Cactus Game Design Message Boards

Quote from: CactusRob on January 31, 2009, 12:50:41 PM

Also, to me it's not only about my opponent having an unbeatable deck.  It is also about me watching you play cards for 15 straight minutes while I can do nothing.

There are far more complaints about games where you can do absolutely nothing because you drew three lost souls in your opening turn and no defense. There's at least one senior player who is talking about not playing anymore because of that happenstance.

Recently there have been a large number of complaints about decks built around The Garden Tomb. These complaints are mostly centered on players feeling like that can do absolutely nothing against them except sit and watch their opponent play cards.

There are two major differences between the combo deck case and the bad draw and TGT examples. The first is that bad draws and TGT are much more prevalent. The second is that in the case of the combo deck, the person running the deck had to spend some time and effort designing and building their deck. Given that, I can understand the your underlying concern expressed. I guess what I am having trouble understanding is why you would start to address the concern by going after the smallest offender and the only one that is actually somewhat dependent on the skill of the player.

I, too, wonder if these two concerns are being address?
   There are not many cards, if any, that deal with New Testament forts and I think there is a need there.
  When I see a newer person or a semi-veteran pull a lot of Lost souls on the first turn (even if I do it myself)...I will comment that they will probably lose.  They just have too many on the table, and most offenses are too strong.  Are there counters, sure, but games have been won or lost due to "players bleeding" and others "drying up."  (Prof has a special knack for it.     )

I haven't seen a combo deck win a tournament. I have played against those combo decks and it isn't any fun. Once they get the combo off you have no chance.

That being said, I think that the best solution to solve this problem would be to make it so that Withdraw enhancements always withdraw all heroes.

Of the proposed solutions I like option 3 the best but I would like to see that number as high as possible.

so has not to mess with the 5 false peace, 1 bearing bad news, 1 momentum change play or is there another one you're considering?   

There are far more complaints about games where you can do absolutely nothing because you drew three lost souls in your opening turn and no defense. There's at least one senior player who is talking about not playing anymore because of that happenstance.

I am disappointed that a player would consider abandoning Type 1 because of this unfortunate rare occurrence.  But three turn losses are a flaw of decks with light defenses, not of Redemption in general.

Recently there have been a large number of complaints about decks built around The Garden Tomb. These complaints are mostly centered on players feeling like that can do absolutely nothing against them except sit and watch their opponent play cards.

The Garden Tomb is still a new card, this means two things:  (1) it's seeing more play right now because of the novelty of it, and (2) players haven't had a lot of time to figure out how to counter it yet.  It's just too soon to pass judgment on The Garden Tomb yet (especially since it has encouraged a lot of players to use cards and strategies that they haven't used before which is a good thing).

Tschow,

Tim "Sir Nobody" Maly

Hey,

Option 1 goes too far.  It does too much damage to Choose the Blocker as a side effect of addressing a withdraw issue.

Option 3 doesn't go far enough.   If I choose my King Sennecharib holding Glittering Spear or my Leviathan that has been set aside for a few turns I should be able to keep initiative in the "I'm losing" state for the duration of my combo thus getting around a rule change that would only affect stalemate or mutual destruction states.  Another option would be working Arrogance into the combo.  And those are just the ways off the top of my head to get around option 3.

Option 2 is just about right.  Of course I may be biased because I've been theorizing/suggesting something very similar for a couple years now.  My idea was adding a clarification to the REG entry for withdraw cards that says:

"A 'return enhancements from battle to hand' ability on the same card as a 'return a character from battle to hand' ability is conditional on all characters on that side of battle withdrawing"

The idea being that the "return enhancements to hand" on withdraw abilities is an alternative to the enhancements being discarded at the end of battle, but if the battle isn't ending then the alternative doesn't apply.

Tschow,

Tim "Sir Nobody" Maly

MJB, don't think you're the only combo I've played against. I played against Justin Alstad's a few times, then I played against Kirk's a few times.

I know that, but I don't want to presume to speak for Kirk or Justin. Given your experience and the fact you are an upper tier player, I'm curious about your experience. What is your overall record against the various combo decks you played? In the cases where you were able to stop the combo, did any of the decks put up a decent fight afterwards or did you just basically walk in for a free win?

For me personally, I don't see myself ever playing a combo deck in another tournament (unless I find a major new wrinkle). The decks don't win consistently enough to win a tournament. That in itself seems to limit their use without having to introduce any new rules.

But three turn losses are a flaw of decks with light defenses, not of Redemption in general.

While I don't doubt that light defenses contribute greatly to quick losses, I don't think this generalization is entirely accurate. I have suffered three-turn tournament losses with 63 card heroless decks containing 14-16 ECs.

In regards to your proposed changes, Rob:

1) You cannot choose your own evil character to block your rescue attempt.  In other words, if you are rescuing against me you can only force me to block with a character I could have legally chosen for myself.  This would prevent you from forcing me to block with a character like Red Dragon when I am not playing crimson.

This potential change would put a big hurt on the entire Choose the Blocker strategy, not just combo decks.  I don't believe this is an appropriate change.  However, if there have been talks of reducing the overall power of Choose the Blocker for a time now for various reasons, then I could see why this would be a logical change.

2) When you play a "withdraw" enhancement, you cannot return enhancements to hand that match the brigade of a hero still in battle. [Withdraw enhancements were designed to salvage something from a failed battle, not perpetually play and return the same enhancements over and over].

This rule would make it very difficult for current combo decks to function.  However, this also hurts several other types of decks.  This hurts many pure gold offenses.  Gold offenses sometimes need the help of recursion, and the ability to return Furnace of God's Wrath and Taking Egypt's Wealth for a 2nd use before resorting to using Battle Prayer to recur them are pivotal.  This also hurts speed offenses who like to maximize drawing cards multiple times.  I also like using simple combos such as Claudia banded to Ethiopian Treasurer where I play a fun blue card, like Third Heaven, play Stillness, and then win the battle with Ethiopian Treasurer alone while having Third Heaven around for the next battle.

3)  Instead of either of the above which deal with a specific ability type (withdraw or choose the blocker), we make a more general rule that in a stalemate situation if your opponent continuously passes initiative, there is a cap on how many cards you can play.  Back to the Red Dragon example, you set up a stalemate and since I don't play crimson I must keep passing initiative after you play a card.  In this situation you would be limited to how many cards you can play before battle is resolved.  The limit would be some number yet to be determined (3 cards, 5 cards, 7 cards).

This rule could also hurt combo decks, but I believe it would also hurt other decks in various situations.

If I had to choose a choice to support, I would choose option 3, but I would lobby for 7 cards.  However, as I previously stated, I do not see any need to change the rules.  With limited success of combo decks at major tournaments, most top-tier players avoid using such decks at those tournaments.  I do definitely like having combo decks around as it spices up the game as one can never be certain what sweet combo deck his opponent might be using against him.

I do understand that you might not want one player to play cards for 15 straight minutes while the other sits helplessly.  However, even if combo decks are destroyed, site lock decks, heroless, and herolite decks will continue to do this, along with any larger deck with a substantial defense.  I don't think you will ever be able to avoid it.  There will always be some sort of deck in a game like this to make it impossible for your opponent to do anything once you get a certain number of cards and the player using such a deck will simply waltz in for a victory after a certain amount of time.

And also when some players take exceeding amounts of time throughout their turns (not legal but still happens), the same situation occurs... 

All this being said, after playing combo decks at nationals for 2 years, I don't see any advantage for a player interested in placing to use such a deck over a stout deck with a more straight-forward approach and I don't anticipate playing a combo deck at nationals again unless there is a way to exploit some future card that allows me to permanently own every card in my opponent's deck at the end of the game.... 

I do tremendously appreciate all that you do for the game Rob.  Thanks for taking your time to analyze our input.

God bless,
Kirk

The first thing about a combo deck is that they are best against unsuspecting opponents. If you don't know whats coming or haven't played one before they are nearly impossible to beat (assuming they draw the right cards). However, once you play them a few times you realize where the weaknesses are. Dominants are the only way to stop the combo, playing them at the opportune time can make it fall apart.

If the combo doesn't work there are still good cards in the deck. However, a decent offense can get past the few things they have left and win. I think these decks are more susceptible to bad draws than most decks and therefore are going to win less consistently but more thoroughly when they do win.

so really, it just Cooper's, MJB's, and I haven't seen yours or Justin's, but from what I hear...

Kirk's combo deck is nasty. There is just no stopping Adam banded to Eve.  

I don't think so. there are more combo decks then the ones that you get to draw/search for your whole deck.

I realize other combo decks exist, such as various combos involving Gathering or enhancement placement, but they are not as effective as the decks referred to in this thread.

Gold offences have judges now, which really doesn't require that, so it's not really a big deal with them...

Well some people still use Battle Prayer and Highway in decks that contain Judges, myself included.  Why toss something out that is effective just because the card isn't specifically related to a completely "Judges" deck?

And I would concur with Ben, combo decks are less effective the more they are played.  The first year I played it at nationals, none of my opponents saw it coming until it was too late.  The next year, none of my opponents saw it coming either, but a large number of the T2 2p players there knew I used such a deck the year before and were anticipating it.  That was also aided by the fact that MJB played his combo deck at a tournament prior to nationals, bringing up the subject more often that it should have been discussed....  

Kirk

You might want to add John Earley to that list with his Primary Objective deck thread as well.

Kirk

Quote from: Captain Kirk on January 31, 2009, 05:12:08 PM

You might want to add John Earley to that list with his Primary Objective deck thread as well.

Kirk

was that deleted in the purge?

I hope so.   

The Garden Tomb is still a new card, this means two things:  (1) it's seeing more play right now because of the novelty of it, and (2) players haven't had a lot of time to figure out how to counter it yet.  It's just too soon to pass judgment on The Garden Tomb yet (especially since it has encouraged a lot of players to use cards and strategies that they haven't used before which is a good thing).

I like encouraging the use of older, unused cards as much as the next person and maybe more.  But I don't think that TGT was the way to do it.  I also disagree that it is too early to pass judgment on it.  I have played against well built TGT decks in the hands of good players many times already and I have already discovered it's extreme potential for a lack of a fun game.

I have figured out the counters.  I have a protection fortress (A-camp) for my defense that stops the discards from ET+AoCP, Jepthah, I am Justice, and Ark of the Covenant.  It also stops the conversions from Holy Grail.  It also stops the capture from Women as Snares.  I also have a character that pulls that fortress out faster to ensure protection.  I also have Kingdoms of this World which I can also put 2 ECs in just in case neither of those other options is getting my A-camp out.  I have the anti-ignore LS.  I have Wall of Protection so they can't band in my own ECs and make me kill them leaving me vulnerable.  I play a single-brigade defense with plenty of characters.  I also have Unknown Nation to pull out my ECs faster.  I have multiple banding ECs to prevent easy AotL wins.  I have multiple tiny ECs to prevent giving initiative.

Yet in spite of all these counters, I recently have had multiple games where due to the draw, my opponent has walked in for 2 free LSs and then had too many unstoppable ways to get #3.  Then it was SoG, NJ for the quick victory, which they attained of course.

There is no words to describe that other than "messed up".