MArcomage

This discussion illustrates several points, and the majority of it clearly comes from experience playing different decks in games where either player is using a deck with a focus on attacking the tower directly. People are openly discussing strengths and weaknesses of different keyword and effect combinations, and for the most part the reasoning is valid.

NG_Beholder, have you constructed and used a -tower deck? Reading through your posts, much of it seems to come from the perspective of someone who is having difficulty defending against them, and in the rest you are offering counters in the form of specific cards when people discuss what difficulties they have when using -tower decks. You're clearly knowledgeable of the game and its specifics, so I find it odd that it doesn't sound like you've put all of this insight together into a deck of your own.

Since text can be misleading, let me be clear that I'm not trying to provoke you. It's just that the way your posts read, it seems like you're dismissing people's points without actually experiencing it from their perspective. If there is a way to put together a -tower deck that is devoid of weaknesses, by all means do so! It will be easier to rebalance when we can see which card combinations are making it so, and then we can either adjust specific cards or create/modify others to defend against them properly. In the mean time, however, I'm certainly not sweeping games with the one I have in my deck list.

NG_Beholder wrote:
Examples, please. What card can be a good and cheap counter for direct tower damage if not count Lookout Towers and Foundations?

I always win -tower decks when I have 3 common cards with tower +10/+12 in deck: Frontier outpost, New development and Lookout towers. These 3 cards completely counter -tower decks.

Common
Baron's Keep
Frontier Outpost
Lookout towers
Foundations
Working together
Tower
Chateau

Uncommon
Blind Guardian
Desert Outpost
Defense Improvement
Lighthouse
Fortress
Magic Fountain
Salvation

I don't have every single card in every deck, but I put them in my decks according to what other cards I use. They are very versatile cards and can even help in situations where you are not facing -tower decks. For example, Desert Outpost, although costing a lot of bricks, it provides a very good boost for gems/recruits in order to mount an offensive against your opponent. Defense Improvement is very useful against -tower decks and other decks as it gives you the option to increase your wall cheaply or increase your tower for a good price. And ofcourse Merchant is an essential component to play these cards.

Last Hope can also come in handy when facing straight tower attacks but it requires to have 0 wall.

There are some good points in this thread and I agree, playing against a -tower deck is not fun. Same goes for a suffocation deck (-facilities and -stock).

The problem I see when facing a -tower deck is that our common +tower cards are getting weaker with time, we have good ones but they have strict requirements. Why would I build a deck with the sole purpose of defending against one specific type of deck.

I enjoy games where the loser is 1-3 turns away from winning. Not games where hoping to draw a +tower card is my only chance at surviving. This is when luck is not deciding the winner, it's being decided by who can deliver blow after blow of punishment while barely hanging on to their own tower/wall.

Not saying these decks have no right to be made/played but at this time it is hard to win against them or even enjoy playing MArcomage when your opponent is using them. Nine times out of ten they will have an upper hand regardless of what your deck you are playing.

I used to play a -tower deck until I beat jbryant3 in like 12 turns and said gg (good game) in which they replied "hardly a good game -tower deck are a cheap way of winning" not their exact words used but it was something similar to that.

People will always whinge about things like this. Of course it's annoying to have your tower destroyed when you have ten thousand Wall.

But really, if we were to remove the -tower cards altogether (which seems to be the point of this thread), why would tower and wall need to be separate any longer? The only reasons I can think of are the Construction Victory and the Wall cap, and neither of those seem sufficient, really.

come on, the point is to nerf those card a bit, not to remove them.
I agree with NG_beholder and planegray, I don't like to play against -tower decks, I think they are overpowered. And that's the reason why I've never used a -tower decks: it would be not funny for my opponent.
But, because I never used them, I can't be sure if they are overpowered or not (totally agree with DPsyco post). So I want to build a perfect -tower deck and report its battles and winning rate. then we can decide if it must be nerfed or not.

It's not -Tower decks that's not funny. It's in general decks that aim for Assassin award. It's just that killing enemy tower, fast, is easier (going from 30 to 0) than building your own tower (going from 30 to 100). That's why we need "long mode" games :-)

Losing a match because your deck is ill-prepared for -tower cards is no different from losing to a Charge deck because you lack sufficient +wall cards, to a Destruction (or similar) deck because you lack cards to increase Facilities or punish the opponent when his are higher, or to a Brigand (or similar) deck because your deck's strategy focuses on more expensive cards.

Yes, it may make for a less exciting game when one deck has a clear advantage, but part of the appeal in deck building is that you can't prepare for every possibility, or at least not without severely limiting your attack options. Building a deck that is prepared to counter all of these actually works rather well with a Construction or Resource victory as your goal. Not that those don't have specific and effective counters as well, of course. ;)

here it is a first report of the experiment: 14 games, 13 victories and 1 loss.


12 turns vs NG_beholder's beast deck (hidden)

10 turns vs dimitris mage/orc regiment deck? (non hidden)

19 turns vs dimitrise gateway deck? (non hidden)

13 turns vs NG_beholder's beast/soldier deck. (hidden)

17 turns vs Muhomorka's soldier combo deck. (non hidden)

55 turns vs dimitris aqua deck. (non hidden)

16 turns vs ikarus alliance/soldier deck. (hidden)

21 turns vs sol rush deck? (hidden)

17 turns vs efka holy soldier (hidden)

12 turns vs sol undead soldier decks? (hidden)

11 turns vs vault's alliance deck. (non hidden)

12 turns vs devipai's rush deck. (non hidden)

victory vs dimitris aqua deck. (hidden) replay not avaible

LOSE

61 turns vs lamzor's defense/revolt deck? (hidden)

I'd like to say that this was fun. Maybe we should do it more regularly :)

PS. the second loss of mine was with the same Aqua deck that I've lost the 3rd game. The final (not available) game was with an aqua/barbarian concept.

I have to say, mine was build to counter such decks like -tower and charge decks.

after few changes to the deck I've started a new session of matches.
here are the results: 11 games, 11 victories

15 turns vs lothar's aqua deck (non hidden)

7 turns vs efka's holy/soldier deck (hidden)

14 turns vs sol's ???? deck (too fast to understand it) (hidden)

14 turns vs lamzor's holy/gateway deck (hidden)

20 turns razorhelm's ????? deck (non hidden)

17 turns vs dimitris holy/soldier deck (non hidden)

24 turns vs barragan2's tower attack deck (hidden)

31 turns vs vault's holy/soldier deck (hidden)

22 turns vs razorhelm's burning deck (non hidden) (survivor award)

19 turns vs dimitris 0cost/illusion deck (non hidden)

36 turns vs elpo's unliving deck (non hidden)

Quite nice performance I must say. So the conclusion is that tower damage decks are overpowered? Or the decks used in games are just very vulnerable to tower damage?

Just by looking through a couple random replays, it seems to me that the cards that are really swinging the game one way or the other are the Witch rider and watch tower cards. So maybe it's just a matter of nerfing those (and maybe other) uncommon -tower cards.

I tend to agree that -tower decks are too strong (and not fun to play against to boot). I eventually needed to put the before mentioned -tower counter cards (foundation, lookout towers etc) in ALL my decks just to counter the -tower decks back when they were really popular. But even with those counter cards you aren't guaranteed to win. When your opponent can lower your tower every other turn, you would need to draw your counter cards at least every other turn as well, which just isn't going to happen.

Mojko wrote:
Quite nice performance I must say. So the conclusion is that tower damage decks are overpowered? Or the decks used in games are just very vulnerable to tower damage?

yes, I forgot the conclusions.
I'd say that there are many decks weak against tower direct attack, making the deck i used overpowered.
the cards that seems too powerful to me are witch raider and dark pegasus.
witch raider could have a more strict condition (having a mage or a beast in hand + a far sight)
dark pegasus could lose swift
also rescue and resistance is too powerful, maybe it should not be simmetrical.
and watchtower could deals damage based on number of soldier cards in hand (enemy tower -4 for each soldier in deck. max4)

Mojko wrote:
Quite nice performance I must say. So the conclusion is that tower damage decks are overpowered? Or the decks used in games are just very vulnerable to tower damage?

My Beast/Frenzy deck has Citadel Towers, Citadel, Lookout Towers, Blind Guardian, Chateau and Stilshrine of Miriam. All that cards can kinda counter -tower decks, but with Fithz Hood I didn't draw any of that. Furthermore, even if I draw one or two of that - I cant counter ALL that damage. I need at least 3 or 4 Citadel Towers just to survive -tower spam. And last but not least - if enemy plays 1 or 2 Erosions - I'm 99% dead. Not to mention that only Citadel, Stilshrine and Lookout towers are fit with my deck and I need to waste 2 uncommon slots, leaving behind Keeper of Souls, Forest Spirit, Foundry, Magic Fountain etc etc etc.
You need heavily defensive/tower rush decks like Unexpected's or Angela's ones to win against -tower deck. Or GREAT luck like Frenzy/Overpower/+gems cards in starting hand, then Rage of Urk after Overpower and oneshot enemy if he didn't use Ballistae/Watchtower/Battlements.

How about a couple of counter cards -- an unc or rare mages that reflect the opponent's -tower damage? If opp lowered your tower last turn, opp's tower lowered by same amount. Maybe unc has zero cost but with max damage limit; rare no limit.

Perhaps we should see more cards of the style "If tower was damaged last turn then"
maybe modify Baron's keep in this way to keep up with Chateau?

Actually there's already at least one concept about it : Vengeance.