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The bane of a Samuel deck is that it doesn't have anit-meta cards. So it IS really good meta, but can't stop it. You can EASILY beat a Samuel offense quickly with only 10-15 offensive cards, no joke. And that's probably overkill. And with an Egyptian defense, you can still keep up with it in speed. Include an armorbearer and/or tribal elder and you can steal a large portion of their band.

I think Covenant with Death is one of the best few cards created in the past few years.

Thanks! I agree completely. When it was designed the goal was to give players a tool that would move things toward the basic elements of attacking, blocking and playing enhancements.

Quote from: Captain Kirk on September 22, 2011, 04:12:58 PM

I think Covenant with Death is one of the best few cards created in the past few years.

Thanks! I agree completely. When it was designed the goal was to give players a tool that would move things toward the basic elements of attacking, blocking and playing enhancements.

And what was the goal of all the new cards that speed up card drawing?  CWD came out at the same time as MORE overpowered cards that it is needed to stop.  That's what I don't get.  If speed was an acknowledged problem (and I think everyone agrees that it was), then why make MORE cards that encourage decking out even faster?

It's like there's all sorts of acknowledgement here that cards were made that were just too powerful, but rather than errata or ban anything (or stop making cards like that), we'll just keep making counters.  All that does is create a scenario (as described in this thread) where whomever gets X card first wins (which already happens with dominants).  Covenant with Death is NOT a dependable counter to Samuel if the game is over before you draw it.  The appropriate counter to overpowered cards is not to make them so powerful to begin with.  Aren't these new cards playtested?

Sorry to rant, but with each new set I'm moving further and further toward believing that its all about everyone buying the powerful new cards and less about improving the game.  In the meantime I will continue to try to have fun by swimming against the stream and NOT making these "meta" decks, and then I will graciously lose to them.

And I will certainly never understand all the rejoicing over a card that makes your own character abilities worthless, and FURTHERS the other problem of CBN.

Yeah steff CwD is central to the best deck in the game currently and that deck is balanced. samuel and genesis can't stop it if it lasts to mid game.

On paper the situation looks bad, but in theory I've had immense success using a balanced deck against speed. That is to say: I haven't once lost to speed with a balanced deck once I figured out the meta. I can't say that about any other season since Apostles.

Really? Because last season it was pretty easy to stomp the meta, which is why an anti-meta deck took second place last year. The two biggest decks in the game right now are easily taken out by three or four cards. Are Genesis and Sam broken? Yes. Are both easily countered by the same cards? Yup.

I'm not sure where you get your "acknowledgement" but I've never agreed that "speed is a problem" or that any of the new cards are "too powerful". In fact, if you want someone to blame for card drawing or CBN in the new set I'll gladly be your scapegoat.

We intentionally added card drawing to brigades (or themes) that didn't have it. Judges used to be SOOOOO slow and reliant on Judges Seat that they weren't even remotely competitive. Well, they aren't slow anymore.

Players have been complaining that "red is dead" for several years. It didn't get much drawing but it finally got some reliable CBN battle winners, something it's lacked severely compared to other, more successful brigades.

We virtually "killed" Genesis and purple Royalty with the anti-ignore stuff in Disciples because those themes used to rely a lot on ignore abilities. They both got tools to help them become competitive again.

This set was tested more than any other in recent years, maybe ever. Players like Pol and Lambo were consulted before it went to print to help us see any combos or OP cards we might have missed. I'm rather pleased with the outcome. I'm sorry to hear that you're not.

I agree wholeheartedly. Except for the Samuel argument, no one still uses Judges. They just splash in samuel and Angel under the Oak. I think making those cards work that effectively only if you had mostly judges would have been better, because still there is no reason to use judges, red/samuel/purple is a much better use of Samuel, and better in mostly every way. But yeah, I agree the new set is actually amazingly balanced.

Everyone is complaining about offense... but seriously, Uzzah, Failed Objective, Death of Unrightousness and the like got virtually untouched. Samuel can't stop that.

Judges are still used in hero-lite and anti-meta.

Judges are very underrated. They have a bit of everything, and very good ones of each of those.

Quote from: Professoralstad on September 23, 2011, 10:07:49 AM

Quote from: lightningninja on September 22, 2011, 06:50:23 PM

I agree wholeheartedly. Except for the Samuel argument, no one still uses Judges. They just splash in samuel and Angel under the Oak. I think making those cards work that effectively only if you had mostly judges would have been better, because still there is no reason to use judges,

I cannot tell you how much I disagree with this.

This was entirely talking about T1. You are still permitted to disagree, just clarifying. 

Thank you for clarifying, but I still disagree. Judges are bomb-diggity in T2, but I've seen quite a few T1 Judges offenses that are quite alright themselves.