Make minimum number of deck 60?

[Berdugo]

I am playing at 300.

This man speaks the truth.

[darkenheart]

i would support 45 cards! =)

[Raphael Majere]

i would support 45 cards! =)

This is not a bad idea: IMO, there's a criteria that must be fulfilled in terms of balance (note the the dt and PFG designed the expansion also with 40 card limit in mind, not 45) : is that there must be sufficient viable draw engines for each class and how these draw engines have an impact on the board.

What do I mean by that: say in our current meta, in a lance vs lance MU. The first who cast the igg out and manages to keep it on board, i.e not STed by opponent, for a significant period of time, is almost assured of a win.

Similarity, in a Logan vs Logan MU, the player who cast the first bf and the opponent did not respond with a bf on his own is immediately at a huge advantage and this advantage grows as the game goes on. (Hence I welcome cards like killing spree and smoke screen)

(And no, usually Logans will not pack sever ties to remove opponent's bf....)

In both cases above, the lack of board wipes or a mid game ability/way to death race the opponent to death indicates that the draw engine is overwhelming important hence usually one would want to draw it by t4/t5.

Hence, a movement to 45 cards is fine as long as there are relatively comparable draw engines to bf and igg. (Or viable draw cards that can replace bf or igg)

An example in the current meta would be elad rush. Since she has no igg or bf. She has tome, TO, HD and bs. To me, all of these represent a pretty fair balance. Hence, good players are forced to decide on the percentage of these cards for their decks. 4 HD, 4 BS, 2 tomes? 4 tomes, 4 TO, 2 HD? 4 bs, 4 TO, 4 HD?

Ultimately, the main point is that any increase in deck size minimum should not result in a drop in strategy: because that will see an immediate drop in players looking for a deep game. The idea is to always allow the luck element to exist while maintaining the illusion that this game requires skill and brains and strategy.

This man speaks the truth.

All the top 100 accounts that do not have a guild tag are mine.

[Killtrend]

If anyone ever played competitive magic, at a high level decks start becoming predictable too.

The game is about averages and repeatability. There can't be more than only a few absolute best paths to victory. It's just the nature of the beast.

Look at FPS games, and even games like Starcraft or WoW. The most successful people are using more or less the same top level weapons and strategy.

[ahmet476]

I think people can play with 45 or 60 cards wahtever. I don't want the minimum to be increased. You can't have best of both current set and expansion in some decks. You need to choose your cards and strategy. What it does is bring variety.

[kentuequi]

40 cards minimum or i'll quit the game. :P

And congratz Raph, you can reach 300? awesome, haha, ;D

[darkenheart]

i understand the 40deck minimum. i had a game wherein all of my 4 igg's where at the bottom 9 cards of my deck. how'd you like that. =P and i had 40 cards total plus hero. whew.

[attwo]

It is not even true that most TCG require 60 card decks: Duel Masters, which has a "sacrifice" mechanic very similar to the one found in Shadow Era has a 40 card minimum.
Yugioh TCG has a 40 card minimum.
MTG has a 60 card minimum but, lands system aside, it allows the player who doesn't like his opening hand to "mulligan", i.e. to shuffle it away and draw a new opening hand with one card less. And take a look at the great deal of deck manipulation found in Magic: Shadow Era has almost none. MTG started with a 40 card limit too, it was then changed to 60 because combo decks were too efficient and therefore oppressive to the metagame, a problem that Shadow Era is not experiencing at all.

Long story short, pretty much every trading card game is trying hard to reduce variance, with stricter rules about deckbuilding being imposed only when a deck, or a class of decks is clearly a mile ahead of the pack. I don't think that moving to a sixty card minimum is improving our game the littlest, and setting the new limit to 45 looks like a small change in terms of increasing variance, (I haven't done the math, I might be wrong here) but on the other hand it creates balance problems.

My vote is to stick with forty cards.

[Sprinkles]

Teemo says: "Size isn't everything". It's how you work and wiggle in and out of the jungle bushes that matters

That said, I think the game would be a lot less luck bases if they increased the amount of cards a player is allowed to hold in their hand by 2.

[attwo]

Teemo says: "Size isn't everything". It's how you work and wiggle in and out of the jungle bushes that matters.

My favorite LoL champion. It's nice to meet a fellow summoner

I think we would be better off if we moved to a MTG-like rule. You can hold as many cards as you want but you have to discard to seven at end of turn. However the current system allows for some skill tricks, like you are at six cards and I cast Bad Santa for extreme value.