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Personally, I'm in favor of banning SoG/NJ, but I would say we have some other options. Like, just ban NJ from the category.
About the same effect, and it is the bigger problem here. Alternatively, restrict dominants to 1 copy per team, not per deck. I honestly hate the way we track dominants anyway, because having them in discard pile is very important for several abilities. Having only 1 copy per team means you don't have to track it the way we do and you get more diversity between the two decks and options opening up.
As far as your other idea, I like the discussion, but disagree with the answer. Instead, I would argue that having a different maximum deck size would be preferable. That way, we do not have drastically different deckbuilding for the type, but still manage to head off the type of problem you foresee. T2 is 252 cards (35 souls), T1 is 154 cards (21 souls), so why not have Teams be 70 cards (9 souls)?
I threw around this idea for a while, looking at ways to solve that particular problem,
I agree that the dominant tracking is kinda iffy. I would be in favor of treating "used" dominants as being in the discard pile even if they are in the Land of Redemption for tracking purposes.
I'm fine with 154s. What I hate is seeing two decks that are almost identical. It chokes creativity.
Quote from: Westy on August 05, 2014, 01:46:31 AMI'm fine with 154s. What I hate is seeing two decks that are almost identical. It chokes creativity.This is the fundamental flaw with any card game and the internet. I had the same problem at last year's Pokémon City Championship, where I faced almost identical Virizion EX/Genesect EX decks from two unrelated opponents, and my son played against a third one. Who knows how many others were out there. This was particularly troubling to me, since I was running a Blastoise deck.
Quote from: YourMathTeacher on August 05, 2014, 08:31:45 AMQuote from: Westy on August 05, 2014, 01:46:31 AMI'm fine with 154s. What I hate is seeing two decks that are almost identical. It chokes creativity.This is the fundamental flaw with any card game and the internet. I had the same problem at last year's Pokémon City Championship, where I faced almost identical Virizion EX/Genesect EX decks from two unrelated opponents, and my son played against a third one. Who knows how many others were out there. This was particularly troubling to me, since I was running a Blastoise deck. Nail on the head. This never used to be a problem with Pokemon, but since the internet exploded I can have the National winning deck card-for-card built the day-of it's winning. Too much information for competition.
But I understand the annoyance of always seeing two identical decks in teams, but the only way to stop that is to limit cards per team rather than per deck.
Quote from: ChristianSoldier on August 05, 2014, 03:42:50 PMBut I understand the annoyance of always seeing two identical decks in teams, but the only way to stop that is to limit cards per team rather than per deck.Which isn't practical from a deck-checking standpoint. I get that.
Penalizing them further on the basis of theory-crafting about the results of a separate rule change is just unwarranted.
The only change to Teams that I would like to see is to get rid of the table talk aspect, at least when it comes to decision-making. Maybe talking it over after decisions are made is fine, but otherwise, it should be treated more like a T1-MP game. That way most of the integrated strategy is planned with the team beforehand, and people don't have to wait 5 minutes for a team to decide in some of the most ridiculous and complicated coded jargon what one of the players is going to do. I would really hate to see SoG/NJ (or even just NJ) banned for that very reason...most if not all of the Teams games I have played have either been really short (the minority) or really long/timeouts. And a lot of that time goes to the amount of discussion had between teammates.
Josiah, I really wish Jayden and I had gotten a chance to play you and Jerome. That would have been an awesome game I think. Unfortunately we got nipped by one turn in round 1 and then faced a ridiculous draw in round 2, so we were middle of the pack most of the time.
Quote from: The Guardian on August 11, 2014, 11:01:27 PMJosiah, I really wish Jayden and I had gotten a chance to play you and Jerome. That would have been an awesome game I think. Unfortunately we got nipped by one turn in round 1 and then faced a ridiculous draw in round 2, so we were middle of the pack most of the time.Totally agreed perhaps we do that through a google doc sometime?
I feel like Lackey might support multi player, but don't quote me on that.
QuotePenalizing them further on the basis of theory-crafting about the results of a separate rule change is just unwarranted.MJB, I'm not suggesting that huge decks are the best thing in the category right now, but the main thing that holds them back in Teams is the time needed to set up in games that don't have optimal draws.
In talking to a few other people about it, including people with a wealth of experience in Teams, along with a couple of the Elders, I don't seem to be alone in this thinking.
Even if 154's aren't as dangerous as I think they would be in Teams, they're not particularly fun to play against to most people, and I wouldn't mind seeing them fundamentally neutered in at least one category.
QuoteEven if 154's aren't as dangerous as I think they would be in Teams, they're not particularly fun to play against to most people, and I wouldn't mind seeing them fundamentally neutered in at least one category.Here we come to the real nub of it, as you made your disdain for large decks clear in your original blog post. We could all name decks we don't enjoy playing against--for me Genyptians would be nearer the top than most--but I'm not sure we want to start down the path of neutering decks simply because individuals players have a personal dislike of facing them.
There was a team running it at Nats, and I am almost certain they did not have a game end at time, which I don't know how you can argue is good for the category.
Quote from: EmJayBee83 on August 11, 2014, 11:42:22 PMQuoteEven if 154's aren't as dangerous as I think they would be in Teams, they're not particularly fun to play against to most people, and I wouldn't mind seeing them fundamentally neutered in at least one category.Here we come to the real nub of it, as you made your disdain for large decks clear in your original blog post. We could all name decks we don't enjoy playing against--for me Genyptians would be nearer the top than most--but I'm not sure we want to start down the path of neutering decks simply because individuals players have a personal dislike of facing them.Playing two traditional 154s in Teams is unfun, completely. And if they do not win, as you are pointing out, then why would you play them? That's the question.Your whole post undercuts the validity of running 154s in Teams as a viable strategy, so the real question is why you would want to play with it, and the answer I see is that it is funny to play decks that are annoying to others. They go against the spirit of the game and are very bad for the game. There was a team running it at Nats, and I am almost certain they did not have a game end at time, which I don't know how you can argue is good for the category.
On an a side I feel like playing a 154 is trolling.
The only time I've ever seen anyone trolling to ruin a category was an individual (who shall remain nameless) that built a T2 MP deck that was designed for the sole purpose of drawing Lost Souls and then giving them away when he was attacked.If you want an example of trolling, that's it.
Quote from: EmJayBee83 on August 11, 2014, 11:42:22 PMQuoteEven if 154's aren't as dangerous as I think they would be in Teams, they're not particularly fun to play against to most people, and I wouldn't mind seeing them fundamentally neutered in at least one category.Here we come to the real nub of it, as you made your disdain for large decks clear in your original blog post. We could all name decks we don't enjoy playing against--for me Genyptians would be nearer the top than most--but I'm not sure we want to start down the path of neutering decks simply because individuals players have a personal dislike of facing them.Playing two traditional 154s in Teams is unfun, completely. And if they do not win, as you are pointing out, then why would you play them? That's the question.
I was a member of a team that played a pair of 154s at Nationals in 2012 and took third out of 24 teams. My teammate and I chose to play those decks with the hope of having fun and winning a tournament. Why do you make your choice of decks?
I am not sure who you are talking about here. As far as I know my partner and I were the only one playing 154s at the just concluded Nats, and we had five of six games end at time as you can verify by looking at the scoring spreadsheet. I am also fairly certain that we were never the last table to finish a round.
And yet, when we look back through this thread, you have been saying how they are not a problem because they are not viable in the category at this time, and showing how the data proves that. Can't have it both ways.
They timed out once. Jayden and I used balanced 56 card decks and we timed out 3 times (2 losses and a tie).Are balanced 56 card decks bad for TEAMS?
Hey,The issue of timeouts in teams might be more a matter of the players than the decks. John Earley pointed out while judging the category that teams that consisted of lead player and a follower tended to time out much less than teams that consisted of two players acting as equals. And I would guess that the players with a propensity to time out in two player (regardless of deck size) also probably end up on teams that time out more frequently.I think 154 card decks in Teams (and in Type 1 in general) are similar to combo decks in Type 2. These decks are fun to design, add variety to the field, can win games, and are fun to play with. But playing against them is a NPE for most people and they aren't consistent in their performance (which means they almost never win tournaments, but can eliminate top players if the deck draws right - which ends up being a pretty bum deal for the top player who did nothing wrong other than getting paired up with a 154).I think Jordan's suggestion of eliminating tabletalk from teams would eliminate the timeout problem. But I don't know that it's possible to define a set of rules for talking that the table that eliminates the tabletalk without significantly damaging the fun players get from playing with someone else.Tschow,Tim "Sir Nobody" Maly
Quote from: EmJayBee83 on August 12, 2014, 02:09:30 AMI was a member of a team that played a pair of 154s at Nationals in 2012 and took third out of 24 teams. My teammate and I chose to play those decks with the hope of having fun and winning a tournament. Why do you make your choice of decks?And yet, when we look back through this thread, you have been saying how they are not a problem because they are not viable in the category at this time, and showing how the data proves that. Can't have it both ways.
Honestly, I handled other things while Teams finished, and did not pay attention to the time remaining just the tables left.