Cactus Game Design Message Boards

     So, firstly one must understand speed in order to understand the implications. Many players will assume speed is just a deck that draws fast, but I disagree. I think speed is a deck that relies on drawing in order to stay competitive. This differentiates true speed from something like Tim Maly's deck. Speed has proven to be the strongest deck form for many reasons, mostly obvious, but for now I am focusing on speed versus speed.

      As Ring Wraith and RDT have both expressed, speed vs speed tends to be a coin flip. I completely agree with this sentiment for a handful of reasons. The first of which is the snowball effect. For example, assuming identical decks, if by complete chance, one deck happens to draw Reach of Desperation first, we all assume he will be at a three card advantage, and therefore more likely to make successful blocks and rescues. What most fail to recognize is that drawing cards increases the likelihood of drawing cards that enable drawing. That three card advantage may soon compound into being a six or nine card advantage very shortly. Obviously, there is also a chance that the opponent his own copies of the cards in question and things will even out (assuming they are not nearing the end of the game), but there is a small problem with this logic. It operates under the pretense that drawing a specific card offers you some sort of strategic advantage or value regardless of when it is drawn. This is obviously not the case (to be put simply, drawing cards early is better than drawing cards slightly later).

     I don't think anyone will argue that cards have different value when presented with different scenarios. One of the most convincing examples is The Strong Angel. The Strong Angel is one of the best heroes in the game early game, but is somewhat weak late game. As the game progresses, by even just one turn, the possible scenarios change, and therefore the values change. One crucial thing to note is that it is actually possible for The Strong Angel to last through many different scenarios if drawn early (early through late game), but only one scenario if drawn late (solely late game). This means the later you draw The Strong Angel, the more useless it becomes. The utility drops off sharply. In this sense, it is almost never disadvantageous in regards to the value of that specific card to draw it later rather than earlier.

     In the case of The Strong Angel, this seems fairly obvious. The value is essentially regressive, and that indicates to everyone that you want it early. What is truly interesting to me is how the value of cards that are progressive transfer when drawn at different times. One of the best examples of a card with a progressive value is Chariots of Fire. Early game, Chariots of Fire is useless. Late game, Chariots of Fire is fantastic. However, regardless of when you draw Chariots of Fire, the value remains fairly similar. Although it offers more utility having it earlier, it offers almost as much utility having it later.

     The second reason I agree with the sentiment expressed is because of speed play style. When one gets even a 1 soul advantage in speed vs speed, he forces the other player to over commit, as both players know that the game many end at any time by sheer luck of the draw. This over commitment may be in the form of attacking with a specific hero or acting more aggressively, but it essentially forces the other player to play at a subpar level. Subpar isn't the best phrase perhaps, as it is the correct move to play like such.

     The final main reason I agree is speed decks rely more heavily on all of their cards than other deck archetypes do. Alex mentioned in another thread that speed vs speed should be less based on luck than other matchups simply due to the fact that players tend to draw more of their deck. The fact is, though, that speed decks lose to really stupid stuff. It is very possible that a speed deck will lose to 5 walk in rescues to a small band. It is unlikely that any other form of deck would lose to 5 walk in rescues to the same small band. This is because speed decks need every slot for cards of the utmost importance: cards that are useful in almost any scenario. Larger decks tend to have room for specific “counter cards”, that is cards that are only useful in uncommon scenarios. Even if both players draw 75% of their deck, the only card that would have mattered may have been one specific card.

Reserved for possible overflow tomorrow.

With the exception of combos or other silly things, my goal has been to build steal from Gabe decks that, when piloted at a high level, will produce the highest win percentage possible.

FTFY.

Nice thoughts though. Your first reason is definitely the main reason, but the other two are nice additions. Trolling the meta FTW.

In the end I agree with sauce that the best way to fix this would be to make rule changes. I would suggest that the d3 every turn would be limited to d1 in type 1 and to a d2 in type 2.

What? That would create more luck based games, since if you don't draw evil right away you're screwed. It would make speed even more prevalent to getting at the cards you need.

Quote from: Ring Wraith on December 23, 2011, 02:37:54 PM

Quote from: TheHobbit13 on December 23, 2011, 02:34:42 PM

In the end I agree with sauce that the best way to fix this would be to make rule changes. I would suggest that the d3 every turn would be limited to d1 in type 1 and to a d2 in type 2.

What? That would create more luck based games, since if you don't draw evil right away you're screwed. It would make speed even more prevalent to getting at the cards you need.

First of all it would also be harder to draw lost souls so hopefully that would balance out the evil. Second, if you aren't playin enough evil that is really to bad I am tired of the rules catoring to small defenses. And lastly just because speed would become more of a neccessity doesn't mean players would be able to find the cards to fill that gap. Regardless this would be an interesting concept to playtest.

Another rule I thought would be interesting would be to say the first time (that is all game) a hero enters the field of play it cannot be targeted and cannot participate in battle for one turn.

So your solution to speed is to make in a necessity.

(╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻

Encouraging speed will only increase the need to play speed it won't make speed decks any faster, in fact it would slow them down a lot. But I agree that the sudden shift in speed would be boring, perhaps the number of cards you draw every turn should be proportional to the number of cards you have to start with or even the number of cards you have left in your deck deck. That would at least encourage players to build larger decks. Or maybe there should be a rule of four, that is, you can only draw 2 additional cards on offense and two additional cards on defense per turn in addition to the three you draw automatically. Or something to that effect. This way you hurt speed while at the same time don't punish those who don't want to use it.

Or you could go a whole different route and make a rule that puts the minimum deck size at 63 and forces you to balance good and evil. Personally I like this the best as it corrects some other problems redemption has in addition to speed.

You could always have different rules for different catagories. And in theory you could have the 63 card minimum rule without having the balanced part, that way watchfuk servant, zeb... etc would still work. But I guess what I am trying to say I don't see speed being hurt to much unless major changes are implemented. If not that is okay too because there are more creative ways to run speed than there have been in a while, it also gives the game a nice flow. Although I will say if speed is to remain untouched top cut would be really nice.

That's like summoning sickness in magic?

I think I remember when Redemption came out --**clearing cobwebs** you only drew 1 and were able to have duplicates in your deck  (like 4 or was it as many as we wanted?) and the deck size was smaller, more like magic.
But back then, there were hardly draw cards in the game, and it was so slow so they published a rule change about drawing 3 per turn and it sped the game up and made more LS available for rescue.

So I guess my point is that rule changes of this sort have been done in the history of the game.

I think I remember when Redemption came out --**clearing cobwebs** you only drew 1 and were able to have duplicates in your deck  (like 4 or was it as many as we wanted?) and the deck size was smaller, more like magic.
But back then, there were hardly draw cards in the game, and it was so slow so they published a rule change about drawing 3 per turn and it sped the game up and made more LS available for rescue.

So I guess my point is that rule changes of this sort have been done in the history of the game.

Is that really true? I don't remember seeing that in the first edition rulebooks, and I did play back in the day of Prophets and so used those rulebooks. Are you sure that wasn't just a misplaying on your part?

You have to know when to hold'em, know when to f...

Er, right, back on topic.  In order to play cards, regardless of what meta-type of card  it is, you have to draw them.  Therefore speed will always be part of every other meta in the game.  A speed-capture deck will beat a plain capture deck most of the time.  A speed-balanced deck will beat a plain balanced deck most of the time.  A speed-speed deck will beat a plain speed deck most of the time.  If you have two decks that are exactly the same, and the players are of the same skill level, then luck of the draw will determine the winner.  Everyone employs speed to garner an edge, i.e. draw faster than the opponent.

It's obvious that the solution to create cards to counter speed aren't working.  It's like the old adage, "You have to spend money to make money."  In other words, you have to employ a little speed to get to the cards that counter your opponent's speed.  And your opponent is doing the same thing.  Ergo, we're back to speed.

If you can't beat them, join them. 

Huh??

At least everyone is aware a game rule is needed to circumvent the proliferation of speed.  But what is the best rule?  What's the one thing that will make any player want to stop drawing?  It's when you're opponent is drawing just as fast as you are.  We need a game rule that mimics Gifts of the Magi.  What that rule is, I don't know.  I have ideas.  Basically, I think we need to get rid of the hand limit rule, and institute a rule wherein opponents get to draw based on some condition of any other player who is drawing.  Maybe something along the lines of "opponents draw a card for every card a player draws when their hand size is greater than 10".  Of course, there would be ways around this, but a player would have to work hard to keep their hands small yet still employ speed.  One of the ways is to keep your hand below 8, but then that makes the player susceptible to hand discard/decrease.

Thoughts??

In the end I agree with sauce that the best way to fix this would be to make rule changes. I would suggest that the d3 every turn would be limited to d1 in type 1 and to a d2 in type 2...this would be an interesting concept to playtest.

I agree that this would be interesting to playtest, but it would slow down the game too much.

We need a game rule that mimics Gifts of the Magi.

This could compensate though.  We could try a rule of d1 each turn, and then if either player did any drawing by special ability, then the other player "may" draw an equal number of cards.

This would be an interesting idea to playtest in Feb ROOT

The goal is not to kill speed all together, it's to give players who don't play speed a chance. The "GOTM" type rule would be perfect fort his. Sure you can play speed, just keep in mind that your opponent gets to take advantage of your drawing cards too.