MArcomage

I've always been somewhat of a fan of control-decks, I guess because my first Magic-deck was a blue one, but this has gone too far. Every time I play Arcomage it feels like half the games I'm either discarding cards or I'm just plain poor. Deck-building isn't fun because I have to stuff it with anti-brigand/destruction-cards, otherwise the beta-tests of the deck are going to be so damn lame.

Yes it can be combated, yes it's not a guaranteed win, but to me it's ruining the game. Playing Arcomage now can be 10 tedious moves just for one rewarding and fun game. I propose we limit the minimum facility to 2, and reduce the amount of stock-reducing cards heavily. Perhaps more cards that combo off of non-keyword effects, i.e. Praire, and removing hard-counters?

Instead of reducing the opponents facilites & stock, couldn't it be more about increasing your own? To me Azure Unicorn is very interesting because of this, if you meet someone with roughly the same strategy, it becomes a race. Destruction vs Destruction is just a lottery of who can get the most uncommon Destruction-cards the fastest.

The above is your personal experience. You don't have to counter brigand/destruction decks when your kind of deck has tons of resources to begin with. Don't you play resource victory decks, or slow decks with lots of low cost cards? In any case, you COULD. I play one, and has a good record against both of the above. And against you, too, thus you can see they are not meant to counter anything.(on another note, why do you have Angel as a rare when you have no other holy cards? Something to reconsider there.) And it's a gimmick deck with not a single offensive card. Imagine what you can do with a proper one.

EDIT: I retract my point a few posts below.

I agree with Myshly, it's so boring having a game against those decks (and "boring" and "game" should not belong to the same phrase).

This is a game against Bebob with me using a runic deck with lot of cards that rise facilities. I gave up on turn 77 because I got better things to do other than discarding cards.

Wow, it was really painful to watch how you could never play Crystal cavern @_@. I'm not sure that killing resource reduction strategy is the way to go, though.

Well, i see the difficulty in games against these strategies. A locked out game i quite awfull to play, sine you have to wait till your enemy finally finds a way to hip away your castle.
But killing these types of strategy would, in fact, lead to what WOTC for example does with Standard (Well, thats a MTG-Reference). It would remove strategic parts from the game and would lead to a more dumbed down game in general.
I would try to boost the cards that retrieves recources or stabilize against thee strategies. For example we got Magic well:
http://arcomage.net/?location=Cards_details&card=185

The purpose of the card is clear: to stabilize the amount of gems you possess so your deck can function against crippling decks. But why then does it require gems in the first way? That, for example is quite counterproductive to its purpose, since when you need it, you probably cant play it anyway.
On the other hand, it should be clear that facility gaining cards should cost less than facility reducting ones. Between book of magic and Immolation is 1 gem, and this is causing problems. I would say that facility increasing cards should cost less since this would change the pace of the game in favor for recource increasing decks, since they are since always suffering from the pure stock increasement vs facility increasement issue.

What else has changed? The restoration keyword was crushed. Since the restoration keyword doesnt increase your facilities anymore and doesnt has such a great effet, the splash damage of a few uncommon restoration cards against destruction decks was removed. But the destruction Keyword remained untouched. This leads to a direct increase to the destruction-decks power. I would either remove the facility reduction of the destruction keyword (like what happened to restoration keyword), or balance the numbers of the keyword. (Probably even both)
This would help facility increasing decks, since an immolation, for example, has now very often a doubled effect, which is just to effective.

Current Destruction keyword effect won't lower facilities unless they are above 3, however I think it might be a good idea to lower the resource reduction effect of the destruction keyword (to 6 from 10). I would like to try this change while Destruction cards remain unchanged.

Mojko wrote:
Current Destruction keyword effect won't lower facilities unless they are above 3, however I think it might be a good idea to lower the resource reduction effect of the destruction keyword (to 6 from 10). I would like to try this change while Destruction cards remain unchanged.

Oh, then, I would be supportive. Destruction does pack a big punch.

This is a game against Bebob with me using a runic deck with lot of cards that rise facilities.

Ouch! Bites!>.< I might have become overconfident against them, with all the Resource+ cards in my deck. You shouldn't be forced to put some in your deck to survive.

Mojko wrote:
Current Destruction keyword effect won't lower facilities unless they are above 3, however I think it might be a good idea to lower the resource reduction effect of the destruction keyword (to 6 from 10). I would like to try this change while Destruction cards remain unchanged.

Thumbs up, it's reasonable mirroring the restoration change.

Mojko wrote:
Current Destruction keyword effect won't lower facilities unless they are above 3, however I think it might be a good idea to lower the resource reduction effect of the destruction keyword (to 6 from 10). I would like to try this change while Destruction cards remain unchanged.

Well, thats right. When i meant is that restoration doesnt increase the facility anymore when its under 3

Zaton: while I used to play and deck-build seriously, I just don't have the time, so now I almost exclusively play on weekend mornings or when I poop at home. I have some decks that need updating and while I'm ok with having a subpar win-rate, I do want to enjoy what makes Arcomage good: strategic decisions based on known knows and known unknowns, with the occassional unknown unknown.

I've won several games against such decks, and I've played them myself. I don't see it as an issueof balance, I see it as an issue of fun vs boring. Strategic vs tedious. I could invest some time into updating my decks and balancing against this, but the real question is if it'll be worth the effort.

As a temporary solution I've thought about switching to only one or two modes, as I've always played all 4 modes for all my decks, which mode is the least destruction/brigandy?

Oh right, thinking about this reminded me of a thought I had before about Brigand:
Shouldn't their resource-stealing be %ual? Like pirates robbing a fishing-ship wouldn't garner as much as robbing a galleon. I think it'd make it more fun and more dynamic, I somehow feel like the Brigands 5 or so years back were much more thematic and fun to incorporate.

The brigands before werent ever touched. They just gained new cards. It would completely destroy their strategy to make the steal %-based. Since these decks are made to lock you out of the game. There are now only three problems with this:

-Their kill is too slow

-While the recource accumulation was debuffed, they remained untouched.

-We got long mode. The games go longer and so the brigand decks aren't pressured by rush decks anymore. This causes a shift in the meta.

5 years ago the stock reduction and increasing cards were on par. But since resotration decks are nowhere avaible (I havent played against them since a year or more) and rushing is in long mode harder, brigand decks have witnessed an uprise.
What could be done about this issue is to pressure brigands into a more agresive mode. Some brigand cards lost some of their attack for pure stock reduction. An increase in their damage for less stealin would make the kills faster and would make the lock harder to sustain. But i like the position the brigands are now. We just need the tools to keep our own strategy alive.

The game has an odd relationship with Restoration in general. Uncommons are few, a whole six cards in total, which makes triggering Countermeasures a pain, and three of them are just hangers on for whom you need a mage card to gain the full benefit of.

Maybe at least part of the solution would be to give Restoration more cards in the same vein brigands were expanded. Forget Uncommons, Restoration as a comboable Keyword has the fewest cards of any rarity right now. Destruction, the supposed counterpart, has a seven card lead. There is just no sufficient selection there. You don't have nearly as much option to customize a Restoration deck, but at the same time you could just dump in almost every single one with minor variations and you are still behind the decks you were meant to be good against, because Restoration does little for the play-two-different-in-a-row format.

Just for comparison, Destruction reduces facilities above 3, right? a single facility has a cost of 9 resources or more, never mind the card draw you need and the resource you receive each turn. Destruction takes away the facility progress, plus a couple resources, and many of their cards reduces facilities as part of the card to boot. Restoration has a worse flat gain to start with and no secondhand benefit. You're just given a 6-11 resource consolation price, juuust enough to pay for a new facility, to maybe climb back to your feet, should you draw the right card before the opponent rips away your stock again.

Even when you ignore how the game works, just from a look at the dry, immediate numbers, under the assumption card costs and effects minus keywords are balanced, and both Keywords trigger as much, Destruction has a payoff of 8 resources at worst. The loss of the opponent's income is just the icing on the cake. How are they supposed to keep up, when they have less cards to do less than what the opponent does with more?

We could have lots of choices, or few choices as now, but make them game changers, or maybe just balance the two. Pick one, no?

And. As an adage. The implications are just as weird. When pitted against one another, Destruction will win most of the time, for the above reasons. What is the message here? Chaos and entropy beats peace, progress and prosperity? Mindless batter and thievery is a hard counter to honest, hard work in the same vein Holy counters Undead? Your society can only slow down a destructive force for wee long before your hopes and dreams collapse? Do you want to say that with your game? I wouldn't. This is bleak and horrific.

Just for the sake of a more pleasant narrative, I would recommend changes in the area. A little nerf to the Destruction keyword's stock reduction will be just a start.

For test purposes, I will build a Restoration-Legend deck with low cost rares mixed into the resource guzzler Legend rares, to test how far you can push the limits in the opposite direction, see what we learn. Anyone in? I'm far from the best player, someone with more expertise would be more suitable~

While I disagree with the essence of the idea discussed here (I believe that brigand/destruction decks are both interesting to play and very rewarding to win against, which makes it = fun) I would support the idea that this issue needs to be resolved not by debuffing the resource stealing cards, but by suggesting a suitable counter strategy.

I would suggest giving some kind of boost to the restoration (it actually does look helpless since last change)

and also make some cards that discard brigand/destruction (I would prefer adding brigand discard to Holy or Skirmisher, the latter being preferable as this would make people consider adding skirmisher to their decks specifially, which I think nearly nobody does these days)

Since many facility- cards are Destruction , I think that some facility+ cards could become Restoration. e.g.: architect and its two companion or brickslayer and its two companion. Also dwarven forge, tubolar bells,... .Even gateway maybe.

Magic well and its two companion for sure.

Fithz wrote:


Magic well and its two companion for sure.

Oh, yes! Makes perfect sense!

While % may not work, why not a "keyword does nt trigger if resource <5"? I used to like Brigand when you knew your oponent had a strong card and it was a race... Will you get 100 tower before his dragon kills you? All that suspense disappears when it's just "keep him close to zero". There's no real trade-off for playing brigands like there used to be.

Boosting restoration, and making it more difficult to decrease a facility to 1 (i.e. Bloody Moon etc "if last card was a non-common Destruction, enemy facility can be lowered below 3), would all be nice. I'd also like to see more variety in Brigand, more conscious targeting than just "enemy stock" on every card.

Okay, I've run the test deck I mentioned to gather some data a couple of times.

I tried out a deck where most of the Restoration cards were included and the rest was stacked in Restoration's favor... In the end, I concluded the deck can work, with no Restoration.

Restoration just combos badly. New growth can only give the admittedly more beneficial, but free keyword bonus when the card is already not new and only gives +1 Stock. Guardian spirit, a great card in normal circumstances, often trades off the big +8 wall bonus(or in other words what most people play Guardian spirit for). Always, when the opponent sees your hand. The same stands true for Spring wood and the x2 Production. Then again, Oasis forces you to have lower wall than your opponent, which makes you eschew defense, thus the cards can be bad together, I suppose. When you hold your Rejuvenation in hand to combo with a Restoration, you are forced to summon the card, rather than what might be practical. And the 'last card was a Mage' trio has to obviously choose between a Mage and a non-common Restoration for the previous card.

The anti-synergy between the cards is astounding. They work better - like a charm, really - when they are alone, in any other deck, and support what you have there already, than in any deck where you could combo them. It's almost as if the keyword was slapped onto random cards with similar fluff and no regard for what they do, and maybe that's exactly what happened.

The whole Keyword doesn't make any sense with a good number of the cards who have it. There is often a tradeoff, and you'd need to think what you will take, the full card effect, or the keyword effect. Destruction doesn't force you into any of this. No OTHER keyword does, and thank goodness they don't, because the mechanic is unintentional, harmful and tedious.

So maybe we look at the issue from the wrong direction. The Keyword might even be good. Just not with the current cards. Or the keyword should change from the Play-after-non-common format into the token format or next-to format.

I see the point here. But maybe the change of the mechanic would not solve it (Although i still would like have the facility increasement when facility < 3 back).

Maybe we need justr more restoration cards to glue the archetype together. This archetype need some support, since it relies to hit a critical mass on retoration cards. This can't happen because, like you said, many restoration cards are quite situential. An example where it works is the nature keyword. Although many card got different effects, you have a great pool of nature cards to choose from and above this, you have forest fairy and conjurer, which does great things for the deck.

And cards like these are missing in restoration decks. School of restoration is so bad that you can barely play it. Druid is a gem-intensive non-restoratrion (although it helps trigger the mage trio) and since then the only card which holds restoration chains together is rejunevation (which i think does a reat job, at best with meditation).