Originally Posted by Hammy Striker

- Armor of ages and Crescendo both of which are armours that can easily be destroyed by all factions.

I think work on bringing out more cards that can counter rather than killing cards off is a better solution. We have so many dead cards in the game, can we just not revamp them or bring out cards to make them useful?? I would rather a game of infinite combinations rather than one of a fairly predictable outcome...

We tried FOR YEARS to bring out more suitable tech, which many people even do run, but there's just one small flaw in that approach when it comes to tackling abusive decks that are designed specifically to make the game go long and bring misery to the opponent (intentionally or not) ...

A tuned deck of 40-50 cards (which most people tend to play for consistency) is going to run out of answers to these cards before the player abusing them has run out of copies. In a large deck nowadays, you can easily run 4 copies of either of these armors and ways to recycle them and there will be enough time to get set up before losing because of the abundance of draw available. (Remember the time that huge decks were laughable because they would lose quickly due to failure to find key cards or draw in time? Those days are gone!)

Originally Posted by qwertzy

Lol i read a quete " mentioned in compleints"? So 1 staple card in one deck and 4 cards that are played ib 0.001 decks gives a such a great npe expirience the we need ban them.

That's a great start! Now read the rest of it.

Good Idea. Perfect choices!
I am long time player (since CotC only times) and this is very well picked cards.
I played Monster Garth a lot just because this deck works well against clasic decks and against mill too. Now I can concentrate more on making wonderfull competitive decks without that much of stress from mill oponents.

And there is always option to release similar, but much more balanced cards.
Thanks DT - this can change SE even more than whole new set (-: and we need change a lot.

"itf was banned because of Gwen. she often spams 3 in a row and there is almost nothing you can do. even if i have 2 groundshifts in my deck the odds of getting one in time is extremely low"
But, Gwen has only become an issue in this meta. I remember hardly ever seeing Gwen for months. Removing ITF will affect Skervox bad and he is already a weak hero. Can we not produce a card that like i.e. Armor - if hero is hidden then can not attack on next turn. or something similar.

"Lay low situation is a bit better since the sosilo nerf but you usually have very few cards to kill support abilities-again very small chance of drawing one."
Again reduce the support ability destroy card cost to only 2cc. Bring out more support ability destroy armour or artefacts. We have just brought out a location that destroys other locations so we are moving in the right direction.

"You cant really deal with allies in grave that easily. Collector and warden are your main guys here but you know elementals wont let them survive for longer than 1 turn. It is insane that you can get from 1 to 28 health for 3 cc imo"
Thats true but there are artefacts that remove allies from graveyard too. I always pack them in my deck and only sometimes have issues with getting stalled. Again we can look at making new cards that clear your graveyard.

"crescendo is not around anymore but AoA can still be seen in those horrible prax decks. Lets say you have 3 smashing blows and he discards 1 one of them. He has 4 armors and rain delay and energy discharge. cant deal with that"
It can also work the other way. Prax can not decide which cards to discard so could end up discarding 3 AoA at the same time.

You never see any of the top or 300+ players using stall decks. Not because they think they boring but they are not that effective in winning. I can understand it is not fun to play against for 30 mins and then find out that you have lost but thats the game aint it? Didn't know so many people were so against stall decks. IMO I enjoy playing with them more than any other decks so will most likely affect me more than others

Lastly, heroes like Praxix, Moonstalker, Skervox have abilities that push them towards using stall. What can Wulven do about this now as they are becoming more and more weaker compared to faster build heroes?

Originally Posted by Hammy Striker

You never see any of the top or 300+ players using stall decks. Not because they think they boring but they are not that effective in winning. I can understand it is not fun to play against for 30 mins and then find out that you have lost but thats the game aint it? Didn't know so many people were so against stall decks. IMO I enjoy playing with them more than any other decks so will most likely affect me more than others

Below the top 5% at 300+ rating are the remaining 95% of players. Allowing these cards to be abused to bring misery to those players makes no business sense.

Ok I get it, but is there another way. What about poor Skervox and Moonstalker?

Originally Posted by Hammy Striker

Ok I get it, but is there another way. What about poor Skervox and Moonstalker?

They just got a lot of decent cards to make a variety of new decks in Lost Lands Part Two!

I think Holy Shield is every bit as annoying to play against as those cards on the ban list...and most decks don't have consistent ways of dealing with attachments. Most of the cards on the ban list would be fine for play if SoE and vermin had their ability being able to work on summon (like it did initially).

Originally Posted by Shadow Mann

I think Holy Shield is every bit as annoying to play against as those cards on the ban list...and most decks don't have consistent ways of dealing with attachments. Most of the cards on the ban list would be fine for play if SoE and vermin had their ability being able to work on summon (like it did initially).

You can't even target ITF, so SoE/Vermin in their original form wouldn't help either.

Originally Posted by Gondorian

You can't even target ITF, so SoE/Vermin in their original form wouldn't help either.

but when using ITF, Rapid Fire, and a weapon...at least it can take out weapon. And I said, most are dealt with SoE/Vermin on summon, not all...just a thought.

-by the way, I'm not complaining...just stating my thoughts/opinion. I also know that this ban list is temporary for now and cards can be added or removed to this list in the next update. I'm fine with whatever and will adjust no matter what gets banned or nerfed/buffed.

Why not just restrict to 1 in a deck?

Originally Posted by pasdev

Why not just restrict to 1 in a deck?

I'll add to the list of options we could pick from after getting more information from this trial ban.

Originally Posted by Shadow Mann

by the way, I'm not complaining...just stating my thoughts/opinion. I also know that this ban list is temporary for now and cards can be added or removed to this list in the next update. I'm fine with whatever and will adjust no matter what gets banned or nerfed/buffed.

Yeah, sorry. People should be able to voice their thoughts in advance. It's what led to us trialling this ban list actually.

But now it's happening, I will do my very best not to be drawn into discussion about it from now on, since the most valuable input will be from the games that happen in v3.60 and player experiences of it!

Originally Posted by pasdev

Why not just restrict to 1 in a deck?

This would be an interesting option. It is in a way what Yugioh does with their ban lists. In that game you have 4 statuses for cards: Unlimited (can use maximum 3 copies), Semi-limited (can use 2 copies), Limited (1 copy), and Banned. Their list also changes every few months, sometimes with cards coming back from being banned after long periods, so who knows, maybe later down the line new decks will be powerful enough that allowing back in some of this older stuff won't be too strong. You never know.

When attachment Jerry spams holy shield, or combos holy shield and tidal wave, it is more fair to opposing heroes than lay low? I'm not a fan of lay low or any card on the ban list, but if these cards are banned I'm not sure why holy shield isnt the list for the same reasons.

holy shield is annoying but it has only 1 target. lay low hides all allies AND hero..and its usually played with shrine 3 or 4 times in a row.

Originally Posted by cargoth

holy shield is annoying but it has only 1 target. lay low hides all allies AND hero..and its usually played with shrine 3 or 4 times in a row.

Countering laylow with groundshift, SoV, focused prayer, winged Redeemer, or kion/vull is much easier than countering attachments for most decks...and that one ally can be buffed to kill your hero in one or two turns and be unretreatable and unkillable.

I've voiced my opinion on this several times and I'm going to do it again... even if its another long text block. I think its great that there is finally something happening to address the problems this game has faced for literal years. The fact that something is happening means its finally become a big enough problem for action to occur. I don't want to understate how great that is. Yet I will still say that a ban list is just not going to cut it in the end.

I don't think these 5 cards tackle the issue for starters, which doesn't really show as much as I believe you guys hope it will. Soul Reaper and Into the Forest are the only cards on this ban list that will get some results in my opinion. Soul Reaper has always healed too much, but is mild compared to the near invincibility that Into the Forest provides. Hidden is next to broken, and even if I disagree with it's inclusion, Lay Low makes some sense. The other 2 feel like filler inclusion for the sake of it.

Armor of Ages is a card that was created to be an armor that protects you from damage. It slows down the game, but doesn't break the game in the way a Hidden hero does. In fact, I doubt its even that much of an issue with Soul Reaper gone (which calls back to my statement about it being one of the cards that will actually show results). I'll admit it can be annoying, but so is a lot of healing/damage reduction. I'm curious if people would have even noticed it, if it wasn't in Elementals to begin with. I think Vess might use it now, but I haven't personally run into that much. Unlike the main 3, this card also has commonly run counters in addition to the counter of allies wearing it down. It's a high cost item and there are many cards that can destroy it outright (LLN, Focused Prayer, Stop Theif!, Smashing Blow, ect.). The only exception would be with Vess and Lythite Coating, but I still don't see that as too problematic in and of itself (it feels like Vess is more the culprit there).

Crescendo is the most puzzling inclusion. It takes several turns to trigger its board wipe and has quite a unique effect. It's a pretty interesting card and is pretty much only disliked because of Moonstalker's ability to hide it away long enough for it to trigger. I don't think its a stretch to say that Moonstalker's stealth is the issue here and not Crescendo or its effect. If not for this, Crescendo wouldn't be a problem in any other deck that can run it. It's likely why you NEVER see it in any mage, Darkclaw, or Bloodfang deck. It's also a high cost armor like Armor of Ages and has the same things associated with it. Beyond that, its not like it comes out of nowhere and can be played with its effect in mind. Something players do with Tidal Wave even though that technically does come from nowhere.

Which basically leads me to my next point that you'll have to tackle the hero abilities that cause these problems eventually too. Moonstalker in particular. Vess and Skervox are new enough (and therefore not printed in stone instead of cardboard) to make changes to make there abilities more interactive and/or balanced in this regard (balance referring to player engagement on both sides, not necessarily power level). I doubt many players would be okay with the banning of an entire hero. I'm sure there are other problematic cards as well that are slipping my mind a bit, although Evil Ascendant pops into my mind too, but again it feels more like something that adds to a deeper problem in the same way Crescendo is viewed here. My main point is that, even if this is just a test, more will have to be banned in the future for banning to work entirely.

(sorry double post, darn character limit, lol)
This brings me to the proposed other possible solutions that have been brought forth. I'd like to explore possible consequences and benefits of these as well.

1. - Keep that card on the Ban List permanently and compensate any players with that card for the playability restriction we have imposed.
- Design a new card based on the redeeming features of the original, which can be given free to any players owning the banned card.

These two go hand in hand. I think creating a new card and giving them out to players for effectively removing a card from their collection is a good idea if bans were to remain permanent. In this world, its a good path to travel so long as it really sticks to "keeping the redeeming features of the original," even as far as theme and artwork. Being as close to the original as possible while removing the part that causes the problem. However, It was mentioned here how Hearthstone rotates whole sets, but what I doubt many others don't say is how they also "ban" cards. They essentially nerf the card to oblivion, removing what was unique or interesting about it instead of bringing it inline. This is what this reminds me of and what I would fear in the end. I know a lot of people would disagree with me, but I haven't seen much of a reason to believe it would basically be the same card, but balanced.

2 - Add that card to a Restricted List where only 1 or 2 copies are permitted in a deck.

The problem I have with this path is that it overwrites one of the fundamentals of the game. You're basically adding in a new rule for these cards retroactively just so they can't be recycled or used so many times consecutively. It's not like these are special card types (such as the kind you would see in Pokemon like Prism Star or Ace Spec). There is also the problem of this ruining the consistency of these cards and not just the number of times they can be used. I simply see no reason to go down this path.

3. - Remove that card from the Ban List and admit actually it does have a place in the game.

For the sake of completeness, sure. That is one good thing about this is that it may show something like this.

4. - Errata the card in an attempt to make it not so harmful.

This is similar to the first idea, except you don't ban, restrict, or take anything away. Much like what I stated above, it still has the potential to remove the card anyways with a terrible change. But I think trying (even possibly a few times) is much better than removing the card completely. Into the Forest could act like Rain Delay and stick around until the end of the next turn and/or become a support ability. Soul Reaper could heal 1 health per ally exiled or 1 health per 2 allies exiled. Lay Low could be impossible to return to your hand or exiles itself upon doing so (Winged Redeemer would still counter it for example) or have it skip the readied step of the turn so the things laying low can't do much. Remove the hero from the hidden equation to make it riskier to play. Some of these might be a bit band-aid esque, but you get the point.

The downsides to this one are primarily two main things. First, it would make an errata to the physical game (unless they decide to seperate them, which is an option btw) and potentially cause some confusion to those players. I think the kind of people who would play Shadow Era physically is already used to this sort of thing and would appreciate the balance much more than the slight confusion they would have, or even the frustration of dealing with these exact same problems. Not to mention pulling a card from the booster only to realize its banned and instead of merely changed! (Thanks Full Art Lysandre's Trump Card!). You could even release reprints of errata'd cards when you're comfortable with the version you have in a nifty "errata pack" or something if they really care that much about it exactly matching the online game (which a few cards don't anyways, wordings and such are different on some cards). Admittedly you could do that with the "replacement card" for physical players in point one, although they would need it since they can't use the old version and would likely frown upon having to buy it. The other thing it will do is what any of these would do (except doing nothing) and anger the people who like these cards and the play-style most of us find problematic. You can see that in this very thread. I genuinely believe that errata's are meeting half-way, a compromise to these players. I really don't feel that these strategies that (clearly) some people like are worth destroying completely. It just must be made interesting on some level, rather than uninteractive or hopeless feeling. I feel there needs to be openings in the strategy itself, not counters no one wants to run as well.

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Btw, I know the rebutle to most of what I've written here is that "its just a test, calm down!" but I don't find that to be a valid argument to not speak up and give my feedback (I even only say this because I've been told this exact thing when discussing this in the past). My fear is that this test will be used as justification to just keep banning cards and not tackling the problem at its roots. I'll make it no secret that I think banning cards as THE END SOLUTION will destroy a large reason why so many people love this game. This may be a test to gather more data, but I fear it will be the solution instead. I also have no fear in saying that I think the banning path is particularly lazy. It's great that it's "low low cost" for the bottom line, but that's not a great excuse when it comes to the player experience of playing Shadow Era as a game, as a whole. The fact that the future plans says they only might try erratas proves this point to me, especially when there is no way the cost of trying erratas is so much that it's not worth even trying before making any ban permanent. Especially when the 1st proposed solution would create a new card, which requires new art which costs more money in addition to the newly designed and implemented card. I really hope to be proven wrong about that, and that this test is but one of many.

TL;DR: I'm glad that something is finally happening, but I still disagree with bannings in general and feel the current experimental list is a bit lacking and doesn't provide enough scope. I also think that some of the proposed future plans aren't so great and that I still feel errata changes are the best middle road path. I hope that people won't settle for bans until they are proven to be THE END SOLUTION definitively. Even though many would disagree, I have my doubts with the intentions of these moves and I hope to be proven wrong in the coming months.