Una Freak Drive

@TapeTaChatte: sorry, i thought we were talking about regular Una decks. But that deck you posted looks awesome

TapeTaChatte wrote:

Ashur wrote:

So it boils down to the classic pair of questions in this classic discussion: Is the "solitaire style"-decks fun? (I think not) Are they good? (Most people seem to think not) So, they can be said to be neither fun or good - so why allow them to exist? If the only argument is "For diversity", I´m sad.

While not being super fun and not super good, they are not really unfun and not really bad, they are in the middle-class on both sides, depending on deck choices.

Happily, we do not sum up the games to only good and fun decks, and it's not the diversity question, it's the freedom question: freedom for any player to plays as he wants/likes/feels and achieves toward the deck whatever goal he wants

This might be my fault – I probably wasn't clear. Diversity of elements to choose from breeds/allows freedom of choice. If everything is homogenous, you may as well be free to choose from green apple, red apple, sweet apple, sour apple; it will still be apple. That's what I was going for.

Being able to hunt more than once in a turn is fundamental part of the game because there is no rule prohibiting it. We want to fundamentally change the game (ie, introduce a new rule) for one deck type that's mildly annoying? And what would you call the person taking 20 minutes in one turn to play their Una deck? A genius? I prefer to call them a dick.

Sérgio wrote:

juggernaut1981 wrote:

If you are relying on a 'silver bullet' to beat a deck, then you are relying on card draw chances and deckbuilding choices. Both of these are not in-game decisions, they are not placing the player in a position of making meaningful choices and dis-empower the player.

Why should deckbuilding not be an integral, key aspect of a CCG?… And what you speak of already happens: most decks have some way to bounce bleeds, because bleed decks are so common. The same with combat and politics (at least I don't leave the house without 2-4 delaying tactics, even in a wall). Teching for Una is no different, I feel.
Not to mention that if you want decisions in-game you want the most variety possible of decks – imagine if all decks were the same. What in-game decisions are here, that can't be predicted (to a point) by algorithms?

But in this you miss the point. Most decks carry bleed defense, because most decks also bleed. Political Action decks are moderately common and so plenty of decks contain some defense against them.

In effect you are asking people to carry a silver bullet to deal with Una. It is the same argument that surrounds Pentex Subversion. The reasons for changing Pentex are to basically remove the need for dealing with Pentex via a Silver Bullet mechanic.

I am not saying that Weenie Dementation is not effective, or that many people find playing against The Vignes frustrating, or that often a combat deck wrecks half the table and ousts nobody...

I am saying that:

1. the Una deck has the capacity to convert card-draw risks into a silver-bullet risk and then reduce all future risks. It does this by taking all of its card-based actions in as few turns as possible.
2. the Una Deck because of its reliance on permanent tech, can clearly telegraph the success of actions taken by pred/prey. Similar for combat.
3. these two translate into a loss of meaningful choices for other players, reducing the thrill of the game for others
4. loss of agency (ability for your choices to affect the outcome) and feeling entirely at the whim of chance (you must frequently get lucky card draw to succeed) reduce the experience of the game for others

I am not against the game having chance, risk and so on. I am also for the game to be in effect a constant attrition and dislike mechanics that drastically change that attrition path (Journal, Voter Cap, Ashur Tablets, etc).

I don't want to see players sitting at a game for 2h because once Una took her 'super turn' that person knows that the contents of their deck can't beat Una's permanent items on the table. There was no real way for that player to know that the Una deck would appear in that form and they are now stuck with no meaningful decisions to make.