Set 12 Design

[VertuHonagan]

Ropey if you are using 2 dryad souls you are using 1 too many for the rank up file. I've been starting mine with the girl that can't be hit by an attack action and using only one dryad. Which most the time I've found that with my start even having that dryad ss is too much.

[Peralisc9001]

You should wait and see how the new sets shapes the meta. Carbuncles seem to have new good competitors around now.

[CainHyde]

We have Fire and Gaia / Rougeerst card you know.
But don't ask me how to get it if you don't have that card.

[DeeGee]

Icy: buncle vs. urgrant: urgrant needs 1-2 SSs just to activate that rapier. Buncle = plop and wham.

Now, Kemious, onto Gowen tech: why must you require tribals for tech? Gowen's supposed to be the individualistic sphere, except all the tech you've given it, as I've said, has been nerfed.

Some gowen-specific tech:

1) Level manipulation
What happened: regular primrose was never good. EXPrim got nerfed out of use. RFA SS got nerfed out of use, when it had some very subtle costs (weakness to grimbane, 2 SP to use miracle fruit for all other spheres).

2) Lock
What happened: "We want players to be able to play their units!". Well, what's the point of a lock then to begin with? Sure, you can have a field full of pixies that hit for small amounts of damage, and then the Volcano Wyvern drops. Or the star dragon drops. Or god forbid, you try to chain lock + iczer only to find that your opponent doesn't have enough damage SSs to remove your pixies from the field and drops Zu on you. Or they drop Afel and have a word of dalos to outlast your pixy assassins. On top of that, not only was the lock mechanic nerfed (which was never used despite being around since set 5-6 until Torte in set 8), but also pixie dual-wielder, who now will spend your 1 SP to hit that sacrificial unit instead of that tank, as well as capping Torte, the amount of units Mitzette could buff (unlike any other tribal buffer), and pixy assassin (again, why?).

3) Open/start damage on units
What happened: This was supposed to have been Gowen's high ground when SKs and buncles and WK started going to agi 6 on a regular basis. That although it was numerically inferior on agility, Gowen was supposed to be the sphere that could act effectively on the open/start phase. Well, let's see...Bringer dropping from 40 to 30 was heartbreaking. Jack losing his start damage was also very painful. Neither of these were necessary, given this new meta. They may have been at the time. They most certainly aren't now. Yeah Greg has his thing going for him, but once again, that's assuming your opponent can find no way whatsoever to deal with his focus. Also, why the cap on level 3 or lower to make him gain focus with the buff? So that people wouldn't buff Dilate or Jack? Oh look, there goes the testing team again, trying to fit a square peg in a round hole. Level 3s are rush-based, level 4s work among themselves. It seems people are so frightened of Greg buffing Dilate or Jack even though Gowen is the least-played sphere in the meta.

4) Self-healing.
What happened: Bringer, Rhino, Dilate were all nerfed. Dilate now has the stats of a single sphere level 4, even though he really needs another 2 sphere levels to function, for which he only gets the close skill now. Maybe give him his original 5 DF if he keeps Falkow at 2+? Also, Beast Emperor Rivera is a completely useless incarnation of her. You could easily drop her atk by 20 and her HP by 10 and make her level 4, and even then, it'd be a debate whether to use her or not, since her attack buff forfeits her attack, her counter only works contingent upon her being alone, which I'd contend is inferior to her BKR form, and her action skill is just "huh" worthy.

The problem is, Kemious, that Gowen used to have tech. Gowen could severely punish people playing mids with a primclone or a pixy lock. It could severely punish combo dependency through hitting an undercosted double RFA. It used to be able to defeat high agility files. Except all that got taken away while all the other spheres got buffed.

I mean yeah, if we took away all the tech from all the other spheres, then we could see what would happen. Because that's effectively what happened to Gowen.

[GonFreeces31]

DG is right. Refess has been babied horribly because people whine and cry. Refess has had all this powercreep nonsense and Gowen has been left behind in the dust.

[Icyman2]

DG is right. Refess has been babied horribly because people whine and cry. Refess has had all this powercreep nonsense and Gowen has been left behind in the dust.

See eskatia ss.
Did you see my dilate and steel solo a full pirates file? My opponent got so much sp advantage and hit so many removals. But in the end, I just got 2 units on the field and kept on field wiping him for 70x3 and finishing up with steel. All it took was 9 sp to slaughter his 16 sp worth of units on the field and tons of loose sp (but no more returns left).
You know, I think I've seen a **** ton more ppl cry about gowen lately than refess.

[DeeGee]

And there's one other thing I feel is a huge problem:

I think there's a Sirlin-definition "scrub" mentality on the testing team. That is, they believe in a game that both sides "get to play". Yet, IMO, in a healthy strategy game, combos shouldn't just be guaranteed. In fact, I think a strong TCG/CCG environment depends on strong elements of control, since the adage goes "there are no wrong threats,there are only wrong answers", so the answers need to be better than the threats.

Right now, we've seen a steady nerfing of all removal SSs, one sphere's units (Falkow) get hamstrung because it has access to efficient removal, and now even talk (from Romdeau) about possibly changing up Bulerigid SS because despite it being non-viable as a SS with every single file except one that plays around the disadvantage of returning your opponent's units from the cemetery by keeping them confined to the file, welp, it has to get changed, because return-type files just have "no counterplay", which is actually more a case of "it beats tribal, so that can't happen".

See, back when I played M:tG, you had all sorts of viable strategies, not all of which depended upon rushing down your opponent with a gazillion creatures:

A) Milling them (Ravnica's Dimir guild liked this)
B) controlling them (counter/bounce/kill into the abyss, EG Psychatog, Mind Sculptor Jace, why the hell did they ban him )
C) Burning bridge (ensnaring bridge to keep out any attackers, then just constantly play direct damage spells to the face)
D) Stall until you rip some huge spell (EG Mirari's wake strategies)

In Alteil, file destruction, let's admit it--sucks. Even with Chaos Absorption, it's still just not a very good strategy.
Control gets whined about to high heaven, as I've clearly explained.
Alteil has absolutely no counterpart to simply attacking your opponent's LP directly (well it does, but those units are few and far between, and it's not like an iczer can just pack a bunch of grims that say "your opponent gets LP -X" and play them end on end.
As for stalling, the only way to stall is with a tank, as opposed to some sort of other permanent (EG artifact/enchantment/whatever).

I mean I can't help but feel as though the testing team wants this game to be a bashfest, and anybody that wins in some other fashion besides "beat up your opponent's units" needs to have their strategy nerfed.

[Icyman2]

instead of convincing the administration, maybe you should convince the public, since the administration listens to the public who fund their payrolls.

[DeeGee]

instead of convincing the administration, maybe you should convince the public, since the administration listens to the public who fund their payrolls.

The public is a bunch of people who don't play to win, don't listen to Extra Creditz, haven't read David Sirlin's book, and may not be quantitatively-minded. The more of these that happen, the more connection there is. Gon used to disagree with me as well, until I kept bleating about reading David Sirlin's book, and ever since then, I've liked him far more. FisherChew is getting a math degree, and he's always been one of my favorite players, and has been one of the better players in this game's history.

[Romdeau]

So can we get back onto set 12 design question discussions?