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I don't like the rule, and agreeing with west, it is a viable option. I built a demons magicians defense with woman and fishers to go hunt the hopper, jeptha divinations, SSS and DoU + Demon behind the idle - they kept flushing unwanted soul gens back to my opp and gave me multiple ways to make sure the hopper landed out of my LOB.

Long story short it won several more (fun) games than it lost against Josiah and a friend of mine who is a State caliber player that was running Gen with all the Egyptian soul gen.

I fail to see how that deck still wouldnt work aside from the Jephthah combo... Since only Jephthah and Evil Spawn are pretty much the only two cards effected by this... The only deck type this suggestion would effectively stop is one that uses Jephthah and Evil spawn to eliminate souls from your deck. Which is still HIGHLY impractical and almost impossible to pull off!

My main motive behind throwing the idea out there is to save space on future cards! For example.... the newest iteration of Jephthah was supposed to have "if it is a Lost Soul place in LoB instead" but this was lopped off the card during printing because it made the text "too long".

I know I'm the one that started the "intuition" vocabulary, I feel like we throw "intuitive" around too easily, lol...

I can actually see where Isildur and Master KChief are coming from on avoiding soul drought issue... but don't apply "intuitive" too it...  It may be a thought out, clutter clearing, even game helping decision... but that doesn't mean that when I play a "d/c the top card" ability that I would instinctively (intuitively) know that I should put a lost soul into play instead.

In fact, if I look at my collection, I'll see some cards which give a "lost soul exception", and others that do not... my natural conclusion (intuition) is that cards without a clause do what they say... BUT... the game can't be based on "intuition" alone or we would never draw to replace souls (something we've trained ourselves to do in Redemption). But we're playing a game where Glory of Lord makes reference to an Ashera Pole that isn't allowed in Solomon's Temple, so the reality is some stuff just requires you to be "Forum Following Frank" 

In fact, if I look at my collection, I'll see some cards which give a "lost soul exception", and others that do not... my natural conclusion (intuition) is that cards without a clause do what they say...

There are many cases where redundant text is exemplified on Redemption cards. A new hard rule of this sort would simply move those older cards into this category.

It's pretty blatantly obvious that is the direction the design team is also wanting the game to go, to curb the game away from soul drought. It also only affects a select few cards that see very rare play in a strategy that sees even less viable play. Making it a hard rule to reduce text clutter on future cards and in the same stroke move further away from soul drought seems pretty intuitive to me.

On the contrary, the most recent deck discard cards (Pithom and Beheaded) do not include the LS exception. Both of which are very powerful cards (maybe not Pithom as much) but Beheaded is almost a dominant that can discard a Hero in a territory or the top card of a deck. That can be an insanely powerful ability on an almost dominant, especially if you combo it with cards that allow you to reorganize your opponent's deck (like Wash Basin, or even the two new soul gen cards when your opponent has less than 9 cards in deck). The biggest drawback of Beheaded is that it has the potential to discard an opponent's Lost Soul. So not only is the lack of an exception nice to save text space, it helps to balance the card. I can't speak for all of the other playtesters, but I recall mentioning those very things in the design.

Quote from: Jmbeers on August 21, 2013, 12:21:55 PM

I don't like the rule, and agreeing with west, it is a viable option. I built a demons magicians defense with woman and fishers to go hunt the hopper, jeptha divinations, SSS and DoU + Demon behind the idle - they kept flushing unwanted soul gens back to my opp and gave me multiple ways to make sure the hopper landed out of my LOB.

Long story short it won several more (fun) games than it lost against Josiah and a friend of mine who is a State caliber player that was running Gen with all the Egyptian soul gen.

I fail to see how that deck still wouldnt work aside from the Jephthah combo... Since only Jephthah and Evil Spawn are pretty much the only two cards effected by this... The only deck type this suggestion would effectively stop is one that uses Jephthah and Evil spawn to eliminate souls from your deck. Which is still HIGHLY impractical and almost impossible to pull off!

My main motive behind throwing the idea out there is to save space on future cards! For example.... the newest iteration of Jephthah was supposed to have "if it is a Lost Soul place in LoB instead" but this was lopped off the card during printing because it made the text "too long".

It's not that it wouldn't work without the Jepthah combo, but that's like saying that Abom decks work without forced draw cards. It's true, but they aren't nearly as potent. And there are quite a few deck discard cards that don't have the LS exception (pretty much any printed before FoOF, with the lone exception of Pagan Sacrifices IIRC) including Panic Demon (Gold), Boasting of Wisdom, Begging to Go Back, Egyptian Horsemen, King Shishak, etc. If a player builds a deck with any of the following cards in an attempt to figure out how to discard his own Lost Souls, then more power to him, I say. And if people lose to such a deck, then there are a variety of cards that can search an opponent's discard pile for Lost Souls, some of which have other purposes as well (The Thankful Leper, Pleading for the City, Wicked Community, and Begging to Go Back).

Quote from: Professoralstad on August 21, 2013, 03:31:57 PM

On the contrary, the most recent deck discard cards (Pithom and Beheaded) do not include the LS exception.

I think most people here are referring to cards that discard souls from their own deck and/or soul drought as an actual deck strategy. Since both of these cards only discard from an opponents deck and not your own, this does absolutely nothing to help towards that strategy. As you mentioned, I can see the exclusion as more of a 'high risk high reward' scenario under the best/worse conditions, but less towards controlling souls in a deck. Besides, if you're discarding souls from your opponents deck, you're kind of doing it wrong.

I agree that the combo/strategy that would be upset by the rule change isn't affected by these cards, but the proposal in the OP made no distinction for whose deck it was (and I think such a distinction would be even more complicated). I was just saying that those two more recent cards go against the way the playtesters have designed deck discard cards, and I gave a reason why that would be. And FWIW, people who play Pithom don't usually get to setup their opponent's deck to ensure they don't target LSs, but that's why I use cards like SWJ, Gideon's Call, and Thankful Leper (all of which go well with a deck discard/Watchful Servant strategy) when I use cards like Pithom and Beheaded, to reduce my odds of soul locking myself. And occasionally I will play Beheaded and play the odds, since I am just as likely to hit a dominant as a Lost Soul with it.

I don't think anyone is even remotely suggesting soul drought is broken right now, its merely being noted the game is/should be moving more towards a gamestate that allows both sides the opportunity to accomplish the winning game goal (rescue 5 lost souls), rather than moving away from it. This does not apply to the rare instances where a player unintentionally discards a soul via Jepthah or Beheaded, as you have said in most cases it does not affect anything but stall for the most part; it applies towards the players that try to exploit the strategy and build a deck around doing so. Again, its not like these types of decks are making a mark anywhere in the meta, but its nice to have a cushion to fall back on that would move the game towards increased interaction between players rather than less of it. Simplified gamestates are no bueno (TGT, CWD, Site lockout, Soul drought/control, Thad) and usually only highly favor one player over the other.

I also call shenanigans. The SA was extended on later cards because it was obviously a problem. I would agree to the argument that we should have just changed the rule back then, but I don't see why fixing something that needed to be fixed is not a "better late than never" scenario.

I wouldn't call it "obviously a problem," and "needing to be fixed" is completely relative (which, by the way, the Elders apparently disagree with, see Professoralstad's post above). The fact is, some cards have the clause and other cards don't. I feel, in my opinion, that turning a sometimes-used clause into a game rule would not be appropriate. Soul lock out, as people have pointed out, is not even close to a problem, let alone something that needs a game rule (which is overkill in most situations). That's my opinion. You are within your right to disagree, but that's what my personal opinion is.

I totally understand about new players, by the way, but at the same time it shouldn't be any other player's fault if someone gets discouraged (assuming the "combo player" plays with respect). That's a choice they're choosing to make. "Combo decks" aren't to blame for a person wanting to quit, it's that person allowing themselves to be discouraged. What should happen (as I was trying to say earlier) is that the player re-evaluates their deck, tries to find what was missing that would have helped them in that situation, and improve it. Granted, younger players are going to have a harder time with that and if the combo player is willing to give them pointers that would go a long way, but the combo player isn't to blame and shouldn't be punished.

Sorry for the walls of text.


tl;dr - I think that making a game rule to curb deck strategies that are not prevalent and are very hard to pull off in the best of circumstances is overkill and completely unnecessary. I'd rather we work on things that DO need fixing rather than, to coin a phrase, "fixing something that ain't broke."

*instaposted on that last part by Westy*

I guess I am confused. Isildur never mentioned "curbing deck strategies." Did I miss something? I thought we were talking about a rule change that was trying to prevent soul drought, which is one of the primary reasons new players quit (from my experience).

From what I read, the only reason he proposed the rule is to avoid adding the exception that were on most of the deck discard cards between FooF and TexP about Lost Souls, not to prevent soul drought. Usually we like ways to reduce text (such as the recent changes to verbage such as "capture and place in an opponent's Land of Bondage" to simply "capture to an opponen't Land of Bondage" or "Negate special abilities on characters" to "Negate characters." However, this would be changing a rule (as opposed to just a definition), and changing that rule would effectively curb a relatively obscure (but still kind of fun for some people, as it almost creates an effective Alternate Win Condition, which seemed to be a trending topic for a bit here).

By that argument a game rule on good to evil card ration should be instated to kill turtles. They are rarely seen and prevent the hero side from winning the game.

I propose you must have at least 4 good cards to every evil card in your deck. That should fix things! 

By that argument a game rule on good to evil card ration should be instated to kill turtles. They are rarely seen and prevent the hero side from winning the game.

This couldn't be further from the truth. The huge difference here is a player still has the opportunity to rescue a soul against a turtle. A battle can still take place. Soul drought/lock/control is the exact mirror of what TGT accomplishes: I'm not giving you the opportunity to rescue, I'm not giving you the opportunity to block. Its a simplified gamestate that detracts from player interaction, which is ultimately unhealthy for the game.

It has already been noted how viable site depletion decks really are in the meta, that's not being disputed at all, so whether a skilled player or randy is piloting either deck strategy has little relevance on the discussion and is actually just a matter of opinion of which is more skillful to pilot than the other. What I'm most interested in is how the gamestate is affected after both decks have achieved optimal output, and they're an exact mirror of each other.

TGT also does not equal auto-rescue when its dropped at the very beginning of the game as you suggest. It requires at the very least 2 components with 2 conditions, all of which very rarely fall into place at such an early stage in the game.

Let's take a step back here and keep things in perspective.

Soul drought isn't inherently bad.

Now, I know how frustrating it is when your opponent doesn't draw lost souls. I lost to Justin Sangillo at nats when he failed to draw lost souls for the first 3 turns of the game, while I failed to draw defense. However, "soul drought" has become a term that's thrown around so much we don't even know what it means anymore. I played against Tim Maly at MN State, lost 4-5 with SoG/NJ/AotL in hand. I got the first one off the D8, second one was off Mayhem, third off Fishers of Men [for 3 (King David)], and fourth off Gibeonite Delegates. After the game I complained about the soul drought. I mean, I stalled him for several turns myself, and he still didn't draw enough souls for me to win. He counted the number of cards left in his deck afterward. In a 56 card deck, he went through 21 cards, and 3 were lost souls. Average would be 24 (56 card deck, 7 lost souls, 1 of every 8 cards is a lost soul, despite the common misconception that it's 1 per 7). Soul drought? No, just a slower game pace.

The issue is we've become complacent with a speed metagame.  When your opponent is drawing an average of 6-7 cards per turn, yeah, it's really frustrating. But when they draw 3 cards per turn, you really shouldn't be surprised when they're drawing a lost soul every other turn or a bit worse. Now the game is shifting to a more balanced metagame and we still want lost souls to almost always be available. I learned my lesson and at nationals I just didn't draw against Tim, and I was able to stall for 3 turns by going at a normal rate [still lost 1-5 (half the liner rescued, SoG/NJ in hand)]

Lost souls being always available isn't healthy for the game either. How frustrating is it when you have no defense but all of your lost souls? With the shift to more balanced decks, we can purposely slow the game down so we get our defense out by not drawing lost souls.  This is a good thing because it brings balance to the game.

Fishers/Call are deceiving because they don't actually generate lost souls--they just speed up the process. Suppose you hit 1 soul in those 9 revealed (about average, as 1:8 is the soul rate). Your opponent then does something to shuffle his deck. The ratio to draw lost souls is the same as if he drew the lost soul normally. Good for the starter decks, but doesn't necessarily make lost souls more available in the long run. In fact, underdecking things can make it so that lost souls are even less available, because you're adding cards to your deck, clogging it up so you won't draw souls.

Man, I should just turn this into an RMG article.

Quote from: Westy on August 21, 2013, 08:48:27 PM

Soul drought? No, just a slower game pace.

One encourages and one is a product of the other. They're essentially one and the same.

I think you're defining soul drought wrong. 2 turns is not an extended period of time (which is what a drought implies). 2 turns is just a slower game pace.

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Lost souls being always available isn't healthy for the game either. How frustrating is it when you have no defense but all of your lost souls?

Do you not have the chance at defending those drawn souls? You're creating a hypothetical situation that is a statistical outlier if you've constructed your deck with proper defense. How about the reverse when you're staring at an empty candy shop on the opposite side of the table? The chance for opportunity still exists with the former, much less with the latter.

For all intents and purposes, lost souls really mean nothing besides the possibility of soul drought since they always replace themselves when drawn. If you've drawn all of your lost souls yet you're finding trouble in managing a block or two at that point, I think it has less to do with drawing all of your lost souls and more to do with proper deck construction if your aim is to defend drawn lost souls.

It's really not a statistical outlier. Let's suppose you play 7 evil characters (a fair amount, probably a bit lower than average). Your odds of drawing an evil character are exactly the same as a lost soul, and thus soul "drought" is equivilant to ec drought. However, it is much easier for your opponent to produce lost souls these days then it is to search out evil characters. You pretty much have to rely on your speed so you can draw into it OR you can slow the game down by not drawing and stalling the souls out. If your opponent isn't drawing lost souls, you can use evil characters, artifacts, lost souls, heroes, enhancements, or dominants to get souls out of your opponent's deck.

Yeah, I think EC drought is worse than soul drought.

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Fishers/Call are deceiving because they don't actually generate lost souls--they just speed up the process. Suppose you hit 1 soul in those 9 revealed (about average, as 1:8 is the soul rate).

Isn't the followup sentence pretty much an oxymoron to the first sentence? You've made a lost soul appear in a land of bondage when it was not there previously. And as you claim, it still speeds up the process at which souls are fleshed out...still a very good thing.

Yeah, it is, I phrased that bad. The point is, it's good at the end of the game, but at the beginning the ratio stays the same, so you might speed things up by a turn, but then next turn you'll potentially be back in the same situation.

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Your opponent then does something to shuffle his deck. The ratio to draw lost souls is the same as if he drew the lost soul normally. Good for the starter decks, but doesn't necessarily make lost souls more available in the long run.

Again, another hypothetical situation. You are indeed correct, statistically in the long run souls still come out at the same rate. But you're also adding the additional variable of shuffling, something you cannot for certain always count on happening. But at face value with no outside variables, Fishers and Call do help generate souls either instantly or at a faster rate.

Aren't these all going to be hypothetical situations? I mean, the whole point of this thread is the hypothetical situation that Jephthah discards a lost soul off the top. How often does that honestly happen? 1 in 7 games, if you use Jepthah every game and are playing a 50 card deck. Not worth making a ruling over. How often do I shuffle my deck? Just about every other turn.

Again, remember that this rule isn't going to go very far for stopping soul drought. It will affect about 2%* of games while also killing a cool deck type coincidentally.

*No, I'm not going to make a less than 0% joke. You better not either.