MArcomage

Call me mad, because I am.
That was bad idea. And when I'm sayind "bad" I mean "WTF did you think?" Indeed, let's give a big gun to BRIGAND. The keyword which already has an ability to lockdown your opponent. With support cards like Revenge of the fallen (no, you won't get enough resources), Treacherous artifact and THREE summoners, two of which summon only non-commons.
Nobody will take this card in his Brigand deck. It's for Soldier - take it, trigger Soldier token with it and play it for free. But you can summon it and do 90 damage using Brigand summoners, and there is almost no chance to defend against it.
Get rid of Brigand keyword or at least revert its effect. Please. I survived tower- decks popularity, Undead zombie apocalypse, Aqua flood, Brigand wave with absolutely ridiculous Master thief and Plague epidemy. But another wave of Brigand FotM decks with easily summonable oneshot which is harder than Imperial army and Red dragon is too much for me to handle. When I finish my active games, I will ragequit MArcomage until people forget these neverending toxic decks which are neither fun to play nor to play against.
Dixi.

I support that 100%. Brigands are cancer of this game.
You forgot about steelbeard btw, which is also ridiculous.

Ah, yes, a durable Intrigue with auto-aiming. Beastmaster has the same mechanism, but at least it's expensive and doesn't have any ways to return its cost.

Hands off Steelbeard, It's fun to play against with or against it.

Damalycus wrote:
Hands off Steelbeard, It's fun to play against with or against it.

I find it rather frustrating.

Well, I agree that Sellsword and Steelbeard are quite powerful and need a nerf.

But this statement:

NG_Beholder wrote:
Please. I survived tower- decks popularity, Undead zombie apocalypse, Aqua flood, Brigand wave with absolutely ridiculous Master thief and Plague epidemy. But another wave of Brigand FotM decks with easily summonable oneshot which is harder than Imperial army and Red dragon is too much for me to handle. When I finish my active games, I will ragequit MArcomage until people forget these neverending toxic decks which are neither fun to play nor to play against.

just makes me laugh. I think that according to NG, only his beloved Beast decks should exist in the game, because they are the only ones which are perfectly balanced (in fact they are weak...) and fun to play.

Well, I have another suggestion for Mojko: Please close the Concepts section and this so called rebalancing forum, and whatever changes are being made to the game, will be made solely by you and Fithz Hood. How many cards and keywords have been destroyed because someone of us proposed a "balance" change here?

NG_Beholder wrote:
Ah, yes, a durable Intrigue with auto-aiming. Beastmaster has the same mechanism, but at least it's expensive and doesn't have any ways to return its cost.

Yeah, and it can do up to, how much? 90 damage?.
Of course you rarely see that number because usually you kill your opponent before reaching it...

dimitris wrote:
Well, I agree that Sellsword and Steelbeard are quite powerful and need a nerf.

But this statement:

NG_Beholder wrote:
Please. I survived tower- decks popularity, Undead zombie apocalypse, Aqua flood, Brigand wave with absolutely ridiculous Master thief and Plague epidemy. But another wave of Brigand FotM decks with easily summonable oneshot which is harder than Imperial army and Red dragon is too much for me to handle. When I finish my active games, I will ragequit MArcomage until people forget these neverending toxic decks which are neither fun to play nor to play against.

just makes me laugh. I think that according to NG, only his beloved Beast decks should exist in the game, because they are the only ones which are perfectly balanced (in fact they are weak...) and fun to play.

Well, I have another suggestion for Mojko: Please close the Concepts section and this so called rebalancing forum, and whatever changes are being made to the game, will be made solely by you and Fithz Hood. How many cards and keywords have been destroyed because someone of us proposed a "balance" change here?

It's not about balancing, but about how this type of decks affects the gameplay. It's less dynamic, and ends up at discarding cards at one side, and sapping resources, waiting for a big draw at the other. IMO it ruins the plaesure and makes the game less attractive.

1. It's a style of play. Annoying? Yes! That means we should ban brigands overall? Spain's endless passing game is annoying sometimes, but everyone agrees about the quality of spanish football team. :)

2. Brigands have their flaws. You just need to be prepared for that. How's this destroying gameplay? Just a few discards early on in the game and some resource giving cards usually are enough to provide you a win against a brigand deck.

3. Gameplay is destroyed by constantly altering opponent hand, either by discarding his cards, or even worse by replacing them with junk. This happens quite a lot, especially in non-hidden mode and with a lots of decks, like Pyramids and tower+ decks.

4. Gathering resources and waiting for big draws (or causing them) is like a rule in long mode with almost all kinds of decks doing this. So that's like the core of gameplay.


This forum section is about discussing balance of current cards, not judging styles of play.

dimitris wrote:

NG_Beholder wrote:
Ah, yes, a durable Intrigue with auto-aiming. Beastmaster has the same mechanism, but at least it's expensive and doesn't have any ways to return its cost.

Yeah, and it can do up to, how much? 90 damage?.
Of course you rarely see that number because usually you kill your opponent before reaching it...

Yup, when you have extremely recruit-dependent deck like Beast, you definitely can spam Beastmaster.

dimitris wrote:
1. It's a style of play. Annoying? Yes! That means we should ban brigands overall? Spain's endless passing game is annoying sometimes, but everyone agrees about the quality of spanish football team. :)

2. Brigands have their flaws. You just need to be prepared for that. How's this destroying gameplay? Just a few discards early on in the game and some resource giving cards usually are enough to provide you a win against a brigand deck.

3. Gameplay is destroyed by constantly altering opponent hand, either by discarding his cards, or even worse by replacing them with junk. This happens quite a lot, especially in non-hidden mode and with a lots of decks, like Pyramids and tower+ decks.

4. Gathering resources and waiting for big draws (or causing them) is like a rule in long mode with almost all kinds of decks doing this. So that's like the core of gameplay.

This forum section is about discussing balance of current cards, not judging styles of play.

1. I thought that we are here because this game is interesting and fun, not because it's any kind of serious business, where everybody strives to perfection and make this business completely boring.
2. Yup. Treacherous artifact, Revenge of the fallen - and you can spam-spam-spam those thieves with no chance to strike back. The only thing that can be effective against it is Alchemy. Because Prosperity is countered with Master thief.
3. This is more fun to play against than Brigand or Plague. 100 rounds of constant discarding is retarded.
4. And that is another stupid thing caused by power creep and new oneshots.

Plague got nerfed, so that's not an argument.

While you can survive brigand deck being unprepared for it, you cannot survive tower- deck unprepared.

Damalycus wrote:
Plague got nerfed, so that's not an argument.

And that was completely justified.

Damalycus wrote:
While you can survive brigand deck being unprepared for it, you cannot survive tower- deck unprepared.

Survive? Yes. Win? Hardly.

Holy raises it's resources easily even despite lowered facilities.
Burning/Horde destroys brigand token gain.
Restoration/Alliance ignores petty theft.
Zero cost does not need resources at all.

If enemy uses treacherous artifact - use same artifact, or cultists.

Brigands usually lack recruits, and you need a lot to play sellsword, and steelbeard does not help there either. Also Master thief is not that powerfull only -8stock with full hand gaining 24 resources while wasting 14. Your nature can remove 20 stock for 30 gems, and bring you a rare next turn. Prince of thieves which was like the only rare brigand also is watered down and will not drop that often now.
Note that while I defend brigand I play it like 1-2 times a month.

Althought i find Prince of thieves pretty balanced (oh come on, a loss of 8 stock is nothing for a rare with "if not new" and a cost of 10 R, you could also play against that common -8 stock card in a zero cost deck, althought they are pretty wharmed since the nerf on plague), i'm quite unsure about sellsword:

A majority of brigand decks i faced spammed recource and dungeon cripplers whuile increasing their stock, until they found a nice rare via scepter of summoning or magic lamp and throw that beast against you. Now with sellsword, brigand gained a powerfull attack card, which is easiely summoned, making its effect easy to be achieved.
The problem i see is not that you can build a brigand deck around it, like this "Steal recources until you draw a bomb"-decks, which are easy to defend against, the problem is that the summoner of this card are in every brigand deck, meaning that this card has not given any new strategies or differences in gameplay.
In fact, this card turned into a niche card in every brigand deck, ans i think this was not intentional, since big attackers are not fitting to the brigand keyword itself.
On the other side, this makes pure brigand more attractive than the former eyplained type of brigand decks, since they don't need to put any summoners for the heavy rares into their deck, because they have enough of them...

Because of this, i would recommend to remove the brigand keyword from sellsword and to add instead a summoner for it, like one of my concepts: http://arcomage.net/?location=Concepts_details&current_concept=2334

With this, we would keep the of the second effect achieveable while being able to remove that niche position that sellsword possesses curerently in brigand decks

NG_Beholder wrote:

1. I thought that we are here because this game is interesting and fun, not because it's any kind of serious business, where everybody strives to perfection and make this business completely boring.

Of course, but fun and interesting are totally subjective. I find beasts boring, for instance.
Besides, I'm not the one that raised issues about brigand or any other kind of decks.

NG_Beholder wrote:

2. Yup. Treacherous artifact, Revenge of the fallen - and you can spam-spam-spam those thieves with no chance to strike back. The only thing that can be effective against it is Alchemy. Because Prosperity is countered with Master thief.

Well, the funny thing is that I've seen treacherous artifact used in beast decks more often than brigands, because it has a good synergy with Byakko and you cripple opponent's attack.

NG_Beholder wrote:

3. This is more fun to play against than Brigand or Plague. 100 rounds of constant discarding is retarded.

As I said, totally subjective.

NG_Beholder wrote:

4. And that is another stupid thing caused by power creep and new oneshots.

I don't really understand what you mean, but Pyramids, Orc regiment, Citadel of Myr, Fortified castle, Undead host, Dragon squadron, Royal dragoons etc. etc. are not new cards. Unless you mean the new War elephant. :)

Damalycus wrote:
Holy raises it's resources easily even despite lowered facilities.
Burning/Horde destroys brigand token gain.
Restoration/Alliance ignores petty theft.
Zero cost does not need resources at all.

If enemy uses treacherous artifact - use same artifact, or cultists.

Burning is extremely gem-dependent, Horde is extremely recruit-dependent.
Zero cost also can't do anything against Brigand, except Mercenaries spam.
Alliance... Maybe, but it also can be locked down while it has standard facilities.
Restoration can be countered by Revenge of the fallen, because its main effect is +10 lowest resource, not facility recovering.
Holy... the only real counter. With full hand, 6g and Fairy.

Damalycus wrote:
If enemy uses treacherous artifact - use same artifact, or cultists.

Great idea. But back upon a time I had Citadel, Citadel towers, Lookout towers and Blind guardian in every single deck. If you think that could help me against tower- deck - you're wrong.

Damalycus wrote:
Brigands usually lack recruits, and you need a lot to play sellsword, and steelbeard does not help there either. Also Master thief is not that powerfull only -8stock with full hand gaining 24 resources while wasting 14. Your nature can remove 20 stock for 30 gems, and bring you a rare next turn. Prince of thieves which was like the only rare brigand also is watered down and will not drop that often now.
Note that while I defend brigand I play it like 1-2 times a month.

Blizzard does it once. Brigands are built on constant resource stealing, so while Nature deck accumulating gems to play Blizzard (non-persistent Lake fairy, Deathwood shaman etc), Brigand deck can trigger token two or three times. With uncommons. 4-6 turns.
And please, don't forget that 30 gems used to play Blizzard can't be returned, unlike recruits used to play Master thief. That's why I prefer to wait Tornado and not to play Blizzard.

dimitris wrote:
Of course, but fun and interesting are totally subjective. I find beasts boring, for instance.
Besides, I'm not the one that raised issues about brigand or any other kind of decks.

Beasts give you a chance to strike back. Brigands - almost never, unless your deck is zero-cost.

dimitris wrote:
I don't really understand what you mean, but Pyramids, Orc regiment, Citadel of Myr, Fortified castle, Undead host, Dragon squadron, Royal dragoons etc. etc. are not new cards. Unless you mean the new War elephant. :)

I mean, look at Bone, Ice, Black and Ether dragons and compare it with pre-nerfed Suzaku, Iskander, Sellsword, new Red dragon, Leviathan, Hyo-Ryu and others.

While I play a Brigand deck myself, I have to support those who say it's overpowered. As anyone who bothers to have a look at my stats will know, I'm very bad at MArcomage, but just in the last few hours I won three games by NOT adding Sellsword to my deck. It was helluva fun for me; I reckon my opponents aren't so cheery about it. Amassing 40 recruits with a decent brigand deck is nothing, and with those corsairs, pirate bays and whatnot lying around... yeah. I'd say it's overall attack has to be nerfed by 1/3 at the least, probably more.

Zaton wrote:
While I play a Brigand deck myself, I have to support those who say it's overpowered. As anyone who bothers to have a look at my stats will know, I'm very bad at MArcomage, but just in the last few hours I won three games by NOT adding Sellsword to my deck. It was helluva fun for me; I reckon my opponents aren't so cheery about it. Amassing 40 recruits with a decent brigand deck is nothing, and with those corsairs, pirate bays and whatnot lying around... yeah. I'd say it's overall attack has to be nerfed by 1/3 at the least, probably more.

yeah, I was one of your opponent. while plying I looked at your stats and I thought "oh no! another one has joined the dark side seeking the power it lacks".
I'm glad you understand the foolishness of that path.
ah anyway Sellword will soon lose Brigand and gain Horde

what about making brigand a malus keyword?
Maybe adding "if brigand token counter is set" as condition for some brigand (not all of them) and, once you gain 100 tokens, you lose some resources (and maybe the opponent takes them).
If you have a group of thieves as minions you should be prepared for betrayals

what about making brigand a malus keyword?
Maybe adding "if brigand token counter is set" as condition for some brigand (not all of them) and, once you gain 100 tokens, you lose some resources (and maybe the opponent takes them).
If you have a group of thieves as minions you should be prepared for betrayals

Let's not get carried away. The tokens are just fine. Besides, don't let movies like the Pirates of the Carribean fool you. Some outlaw bands were fairly loyal to each other, and even those who weren't sticked together so long they got paid. Not to mention, letting people steal from you when you intentionally keep the exact kind of soldiers around who are willing to do the sort is just lousy management.

I've wanted the horde o be 'malus' keyword, but it turned out nice as it is.

Maybe brigand has better chances? Your thematic reasoning is great for this one.
We'll need to rearrange more brigand cards to depend on brigand number in hand - like master thief for that.

And running away with your resources sounds fun too, but could be something more mischievous. Randomly discard 1 of your brigands, and depending on rarity do some ill effect.

That would be great update.