Battle of the Bad

I’d play in that.

My brother and I have been enjoying it quite a bit. A tournament would also be pretty sweet i think.

We do a draft system too sometimes which is cool but not condusive for an event as much. We limit to one set and flip for first pick (second chooses first starter if both sides would choose the same), then alterbate picks back and forth. Anyway, both ways we’ve been having a blast these last few days.

2 Likes

I really like the idea, but I also think it would be nice if you got to pick your own starter. It gives you a little bit of agency in your games, and also means that your matchups might be a little bit different each game. I guess the downside is it’s potentially difficult to run with double blind choices (but I’d be totally ok with not declaring which starter until your first turn - might remove a bit of the P1 advantage also…)

I think there is a lot of swing in how well a hero will work in a given setup with one starter versus another.

1 Like

I think having P2 pick the starter after P1s first turn is fine. P2 is disadvantaged by default, that would decrease the gap by a small amount.

It’s not really in theme, though. If the idea is to give your opponent a bad deck, you should be able to force a blue starter on them.

That’s my feeling too. Like, this is a game about trying to hand your opponent the worst possible deck, and they’re doing the same to you. The test of skill is (1) give your opponent the worst possible tools, and (2) use the tools your opponent has handed you in the most effective possible way. :smiley:

2 Likes

I think the most interesting aspect is the idea that for the whole tournament you will be fighting the same deck piloted by a variety of players. You will come to know what your opponents can do in great detail I think.

6 Likes

My friend and I played 3 rounds of [Fire]/Truth/Bashing vs [Law]/Growth/Disease. We played our format was given the constraints of one deluxe set of codex (no mirror matches) each of us picked 3 specs plus one starter designed to be terrible together then gave those to the opponent. We each played one round as P1 and P2 and for the last match we traded codexes and flipped for P1.

It was pretty fun and the set of specs I chose definitely had the worst record. But it was a pyrrhic victory as match 3 really drug out.

TL/DR Orpal single handedly won three games.

2 Likes

Growth/Disease is actually a nice synergy with the Plague Lab generating more +1 runes on your guys.

1 Like

That synergy didn’t really come up because there was no green starter to add runes and no tech lab to get growth/disease tech 2 out at the same time. First round was Orpal/Growth vs Quince/Fire. Second was Orpal/Law vs Jaina/Fire. Final round was Quince/Basing vs Orpal/Disease.

It seems like you almost came full circle here. Granted, this is not a top-tier deck, but it does give you access to MoLaC+Haste. If you wind up going up against good upgrade removal, though, Fire and Truth are both fine at Tech II without their upgrades (Bamstamper Lizzo is great value, and Macciatus/Reteller can make Illusions really good), and even Growth has Blooming Agent, which is good. Also, Though I know it’s not generally a great card, I wonder if you could get by with running Quince+Heroes’ Hall/Tech II+Jaina to go for the Dreamscape play (Jaina’s Mid/Maxband+Ember sparks is a lot of targeting.)

2 Likes

I don’t think Growth belongs on a worst of the worst list.

That being said, I don’t think Quince + Dreamscape + Jaina + Ember Sparks is a good combo. It’s 4 cards and you need all of them. None of them are really super top tier either as stand alone cards. All of those cards really lose a lot when standing alone or in any other combination than having all 4.

1 Like

They may not be top-tier, but I think they’re all pretty good by themselves except for Dreamscape. Also, even though heroes are technically cards, I don’t think characterizing it as “4 cards” is quite fair considering two of them are heroes, which you always have access to if they didn’t die last turn. Also, you can get jiggy with mirrors+lobbers as well. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think this combo would be a suitable “plan A” for that codex, but I do think it could be strong in some matchups. The nice thing about Quince+Heroes’ Hall early is that the mirrors give you access to your opponent’s tech 1 even if you don’t yet have your own Tech 1 building. With this codex particularly, Dreamscape seems like a reasonable tech choice because even without Ember sparks, both of your other heroes have midband abilities that target a unit, and are reasonably well-suited to playing with early HH rather than tech 1.

4 Likes

One thing I would suggest for this type of event is removing the multi-color penalty on buildings (but keep it for spells). Otherwise it just limits people’s choices to “must include different colors,” and something like X/Bashing/Finesse might actually be viable as a “weakest squad.”

Note that MoLaC is only top tier when there is Haste available in the squad. For Mono-Green, it’s just OK, and if you took away the early defense/pressure of Basilisk and Cala, Growth could fit into a “weak heroes, weak at tech 1” style of squad.

2 Likes

Sure, it’s maybe not the most efficient option, but I could see using a Tech Lab with the Blooming things in Growth Tech II for some hilarity. Maybe add in Strength for the Doubling Barbarbarian. Now I’m moving away from the topic of this thread, from “really bad” to “really unlikely but potentially really powerful”.

1 Like

[bashing] bashing bashing

1 Like

This one sounds pretty strong. You can tech 6x wrecking ball and your opponent can’t lock you out of wrecking ball by killing Troq.

7 Likes

Depends on rule interpretation. Maybe you won’t be allowed to summon Troq after Troq died?

This actually sounds like an interesting alternative play mode idea. Allowing duplicate specs gives you less options but makes up for it in consistency. Has anyone ever tried something like this?

1 Like

“Oh you wanted to play a building? You wanted to own a base? Haha, silly you.”

3 Likes