Honest Idea for fixing overly strong master cards!

Kushiel wrote:

And yet somehow those Girls decks aren't winning every tournament they're being played in, in spite of most other decks sucking against them. Mostly it's just when Hugh or Erik plays the Girls that they win - I know where I think that causal chain originates, just as when Vignes was the most hated flavor of the month and people didn't seem to notice that it was generally awesome players who were winning with it.

You say they aren't winning disproportionately often, I say they might be.

I notice nobody else has responded to this point, which Izaak made earlier in the thread, but I don't really expect them to due to how the pattern of I-Hate-the-New-Flavor! plays out.

I could remark about how pointing out the I-Hate-the-New-Flavor! pattern falls into the Nothing-Is-Ever-Wrong-With-the-Game-So-Stop-Talking! pattern but that would be a non-argument with no relevance to a discussion about the potential effects of Girls on the tournament scene. Instead of trying to undermine the credibility of those with opposing views I choose to address the actual issue.

Suoli wrote:

I've heard people say that but I haven't heard any convincing arguments. The TWDA isn't very strong proof if you don't adjust for the difficulty of acquiring multiple Villeins, Ashurs and Liquidations.

If that difficulty is a real factor, and Girls decks are so hard to build that few people can do so, there's even less chance that the archetype is going to somehow warp the metagame in the same "play it or play to beat it" way that Return to Innocence did.

Yeah, I guess.

Suoli wrote:

I contend that against past [hated new deck type]s it was enough for most decks to add countermeasures but against Girls most decks outright suck.

What evidence is this contention based on? I hear a lot of bitterness on these boards about Girls; other than that, I don't see them winning more than any other Tier One deck, which indicates that people seem to be beating it just as well as any other good deck.

It indicates that there is no proof positive of them winning a lot. The reason for that could be that Girls are as easy to beat as other decks, that the metagame has already shifted against them, that they don't get played as often as other decks but still show up in the TWDA, that they get played way more than other decks but royally suck, that the archetype hasn't caught on yet or any number of things.

I don't think it's very practical to limit our analysis of the game to strictly empirical methods. We're just never going to have the level of hard data that would require. As a result, any useful insights on the game are ultimately going to be based on subjective experiences and deduction.

Kushiel wrote:

I only jumped into this thread to dispute the argument that the emergence of Girls on the tournament scene is going to somehow be a black hole of tournament deckbuilding, as I don't really care enough to argue about the specific merits/weaknesses/artwork/whatever of the Girls deck itself. It's just...this New Deck Hate? It's happened before, and will happen again.

Broken cards have happened before. Broken cards have been banned before and the game has been better for it. The proper way to identify which pattern is occurring would be to examine the specifics. I understand if you're not interested in that but I hope that you'll also understand why I disagree.

Golconda gives you however much pool your minion is worth or two point offense.

Villein/LG/GB gives you practically free minions.

Ashurs give extra pool and ability to play what you want.

All that easy master-based pool gain just makes this game more boring to me. How much can you gain pool with minion cards? Dark Mirror of the Mind, 2 pool with a big guy, blockable. Breed Boon, well, lots of pool but all that's blockable and hosed by the easy Scourge of the Enochians. What sort of actions you usually block from your prey? Bloat actions is what I'd go for. How do you prevent master bloat? With other masters and that's it.

Let's have an event that makes extra MPA's cost 2 pool. Then we'll have one more lol card to include in every deck.

nc-italy wrote:

Maybe even lessening the number of card retrieved (13 is a huge amount
for a clanless and disciplineless and no-cost card such ashur; it's over 4 card retrieved per single ashur slot in the deck, sudario refraction
stops at 3 and it's a blockable and clanned action)

This is not a fait comparison: Sudario brings the 3 cards you need right now back in your hand, 3 Ashur only get 1 card back in hand. I like the idea of Ashur bringing back minion cards only, though.