A Sauron-Friendly Proposal
Posted: Wed Mar 09, 2011 9:23 pm
I only ask that you read this all the way through, past the inevitable coronaries.
Sauron has expressed a desire that changes be within already established rules.
If that's the case, there's one change that could help a ton: make tournament events 3-deck rather than 2-deck.
There's a big concern with that, which I will address, but first, I'd like to point out the things this would do for the game and the tournament scene:
1) It addresses metagame stagnation. In a 3-deck setting, any alignment stands a good chance of dunking. Dunking thus will become more desirable as the quickest way of winning a tournament game.
1a) As dunking increases in popularity, hazard portions will have to shift to more directly combating dunk, and doing it for longer periods of time.
1b) Which means that MP-gathering will actually become slightly easier as main hazard portions have to account for dunking.
1c) Also, influence/diplomat decks may rise in Dunk vs Dunk.
2) It addresses several balance issues without actually changing any cards at all. Most of the persistent balance topics (Chance Meeting, Balrog sb play, etc.) have really to do with a turn economy advantage.
2b) If the available number of turns increases, than turn economy is no longer as big a factor; decks with slower MPs get a chance to catch up to quick MP decks.
2c) Likewise, a lost turn, while still damaging, becomes less of a killer, so something like River, though still a badly worded card, has a relatively less drastic impact on gameplay, so the card is weakened without being changed one bit.
2d) Against commonly perceived "cheese" tactics, the burden is on the "cheese" player to maintain the MP total/combo for a longer period of time. The higher MP requirements also reduce the effective power of "cheese" combos without changing the cards themselves.
2e) "One shot" cards such as Blind/Ire (and to a lesser extent Dark Tryst) lose relative potence, but will still have their place. As an example, Blind would go from gamebreaking vs. FW Dunk to crucial vs. FW Dunk to squeeze out another turn of delay.
3) It pulls avatars into greater parity and opens up more cards for use on the tournament scene. As an example, active RWs will have an easier time, and you can even plan for a "first deck" haven-squat and then a "second deck" active strat.
3b) Quest cards become viable and may even become desirable to achieve the higher MP requirements
3c) Deck manipulation becomes more important while deck exhaustion becomes less important -- the two might both be viable options, but will require playtesting (more on that later).
3d) Rings-for-points decks may become more viable, but that is a question of whether the looser turn economy requirements make some of the cloggy anti-Rolled measures more feasible.
4) The increased viability of dunk means that the reward for game mastery shifts not to the person who knows how to put down 25 MPs in 4 turns and exhaust, but to the person who can balance their anti-dunk and anti-MP strategies in the same deck, since dunk will be faced more often in a tournament setting.
4b) Players may enjoy the flexibility offered by an increased sideboard size, and game mastery would be here rewarded, too – the player who can work his sideboard more effectively will adapt more quickly to the game situation.
Now, on to the big and obvious negative: Time.
Obviously, going three-deck means a game potentially lasts longer. However, I do not believe actual games will last longer for the following reasons:
1) More players will attempt to dunk, which can end the game well before the victory conditions;
2) More hazard portions will accommodate this, meaning fewer hazards will go to anti-MP gathering, thus speeding up that aspect of play; and
3) Experience has taught me that game speed is a function of the player, not the rules. Nevertheless, should we adopt this as a standard format, judges will be necessary to enforce time rules and monitor stalling.
Which brings up the question: should we adopt this?
This isn't like the automatic attack errata, which has seen several decks based around the idea already built. This is – at least for most players I know – untouched ground.
But rather than dismissing the idea out of hand, I'd like to suggest that CoE members playtest this in casual settings – not trying to make a 2-deck deck run in a 3-deck game, but looking at the implications and building decks from the ground up, then playtesting and reporting back.
At the very least, this would be an ICE-era way of handling several balance and game scene issues at once. Playtesting will tell if the time burden actually becomes too much to be feasible.
Sauron has expressed a desire that changes be within already established rules.
If that's the case, there's one change that could help a ton: make tournament events 3-deck rather than 2-deck.
There's a big concern with that, which I will address, but first, I'd like to point out the things this would do for the game and the tournament scene:
1) It addresses metagame stagnation. In a 3-deck setting, any alignment stands a good chance of dunking. Dunking thus will become more desirable as the quickest way of winning a tournament game.
1a) As dunking increases in popularity, hazard portions will have to shift to more directly combating dunk, and doing it for longer periods of time.
1b) Which means that MP-gathering will actually become slightly easier as main hazard portions have to account for dunking.
1c) Also, influence/diplomat decks may rise in Dunk vs Dunk.
2) It addresses several balance issues without actually changing any cards at all. Most of the persistent balance topics (Chance Meeting, Balrog sb play, etc.) have really to do with a turn economy advantage.
2b) If the available number of turns increases, than turn economy is no longer as big a factor; decks with slower MPs get a chance to catch up to quick MP decks.
2c) Likewise, a lost turn, while still damaging, becomes less of a killer, so something like River, though still a badly worded card, has a relatively less drastic impact on gameplay, so the card is weakened without being changed one bit.
2d) Against commonly perceived "cheese" tactics, the burden is on the "cheese" player to maintain the MP total/combo for a longer period of time. The higher MP requirements also reduce the effective power of "cheese" combos without changing the cards themselves.
2e) "One shot" cards such as Blind/Ire (and to a lesser extent Dark Tryst) lose relative potence, but will still have their place. As an example, Blind would go from gamebreaking vs. FW Dunk to crucial vs. FW Dunk to squeeze out another turn of delay.
3) It pulls avatars into greater parity and opens up more cards for use on the tournament scene. As an example, active RWs will have an easier time, and you can even plan for a "first deck" haven-squat and then a "second deck" active strat.
3b) Quest cards become viable and may even become desirable to achieve the higher MP requirements
3c) Deck manipulation becomes more important while deck exhaustion becomes less important -- the two might both be viable options, but will require playtesting (more on that later).
3d) Rings-for-points decks may become more viable, but that is a question of whether the looser turn economy requirements make some of the cloggy anti-Rolled measures more feasible.
4) The increased viability of dunk means that the reward for game mastery shifts not to the person who knows how to put down 25 MPs in 4 turns and exhaust, but to the person who can balance their anti-dunk and anti-MP strategies in the same deck, since dunk will be faced more often in a tournament setting.
4b) Players may enjoy the flexibility offered by an increased sideboard size, and game mastery would be here rewarded, too – the player who can work his sideboard more effectively will adapt more quickly to the game situation.
Now, on to the big and obvious negative: Time.
Obviously, going three-deck means a game potentially lasts longer. However, I do not believe actual games will last longer for the following reasons:
1) More players will attempt to dunk, which can end the game well before the victory conditions;
2) More hazard portions will accommodate this, meaning fewer hazards will go to anti-MP gathering, thus speeding up that aspect of play; and
3) Experience has taught me that game speed is a function of the player, not the rules. Nevertheless, should we adopt this as a standard format, judges will be necessary to enforce time rules and monitor stalling.
Which brings up the question: should we adopt this?
This isn't like the automatic attack errata, which has seen several decks based around the idea already built. This is – at least for most players I know – untouched ground.
But rather than dismissing the idea out of hand, I'd like to suggest that CoE members playtest this in casual settings – not trying to make a 2-deck deck run in a 3-deck game, but looking at the implications and building decks from the ground up, then playtesting and reporting back.
At the very least, this would be an ICE-era way of handling several balance and game scene issues at once. Playtesting will tell if the time burden actually becomes too much to be feasible.