Cocofang

Arguing about what problem takes priority won't change anything about Decomposers issues. Also there are problems with both the reward system and this card that very clearly have nothing to do with one another. Orb tiers are force multipliers. A boosted players power grows exponentially because of that. The performance of one player then completely overshadows what an entire team could do otherwise. Nothing else in the game can transfer energy between players. Decomposer being utilized fundamentally warps how the entire round plays out. What is the „opinion“ here? And where is the connection to the reward system when stating, in addition to the previous points, that the power of a card not always being tied to the amount of use-cases or Decomposer and its power being T1. One would assume if even people defending and relying on a tactic to achieve the fastest times say that it's broken or even a mistake then its power is truly unreasonable. Generally games are balanced around top play, not top players. Top play being min-maxing a game, therefore highlighting what is actually too good and what is too bad. This then seeps down into regular play, which is one of the contributing factors why a meta emerges. In that way speedrunning exposes broken and overpowered mechanics. It identifies outliers. When something is seeing consistent play at the top, the question is usually not "Is it strong?" but "What makes it so strong? And is it too far above the rest?" As was already said, if carrying inexperienced players is supposed to be the aspect worth preserving there are plenty of other ways to do it. And as long as the spearhead player doesn't hog all resources then the things learned from watching can probably be applied to a broad spectrum of scenarios. It's of course not completely void of transferable knowledge but funneling on the other hand is a very specific tactic and therefore a lot of what you learn from it only applies to funneling. Everything a carry achieves is first and foremost enabled by having such excess energy. The execution, no matter how skillful, is only possible because of that. Decomposer also doesn't really have anything to do with unit/building/spell focused decks. What it does is simply supercharge one player and whatever deck gets used. Nor is the existence of the current iteration of Decomposer necessary for people to learn and understand the game. Bringing other T1 cards to the discussion, even those that find usage outside of T1, seems like a big stretch. Where would we even rate the ability to transfer energy, and the snowball effect it can enable, in terms of tiers? Granted a big part of its current power is being able to skip ahead immediately. But just as a concept, surely it would be higher than mere T1. T3 possibly? Akin to how current Shrine of War can negate the void-return system in many circumstances, making the 90% energy return near instant? How Enlightenment can circumvent the rule that you have to have certain orbs? Amii Monument changing the rule of having to claim T4 on the map and the amount of orbs available? It'd probably be in that type of echelon. Yet it's T1, making it stand out even more. Saying that farming would be gone anyway because people eventually own everything is such an odd point to make. What does that even mean? Almost seems like an existential angle. Why bother doing anything, eventually we will reach technological singularity and the AGI takes over. There is no single stat to rule them all, like play rate, either. Play rate of a card tells you nothing except … well, how often a card is played. You learn nothing from this number aside from that. You don't learn when it is used, why it is used, how it is used, how it affects the game when used, with what other cards it gets used, etc. Stats are not the end, they are the beginning. Stats also do not show how limiting the current Decomposer can be going forward because of its excessive strength that is always looming and always demands to be considered. As for wanting to dismiss Decomposer being a potential trouble maker in 2v2/3v3 PvP, I wonder where we should be inclined to make the cut-off point in terms of relevant population. Because if one were to argue that considering PvP in this matter is unimportant because it's just a small fraction of the community then the logical conclusion of that reasoning is that the handful of speedrunners that rely on Decomposer are equally negligible. After all, a repeat-argument is that if map rewards were changed then Decomposer would stop being a problem for regular play, retaining its status as a speedrunning tool. Which would mean it was solely preserved for a faction of the community. So, I'm unsure where that argument is supposed to lead us. Taking Expert difficulty, meant to be the most challenging in the game, as the benchmark for accessibility, is odd. Maybe the problem is that new players notice Expert difficulty is unlocked right from the start. Creating the expectation that they can tackle it right out of the gate. There are a few Expert maps that border unfairness (after all, the initial business model aimed to push people into buying more and stronger cards) and I am not against adjustments at all but it IS the highest difficulty. Not so sure if mud slinging about authority is the thin ice we want to tread on. Plenty could be said there. Reworking gold payout to be based on in-game time like BFP payouts ignores card upgrades once more. They are effectively gold payouts and would these be regulated? Also, might as well just rename the game to "Encounter with Twilight"-lords at that point, as that is pretty much an open secret.

Again, account progression and map rewards are different issues that just happen to overlap with Decomposer. The problem with Decomposers function not being intended is just a small faction of the entire deal and not a main point. Although I highly doubt it would still be able to do what it does, had the game not faced an early decline and death. The question is what effects the card has. The second the Decomposer tactic is used a good chunk of the game (if not all of it) plays out significantly different to the point where it isn't even vaguely comparable to a strategy without it. Supercharging one player has huge ramifications. The fed player has much more agency in the round and can progress at a much faster rate. Meanwhile every point of energy transferred from the feeding players equals less agency for them. Since orb-tiers function as force multipliers (every point of energy spent on a higher tier nets greater results) the boosted players power grows exponentially as they use their advantage to skip ahead. That reaches a point where one players performance vastly overshadows what otherwise could be done by the entire team without Decomposer. It also interferes with two parts of the game that no other mechanic can: The starting power of each player is theirs alone and players cannot trade power they have acquired. This shows that the Decomposer tactic fundamentally warps the game when it is used. It is so strong that even people that rely on it as a speedrunning tactic to achieve faster times on certain maps made the admission it's broken. But it is a tool that significantly boosts performance, so where things drift apart again is that some people want to keep it because its power is what they desire. A repeat argument is that some fastest times on multiplayer maps could no longer be achieved without Decomposer and by a big margin at that. So if that is true then there is absolutely no question about its excessive power. Something being too strong is also not always related to it seeing play everywhere and all the time, that's a misconception. Niche tactics can be unreasonably strong when their circumstances align. Because what matters is how it plays out when it can be utilized. Nobody would argue Enlightenment is a weak card because it can be used to prematurely summon Emberstriker or because it isn't very useful on maps where T3 and T4 are very close to one another. Or, just to illustrate the point further with a different example, say in a team VS team egoshooter players only buy cheap pistols in one round but a certain pistol is much more powerful than others. So despite this strong pistol not seeing use in rounds where all kinds of weapons can be bought, it's still too strong within its niche. You mostly measure its power by its effectiveness when there is an opportune situation to use it. Those circumstances being more plentiful only elevates an issue further. Similarly, while the Decomposer tactic cannot be used on singleplayer or maps where orbs (and their necessary force multiplier) are too far apart, when the situation allows for it, it provides power like nothing else. Additionally, all of that has to come with the consideration that Decomposer is a T1 card. That means that one of the most powerful tools in the game, that can entirely warp how a round plays out, and intersects with the fundamentals on how energy works between players, is available at the very moment you start a map. If you'd compare tactics within their respective niches is there anything even vaguely similar to the power the Decomposer tactic enables? The argument that finishing times for maps would be much slower implies not. And, like I stated previously, the tactic can always find its way into average play and warp it with its power and influence. Attempting to preserve it by changing other things in the game to accommodate it would mean that it's still there, waiting to be a problem again. Not to mention it would always have to be considered when making future balancing/progression decisions. A repeatedly brought up concern is how PvP balancing limits and affects PvE balancing. But what about how a mechanic like this would unjustly limit design space on multiple fronts for the entire game? What can, cannot and must be changed because of how it would interact with this excessively strong mechanic is a question that will always have to be considered. And if something is missed the game is in shambles once more until that is addressed. Finally, to touch on the aforementioned PvP again, it was already noted that Decomposer can be problematic in 2v2 and 3v3. Orbs are accessible from the start and therefore the force multiplier by one player ascending tiers faster could prove oppressive. It's simply not meta yet but that can change. All of these problems have nothing to do with account progression and only with Decomposer.

Two entirely separate issues are being conflated here. With gold/XP progression is mostly being used as a deflection to protect Decomposer. Say Decomposer was fixed. Instantly the times to finish certain multiplayer maps would rise because it is by far one of the most powerful tools there is to speed up progress. Undoubtedly a new "most efficient" way to get gold would surface. It would be noticeably slower than currently. Maybe it would even be achievable through regular play. Passage to Darkness comes to mind. Or rPvE9. The point is that the margin between the "most efficient" way to farm gold and the "average" way would be significantly smaller. For now. However what a Decomposer fix wouldn't protect from would be some other speedrunning tactic/strategy finding it's way into the "mainstream" and being now used to finish maps quickly for massive gold returns, exploiting the current gold/XP reward system once more. So now say gold/XP returns were changed. First of, it's important that the reward system is intuitive. So some messy formula that gives you a % of whatever gold for orbs or objectives or whatever is nonsense. But it's not impossible to rework the system, maybe the initial implementation just didn't hit the mark. Let's assume a new reward system gets implemented that is both intuitive and simple (maybe something with bounties on side objectives or placing gold chests in key locations) but also does not reward the same gold/XP simply for finishing maps as fast as possible. That would immediately discourage straight forward goldfarming. However, something I have not seen talked about a lot are upgrades. Rare and especially Ultra Rare upgrades are expensive to unlock so it incentivizes people to instead play their respective maps. Even if someone got very low gold/XP for b-lining a map as fast as possible, they'd still be rewarded with upgrades. Would you then tie getting upgrades to in-game actions? Getting the ones you want is already slow because of RNG and distribution among players. Leaving an upgrade on the map would be a big hit to progression. Something else to consider with strictly tying gold/XP rewards to objectives/chests/whatever is that a pressure would emerge for all participants to go for these key points. We have already seen that in the beginning with the Passage to Darkness gold chest achievement. People were constantly pushing to open all chests and complain after the match if something was missed. Also, if only gold/XP rewards were changed and Decomposer would retain its current function it would just be a matter of time until it rears its head again to be a problem once more. Instead of farming gold/XP, people could continue farming upgrades with it. Or maybe eventually a strategy emerges where, even with a changed gold/XP reward system, you'd be able to finish a map exceptionally fast while also hitting most objectives. Speedrunning tactics constantly trickle down into regular play in this game. You'd always have to be on the lookout, all you'd do was to push back the problem. Both the current gold/XP reward system for maps and Decomposer are separate issues that happen to overlap here. Addressing only one will just result in the other becoming a problem again somewhere down the line.

Making it a reoccurring birthday code sounds okay-ish. You also raise a valid point about the game not having a collection achievement for cards. There is one for upgrades but it's not quite the same. I could also see an Achievement "The Completionist" for getting all obtainable cards in the game. But Promo Snapjaws as a reward for that would suck for people that already had them from launch.

What I would like to see is an archive of community updates that gives bullet points and maybe one short sentence for each of them. Basically a summary that can then maybe be linked to at the end of each update. Could make an extra topic for that, lock it and then just keep editing. Could've added for completions sake.

Good communication channels are important. Nice to see the team has found someone to be on top of that. Will you also be handling communications with event hosts, for example regarding rewards?

Been watching his art for some time on the Discord, it looks really good and mashes well with the artistic style the game already has. Also brings in his own flair. His progress and results look professional, does he have an official online presence?

I'd like it if default gold/xp rewards for playing wouldn't become a totally convoluted mess with numerous conditions attached. "You get 1000 XP if you had 4 monuments and 200 gold for clearing each side objective with 46% bonus on a waning moon when it's also summer on Jupiters eye, etc." No, thanks. Empathizing key positions on the map by overhauling gold chest placement and gold content would be something to consider.

Another banger by Asraiel.

I think Mana Wing is a feast or famine card. They can cheese some cPvE maps because there isn't sufficient anti-air or ranged. In direct confrontations they are strictly inferior to Windweavers, even against S units because of their multi-shot. Honestly not sure why you even feel like you need additional T1. Even on their own WWs supported with Surge of Light are enough to push through most things you encounter on T1. Shaman is nice but every Shaman healing is also one WW not dealing damage, so it slows you down. WWs are also better than Wearbeasts against S units. If they don't get burst down Wearbeasts can tank decently and they are a cheap swift unit, which can be nice depending on circumstances. If anything, I'd add a Dryad B, so your T1 army takes less damage. That also means that heals become more effective. Also note that Werebeasts are buggy. When they lose a part of their squad and it then respawns because of regen or healing they stutter while running.

Not even kidding, just the other day I also thought how an ignore function would be great. There is just something about the combination of that avatar, incomprehensible drivels that take ages to decipher and then realizing the entire content was stupid to begin with that grinds my gears.

The original game had a business model where the goal was to make people buy BFP to get the powerful cards so they would intentionally tune the game around their existence to give people an incentive to spend money so even Timmy 2-fingers can somewhat reliably do content. Add to that, that they evidently didn't care about their initial design when it came to making a quick buck while the ship was sinking, so they straight up threw the concept of having a T3 out of the window as well. So now we are left with a corpse twisted and mangled by the attempts to squeeze some more drops of blood out of it. The corporate tentacles still run deep within the game. Remember, it was entirely built on top of a lootbox scheme. It is a given that the design was influenced by this basis. As such, a concept like "We will offer them a purchasable way for their convenience to negate a game system we put in place" is absolutely thinkable. So are those remnants still justified in their existence today?

Martyr is quite good and not nearly as overtuned as SoW. It is much more interactive and the void return is sufficient. Nerfs to overpowered cards and buffs to underpowered ones can happen simultaneously. Nerfs are necessary because if you just take the current top performers as benchmarks for everything else to be elevated to you end up with massive powercreep. People are so used to the totally busted, imbalanced cards that they don't even realize anymore how ridiculous a 20% void return is for every single enemy unit that dies that you can have up permanently. The expectation of power is totally out of whack. At the same time, you won't get people to deviate from the current top just by making the alternatives stronger. You also have to actively give them an slight nudge to get out from their stale comfort zone. How can someone even argue with a straight face that an extremely flexible card that almost completely negates the entire mechanic of void energy is totally fine? Did any of you even bother to run the numbers? I'm gonna dare do it even though if they are somehow wrong, I'm gonna look stupid as fuck. Say you have 500 void. With just 8 dead enemies anywhere on the map, you are down to 84 void. So you had a burst return of 416 energy, which equals to 83% of your void energy. Again with 1000 void. 11 dead enemies to get below 100 again, 86 void to be exact. 914 energy usable again, or 91%. An unreasonable 2000 void that you somehow managed to accumulate because you spammed spells and half your army still managed to die. 14 dead enemies anywhere result in 88 void. 1912 energy back or 96%. Let's see how many enemies have to die for you to get 300 energy back, which is enough to cast any spell or almost all units in the game. So it's sufficient to keep you powering on. 500 void -> 4 enemies 600 void -> 3 enemies 850 void -> 2 enemies 1500 void -> 1 enemy Now consider that SoW is a T3 card so by that point your army and your spells already pack a hefty punch. Meanwhile there will still be a lot of fodder on the environment side, lots of S and M units that keel over quickly. Practical example for all you power trippers out there, you go and cast Frenetic + Infect + Soulshatter on a camp. That's 320 energy to blow up a camp, 288 to void. This overkill of a spell combo has to kill a mere 7 enemies so you get 80%, or 227 energy, of it all back for immediate usage. Here is how much % of your void SoW returns if you take a certain void level as basis (for example the void energy you begin a fight with), each step representing one dead enemy and not accounting for passive void return: 20,0 - 36,0 - 48,8 - 59,0 - 67,2 - 73,8 - 79,0 - 83,2 - 86,6 - 89,3 - 91,4 - 93,1 - 94,5 - 95,6 - 96,5 Each void accumulation makes the next enemy that dies return more again. If you keep your void bouncing between 200 and 500, each enemy death returns between 40 and 100 energy. And to add to that, it's a global buff. Which means that it effectively scales with player count! In 4P maps shit constantly dies, even if you have downtime the odds of an ally currently killing something are high. Your allies push into enemy bases or enemy spawns crash into their defenses. In any case, enemies die. If you add context to this card it just spirals completely out of control. There is no "knowing how to execute" it, you just build two and press the buttons. Don't act as if you are sitting there with 600 APM, galaxy brain and sweaty forehead while micro managing your SoWs. The usual deflection of "Something else would take its place" it not an argument against nerfs and never will be. If anything you are just highlighting the next issue in line. Yeah, get triggered by that. With that out of the way, actually, SoW could also be more interactive. Instead of just making it a global effect it could work like Lifestream. That you put down an AoE somewhere on the map and the void return effect only kicks in for enemies that die in there. While also reducing both duration and cooldown of SoW. That would drive the fire theme of the card more into a direction like "This is our battleground! Here we stand and fight! CHARGE!" and away from "ALL ENEMY DEATHS FUELS US!"

Of course growing the community would be wonderful. I think when there were like 1000 people online it was really great. To bring more people in once again the team needs to put in a lot of work to make it enticing. Sadly that's under all those restrictions and issues. But if I had to choose between quick content and many people on the team that work all over the place OR a more compact team that takes its time but then delivers good patches and updates, I'd definitely take the latter. It's one of those things where it's about trust again. The project has to show people that it is something put together with care and it's worth their time. After all it is competing with said oversaturated market.

I really don't know what some expect. That new content and events just spontaneously materialize? This post in particular seems to be mostly about events but so many other people endlessly repeat "NEW CONTENT WHERE?". You can't just shovel shit into the game, it has to meet a quality standard. Otherwise everyone will just come to take a look, realize it's cobbled together crap and leave to never return. Developing that stuff takes time, it takes effort and above all it takes people. This being a volunteer project, it's obviously going to struggle in all of those aspects. Especially since it was such a niche title to begin with. You gotta manage your expectations. To me being able to play the game is the acceptable baseline. Everything above that is a bonus. And that's despite me being someone who would love to see TONS of changes and additions to the game. But resources are few. I think it would be nice and helpful to have a regular update on something but I know how it is. You don't always find it in you. Especially if there is no incentive like a job would mandate. At the same time you can't just take whoever to help out because then you run into the problem of poor internal communication, coordination and simply too many cooks. And, again, because this is a volunteer project, people can have a way lower threshold to tolerate frustration. Because why put up with it, there is nothing tangible in it for you. So there are falling outs, people become inactive, people leave. As for the community, novelty and hype wear off. This is just the current state of the entire video game industry. It's all just a giant ball of hyped sheep flocking from one big thing to the next, with the minority sticking around in most cases. People are quick to write things off because the market is so over saturated and there is always the next thing to go to or the established mainstream thing to return to. Basically, this is a full time gig running on volunteer and all the problems that come with that. There is always room for more and some small things wouldn't take too much while helping out big time (like just small, official updates so the thing seems alive) but it's always someones freetime that has to be sacrificed for it.

I know they can check an accounts BFP history. I don't know if they can see where the BFP came from. I would assume they can also see card gains and losses. So if two accounts just constantly shove valuables back and forth, or even mainly one way, it's bound to look suspicious. I can't imagine them reviewing all cases manually. I would guess that the previous poster went over a certain threshold of trades between the two accounts and combined with them sharing IPs, it triggered the automatic system.

What do you mean "buff it"? Haha, what's there to buff? That it gives you additional energy even if you are already at 0 void?

I have enough confidence in the current balancing team to think they will just ignore this idea. I mean, most of the stuff he suggests is asinine to the point where I wonder if he is even serious.

Shrine of War - The only void management tool that requires only one fixed orb. Most powerful in rPvE since enemies constantly die. Permanent uptime with two of them. Absolutely insanely overtuned return rate of 20%. Most expensive energy wise. Cultist Master + Furnace of Flesh - Occupies two deck slots, takes up population-space but is on demand and independent. Shrine of the Martyrs - Demonstrates that 8% return rate is already quite powerful. The most involved option and requires other cards in the deck to work. Shrine of Memory - A consistent trickle. Offers nothing comparable to the bursts of return of the three options. Independent and reliable. Shrine of Greed - Takes up the rare slots in Boosters and is sometimes used in speedrunning. Considering both rPvE and PvE, I'd say that SoW is the best option of the bunch because of how splashable it is and that it only requires one slot. Cultist Master/Furnace definitely a close second with different upsides. I would argue Martyrs is the poster child for a good and healthy void return mechanic, it gets the job done and you have to actively engage with it. If the goal was to equalize the power of these I'd take it as the baseline. Although it can be an equally valid approach to have them vary in power. Just not by this current margin. Memorys reliability can't make up for its comparatively lack of speed. And Greed gets the dunce cap. The % return of SoW is definitely ridiculous, even with 15% you'd keep your void spectacularly low in rPvE. I think the three steps you proposed are reasonable, even in combination. Noticeably reducing its duration so that you actually have to time it when things die would also be an option. That way it could retain some of its power elsewhere.

After some more runs with an U0 version, I decided to remove Ray of Light and replace it with Healing Gardens. My reasoning for that is that Ray of Light is not necessary on T2 because Razorshard G and Fountain of Rebirth stack nicely. Meanwhile Healing Gardens contribute a lot with 85% healing effectiveness for T3 and T4. Because you are working with minimum charges and un-upgraded healing spells every cast has to count big time. Also, the less healing you have to cast, the less void energy you will accumulate. No way of void recovery is a major constraint, so that aims to compensate for this in other ways. It increases the price and upgrade cost for the deck ever so slightly but it's worth it. The limited cardpool as well as U0 can make runs turn messy, even on T4, Healing Gardens smooth them out. Luckily, only a single successful rPvE 9 run is needed to get almost the entire deck to U1.

Sounds like the trading patterns you two were engaging in were too suspicious. Think it through, what would be the benefit of making multiple accounts? To hasten up progression. So obviously if there are two accounts just constantly giving each other stuff it's gonna look exactly like that, no matter who you two are. It is not the same as people giving away cards to newbies as it doesn't involve two accounts just constantly boosting each other. That you two were probably also playing from the same IP didn't help the matter either.

The old guard that made the current meta ain't keeping a community striving by themselves. If it's growth you are worried about then a healthy game is more important to attract new people. You are equating HAVING more options with people also USING more options. Which is not how it plays out, hence why a meta emerges. In its deck building mechanic Skylords has a unique system in place for an RTS. Instead of watering that down the interesting nature of it should be more pronounced. The topic of opportunity costs is a big one in that respect because right now it's out of whack. Which is because instead of a restrictive Lost Warlord you see flexible Lost Spirit Ships. A cards power level is not only its performance on the field but also its flexibility while deck building. The actual problem is that restrictive cards don't make up for that by other means. Meanwhile many flexible cards are not only already very powerful by themselves in many cases, they even amplify each other. They double dip in a sense. This leads to a noticeable power gap. The goal should be to give a good reason to go for restrictive cards. Make them worth it. Make them the true pinnacle of their faction. While at the same time reevaluating just how powerful flexibility actually is and how much of a cards power budget a neutral orb requirement is really worth.

Frankly, who the fuck cares. They'll manage. I think the point you are missing is that your approach, in an attempt to dodge around the issue, would make it worse.

What happens when something is the best (in power and/or ease of use)? Everyone flocks towards it and uses it, ignoring everything that is weaker. This is a big part of what makes a meta. They develop in most games and they do so for a reason. Being that people generally want to play the best. Anecdotes to the contrary don't matter here, even the existence of this topic is proof of that. If you ease orb restrictions on these cards, people will have more freedom to pick for their decks, that is very true. What happens when people have more freedom of choice there? They pick the best. So what you will end up with are decks that will be more homogeneous. Splashing will become even more powerful, even though it is are already very strong thanks to so many flexible cards. Pure decks will fall even further behind. Even duo-mixed decks will show noticeable wear. Take the most stacked splash color of them all, nature. It offers Breeding Grounds, Curse of Oink, Revenge, Equilibrium, Thunderstorm, Grimvine, Giant Wyrm, Regrowth. Immediate, rock solid T4, sustain for all decks that can splash and powerful support. This is way too much bundled into a single orb. This shouldn't be accessible to pretty much any deck. Reducing orb restrictions also severely hampers the concept of "faction identity". You immediately remove the notion that a card is supposed to be the apex of a faction. No, what makes more sense to happen is: Make weak cards that have harsh orb restrictions deliver more value Make strong cards that are flexible deliver less value Make strong cards that are flexible but should retain their power more restrictive There have to be fitting opportunity costs for picking flexible or restrictive cards. Right now that is not the case and that is why especially nature splash or LSS are too powerful while the restrictive cards are not very popular.

Foreword Content: Cost Tier progression Alternative cards to use Upgrade priorities Replays My other Guides Reading time is maybe 15 to 20 minutes. For some people the first thing they ask in the game is "can sb show me a good beginner deck?" Unfortunately some of the answers they receive won't consider the cost. Both when it comes to the cards themselves but also for the upgrades, which cost gold. This deck here is meant as a baseline to get going. Present some various, different concepts to give pointers and grant access to gold flow. But Skylords is all about experimenting! Don't like something? Change it! Want to give something a try? Just slot it in! Pulled an interesting card that you want to see in action? Build a deck around it, make it work! Struggle with a specific map? Try different cards, there might be more suitable ones for different situations. Create something else entirely from the ground up? The card pool is your oyster. With that being said my goals here are: Use almost exclusively Common cards to keep upgrading costs to a minimum Use cheap cards Introduce cards (in the deck itself or as alternatives) that have at least some interesting synergies and are more involved Be forgiving Be flexible, so many cards can be changed Be rPvE 9 ready right out of the box, so it also packs a punch Cost The total to put this deck together is much less than 300 BFP! That means you can literally have this whole deck up and running within 45 minutes after first starting the game. You get 150 from your two dailies. 200 from your daily boost and you are set already. If you want a bit more buy your discounted daily booster for 350, resell it to someone. Netting you a total of at least 420 BFP, which you can use to buy everything you need and more. I played a few rounds of rPvE 9 without any upgrades myself. I'd advise you to stick to solo until you got a good feeling for the deck. Play one round of 6 or 7 at first. Then try 8, then 9. This deck contains almost exclusively super cheap Commons or ones that are even included as starter cards. You can also ask around in trade, people might be willing to sell in bulk for even less than in the AH. Windweavers 20 (starter card) Burrower 30 Razorshard G 20 Swamp Drake 20 (starter card) Lost Horror G 20 Grimvine 80 Giant Wyrm 20 (starter card) Primal Defender 10 (starter card) Fountain of Rebirth 40 Breeding Grounds 15 (starter card) Healing Gardens 30 Necroblaster G 10 (starter card) Surge of Light 20 (starter card) Curse of Oink 25 (starter card) Stone Shell G 20 Equilibrium G 15 Regrowth 15 (starter card) Unholy Hero 10 (starter card) Rifle Cultists 10 (starter card) Offering G 10 (starter card) So minus starter cards it totals roughly 255 BFP. Even less if you take the time to ask people in trade chat. A bit more if you buy during price spikes in the AH. Alternatives to Grimvine (note the comments under "Alternative cards to use"): Gemeye P or G - 50 AH (Auction House) prices seem to be pretty consistent, if big outliers appear they usually settle again after a few days. You could get away without using Grimvine or Gemeye, slightly reducing the total cost of the deck, but a T4 with only Lost Horror G and Giant Wyrm lacks a beefy frontline. You could also spam Emberstrike and Boom Brothers, as presented as alternatives below. You will notice my use of singular letters next to card names, which are referring to the cards affinity. G = Green, P = Purple, B = Blue, R = Red. Cards with affinities have two different versions and they vary in effect, depending on their affinity. Affinities are represented by a small dot on the card in their respective color. They have nothing to do with what Orbs you need to play that card though. Tier progression Tier 1 - Nature Build two Fountains of Rebirth so you can have their buff permanently running. They even affect allies, which is a massive boon for all other factions that usually have no or little sustain on T1. In the long run, it will also reduce how often you have to use Surge of Light. What is more, it will make you accustomed to managing timed, global buffs. A mechanic that many decks utilize (Shrine of War being the most prominent example). To make things easier, assign the two fountains to one group each as a shortcut, just as you do with your units. Spam WWs (Windweavers). Because of their ability they can hit two targets at once. Which means, as long as there is more than one target, their effective DP20 (Damage Per 20 Seconds, which is the average damage value that is printed on cards) is actually 960. As soon as a squad of WWs goes down to about 50% HP, pull them behind other squads. Enemies will switch to attacking one of the closer squads, at which point you can reengage with the wounded WWs. This distribution of damage will make the Fountains more effective and also make it more likely you don't overheal with Surge. If you want a tower at T1, the Primal Defender is your building. Two of them can be a big help to defend your initial base on solo rPvE 9 so you can go on the offensive with your WWs. Tier 2 - Nature -> Frost Razorshard G is the backbone of this T2. The main reason for this is its healing aura, which does not require card upgrades to be powerful. Spawn two of them so they can heal one another. It might feel a bit clunky to play at first but its worth it. You will get accustomed to active abilities, positioning and effective use of units which have immobility. Also, while WWs have no preferred target (see the star next to their damage value), Razorshard G will deal 1.5x damage against S size enemies (if the target has an S next to their life value). So have your Razorshard focus on those targets to take them off the field earlier. Very important to note though, that this damage bonus only applies to their melee attacks. Their Bombing Raid ability does not benefit. Keep using your Fountains and you will have very nice passive healing. Burrowers are meant to do one thing only: Charge at the enemy (spawn) buildings and destroy them asap. Support them with Curse of Oink and heals. Curse of Oink is temporarily CC (crowd control, so hindering enemy units in some form). Careful though, if they take damage, the spell ends much sooner. Keep using Surge of Light if needed. Breeding Grounds is an exceptionally powerful building that reduces the power cost of all own and allied units spawned within its AoE (area of effect). You still need to have the default amount of energy available though, you simply spend less on spawn. This is a building that you can keep using for your T3 and your T4 units. However, do remember that the building itself costs 70 energy. So just to break even on the investment you have to then spawn units for a total of just about 470 energy next to it! This gets more generous once Breeding Grounds are upgraded. Tier 3 - Nature -> Frost -> Shadow If you still have WWs at this point, kill them. Lost Horror G is the main star here. Just like WWs he has no damage bonus against any particular unit size. But he shoots THREE attacks at once. This means that his damage potential is 5610, which is comparable to a T4 unit, Absolutely devastating as long as there are at least three targets to aim at. Unfortunately, against big single targets Lost Horror G doesn't pack a good punch. Swamp Drake does though! Not only is it very mobile, being airborne, but it has an XL damage bonus, which are usually the tankiest foes. Their ability is CC like Curse of Oink, disabling enemy units for some time but it ends sooner if they take damage. Stone Shell G is a damage reduction that becomes more effective if more allied units are within its AoE. In case of emergency, use Equilibrium G for a heal that becomes more potent, the more allied max HP is within its AoE. You only need one Lost Horror G card to start! Use Offering G on one of your Swamp Drakes. This kills it but returns 90% of its energy cost to void and refreshes one charge for all T3 cards in your deck. After you have your T3 army going build two Healing Gardens somewhere safe. Their active effect will increase any healing effects on your units by 85%, making them much more efficient. It's not the most powerful regeneration at this point because your units will start having much more HP but you can even continue using your Fountains together with Gardens. It's not much passive healing but it's something. Otherwise you can destroy your Fountains at this point or on T4. The Necroblaster G is an exceedingly powerful tower. But it requires HP gathered from any corpses to fire its shot. If you use them, build maybe two of them together and either protect them until they have a bit of HP stored or kill your own units near them if necessary. Affinity doesn't matter that much, but feel free to experiment with it. Tier 4 - Nature -> Frost -> Shadow -> any If you still have any T2 units at this point, kill them. Lost Horror G can stay because its AoE damage is phenomenal. Swamp Drakes will probably naturally start dying in battle. Since not a single card in the deck requires two identical Orbs, it doesn't really matter what you build as your last one. I'd go with Nature, because should you somehow lose your one Nature Orb, it's going to be far more devastating than losing the Shadow or Frost one. But you can also change cards in the deck so that your last orb has to be something specific. Giant Wyrm is a go-to powerhouse. It's just a very mobile, huge ball of stats. Grimvine is a tanky frontliner that destroys buildings and soaks damage. The ability is just alright but luckily also very cheap. It also serves as ground presence, which is important to spawn more units or use spells that are not Arcane (which can be used anywhere). When you hit your unit cap of 120 you can start replacing any remaining Lost Horrors G with T4 units. This becomes even better once your Giant Wyrms are upgraded a bit. You can continue using Equilibrium G here while on the move. But in more stationary battles Regrowth is superior. Make sure that you currently have the effect from Healing Gardens running when you cast a healing spell. The increase in effectiveness is huge. Unholy Hero makes the buffed unit really deadly. But beware of the drawback. To be safe, use it on a unit, like a Giant Wyrm, that is out of reach for enemies. Once again, charge upgrades for Grimvine, Giant Wyrm and even Regrowth aren't necessary because you also have Rifle Cultists. If you Offer them, you get one charge for each T4 card back. However this also means that once your big T4 cards are upgraded with sufficient charges, you can take out both Offering G and Rifle Cultists, which frees up two valuable slots in your deck. But don't think they are just there to recharge your XL T4 units. Their ability is very powerful. Especially once you upgrade them to charge it quicker and use Unholy Hero on them. Use it carefully, since it also damages your own units, and it can severely cripple enemy forces before the fight even begins. Alternative Cards to use With each Tier explained, let's look at some alternatives, upgrades or additions. I am not trying to mess with the Orb sequence though as that can require extensive remodelling of the deck. Rough price chart: Very cheap - <20 Cheap - <80 Moderate - <150 Expensive - <250 Very expensive - <500 Tier 1 Options Dryad B - Her aura makes your units (even past T1) sturdier and therefore also makes every heal on them more effective. Expensive. Shaman - You can replace Fountain of Rebirth with it. Don't get slowed down too much though. Each Shaman healing is equivalent to one WW not dealing damage. Expensive. Ensnaring Roots/Hurricane - Great with WWs. The former lets you kill melee units before they reach you and the latter knocks around S units for a long time. Cheap to moderate. Tunnel - Get around the map quickly. Very cheap. Tier 2 Options Stormsinger G - Good, mobile ranged unit with strong AA (anti-air). Moderate. Defenders - Extremely powerful unit once upgraded. 2025 EHP (effective health points) when they hunker down, which makes any healing effect very potent. Notice their ability has two circling arrows. Usually, when you use abilities and spells or units/buildings get destroyed 90% of the invested power will return to your void pool to slowly trickle back into your usable power. However, a switch-ability puts 100% of its power cost into the void pool! So use it liberally. Very cheap. Stone Tempest - Lots of damage and knockback. Cheap. Ghostspears - If you want to add some melee prowess. Very cheap. Crystal Fiend B - Has good healing that also makes affected units take less damage. Very good with Defenders. Moderate. Aggressors - Support unit that knocks back even L units. Damage is low for their cost so they need something else to actually kill stuff. Especially S squads can sometimes become impervious against Aggressor attacks if they are spread out too much from the knockback. Cheap. Ray of Light - If you feel like, even with Razorshard G, Surge of Light and Fountain of Rebirth, you need more heal. Very cheap. Coldsnap - Very powerful CC to disable troublesome foes. Consider that frozen enemies only take 50% damage, so you'll kill them much slower. Be mindful with freezes so you don't mess up your allies' plan. Moderate. Northern Keep/Cannon Tower - Cannon Tower is a very strong building against ground units. Northern Keep R has an extremely powerful ability that makes friendly S and M units invulnerable in its AoE. Especially with Defenders this is a defensive barrier that can withstand almost anything. Very cheap. Juice Tanks - If you are uncertain how long a map will take or if you are sure it might drag on a bit. For a small power investment your wells will run dry much, much slower. This will net you a safety net for drawn out maps so you can spend power liberally. Don't build them in rPvE though since the time limit will end the match before Juice Tanks really benefit you. Cheap. Tier 3 Options Ashbone Pyro - Destructive unit and potent synergy with heals. Only really gets good after a few upgrades though. Moderate to expensive. Deepcoil Worm - Good ranged unit and you can combine it with Tunnel. Very expensive. Silverwind Lancers - Disposable, cheap and mobile fighters. Another unit to Offer if you want to spawn a different T3 unit more frequently. Very cheap. Revenge - Both an offensive and defensive spell. It even splashes the self-damage from Ashbone Pyro onto enemies! Expensive. Thunderstorm - Purely offensive spell to make quick work of big packs of weaker enemies. Not necessary when your Lost Horror is nearby but good to clean up a sudden surprise attack. Cheap. Tier 4 Options Gemeye P/G - Artillery range and powerful passive abilities, P dealing more damage overall because of the DoT (damage over time) and G paralyzing units, which disables them for a set time, even if you keep attacking them. However, if you use them instead of Grimvine, their long range will make them stay behind your Giant Wyrms, which makes those take the brunt of enemy fire. Not ideal at all, so you should specifically manage them to stay in front and serve as your tanks. The 15% damage reduction from Adamant Skin makes them very resilient. Could even use both affinity variants simultaneously. Cheap. LSS (Lost Spirit Ship) - Instead of Giant Wyrm or even in addition. Deals damage on the move, hits a lot of targets simultaneously and become a tide of destruction once you have multiple of them. Cheap to moderate. Boom Brothers/Emberstrike - A more active playstyle as you have a lot of powerful abilities to spam. Boom Brothers annihilate ground presence, units and buildings alike, and their XL bonus damage even applies to their ability. Their knockback keeps everything that survives at bay. Emberstrikes ability can also hit airborne targets and they can be summoned on the fly (they don't suffer temporarily reduced max HP and damage if summoned away from Power Wells/Orbs) but their damage bonus is M, which generally isn't very good on T4. Spamming their abilities can become an issue if you don't have a way to quickly regain void energy. Very cheap. Bloodhorn - Once upgraded its Stampede ability tears down multiple buildings. Has XL counter. A very powerful card and one of the best T4 alternatives you could go for. Its ability varies: R makes it immune to debuffs and CC, which makes it very reliable. P makes it deal much more damage, which makes it incredibly destructive. Expensive to very expensive. Earthshaker - Destroys enemy buildings quickly. Expensive. Maelstrom - Huge AoE and good damage while eventually freezing enemy units. Again, frozen units only take 50% damage. Cheap. Ice Tornado - High damage. Doesn't need to travel, you can cast it on a single spot for high single-target damage. Moderate. Noxious Cloud - Slow burn which deals massively high damage overall but has to ramp up. Cheap. Other upgrades Quickly recovering your void energy into actually usable energy pool is very powerful as it speeds up your game a lot. To enable this, you can pick from a few good options. They all affect your Orb choices. Cultist Master + Furnace of Flesh - Spawn crawlers near the Furnace and kill them. Only becomes good once those cards are upgraded. It's fine if you only get your second shadow orb on T4. Expensive. Shrine of Martyrs - Bit tricky to use. You will need to add some ways to freeze enemies. Moderate. Shrine of Memory - Makes you regain void energy much faster. No bursts of power regained but it's consistent. Moderate. Upgrade priorities Some advice on what to invest in once you start gathering Gold for card upgrades and BFP for more charges: Vital upgrades AND charges WWs - Your T1 start needs to pack a punch Surge of Light - See above Regrowth - More usage and more energy efficient Necroblaster G - Higher damage means more opportunity to recharge HP from corpses. Only vital if you find yourself using these a lot Vital upgrades Fountain of Rebirth - More expensive to upgrade but you will notice the increase in regen Breeding Grounds - Even cheaper units Curse of Oink - More CC and cheaper Giant Wyrm - Much more damage for this power expensive unit Primal Defender - If you use them frequently (Gemeye G/P - More bang for your buck on those as well, if you use them) Important upgrades Equilibrium G - Better heal Burrower - More life is useful since it has to run past enemies Grimvine - Even tankier Swamp Drake - Increased HP makes them more forgiving and more CC Unholy Hero - A risky spell, so it has to be worth it if you use it, right? Offering G - Cheaper and more frequent use Decent upgrades Stone Shell - Cheaper and longer duration Lost Horror - More life Razorshard G - More life Healing Gardens - Even more heal effectiveness Rifle Cultists - If you find yourself enjoying their ability, upgrade them as soon as you like Replays Some replays with this deck on rPvE. To watch them you have to download the file and add it to: C:\Users\<user name>\Documents\BattleForge\replays None of the cards are upgraded, this is as bare bones as it gets. Difficulty 7 and 8 are very easy and already net a big payout in gold that lets you upgrade a lot of cards. Difficulty 9 can get a bit messy at times but is also consistently doable. Beginner Deck - Solo rPvE 7.pmv 2200 gold payout. Very easy with this deck. Beginner Deck - Solo rPvE 8.pmv 3250 gold payout. While defending my T2 I was too greedy and spawned one too many WWs. Which lead to me not having enough energy to heal my army and losing 5 squads. Would've probably lost only 2 had I healed instead. Not the cleanest T4 finish either but good enough. Beginner Deck - Solo rPvE 9 (T2 skip).pmv 4200 gold payout. Here I skipped T2 because the opportunity to attack T3 presented itself after the entire camp got pulled. I knew the camp was empty now and charged in. Not the most representative replay because of that but it happens. After getting T3 I suicide rushed a base with my remaining WWs just to take out a spawn and ease the pressure. By the way, every time a Swamp Drake just randomly dies, it's because I Offered it to get a charge back for a Lost Horror G. Notice how I destroy the enemy spawn buildings asap, because if another batch of enemies spawns mid fight it just draws things out. My other Guides HOW TO: PvE Deckbuilding Guide - If you are unsure how to start building your own decks and what to consider. CHEAP Pure-Fire Deck - If you are rather interested in a cheap and flexible fire deck. CHEAP Pure-Shadow Deck - If you are rather interested in a cheap and flexible shadow deck.