Emerald Legionnaire — First Black Chantry Nerf?

Did you just call it a witch hunt?

#fakenews

Bloodartist wrote:

DJHedgehog wrote:

It's not a comparison at all. The only similarity is a high number of minions. Legionnaires happen much more quickly, don't require drawing a master, and only requires one successful action. Apples and oranges as far as I'm concerned.

Lolwut

You are free to showcase us how are you going to cycle your deck sufficiently for legionnaires without actions or masters..

Maybe I should have expanded upon that. Week of nightmares needs to be drawn and played *after* you set up your minions. It's once per game and has drawbacks. Liquidation costs nothing and gains you 3 pool while furthering your overall strategy.

You can safely pack 5-7 liquidation in your deck and that's that. If you play 5-7 week of nightmares you're going to have a bad time.

I stand by my action comment. Tuminos have to be drawn and then played as a successful action *each time*. EL require 1 to be drawn and 1 action to be successful.

That isn't to say that Week of Nightmares is weak. I think it's a strong effect, but it lends itself to one line of play which is "clown car". And there are lots of game designed ways to interact with the deck that don't require specific "deck tech". You can block the breeding, fight their minions, bleed at stealth. All three basic strategies have a chance against Week of Nightmares.

Malachy wrote:

I'm not seeing TWDs with this archytpye left and right, only a Lackey picture. Here we haven't met with such imbalance you described. Anytime I saw EL decks, in most cases the table was able to deal with it.

There have been 3 decks on the TWD as tournament winners and at least 1 more that hasn't been added from Martin. 4 wins in 4 months sounds solid to me.

The comparison to Week of Nightmares was made, so I checked and there have been 5 week of nightmare deck wins in the last 5 years.

To me that seems like it's worth looking at.

Bloodartist wrote:

TwoRazorReign wrote:

So what I'm trying to get at is has anybody actively tried to thwart an Emerald Legionnaire deck (either using Ancilla Empowerment or whatever else works against allies) and failed, or is this thread just a knee-jerk reaction to a powerful card being introduced? In other words, is the card really "broken," or do people just not want to have something new affecting their metagame (for whatever reason)? I'm trying to understand the thinking behind why one would ask for a "nerf" instead of dealing with Emerald Legionnaire actively in-game.

From what I have seen, is basically people refusing to metagame against them, adapt, or adjust their decks. Have vote decks put extra ancilla emp or two in their decks? The answer so far has been no.

DJHedgehog wrote:

It's not a comparison at all. The only similarity is a high number of minions. Legionnaires happen much more quickly, don't require drawing a master, and only requires one successful action. Apples and oranges as far as I'm concerned.

Lolwut

You are free to showcase us how are you going to cycle your deck sufficiently for legionnaires without actions or masters..

First off, let me say that I never want to see cards banned. I don't think any of these other cards mentioned should be banned, or even nerfed. I don't think Liquidation should be banned or nerfed, since in normal circumstances it has a significant enough drawback that I don't normally put it in my decks. It is a full master, reduces your hand size for your whole turn, and makes you lose some good cards from the top of your deck. It is Legionairres that make Liquidation unfairly strong. They should be nerfed because there are deck builds possible that allow you to get 8 or more of them on turn 3 or 4 for the cost of 1 pool and only 1 action. Bill's deck proved that the card needs modification in my opinion. I don't have the decklist, but spoke with him about it. All it needs is one rush in hand and then it is impossible to stop. Alcoan has CEL and fortitude. So the deck has rushes, Legionairres, a ton of Infernal Pursuit, a couple Forced March and Zephyr for 100% unlock after the rush, and then one or two copies of all the cards that keep other decks from stopping it. He rushes, and whether he is blocked or not, gets to fill his ash heap with a ton of cards as well as getting the the perfect hand for preventing anybody from stopping the swarm of Legionairres. He has Call of the Hungry Dead and Spectral Div to ensure he gets the one recruit action through. He has Dark Influences, Delaying, and Poison Pill to counter Ally steal, Ancilla Empowerment, Kindred Seg, Anarchist Uprising, etc. And he only has to DI the ally steal once since he only needs the one to last until his next turn when he automatically brings in 8+ more Legionairres that cost nothing, can't be stopped from coming into play, and can all act right away. Once there are tons of Legionairres out, ally steal makes no difference, since it is just 1 of many, and when it dies, it goes back to owner's ash heap to then come out again for free. Then he has Anu Diptinatpa to make 7 of the legionairres bleed for 2 each. And Jake Washington to fill Anu back up to 4 more bleed boost for the next turn.

I love Legionairres, they are a fun card that Harbingers needed. I have won two tournaments with Legionairre decks and think it is a really fun card. But IMO, Bill's deck proves that the design is a little off (broken, but fixable). Bill's deck abuses this new mechanic in a way that makes it almost always unstoppable no matter what counter you have to normal swarm ally decks, and costs only 1 pool.

DJ, Mewcat, and I play on Lackey a lot, so we have all seen several Legionairre decks, many many times. So this is no knee jerk reaction. I've seen plenty of people trying to meta against Legionairres. I didn't think they needed nerfing until I saw Bill's deck. This is a new mechanic, unlike anything else that exists in VTES, and Bill's deck shows that it is unfairly strong and broken. I only suggest that it be limited in the amount of Legionairres that can use their ability per turn. I suggest it be limited to "no more than two Legionairres can enter play during your unlock phase."

I think DJ Hedgehog said it that Lackey is an accelerated way to test cards, meta, etc. It hasn't flooded the TWDA yet (well it kind of has) because it is still a new card, but it will. When you play almost daily on Lackey, you see the card in action many times, and you can see that this is an easy fix that needs to happen. Not a knee jerk reaction.

DJHedgehog wrote:

There have been 3 decks on the TWD as tournament winners and at least 1 more that hasn't been added from Martin. 4 wins in 4 months sounds solid to me.

The comparison to Week of Nightmares was made, so I checked and there have been 5 week of nightmare deck wins in the last 5 years.

To me that seems like it's worth looking at.

WoN is a poor comparison for TWDA statistics - it was missing the 'breed' component when it first showed up in FN, the first winning deck using WoN is from 2002 (one year after release).

Try these for comparison: Zillah's Valley also got its first 4 wins in 4 months. Deep Song got 13 wins in 10 months. Ashur Tablets had 8 wins at 4 months. None of these have been nerfed.