86 replies to this topic

[dboeren]

2. Cards just entering the picture being able to trigger their abilities. Arguably, this is working as intended, but is the focal point of what some think need to be changed.

Not to mention other cards/effects that could alter, re-alter, or affect game/card states.

Right now we have, plain and simple. Something happens. Responses to said thing resolve. Doesn't matter when or how they got to be useable, just that it can. To limit that would do more damage than good.

If I got my hints correctly, Brad and Damon paid a lot of attention to my deck at gencon (especially after I warned them about it in advance), and seems like they already have a plan. I just hope it works.

If they already have a solution in mind then yeah, go with that of course. I still don't see how adding a requirement that the card has to be eligible to respond at the time the trigger happened would cause problems. Do you have an example? That would probably go a long way towards explaining why this approach won't work (even if restricted to the discard).

Adding "Pay 1" to anything pretty much shuts down any possibility of using it in a loop, the problem is that it makes even the first execution expensive so it may just kill the whole card. Exhausting is usually softer, but cards in the discard pile can't exhaust of course. Ideally, we'd like to come out of this with the cards still being useful - one of the main purposes of these faction is for people to buy a Core + Box and have a solid deck to start with so we don't want to do anything that impacts this too much.

[bitraven]

Cards out of play aren't to be remembered.

Is that really true any more? re: The Mage's Machinations

[dboeren]

I got to try the deck out last night. Did it work? Yes, it did. I'm sure that being new to a complex deck I didn't design myself I'm not running it nearly as well as Tom does with his experience with it - but it does work and I never got into too much trouble. Discarding enemy success tokens heavily helped a lot with that until I could draw some good blocker characters like Master of the Myths.

However, it was rather unexciting to play and I suspect to play against. Absolutely *NO* swashes were buckled at all. If I even went to stories it was just to throw a Yithian Scout under the bus or to snag an Arcane victory (or both) and I never won any stories. It was just boring and while I'm glad I have a better understanding of the issue I doubt I'll play it again unless someone asks me to.

[MagnusArcanis]

Is that really true any more? re: The Mage's Machinations

I admit my choice of words weren't the best. But, 'removed from game' is an out of play area like any other. According to the current faq the 'game' doesn't 'remember' cards. This is likely to change to reflect the ruling made at gencon, but until then, it was working as intended.

Exactly how things are going to change for the future I'm as in the dark as anyone else, but if I had to guess. One of two things will happen. 1 being that cards with abilties that are specifically mentioned that they work in an face up area out of play are going to be treated in a similiar manner to a card in play. 2, being they'll erratta the card(s) to work the way they intended to work.

Odds are, it'll be the latter to keep the rules as uniform as possible, but eh. We'll have to see.

[Zephyr]

When The Mage's Machinations enters play, each player must choose 1 character controlled by the player to his left, if able. Remove those characters from the game. If you win this conspiracy return those characters removed from the game to play under your control.

Is the last part normal Conspiracy win effect, therefore optional. Or Is part of "enters play" effect so its mandatory?
Normally i'd say its optional, but there is no newline, and giving Azathoth (SoA) to opponent is such a fun idea i have to ask

[MagnusArcanis]

Is the last part normal Conspiracy win effect, therefore optional. Or Is part of "enters play" effect so its mandatory?
Normally i'd say its optional, but there is no newline, and giving Azathoth (SoA) to opponent is such a fun idea i have to ask

I'm pretty sure its optional (to be consistant with other effects), but I like the way you think.

[Danigral]

Congratulations on your win!



With all due respect, I don't think a FAQ amendment is going to fix the problem.

The real problem here is quite serious and not easily fixable: the discard pile is the safest place in the game. While there were very few cards of any use in the discard pile, that wasn't a problem. Now that there are a host of cards that can retrieve others from the discard pile (mostly Shub) or simply take actions directly out of the discard pile (mostly Yog), it's a serious problem.

Quite simply, there is nothing resembling counter-play for a discard pile based strategy right now. The designers really should have seen this coming when they were putting The Key and the Gate together, but, well, they didn't. There may be some solutions in Venice, but I doubt it. Snow Graves is pretty much it (Atlantis for MU), but a minimum of support removal is enough to take care of either. As you yourself noted, with so much support removal available, it's still eminently possible to protect a discard pile based strategy.

Unfortunately, I think the solution to the problem will be a dramatic expansion of the restricted/banned list - and if previous years are any indication, it's the winner's deck that will be the starting point for bans and restrictions. I'm not sure Lost Oracle will survive to see another tournament, which is too bad, it's a fun card. Likewise with Interstellar Migration.

Firstly, sorry I've been out of the conversation for a while. After Gencon I got slammed at work, and I've only been following along cursorily. But now that it's Labor Day weekend, I have a few minutes!

I completely agree with Runix here. I can't find it, but I expressed before that having cards that trigger from the discard pile was problematic for a number of reasons: 1) it creates a weird problem because the discard pile is out of play, so how do you treat triggers that are only "remembered" while in play? 2) the discard pile, being out of play, is untouchable; 3) it creates virtually unprecedented card advantage when you have essentially free "events" in the discard pile.

One thing I didn't anticipate was the power of Lost Oracle - in fact, I completely dismissed it as being situational chud - when it actually helps the mill strategy defend against rush decks while priming your discard pile effects. And while I kind of anticipated the strength of Interstellar Migration late game, I didn't see how easy it was to fill the discard pile.

I imagine that some vast changes are necessary. I think limiting all discard pile effects, along with putting a maximum limit on Migration will be too much, but I have always felt that milling should be more difficult simply because it creates NPE. I don't meant that it should be impossible, but that your deck should focus on control and a long game.