Deckbuilding Changes?

[AbYsMaL]

So, I came back here and first thing I'll say is kudos to Wulven for having a successful LL Part 1 and a forthcoming Part 2 expansion. Hopefully my beloved Ter Adun will get a great buff.

Secondly, I was absent for a while because I was playing a few cards games... Duelyst and Hearthstone mainly. Came back here and played a few games of SE and no big changes there. But, I made an observation between the games that I was playing and the game I restarted playing. In Duelyst and Hearthstone, with decks being much much smaller, extra copies of cards are limited to 2 or 3 copies (in Hearthstone, there are many more cantrip draw effects and in Duelyst, you don't need to draw as much as you are able to tactically position your minions/allies). Shadow Era has more cards than Duelyst, but less cards than Hearthstone unless you consider Standard format. However, as expansions get pushed out, I'm noticing that only spell cards and maybe 1-2 CotC cards are being used, and decks pretty much consists of a good majority of pure expansion cards. In Hearthstone, you can actually argue the opposite: Common cards like Knife Juggler are being used alongside cards like Forbidden Tentacles.

For a while, I took a bit of time to think on this, and I think I understand the reasoning behind it, as well as the reasoning behind so many NERF THIS, BUFF THAT threads. I don't think that the cards when they are initially printed in SE are overpowered, but I think the issue with Shadow Era is rather the frequency in which players can get and play these cards.

Going to Hearthstone for example, Mages have a card called Fireball. This fireball can deal 6 damage to any character on the board at a time. Now, I would like any SE player to think about the repercussions of a 6 Damage Fireball on a 3 cost card. Some of you already are going "That's too much damage", "That would need to be nerfed"... and by all accounts by SE standards you are correct, it would need to be nerfed. However, HS does it in a different way: Rather than make the card super weak to appease players, decks are designed to have only 2 copies. This means that in HS, you still have to have some way to get an opponent to 12 health before Fireballs even become a threat.

Looking at a game like Magic, 4 copies of a card makes sense, because you have at a bare minimum a 60 card deck. In Shadow Era, if you like tight decks you are running a 39 card deck (because you don't draw your hero card at all during the match). 4 copies of a card in a deck ensure that with minimal draw, you are very likely to get that card, and because of the extreme chances you have of drawing that one card, and how good some of the newer cards are, you are always going to get that card, or lose to that card, and think a card is too good or too bad not because of card text, but because you know you will be impacted by that card (that's why 1/10th of your deck consists of it, right?)

I think that perhaps in the beta server if there is still one, maybe we can try something where deck building limits are either:
-Enforced so that the small your deck, the less number of cards copies you can have in your deck or...
-Make it so decks can be 50 cards, but with only 3 copies (<--- I'm a bit more favored for this one).

The reason I think this could work is simply that not only does it encourage deckbuilders to use other cards besides 4x and maybe the occassional 3x, but it may provide just enough of a buffer that cards that are seen as OP may no longer be OP just because the opponent can no longer consistantly draw them on time nearly as often. This isn't something that I say should happen, but surely someone else out there has thought of something similar to this, and maybe they would be willing to try it for the sake of balance eh?

Respectfully,

AbYsMaL

[RavingLunatic]

I was only a MtG player before I found Shadow Era. Seeing 4x of each card in a 40 card deck was a little strange in the beginning, but I've gotten used to it. The guy that just won the World Championship used a 60 card Victor. Smaller is clearly not always better.

[meeklosh]

50 cards with 3 copies sounds interesting, thats something that I was honestly thinking about also. It opens some more strategies and possibilities. I do find those predictable turns bit annoying, like Turn 5 Mind Control/ Tidal Wave and so on. I got used to the old format, but maybe its time to have some changes and bring something new and fresh into the game. Also, it is pretty hard to build a smaller deck with those enourmous number of cards that we have and will get in the future. Especially a tribe themed deck. Sure, one big deck won the WC, but that was a speciffic occasion, it was well thought and made for speciffic meta.

[Piercing Serenity]

I don't think messing with the consistency of the decks would be the best idea. In practice, I think that people would feel that their games are even more dependent on luck than they currently are (Which you could argue is a good or bad thing), providing some NPE.

I think a better option would be to introduce stronger allies that are reflective of the power that 3c allies bring to the table. Barring that, I would introduce cards that leveraged the number of cards one put in their deck. Perhaps an ally that removes an additional copy of a card it kills in combat from the deck of deceased ally. Or a spell that allows you to pay the resource value of a card in play to remove a copy of that card from the opposing player's deck or hand.

In sum, I don't think that taking away features is a great idea. It is sometimes necessary, but I think that there are more desirable options before we get to that point. If we give players more options to leverage the consistency of their opponent's deck, and combine that by decreasing global deck frequency by raising the minimum card limit, I think we would see a lot more consideration for the value of cards. As an added bonus, the meta would likely shift towards cards of higher cost, as they would have more lasting board presence.