VtES history

elotar wrote:

What others think about this? Do somebody have a list of such decks/strategies? I, for example, never thought that chameleon is a problematic card.

By decreasing order of annoyance (completely subjective):
1) Decks that do not let players take turns, e.g. Una or Madness Reversal.
2) Effects that prevent putting minions into play, e.g. Brainwash and vampire contest.
3) Cards that take out minions, e.g. Sensory Deprivation, Chameleon, ToGP, Pentex in a wall, Eldest Command Undeath .
4) Cards that prevent playing cards, e.g. Gehenna spam.
5) Bad rush, i.e. crater every minion without attacking pool,
6) Bad wall, i.e. block everything and let the table draw at 0.5vp.

Table dynamics tend to balance things out, because crippling one's prey only opens the table for one's grandprey. However, not everyone acknowledges that, so game design might be tweaked to improve table experience in the presence of contrarian players.

Bloodartist wrote:

As an anecdote: Couple years back, in our local games, a person played a deck that stole all of my minions with chameleon. I could do nothing, and was forced to sit an hour twiddling my thumbs waiting to get ousted, and after that even more to get back my powerbase montreal that had been stolen(reminding why this rule is also not great). This made me extremely angry (not that such cards existed, but that somebody would bring such a deck to a casual gaming night) and I stormed out of the establishment and essentially quit playing VTES for six months. I harbored enmity toward that player for a longer while afterwards (I've since gotten over it). If you want to drive new players away from the game, I suggest no more than playing cards that suck fun out of the game. That was closest I came to quitting VTES altogether.

my 10 cents worth of wall of text

Ouchie, my most sincere apology.
If I remember correctly, first three games we played together you had the distict bad luck playing either as my predator or prey with my deck always being scissors to whatever (paper) strategy you had chosen to play that day.

That first game with Chameleons, I had just build the deck first time and did not know how to play it properly (don't know if I still do). Stealing your Nergal seemed good idea at the time with the other option (to steal) being my prey's 5 cap. This of course only ended giving game to my grandpredator, who made short work of your pool. In hindsight I should have let you keep the Nergal and just bounce his bleeds forward. As I had no obfuscate in my deck,Nergal's standing +2 bleed did little to no good to me and also costed me quite a few pool in form of infernal penalties.

Whisker wrote:

That first game with Chameleons, I had just build the deck first time and did not know how to play it properly (don't know if I still do). Stealing your Nergal seemed good idea at the time with the other option (to steal) being my prey's 5 cap. This of course only ended giving game to my grandpredator, who made short work of your pool. In hindsight I should have let you keep the Nergal and just bounce his bleeds forward. As I had no obfuscate in my deck,Nergal's standing +2 bleed did little to no good to me and also costed me quite a few pool in form of infernal penalties.

I have never played Nergal, so you may be confusing me with someone else. In any case, this is ancient history by now. My deckbuilding skills (and hopefully my playing skills) have improved since then and I don't feel helpless during games as much anymore. My own decks have also gotten stronger and put other players in similar positions every once in a while. We had a discussion recently where we agreed that our local gaming groups decks have gotten "less casual" during the last year..

As for the topic, its mainly the principle in card design that I would like to see enforced more during future expansions. Cards that prevent player from doing anything or cards that spoil everyone's game equally without advancing anybodys victory (gehennas) are in my opinion poor design, and make the game simply less fun to play. Less fun to play will often transpose into "less new players staying with the game".

We can "go easier" on new players, but until we actually get new players this issue is not very high priority.. One "gentlemans agreement" to consider when playing with new players might be for example to not diablerize vampires. Diablerie equals removing a players minion, which often translates to "not being able to do anything". Its a strong option during tournaments but maybe not a good idea when playing casual games with beginners. As long as vampire is only torporized, it can at least be saved by someone else.

ps. I no longer consider myself a beginner. Don't have to go easy on me.

Bloodartist wrote:

As for the topic, its mainly the principle in card design that I would like to see enforced more during future expansions. Cards that prevent player from doing anything or cards that spoil everyone's game equally without advancing anybodys victory (gehennas) are in my opinion poor design, and make the game simply less fun to play. Less fun to play will often transpose into "less new players staying with the game".

Even if this principle is enforced with future additions, I'm not sure it is going to address the issue you have with the game. I mean, stopping other players from doing things is part of the core game mechanics (blocking, intercept, torpor, etc). Now, one issue I hear a lot from people who have tried VTES and didn't like it is that every single action can be blocked. So I understand the concern about the it not being fun for a player to have everything their deck does prevented. But there's really no fixing this. The only way around it is to eschew blinded deck building. That is, use prebuilt decks that will interact well, and it will guarantee a good game. Sure, people will know what decks everybody is playing, and there's no metagaming. But the cards still need to be shuffled, and there's plenty of fun to be had even with added knowledge of everyone's deck. And this manipulates the "rock/paper/scissors" dynamic in a way that will ensure an enjoyable game, not an unlucky, crappy game.

We can "go easier" on new players, but until we actually get new players this issue is not very high priority.. One "gentlemans agreement" to consider when playing with new players might be for example to not diablerize vampires. Diablerie equals removing a players minion, which often translates to "not being able to do anything". Its a strong option during tournaments but maybe not a good idea when playing casual games with beginners. As long as vampire is only torporized, it can at least be saved by someone else.

(1): That "gentelman's agreement" Is not fun for the player whose deck is built around the concept of diablerizing vampires. (2): If the player has such a deck, what's stopping that player from bringing it to a game and breaking that agreement? That you'll tsk tsk them? That's not going to work. Deals get broken all the time in VTES. Really, if you're concerned about making things easy and a good experience for new players, just use prebuilt decks that will interact well. People who demo the game use prebuilt decks for a reason...

Bloodartist wrote:

...make the game simply less fun to play. Less fun to play will often transpose into "less new players staying with the game".

Some more statistics - there are as of 2016 15-21 million mtg players, from them 1 million (~5%) registered DCI players (have played at local tournaments), from them 65000 (~6%) players played in a GP+ (international) level.

General 1:20 ratio for me looks quite right.

The problem for VtES, as I see it, is that the game as is works at GP level, but all levels lower than that are kind of "broken", especially the lowest (casual) one.

You can pile together some cards and play a fun game of magic, you can't do the same for VtES. Actually is possibility that the game will be not fun when you came there with top netdeck.

The evolution of a ccg player, as I see it:
1) have bought some introductory material
2) played casually with a friends, have fun
3) bought supplements, practise with deckbuilding, still have fun but understand, that "arms race" not really works in a "kitchen" environment
4) made first "real deck", played at local tournament, lose but still has fun as well as understanding of how he should make better deck and what mistakes he have done as a player
5) continue to participate at local level with better decks gaining more experience
6) visit "Big" event for curiosity reasons, have fun, see real depth of the game
7) became "international" player

We got (7) working for a while, (6) is working with the GP circuit, there are some local events, but (with small exception in some enthusiastic locations) they are not very regular, most levels lower than that are not existent, especially first ones.

It's understandable, that VEKN, being mostly experienced players, do not really interested in casual play, but without such foundation the system will not work. If you are a hardcore player you still need somebody to compete with.

As I see of now - there is design team (and others - artists, play testers ets.) who are making great work with a new sets. They generate some interest in high level crowd, so maybe we can maintain participation of ~150 at EC and "quorum" at other big events for a while, but even local events are rapidly dying.

Which, for me, is obvious - casual players fuel local events, if there are none than after a while it became boring for the same crowd to sparry with each other - there is no meta overhaul each season like in mtg, experimenting with new decks is not liked by everybody e t.s.

TLDR: If we agree that there are elements which are "not fun", why we keep them in the game?

Update: prebuilt decks. They, obviously, work for a demo (I' actually, seriously doubt that demos work, but it's other question). But they in my experience don't work at any level after that - any new player I've seen wants to modify the deck after getting basic knowledge of a game.

TwoRazorReign wrote:

[stopping other players from doing things is part of the core game mechanics (blocking, intercept, torpor, etc).

It's actually a serious problem and I not thing it is an unsolvable one.

For example I was often found of an Ambush card. Not for power reasons (lolz) but because it was both thematic and interesting in play - you can stay untapped and be safe, or you can act but may be ambushed. Everybody is playing with bums rush and deep song, obviously, but if there will be no such cards...

The same with blocking and torpor. Dumb wall which just blocks and do nothing is very easy to make. It may not win tables, but in will totally screw it's predator. But if there will be no cardless diablery action/reaction...