MArcomage

Lord_Earthfire wrote:

Maybe we need justr more restoration cards to glue the archetype together.

I said the same before, but now I'm not as sure. More cards won't change the fact you can't combo the current ones right.

holds restoration chains together is rejunevation (which i think does a reat job, at best with meditation).

Again, Restoration chains sound good, in theory, but unless you drew a Rare Restoration, there are so, so much better cards to Rejuvenate than any uncommon Restoration chain is worth your turns.

They are Restoration cards. Their combos give you resources. They couldn't be any less impressive or bring you less close to victory, even in an accumulation deck. You don't want to do that. You want the big hitter you summoned last turn to play it again, or more castle building cards to defend yourself in a bind, anything, BUT to gain resources for the chance to gain MORE resources, and then die, because you've done nothing else for three+ turns and you've made a horrible mistake.

Imagine your scenario. Any mage + Meditation + Rejuvenation + Meditation again gives 55 gems, and 18 guaranteed of your lowest resource.
The cost of the cards is 38 plus whatever the mage costed. You've spent more than 38 resources over 4 turns to gain less than double the resources back. You've achieved horse piss. And this is the best you could think of. And it probably is.

In a holy deck, you could play Miracle for +8 stock, or 24 resources, at the cost of ONE gem, in one turn. Ignore the +2 Stock to the opponent, obviously you put Miracle in a deck where they're not a problem. You gain twenty-four times the resources you've paid, in one turn. How do these compare? And then you could Rejuvenate it, a one gem-cost card, play it again, and you've gained 48 resources for 10 resources in one turn less, net 38. THAT'S ALREADY MORE THAN WHAT YOUR 4 TURN COMBO GAINED. And you'd never do that, because Rejuvenating a 1 cost card is nuts!

Comboing Restoration cards makes no sense! The combos give you less benefit than a 1 Resource cost card! And that's at the best of times!

And do mind I don't say Restoration cards are bad. They are great for their card effects, and near everyone plays at least a few of them per deck. And when they give you both the combo and the benefit by some sheer accident, you're even better off. But you don't combo them on purpose and win. They don't synergize, and sacrificing their card effects for the combo is not worth the trouble.


I recommend the MArcomage staff for Countermeasures to trigger the same as Fear and Rage Blast. Perhaps radical, but the change would ensure the current Restoration cards are comboable, too, not just the possible future generation. They'd trigger more, they'd trigger better, they'd trigger for less cost to you, and Restoration decks would be back again~

What do you think? Makes sense?:3

Maybe we can change the trigger condition of Restoration keyword. Some quick ideas:

- when your resources (or/and facilities) were lowered by opponent
- when you played any non-common keyword card before the restoration card

Mojko wrote:
Maybe we can change the trigger condition of Restoration keyword. Some quick ideas:

- when your resources (or/and facilities) were lowered by opponent
- when you played any non-common keyword card before the restoration card

Aaaaaah~ You've had far better thoughts on the solution:3

The first would be perhaps the best, to take the word Countermeasures to the logical conclusion. The second would be great for the Uncommons, since Uncommons are the ones who are forced to be played before specific cards. They would also fix the small annoyance of Guardian spirit and Spring wood sitting in your hand when the opponent doesn't play a deck who trigger their effects often - you could still play them for a benefit.

Then, I'd only ask to buff New Growth a very small bit: Make the +1 Stock bonus when New also apply to when the Keyword triggers, too, for the Restoration keyword to not be a trade-off.

Otherwise... perhaps you might wish to increase the price of Spring wood and Guardian Spirit after the change by one. I guarantee you, the price will change nothing but bring justice - I will still play them, and so will everyone else:3 But, they are already very good for what they do, and the Restoration Keyword change will make them even better. As cards, they would be underpriced to a gross extent. An opponent who is not serious in the Facility reduction and Stock steal would be shut down by them in full.

I dislike playing against Brigand decks becouse of the constant discarding but i do have a Brigand deck of my own aaargh matey

As for Restoration i think it could increase your facility if it was lowered to 1

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.

Myschly wrote:

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.

Such could be achieved without change of the majority of cards... Some cards could, and perhaps should, receive a resource focus, however. Thieves, for instance, steal stock, recruits included. But through what, to be exact? Assassins can kill people, but how do thieves? They can't just steal money - recruits are already paid for. Do they kidnap someone? Do they steal a week's worth of rations all by themselves? Or a whole person worth of equipment? How do they accomplish the feat? Some Brigands make no sense in the regard.

It's not resources stealing/destruction being OP or UP, it's game balance as a whole.
I think we all agree than cardset (and game as a whole) is balanced around its standard facilities which are 3/3/3. You can build a zero-cost deck and forget about resources, but it's an exception which confirms the rule. So if you built any kind of non-zero-cost decks, you must have at least 3 facilities to play it as intended. You can make your deck relatively bricks/gems/recruits-independent, but in that case you'll probably need 4-5 in two other facilities. And when you get hit by resources/facilities destruction... well, you're screwed. Especially if you have Beast, Barbarian or Soldier deck and your opponent lowered both your Dungeon and Magic.
There is only one decision that comes to my mind - set minimum facilities to 3 and buff or rework ALL resource/facility destruction cards. It's big and complex, but IMO it's the only thing that can make those cards more effective and interesting and less annoying.

That would also ruin cards that let you reduce one of your own facilities as part of their effect. I don't think setting 3 as the minimum is the proper solution.

I would add, as an adage, when you have a Beast, Barbarian AND Soldier deck, you don't need Brigands for your Recruits to stay low...

NG_Beholder wrote:
It's not resources stealing/destruction being OP or UP, it's game balance as a whole.
I think we all agree than cardset (and game as a whole) is balanced around its standard facilities which are 3/3/3.

If this is true, then the facilities boosting decks will have to be also de-buffed because they are inbalanced too.

Desolator decks are annoying, I agree. But they are no more annoying than rush decks or tower attacking decks or tower building decks. When a style of play "suffocates" one of the players, it tends to be annoying :)

dimitris wrote:

Desolator decks are annoying, I agree. But they are no more annoying than rush decks or tower attacking decks or tower building decks. When a style of play "suffocates" one of the players, it tends to be annoying :)

I disagree. I think a fundamental part of the "fun" that comes from playing this game is playing cards and executing the strategy of the deck. A destruction/brigand deck works by making it impossible to play cards and execute the strategy of your deck. No other deck does that as its core strategy, though non-interactiveness of other decks may make them annoying in other ways.

Non-interactiveness, you say? I'm not sure such is a direction I would support>.> I enjoy my passive pacifist deck trio. I wouldn't, had the general opinion been they aren't enjoyable to play against, but feedback had said otherwise thus far.

Well in a game where you cannot respond timely with your opponent (like in Magic or other games) which rewards highly linear decks, you can be sure that often you are playing a solitair-like game where its just about being faster than the opponent. Thats a core component of Arcomage and is more favored by the long game mode, where single interactions are less impactfull like the overall gameplan.

The stock-reduction deck is not much different from tower- or rush or pure building decks. Most player just don't know when they have already lost the game. When you keep dicarding cards for more than 10 rounds, you should be sure that this state is equal to a state where your tower is reduced to 0. The only difference is that you have effectively the chance to get out of that situation, since the enemies deck can only hardely crush you, but only specific decks are capable of this.

To make it short: When a brigand deck locks you out of a game, a ruh deck could also have completely killed you in that time. There is no difference in the interactivity or linearity of the decks.


And the people here are saying that it's like impossible to win against brigand decks. Thats true, when the non-linear decks are build to sustain against building and rush decks. Since you cannot adept to all three types of strategies, its just sure that you need to be worse prepared for some matchups. Its quite odd that in all my games, i had almost none where i couldn't had a chance to win against brigand decks, even if i had for a couple of rounds to discard cards. I have to admit, a good amount of my decks are soft to building decks, but considering the decks that are floating around, i dont see why the stock reduction decks should go away from the meta.

I'm ok with some balances on the destructive and the restoration (I, for my self,am still against the facility reduction on the keyword, since its mirroring the restoration change and the destruction cards are made too efficient with this (Its an effectively doubling of the some cards effect, which is no keyword i know capable of)). But i dont see why these strategies should go. And this is a niche-strategy, still.

I think that the problem many have is that, unlike with rush or tower attack decks, the stock reduction doesn't end the match. You're often both waiting for that player to draw occasional attack cards that whittle until finishing the job, and the wait can be a long one.

Another complaint that was made often when this was a more common issue was that if you're only playing one turn a day, the match simply FEELS much longer when your every move is to discard. This isn't an issue when playing an actual, tabletop card game, but it can make an online match between people in different parts of the word rather tedious.

I haven't personally had a problem with this type of deck in a few years now. The last few times someone used one against me, I tended to be able to keep my chief facility at 4-6 despite their efforts, though this was at the expense of the other two.

DPsycho wrote:
I think that the problem many have is that, unlike with rush or tower attack decks, the stock reduction doesn't end the match.

This. Exactly.
It's difficult for destruction decks to be at the same time effective and fast and after a point it gets annoying and boring, sometimes even for the player of the deck. This is also their huge disadvantage, they require time to become powerful and the other player can plan ahead, with some discards or playing cheap cards in the early turns of the game, if they understand that they are facing a destruction deck which is easy for experienced players or in non-hidden mode.

I thought about this problem and, in conjuction, about the restoration keyword as a whole.

One problem about the restoration vs brigand matchup is that even if you can keep up with the recource lowering (in fact, its quite doable), once one or two of your facilities are reduced, the whole plan goes down. The countermeasure effect of the restoration keyword does give a minor boost in your facilities, which is in fact better in other matchups than a straight facility-restore. But in fact, in the brigand-matchup these small amount of recources gets stolen anyway, making it impossible to even play further restoration cards.
All in all, restoration decks could sustain stock reduction, but only with at least the standard production to make its commons work for recover. Brigands have far fewer ways to reduce facilities.

The point is, the main reason why restoration-keyword was changed to make it what it is today is because people complained that they had really bad times with their desolation decks against restoration decks. It was a really bad matchup like undead vs holy (Well, before Zealot became a frenzy card, but i don't miss this deck where holy decks could beat you for 40 with an uncommon...)
And on the other hand because the secondary effect was in other matchups negletable, because you wouldn't mind a single facility at 2 because of some random card.
(Back then, the effect of the restoration keywords was, freely spoken, the unconditional recource increase and above that a rais of one of your facilities when it was below 3)



I see the reasons why the restoration keyword was changed and it was interesting to see if there is another way to balance desolation decks, but when we see that this becomes impossible, we should consider to move with the restoration keyword beck to its roots (and by the way, make some cost-efficient restoration uncommons or buff meditation at least).

Edit:
By the way, i'm using spring wood and guardian spirit in many of my decks, it wouldn't be too much to put alchemy in there either when this change comes up. That would be a nice meta-call in defensive decks.