Author Topic: A most brief collection of my thoughts on speed vs speed and nerfing speed.  (Read 14629 times)

Rawrlolsauce!

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     I've seen quite a few threads on speed lately, so I thought I'd share my thoughts without spamming any of them. In this thread, I will explain my thoughts on speed. First, however, allow me explain my experiences and history to provide perspective.

     Firstly, I should let everyone know I'm a huge fan of Starcraft 2, which tends to have many levels of strategy beyond Redemption. There are millions of players world wide that theorycraft and test various strategies and have come to various conclusions. This essentially makes a complex metagame, as thousands of the best players have different innovations and contributions. Although they are very different games in that Redemption relies on luck much more, I'm applying various thoughts and rules from Starcraft to Redemption if I feel they are translatable.

     I have never played much Redemption. Especially this year, I have played just 2 games against anyone that I would consider a good player (in t1). It is doubtful I played more than 20 games against players I did not simply outclass in any specific year. I have always been far more interested in the strategic and deck building side of the game than the actual playing of the game. With the exception of combos or other silly things, my goal has been to build decks that, when piloted at a high level, will produce the highest win percentage possible. This often involved risky or abnormal play that anyone, including I, would openly admit relies on luck, but I felt my odds were simply better relying on said forms of luck compared to the alternative of cutting my advantage for safety. This idea that it is not deck quality or safety that matters, but the ability to win, has always led me to using speed. I almost exclusively played speed, so I am very familiar with all speed matchups. I am somewhat familiar with balanced decks, and not at all familiar with defense heavy decks.

     I do not consider myself to be a top level player, but I do consider myself to be a high level player. I have not competed seriously since 2009, which was the height of my game. I have not experienced any major tournament success as of yet. When I was decent at this game, I was able to hold an acceptable winrate versus top level players, but I have never won a tournament above district level. I came close at Regionals 2009, placing second and losing my only game due to a silly mistake against John Earley.  The real reason I lost that game is that I am a mechanically weak player, especially in person (due to lack of sleep at tournaments). I will constantly forget to play cards or activate artifacts. I try to analyze the game and possible scenarios, but I often go too far and miss the most obvious answers.

Rawrlolsauce!

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     So, firstly one must understand speed in order to understand the implications. Many players will assume speed is just a deck that draws fast, but I disagree. I think speed is a deck that relies on drawing in order to stay competitive. This differentiates true speed from something like Tim Maly's deck. Speed has proven to be the strongest deck form for many reasons, mostly obvious, but for now I am focusing on speed versus speed.

      As Ring Wraith and RDT have both expressed, speed vs speed tends to be a coin flip. I completely agree with this sentiment for a handful of reasons. The first of which is the snowball effect. For example, assuming identical decks, if by complete chance, one deck happens to draw Reach of Desperation first, we all assume he will be at a three card advantage, and therefore more likely to make successful blocks and rescues. What most fail to recognize is that drawing cards increases the likelihood of drawing cards that enable drawing. That three card advantage may soon compound into being a six or nine card advantage very shortly. Obviously, there is also a chance that the opponent his own copies of the cards in question and things will even out (assuming they are not nearing the end of the game), but there is a small problem with this logic. It operates under the pretense that drawing a specific card offers you some sort of strategic advantage or value regardless of when it is drawn. This is obviously not the case (to be put simply, drawing cards early is better than drawing cards slightly later).

     I don't think anyone will argue that cards have different value when presented with different scenarios. One of the most convincing examples is The Strong Angel. The Strong Angel is one of the best heroes in the game early game, but is somewhat weak late game. As the game progresses, by even just one turn, the possible scenarios change, and therefore the values change. One crucial thing to note is that it is actually possible for The Strong Angel to last through many different scenarios if drawn early (early through late game), but only one scenario if drawn late (solely late game). This means the later you draw The Strong Angel, the more useless it becomes. The utility drops off sharply. In this sense, it is almost never disadvantageous in regards to the value of that specific card to draw it later rather than earlier.

     In the case of The Strong Angel, this seems fairly obvious. The value is essentially regressive, and that indicates to everyone that you want it early. What is truly interesting to me is how the value of cards that are progressive transfer when drawn at different times. One of the best examples of a card with a progressive value is Chariots of Fire. Early game, Chariots of Fire is useless. Late game, Chariots of Fire is fantastic. However, regardless of when you draw Chariots of Fire, the value remains fairly similar. Although it offers more utility having it earlier, it offers almost as much utility having it later.

     The second reason I agree with the sentiment expressed is because of speed play style. When one gets even a 1 soul advantage in speed vs speed, he forces the other player to over commit, as both players know that the game many end at any time by sheer luck of the draw. This over commitment may be in the form of attacking with a specific hero or acting more aggressively, but it essentially forces the other player to play at a subpar level. Subpar isn't the best phrase perhaps, as it is the correct move to play like such.

     The final main reason I agree is speed decks rely more heavily on all of their cards than other deck archetypes do. Alex mentioned in another thread that speed vs speed should be less based on luck than other matchups simply due to the fact that players tend to draw more of their deck. The fact is, though, that speed decks lose to really stupid stuff. It is very possible that a speed deck will lose to 5 walk in rescues to a small band. It is unlikely that any other form of deck would lose to 5 walk in rescues to the same small band. This is because speed decks need every slot for cards of the utmost importance: cards that are useful in almost any scenario. Larger decks tend to have room for specific “counter cards”, that is cards that are only useful in uncommon scenarios. Even if both players draw 75% of their deck, the only card that would have mattered may have been one specific card.

Rawrlolsauce!

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     Now, on a somewhat different subject, I think there are several issues with balancing speed. First, I have to note, that balance is not intrinsically good. Even if speed had a 50% winrate versus other deck types, it does not mean everything is okay. Take rock paper scissors, for example. That is a game that is completely balanced. Every choice has exactly one advantage and one disadvantageous. But, I think it is fair to say that none of us want Redemption to turn into Rock Paper Scissors. What we want is a game that rewards strong play and deck building while reducing the factor of luck. The PTB have expressed two different methods of doing this: printing hard counters to stop speed and speeding up other possibilities (and more recently a better tactic, but that comes later).

     I believe that there are hard principals that we must abide by when weakening speed as we know it. The fix must be obtainable on a consistent basis, it must not revolve around luck, it cannot be a hard counter, it cannot destroy the metagame of other matchups, and it cannot kill speed totally. I will explain why tomorrow morning because it's past midnight here and I'm really tired.

     I maintain that neither of the options attempted by the PTB will work, nor will they ever work without totally destroying speed. If one is forced to draw a specific card to stop speed, it simply becomes a race. You try to get that card out before you reach the point of no return and your opponent tries to secure his victory beforehand. It may reduce the winrate of speed, but it does not fix the problem. This just makes the game another incarnate of a coinflip. As to speeding up other possibilities, it just makes Redemption a glorified version of rock, paper, scissors.

     The method that the PTB have tried recently, and I feel is most likely for success, is implementing rule changes. The reason this can work is, unlike the other fixes, it has universality. The rule change affects every game. It does not rely on a player specifically drawing certain cards which only encourage speed players to draw faster.















Well,that's about it for now. I really have a lot more I want to add and explain, but like I said, I'm keeping it brief. I'm not even close to done with the discussion on balancing speed (right now what I've posted is pretty useless), but I'm really tired and I'll finish it tomorrow.

Feel free to comment on anything you disagree with.

Rawrlolsauce!

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Reserved for possible overflow tomorrow.

Offline SomeKittens

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Reserved for trolling Sauce when he wakes up.
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Warrior_Monk

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With the exception of combos or other silly things, my goal has been to build steal from Gabe decks that, when piloted at a high level, will produce the highest win percentage possible.
FTFY.

Nice thoughts though. Your first reason is definitely the main reason, but the other two are nice additions. Trolling the meta FTW.

TheHobbit13

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If I might chime in, I think the reason why speed is so dominant is A) It thrives within the current rules and B) It recieves to many draw cards and not enough counters when new sets came out.

A) Redemption's rules harbor speed in three main ways. First, the draw three at the biginning of the turn. The draw three is really an unprecedented rule allowing a player to move through their deck much faster than they could in any other ccg, combine this with the plethora of drawing cards and there are problems. Second, the no cost system for playing cards (again unprecedented in other major ccg's). This system essentially allows the cards that are "speeded to" to be that much more playable and therefore more effective. And lastly, the no ban policy. This policy elimates an effective way to keep cards balanced and as a result the best decks tend to be  the ones that draw into the broken cards.

Allow me to compare Redemptions approach to that of other card games

Magic the Gathering
-60 deck minimum
-1 card per turn
-limited drawing possibilities
- You deck out you lose
Yugioh
-1 card per turn
-40 card minimum
-limited drawing possibilities
-Essentially you lose when you deck out (you lose when you have to draw and cannot)

Pokemon
-1 card per turn
-60 minimum
-limited drawing possibilities
-You lose when you deck out

Lord of the Rings
- You get to reconcile at the end of your turn which mean you draw until your hand gets to 8 and you may also discard a card in this phase. So essentially you draw as much as you play.
- Rule of Four limits drawing at the start of your turn to 4 cards
-limited drawing possibilities otherwise

And in all of these games there is a cost system, a ban system, and limited drawing. Do you see a pattern? It seems like this is the recipe for success.

B) About 21 percent of the cards in the new set (13/60) contain some sort of drawing ability and only 11 percent (7/60) combat speed.

draw cards:
Samuel
Oak
Abigail
Ishmaiah
Isaiah
Seven Years of Plenty
Eygptian Magicians
Jair
Women of Thebez
Babylonian Soldiers
Pharoah's  Baker
Pharoah's Cub Bearer
The Dreaming Pharaoh

Counters (7):
Iron Pan
Cherubim
Covenant With Death
Assyrian Siege Arny
Tower of Thebez
Seven Years of Famine
Gibeonite Curse

Keep in mind that with this list I tried to be as inclusive as possible.

In the end I agree with sauce that the best way to fix this would be to make rule changes. I would suggest that the d3 every turn would be limited to d1 in type 1 and to a d2 in type 2.

Warrior_Monk

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In the end I agree with sauce that the best way to fix this would be to make rule changes. I would suggest that the d3 every turn would be limited to d1 in type 1 and to a d2 in type 2.
What? That would create more luck based games, since if you don't draw evil right away you're screwed. It would make speed even more prevalent to getting at the cards you need.

TheHobbit13

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In the end I agree with sauce that the best way to fix this would be to make rule changes. I would suggest that the d3 every turn would be limited to d1 in type 1 and to a d2 in type 2.
What? That would create more luck based games, since if you don't draw evil right away you're screwed. It would make speed even more prevalent to getting at the cards you need.

First of all it would also be harder to draw lost souls so hopefully that would balance out the evil. Second, if you aren't playin enough evil that is really to bad I am tired of the rules catoring to small defenses. And lastly just because speed would become more of a neccessity doesn't mean players would be able to find the cards to fill that gap. Regardless this would be an interesting concept to playtest.

Another rule I thought would be interesting would be to say the first time (that is all game) a hero enters the field of play it cannot be targeted and cannot participate in battle for one turn.
« Last Edit: December 23, 2011, 02:48:38 PM by TheHobbit13 »

Offline lp670sv

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In the end I agree with sauce that the best way to fix this would be to make rule changes. I would suggest that the d3 every turn would be limited to d1 in type 1 and to a d2 in type 2.
What? That would create more luck based games, since if you don't draw evil right away you're screwed. It would make speed even more prevalent to getting at the cards you need.

First of all it would also be harder to draw lost souls so hopefully that would balance out the evil. Second, if you aren't playin enough evil that is really to bad I am tired of the rules catoring to small defenses. And lastly just because speed would become more of a neccessity doesn't mean players would be able to find the cards to fill that gap. Regardless this would be an interesting concept to playtest.

Another rule I thought would be interesting would be to say the first time (that is all game) a hero enters the field of play it cannot be targeted and cannot participate in battle for one turn.

So your solution to speed is to make in a necessity.

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Offline SomeKittens

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Re: A most brief collection of my thoughts on speed vs speed and nerfing speed.
« Reply #10 on: December 23, 2011, 03:45:42 PM »
+2
Reduced start-of-turn drawing would only encourage speed further, not counter it.
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TheHobbit13

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Re: A most brief collection of my thoughts on speed vs speed and nerfing speed.
« Reply #11 on: December 23, 2011, 05:10:38 PM »
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Encouraging speed will only increase the need to play speed it won't make speed decks any faster, in fact it would slow them down a lot. But I agree that the sudden shift in speed would be boring, perhaps the number of cards you draw every turn should be proportional to the number of cards you have to start with or even the number of cards you have left in your deck deck. That would at least encourage players to build larger decks. Or maybe there should be a rule of four, that is, you can only draw 2 additional cards on offense and two additional cards on defense per turn in addition to the three you draw automatically. Or something to that effect. This way you hurt speed while at the same time don't punish those who don't want to use it.

Or you could go a whole different route and make a rule that puts the minimum deck size at 63 and forces you to balance good and evil. Personally I like this the best as it corrects some other problems redemption has in addition to speed.

Offline SomeKittens

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Re: A most brief collection of my thoughts on speed vs speed and nerfing speed.
« Reply #12 on: December 23, 2011, 05:21:38 PM »
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Or you could go a whole different route and make a rule that puts the minimum deck size at 63 and forces you to balance good and evil. Personally I like this the best as it corrects some other problems redemption has in addition to speed.
I don't like the idea of T1 becoming mini T2.  Plus, you'd need new starter decks.
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TheHobbit13

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Re: A most brief collection of my thoughts on speed vs speed and nerfing speed.
« Reply #13 on: December 23, 2011, 06:13:36 PM »
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You could always have different rules for different catagories. And in theory you could have the 63 card minimum rule without having the balanced part, that way watchfuk servant, zeb... etc would still work. But I guess what I am trying to say I don't see speed being hurt to much unless major changes are implemented. If not that is okay too because there are more creative ways to run speed than there have been in a while, it also gives the game a nice flow. Although I will say if speed is to remain untouched top cut would be really nice.

Offline Alex_Olijar

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Re: A most brief collection of my thoughts on speed vs speed and nerfing speed.
« Reply #14 on: December 23, 2011, 06:14:23 PM »
+1
I think the issue with Redemption's speed prevelance eminates from the fact that characters are significantly more important to a deck compared to virtually any other card type (including, arguably, dominants).

the first time (that is all game) a hero enters the field of play it cannot be targeted and cannot participate in battle for one turn.

I think that rule should read "A Hero may not make a rescue attempt the first turn it is in play.". I would highly support that ruling.

slugfencer

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Re: A most brief collection of my thoughts on speed vs speed and nerfing speed.
« Reply #15 on: December 27, 2011, 06:14:43 PM »
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That's like summoning sickness in magic?

I think I remember when Redemption came out --**clearing cobwebs** :-[ you only drew 1 and were able to have duplicates in your deck  (like 4 or was it as many as we wanted?) and the deck size was smaller, more like magic.
But back then, there were hardly draw cards in the game, and it was so slow so they published a rule change about drawing 3 per turn and it sped the game up and made more LS available for rescue.

So I guess my point is that rule changes of this sort have been done in the history of the game.

Offline lightningninja

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Re: A most brief collection of my thoughts on speed vs speed and nerfing speed.
« Reply #16 on: December 27, 2011, 07:57:46 PM »
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I would for sure support the rule that a hero cannot rescue unless he has been in play for a turn. This would even create strategy of setting aside a hero's characters to reset the clock on them. That'd be awesome.

Good thoughts Sauce, looking forward to the solutions. :D
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Offline TimMierz

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Re: A most brief collection of my thoughts on speed vs speed and nerfing speed.
« Reply #17 on: December 28, 2011, 10:38:24 AM »
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I think I remember when Redemption came out --**clearing cobwebs** :-[ you only drew 1 and were able to have duplicates in your deck  (like 4 or was it as many as we wanted?) and the deck size was smaller, more like magic.
But back then, there were hardly draw cards in the game, and it was so slow so they published a rule change about drawing 3 per turn and it sped the game up and made more LS available for rescue.

So I guess my point is that rule changes of this sort have been done in the history of the game.

Is that really true? I don't remember seeing that in the first edition rulebooks, and I did play back in the day of Prophets and so used those rulebooks. Are you sure that wasn't just a misplaying on your part?
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Offline Alex_Olijar

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Re: A most brief collection of my thoughts on speed vs speed and nerfing speed.
« Reply #18 on: December 28, 2011, 12:05:26 PM »
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I would for sure support the rule that a hero cannot rescue unless he has been in play for a turn. This would even create strategy of setting aside a hero's characters to reset the clock on them. That'd be awesome.

Good thoughts Sauce, looking forward to the solutions. :D

Interesting idea. I actually didn't think about set asides... I'm kind of ok with you being able to rescue with a previously set aside hero.

Offline STAMP

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Re: A most brief collection of my thoughts on speed vs speed and nerfing speed.
« Reply #19 on: December 28, 2011, 12:28:30 PM »
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You have to know when to hold'em, know when to f...

Er, right, back on topic.  In order to play cards, regardless of what meta-type of card  it is, you have to draw them.  Therefore speed will always be part of every other meta in the game.  A speed-capture deck will beat a plain capture deck most of the time.  A speed-balanced deck will beat a plain balanced deck most of the time.  A speed-speed deck will beat a plain speed deck most of the time.  If you have two decks that are exactly the same, and the players are of the same skill level, then luck of the draw will determine the winner.  Everyone employs speed to garner an edge, i.e. draw faster than the opponent.

It's obvious that the solution to create cards to counter speed aren't working.  It's like the old adage, "You have to spend money to make money."  In other words, you have to employ a little speed to get to the cards that counter your opponent's speed.  And your opponent is doing the same thing.  Ergo, we're back to speed.

If you can't beat them, join them.  ;)

Huh??

At least everyone is aware a game rule is needed to circumvent the proliferation of speed.  But what is the best rule?  What's the one thing that will make any player want to stop drawing?  It's when you're opponent is drawing just as fast as you are.  We need a game rule that mimics Gifts of the Magi.  What that rule is, I don't know.  I have ideas.  Basically, I think we need to get rid of the hand limit rule, and institute a rule wherein opponents get to draw based on some condition of any other player who is drawing.  Maybe something along the lines of "opponents draw a card for every card a player draws when their hand size is greater than 10".  Of course, there would be ways around this, but a player would have to work hard to keep their hands small yet still employ speed.  One of the ways is to keep your hand below 8, but then that makes the player susceptible to hand discard/decrease.

Thoughts??
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TheHobbit13

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Re: A most brief collection of my thoughts on speed vs speed and nerfing speed.
« Reply #20 on: December 28, 2011, 01:15:53 PM »
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Thoughts:
1) You would definetly need to have a hand limit otherwise in type two you could do really nasty things. Just do Maharai+Claudia+ET  draw for what you need to hit a combo then play love at first sight. You drew your deck and they have 8 cards.

2) Also the draw should be a may imo just to give everyone the most options

3) It might hurt speed, then again there is a draw loop  when we both have greater than ten cards and draw so you would have to say "by a special ability". Otherwise it could work though but I don't know if I like the potential it has for more people drawing sure it might balance things but I would rather speed be directly countered. Just my thoughts.

I think we are getting close though.
« Last Edit: December 28, 2011, 01:18:47 PM by TheHobbit13 »

Offline Prof Underwood

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Re: A most brief collection of my thoughts on speed vs speed and nerfing speed.
« Reply #21 on: December 28, 2011, 02:18:22 PM »
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In the end I agree with sauce that the best way to fix this would be to make rule changes. I would suggest that the d3 every turn would be limited to d1 in type 1 and to a d2 in type 2...this would be an interesting concept to playtest.
I agree that this would be interesting to playtest, but it would slow down the game too much.

We need a game rule that mimics Gifts of the Magi.
This could compensate though.  We could try a rule of d1 each turn, and then if either player did any drawing by special ability, then the other player "may" draw an equal number of cards.

This would be an interesting idea to playtest in Feb ROOT :)

Offline christiangamer25

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Re: A most brief collection of my thoughts on speed vs speed and nerfing speed.
« Reply #22 on: December 28, 2011, 02:25:39 PM »
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i disagree that a d1 rule would be too slow all the existing draw cards would compensate for it the d3 is just way too much and adding a gifts type rule just lets speed continue to dominate we need harsher controls that slow the game way down and we also need 60 minute games wheteher hosts like it or not its what the game needs thank you.
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Offline lp670sv

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Re: A most brief collection of my thoughts on speed vs speed and nerfing speed.
« Reply #23 on: December 28, 2011, 02:42:37 PM »
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The goal is not to kill speed all together, it's to give players who don't play speed a chance. The "GOTM" type rule would be perfect fort his. Sure you can play speed, just keep in mind that your opponent gets to take advantage of your drawing cards too.

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Re: A most brief collection of my thoughts on speed vs speed and nerfing speed.
« Reply #24 on: December 28, 2011, 02:47:56 PM »
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I agree with people who feel that a game rule needs to be implemented to punish those who deck out early. What that rule should be I haven't the foggiest, but it seems the best way to go about making speed less advanteous (or at the very least more strategic). Way too often I see people on this forum insist that what they want is "what the game needs" and that everyone needs to get over themselves and see that, and that's just not true. People need to look at the bigger picture and not assume that extreme ideas or opinions are the way to go about "fixing" the game.

Quote
Second, if you aren't playin enough evil that is really to bad I am tired of the rules catoring to small defenses.

The rules aren't what cator to small defenses, it's the cards that are released set after set after set. If you want to see defenses become more usable again, the playtesters need to come up with defenses that grow stronger the larger they are.

Quote
Or you could go a whole different route and make a rule that puts the minimum deck size at 63 and forces you to balance good and evil. Personally I like this the best as it corrects some other problems redemption has in addition to speed.

Sounds like you should just play T2.

Quote
At least everyone is aware a game rule is needed to circumvent the proliferation of speed.  But what is the best rule?  What's the one thing that will make any player want to stop drawing?  It's when you're opponent is drawing just as fast as you are.  We need a game rule that mimics Gifts of the Magi.  What that rule is, I don't know.  I have ideas.  Basically, I think we need to get rid of the hand limit rule, and institute a rule wherein opponents get to draw based on some condition of any other player who is drawing.  Maybe something along the lines of "opponents draw a card for every card a player draws when their hand size is greater than 10".  Of course, there would be ways around this, but a player would have to work hard to keep their hands small yet still employ speed.  One of the ways is to keep your hand below 8, but then that makes the player susceptible to hand discard/decrease.

I hate this idea quite a bit. Too much of a giant rule change, and doesn't really stop all that much. If this rule was implemented right now, Genesis would thrive as the strongest offense, due to it's speed while keeping hand size very small. You simply can't just implement giant rules like this, even with a large amount of testing, because you don't know that some obscure card won't suddenly become incredibly broken.

 


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