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Author Topic: Constructed General Discussion  (Read 270513 times)

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Titandrake

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Re: Constructed General Discussion
« Reply #375 on: January 27, 2015, 10:35:10 pm »
+1

Hey cool, now I can comfortably skip Holy Smite type cards. I'm just wondering what will happen to Zombie Chow. Without T1 undertaker, I predict current aggro decks are going to be smacked around by Chow quite a bit.

I'm not sure it follows that you skip Holy Smite. Until they have a better alternative, aggro decks will probably still run Undertaker anyways.
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markusin

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Re: Constructed General Discussion
« Reply #376 on: January 27, 2015, 11:25:43 pm »
0

Hey cool, now I can comfortably skip Holy Smite type cards. I'm just wondering what will happen to Zombie Chow. Without T1 undertaker, I predict current aggro decks are going to be smacked around by Chow quite a bit.

I'm not sure it follows that you skip Holy Smite. Until they have a better alternative, aggro decks will probably still run Undertaker anyways.
With the change, 1/3's like Northshire and Mana Wyrm are much better equipped to deal with Undertaker. Without the health buff, Undertaker can be swepped by AoE like the rest of the early aggro cast. It's no longer disastrous to not to kill Undertaker turn 1 or 2.

Overall, the change makes Undertaker more in line with Cogmaster. That makes sense.
« Last Edit: January 27, 2015, 11:28:14 pm by markusin »
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HiveMindEmulator

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Re: Constructed General Discussion
« Reply #377 on: January 28, 2015, 12:28:11 am »
0

One drop design is this interesting thing.  It's really awkward to design them right.  The thing is that in the agnostic game "mana efficiency game" the abstract concept of, what if i built a deck with 1s, 2s, 3s, etc, how would I maximize my chance of spending all my mana every turn with minimal use of hero power to do that, in that minigame, one drops blow.  They blow at that in Magic too, and they blow even harder in Hearthstone.  So if you want to entice people to actually play one drops, you either need to give them the busted warlock hero power, where the mana efficiency game is trivially easy using any deck and just activating hero power the appropriate amount of times, or you need to hand out one drops that give so much meaning to being 1 pt. ahead on your mana efficiency early on that they are insane.  Which means you basically need to make them as powerful as two drops, but then print 1 on their mana cost and pretend its ok.  It's a lot easier to get away with that if it's Mana Wyrm and class restricted.  Anything neutral is gonna become pervasive.

You really don't need turn 1 one mana creatures to make a good card game, even though Blizzard seems to think so.  Playable one drops are inherently swingy since they provide you some tempo in the first three turns, but do nothing if you draw them later on.  If they're not in your opening hand, they don't offer anything to the mana efficiency minigame.  1 drops like Earth shock and abusive sarge are different, of course, those are good.

I've watched zoo mirrors in modern in mtg, which revolves around 2 mana quality 1 drops duking it out.  I haven't ever found it particularly fascinating.

I think it'd be a good plan to keep all neutral 1 drop turn one plays at about leper gnome power level where only warlock is interested in them, and let the other eight classes design strategies around turns 2-10 instead of printing stuff like undertaker that forces people to play that one drop just because it's a 2 drop.

I don't think undertaker is currently that pervasive. It's in the best hunter deck, and the second best warlock deck (which plays tons of 1-drops anyway). Then there's decks that try to squeeze the deathrattle theme with the mech theme thanks to the good deathrattle mechs, none of which are particularly spectacular. And there's undertaker priest which I guess a couple of people play... Zombie chow is similarly popular because it's actually the value of a 2-drop.

Anyway, I like undertaker because I like things that threaten to grow or make other things grow, because that messes with the calculus of what is worth killing. Do I coin my dark bomb or play zombie chow? Depends on how likely he is to have 2 1 mana deathrattle minions. I do get that it's too strong for a 1 drop though. If your opponent gets 2 early, there's almost nothing you can do. That makes it swingy. I don't think it's useless late game though since it can still grow, so it's not really swingy in the way you describe. Zombie chow is swingy in that way.

All in all it seems your arguments suggest zombie chow is a problem card. But I guess it escapes because it's a 1 drop that's not good for aggro, so those swings don't end the game as quickly...
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popsofctown

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Re: Constructed General Discussion
« Reply #378 on: January 28, 2015, 04:28:46 pm »
0

One drop design is this interesting thing.  It's really awkward to design them right.  The thing is that in the agnostic game "mana efficiency game" the abstract concept of, what if i built a deck with 1s, 2s, 3s, etc, how would I maximize my chance of spending all my mana every turn with minimal use of hero power to do that, in that minigame, one drops blow.  They blow at that in Magic too, and they blow even harder in Hearthstone.  So if you want to entice people to actually play one drops, you either need to give them the busted warlock hero power, where the mana efficiency game is trivially easy using any deck and just activating hero power the appropriate amount of times, or you need to hand out one drops that give so much meaning to being 1 pt. ahead on your mana efficiency early on that they are insane.  Which means you basically need to make them as powerful as two drops, but then print 1 on their mana cost and pretend its ok.  It's a lot easier to get away with that if it's Mana Wyrm and class restricted.  Anything neutral is gonna become pervasive.

You really don't need turn 1 one mana creatures to make a good card game, even though Blizzard seems to think so.  Playable one drops are inherently swingy since they provide you some tempo in the first three turns, but do nothing if you draw them later on.  If they're not in your opening hand, they don't offer anything to the mana efficiency minigame.  1 drops like Earth shock and abusive sarge are different, of course, those are good.

I've watched zoo mirrors in modern in mtg, which revolves around 2 mana quality 1 drops duking it out.  I haven't ever found it particularly fascinating.

I think it'd be a good plan to keep all neutral 1 drop turn one plays at about leper gnome power level where only warlock is interested in them, and let the other eight classes design strategies around turns 2-10 instead of printing stuff like undertaker that forces people to play that one drop just because it's a 2 drop.

I don't think undertaker is currently that pervasive. It's in the best hunter deck, and the second best warlock deck (which plays tons of 1-drops anyway). Then there's decks that try to squeeze the deathrattle theme with the mech theme thanks to the good deathrattle mechs, none of which are particularly spectacular. And there's undertaker priest which I guess a couple of people play... Zombie chow is similarly popular because it's actually the value of a 2-drop.

Anyway, I like undertaker because I like things that threaten to grow or make other things grow, because that messes with the calculus of what is worth killing. Do I coin my dark bomb or play zombie chow? Depends on how likely he is to have 2 1 mana deathrattle minions. I do get that it's too strong for a 1 drop though. If your opponent gets 2 early, there's almost nothing you can do. That makes it swingy. I don't think it's useless late game though since it can still grow, so it's not really swingy in the way you describe. Zombie chow is swingy in that way.

All in all it seems your arguments suggest zombie chow is a problem card. But I guess it escapes because it's a 1 drop that's not good for aggro, so those swings don't end the game as quickly...

Zombie Chow is a pretty crazy card.  But undertaker is, I'm 1 pt. ahead on the mana efficiency game, and now I'm melting your face before I run out of cards in hand and start failing at it.  Zombie chow is, I'm 1 pt. ahead on the mana efficiency game, but I'm gonna make us play it longer so that I have a chance to start failing at it.  So only Warlock is really able to use it in a compelling way, and it's probably only going to show up in control decks with really good draw mechanics otherwise.  Priest has pretty decent draw and can draw even better when it has 2/3s bopping around so that's another one. 

If Zombie Chow's mechanic showed up on a card that put more value in hand like Pit Lord it would be way stronger.  What keeps Zombie Chow within reason is that a control deck isn't excluding Crocolisk because Crocolisk isn't worth 2 mana, a control deck is excluding Crocolisk because Crocolisk isn't worth a card.

I think the undertaker nerf is offputting because DBoom is definitely stronger and midrange and control feel like they need more of a look, but I do think undertaker was probably not great for the long term health of the game.  Playing Frostbolt on a 1/2, and feeling like that was definitely the correct play, and feeling like it was correct, within the meta, for my deck's gameplan with respect to undertaker to be to trade down, was a tipoff that made me feel like something's the matter with that fellow.  It's bad when cards have a "beat the rest of the deck" feel to them like that, where it's optimal to design your deck to just take a bad trade with a card when you see it and then try to make good trades with the other stuff that's in there. Most classes didn't have a good trade available.

Maybe if we're lucky we will see some deck that is held back by the strength of undertaker come out and shake up the meta.  I for one am excited to play my Mech priest more, since I have unexpectedly good results with it, and it doesn't use undertaker or undertaker hate.
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Jorbles

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Re: Constructed General Discussion
« Reply #379 on: January 29, 2015, 05:20:06 pm »
0

Anyone else start prototyping new aggro decks without Undertaker? It's kinda fun because you don't have to worry about being out aggroed by Undertaker anymore.

I'm trying a sort of Rogue JeevesMech thing that I had good results with this morning. It's gone through a few iterations, but I'm trying different things out right now to try and get the balance to feel right. It makes me really wish I had Thalnos for the Fan of Knives combo though.
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KingZog3

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Re: Constructed General Discussion
« Reply #380 on: January 29, 2015, 06:54:21 pm »
0

Yeah I don't think aggro is gone. There are aggro decks that lost to the hunter aggro decks, but still were fine against the control decks, mainly things like Rogue aggro. I think these decks will replace the aggro slot in ranked.
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ashersky

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Re: Constructed General Discussion
« Reply #381 on: January 29, 2015, 06:55:38 pm »
0

I'm trying out the Rogue Mech Tempo deck, which is sort of aggro?

It relies on mechs to fill the board while your weapons take out opponent minions.  It's kind of fun.  I decided to try it since I have two Cogmaster's Wrenches.
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popsofctown

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Re: Constructed General Discussion
« Reply #382 on: January 30, 2015, 02:11:14 am »
0

I think rogue aggro is still going to get terrible empty hand syndrome like crazy.  That deck died along with Novice Engineer's extra point of toughness, to me.  Well HME built something pretty good using Jeeves, which really makes a whole ton of sense as a place to turn, but then I suspect it might be a slightly weaker version of Jeeves Mage.

Shaman aggro excites me a lot more. 
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HiveMindEmulator

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Re: Constructed General Discussion
« Reply #383 on: January 30, 2015, 01:09:18 pm »
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I think rogue aggro is still going to get terrible empty hand syndrome like crazy.  That deck died along with Novice Engineer's extra point of toughness, to me.  Well HME built something pretty good using Jeeves, which really makes a whole ton of sense as a place to turn, but then I suspect it might be a slightly weaker version of Jeeves Mage.

Shaman aggro excites me a lot more.

I think Jeeves Rogue is probably better than Jeeves Mage, but I don't think either is particularly strong. Having a slightly higher curve into Azure Drakes seems more reliable and not that much worse for getting on top of the tempo. The problem is that sometimes you don't draw Jeeves and you're screwed, so you at least need Loots or Shivs or Acolytes, but then you might as well just run bigger stuff and draw later. I don't know, may Coldlight Oracle works? The only aggro class that can happily not have cards to play is Hunter, because the hero power is the best dump of 2 mana. I think Aggro Hunter is still going to be the best pure aggro deck, but just weaker than it was previously.

I think the big winner in the Undertaker nerf is midrange Paladin. Now Minibot, Muster, Consecration, and Truesilver deal with any early game push quite nicely.
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blueblimp

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Re: Constructed General Discussion
« Reply #384 on: February 04, 2015, 02:55:39 am »
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Fatigue Mage is a pretty fun deck to play. I got a little bored of this game because on a lot of turns you don't need to think very much about your play, but this deck makes every turn hard.
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KingZog3

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Re: Constructed General Discussion
« Reply #385 on: February 04, 2015, 11:10:50 am »
0

Fatigue Mage is a pretty fun deck to play. I got a little bored of this game because on a lot of turns you don't need to think very much about your play, but this deck makes every turn hard.

yeah, this and the fatigue druid deck with poison seeds are both a lot of fun to play.
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KingZog3

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Re: Constructed General Discussion
« Reply #386 on: February 06, 2015, 01:30:11 pm »
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So I opened both my 3rd iron juggernaut but also Gazlow. Obviously he's not good enough currently, but has anyone tried him out yet. I think I'll make a gazlow deck tonight for fun.
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HiveMindEmulator

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Re: Constructed General Discussion
« Reply #387 on: February 06, 2015, 01:49:35 pm »
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I actually crafted Gazlowe because I thought it would be fun, but I didn't find it that compelling. I was trying a Mech priest, since you like the extra Mechs with the Upgraded Repairbot, and you have a fair number of good 1 mana cost spells. Anyway, I wish I had my dust back to make an actual good card like Sneed's.
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Jorbles

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Re: Constructed General Discussion
« Reply #388 on: February 06, 2015, 02:42:41 pm »
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I actually crafted Gazlowe because I thought it would be fun, but I didn't find it that compelling. I was trying a Mech priest, since you like the extra Mechs with the Upgraded Repairbot, and you have a fair number of good 1 mana cost spells. Anyway, I wish I had my dust back to make an actual good card like Sneed's.

I've been toying around with a Mech Priest deck that I call Magpie Mech that I decided to build because I played like 6 mech decks in a row once.

Basically it's a Mech Priest deck with all the steal card stuff (Thought Steal, Mind Vision, Cabal (well I don't actually have one, but I would put it in here)). The idea being that Mech decks are so common now that stealing Mech cards give you even more synergies than other classes decks can have. Aside from that you just try to play like a normal Mech deck, but I enjoy planning what to steal. It's a deck that exclusively works in this meta, but is fun to play right now.
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KingZog3

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Re: Constructed General Discussion
« Reply #389 on: February 06, 2015, 03:01:44 pm »
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I would not make it a mech focused deck. You make it a normal deck that uses Gazlow to "draw" a lot of cards. A priest Gazlow deck for sure would not be mech based simply because priest doesn't have enoughech synergy.
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HiveMindEmulator

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Re: Constructed General Discussion
« Reply #390 on: February 06, 2015, 03:42:00 pm »
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The thing is you want Tinkertown and Mech Yeti to get spare parts to draw into more mechs. And you want to dump a lot of cards quickly. Heavy draw cards are good if you expend all your cards winning the board, and then use the draw to refill while you still have the board pressure. A "normal" Priest deck won't make good use of the draw.
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KingZog3

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Re: Constructed General Discussion
« Reply #391 on: February 06, 2015, 04:14:07 pm »
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I don't see why you can't use Gazlow as a value card though. You keep your hand size up, even if you use cheap spells.
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popsofctown

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Re: Constructed General Discussion
« Reply #392 on: February 06, 2015, 04:22:19 pm »
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I don't see why you can't use Gazlow as a value card though. You keep your hand size up, even if you use cheap spells.
If you want to play a card that can make you never feel worried about your hand being empty again, Ysera seems better.
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KingZog3

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Re: Constructed General Discussion
« Reply #393 on: February 06, 2015, 06:29:49 pm »
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I don't see why you can't use Gazlow as a value card though. You keep your hand size up, even if you use cheap spells.
If you want to play a card that can make you never feel worried about your hand being empty again, Ysera seems better.

I'm clearly not going for better, I'm going for fun to try Gazlowe.
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pingpongsam

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Re: Constructed General Discussion
« Reply #394 on: February 07, 2015, 07:23:32 am »
0

Controlock

There, I said it. I'm having success with a deck that focuses on early removal until I can get out Malganis and pit lord and other buffed demons with draw that suffers no damage. It is by no means perfect but I tend towards 3 and 4 game win streaks with just 1 or 2 losses in between.

Haven't been facelessed yet but Mage tends to eat up the plan pretty well unless they are running mechs where the early removal just wrecks them. Also Rogues do well against it since their deck focus is not about establishing early board presence. Shamans all die to this.
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KingZog3

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Re: Constructed General Discussion
« Reply #395 on: February 07, 2015, 11:57:52 am »
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It's not that Mal Ghanis is bad, or that demon deck don't work, it's that they are simply worse than standard Handlock decks. Your matchups are either the same as with handlock or worse.
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pingpongsam

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Re: Constructed General Discussion
« Reply #396 on: February 07, 2015, 12:03:30 pm »
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Agreed. Thing is the only giants I have are molten. This deck all came from packs and is quite useful for getting the 60 gold dailies with Warlock.
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Jorbles

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Re: Constructed General Discussion
« Reply #397 on: February 07, 2015, 08:21:24 pm »
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I remember someone talking about this awhile ago. I just opened Trade Prince Gally and was wondering if anyone had found a good way to slot him into a Rogue deck (or if Control Rogue is just too weak and no one plays it because no one wants to lose all the time).
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EgorK

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Re: Constructed General Discussion
« Reply #398 on: February 07, 2015, 09:02:53 pm »
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I remember someone talking about this awhile ago. I just opened Trade Prince Gally and was wondering if anyone had found a good way to slot him into a Rogue deck (or if Control Rogue is just too weak and no one plays it because no one wants to lose all the time).

I think he is in almost all rogue decks out there
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blueblimp

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Re: Constructed General Discussion
« Reply #399 on: February 07, 2015, 09:17:51 pm »
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Magicamy's tier list is a good reference. She lists four Rogue decks there (Oil Rogue, Tempo Rogue, Mech Rogue, Pirates Rogue). Of those, only the Tempo Rogue runs Gallywix.
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