Card of the Week 7/28

[DanTheTimid]

And here I was considering spending $20 for some gran... now I probably won't.

Well with 20 bucks you might get you enough cards to play one of the other clans instead of Refess. If you do still want to play Refess and you haven't gotten a Dispel yet 20 bucks does give you a pretty good chance at getting one of those and their pretty much required for every Refess card file right now to deal with Killing Machine Labeau. All though their much weaker then they used to be in the Japanese version, Saber Saint Lapierre and Dragon Rider Weisser are both interesting and cool looking Refess cards you might be able to pull as well. Heck, who knows, maybe you'll get brutal inquisitor and you'll be the one to find the combo necessary to actually make it work well.

There's also the possibility that I'm still hoping for, that Refess gets un-tweaked, and their cards work like they did in the Japanese again (or atleast a little closer to it) in which case Lapierre and Weisser were both amazing in the Japanese version so they'd definitely be worth trying to pull from packs. Of course I wouldn't count on that happening so if that's what your hoping for you might want to sit on your money for the moment, but I wouldn't necessarily give up on the game and spend it some where else.

[Phades]

2300 gran would be enough to get himself 2 refress starters and 2 booster packs. This would mean 3 holy lights, cure, raise shields, brutal inquisitors, guardian sphynx, rapid shot archers, and a whole mess of cards to recycle just off the starter packs. Those recycled cards would easily get 3 more booster packs (probably more), which should fill in with some more rare cards that might be useful.

As far as dispel goes, i still have yet to receive one as well... So, i could possibly be the least lucky person here.

[Logress]

Okay, that's it... I've had it.
The Japanese where very worried about all the balance issues being reported on Refess, so they went through some more playtesting last week... and they said that it seem to play fine, and was balanced with the other four colors. So either the Japanese brain has an extra lobe just for playing Refess, or something's amiss here. As of now, I'm not playing anymore Falkow (and my Black Cat deck is undefeated, too...). I'm going to switch to Refess and play the crap out of it until I figure out what's going on.
I checked the rankings this week and there are a few Refess in the top 20, shy of the 5 they should have but considering like 5% of the players are Refess i think that's well above average. Ironically, two of last week's top 20 switched from Refess to Gowen this week, and both their rankings dropped after (although that could be for any number of reasons). A few of the top Refess players have really, really good records. I have noticed one thing, there was a time when everyone thought Gowen was useless, then there was a time everyone thought Lawtia was useless. In both those cases this turned around when someone found a cheap, easy way to tweak the starter for maximum effect. This hasn't happened yet for Refess. (One could argue it's not necessary for Falkow -- add another Voredore, dummy). Whatever we're missing in the Refess camp, the one thing I've got hard numbers on is the lack of Iczers. Gowen and Lawtia have literally a thousand players each trying new things, perfecting what works, etc. It's not just that Refess are dropping out either, almost all new accounts are either Gowen or Lawtia, and while much less are Falkow the Falkow tend to become regulars so they kind of average out a little by the time you get to level 10. It could be that the style of Refess doesn't play as well in America, so the average new user just goes to Gowen or Lawtia. Let's face it, us Americans like our dragons and we like our vampires. Another possibility is that when new users troll the forums looking for some direction, they see lots of threads about Refess problems. I can tell you that before someone discovered LeBeau's effectiveness and the forums were full of threads about how broken Lawtia was, we got a lot less new Lawtia players.

Whatever the case, I'm going to put my money where my mouth is and start playing Refess excusively. I might come back here with some good ideas, or I might make a total fool out of myself. That is always an option. If that happens, I'll be the first in line to complain to the Japanese.

[azarael]

Did the Japanese playtest Refess with only the starter set or additional ones? I'm thinking the the starter set specifically is underpowered, as it doesn't have enough of the Refess cards with higher AGI. I know that it's not the fastest clan, but I don't think it should always be going last.

-Azarael

[Grain]

Whatever the case, I'm going to put my money where my mouth is and start playing Refess excusively. I might come back here with some good ideas, or I might make a total fool out of myself. That is always an option. If that happens, I'll be the first in line to complain to the Japanese.

What?!

You're messing with the group dynamics!

What will all the Falkow Iczers say?

[Eeyore]

It's been hit on before, but the main reason I believe Refess is so unpopular is that this game rewards people who win, not those who stick it out and grind levels through the thick and thin with one-dimensional decks to get the more valuable cards so they can finally start to be at equal footing.

In reality by the time they finally obtain those cards their opponents who have been winning more matches in general, therefore more Treasure Battles for possibly valuable cards, and also will gain more levels since this game HEAVILY weights the gaining of experience to those who win battles.

Refess has plenty of strategies to have a winning record once they obtain Dispel, Lappiere, Priest Abel and Pheonix who has Full Cure ability. With the starter they are very one dimensional. If your opponent can take out two cards Refess has a slim chance of winning (Spearwoman and Zagar).

To be honest the games takes too long to invest the amount of time it requires if you're not winning matches. Losing is such a slap in the face that you're practically forced to play as competitive a deck as possible so you can acquire additional cards. I've created an account for each clan. I started with Refess > Gowen > Falkow > then finally succumbed to the Lawtia Labeua effect.

Gowen is still my favorite. And I will immediately switch back to them as soon as I obtain Bounty Hunter, Dispel, Labeua or some expansion card that will help me have a chance against Lawtia. Until then I will only log on to play the Mirage Master and use the Lottery every 3rd day.

My two cents.

[Grain]

Refess has plenty of strategies to have a winning record once they obtain Dispel, Lappiere, Priest Abel and Pheonix who has Full Cure ability. .

Phoenix is a very expensive card. I doubt it could even be played well against Lawtia.

Level 6, and it's close skill costs 3 SP. Perhaps I could use it if I obtained the Refess Mazoku card.

[Phades]

Refess has plenty of strategies to have a winning record once they obtain Dispel, Lappiere, Priest Abel and Pheonix who has Full Cure ability. .

Phoenix is a very expensive card. I doubt it could even be played well against Lawtia.

Level 6, and it's close skill costs 3 SP. Perhaps I could use it if I obtained the Refess Mazoku card.

Assuming you aren't being dominated by lawita in a manner which you struggle to keep out any units between turns, it is relatively easy to step up from lion baron going to the cemetery to bringing out phoenix the next turn. Mad priest and shades are a pain, but you can work around it.

[Moratorius]

2300 gran would be enough to get himself 2 refress starters and 2 booster packs. This would mean 3 holy lights, cure, raise shields, brutal inquisitors, guardian sphynx, rapid shot archers, and a whole mess of cards to recycle just off the starter packs. Those recycled cards would easily get 3 more booster packs (probably more), which should fill in with some more rare cards that might be useful.

As far as dispel goes, i still have yet to receive one as well... So, i could possibly be the least lucky person here.

I still have yet to receive a panther soul, neither from leveling nor from the purchase of two basic sets (150 cards total)... perhaps I'm even less lucky than you are .

Anyway, I found GaoGaiGirl to be a strong opponent on both occasions I played her... though she does have access to all of the Refess cards currently available, so that does make a difference.

[DanTheTimid]

Refess has plenty of strategies to have a winning record once they obtain Dispel, Lappiere, Priest Abel and Pheonix who has Full Cure ability. .

Phoenix is a very expensive card. I doubt it could even be played well against Lawtia.

Level 6, and it's close skill costs 3 SP. Perhaps I could use it if I obtained the Refess Mazoku card.

You mean Light Chaser / Advent? He's not really a good source of SP. He costs you 3 sp to summon and doesn't do anything for you but generate 1 sp every turn he gets to make an action (meaning he isn't killed first since he has slow agility) so it'll take you atleast 3 turns just to break even assuming you can keep him alive. If you've got 3 sp your better off summoning the puffballs (keseran passeran) for 1 sp and using their ability with the other 2 to gain a sp every turn. In 1 turn you've broken even and every turn after that is sp profit.

I agree though that Phoenix is way to expensive to be useful, he's like an inferior version of Zombie Lord, yet Zombie lord is 2 levels lower then him!