Emerald Legionnaire — First Black Chantry Nerf?

mjvtes521 wrote:

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.

Lackey really is vtes on crack. The fact that every player has infinite copies of every card and there is no need to spend time rifling through cards speeds evolution up, not to mention the cultural exchange program. I am playing with people from all around the world. You can play a deck and make changes to the list for future games while you play. Casual games on lackey are more challenging than local tournaments.

This may be hard to believe, but it is true.

Mewcat wrote:

This may be hard to believe, but it is true.

With the introduction of the leagues this is only accelerating.

Lackey is the the Canary of V:TES, often ground breaking decks / broken ideas are seen and tested there long before they make the TWDA / tournament.

Mewcat wrote:

mjvtes521 wrote:

Casual games on lackey are more challenging than local tournaments.

This may be hard to believe, but it is true.

I do find that hard to believe, so I'm installing Lackey as we speak (I mean as I type). I'd been playing on Lackey regularly couple of years ago, but then I stopped due to lack of flavour of face-to-face play. It's about taste, so I'm not arguing on that, but as I've gathered from my old playing experience on Lackey, I don't consider it AS relevant to realtime VtES as you guys do. I think behind a pc, even with mics and cams on, the game loses crucial elements, especially in comparison to a tournament (including like cheating methods I'm not aware of). But I'm ready to test my beliefs

But we are a bit drifted from topic. Reacting to mjvtes521's depiction, I don't find this such an irresistible combo. I totally agree that if it sits in the right place, can and will abuse EL usage, but
1, If you sit next to a combat deck, you have to chance to get pounded (although I've not seen his combat package).
2, I'm really surprised if you ensure EL-s by one block denial and +1 stealth. Even a toolbox can deal with this, but a dedicated blocker surely will.
3, A rush deck, if it is able, could easily target both Alcoan or the first EL. If you totally empty your deck and the first EL gets hit, it is all over as I see.
4, Not to mention cross table deals to do the same, or such actions or blocks against your deck, espeically if the table agrees on wanting to remove the possibility of a billion EL.

These things could easily happen, and not even metachanging or counterdecking factors. But I'm just being theoretical here, I have to go up against these Turbo ELs with my casual decks be certain.

Malachy wrote:

I do find that hard to believe, so I'm installing Lackey as we speak (I mean as I type).

It makes sense though, since these are the same experienced players as offline, having played decades, but now can play together over huge distances with infinite card inventory. Lackey is perfect testing ground for ideas and finding out whats broken. In real life metagame progress is much slower where people can be affected by card availability or refusal to play proxies.

Lackey doesn't have all good players though, but recently theres been more and more Finnish players finding it at least. Myself included.

Malachy wrote:

Mewcat wrote:

mjvtes521 wrote:

Casual games on lackey are more challenging than local tournaments.

This may be hard to believe, but it is true.

I do find that hard to believe, so I'm installing Lackey as we speak (I mean as I type). I'd been playing on Lackey regularly couple of years ago, but then I stopped due to lack of flavour of face-to-face play. It's about taste, so I'm not arguing on that, but as I've gathered from my old playing experience on Lackey, I don't consider it AS relevant to realtime VtES as you guys do. I think behind a pc, even with mics and cams on, the game loses crucial elements, especially in comparison to a tournament (including like cheating methods I'm not aware of). But I'm ready to test my beliefs

But we are a bit drifted from topic. Reacting to mjvtes521's depiction, I don't find this such an irresistible combo. I totally agree that if it sits in the right place, can and will abuse EL usage, but
1, If you sit next to a combat deck, you have to chance to get pounded (although I've not seen his combat package).
2, I'm really surprised if you ensure EL-s by one block denial and +1 stealth. Even a toolbox can deal with this, but a dedicated blocker surely will.
3, A rush deck, if it is able, could easily target both Alcoan or the first EL. If you totally empty your deck and the first EL gets hit, it is all over as I see.
4, Not to mention cross table deals to do the same, or such actions or blocks against your deck, espeically if the table agrees on wanting to remove the possibility of a billion EL.

So first off, I didn't say that Lackey was more challenging than local tournaments, I think it was Mewcat that said that. But I actually think that is true since some of the best players in the world are playing regularly on Lackey with access to every card in the game and a deck editor function that makes creating decks a breeze.

My problem with Bill's Alcoan deck was how quickly and cheaply he can get 7-8 Legionairres in play. It was a 4-player game with me across from Bill. My prey had 11 caps using Nightmare Curse and my pred had weenie bleeders. I was playing a Samedi Rush combat deck and rushed at him cross table as soon as I had a ready minion in my minion phase. I went first and so got Mambo Jeanne (9-cap) out on turn 3 and rushed and torpored Alcoan on turn 4. But Bill already had 8 Legionairres by the time I could rush. When each other Methusaleh has 0 or only one other minion (or a couple weenies with no intercept), and Alcoan has the perfect hand after Infernal Pursuit, then yes, it is impossible to stop the first Legionairre being successfully recruited besides a few cornercase cards. And don't say DI, because unless it is Dark Influences, he likely just plays another Legionairre from his hand that he surely drew during the Infernal Pursuit combat. I find that to be a broken mechanic, especially for the cost of one pool on one action, with the only requirement being one acting Harbinger.

I had a great deck to deal with his legionairres, and still couldn't stop that combo from occurring. It didn't matter that Alcoan was in torpor with no blood on turn 4, since he already had 8 legionairres in play by that time that would just bring back others that I killed. I mean, not forever, but he had enough in his ash heap that he could bring 2-3 more back from the dead.

Now I understand that this particular deck is kind of a one trick pony and won't work every single time, but come on, that deck is at a huge advantage over other decks, even if they meta against it by packing some ally stealing cards, Ancilla Empowerment, or a couple other cards that make their deck worse against all non EL decks. And with Liquidation, it's pretty darned easy to get out a swarm of Legionairres (maybe 3-4 instead of 7-8, but still) after just successfully recruiting one Legionairre for one pool (or for free if it's with Erebus). So to me, that is broken and unfair.

Both of these types of decks would easily be fixed and not OP, if you just limited the EL unlock ability to one (or two) per turn. I prefer limiting them to two per turn, since Harbingers needed the help, just not this much. I for one think that Harbingers should get an ally that is more powerful for the same cost than other allies, since the player using them has the restriction of needing to play with a crappy clan (not nearly as crappy, but still definitely at a disadvantage). They would still be great allies with that restriction, and there would still be several new tournament-worthy Harbingers decks out there than there was before Lost Kindred was released. But the combo wouldn't be unstoppable, and would be more appropriately costed.

Legionnaires are fine.

People play bad decks and think stuff that worked in the 90’s still work... for some random reason.

Newsflash it wont.

There is plenty of stuff that counter legionnaires: guns, walls, entrancement on the first legionnaire, even any goddamn stealth bleed that is fast enough as a predator(read: any deck with presence/dominate/dementation)

Remember the times when you couldn’t dodge Anarch Revolts and there was Anthelios... that stuff was op!

Maybe, just maybe if you play the worst clan that has no interraction against allies you shouldn’t whine about losing to allies...