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This is absolutely nonsense.
As a experienced speedrunner, normal pve and rpve player and top 10 pvp player in 1v1 and top 5 in 2v2 i can say its fact that every possible and very needed change for pvp as for example: Mortarnerf, phasetowernerf, netherwarp (green) glitchfix, thugsnerf, cursed well, Altar of Nihil, voidstorm and so on, does absolutely NOT affect any of the speedrun tactics. Every speedrun tactic on every map is absolutely still doable with any cardchanges for pvp.
The PvP scene needs some big balancing changes. The speedrun scene needs exactly 0 balancing changes.
 
In clearly most of the competitive pvp games the pvp has the absolute highest balancing priority. This should also count to battleforge. If not than the game cant be taken serious belonging to the word "competitive" and overall this would be catastrophical. This i am saying as an ESL (esportleague) player but also as an passionate speedrunner and pve player. 
 
Ofcourse there are stronger and weaker cards in every game but in pvp there have to be cards, combinations and deck variations that have to be nearly equal to each other. Because of some broken cards two colours arent really competitive in pvp: Nature and Frost t1. Nearly every competitive player plays fire or shadow t1. For a "competitive" pvp mode this is absolutely catastrophical.
 
The pvp needs balancing changes big time and now.

Relatively. in 2013 it was better than 2009, but only because it was made better step by step.
Sometimes the Greeks are 95 % of players, then we should consider making 5% a little less happy for the greater good. This is how it was always done in the history of Battleforge balancing.
Me, too. But not necessarily topplayer by rank, but moreso by rank and the ability to explain things and have a balance discussion. Some topplayers views on balance are straight simpleminded.
So if we nerf cursewell for example every tactic for speedruns is useless? You're dramatising. Some tactics would become useless, some would be created. But the overlap between speedrun - and pvp cards isn't as big as you want ot make it seem.
Historically balancing in BF was always done regarding toplevel play, wich makes sense cause this is where games are decided mostly by deckstrength and not bad decisions, micro mistakes and missing knowledge. It would also be impossible to balance cards for all skilllevels. It's literally easier to learn how to build the right deck, watch replays of topplayers and train then to have every card balanced to your skillevel.

Yes, the player has a huge impact but in high level pvp it becomes very obvious that some decks can just totally be absued. The main reason why you can do whatever you want in lower elos is because nobody knows how to abuse certain decks... to be honest, one of the main reasons why i win in high elo is because others just have no experience against bandits and if they knew the matchup better i would have a much harder time. So as long as you can take the skill out of the equation by playing an "autowin" tactic, player skill won't save you... however if you don't/can't do that you will not have much of an advantage.
Aside from bandits, nature and some isolated matchups (fire vs frost), player skill is much more important than the deck, but the deck still matters (at least in high lvl pvp).
 
i agree with radi here, his tier list is pretty legit.

Honestly it would be best to have some handpicked and well designed community maps in ranked pvp instead of some of the EA maps. Especially layesh and wazahi are poorly thought out an ymria can be a problem (not nearly a bad tho and mostly due to cliffing only) as well. But you can take only so many maps away before ranked gets a little to repetetive and decks can be built to cheese certain maps if the pool is small enough.
In terms of community-maps, well there would need to be some contest first to have properly designed maps to pick from. The focal point should be on playability and not on optics. If anything, it would be possible to have the optics to be improved when picks for new pvp ranked maps were made.

Honestly it would be best to have some handpicked and well designed community maps in ranked pvp instead of some of the EA maps. Especially layesh and wazahi are poorly thought out an ymria can be a problem (not nearly a bad tho and mostly due to cliffing only) as well. But you can take only so many maps away before ranked gets a little to repetetive and decks can be built to cheese certain maps if the pool is small enough.
In terms of community-maps, well there would need to be some contest first to have properly designed maps to pick from. The focal point should be on playability and not on optics. If anything, it would be possible to have the optics to be improved when picks for new pvp ranked maps were made.

Honestly it would be best to have some handpicked and well designed community maps in ranked pvp instead of some of the EA maps. Especially layesh and wazahi are poorly thought out an ymria can be a problem (not nearly a bad tho and mostly due to cliffing only) as well. But you can take only so many maps away before ranked gets a little to repetetive and decks can be built to cheese certain maps if the pool is small enough.
In terms of community-maps, well there would need to be some contest first to have properly designed maps to pick from. The focal point should be on playability and not on optics. If anything, it would be possible to have the optics to be improved when picks for new pvp ranked maps were made.

Honestly it would be best to have some handpicked and well designed community maps in ranked pvp instead of some of the EA maps. Especially layesh and wazahi are poorly thought out an ymria can be a problem (not nearly a bad tho and mostly due to cliffing only) as well. But you can take only so many maps away before ranked gets a little to repetetive and decks can be built to cheese certain maps if the pool is small enough.
In terms of community-maps, well there would need to be some contest first to have properly designed maps to pick from. The focal point should be on playability and not on optics. If anything, it would be possible to have the optics to be improved when picks for new pvp ranked maps were made.

Greetings Skylords, Skyladies, and Skyfolks!
After some time and several iterations of the gold reward system, I feel like overall rewards feel like they are in the right place. rPvE and to a degree cPvE rewards feel progressive and most players seem to enjoy the current boosted flow of gold to upgrade and charge their cards. However, there has been one difficult aspect of the game that has been far behind on this income and kind of feels like the younger, neglected brother of the BF gamemode family: PvP, specifically Ranked PvP.
There have been many requests and some threads regarding the gold rewards for Ranked PvP as it stands, and that they are considered to be far too low. Why haven't we touched this before? It's because PvP is always an extra sensitive subject when it comes to game economy, as the game is fully in the hands of two players, and therefore more susceptible to feelings of rage, unfairness or abuse. Specifically the latter, abuse, is something to take very seriously, as we don't want PvP, especially Ranked, to be swarmed with players that don't care or throw for the sake of a better reward. The Ranked PvP income has therefore always been kept relatively low, despite already gaining a 200-400% bonus compared to the original BattleForge. 
I understand this is tough, and that the PvP community feels forced to play PvE or trade in order to get their decks set up and working. While it's a great thing to stimulate hardcore PvP or PvE players to play a different mode every now and then, the gap between rPvE (the main source of income for the majority of players) and PvP was enormous, with rPvE lv. 9 netting more than double the rewards Ranked PvP victories would give, with rPvE lv. 10 clocking in at about 2.75x as much and solo cPvE Expert Victories at nearly 4x on average (if all upgrades go to the same player). Note, however, that despite cPvE being grossly out of proportion with other game modes if soloed and speedran, cPvE feels like it's in a good spot when it comes to earning gold and upgrades as compared to rPvE in the original BF, and we would like to keep it the way it is regardless of its exploit potential for skilled players. This also has to do with the way we set up Loot Lists as per community poll request. Regardless, it sure shows that PvP, both ranked and unranked (which makes no gold at the moment), are not worth it for gold farming. It's time to change that.

With your suggestions and worries regarding this subject, I decided to run some further calculations. While the calculation for PvP rewards is not as straightforward as it would seem, after some thought and many, MANY comparisons to rPvE lv. 9 (the most played gold-rushing rPvE level) and 10 (the most profitable rPvE level), I've come to figuring out some values that would be more in line with other game modes. You can review some of the thought processes behind this in my post in one of the PvP reward suggestion threads: 
After running some comparisons with altered rewards, I feel like the following changes will help PvP be a more viable option for those who wish to earn some gold without having to resort to PvE grinding. Additionally, I am putting some faith in you, the community, to open up some more possibilities to earn gold without having to enter the scary realm of Ranked play, which will hopefully prevent future abuse. Also keep in mind that reward/system abuse and AFK/"just kill me" matches are considered to be report-worthy offenses and you can help keep the community safe and fair by using the in-game /report tool to notify us.
Without further ado, the following changes are proposed for Ranked PvP and Unranked PvP (Sparring Grounds):
Increase average Ranked PvP rewards for wins from 72 Gold Per Minute to 125 Gold Per Minute Increase average Ranked PvP rewards for losses from to 27 Gold Per Minute to 35 Gold Per Minute Sparring Grounds will now earn gold equal to 33% of ranked rewards after a set time has been played These changes will make PvP victories 7x as profitable as they were in the original BattleForge, and will make sure to narrow the gap between it and rPvE. There are more factors to PvP gold rewards than a simple Gold Per Minute ratio, but for the sake of clarity these have been left out for now. rPvE9 victories will now comparatively only be about 16% more profitable (currently 102%), and rPvE10 victories will respectively be 52% more profitable in gold (currently 172%). Yes, this does mean that rPvE is still slightly better to go for, but keep in mind that this is initially what rPvE was made for and will prevent Ranked PvP from becoming dominant in gold rushing, which would be detrimental to match quality. Also, rPvE losses will grant no gold at all, whereas PvP losses will give some gold. Sparring Grounds will now also reward some gold, so you don't have to feel obliged to play Ranked if you still want to earn some gold for your training and PvP pursuits!

Beware that these changes are not live yet and won't necessarily be final, but let me know what you think, and hopefully this will help breathe some life and motivation into the PvP sector of the game again! I am thinking of implementing this in the upcoming few days or so, and your reaction would be appreciated!
 

how come this topic flew over my head? Here is mine, but many had seen it already when i posted it in discord, but still. Kono ORACRU MASKU DA!
 

battleforge plays very differently from your average RTS. adding fog of war would make it very chaotic as armies can be spawned out of nowhere and scouting would have very limited effect. imagine playing any standard rts where both players are unable to scout. that doesn't play very well, does it?

It just encourages spam like in the replay, i am seeing that a lot in higher gold elo. Especially without damage spells, you are having issues. Stonekin has it the worst out of all factions actually and its just sad to watch... the only "real"  counter is to get the shadow player to run out of charges. fixing it might actually encourage players to switch to blue nether warp in lower elos as well since shadow mages won't be an easy defense anymore (well, at least not THAT easy).

Good job on this guide, i especially like the addition of a "new player experience" section. a lot of guids lack this section and i think it is really important since mostly new players need a guide.
You guys have some pretty impressive game knowledge there, on most points i can agree. The matchup ranking for bandits really depends on the deck build and since i am playing a quite different build, it is understandable that your ranking is a bit different than mine.
 
Since you allready have a NPE section, how about adding a sentence or two about how good a job a deck does in teaching you how to improve your play? I feel that some decks really don't help the player improve much, especially in low elos. For instance, lost souls is so forgiving, that you can just make your way through t2 somehow and then defeat your enemy with your powerfull t3. There is no real incentive to improve your t1/t2 play much and i often meet high ranked lost souls players who still just rely on t3 camp and categorically never take risks (even if the play would end the game).
On the other hand, fire/nature players seems to have a much better understanding and better mechanics and a more proactive playstyle on average. There are hardly any poor fire/nature players in high rank and the game teaches you a lot more about adapting to matchups, timing, defensive play and micromanagement (to some extend).
Due to this, while new players surely will have success with lost souls/pure shadow/ pure fire, i wouldn't reccomend these factions to new players (as strongly as this guide does), as they do not promote player improvement the way fire/nature does.

I am one of the players who prefers to pick optional cards to alleviate weaknesses in my deck instead of making allready quite winnable matchups easier. pure frost and fire-frost are tough for pure fire, propably the hardest matchups for fire and so i would suggest playing global warming. pure fire usually doesn't have many issues with deckslots and i see large t1s in this deck quite a lot. should be possible to fit global warming in there somehow.

sure a large t1 is worth it, but fire can afford to get a large t1 and still somehow manage to have global warming in there. if you really don't have a slot then that's fine too, it's just my opinion that it's propably worth playing.

I am one of the players who prefers to pick optional cards to alleviate weaknesses in my deck instead of making allready quite winnable matchups easier. pure frost and fire-frost are tough for pure fire, propably the hardest matchups for fire and so i would suggest playing global warming. pure fire usually doesn't have many issues with deckslots and i see large t1s in this deck quite a lot. should be possible to fit global warming in there somehow.

Welcome Skylords Community, 
today I want to introduce the start of my PvP tutorial series. This is going to be a section for newer players that are interested in PvP. Since there are not many sources, that introduce you into the world of PvP I just wanted to offer something, that maybe useful for some new competitive players, that are interested into this gamemode. Since I tend to make walls of text I decided to go for a video series this time, which is hopefully a little bit more enjoyable. I will add more and more videos over time, so we hopefully end up with a full tutorial series when open beta starts. 
 
Right away I want to say: If you have any questions or if you think I miss any important points -> simply message me and I will add videos to give more input. 
 
Overall introduction (you can also just skip this video tbh):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34NyBAZ1Xfw&t=8s
 
#1 Pick your Deck
You need to find a deck that you enjoy playing and what fits your playstyle. Every deck has a somewhat unique feeling when you play it, therefore it is useful to find something that you enjoy while playing. If you are a new player I recommend an easier deck (so stay away from Bandits at the beginning), that allows you to learn alot of basic mechanics without beeing forced to read walls of text before winning a single game. 
 
 
1.1 Fire Nature:
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SUfp3C0yFY
 
1.2 Pure Frost
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRNkDzuILFQ
 
1.3 Pure Nature
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qyj1ZpAH1ws
 
1.4 Pure Shadow
https://youtu.be/CSaFiZ7UjHE
 
1.5 Pure Fire
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIbRiH2LR4M
 
#2 Deck Building
#3 T1 Basics
#4 Deck specific basics
 
- more videos and comments about to appear soon: I will extend this topic as soon as possible -
 

you released this before the beta-testers have leaked it? what are we even here for at this point? THEY TOOK ER JERBS!

Thanks to the team for accepting us  You can all look forward to some nice client changes and additions

you released this before the beta-testers have leaked it? what are we even here for at this point? THEY TOOK ER JERBS!

Hello Skylords
It has been some crazy weeks for us on the development side, and we're making huge progress everyday, thanks to all our testers! There's sooo much going on right now that we can't tell you about in the current state the things are, but the next official stream we're planning is nearby!
Also I'm taking a moment to let you know, we have 2 new arrivals in the team! As Client Developers which are @Ladadoos and @Zyna Congratz to both of them!
They've been really helpful since the past months, that we decided to add them officially in the team, they'll work on everything related to the client. Thanks to them, you'll notice when you'll play the game, QoL (Quality of life) improvements, new features etc..
Also, some of you may remember "Tokens" that used to be here to buy upgrades in the past, as we said a few times, this system was a pure mess for us, and really not relevant, and there has been discussions about it being removed. So here's a quick preview (WIP) of the modifications we've made alongside Ladadoos and John, and now golds are being used for that matter.


 
Thanks everyone, and see you soon in the forge! ♥

There are tons of great moments in anime, it's pretty hard to make a pick, so i will just go ahead and make several.
SPOILERS AHEAD!
For me personally:
#1 Griffith's speach to princess Charlote from Berserk (the 97's version and movie version are pretty much on par here imo) (Such a pivotal moment and masterfully delivered, gives great insight into Griffith's character as well as Gutt's reflection on his own dream afterwards. Drives to plot forward in a masterfull way and sets up maybe one of if not the deepest and richest villan character i have ever seen with a whole bunch of forshadowing. This scene gives me shivers every single time and is my #1 moment with no contest)
#2 Zero's requiem from Code Geas 2 (The ultimate redemption of the main character, which also did an incredible job at making himself (seemingly) utterly irredeemable during the last few episodes prior)
#3 Assault of the Boars from Princess Monoke (I legit cried, what a scene! if you haven't seen Mononoke, you haven't lived yet. Was the first anime i saw over 10 years ago and i didn't even know what anime was. What a way to set up high standards...)
#4 The ending of Wolf's Rain (Actually called Wolf's Reign, it's a misstranslation and yes that bothers me. Just when you thought things might actually work out in the end... also that soundtrack gets me every time!)
#5 The ending/tank scene from Ghost in the Shell (Phillosiphical and quite unexpected. Also very nice symbolism and great cinematography)
#6 Naruto vs. Sasuke fight in the valey of the end from the original Naruto (Insane buildup and great delivery. Felt very emotional and personal and the action was amazing as well. Great choreography, animation and cinematography really bring the sheer scale and power in the battle to life)
#7 Final battle in Sword of the Stranger (Again beautiful horeography, animation and cinematography, even better than in Naruto in my opinion and also comes with amazing soundtrack and sound design. Didn't manage to be as emotional as the Naruto fight and that's why i rate it a bit lower) 

Just want to respond to the general comments from people that it has been so long (too long) and blablabla... 
Let's imagine you are the ones developing in your free time.
Then you face setbacks you don't want/expect which means you have to dedicate even more of your free time. 
If you would still be like "This takes too long, **** it", the project would've been abandoned a long time ago.
Fortunately for us the developers are not like that and keep dedicating and spending their free time even after all the setbacks and extra time they had/still have to put in.
Tldr: Huge shoutout for the team's perseverance and dedication that the ones complaining obviously wouldn't have had the patience for.