Emerald Legionnaire — First Black Chantry Nerf?

Khaan wrote:

Ive played vs EL decks a handful of times. Both more normal (non-turbo) and some semiturbo (gotchas obf-version with burn option). Not the alcoan version tho.

My impression is that liquidation and unmasking are bigger problems, which just happen to act as catalysts/enablers for the EL strat.

Unmasking hasn't been a problem on the scale of real magnitude since Edge Explosion went to the ban list. It enables Ally strategies. All of them. No Unmasking, theres like 3 ally archetypes that remain playable at sll.

Liquidation.....
I've complained about it since Liliths Blessing was still legal. The "cleanest"(least broken and cheesy) deck to run more than a single copy of Liquidation is turbo Shambler decks. Those play similar to the most efficient war ghoul decks I've ever been beaten on by, but have WAY higher likelihood of getting setup for crazy by turn 3/4.
Everything else with more than a single liquidation that has pretty much ever won since its printing in 10AE is MMPA of various flavors. Primary Girls (Aksynia, Cybele, Nana,etc) AAA MMPA/Anson 9+tablets variants, or Nana stuff(still popular) .
Villein needed the nerf, but if Liquidation ever hit the chopping block, Anthelios wouldn't have been as broken and the MMPA deck fixing combo wouldn't have been as strong, so LB could've stayed around (because Lutz and Toy decks used it less cheatingly than MMPA decks).

I have enough liquidation and tablets to run it, but on principle wont. Its uninteractive solitaire and not fun VTES. Liquidation makes too many decks feel like an Una deck.

If it dumped 7, then removed 7 at random from Ash heap, it would be less broke. It's so broke I'd bump the DNR to next unlock phase.

Liquidation ONLY enables decks that discourage player resources interacting.
Unmasking forces said resources to interact, and Tablets can make key parts of a game keep happening once they would otherwise be exhausted.

Erlik is stupid good, EL are quite good, it's Viable HoS, which was a joke a year ago. This statement remains true in the absence on Liquidation.

(EDIT: oh, also, if we change or ban it fast enough, BC can modify the Anthology sets heading to print accordingly. )

ReverendRevolver wrote:

Unmasking hasn't been a problem on the scale of real magnitude since Edge Explosion went to the ban list. It enables Ally strategies. All of them. No Unmasking, theres like 3 ally archetypes that remain playable at sll.

Getting a little off topic here, but I take issue with this. Unmasking enables ally decks to block vampires, not to bleed or do other cool stuff. Really annoying when you consider how many actions are at 1 stealth that often get through that can get blocked any time Unmasking is in play. Also, you need twice as much stealth to bleed vs a blocking minion, by default.

Easy fix for Liquidation would be to make it remove the cards from the game instead of putting them in your ashheap.

Klaital wrote:

Easy fix for Liquidation would be to make it remove the cards from the game instead of putting them in your ashheap.

I would be more inclined to ban liquidation, since no normal deck uses it; and the decks that DO use it, try to break it (ashur tablets, legionnaires). I kind of like the combo aspect though.

However, I still don't think we need any knee-jerk reactions regarding legionnaires. People just have to start adapting to the metagame.

Regards: guy who played legionnaires in our last local tournament (when 3 out of 5 people want you ousted, can't do much)

ReverendRevolver wrote:

Unmasking hasn't been a problem on the scale of real magnitude since Edge Explosion went to the ban list. It enables Ally strategies. All of them. No Unmasking, theres like 3 ally archetypes that remain playable at sll.

I'm going to differ with your opinion here (I think). Unmasking MAKES ally decks. It's not enabling.....it's creating highly powered constructions. Look at the records.....all of the good ally-focused decks you'll see run 2-5 copies of the card. It's a linchpin that becomes a problem on Pentex-like scales.

There's no reason for a non-interactive, nigh-unburnable card to provide 6-8 points of intercept, regardless of how it gets distributed across the receiving minions. And that doens't even count the spurious table-wide "Blockturn" kind of BS that I see every tournament. The Unmasking is a bad card that promotes wallish play (if not wallish designs) and that is apparent when you see War Ghouls, Nephandi and Cry Wolves choosing to block over all other courses of action. Unmasking is probably #2 on my "ban the thing now" list.

With respect to the rest of the conversation......really the issue seems to be recursion as a mechanic. Tablets. Sargon. Legionnaire. Sudario. All bad. Anything that rewards a player for putting a primary, pre-constructed resource in the trash and rebuilding that resource at the point of play quite simply violates a core underpinning of deckbuilding games.

IMO, these things should go.....every frigging one of them. But starting with the less interactive ones is a great place to start. All that said, I'm still not sure that EL was the best card printed for Harbingers in that set.....

TryDeflectingThisGrapple wrote:

The Unmasking is a bad card that promotes wallish play

Am I correct in assuming you consider wallish decks inappropriate for the game?
Not proper decks at all?

I think that is strange thought as wall decks are an entirely viable for winning the game. How they do it is just a bit different than, say bleedy or political decks. Removing or downplaying such a way to win would lessen the game, especially as walldeck is one of the original/ early archetypes.