Review of Raikka post 2.86

[Fionn Maccumhail]

Well deadline has passed, who ended up with the highest score Gondorian?

[Gondorian]

Well deadline has passed, who ended up with the highest score Gondorian?

I believe it was you since no one else notified me of achieving anything better. Congratulations! Anyone seen tafkad recently?

[tafkad]

I've seen him, he is waiting for unified platforms still - until then no game and no irc - Grats to all who took the GDC test, though it looks like a challenge of the sorts made here in this thread may have been better off as it's own thread and a little more advance notice instead of a hijack - I also think Dox deserves some sort of prize for the player who actually played Raikka the most - the deck in this post is very good and some of the recent changes may help it more so don't give up on her just yet, even though she looks to have been voted bottom of the barrel in the "weakest hero" thread - cheers

[Fionn Maccumhail]

Aye, she isn't awful, this was a test more of the whole flame theme. Amulet of Conjuring obviously is a more solid draw choice which allows her to rush effectively. Still would be cool if the DT can get the whole flame concept to work with gauntlets.

The reward test of a hero is a nice idea from Gondorian. New season will start soon, might be an idea to offer a similar prize for first week/2 weeks minimum X games with some of the other bottom of the barrel heroes (Ythan, Skervox, Ter, Logan etc.) so more people would try to get some joy out of them.

[Pteronophobic Wizard]

Hi everyone. I stopped playing SE a few years ago, then came back when the shattered fates beta hit and have been following the forums since, but have never posted. I remember when Majiya's ability was still 2se: draw a card and also a time when there were tons of gwens playing beetledemon bow. I really like how the game has changed since then and I've had lots of fun playing over the last few months. Anyway, I saw GDC's challenge and decided to give it a go.

My last 30 games are with Raikka and I went from a starting rating of 302 to a final rating of 309, with a record of 19-11 against an average rating of 285. From BoyNamedCameron vs Merlin9910 to Merlin9910 vs BOBO3333.

Not all of my games this season have been with Raikka, but most of them have. I played most of the other games with a nishaven build, and one game with boris. My final build was a pure mage rush with lots of cheap tough allies and lots of burn similar to a1 flibber's, but i used amulet of conjuring instead of flameforged gauntlets and a few other changes. Earlier i tested some builds with ravagers, and some with portals. The portal builds were pretty strong but lost hard to rogues which were pretty common at the time and i couldn't ever get the ravagers to work.

Does this not count for some reason? Final rating 309.

[Fionn Maccumhail]

Its higher than my score :P

[tafkad]

Aye, she isn't awful, this was a test more of the whole flame theme. Amulet of Conjuring obviously is a more solid draw choice which allows her to rush effectively. Still would be cool if the DT can get the whole flame concept to work with gauntlets.

The reward test of a hero is a nice idea from Gondorian. New season will start soon, might be an idea to offer a similar prize for first week/2 weeks minimum X games with some of the other bottom of the barrel heroes (Ythan, Skervox, Ter, Logan etc.) so more people would try to get some joy out of them.

Yes amulet can help her, I think the new chainmail is a real solid choice for her as well and can make a big difference combined with her ability allowing Karash to deal 4 damage to 3cc or < allies. I would have really liked to see a better Grimghast tbh, something more along the lines:

Grimghast.jpg Views: 11 Size: 66.6 KB">Grimghast.jpg

I think that sort of thing would make it a much more useable guy in a lot of decks and help trigger Guantlets more often, not to mention just making it a little more of a badass is always fun. Maybe next set we can see something along those lines, too bad though because he could of been DMT's brother in arms.


Yes, some sort of dedicated challenge(s) for her and other low level Heroes would be a great way to improve playability for them, who knows what can be found when people have the notion to really try the harder to play heroes.

Does this not count for some reason? Final rating 309.

Hard to say, and I am not in a position to say. If we look at actual number of games played I think there is more info then just stating a 309 rating, you started at 302 and went up 7 points with around 60% win rate (19-11) and this really tells us very little again (for instance if someone played 60+ games winning more than 60% and went from say a 100 to like 200-260 you would still "beat" them). It does say you ended at 309 and it was stated that starting score was of no importance (which is strange to me), just the final score. If you feel you have won anything I suggest contacting GDC for the results you seek.

[Gondorian]

Hi everyone. I stopped playing SE a few years ago, then came back when the shattered fates beta hit and have been following the forums since, but have never posted. I remember when Majiya's ability was still 2se: draw a card and also a time when there were tons of gwens playing beetledemon bow. I really like how the game has changed since then and I've had lots of fun playing over the last few months. Anyway, I saw GDC's challenge and decided to give it a go.

My last 30 games are with Raikka and I went from a starting rating of 302 to a final rating of 309, with a record of 19-11 against an average rating of 285. From BoyNamedCameron vs Merlin9910 to Merlin9910 vs BOBO3333.

Not all of my games this season have been with Raikka, but most of them have. I played most of the other games with a nishaven build, and one game with boris. My final build was a pure mage rush with lots of cheap tough allies and lots of burn similar to a1 flibber's, but i used amulet of conjuring instead of flameforged gauntlets and a few other changes. Earlier i tested some builds with ravagers, and some with portals. The portal builds were pretty strong but lost hard to rogues which were pretty common at the time and i couldn't ever get the ravagers to work.

Looks like you won!

[Pteronophobic Wizard]

If we look at actual number of games played I think there is more info then just stating a 309 rating, you started at 302 and went up 7 points with around 60% win rate (19-11) and this really tells us very little again (for instance if someone played 60+ games winning more than 60% and went from say a 100 to like 200-260 you would still "beat" them). It does say you ended at 309 and it was stated that starting score was of no importance (which is strange to me), just the final score.

I understand your concerns but I have some counterpoints too. I did play probably 30 more games with Raikka earlier in the season, so I probably played around 60 games with her in total. I was just testing different builds before picking one to use for this competition. Also, there is a difference in strength of opponents. I think 60% win rate at 300+ ratings is a lot harder than going from 100 to 260 (although that can be very difficult too). I had some really nice wins against strong players and ratings over 315 like big wakame, bp chamthabo, bp leviosablade, and some others with this deck.

Also, although it doesn't matter much for the contest, I did achieve my 300 rating with just Nishaven, which isn't so easy by itself. He's another hero that needs some love.

I really get what you are saying though, and playing with Raikka for a longer period of time is probably a better test. Just not always fun to play the same build for a whole month (: