Cactus Game Design Message Boards

Quote from: Chronic Apathy on February 01, 2012, 10:49:29 PM

Quote from: TheHobbit13 on February 01, 2012, 10:35:26 PM

Every respectable standalone defense uses Sabbath Breaker.

Fair enough. I'd still ban Uzzah and Gomer before I'd ban SB.

Ban all three.  They don't "fit in" to any theme defense, are used in almost all decks, and force people to go looking elsewhere and become more creative in defense.

The point of Type Ban is to remove overly powerful cards to help balance the meta out more, not take out cards just to change the meta for the fun of it.

I'm going to jump in, throw my 1 cent in (sense my 2 cents aren't worth anything anyway, and I need every cent of my money in this economy), then never come back to this. PLEASE DO NOT BAN ANYTHING SILVER. It has a hard enough time getting anything good. Now that we finally are starting to pick up some good cards, you want to ban them. Ban whatever problem their causing, but PLEASE keep our silver!

Just FYI if something gets banned in type ban it has no effect on the real game. Type ban is just a for fun gameplay variant some people play in rts. Cactus is probably never going to ban cards for realz

Speed defenses have overcentralized the meta in Type 1 2p for far too long. Ban them all, and you might start to actually see different defenses here and there.

Quote from: Master KChief on February 02, 2012, 02:15:04 AM

Speed defenses have overcentralized the meta in Type 1 2p for far too long. Ban them all, and you might start to actually see different defenses here and there.

Again, that's not the point of Type Ban. The point is to make as few cuts as possible to help balance the meta, not centralize it to whatever we want it to be. The far-reaching goal of TB is to eventually make it a real category, and banning every staple card is not conductive of that goal.

These are my thoughts as well, which is why, though I support type ban, I advocate as few bans at a time and then only for the most broken cards.

Quote from: Master KChief on February 02, 2012, 02:15:04 AM

Speed defenses have overcentralized the meta in Type 1 2p for far too long. Ban them all, and you might start to actually see different defenses here and there.

Again, that's not the point of Type Ban. The point is to make as few cuts as possible to help balance the meta, not centralize it to whatever we want it to be. The far-reaching goal of TB is to eventually make it a real category, and banning every staple card is not conductive of that goal.

Define "Balance."  A huge percentage of decks use a standalone defense, so a few targeted bans will force the meta to be more diverse, which is the whole point.

The suggestion to ban staple cards is fully half the reason why the concept of banning cards will never have legitimacy in this community. I argue against the notion that banning one card will have a snowball effect, and concepts like "ban standalone defenses!" completely ruins that.

The suggestion to ban staple cards is fully half the reason why the concept of banning cards will never have legitimacy in this community.

In other words, being unwilling to change at the expense of the game having an unhealthy meta is half the reason banning will never have legitimacy?

I argue against the notion that banning one card will have a snowball effect, and concepts like "ban standalone defenses!" completely ruins that.

If 'snowball' equals 'balanced' in this case, then perhaps by taking a page from other successful CCG's we can easily see the method works.

Banning more than a small handful of cards that make powerful offenses overpowered is what Type Ban is trying to do. Doing anything more than that kills any legitimacy TB is trying to create, and it was that reason that I argued against banning cards from individual themes in the last thread, though I've since become more open to the idea. The point isn't to centralize the meta so much as it is to bring every viable theme to roughly the same level. For instance, if we had five or six themes that were at roughly the same power level, then that would be a balanced meta. The goal is balance, and through that, the reduction of centralization in the meta will happen. As of right now, the only cards I think need banned are MMoJ, Mayhem, and Angel Under the Oak. These three selections would kill the chance of a huge advantage early game, and strip the two best offenses of one of their strongest respective points, bringing them down to roughly the same level as Genesis is now (at least in theory), without crippling them entirely.

Type Ban as an official category will never happen unless the people who advocate it and work on it show initiative in proving the people who fear the snowball effect wrong. That means that it has to be handled extremely selectively and tentatively, lest the powers-at-be look at the unofficial category, say "told you so" and "I knew it," and refuse to ever consider it again, which if Type Ban were to be defined by your suggestions, they would be right to do. Keep in mind I'm a huge advocate of the banning of cards, even to the point of banning a lot of the staples, since I prefer more diverse decks and metas, but that is simply not going to happen - ever. With that in mind, I still believe that it's possible to eventually convince the powers-at-be that Type Ban can be a successful official game type, but not if we've banned Uzzah, Plot, Joseph, Angel Under the Oak, Sam, TGT, Mayhem, NJ, and Thad, all in the name of a diverse meta. I contribute to the Type Ban threads because I want to see it become a real thing, and suggestions that aren't extremely conservative will ensure that this will never be taken seriously. Neither one of you play online (where most Type Ban testing would take place) all that much to begin with, so why do you even care?

Why the lack of respect for defense?  If we are banning the main cards of the best offenses to bring them in line with less-powerful offenses, why can't we do that with defense?  The semiban of Plot is even better, so it'll be used only in Brown defenses, instead of EVERYTHING.

No, you'll get the same standalone defense, just with different offenses.

If I'm not for neutering, I'm certainly not for banning.