[Casual] Dwarddd MonoGrey vs Zhavier MonoBlack

There’s wayyy tpo much in spec synergy between blessed troops, angel of contrition, and Tariq. Angel I see as you took Tarrasque as the example, but demonology has no internal way to activate him by killing those warlocks. Monocolor has to go to disease or can use finesse or multicolor into Jefferson, but the spec itself doesn’t have that immediate synergy.

Does the Angel have resist, the sheet says it but your notes don’t.

Demonology has Banefire for basically that exact reason, but tbf Blessed Troops are probably a better card so i think I see where you are coming from. Also a released Terras is probably better than an enabled Angel.
Something we tried before that we could return to is a fully flying angel, It makes those monks way harder to protect. Do you think that would be any better?

Yes the angel has resist, my bad for forgetting to type it on (the monks don’t and they are meant to be the squishy underbelly). I think removing Mirror Knight’s resist would be fair for a future version though.

Yea, I don’t mind the angel’s resist, the mirror knights resist feels overbalanced, compared to void berry or GotG. Angle is weaker than Terrasque, but yea, a fully flying angel would make more sense, its just weird thematically that he lands. Honestly its weird that Midori lands, but I understand that was something that came up during playtesting as a fix for not being able to remove Him once he maxbands. Angel doesn’t have that issue.

P2T8


StartingHand Workers

STARTING HAND
Gorgon
Nether Drain
Sacrifice the Weak


WORKERS
Jandra, the Negator
Graveyard
Pestering Haunt
Dark Pact
Summon Skeletons


NextHand

Hooded Executioner
Thieving Imp
Plague Lab


Discard

Sacrifice the Weak
Nether Drain
Gorgon


Tech 0 card(s)
Get Paid - ($10)
Orpal - ($8)
Nether Drain Garth to give Orpal 2 Levels - ($7)
Orpal to max - ($4)
Sac Skeleton to put a -1 Rune on a Monk
Make another Skeleton - ($3)
Sacrifice the Weak on my new Skeleton and the -1 runed monk, Orpal Maxband puts -1 rune on the other Monk and Angel, pay resist - ($0)
Cursed Ghoul swings in walking past the weakened angel and kills the other monk, angel dies
Garth wounds Knight for 4, takes 2 from current printed attack, -1 rune, 1 from elite and 1 from tower
Vandy breaks your Tower

Float ($0)
Discard 1, draw 3


Board Info:
In Patrol:

  • :psblueshield: Squad Leader: Orpal 2/5+A, lvl 6
  • :psfist: Elite:
  • :ps_: Scavenger:
  • :pschip: Technician:
  • :target: Lookout:

In Play:

  • Skeletal Archery
  • Vandy 6/5, lvl 5, +2, Demon
  • Garth 4/3, lvl 5, +2, Demon
  • Cursed Ghoul 4/5

Buildings:

  • :heart: Base HP: 20
  • :heart: Tech I HP: 5
  • :heart: Tech II HP: 5 (Disease)
  • :heart: Heroes’ Hall HP: 4

Economy Info:
Cards:

  • Hand: 3
  • Deck: 7
  • Disc: 3

Gold:

  • Gold: 0
  • Workers: 10

For this game though, Mirror Knight does have resist, which means the skeleton you tried to make last turn before realising you couldn’t was never made.

Honestly in about 12 games play testing, angel’s effect has never been activated once as far as I recall. I think it looks a lot more OP than it is - it is expensive enough that maxing Tariq on the turn it is played is hard, and if you kill one monk before it goes off it can never ascend as they can’t ever both be healed.

That said, the current Blessed Troops is a relatively new addition to the set so maybe that pushes it over the top.

1 Like

resist on the knight is probs overtuned though

So, based on the fact that I thought I had accounted for knights resist placing the rune, but i did not, i suppose i Need to redo my turn with one less skeleton.

Now Im curious, if themonk has a -1, doesnt that ALSO prevent him from reaching full health?

We hadn’t considered this. My instinct as currently worded is no, because -1 runes are not damage. The reference might be Starcrossed Starlet, who would not get an extra point of attack for a - rune. We could clarify the card by saying “if both monks are alive and have 0 damage tokens”, though that is wordy.

That said, perhaps being able to counter the angel by runing a monk is what we want if we think it is op. My experience playing grey against disease was that disease was already a good counter, with all the healing hate and token clear, but that was only a couple if games. If we want this to be clear, we could record to “if both monks reach 3hp”, which also opens synergy with +1 runes.

The irony is it was you who pointed out you shouldn’t have had that skeleton xd but as this is just a casual match we’ll say we are testing out MK without resist so you did have the gold for that skeleton after all.
I personally like the current wording of “fully healed” (it’s in the spreadsheet, I’ll stop paraphrasing I guess but i only meant my posted comments to be there for when exact wording doesn’t matter) which to me suggests there are no more dmg tokens to remove. If you kill one before their dmg tokens are removed then they are never fully healed, but putting a - rune on one doesn’t change how much healing you have to do before they are dmg free.

P1T9


Tech StartingHand Workers

TECH
Pesh
Mirror Knight


STARTING HAND
Forgive
Pivot
Doomed Peasant(1/1) dies: summon (0/1) undead token
Legionary Heavy(3/4) patrols: grant adjacent patrollers 1a
Saint of Swords
Forgive


WORKERS
Choose Fate
Dwarven Supplies
Fantassin
Shining Prince
Gentle Giant
Underequipped Soldier(2/3) shield, i pay one when he dies
Goblinfire


NextHand

Priest(3/3a) pay 1+ tap to heal or deal 2dmg
Pesh
Saint of Swords
Assign nemesis
Forgive


Tech 2 card(s)
Get Paid + float + scav, tech draw - ($13)
Tower - ($10)
Forgive the 4 dmg on Mirror Knight, Cursed ghoul dies from that plus the delayed tower dmg from when it attacked - ($7)
Call in the Saint of Swords - ($0)

Float ($0)
Discard 4, draw 2, reshuffle, draw 3


Board Info:
In Patrol:

  • :psblueshield: Squad Leader: Saint of Swords(10/8a) Resist 2, deathtouch. Full-overpower (excess damage done by this is dealt to another target it could attack, and excess damage from that overpower to the next, and so on), legendary
  • :psfist: Elite: Mirror Knight(1+1/7) (-)mirrors combatant’s attack, NO R1
  • :ps_: Scavenger:
  • :pschip: Technician: Tariq(2/3) healing 1, healing at EoT
  • :target: Lookout:

In Play:
*

Buildings:

  • :heart: Base HP: 16
  • :heart: Tech I HP: 5
  • :heart: Tech II HP: 5 (Good)
  • :heart: Tech III HP: 5
  • :heart: Tower HP: 4

Economy Info:
Cards:

  • Hand: 5
  • Deck: 9
  • Disc: 0

Gold:

  • Gold: 0
  • Workers: 11

I’ll GG there. That grey packs a real punch.

So, All other creatures that have deathtouch have very limited attack values. Combo’ing deathtouch and trample effects is an interesting idea, but I think its a little overtuned. Most tech 3s need support to make them game ending. Pirate gunship is very much a bad idea to tune against, which I would argue is on par with this.

Yeah, the deathtouch was to fit thematically but really it’s not necessary there (@James i suppise that “her cuts don’t heal” != her cuts r all deadly). Im comfortable taking away the deathtouch. Maybe also lower the ATK to 9, small change but SoS’s stats have been bouncing around so much we must be onto the smaller iterations of our optimisation right?:joy:

Ill play another match as P1. Also, Forgive is undercosted by a decent margin. Its effect is worth quite a bit more than something like surprise attack, which was the closest thing i could think of offhand.

P1T1


StartingHand Workers

STARTING HAND
Deteriorate
Pestering Haunt
Skeleton Javelineer
Thieving Imp
Summon Skeletons


WORKERS
Summon Skeletons


NextHand

Graveyard
Jandra, the Negator
Sacrifice the Weak
Poisonblade Rogue


Discard

Deteriorate
Thieving Imp


Tech 0 card(s)
Get Paid - ($4)
Worker - ($3)
Skeleton Javelineer - ($2)
Pestering Haunt
Vandy - ($0)

Float ($0)
Discard 2, draw 4


Board Info:
In Patrol:

  • :psblueshield: Squad Leader: Vandy
  • :psfist: Elite:
  • :ps_: Scavenger:
  • :pschip: Technician:
  • :target: Lookout:

In Play:

  • Skeleton Javelineer
  • Pestering Haunt

Buildings:

  • :heart: Base HP: 20

Economy Info:
Cards:

  • Hand: 4
  • Deck: 1
  • Disc: 2

Gold:

  • Gold: 0
  • Workers: 5
1 Like

That is a reasonable point, no guarantee that i use any of these cards this game but do you think these changes sound like good things to test (not in spreadsheet, but in effect for this game):
Mirror Knight loses resist
SoS: No deathtouch: 9/8 with complete overpower and resist 2
Angel: flying all the time
Forgive: cost 4, limit at 5 instead of 6 (if you think it should be changed further I’d rather raise price than lower the limit in general because “coming back from the brink of death” is very Good and heroic)

P2T1


StartingHand Workers

STARTING HAND
Choose Fate
Underequipped Soldier
Pivot
Dwarven Supplies
Gentle Giant


WORKERS
Gentle Giant


NextHand

Stepping Stone Villain
Fantassin
Shining Prince
Arcadian Double


Discard

Pivot
Choose Fate


Tech 0 card(s)
Get Paid - ($5)
Worker - ($4)
UE Soldier - ($2)
Dwarven Supplies - ($0)

Float ($0)
Discard 2, draw 4


Board Info:
In Patrol:

  • :psblueshield: Squad Leader:
  • :psfist: Elite:
  • :ps_: Scavenger:
  • :pschip: Technician: Underequipped Soldier(2/3) shield, i pay one when this dies
  • :target: Lookout:

In Play:

  • Dwarven Supplies(Arrives, Pay 1, or tap this and a friendly unit --> put a weapon rune on this (max 3). Tap: Remove all runes. Give a friendly tech 0 or 1 unit that much attack this turn.) 1 rune

Buildings:

  • :heart: Base HP: 20

Economy Info:
Cards:

  • Hand: 4
  • Deck: 1
  • Disc: 2

Gold:

  • Gold: 0
  • Workers: 6
Thoughts

definitely the soldier, then it’s a choice between Neshamah or Supplies as they are the only things that could survive
they could always maxband Vandy to kill Nessie and I think it’d put them in an overall winning position so let’s not give them that opportunity

My fix for Forgive would be either that it can only move damage from one unit to one unit and cost 5, or cost 6 and do damage like a burn spell to patrollers, up to 6. Think ember sparks except it heals and can target up to 5 patrollers. It’s also unclear if forgive was intended to target and suffer resist. It definitely should. As it is, it’s a better and more versatile burn spell than anything in the fire spec, which seems… weird. Even just changing it’s cost, it seems wrong for it to be so versatile.

What about cost 5, limit 6, can only move the dmg onto patrollers? With the justification that it requires a unit with >6 hp and 6dmg on it to actually use to it’s full potential (something that makes it more difficult to set up but also the situations that make it good only come about by at least the second turn of having tech 2 up).
As a general rule for Grey there are no weird (this doesn’t target) things; we just still need to add those into the spreadsheet.

With that setup, Forgive becomes somewhat similar to Surprise Attack, except way more upsides in exchange for a relatively minor requirement of having a damaged high health unit. I get the flavor of moving a damage token, but I really don’t like the idea that it dodges armor. Consider how good 4 hasty stealthy ninjas are from setsuki? That’s an ultimate spell effect. Discord and deteriorate can only ever reduce someone by 1, -1 Runes can mostly only apply 1 at a time. The ability to dodge armor is very important, and the ability to do it for a large amount of damage is exponentially more important. You can also dodge things like swift strike, which you can already do with large health pools, so kinda redundant.

As a flavor setup, I kinda like this effect: Remove all damage counters from a friendly unit. Reduce the health of patrollers by up to x until the end of turn. In practice, its roughly the same, except that the damage goes away if its not used up, which feels much more forgivey to me. x might need to be half of damage healed. Not sure.

I honestly hadn’t thought of the fact that it dodges armour, that wasn’t really intended.
Your description sounds reasonable, and the idea of passing on only half the amount is a good way to temper the card while keeping the main theme present.
This discussion has reminded me that whilst designing (I’m not sure we ever even played a game with this version…) we had this card like this:
“remove dmg counters from a friendly unit; distribute them among any other friendly units.” cost something like 2. It was a way of maximising healing and replenishing the health of a key card.
@James any thoughts on what we should do with Forgive?
I’m not sure the “reduce their health” part of your version is really needed as it adds complexity while rarely having an effect and after only passing on half the dmg removed I’m not sure it’s needed balance wise. (my current suggestion is something like: cost 5, limit 6, pass on half (rounded down) as dmg dealt to other friendly units or enemy patrollers)

i was thinking of discord and deteriorate as effects that only go until end of turn, which is meant to be a way to limit their power, but in practice means they aren’t used unless they meet the condition of being useful in killing things immediately.

P1T2


Tech StartingHand Workers

TECH
Hooded Executioner
Shadow Blade


STARTING HAND
Jandra, the Negator
Poisonblade Rogue
Sacrifice the Weak
Graveyard


WORKERS
Summon Skeletons
Jandra, the Negator


NextHand

Skeletal Archery
Shadow Blade
Hooded Executioner
Thieving Imp


Tech 2 card(s)
Get Paid - ($5)
Worker - ($4)
Vandy and Skeleton (using rune) kill Soldier
Haunt hits your base
Tech 1 - ($3)
Poisonblade Rogue - ($1)

Float ($1)
Discard 2, draw 1, reshuffle, draw 3


Board Info:
In Patrol:

  • :psblueshield: Squad Leader:
  • :psfist: Elite:
  • :ps_: Scavenger:
  • :pschip: Technician: Poisonblade Rogue 2/1
  • :target: Lookout:

In Play:

  • Skeleton Javelineer 1/1, no rune
  • Pestering Haunt 1/1
  • Vandy 2/1, lvl 1

Buildings:

  • :heart: Base HP: 20

Economy Info:
Cards:

  • Hand: 4
  • Deck: 3
  • Disc: 0

Gold:

  • Gold: 1
  • Workers: 6
1 Like