Author Topic: Anti Meta Defensive thoughts  (Read 4154 times)

Offline Red

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Re: Anti Meta Defensive thoughts
« Reply #25 on: February 27, 2019, 04:21:30 PM »
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It's sad that Judean Mediums (in Reserve) is almost required in defenses nowadays. That said, Reserve evil cards are shot by Green's STAR cards, so there's almost no point in relying on anything in Reserve anymore...

Honestly, this kind of small defense crumbles if the Green gets even a remotely decent draw. Green is now stacked with interrupts aplenty, not even mentioning anything forthcoming (First Sacrifice is Samuel's Edict but better, for some reason?). You're basically hoping to have the better Dom matchup; ie hope the Green doesn't have Grapes or CoF to extend the battle if you decide to block and win, hope you have CM for Ezekiel or Isaiah at the right time (or hope they don't draw their plethora of CBN Enhancements), hope you don't get hit with Cherubim or Elisha when you have a few evil Doms in hand, and hope you're able to do all of that around Jonah and/or Habbakuk.

It's all doable, of course, but it's a pain. And considering most decks should be running the Orphans LS, I wouldn't rely on Bear a lick (not to mention Zeke kills Bear CBN with both his Enhancements, with no effort). Unless you have Love and no one runs Orphans.
First Sacrifice just seems underwhelming in the face of a ton of other things out there in my opinion.
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Offline Kevinthedude

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Re: Anti Meta Defensive thoughts
« Reply #26 on: February 27, 2019, 04:43:20 PM »
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First Sacrifice just seems underwhelming in the face of a ton of other things out there in my opinion.

I assume he's comparing it to edict because it functions similar to edict in that its a negate+character removal that's CBN on one character in your offense (Isaiah in this case) and still a solid battle winner on everyone else, which is a valid comparison. A big strength of prophets is that they have Ezekiel and Isaiah so that's two characters that can play multiple CBN battle winners, some of which also negate/interrupt. Most past offenses only had access to one character with consistent CBN enhancements so Martyr felt like a more solid answer than it does against two characters both that need to be answered without letting them get initiative.

Offline Master Q

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Re: Anti Meta Defensive thoughts
« Reply #27 on: February 27, 2019, 05:09:43 PM »
+3
First Sacrifice just seems underwhelming in the face of a ton of other things out there in my opinion.

Such as...?

It's easily a more flexible Sam's Edict, which is 100% worse:

Negate an evil or neutral card - hit just about anything your opponent has that can stop your rescue, in battle, territory, or even a capture Art. Stellar. Then you get to choose between 2 abilities that can both win you the battle - Underdeck an evil card from opponent's hand or an opposing card in battle. Either will win if played correctly, and to make it worse you can even use it outside of battle to look at their hand and hinder their block before you even rescue. It even works during side battles to underdeck a Hero, so there's that.

And of course KtD mentioned the CBN on Isaiah, but he neglected to mention the really big one - Benjamin. This is a better Joseph Before Pharaoh, and we all know how good that is. Not to also mention Teal has 2 Heroes to make this CBN. Not to also mention how easily recurred this is.

Given that this does everything Sam's Edict does and more, I fail to see how it isn't an auto-include in decks that use the 3 brigades it's packing, since it is tied to no themes and has no drawbacks. Enlighten me, please.
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Offline Kevinthedude

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Re: Anti Meta Defensive thoughts
« Reply #28 on: February 27, 2019, 05:15:58 PM »
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First Sacrifice just seems underwhelming in the face of a ton of other things out there in my opinion.

Such as...?

It's easily a more flexible Sam's Edict, which is 100% worse:

Negate an evil or neutral card - hit just about anything your opponent has that can stop your rescue, in battle, territory, or even a capture Art. Stellar. Then you get to choose between 2 abilities that can both win you the battle - Underdeck an evil card from opponent's hand or an opposing card in battle. Either will win if played correctly, and to make it worse you can even use it outside of battle to look at their hand and hinder their block before you even rescue. It even works during side battles to underdeck a Hero, so there's that.

And of course KtD mentioned the CBN on Isaiah, but he neglected to mention the really big one - Benjamin. This is a better Joseph Before Pharaoh, and we all know how good that is. Not to also mention Teal has 2 Heroes to make this CBN. Not to also mention how easily recurred this is.

Given that this does everything Sam's Edict does and more, I fail to see how it isn't an auto-include in decks that use the 3 brigades it's packing, since it is tied to no themes and has no drawbacks. Enlighten me, please.

I would be happy to see Sacrifices lose green and stick to blue and teal. I know green is the pushed offense this year but I think Isaiah already has plenty of enhancements to play with while blue and teal are the brigades that really lack enhancements of this power. I'm excited to build teal/green just as much as anyone but I think it will be plenty strong without having cards like this that would be cream of the crop enhancements even they were mono-brigade turned into consistency monsters that you can play on every single one of your Heroes in a potentially triple brigade deck.

Offline The Guardian

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Re: Anti Meta Defensive thoughts
« Reply #29 on: February 27, 2019, 05:36:42 PM »
+2
Keep in mind that card previews do not guarantee that the card is finalized. We are still testing and evaluating, and First Sacrifice is one of the cards we have our eye on. I agree with pretty much everything Master Q and KtD shared regarding its comparison to Edict, but in fairness I will point out a few things regarding that comparison.

1. Edict discards instead of underdecks. In one game I tested FS, I used it pre-block to underdeck The Deceiver, which ended up resulting in a successful rescue (however I did need to have another battle winner in hand as well). However, thanks to a shuffle and some extra drawing, my opponent had The Deceiver back in his hand the very next turn.

2. Edict is a winner for the key Hero in a massive drawing engine (Samuel) and a Hero who can become CBN protected from everything (Gideon).

3. Edict is mono-brigade (which is an advantage in T2) whereas tri-brigade is more of an advantage in T1.

Personally I believe FS needs to be toned down in some way, but further testing is certainly warranted before making any changes.
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Offline Kevinthedude

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Re: Anti Meta Defensive thoughts
« Reply #30 on: February 27, 2019, 05:50:49 PM »
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Keep in mind that card previews do not guarantee that the card is finalized. We are still testing and evaluating, and First Sacrifice is one of the cards we have our eye on. I agree with pretty much everything Master Q and KtD shared regarding its comparison to Edict, but in fairness I will point out a few things regarding that comparison.

1. Edict discards instead of underdecks. In one game I tested FS, I used it pre-block to underdeck The Deceiver, which ended up resulting in a successful rescue (however I did need to have another battle winner in hand as well). However, thanks to a shuffle and some extra drawing, my opponent had The Deceiver back in his hand the very next turn.

2. Edict is a winner for the key Hero in a massive drawing engine (Samuel) and a Hero who can become CBN protected from everything (Gideon).

3. Edict is mono-brigade (which is an advantage in T2) whereas tri-brigade is more of an advantage in T1.

Personally I believe FS needs to be toned down in some way, but further testing is certainly warranted before making any changes.

This may be an opinion already shared by the design team but usually hope to see cards with multiple brigades be less powerful than those with fewer. When I'm building a dual brigade deck, I should have to make a choice between running the most powerful enhancements and running the most consistent enhancements. I should not be able to look at a card and say "Oh neat, this card fits my decks synergy points (star/cloud/book reference used to make things CBN like Judges, Ezekiel, and Isaiah), can be played on every single one of my Heroes, and consistently outperforms nearly all other competing enhancements even without utilizing it's available synergy options.

I really like the amount of in play brigade punishment cards and search counters being printed since I now have to regard Heroes with brigades I don't need as a cost and strategies with huge amounts of searching as punishable rather than consistent, but extra brigades on enhancements is mostly still just a benefit, and a powerful one at that.

Offline Red

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Re: Anti Meta Defensive thoughts
« Reply #31 on: February 27, 2019, 07:34:35 PM »
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First Sacrifice just seems underwhelming in the face of a ton of other things out there in my opinion.

Such as...?

It's easily a more flexible Sam's Edict, which is 100% worse:

Negate an evil or neutral card - hit just about anything your opponent has that can stop your rescue, in battle, territory, or even a capture Art. Stellar. Then you get to choose between 2 abilities that can both win you the battle - Underdeck an evil card from opponent's hand or an opposing card in battle. Either will win if played correctly, and to make it worse you can even use it outside of battle to look at their hand and hinder their block before you even rescue. It even works during side battles to underdeck a Hero, so there's that.

And of course KtD mentioned the CBN on Isaiah, but he neglected to mention the really big one - Benjamin. This is a better Joseph Before Pharaoh, and we all know how good that is. Not to also mention Teal has 2 Heroes to make this CBN. Not to also mention how easily recurred this is.

Given that this does everything Sam's Edict does and more, I fail to see how it isn't an auto-include in decks that use the 3 brigades it's packing, since it is tied to no themes and has no drawbacks. Enlighten me, please.
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1. I totally missed the reference and generally have glossed over star Isaiah. So my bad.
2. I think this card is in the same ballpark as all Edictesque cards. I would argue that cards like Faith and Overcome! are on the whole better cards than Edict derivatives due to consistency and recursion.
3. Being Tri-Brigade is a hinderance, not a help.
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Offline Josh

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Re: Anti Meta Defensive thoughts
« Reply #32 on: March 08, 2019, 08:37:10 AM »
+1
3. Being Tri-Brigade is a hinderance, not a help.

Sure, if you compare a Genesis offense using First Sacrifice to a Judge's offense using Edict, yeah, you'd prefer First Sacrifice to be mono-Blue for various reasons.  Same with a Green or Teal offense compared to a Judge's offense.

BUT...

1. You can run First Sacrifice in any Blue, Green, or Teal deck.  Heck, you could play it in any deck where you have 3-4 heroes that have 1 of those brigades.
2. There are 4 guaranteed CBI/N heroes (Benjamin, Isaiah, Amariah, Josh the HP) and 1 more potential CBN hero (Elisha). 
3. You can even play it preattack if you badly need hand info or if you are trying to make sure your opponent doesn't have a certain evil card in hand. 
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