Treim

While i agree that the current decks are probably not optimal, they are definetly better than the original ones. About the point that they are too "complex" and the original decks were easier. That is true, but it is also true that the game became a lot more complex compared to the original release. Introducing these topics is important to show players that they exist. The extent of that introduction can be debated obviously though. I think in the topic of 2015 we reached the conclusion that at least 1 affinity card should be included in the starter decks for that very reason. I think the biggest problem with the starter decks is that they are both in the extremese. While the original decks had 1 offensive and 1 defensive faction to balance both sides out, now both offensive/defensive factions are clustered into one deck and therefor creates extremes. That is not so much a problem for the defensive deck as it might take longer to reach your goal of finishing a map but ultimately it is relatively easy if time consuming. The offensive faction however has very little safety mechanisms, especially once in a fight and with the removal of lava field especially t2 is pretty weak at the moment and lacks fire power. While Rifle Cultist + Unholy Hero is undoubtly a very powerful combination it does not provide consistant damage and emberstrike is after all only a L unit with burst as well. Therefor you struggle a lot more in drawn out fights, especially bosses as you simply lack the consistant damage to beat anything. Adding onto that you have no cc or heal with your only protection being Unity which does not help a lot if you have a very low HP pool (due to S -L units only). I personally would like to go back a little back on the affinity cards and back to a more balanced way of mixing offensive and defensive factions (that is for the moment at least). The factors above can be played around by players that are familiar with the game but might make it harder as a new player. Especially because the new cards offer great options for mixing them up in your own deck. Those are definetly better than before. I am sure however that the dev team and (tell me if i am wrong) especially @MrXLink made themselves quite a bit of thoughts about these new decks and had their reasons for doing them the way they are. I would really like to hear the reasoning behind the choices he/they made. Maybe that will clear things up a bit and we can go from there, agreeing with the choices in the end or using that as a base improving the current decks

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@BurningWorld There will ALWAYS be so called op cards. Those are generally the meta cards or a part of them. That doesn‘t however mean that at least 1/5 of all cards is pretty much unplayable or that you at least have no real reason to pick them up. That doesnt mean that everything needs to be equally strong but i dont see a reason why you wouldnt want more choices of cards. Give them different strength and focuses so every or at least a vast majority of cards can fill at least a niche which they can be used for. Not everything needs to be meta, but having so many cards be absolutely useless is very underwhelming. Also having more choices on cards which can cover up weaknesses or enhance strength of certain playstyles would just advance the depth of the deck building aspect and by that also the strategic depth of the gameplay. That doesn‘t take away of the progression as there will always be cards that are optimal to a players needs. There are already some niche cards that can help PvP players when struggling against certain enemy factions. Those are by no means meta and you generally sacrifice something else for it. Why dont we try to enlarge that pool of cards and maybe add some cards as actual options to cards that are considered core now. Also your argument about rare cards being super powerful and op is kinda not true considerig cards like LSS being uncommen and op while a lot of UR‘s are kinda underwhelming 😅

Maybe something to add: i think the first cards that should be focused on are the ones that can be made (semi-) viable or at least can fill a niche with relatively easy to implement changes should be focused on first. Focusing on cards and adding some stats to them just so still noone plays them is kinda pointless imo. Pick out ones where you can make a difference by simple stat changes of base stats or ability stats. I actually discussing tweaks to those cards can be worth actually worth even at this stage as it is something that can change the game for the better and is least something that is in sight and devs are sure they can manage. Which units CAN be made relevant is up for discussion as well though I'd propose to first to go over the more obvious choices as picking which cards is (obviously) based on opinion. No need making it hard early on when you can simply start with the easy choices and work your way down Reworking abilities on a grander level like (even just) tweaking mechanics slightly should be left to a later date in my opinion - if at all possible. P.s. Not even sure if anyones interested in a discussion about 1 or 2 cards at a time and what scale of changes would be appropriate exactly.

There is 1 anti air tower used in the game. Blaster Cannon has its niche in speedruns against Lost Vigils for rPvE lvl 10's I think the Revenant's ability is inherently flawed in that it only activates when you die which is exactly what you try to avoid and as a last stand type of ability it is just way to costly. If you want to keep going with the Revenant type thing i think it would be way better making it either a passive ability or very cheap and change the duration of the effect similarly. So f.e. 20-60 power costs (depending on the unit) and then duration 10 seconds. Or if you make it free go for 5 seconds or diminished stats. or something. I still dont think its good game design to have an ability that requires you to die when that is totally counter intuitive. A complete rework might work better. I think f.e. it would be nice to have an ability that would give the units a power up for a period of time but would leave them weakend permanently afterwards. Something like, by offering part of their Souls they can get extra stats/abilities, but afterwards (due to their Souls being incomplete) they can never reach their former peak. That ability would be quite similar to frenzy for shadow but less dramatic which would fit its mixed style of being a splashed faction of frost and shadow. I think with Twilight you could do something with a lot of switching forms, which could make their units super versatile. I think that fits the theme of "Mutants" which they are quite well and could offer a lot of strategic options to the faction. Obviously both changes would probably require stat changes, the Twilight one more so than the LS one, but still. I think working on balance changes in the future is best done in tandem with the community. Maybe let the community decide on a few cards via watch list and then work with high level/experienced PvP and experienced PvE players on changes for those cards (and maybe a few extras). I think that could work quite well.

The biggest problem for pure decks i see is that rPvE is way more popular than PvE, with maybe the exception of Bad Harvest. In rPvE however you need to have speed which all pure decks lack due to varying reasons: Nature is safe due to a lot of heals, but has limited void manipulation and very expensive units and no notable damage spells with maybe the exception of Thunderstorm( and that is still far from great, especially in t4) Frost has similar issues, they are relatively safe due to a bunch of protection and damage reduction spells and abilities but lack the damage generally on top of having no void manipulation except for the shrine of martyr which only helps once you amassed a lot of void, so kinda nice but not overly useless. They have damage spells but can only use them sparingly due to that. Fire has insane damage with spells and argueablythe best void manipulation in the game units and even tankiness with Moloch, but has no way to support a lot of units due to the limited amount of slots for Unity. No heals so you gotta fall back to Viridya or Moon which kinda sucks as you either have to heal up after a fight or have to waste a Unity slot for them. Shadow is probably the most viable faction for rPvE as it is still the best balanced, even though you dont really use the 4th shadow orb at all - so why bother really? It has good support with frenetic assault and infect, heals with Blood Healing and Overlord ability which is generally enough, decent damage with frenetic again and a well placed soulshatter can do a lot. Also Grim Bahir's little underlings adds to the utility as a distraction and a bit of damage. It is overall the most well rounded faction if you consider they also got CM+ FoF void manipulatioin, but you could also play that deck without the 4th shadow orb as Shadow worm can hardly be sustained with just bloodhealing and Overlord. And not using its ability, well then why use it at all... I agree with the list overall, even though i doubt it would be hard to find 50 more cards that could need a buff.

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@Chibiterasu I like that you graded your own work 2866

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2862 we count towards 4000

2860 Stop looking here is nothing more.

2587 Stop looking, there is nothing more in this post.

While i agree it shouldn't be to fast to gain cards and upgrades it should neither be to slow. The major issue i see is that PvP and to a degree speedruns are that balanced around fully upgraded and close to fully charges decks. Especially some decks require quite a few UR's to be playable at the highest level. Speedruns have similar issues to a lower degree as often only a handful of UR's need to be fully or close to fully charged on most maps. There is a lot of maps though and while some cards are played in multiple that is still quite the variety of cards in addition to "normal" decks. Same goes for PvP -i doubt most players are fine with playing only 1 deck (especially towards the top end of the ladder). Finding a balance is key between not making it to had but also allowing the competitive scene getting to the point where they are actually meaningful and playable in any way in a reasonable time. As we are still pre Beta there is a lot of time to figure this out for the dev team together with input from the community and as similar threads (for both directions) were made aplenty before the dev team knows about finding the right balance