Cactus Game Design Message Boards
Redemption® Collectible Trading Card Game HQ => Official Rules & Errata => Ruling Questions => Topic started by: Isildur on August 21, 2013, 01:31:02 AM
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So I have a new rule proposal! Its easy its simple!
The change is........ Lost Souls discarded from deck are automatically placed into Land of Bondage.
Bam! Helps prevent soul drought and saves space on future cards.
Thoughts?
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I'm not opposed to this, so long as they are still considered discarded for cost benefit abilities like Jephthah.
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It does kill an entire deck type. Souls depletion (however you feel about it) is a strategy and for any other discussion most people are all for adding viable deck options.
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It does kill an entire deck type. Souls depletion (however you feel about it) is a strategy and for any other discussion most people are all for adding viable deck options.
If im not mistaken Soul Depletion hasnt been a viable option since before the SoG/NJ rule change....
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It does kill an entire deck type. Souls depletion (however you feel about it) is a strategy and for any other discussion most people are all for adding viable deck options.
If im not mistaken Soul Depletion hasnt been a viable option since before the SoG/NJ rule change....
You're mistaken. Soul control can run with the big boys.
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Wait.... I thought by Soul Depletion he meant the discarding of Souls so your opponent no longer has 5 they can rescue. This hasnt been viable since all the Soul Gen cards have been printed and the SoG/NJ rule change...
Soul Control is more like Heretics and friends right? How does this suggestion effect that strategy?
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Wait.... I thought by Soul Depletion he meant the discarding of Souls so your opponent no longer has 5 they can rescue. This hasnt been viable since all the Soul Gen cards have been printed and the SoG/NJ rule change...
Soul Control is more like Heretics and friends right? How does this suggestion effect that strategy?
Soul Control is the cool name for Soul Lock, and I guarantee you, it's viable. The new SoG/NJ really didn't change too much. The slower metagame did. Additionally, most of the soul gen cards people are using are things like Fishers of Men, which really doesn't generate lost souls. Hopper is in everybody's deck, sure, but SWJ, Fishers, and Call take care of that nicely.
You won't find a lot of Cupbearer/Delagates/Survivors in the top cut decks.
I'm currently working on an article about Soul Control (among other things) for Redemption MetaGaming, so I'm not going to cover all of the new benefits just yet. :)
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So I have a new rule proposal! Its easy its simple!
The change is........ Lost Souls discarded from deck are automatically placed into Land of Bondage.
Bam! Helps prevent soul drought and saves space on future cards.
Thoughts?
Great idea!
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I don't really like this rule. If you happen to discard a LS off of your deck you just get lucky and hopefully it helps. Decks that purposefully d/c LSs off of your deck are hard enough to pull off as is that if you can do it and then get to 5 souls, you deserve to win anyways.
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I'm also not keen on completely stopping an uncommon, and rather hard to execute, strategy like this.
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I don't like it either. it takes away the possible costs of playing a deck discard defense.
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I like the idea. For those who are concerned about cost-benefit abilities, why not make this rule align with the drawing of LSs, in that you would discard the next card instead.
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I'd be okay with this as long as we made it: "If an opponent discards the top card of your deck and it's a Lost Soul put it in play and discard the next card in your deck instead." I'm not great with wording so it'd have to be revamped but you get the idea.
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I'd be okay with this as long as we made it: "If an opponent discards the top card of your deck and it's a Lost Soul put it in play and discard the next card in your deck instead." I'm not great with wording so it'd have to be revamped but you get the idea.
Why would they get to discard the next card as well? They're already getting a benefit with soul gen, why should they get another one with discarding a non-soul card as well?
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I like the idea. For those who are concerned about cost-benefit abilities, why not make this rule align with the drawing of LSs, in that you would discard the next card instead.
Oooh, I like this even better. :)
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Not a fan.
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I do not support the idea. I don't see a good reason for it, and as has been stated, it removes a somewhat difficult strategy that is fun to try out.
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So it's unanimous: young turks oppose the rule while the wiser generation like it. ;)
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So it's unanimous: young turks oppose the rule while the wiser older generation like it. ;)
So it seems. Now we just need to get MJB's and Wild Bill's opinion on it to see if your theory holds true. ;)
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So it's unanimous: young turks oppose the rule while the wiser older wilder generation like it. ;)
So it seems. Now we just need to get MJB's and Wild Bill's opinion on it to see if your theory holds true. ;)
QFT
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Pete-New-Player goes "Whew... I don't have any lost souls in play after using my burial... and I'm not gonna use any draw cards because I don't want to chance drawing souls I can't defend... So I attack with Jepthah... YAY I DISCARDED A LOST SOUL"... then Forum-Following-Frank informs Pete that the soul actually goes into play instead... Pete laughs "you're a funny one frank"...
I definitely don't like rules that are counter-intuitive, unless they are absolutely necessary (and I deeply appreciate the Elders and wise players helping to make the hard decisions when new rules need to be made to maintain game quality). This is not one of those changes.
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At my tournaments Pete never laughs anymore when he plays Demon-Capturing-Paul.
;D
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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.
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Pete-New-Player goes "Whew... I don't have any lost souls in play after using my burial... and I'm not gonna use any draw cards because I don't want to chance drawing souls I can't defend... So I attack with Jepthah... YAY I DISCARDED A LOST SOUL"... then Forum-Following-Frank informs Pete that the soul actually goes into play instead... Pete laughs "you're a funny one frank"...
I definitely don't like rules that are counter-intuitive, unless they are absolutely necessary (and I deeply appreciate the Elders and wise players helping to make the hard decisions when new rules need to be made to maintain game quality). This is not one of those changes.
1. New players should have a defense.
2. Pete would be equally unhappy if Frank's Jepthah, Burial, and lone site meant that he would have no way to win a 5th LS.
3. The rule is not counter-intuitive since the vast majority of other cards that discard from deck specify that the LS goes in play instead.
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2. Pete would be equally unhappy if Frank's Jepthah, Burial, and lone site meant that he would have no way to win a 5th LS.
If the opponent's deck went perfectly and got off its primary combo, then they should be applauded for good player skills (and/or lucky draws, lol). Will you feel down that you lost? Sure. But you should then look to your own deck and what could be better, not to how the opponent's deck is overpowered or "broken" and try to change the rules to prevent the opponent's strategy from working next time. The whole purpose of Redemption is to pilot your deck to 5 Redeemed Souls before your opponent(s). We shouldn't be punishing players for adhering to and succeeding in that purpose.
3. The rule is not counter-intuitive since the vast majority of other cards that discard from deck specify that the LS goes in play instead.
I'm calling shenanigans on this reason. Special abilities are specifically to do things you normally can't do, so if something shows up on a card (or lots of cards) then that means it's definitely NOT a rule and (in my opinion) shouldn't be one.
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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".
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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.
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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" ;)
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If the opponent's deck went perfectly and got off its primary combo, then they should be applauded for good player skills (and/or lucky draws, lol).
I thought Pete was a new player. These kind of combos make Pete not want to play anymore. That is my primary concern, not making the experienced player feel better about his "good player skills." Remember that I cater to younger, less-experienced players, and trying to spread the game to the next generation.
I'm calling shenanigans on this reason. Special abilities are specifically to do things you normally can't do, so if something shows up on a card (or lots of cards) then that means it's definitely NOT a rule and (in my opinion) shouldn't be one.
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.
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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.
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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
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.
The first quote was my main reason for objecting to this rule change, but I have not been around this game as long as some others have, I would be okay with it changing, especially if that was the original intention of the cards.
"but since when did original intention matter, oh yea, when elders feel like it ;D"
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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.
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).
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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.
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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.
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If we're talking about decks that soul drought by discarding their own souls from their deck being broken, something's wrong. If you think that randomly discarding a Lost Soul off of your deck with Jepthah then they're just fortunate, but it should affect the game state by a lot. Burial isn't even worth it in most decks anymore with a wider variety of dominants going around so I don't see why people are worried about that. If someone's playing with a couple sites then you just save SoG/NJ for when you have 3 to rescue the last two. Plus, perhaps people should put site access, soul gen, or cards like ProfA mentioned that search opponent's d/c pile for LSs if you're worried about being locked out. Most decks get LSs and offense at a rate that allows you to typically always have souls to rescue but either way, if you're worried about soul drought, put more defense in your deck. Yeah, soul drought can be a problem but there are ways to deal with it within the game instead of changing a rule.
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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.
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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.
So we're changing the rules because in very rare instances people get lucky? That doesn't seem to be a very good reason.
As far as simplified gamestates go, I tend to agree, with the exception that Site Lock and Soul Lock are massively less powerful than TGT, CWD, and Thad (T2), and really don't belong in the same category.
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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. :P
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*
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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).
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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).
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So we're changing the rules because in very rare instances people get lucky? That doesn't seem to be a very good reason.
Killing two birds with one stone. If the game is already gravitating towards pushing lost soul availability, and such a proposed rule would only affect rare decks/instances at best, and solves future text clutter that will more than likely include the 'place lost soul in play' clause anyways, I again see very little reason to not make it a hard rule.
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."
I think you're misconstruing whats actually being said here. Curbing soul drought certainly does not equate to trying to kill off less viable decks. I'm not worried about killing decks that aren't top tier; in fact I agree, it is unnecessary, and adding more support for lower tier decks is the correct route to go. I'm actually more concerned about gamestates becoming stalled because of soul drought, something that results in grossly unfair disadvantages towards only one player and counteracts the entire point of the game: attempting to make a rescue to win a lost soul. That in no way means anyone here is supporting killing off low tier deck strategies, just that such a deck strategy would become a casualty of such a rule. Is locking a player out of souls to rescue healthy for the game? I don't think so in the slightest.
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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! ::)
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FTR, in relation to alleviating soul drought, I am very happy that the new starters have cards like Gideon's Call to help draw out LSs. Also, I am very glad that there is more of an emphasis on underdecking, which allows new players to not lose access to their cards like discarding does (speaking from a beginner's perspective here). The addition of more recursion cards is helpful in that regard, too.
Nice job, card creators! ;D
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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.
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True it ends up being a TGT mirror, but the major difference is any halfway player can play a TGT deck handed to him and it takes place right at the beginning of the game (or once TGT hits the table.) A Soul depletion deck requires a very good player with intimate knowledge of game rules, mechanics, and above all, how to play their deck. It also won't become a factor until the back half the game. Only then is the player successful in giving up 4 or less, or losing and giving up 5. It means the game was still played till the end, not watched until the walk by for a 5th or draw SoG/NJ.
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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.
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My main reason for liking the rule is that it keeps players from being able to lock the opponent out quite so easily. Not that it is easy now. But it could be.
Maybe we should only revisit this as a rule option IF this strategy becomes too easy in the future.
I like Lost Soul availability, as it allows for battles and keeps both players in the game. Being locked out 5-10 minutes into a 45 minute game isn't a positive game experience. While I like Site strategies as an option for defense, I maily like them as stall tactics with only a glimmer of hope for a lock. I hope that a full lock stays challenging. Battles are fun. I learned my lesson after my TGT mistake.
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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.
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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.
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.
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.
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.
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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.
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.
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.
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.
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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.
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?
I can count any number of times when I've gone 3-4 turns in a row in the beginning of the game without drawing a usable defense (either no ECs, no EEs, or none of the above). Admittedly, my group doesn't use top tier decks, but then, we're quite happy with our level of play. Saying that we don't know how to play with proper defense (ignorant of the fact that Defense is typically at least 1/3 of our decks) is rather condescending. Sometimes you just get a really bad shuffle. This happens when you're on a budget an you're playing with the cards you can afford because no one in your group can afford to buy every new card as it comes out. Do we represent the most competitive of players? Certainly not. Do we represent those who attend Nats? Hardly. But assuming that the redemption meta is the only proper way to play is just insulting.
As to the difference between the two situations, they are hardly comparable. Having a pile of LSs in your LoB and no way to defend them, is a really crappy feeling. You're forced to give up LSs because you are helpless and can do nothing to stop the situation. On the other hand, if your opponent has no available LSs, but you can still defend/lock down those in your LoB, then the game just went one turn longer without a game ending play being made. A little tedious if it's the 3rd or 4th turn in a row, but otherwise, no big deal for those of us not indoctrinated into the cult of speed.
You people say that new players are what are going to keep this game alive, but you make decisions and rulings using mostly evidence of what we see on the boards and those are people who buy all the cards they can and play super competitively. Please keep in mind that there are some of us who are perfectly happy playing in house games and local tourneys because that's the level we both enjoy and can afford to play on. Soul drought is annoying, but not an insurmountable problem requiring a game rule to fix.
EDIT: don't get personal.
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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.
I think its merely a matter of perspective at this point, I would easily define any extended period of time (2 turns or more) with no lost souls to rescue as drought.
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.
Using your previous example of 7 lost souls per 56 card deck, 1:8 is a lost soul, and considering lost souls are negative deck space since they're inherently floaters, wouldn't that be 1:7 is an EC using your example?
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.
Playing devils advocate here and assuming the ratio of pulling lost souls is equal to pulling an EC, then statistically that would still mean that every lost soul drawn affords you at least 1 Evil Character to defend with. Yet you claim the drawing all lost souls yet having a defenseless field/hand scenario isn't an outlier? I'm trying to wrap my brain around that one.
Aren't these all going to be hypothetical situations?
I thought we were discussing the possible deceptive properties of Fishers/Call here. I was speaking of Fishers/Call strictly at face value which, under optimal circumstances, produces the immediate gratification of a lost soul in your opponents land of bondage, which is what I believe was the original intent of the cards. Yes, there is also the additional benefit of pulling lost souls closer to the top and sure, there are a ton of outside variables that can skew the rate at which those souls come out after that, but there are also other multiple variables on the flip side of the coin that can secure/further perpetuate that rate as well; an oft used one in the meta being called Nazareth. Either way I'm not entirely sure why we're applying any further variables to what I believe is the original purpose surrounding the card, a card that at face value can produce a lost soul. Again, just a matter of perspective I suppose.
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.
Totally agree, which is why I have little problem making a rule change that will only affect 20 out of a 1000 games for the sake of reducing text clutter and providing a slight cushion against the possibility of a simplified gamestate with no player interaction.
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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.
Totally agree, which is why I have little problem making a rule change that will only affect 20 out of a 1000 games for the sake of reducing text clutter and providing a slight cushion against the possibility of a simplified gamestate with no player interaction.
I'm tired and going to bed soon, but I will say that changing the status quo for such a small reason seems silly. Especially right after a rulebook just came out.
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I'm tired and going to bed soon, but I will say that changing the status quo for such a small reason seems silly. Especially right after a rulebook just came out.
Of course a change like this wouldnt happen this year but I think it should defiantly be considered for after the current tourney season.
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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.
Can I get a show of hands for the number of people who thought Westy's asterix was going to lead to a justification of the 2% number?
I guess I better just go back to being tricked into watching Rick Astley videos. sigh...
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Saying that we don't know how to play with proper defense (ignorant of the fact that Defense is typically at least 1/3 of our decks) is rather condescending.
I think you may have read into MKC's statement too much, here. I'm sure he was referring to having a balanced deck, rather than the more prevalent offense-heavy decks that populate the tournament scene. "Proper" does not imply "better." He also never said that you "didn't know how to play" with whatever defense you are using.
As to the difference between the two situations, they are hardly comparable.
My playgroup is just like yours. In fact, I did not hold a single tournament this past year for the first time since 2005, all because of money. My players still use decks that were popular years ago, but they like them and have fun. My Absalom's Soldiers deck is still a beast. ;)
With that said, I do not find that giving up a soul for free is worse than not having a soul to rescue. The point of the game is to win souls. For younger players especially, they don't care if they got the soul for free. They're just giddy because they have a rescued soul! ;D In those cases, I even play it up as if I could try to block them (even though I have no ECs), even starting to pull a card out of my hand, but then deferring to whatever hero they put into battle with "I'm not sure I have enough to beat you this time." Just ask Josh Kopp about playing against my players, since he employs a "first one's free" policy every time he plays them. His general philosophy is that you still have to win 4 more, and he won't give up that last one without a fight. ;)
Please keep in mind that there are some of us who are perfectly happy playing in house games and local tourneys because that's the level we both enjoy and can afford to play on.
FWIW, in the cases you have stated, you can pretty much play any way that you want to, as long as your players know that the rules will be different at other sanctioned tournaments. I do not scour the Message Board for rulings during a local tournament. I rule as best I can. If I was uncertain, then I would ask on the Boards after the tournament was over, and make changes next time, if necessary.
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No exposing state secrets! :police:
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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.
Using your previous example of 7 lost souls per 56 card deck, 1:8 is a lost soul, and considering lost souls are negative deck space since they're inherently floaters, wouldn't that be 1:7 is an EC using your example?
I wanted to address this quick. When two independent events have the same probability, it does not mean that if one event happens X number of times, the second event also happens X number of times. It just means that they will have the same average over time.
And the probability of drawing ECs and LSs are actually not quite the same. I won't go into the details, but for a 56-card deck with 7 LS and 7 ECs:
Probability of drawing 0 ECs with your opening D8: 26.2%
Probability of drawing 1 or more LSs with your opening D8: 68.3%
And since these two variables are independent of each other, 17.9% of the time you will draw at least 1 LS with no EC with your initial D8. That's almost 1 in every 5 games. And if your opponent is playing a 50 card deck with AotL, then there is almost a 20% chance they have AotL in their starting hand as well...
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Soul drought isn't inherently bad.
I agree. And I am not talking about drought. I'm talking about lock. I'm talking about being 5 minutes into a game and realize there is no way you can possibly win, since 3 of your opponent's lost souls are in his discard pile and you have no way to get them out.
If my opponent isn't playing hopper, Dungeon of Malchaiah (or the like), or one of the ECs that becomes a lost soul, then I only need to Bury 1 lost soul and discard 2 off the top of my deck, and my opponent is locked. With the shuffler and underdeck souls, and other ways to return lost souls to your deck, plus ways to stack your deck, it is fairly easy to actually lock your opponent out of getting 5 lost souls. It isn't as reliable as winning with another strategy, but it is no where near impossible. If future cards make this even easier, then I'd rather see a rule like this implemented than a string of errata or restricted cards.
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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.
Using your previous example of 7 lost souls per 56 card deck, 1:8 is a lost soul, and considering lost souls are negative deck space since they're inherently floaters, wouldn't that be 1:7 is an EC using your example?
I wanted to address this quick. When two independent events have the same probability, it does not mean that if one event happens X number of times, the second event also happens X number of times. It just means that they will have the same average over time.
And the probability of drawing ECs and LSs are actually not quite the same. I won't go into the details, but for a 56-card deck with 7 LS and 7 ECs:
Probability of drawing 0 ECs with your opening D8: 26.2%
Probability of drawing 1 or more LSs with your opening D8: 68.3%
And since these two variables are independent of each other, 17.9% of the time you will draw at least 1 LS with no EC with your initial D8. That's almost 1 in every 5 games. And if your opponent is playing a 50 card deck with AotL, then there is almost a 20% chance they have AotL in their starting hand as well...
I knew there was far more math involved than just the generally accepted (albeit misleading) 1/7, 1/8, etc ratios, and was waiting for someone more matchmatically inclined such as yourself to chime in. Also, as I mentioned, does your math account for the fact lost souls are floaters and replace themselves when drawn?
If your math is still correct considering that, drawing at least 1 EC to defend a soul more than 80% of the time off the d8 is still fairly good odds, and EC drought does not seem to be as prevalent as this thread seems to indicate. Going 3 to 4 turns without a useable defense certainly isn't the norm and appears to be a statistical outlier, unless you're purposely putting in a light defense.
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I agree. And I am not talking about drought. I'm talking about lock. I'm talking about being 5 minutes into a game and realize there is no way you can possibly win, since 3 of your opponent's lost souls are in his discard pile and you have no way to get them out.
I can't envision any way within the realm of statistical possibility that that could happen.
If my opponent isn't playing hopper, Dungeon of Malchaiah (or the like), or one of the ECs that becomes a lost soul, then I only need to Bury 1 lost soul and discard 2 off the top of my deck, and my opponent is locked. With the shuffler and underdeck souls, and other ways to return lost souls to your deck, plus ways to stack your deck, it is fairly easy to actually lock your opponent out of getting 5 lost souls. It isn't as reliable as winning with another strategy, but it is no where near impossible. If future cards make this even easier, then I'd rather see a rule like this implemented than a string of errata or restricted cards.
I agree that we shouldn't make the strategy easier to pull off. It's a relatively niche strategy that is cool because it is a high-risk, high-reward strategy (high risk because it is not easy to pull off, and even if you do, if your opponent is using any of the cards that gets Lost Souls from your discard pile, or a significant amount of soul gen, your deck strategy is kaput). I don't foresee us making any future cards that allow you to discard Lost Souls from your deck, but I do foresee us making plenty of new cards that generate LSs, so the strategy will only get weaker as time goes on. If I were a new player, then I would have 1 of 2 reactions to facing such a deck that was able to successfully pull it off:
A) I would get frustrated, think the game is dumb, and quit. This sounds bad. But if I was a person inclined to do such things, then I imagine I would have the same reaction to facing a site lock deck, a Zebulun/Watchful Servant Turtle, TGT, one of Kirk's combo decks, a well-built Heroless deck, etc. etc. The point is, there are so many ways to completely eliminate your opponent's ability to participate fully in the game, that it doesn't make sense to make a rule that eliminates one of the weaker ones, unless there is another good reason to do so (which there isn't, IMO).
B) I would congratulate my opponent for such a creative idea and successful implementation, then try to figure out new ways to stop it (of which there are plenty).
FWIW, these are the ways currently that you can discard Lost Souls (either in play or off the top of your deck):
Burial
Jephthah--requires you to put a Lost Soul on top of your deck beforehand
Evil Spawn--requires you to put a Lost Soul on top of your deck beforehand
King Shishak--Requires a successful block AND you to put a Lost Soul on top of your deck beforehand
Panic Demon (Gold)--Requires you to choose the blocker AND fail the rescue attempt AND you to put a Lost Soul on top of your deck beforehand
Boasting of Wisdom--Requires you to place it on your Hero AND capture that Hero AND you to put a Lost Soul on top of your deck beforehand
There are only 4 cards that I know of that can topdeck Lost Souls:
Washing Hands
Divination--Requires you to have an LS in your top 6
Stone Throwers--Requires that opponent doesn't have Son of God in hand
Zeresh--requires a band to Haman and an LS in your top 6
In order to pull it off, it requires a large amount of infrastructure. Which forces you to sacrifice cards that can actually help you win battles. Jayden built a deck that discarded 6 of his LSs in a game he played last night. He lost the game 2-1.
So for those who are worried about such a strategy, I wouldn't be.
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No exposing state secrets! :police:
...now I really wish I'd seen this.
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Obviously something like this suggested rule change would/should be heavily playtested to be sure it will accomplish what is hoped for. All mathematics and meta-game stuff aside, I believe Bryon summed it up very well: (bolded for emphasis)
My main reason for liking the rule is that it keeps players from being able to lock the opponent out quite so easily. Not that it is easy now. But it could be.
Maybe we should only revisit this as a rule option IF this strategy becomes too easy in the future.
I like Lost Soul availability, as it allows for battles and keeps both players in the game. Being locked out 5-10 minutes into a 45 minute game isn't a positive game experience. While I like Site strategies as an option for defense, I mainly like them as stall tactics with only a glimmer of hope for a lock. I hope that a full lock stays challenging. Battles are fun. I learned my lesson after my TGT mistake.
At times we focus so much on the advanced specific archetype decks that are beastly and forget the new/beginner/intermediate players, who are still attempting to grasp G/H and I/J starters. As long as we continue to remain aware of the Redemption knowledge gap between beginner to advanced players and allow the games to remain fun for new players, even if they lose, we will continue to grow the game.
I believe the Redemption community is resilient enough that, no matter which way the ruling may go, we will adapt and overcome and continue to find plenty of Redemption Fun and Fellowship!
Godspeed,
Mike
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No exposing state secrets! :police:
Sorry, I promise never to talk about Jordan's Deacon Obsidian Minion T1 Multi deck again. ;)
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I agree. And I am not talking about drought. I'm talking about lock. I'm talking about being 5 minutes into a game and realize there is no way you can possibly win, since 3 of your opponent's lost souls are in his discard pile and you have no way to get them out.
I can't envision any way within the realm of statistical possibility that that could happen.
It isn't so easy now, but it could be with the right new cards printed. Now it would take something like these in your top 11 cards out of 50: Burial, Jephthah, Evil Spawn, a pale green evil character, and Divination. Divination/Jephthah makes it really easy to discard 1, and Burial makes an easy 2. What is tricky is discarding the 3rd in the first 5 to 10 minutes. You'd have to find a second soul with Divination (not impossible if your deck is soul-saturated by cards like the shuffler or Death of Unrighteous) and block with Evil Spawn, which is really unlikely in the first few turns of the game.
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I'm more for getting behind the original idea of reducing text clutter on future cards. Reducing the possible NPE caused by soul depletion, which I consider a detriment towards the game overall, was just a small bonus to that. My feelings towards this possible ruling is further reinforced by the fact it would only affect 2%* of games played.
*more than likely far closer to less than zero percent
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I like it the way it is, while its not a real viable strategy its a fun one.
Other ways of lock out not mentioned
King shishak (gold king) :( I can't read it was mentioned
exchanger+ rescue it dou
Begging to go back allows top deck of a ls from discard
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The remark was public, so the apology will be as well. I would like to apologize to Master KChief for my remarks last night/this morning. I read too much into your words in my tired state,and proceeded to say something that didn't need to be said the way I said it.
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No worries, I probably could have used a better choice of words. YMT cleared it up for me and I appreciate that.
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I'm more for getting behind the original idea of reducing text clutter on future cards.
I'm all for reducing clutter as well, but not at the cost of eliminating a strategy that is not inherently bad and doesn't negatively affect the game, regardless of how infrequently it's used.
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The remark was public, so the apology will be as well. I would like to apologize to Master KChief for my remarks last night/this morning. I read too much into your words in my tired state,and proceeded to say something that didn't need to be said the way I said it.
No worries, I probably could have used a better choice of words. YMT cleared it up for me and I appreciate that.
Just as an aside, I want to commend you both for apologizing and admitting a bit of fault on both sides before things went any further. Kudos to YMT for helping clarify as well. The forum needs more of this type of respect. :thumbup: