Cactus Game Design Message Boards

Chronic apathy, great points. Here's a couple comments to consider.

1. What about all the games with successful attempts at stopping speed? Of course, there are tons of games where speed is still great, but what about all the times that players have reported where speed IS stopped, or at least not as effective? I understand the argument that you'll want more speed to get out your lost soul generation, but wouldn't you agree there's another side to that coin that you have to be attacked to use most of that? Nazareth is not hard to get, after that you're basically down to evil strategies. A defense-heavy deck with little offense won't give you very many opportunities to block and give them ls to rescue.

2. You talk about complaints about the rule. But how many complaints have there been about Samuel decks and TGT decks? Now whether or not this rule can stop them is another issue, and is what the above comment is talking about, but assuming it WOULD stop them, there are a lot more people frustrated at TGT than at this potential rule change.

3. As to my own personal experiences, my fastest decks do get me frustrated with this rule. I have a LOT of soul generation, both on offense and defense, and I get frustrated because as fast as your deck is, I typically can't get 5 ls in my opponent's land of bondage by turn 3. Without this rule, it's relatively common to win a game in three turns.

I realize it's frustrating to have to wait for LSs to SoG/NJ for the win, but it's also very frustrating to lose in three turns. That doesn't make for a very fun game...

Lastly, if you aren't going to at least pretend to consider our input when problems with the rule change do arise why are we being asked to test it in the first place? Why is it being play tested at all?

I believe that was ROOT's choice, not any kind of official test.

What makes you think it is being disregarded?

Quite the paraphrase.

Quite the paraphrase.

I agree. Yeah lets all complain because our decks that are clearly op'd dont work! That seems to be the only complaint im hearing from a majority of the players every one else (except type 2 people) seem to be in support of the rule change.

I find it humorous that players keep going on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on speculating about about a secondary benefit of the ruling.  You don't think it will stop speed completely.  Fine.  I agree.  I never said it would.

The PRIMARY purpose was to take half the teeth out of NJ, which most players agree is too powerful in Type 1.  Do all the players who oppose this ruling really want NJ to keep its current power level?  Drop the secondary speed debate and answer that question.

Quite the paraphrase indeed.

Isildur doesn't count, he's not in any ways official.

You only matter if your a playtester. I'll have to write that down.

Chronic apathy, great points. Here's a couple comments to consider.

1. What about all the games with successful attempts at stopping speed? Of course, there are tons of games where speed is still great, but what about all the times that players have reported where speed IS stopped, or at least not as effective? I understand the argument that you'll want more speed to get out your lost soul generation, but wouldn't you agree there's another side to that coin that you have to be attacked to use most of that? Nazareth is not hard to get, after that you're basically down to evil strategies. A defense-heavy deck with little offense won't give you very many opportunities to block and give them ls to rescue.

I'm not really familiar with any other CCGs, however, I would be willing to bet that at least a few of the ones that were able to put a stop to speed as the dominant strategy used some kind of overpowered card or cards to do it. Like, something to tune of RBD only maybe as a CBN protected fortress or something along those lines. The problem however, is that Redemption as a whole has a tendency to release counters to any effective cards. It would not surprise me, if such an overpowered anti-speed card were to be released, that in the set following it, there would be a healthy amount of CBN protected drawing. Thus, the cycle continues. The main point that people keep bringing up in support of this rule change is that, were it to be implemented, it would hurt speed. Many people are doubtful, and I feel I'm one of the few people who agree that it would hurt speed, but still don't want it implemented.

Splashing in a soul generation defense is something that a lot of speed decks already do. I cited Genesis before and I'll bring it up again. TAS and Cupbearer both generate a soul, the latter unnegatably so. They both fit in very well with what is likely the fastest defense in the game - Gentyptians, which can't really be used effectively without the third fastest offense in the game (behind Disciples and Sam in all his forms): Genesis. If this rule would get implemented before the spring/summer tournament season rolls around, you're looking at Genesis taking a big leap and becoming potentially more used than Disciples were last year. At least right now we have two offenses in the proverbial "S tier". Should the rule be implemented, you're looking at only one being at the top.

It's also worth noting that I love defense heavy decks. I've played several people in this thread with my 154 card heroless. It's my favorite deck to play, and I mourn that I'll never be able to play it in regular tournament play, due to it's tendency to take an hour before my opponent finally concedes (it's only finished a win twice - otherwise the opponent breaks through or concedes after they realize they won't be able too). Playing defense heavy is so fun to me, and I do find it quite sad that it's not as viable as it should be. In this week's ROOT game, I opted to take a chance and I played a defense heavy deck, a decision that was made in part because of the testing of this new rule. It was an Isaiah/Israelite Royalty deck. This deck has five heroes: Isaiah, King Hezekiah, both Seraphs, and Cherubim. Guess which hero got removed from the game during a rescue attempt on the first turn? I ultimately lost that game 4-5, because Son of God was literally the bottom card of my deck. Had I played a faster deck, even my normal Prophets deck (where the ratio of good/evil is reversed), I'd have easily pulled a win, due to my opponent not drawing heroes for 3/4 of the game. What I'm getting at here is that I'm as much a proponent of defense heavy as anyone else, and I wish it was more viable. However, I don't believe a rule change like this is the way to go about making defense heavy better.

I will be entirely the honest, the concept of Soul Hiding as a defensive strategy is extremely appealing. For the last couple years, I've toyed with the idea of making that sort of strategy, until the FBTN LS came out last year and forced me to abandon the idea. The idea of locking my opponent out without using sites, and merely using discard and protection is extremely appealing. While this ruling wouldn't that, Soul Stalling would certainly become a top-tier defense overnight. I like that aspect of the idea, however, I still can't condone the ruling as a whole.

Cont...

Quote from: lightningninja on October 14, 2011, 11:35:35 PM

Isildur doesn't count, he's not in any ways official.

You only matter if your a playtester. I'll have to write that down.

He didn't say Isildur doesn't matter, he just said he doesn't count. Arithmetic was never his forte.

Quote from: lp670sv on October 14, 2011, 11:40:57 PM

Quote from: lightningninja on October 14, 2011, 11:35:35 PM

Isildur doesn't count, he's not in any ways official.

You only matter if your a playtester. I'll have to write that down.

Oooh now you're twisting MY words. Making a step up. If individuals just keep up with these sarcastic points that don't have anything to do with the topic at hand, then I'll lock the thread.

My guess is that lp670sv is getting sarcastic because he feels that's the only way to get his point across.  It'd help if you openly responded to his points instead of saying "oh, that doesn't count".

RDT has come out against the rule, and it's been rumored that Rob only wants NJ to get opps LS.

Better still, try to break it.  See if you can create a deck where the new rule makes a broken situation.

Challenge Accepted.

Quote from: Red Dragon Thorn on October 14, 2011, 05:26:10 PM

you believe that NJ gets used defensively by 'Speed' players more often than balanced deck players.

This is of course true.  speed players by definition get their SoG/NJ combo faster than balanced deck players in general.  Therefore they are able to use them defensively more often.  Everyone uses that combo defensively if they can (unless there is a 2-liner involved or rare instances of FBN LS or shuffler - which is still a defensive move).  And the speed play will be able to do it more often.

This thread is so long I'm not certain if this has been commented on, but literally every new or beginning player I know uses SOG/NJ defensively. Its my best defense. The only time I ever use SOG/NJ on my opponent is if I have no lost souls or my opponent has a shuffler out.

Unfortunately, the concerns of beginner players are not relevant, otherwise there would be no debate at all.

"You cannot rescue Lost Souls in your own territory" is the easiest thing for beginners to understand.

Hyperbole is the best thing ever!

This thread is so long I'm not certain if this has been commented on, but literally every new or beginning player I know uses SOG/NJ defensively.

FTFY.

SoG/NJ is probably one of the best blocks a new player can have.