Are any of these new ways to win fun?
Seems like there are a lot of complaints about the new ways to win, Hunting Grounds, Turtle decks, various other ways to gain glory. Are these worth keeping or do they just make the game boring/frustrating?

Personally, I enjoy having more than one strategy to think about when building a deck. I like the challenge of figuring out other ways to win beyond the "standard" method. I also like the fact that this means my opponents won't all be playing the same way, and that I will have to be prepared for other options.

I also wonder if some of the new cards as overpowered as they seem at the moment. Are there some ways to beat/nerf/take care of some of these cards that us players simply haven't come up with yet?

Think back to the seed set games.... there were people that thought that my NP/Rag deck was unfair and unbeatable, and then decks started popping up that could beat it. There were people that thought that the MF dominance was totally unfair (and to some extent, still do), though there are beginning to be decks popping up that can beat those, too.

I'd like to see challenges to come up with ways to beat some of these "overpowered" decks before all the cards get nerfed and everything ends up medium-power level.

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Altren wrote:

I agree with Keyser, and that's what I'm planning to implement actually.

|| The Rise of the DCC | Plasmatium Netherious | Tastes Like Chicken | The Astridian Conspiracy ||

Guild -> | Platypus Rising|

Personally, it's the reason I've lost interest. Decks now don't even need to interact with each other to win and if you're playing the wrong kind of deck you just automatically lose. I was originally attracted to the game because it was like chess where the pieces stayed on the table to fight another day.

Now people don't even have to play creatures at all and there are tons of decks that make creatures themselves obsolete. It just isn't fun and there is no strategy involved in it.

I am really happy that you put these questions out there, jed! But, if I may, I think the questions should be phrased somewhat differently. After all, what is fun/boring/frustrating to one is not so to another. Perhaps a better question is: Is it good to have these strategies (and hence cards) in TFW?

The Seed Set is very much about grabbing wells and winning on glory. Lately it has become more and more about controlling domain. There are some other strategies but they are few and far between (most notably: building decks). What seems to be common to them all is that they all have to deal with the map and the terrain. Thus you can be terrain screwed and that is something you need to consider when you build a deck.

With the new cards in Borderlands, there has been a shift away from this. The map and the terrain are virtually inconsequential in Turtle Decks, Earthquake decks and other forms of Glory Decks (e.g., Agent of Death and that stuff). The 'boardgame' aspect of TFW is thuse more or less eliminated.

Now, is this a good thing? I think that question can only be answered by reference to what kind of game one wants TFW to be. I'd personally hate to see EC's and other tournaments being a contest between 20 Turtle Decks simply because they are the most consistent and hard to beat decks out there. Nevertheless, I definitely want the new strategies to continue to be playable. I want the map and terrain to be an important part of this game, but I would also want there to be strategies to make it have less of an impact. (As a total aside, I've hated MF's Axe Captain since day one... There is a direct correlation between me being terrain screwed and me using Axe Captain!)

So to make my point more obvious. TFW has hitherto been a game that is a combination between a card game and a boardgame. If the best strategies consists of reducing the boardgame element, then TFW will change very much. So, again, I think the question should be whether this is a good thing.

Like I have stated before, I would get rid of all glory gain cards, or at least keep no other new such cards than Hunting Grounds and maybe the now nerfed Cathedral of Xosa. These have their problmes too though: The former makes good old well-grabbing building decks obselete, or any decks that can't either get rid of opponent's good hunters or hunt well themselves. The latter might be too powerful with mana dome, as could be tha case with Sigvatr's Arena, as Practice has shown.

The even more annoying ones, Aurora Borealis and Evangelist of Deeds I would not keep in any case. Aurora Borealis completely breaks the game mechanics, especially when used with hall of justice. Evangelist makes possible a turtle deck that can pull an instant win with lucky draw: Agent of Death, Evangelist and any of the 3 zero costing creatures. If evangelist was changed to give glory only from creatures destroyed by being attacked by something, it would be perfectly fine. That would make more sense thematically too: what is so glorious about slaughtering your loyal troops?

@Keyser: We have come to the point where it is simply not possible to prepare for everything you might meet. If you try to do that, you will end up with a deck like the Default decks, that does a little bit of everything, but nothing well, and loses to any deck that does something well. And what are the other top decks than DL ragnarok & caravan decks or partially MF decks with negates, trainings and fissures? Also, what's wrong in making everything roughly medium-powered? Doesn't that only increase the number of good choices for deck-making? If some few cards are clearly more powerful than others, they will be the only ones anyone will ever use.

EDIT: As the title is alternative ways to win, I'll say that Caravan of Dreams is a bit too strong too.

EDIT2: Earthquake decks became a more feasible option now with faceless lord and culling the weak. As Voices said, they reduce the importance of terrain and all. The silliest thing I see about them is that we have a sort of paper, rock & scissors thing here: EQ decks beat turtle decks, turtle decks beat traditional decks, and traditional decks beat earthquake decks (assuming they have plenty of domain buildings and bases, which is a necessity in succesful seed set decks anyway).

Headshot: I wasn't trying to say that the cards aren't overpowered, etc.. I was trying to point out that we should explore the possibilities before nerfing. Perhaps a card isn't as overpowered as it seems after a week of playtesting... maybe there are other mechanics or cards or strategies yet to be discovered...


I fully agree with Voices in that one of the main attractions of this game is the fact that it is a board game combined with a ccg to create a very intriguing and challenging game. To see that aspect lost would be devastating.

I would like to see other ways of winning besides flux grabbing, but I would also like to see flux grabbing remain the main and most common strategy.

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Altren wrote:

I agree with Keyser, and that's what I'm planning to implement actually.

|| The Rise of the DCC | Plasmatium Netherious | Tastes Like Chicken | The Astridian Conspiracy ||

Guild -> | Platypus Rising|

I'm afraid that the alternate ways to win will actually lead to less diversity among the decks you can play and hope to win. And I agree that this makes the game a paper, scissor, rocks thing. This is what happened to MtG, and although I still think MtG is fairly fun, I also think it could have been aloth more fun. The alternate winning decks are just not fun playing against, so I think we shold get rid of them.

I would mostly just reinforce what's been said by others. these alternate glory gaining wins seek to exclude board play and concentrate solely on card play. I personally loathe this. To me, the real depth of the game is in the board play - card play interaction. It's the source of new and interesting dynamics. If you introduce ways to win that don't rely on good board play you've reduced the game to 'whoever gets the right cards first wins' and have ignored any potential new strategy outside of deck building logic puzzles.

Other than that, the most frustrating are those decks where your opponent plays a deck and you literally have no options to stop them from winning because they're using these game-changing cards. It's fun for the winner and absolutely miserable for the loser.

Gamers:

Hopefully you don't mind the opinion of a noob that is not yet fully trained in the arts of jello mastery. The devil is in the details. Having more than one legitimate strategy to win is great for diversity. But if hiding in a corner is clearly the best "strategy" for winning games, then it is appropriate to inform Houston that there is a problem. I have not played enough Beta games to know the answer. And the fact that cards are still being changed, and even switched between factions, means nobody should really be able to say 100% what the next step should be. Patience is a virtue. (One of my least favorite I will admit). Great discussion!

I was gonna go political and mention how nice it would be if governments were this proactive, but decided not to hijack the thread. You are welcome.

Sincerely,

DarkJello

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I never saw the point of glory gaining cards in the first place. Even if there was only one way to victory: controlling more wells than opponent for a large enough number of turns, there would not have to be a limit to the number of different ways that goal can be achieved. Why is it not enough to have new interesting buildings and enchantments for controlling the wells, and even spells and creatures for moving the wells? The different strategies for utilizing these alone could be boundless.

DarkJello: The issue with Alternate ways to win is more fundamental than just them being overpowered in a general matchup. In addition to things CaveTroll, Voices, Hoodoo, Doiron and others have already said, they might make the game inherently impossible to balance: how can you compare the strengths of card A and card B if they work towards totally different goals? Also how to make sure no cards are too good in either deck type? It's already hard enough to balance grabbing additional wells against keeping at one well and wiping opponent out completely.