With CAWS19 coming to a close, I thought I’d offer to run our experimental spring tournament.
Please sign up by March 19th, and I will have our first round posted Friday, March 20th.
Based on the previous poll, we are looking at random maps applied to each match. You submit a single deck, and each round you will be paired with someone and thrown into one of the 10-ish maps. Everyone will play the same map on any given round, though thats open for debate, could run it completely random, but this can skew the results, as someone really can be put in a no win situation for 3 rounds straight. That said, certain maps are probably going to be removed. Mainly the one removing hero and tech requirements. I am open to suggestions and discussion on maps to remove or include.
Obviously I don’t expect people to signup until the exact maps allowed are decided.
Please discuss!
INCLUDED MAPS
FLAGSTONE MINES: Players can hire any number of workers per turn.
BIG GAME HUNTERS: Each player gets an extra [2 gold] during each of their upkeeps.
HARD TIMES MILL: Workers cost an extra [1 gold] to hire.
DAGGERFALL PRISON CAMP: Hiring workers doesn’t cost a card. (Track how many workers you have some other way.)
MYSTICAL FOREST: Whenever you would ready a unit or hero during your turn, you may put a +1/+1 rune on it instead.
BURIAL GROUNDS: Whenever a hero dies, it’s gone forever this game.
PINNACLE: Heroes can cast ultimate spells even if they aren’t max level and even if they arrived that turn. Dead heroes must wait an extra turn to be resummoned.
VORTOSS RUINS: Players can’t build the heroes’ hall or tech lab add-ons, but automatically get their effects.
BANNED MAPS
BLOODBOWL: All units have +1 ATK and haste.
LOST TEMPLE: Players ignore all tech building requirements and don’t need heroes to cast spells.
FURY ROAD: Players can only have one patroller at a time.
NO RUSH 15 MINUTES: Prevent all damage until after each player has taken 4 turns.
First Round Map shall be…
MYSTICAL FOREST: Whenever you would ready a unit or hero during your turn, you may put a +1/+1 rune on it instead.
No Rush and Lost Temple are obviously out I assume.
I think mystical forest sounds like a blast.
Big Game Hunters also looks fun to me but maybe its too broken IDK.
I would definitely like to sign up as Mono Black
No Rush 15 isnt nearly as broken or degenerate as other maps. Lost Temple is the most degenerate, but Bloodbowl is also pretty degenerate, anything that can flood the board with units is good, just as anything with cheap deadly tech 3s or ultimates is good in lost temple.
Degenerate Maps:
Lost Temple
Bloodbowl - Bone Collectors win this every time
Slightly less degenerate
Fury Road - 1st player wins this almost always
No Rush 15 - 1st player almost always wins this, and black is the only one with any interaction during the first 4 turns, except maybe injunction.
The rest of the maps aren’t quite as sweeping a change.
As a point of order, not every map will get played in this tournament because it just won’t last 12 rounds, so removing even 4 of the maps would still allow for a decent amount of randomness without having to repeat maps.
My guess for how the Vortoss Ruins would work is that you pick two specs when you build your Tech II building, since this is how the Tech Lab works if you build it before Tech II.
It’ll be interesting to see how the maps skew people’s decks. As well as the mass-weenies stuff that’s good for Bloodbowl, I’d expect early draw effects to be great for Flagstone Mines and Daggerfall Prison Camp.
Actually most of the colours have interactions
Purple :all of the bounce/trash/steal effects.
Red: Kidnapping (if combo with a way to bounce/kill your own units, Maxiumium Anarchy (wipe the board T5 and then gunships?)/Worker distruction.
Green: Trex, but then it probs has the most to gain from building up a board/killing your opponent in a single attack.
Blue: Injuction is probs op, but community service, Judgement Day and Censorship council all seem good.
White: Snapback, but also see green (like T2 max sets is going to build a board,)
I also disagree with the P1 always wins this, a) due to the effects mentioned above, and b) Player 1 can only have tech 2 at the end of the 4 turns, while P2 can have a tech 3 first. If P2 can survie the first swing, they stand a good chance.
A caution to everyone; this is going to be weird. Weird stuff will happen. The maps are not necessarily fair, and matchups can feel more decided before cards go down than normal.
I’d love to have the Fall XCAFS be a “community v2 rebalancing” one, where we errata some black, blue, and perhaps other cards, but am okay to wait on it if folks’d prefer mapping it up!
You are correct, black is not alone in having some interaction, but a TRex is a BIG stretch, considering it only matters in 4 turns, no way to get one of those out before its irrelevant. The other interactions are also arguably weaker or too expensive compared to black.
I did say No Rush 15 was less degenerate, but it certainly has a certain tilt.
That said, My inclination is to only remove Bloodbowl and Lost Temple.
No Rush means you literally don’t play out Tech 0 stuff (beyond deck thinning with 1-drops), or have Tech I stuff in your deck at all.
Look to Max Band heroes/ultimates and Tech 2 haste things running rampant (eg: as Player 1, Rook can basically gaurantee a double tech break with birds + earthquake // player 2 can play whatever Tech II things they want if P1 didn’t have a good hero option - Verdant Tree is a must-build)
Purple could spam out some cards as p2, turn one build tech 1, turn 2, play prynn, fargo, plasmo, temporal research and 2 Knights, assuming draws line up.
You mean for the worker destruction, right? It would keep your deck thinner than the opponent’s, which doesn’t seem like the worst idea when combat starts so late. I don’t know whether that’s worth the delay in teching in permanent cards.
Indeed. I assume EricF is talking about the case where the opponent doesn’t have access to fliers until Tech II, so you can do chip with Birds as soon as the No Rush period ends.
