either provide answers or require them. I personally think Songhai and Lyonar are the second two solid factions just because they provide some basic buffs and combos. Lyonar has the slight weakness of being somewhat naff if you can't find a Divine Bond in your deck, but Holy Immolation and generally beefy units helps you overcome that somewhat. Songhai can be strong even if you don't draw Lantern Fox just off of its really powerful spells. I think Vitruvian is also strong, but they're finicky to play for a new player since obelysk placement / blast positioning is a bit tricky. This isn't to say never play Abyssian or Vanar (Gauntlet is a great way to experiment with other factions), but imo they're a lot weaker. I would play Vanar of Abyssian, but Vanar is also classic control and a bit difficult to play as a beginner as well. It ultimately comes down to playstyle, but here's a few Hot Tips for faction-specific 'how did i/my units die' plays. It's not expected that you play around all of these all the time, but there's a few that are good to know. Magmar : Never clump up your units since a Diretide Frenzy off a Saberspine can result in a 4 for 1 swing in Magmar's favor. Also watch out for Plasma Storm, which kills all minions with less than 3 attack. If you can bait one out early game that's good, since the big mana cost means they probably skipped a turn. At 8 mana Magmar can play two Adamantite Claws for a total of 10 attack off their general. Vetruvian: Star's Fury summons a 2/2 dervish in front of every unit you own, so if you have a lot of weenies you can get them all wiped or your general killed from across the screen, especially in combination with other buffs. Line your units up in a column (only if they don't have blast minions on the board!) if you feel vulnerable. Bone shards is also an annoying skill that deals 2 damage to all units around your general. Songhai: Songhai has a 7 mana spell that does 8 damage, so don't be surprised if you just die out of nowhere. Songhai is the king of OTK combos, so you should be hale and hearty when they hit 7+ mana since Lantern Fox > Inner Focus > Killing Edge is a 7 mana spell that deals 14 damage (!) Backstab is also a pretty nasty faction mechanic, so try to summon a small minion behind any target you don't want exposed. Songhai have Mist Dragon Seal, which can teleport any unit anywhere on the map, so keep that in mind. Abyssian: Can curse a unit so when it dies it deals 3 damage to you and any of your minions, so don't clump them up. Can give any unit +5 attack for 3 mana and has a 4/1 unit with rush for 3 mana too, which means a 9 damage spike from out of hand if you're unlucky. Also has Dark Seed, which deals damage based on how many cards in your hand you have. Lyonar: Lots of dispel and removal. Divine bond (3 mana) gives a unit attack equal to their health and can be doubled up really early so don't let high-health minions stay that way. Can heal one minion for 4 and deal 4 to all your units around it at 4 mana, and has Tempest, which deals 3 damage to everything on the board. Vanar: Hailstone Prison returns any card back to your hand and destroys the card completely if your hand is full. Walls can be transformed into 3/3, all the way up to 5/5 through Seismic Elemental, and can move and attack right away if they've been on the board more than one turn. There's also Avalanche, which stuns and deals 4 damage to all units on Vanar's starting side of the field which can be unpleasant if you're trying to play around Infiltrate. e: "gauntlet is an interesting environment because you're playing around rarity answers bluh bluh" "enemy plays slithdar elder into fractal replication" i'm extremely salty RoboCicero fucked around with this message at 21:57 on Dec 19, 2015 |
# ¿ Dec 19, 2015 21:01 |
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Endorph posted:are they going to improve this game's performance? my computer is pretty poo poo but I can run hearthstone, so I don't get why my computer'd be choking trying to play this.
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# ¿ Dec 19, 2015 22:43 |
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Buckled down and ground my way to Gold off of the standard Songhai OTK deck. It is fairly budget, but is still ~ 1000 spirit spent on cards, so probably only a project if you like Songhai and want to go beyond Inner Focus + Scarlet Viper. Does anyone have any immediate suggestions? I'm guessing replacing saberspines with Tusk Boars is my first priority, but what about beyond that? I feel like I can replace my Chakri Avatars, but I'm not sure what in favor of. Ancestral Divination is also a card that I end up replacing more often than not, but I can't deny that it helps a lot when I'm cycling for Inner Focus. I would say that I am a huge fan of Songhai, even if there are rumors of a Lantern Fox nerf coming down the line. You basically play combos from your hand and try to whittle the general down and keep the board clear until you hit 6 mana or so, at which point you can start comboing with Lantern Fox for 10+ damage out of hand. Being aggressive can also pay off dividends, since I've won games just because I kill any dude they drop. Stalling is really the game, and forcing the other general to kill Shieldmasters of Dagger Kiris (or burn dispels on Jaxes, Gorehorns, or Chakris) can all get you to the point where you drop someone. The reliance on Inner Focus is probably the weakest part, since the deck really suffers if you get unlucky and can't find one. It also means that you can't blow your load too early -- I had someone use up all their Inner Focuses in the first two turns on top of Tusk Boars and Saberspines, placing me at something like 7 health, then sit there unable to respond to any other cards I played. Anyway, off to do what I assume everyone does at Gold, which is lose 4 games in a row completing my Vanar Challenger quest
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# ¿ Dec 23, 2015 00:06 |
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BigLeafyTree posted:Tuskboars don't really replace Saberspine Seal, like at all. It's important to have both Saberspine and Killing Edge to add redundancy to your combo pieces. That way you just need to find Lantern Fox, Inner Focus, and one or two of Killing Edge or Saberspine Seal for your big turn. The things that stick out to me is I'm not sure you need to run 3 copies of both Dagger Kiri AND Lantern Fox, and that your deck's going in several directions at once (Chakri, Deathstrike Seal, Shieldmasters) and I'm not sure whether that adds enough robustness to be worth reducing the decks focus. Heartseeker as a carrier for Deathstrike and Killing Edge might be worth trying. Sword of Mechazor together with MDS or Inner Focus can clear the board in the early turns to help buy time for combo, or just get buffed to hell later for a giant Frenzy swing. e: Oh dang, didn't see your post Koolkal (and you will probably never see this note) but thanks for the additional tips! I'm about at the point where I want to go whole-hog into one faction so this is super helpful! RoboCicero fucked around with this message at 01:01 on Dec 23, 2015 |
# ¿ Dec 23, 2015 00:37 |
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Avasculous posted:Are there any others people know that I should look out for? Mind control effects also can't be dispelled. I think if you dispel a wall it's destroyed instantly, but I honestly can't think of a situation for me where that would've swung a game.
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# ¿ Dec 28, 2015 20:46 |
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I hope they go back and look at Rook at some point. He seems like such a classic "fun but not competitive card", but at 5 health he's just instantly blown up when he hits the board. I think at the very least he should have about 7 health -- having more reliably keywords would be nice, but I get that part of the appeal is getting keywords outside your faction when you play it.
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# ¿ Dec 29, 2015 21:38 |
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December patch notes quote:SUN ELEMENTAL Common Neutral - 4 COST Pretty huge Vetruvian nerfs. Anyone able to give feedback on how this affects them? It seems like all the big combo pieces got the hammer. Tempest going to 2 damage and 2 manage is pretty neat since 3 health is a pretty important breakpoint. New cards aren't really jumping out at me and all of them just seem kind of weird. Prophet of the White Palm seems like a interesting way to block AoE from clearing your board, but a 1/1 is good for very little other than damaging artifacts. Araki Headhunter has 3 health, so it's going to die before it can act imo, and Keeper of the Vale seems like a nice card that will summon your favorite 2 mana drop that got killed on turn 2.
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# ¿ Dec 30, 2015 04:33 |
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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
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# ¿ Jan 10, 2016 04:46 |
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https://forums.duelyst.com/t/duelyst-beta-0-56-0-pending-release-1-14-afternoon-pst/25510 Update notes are out. There's a AI duel mode introduced which is nice -- you can also grind up to faction level 10 in it. No nerfs or buffs so it's safe to assume that the end of January Patch will contain any changes.
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# ¿ Jan 14, 2016 21:56 |
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Ugh, Gauntlet Songhai without Inner Focus is a really crummy way to play it. As is Abyssian without wraithlings, though the power of Grasp of Agony takes the sting out a bit. Actually, I'm curious -- is the go-to Abyssian decks mostly rush / burn variants? I feel like I've only seen one or two Abyssian decks recently and they were all of the shadow creep variety. I'm assuming it's because Bloodmoon/Shadowdancer is too slow in the meta and the best decks require investment into Revenants that newbies might not have?
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# ¿ Jan 16, 2016 21:21 |
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I'm going to say I had a match where Keeper brought back the Spellbinder I killed the turn before and it was quite possibly the most demoralizing thing ever. It's probably karmic retribution for the games where I manage to get two Arclyte Regalias on my general and turn the rest of the fight into this e: getting stomped by turn 1 cyclone mask turn 2 mask of shadowsx2 is also karmic retribution, this time for a past life spent kicking orphans i'm guessing RoboCicero fucked around with this message at 19:09 on Jan 18, 2016 |
# ¿ Jan 18, 2016 18:15 |
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It would be nice if after selecting your faction you could select from one of three 'core' packs that highlight one of the faction gimmicks, e.g. 3 fenrir wolfmasters, 2 snowchasers, or 1 frosthorn (everyone would pick the wolfmasters in this case, but aside from that). There have been really weird runs in Arena where I feel like I'm effectively just playing a neutral faction with one or two splashes of color from a faction.
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# ¿ Jan 28, 2016 06:09 |
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quote:Lantern Fox (SONGHAI) - Text changed to Whenever this minion takes damage, put a Phoenix Fire in your action bar (also now a 3 mana for a 2/4) I'm really surprised that Keeper of the Vale didn't get any slaps on the wrist. Not sure what to think about the new cards. Dreamgazer seems sort of goofy (does it trigger cards that fire 'on playing this card from the action bar'?). Astral Crusader seems fun but somewhat unlikely to see any play (unless in Gauntlet and you darft an Aethermaster, at which point you'll play it out and watch as it's instantly dispelled on turn 3). I'd love to try running a replace deck with Aethermaster, White Widow, Dreamgazer, and Astral Crusader, but I'm not going to sink the spirit into an extremely goofy deck.
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# ¿ Jan 28, 2016 22:12 |
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I'm going to wait a day so all the Songhai decks break rank 5. Why is Mask of Shadows 2 mana? I've been putting a rust crawler into each deck as tech but I feel like I should have at least two or bust.
RoboCicero fucked around with this message at 08:14 on Feb 1, 2016 |
# ¿ Feb 1, 2016 08:10 |
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The +1 health obelysk is awful unless you go All In On Dervishes because your obelysk dervishes will not dies to a counterattack on a general. You will get bodyblocked by a mask on top of a whirling fart at the exact worst time.
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# ¿ Feb 1, 2016 22:31 |
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Yeah, I'm really looking forwards to the mini-expansions since the monthly rewards are neat, but they've all been neutral cards so far and there's clearly some faction archetypes that could stand to be expanded upon. Make a 3 mana 1/4 manaforger
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# ¿ Feb 2, 2016 20:40 |
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Please refer to this comic any time you see more than one Arclyte Regalia on the field.
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# ¿ Feb 7, 2016 21:50 |
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White Widow is a really strong Gauntlet draft since if you can drop it on turn 2 you are pretty much guaranteed to get value off of it. The fact it has 4 health is incredible, since it means it survives to the king of early-game removal, Saberspine Tiger. I feel myself itching to try a Aethermaster / White Widow deck (maybe Vanar with Mechaz0r as a second win condition) or, alternatively, some kind of extremely goofy Songhai Arcanyst build with Lantern Fox, Owl, and Mobeius. Depends on if I want to set 900-1800 spirit on fire for super gimmicks though.
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# ¿ Feb 9, 2016 02:06 |
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BJPaskoff posted:Gauntlet unlocks for me at 3 AM EST, which appears to be exactly like Hearthstone's Arena. I have 280 gold saved up from the fun (but easy) challenges, so I'm looking forward to being on more or less equal footing since I'm getting crushed in Ranked. Speaking of, I'm running a Songhai Arcanyst deck for shits and giggles and it's quite fun! Deck is not competitive (not a lot of answers and hilariously vulnerable to dispel) but if an Owlbear lives to the second turn things get crazy extremely quickly. I am tempted to craft Lantern Foxes / Mobius for it.
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# ¿ Feb 10, 2016 06:28 |
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There's a fairly good chance the bimonthly patch comes out tomorrow, unless there was an announcement otherwise that I missed.
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# ¿ Feb 10, 2016 20:12 |
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Androc posted:Yyyyep, I learned that one the hard way, too. And, hey, as long as we're talking Mechaz0r decks: Also new patch! The devs say that balance updates are coming (Keeper, Third Wish, anything else on the chopping block?), but meanwhile we get Unranked Mode, which is a great way to chowder through those "win 4 games with Vetruvian" quests with when you have nothing much more threatening than a Howling Dervish. e: Also this is a weird opinion but I really hope they go back through some of these monthly cards and think about making them faction-specific. Khymera is one of those cards that opens itself up to cheesy plays in Magmar and is completely unplayable everywhere else. RoboCicero fucked around with this message at 22:17 on Feb 17, 2016 |
# ¿ Feb 17, 2016 22:13 |
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Man, if you play Lyonar against Vanar I feel like you have to enter that matchup knowing that you're flipping a coin on actually using Guardian if you haven't baited out a Prison or two.
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# ¿ Feb 23, 2016 23:12 |
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Sure, to you unranked means 'fun place to try out goofy decks', but to others it means 'at last, i can crush nerds with my 10k spirit songhai deck and just never stop winning'
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# ¿ Feb 25, 2016 03:39 |
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quote:I found a really elegant way to do this, and we'll be experimenting with a very small but impactful rule change and several card changes that will make you look twice at a lot of underused cards just sitting around in your collection. Will Rook finally be usable? Will Khymera be viable in anything other than Final Gimmick Magmar decks? Will Vanar wall spells stop being a trap for newbie players who feel really great about summoning 6 0/2 walls on turn one?
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# ¿ Mar 21, 2016 22:47 |
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Reducing the card limit to 2 is a pretty good guess -- I can see the reasoning behind 3 cards max (incl. legendaries) because that plus the nutso card draw / free cycling means they really want to promote consistent combos (and extremely expensive high-end decks) but it also means some cards are best in class and you can just stock up on those. Certain archetypes are naturally going to suffer -- mechaz0r is an obvious one, but tbh it'll also be interesting since some really iconic class combos that rely on one card (Divine Bond is the most obvious example, with Bloodmoon/Deathwatch being another that comes to mind) become pretty rare. None of those were ever super reliable or top tier, but there's still a bit of 'build your deck around drawing this card' to them.
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# ¿ Mar 22, 2016 03:26 |
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Good points on the 2 card limit. It's obvious now that spreading the amount of cards used per deck would make them way more homogenous.Wezlar posted:Wait Jaxi was better before?
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# ¿ Mar 22, 2016 06:52 |
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That's pretty interesting -- I recently started playing Hearthstone and it feels like Hearthstone has less removal than Duelyst, though now that I'm thinking about it Hearthstone definitely has just as many hard removals, and significantly fewer silences. I might have to try it out, though the F2P model / emphasis on randomness seems like a red flag. Seems like the system of gaining mana / drawing / playing cards would make it slower than either, but this is purely conjecture. Also I love how Faeria is the name of the game, the crafting currency, and the resource system.
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# ¿ Mar 27, 2016 19:03 |
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Kronikle posted:You only technically lose the spirit you gained from gauntlet and gift crates. Most of the spirit you've collected on your account was obtained through disenchanting cards that you've opened through packs and you'll be getting all those packs back. So it's kind of just a minimal loss. This will be pretty interesting to monitor going forward -- funny how they basically reversed Spelljammer so that it functions the opposite of the way it did before. I wonder how this impacts Mechaz0r decks now that you can't prep for them by aggressively drawing/replacing for Crossbones / removal of choice as soon as you see the first Helm Of Mechaz0r hit the board. Arclyte Regalia's sure going to be way more annoying to deal with, I'll tell you that. I've been running a goofy Arcanyst Songhai deck, this will be interesting to see if changes to card draw has completely kneecapped it (probably).
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# ¿ Mar 30, 2016 01:11 |
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Oh dang, you're right. Skimmed over that line.
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# ¿ Mar 30, 2016 01:23 |
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Lionheart Blessing returning 2 cards for 1 mana when played intelligently is going to make it a pretty strong inclusion in Lyonar decks imo. Divine Bond going down to 2 mana means it comes out earlier and makes it easier to drop a unit and bond in the same turn. Previously in a lot of cases Bond targets usually show up with a giant honking sign on their heads so you can rush them down before the general open palm slams two bonds on them the turn after.
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# ¿ Mar 30, 2016 01:40 |
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koolkal posted:Yeah, songhai is just a dumpster fire now
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# ¿ Mar 30, 2016 04:59 |
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Oh true. Every single aggro deck is going to want Spelljammer. I knew I've been saving up all this spirit for a reason
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# ¿ Mar 30, 2016 05:11 |
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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 17:37 |
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Yeah, replacing has gotten extremely important when you're no longer replacing one of two cards you're drawing and instead simply keeping your hand stable. It's incredibly important to know when to replace an 'answer' and when to discard it to keep up tempo. Also I just realized that Astral Crusader just got even more worthless lmao. e: I'm about to lose against this Magmar which Flash Reincarated multiple Twilight Archons without any spells played as his opening moves. He used Hollow Grovekeeper to kill my Mechaz0r. RoboCicero fucked around with this message at 06:32 on Mar 30, 2016 |
# ¿ Mar 30, 2016 06:30 |