He had multiple game plans, and his spec does hit a few of the counter categories, like big hero hate in nether drain and aoe in discord. It has a lot of good A game plans it can pursue, namely Black starter and vandy + anything is just solid and very threatening immediately.
As far as the theory crafting, we can get that going with the spreadsheet as a tool. There’s definitely several decks that can be considered strong picks (mentioned above). I’d like to theory craft the deck that beats monovandy and strength growth anarchy, hence all the discipline and balance specs I’ve been trying out
Yea if I were to participate in any “what’s theoretically best” conversation, I think there’s a very strong case to be made for “when in doubt on what to play, black starter + Vandy is the strongest place to start”.
It’s probably the easiest thing to play that’s very fraught with peril for most game plans. Vandy’s super strong body, her massive card advantage and end-game plans available via spells if left alone, and Black starter’s ability to shift gears to other strong early games (Graveyard + Haste, Skeleton Mass + Archery, Demon strats with Jandra Imp and Gargoyle / Baron, board clearing of StW and Deteriorate) mean you don’t need her to win, but the opponent HAS to answer her to avoid losing. Combine her with Garth, who can play stall games for really heavy tech 2 plans, and they are a massive duo.
It’s very annoying to play against, I felt like kind of a dick for playing it this tourney lol XD
Personally I don’t like the multicolor penalty. Many combinations are just too slow to realistically stand a chance against mono black and mono white,even mono red I’d argue. Imho the fact that with multiple specs you risk not having a hero to cast basic deck spells is penalty enough. This mechanic disables more lines of play than it enables. Thoughts?
Remember, Sirlin originally wanted to have only monocolor. Plenty of customization happens during games in Codex, so there’s not as much need for pre-game customization. He knew that people would want to do multicolor, though, so the multicolor penalty was designed to prevent any crazy synergies from getting out of hand. His opinion was that any monocolor should be just as viable for a tournament as the top multicolor options, and while it can be debated whether the balance is good enough to achieve that (I’m looking at you, Blue vs Black), removing that penalty would go against one of the game’s core design philosophies.
I wasn’t aware there was a design intention that specific…, thanks for bothering to explain!
I’d be interested in playing a monocolored-only tourney but even without splashing finesse eveywhere I kinda have a hunch what would be the most played deck…
In theory I welcome the idea of no multicolor decks at all, it makes the game focused in the “now”, in piloting, rather than the “what could have been” - if I spec-ed differently. That’s personal preference though. Granted, the balance might need some tweaking… but still, right now it’s really hard to argue individual card/hero/spec balance as one needs to factor in all the spec combinations. I imagine some(most?) people do welcome the increased possibility space but to me it mostly… contrives things.
Anyone, multicolor is here to stay, so… I’d rather embrace it and remove the penalty. I think that should monocolred decks be competitive to mixed ones it needs to happen organically, due to the 3 specs working great together, and not due… “artficial” weakening of mixed decks. Codex I’d argue is very much tempo based and the penalty serves to support only a handful of “immediate effect” strategies like haste that would allow a player to compensate for the loss of tempo. If a spec combo is deemed “too strong” (purple/blue soldiers) - maybe that particular interaction needs to be adressed and not just weakening all potential combinations with a global mechanic?
I agree that doing it that way would be best, but the reality is that we have a shipped game that is unlikely to receive any updates for several years (if ever). Removing the penalty without altering any cards would make the game less balanced overall, and reduce the viability of multicolor, but it’s not feasible to alter any cards (and even if it was, I don’t think there’s enough consensus on which cards need adjusted and what changes to make). Thus, the rule must stay.
Also, in case anyone reading this hasn’t seen it before, here’s an article Sirlin wrote about “Designing Defensively”:
Mhm. I’d need more time before discussing that particular article in the context of Codex (even if I agree with pretty much everything in the article itself!).
we have a shipped game that is unlikely to receive any updates for several years (if ever)
Umm… is that another stated design intention?.. And if so, why…
I can imagine it has something to do with the Blizzard philosophy of “not changing things; give players time to actually find the answers” (of which I think Sirlin is influenced and with a good merit) but StarCraft is a much more open, sand-box in a sense game. Codex is much more focused, aggregated, “tight” and there simply aren’t all that many answers possible.
Anyway, I think I might have come out more… aggressive/demanding that I actually am. My intention was simply to share sentiments and see what you (the more experienced players here) think of that. I’m hardly the first person to bring up those questions, so I figured I’d ask
I think the “we aren’t touching it for a long time if ever” statement is partially out of design and partially out of necessity.
Design-wise, you’re right in the thought that it’s very deep and no maximums stood out as overly dominant, so let players figure out what’s really OP.
But I think moreso, that statement was made because:
Sirlin has had a lot of negative feedback in making 2nd/3rd editions to balance things, and
All his financial and mental resources are now focused on the Fantasy Strike fighting game
I don’t think you came off as overly hostile or aggressive, and my personal opinion is multi-color is good where it is. I think the rule was a great, simple mitigator, and the intent of “always having the thing you bought be viable” was very cool and probably helped a ton with keeping the game balanced through development.
As for “what color would dominate a mono-color tournament”, yes I do think it would be Black, but I also think the better players would win matchups more often than “the better color” would win against “the worse color” in a given matchup. I’d definitely participate in such a tourney!
I think of monocolor as the strict set of 6 colors personally, the “designed decks”. I’d prefer it to be just those, but wouldn’t scoff at a mono+finesse tourney (b/c let’s be clear, we’re really talking about “is splashing Finesse allowed” ^_^)
Black vs blue is so poorly balanced that that mono tournament would already break the game down to 5 colors, and from there since monoblack by itself is tournament worthy, 50% of the field will just be that… would need to see some minor balance changes before it was really worth the effort I think.
Agree that Black vs Blue actually needs special meddling. I’ve been carrying that torch for awhile XD I think Blue is plenty viable against every other color though, so that’d be the only necessary tampering.
Personally I’d love it if we have sign-ups to balance the colors out as equally represented.
A single color tourney may be a good place to experiment with minor balance changes, like deteriorate and dark pact costing 1 and bluecoat or porkhand getting some sort of buff to make them better at early game combat
I’d give Bluecoat armor-piercing in addition to long-range while having 1 attack.
As for the Porkhand… eeh it’s such a peculiar unit. Either the ability or the 2/3 stats are wasted because it can’t attack and tap, obviously. Without changing the ability I’m thinking of lowering the mana cost with 1 and then the stats with -1/-1.Either 1/2 or 0/3 with that ability for 2 sounds better. No one can afford 3 mana early on.
But those are just ramblings on my part. I couldn’t resist doing some design here. I can’t say I know the game well enough and those are the definitive changes that it needs.
Deteriorate on its own though is friggin’ imbalanced.
Wow, I will be finally able to play Bigby and Quinece! Maybe.