Bland cookie cutter iWin decks - Aldmor made it worse.

**Ross013** · 01-30-2016, 01:57 PM

I see. Well in all tcg's there is always 1 or 2 most popular deck(s), and that's the deck you should be trying to beat. I've noticed in SE however, people won't do that, so the metagame becomes stagnant, because all the variety is stuck in lower ranks because people want to play their pet deck, rather than play a deck that can win. Also keep in mind that this is only part one of a much larger set, so there isn't going to be much room for variety yet.

**The MiddleAgedNerd** · 01-30-2016, 03:12 PM

I have hung out in the 250s for years. There is variety. Look at the world championships. 8 totally different decks and no mages which have allways been popular. So i disagree. This is a varied and multi faceted game.

**Zyraquis** · 01-30-2016, 03:25 PM

Dude there are plenty of people who don't give a heck about championships, QM is the only reality. Having said that I have been seeing a lot of different decks lately maybe it's a benefit of goofing around to keep rating low. I've even seen non twilight Aramia

and Zhanna

and non Garina road Lance

. Color me surprise.

Back on topic, it's easy for Almor to loop SE I haven't had as much problem with them unlike those twilights.

I would rather not spending too much time tweaking not clearly broken cards and move onto next batch, who knows you may need to tweak some back because new cards come out.

**Nezakhan** · 01-31-2016, 04:14 AM

Originally Posted by Ross013

I see. Well in all tcg's there is always 1 or 2 most popular deck(s), and that's the deck you should be trying to beat. I've noticed in SE however, people won't do that, so the metagame becomes stagnant, because all the variety is stuck in lower ranks because people want to play their pet deck, rather than play a deck that can win. Also keep in mind that this is only part one of a much larger set, so there isn't going to be much room for variety yet.

I think what I don't like about this concept is that it doesn't acknowledge that based on design not all decks have a similar or within reasonable range of winning potential against those select 1 or 2 favored decks (even before aldmor). I guess naturally I assumed that all heros are able to compete with each other without resorting to "the" single niche design. This is what I meant when I put "bland cookie-cutter" in the thread title.

Your end note about variety. I'm not sure having more cards from the set would change things. I don't see why anyone would want to abandon a surefire thing. I wouldn't -- til it got boring.

I don't mind losing, as long as I had fun.
Instant uphill climbs and unable to find options ain't fun.
Getting bored.

**Ross013** · 01-31-2016, 04:55 AM

I think it's fair to say that heroes/card pools have a varying degree of competitive use, but that's fine. Look at it like this. If the perfect balanced tcg existed, there would be a huge case of Rock Paper Scissors, where your win or loss is entirely dependent on wether or not your opponent has paper or scissors when you have rock. When there is something like the scenario you describe where there is *the* good strategy (personally I disagree and think there are many viable options in the game currently, but this point still stands true) you get to evaluate what you are going to go up against, and build a deck to counter that. For instance, if there's a lot of haste in the meta, you choose a deck that has Braxnorian soldier in it, and anything else that can help you beat haste

**Nezakhan** · 01-31-2016, 06:51 AM

Originally Posted by Ross013

I think it's fair to say that heroes/card pools have a varying degree of competitive use, but that's fine. Look at it like this. If the perfect balanced tcg existed, there would be a huge case of Rock Paper Scissors, where your win or loss is entirely dependent on wether or not your opponent has paper or scissors when you have rock. When there is something like the scenario you describe where there is *the* good strategy (personally I disagree and think there are many viable options in the game currently, but this point still stands true) you get to evaluate what you are going to go up against, and build a deck to counter that. For instance, if there's a lot of haste in the meta, you choose a deck that has Braxnorian soldier in it, and anything else that can help you beat haste

It sounds like you're under the impression I'm after that kind of perfect balance, and I'm afraid some of my description from my perspective was overlooked. It all depends on the accepted definition of "balanced" - I'm pushing more towards Build smart - play smart, and away from build smart - easy-mode. I'd rather lose a < 10 round match where I can credit it to smart moves by my opponent, and be able to count my own errors. I'm quite familiar with the concept on counter builds you've described, but I'd rather not play if I'm required to answer the aldmor engines with a strict dedicated aldmor counter deck. That's too rigid for me. I can't feel the sport in that.

Edit: For kicks I'm going to look at an ideal makeup of wulven hero deck options are available for countering aldmor specifically. I want to see how far from wulven (less wulven cards = less wulven) I'd have to make my Darkclaw

deck an aldmor engine counter deck.

**Gondorian** · 01-31-2016, 08:55 AM

Hi, Nezakhan. Aldmor Artisan

is being nerfed in 3.12, which will mean the engine you're talking about will be harder to set up. That's not a direct result of complaints like yours (I've barely heard any complaints about Aldmor so far, other than them being too weak), but it is happening because we don't like people being able to unload four or five 4cc artifacts on T4 for 0 resources with two Aldmor Artisans out. (It's changing to only discount the first one each turn.)

As for Darkclaw

... well, I'm sorry to say that he's been viewed as one of the weakest four heroes for the past couple of years and your struggles against certain strong decks at the moment are likely somewhat related to that, but I would say in the past 6 months he has got more competitive: The late change to Bloodpack Shaman in SF has enabled him to run a mix of Wulven and other allies and still pull back cards like Dread Wolf; using Lakmire Training Outpost to get well set up on Turn 4 with weapon and Speedstrike

; in 3.12 he will have access to a much better Dead Man's Breach; Sword Gobbler

is a decent ally early and late-game for him.

Will you let us know how you get on with 3.12 when it's out? Thanks.

**mindy** · 01-31-2016, 10:04 AM

i think one of the big problems with aldmor is scout. seek ally for only 1 se is op especially with haste. for similar reasons i dont like vigilant wisp either but at least its ability costs 2 cc so you are more restricted with resources for playing allies after you seek. be sure that if twilight luminarys ability cost 1 se people would want to nerf.

**bobrossw** · 02-01-2016, 05:55 PM

I'm trying to get what people don't like about aldmor but its hard from this thread. More specific posts would be helpful. Consider this from Gondorian's perspective... If he agrees with you that aldmor needed a nerf...he still needs to know exactly what is wrong with them - what are the broken combos? what's an example of an npe game? What card just pisses you off? Any suggestions on how to fix it/them? How should they work, to be both playable and balanced?
So far the main things I've gotten from this thread is combos are too easy (not sure what that means) and seek on scout is too easy/cheap.