On the Balrog 2-Mind rule and the Real Culprit

Errata issued by the CoE, open discussion of candidate rules for errata, and submissions for the Annual Rules Vote.
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Bandobras Took
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Bruce wrote:Intervention on existing rules and/or cards is justified whether its benefits are clearly greater than its costs. In other words, whether they fix unanimously acknowledged faults. Not by chance the only precedent was the Balrog 2-mind rule, which fixed an imbalance, and was welcomed by the whole community and didn't create any rift. Nevertheless, I consider this as a pretty unique case: an abuse of such intervention may lead to endless conflicts
This got me thinking, but I didn't to clog up the thread with it. Brian Min didn't like the 2-mind rule and he had a very good reason for it.

The Balrog's character selection sucks. The Balrog has access to two 3 MP characters and two Unique 2 MP characters. That's it.

The first response is, "Well, what's the problem? Let him play them, then!

The problem is Balrog vs. Balrog. Given that whoever plays the Balrog first is likely to win, the fact that both players will likely be bouncing the big-name unique characters is a problem. The essentially free character MP was meant to mitigate this.

There really isn't a problem with the Balrog's ability to rapidly accrue character MPs any more than there is with a Hero Player's ability to rapidly accrue Item MPs.

The real problem is We Have Come To Kill. That is the thing that needs to be hit, not even with the nerf bat, but simply with the Rules bat. As long as We Have Come To Kill allows you to slide around automatic attacks by playing characters in the site phase and have an extra effective character without a corresponding increase in hazard limit, the Balrog's going to have a huge advantage by being able to a play a character with We Have Come to Kill from the sideboard. Take away that ability, and the Balrog's 3-mind from the sideboard during the organization phase really won't make that much of difference. You'll have a larger company to play hazards on.

I don't think the 2-mind limitation is necessary if we solve a problem that unbalances a whole lot more than the Balrog alignment.
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marcos
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The Balrog's character selection sucks. The Balrog has access to two 3 MP characters and two Unique 2 MP characters. That's it.
this is not completely true: Shagrat, Gorbag, Mauhur, Ulkaur, Ugluk and non-unique leaders... :lol:
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Bandobras Took
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Right. My bad. Nevertheless, the increased ability to play characters is in contrast to the limited amount of character selection the Balrog has.
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Thorsten the Traveller
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Hmm, don't agree.

First, the percentage of Balrog-Balrog matchups is too low to direct the focus on that.

Second, as Marcos points out, there are good non-unique chars, and moreover as overt minion you are in general less likely to bounce. It just limits the deckbuilding to have no interchangeable chars with skills. (play Dreamcards people!)

Third, it's about how the Balrog is overpowered vis-a-vis other types of decks. If you play a super Ancient Deephold Challenge the Power deck, perhaps you are in dire need of Hill Trolls from the sideboard. But in the regular decks playing MP characters from sb just means too much speed. Especially combined with Great Shadow. Speed IS the problem. Not just in carddraw and MP gathering, but also in timing/cardmanagement. Playing chars from sb is already HUGE.

Fourth, opponent playing Black Rain against you is screwed :wink:

Nevertheless, Great Shadow is also a real culprit.

btw. would you then disallow WhCtK for Balrog? I'd like to hear your suggestion.
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marcos
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i think his idea is not disallowing WHCtK, but not allowing to take characters with WHCtK from sb.
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Bandobras Took
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I would disallow WHCtK (and Chance Meeting) except during the organization phase. It's already justifiable to do that by rule, and would force people to be a little more "honest" (for lack of a better term) in facing automatic attacks, no matter which alignment they're playing.

If character play is limited to the Organization phase, I'll find Radagast's "ally from the discard" play to be more powerful than the Balrog's two-character play.
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Thorsten the Traveller
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now that would be some game changing ruling.
I personally like it.
or rather just forbid it for the site phase? Dropping a char in end-of-turn is still good for cardflow and doesn't really affect play.

ps. about honesty, one might reason that by facing the automatic you have kinda expelled or destroyed the danger at a site (if only temporarily), so that a wanderer might walk in easily. But indeed it has always been annoying, the Courtesy Lessened of Late deals with it.
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marcos
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im not against WHCtK or ACM played at any moment, but if all agrees that something has to be done against this 2 cards, i like thorsten's idea better
thorondor
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sorry guys, i dont like most of this ;-)
for me it looks like you are trying to nerf a powerful card. of course both are powerful, but defintately not broken. i rarely see a deck that uses 3 copies of either WHCTK or ACM, while i rarely see a deck that for example does not use 3x Dark Tryst (this card is imo just stupid good).
theme? bah, there are by far worse cases, and eric already has shown, that you can explain, why the card is played as it is right now.
containing a mistake or some flaw ICE couldnt correct any longer? definately not ACM, cause that cards is around for such a long time and has always been played that way. maybe the intention of WHCTK should have benn to play the char under DI (like ACM), but even here i am not sure.
so for me there is no reason to change anything with these cards.
WITH ONE EXCEPTION:
i dont think that WHCTK was meant to bring chars from the SB. for me it always felt wron gto play it that way. disallowing this would be fine for me.
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Shapeshifter
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I totally agree with Wolfgang here.

Moreover I also think that it's not overpowered to bring in 3-minders from sb as a Balrog player. The problem lies solely with WHCtK - that's just too good (I can live with the way it is played, though!).
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Bandobras Took
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The synthesis of the highly questionable legality with strong-to-the-point-of-overpowered is my fundamental objection to Chance Meeting/We Have Come To Kill. I've already outlined my objections based on the rules in other threads.

If we don't want to change chance meeting/we have come to kill, may I suggest rewriting the rules about cards playable on auto-attacks so that you can play resources with the phrase "playable on an attack" or "playable on a company facing an attack"? This has the manifest advantages of opening up more options for players and being less confusing for new players (they won't have to be told their strike assignment cards can't be played).

Right now, I still see We Have Come To Kill and Chance Meeting as the most efficient way of getting around auto-attacks to play the MPs your were planning to. You can freely tap all characters in your company without worry rather than struggling to keep a character untapped to play that item/ally/faction.

@Thorondor:
I do not object to Dark Tryst because its use in the game is also its intended use -- Crazy Good draw. Radagast and Short Rest also provide crazy good draw, as can Uvatha with a little work. I'm not sure how many Chance Meetings/WKCtKs I see when I play, but what I do see is the effect they have on play. It's more than a little irritating to pull out a combo to tap a party, breathe a sigh of relief, and then see them proceed to get 6 MPs in the site phase anyway because of Chance Meeting, which was meant merely to help character play be less restricted by site.
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Thorsten the Traveller
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Not having to draw 6 Hill Trolls/Orc Trackers is the equivalent of 3x Dark Tryst. In addition you have a cardmanagement advantage of not drawing them in your own m/h phase and being stuck with them. Playing chars from sb is HUGE, I reiterate.

I'm not saying I'd be in favour of errataing WHCtK, but Ben's analysis is correct. Single cards are rarely broken (Great Shadow?). The analysis of balancing the whole shebang is not that easy. But with WHCtK and ACM there is a certain negative game experience involved, imo. And yes I've seen and played plenty decks using those cards 3x. Why wouldnt you? They also increase the speed of play.

nb. For FW/Lords WHCtK is even better, as more cool stuff is playable at [-me_sh-] than for minions at [-me_bh-], and you get tapped out more at such sites. For DC games we've often discussed disallowing it.
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marcos
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in my opinion the problem of this is that balrog can play chars from sb. Otherwise, WHCtK and ACM are cards that you have to hold in your hand until you draw the character, or viceversa. I wonder how does that help card flowing? And why having to hold cards in your hand and not being able to just play them to cycle is so freakin overpowered? (yes, i was being a little sarcastic on that last question :) )
thorondor
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i have never played 3 WHCTK or ACM in a deck so far iirc (i dont play balrog seriously). why? because imo it causes very bad cardflow. its a 3-card combo on the hand till the site phase. also, you have to put several characters into the deck. i hate to play with more cards in the deck than necessary. and how many characters can be brought into play with these 2 cards? i bet its not 3, cause there is still GI and DI. (to all of this balrog with its direct access to the SB is an exception of course).
now there are several ways to counter WHCTK and ACM. the easiest is river (you should have more love for this card now, ben ;-) in certain cases cards like lost to free domains. DI/GI disrupt like so you have come back.

again, i think these 2 cards are strong but not overpowered. the only problem is with balrog.
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Thorsten the Traveller
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3 card combo? It's a two card combo, but more importantly, it's not card specific, any character will normally do, you just need some site planning. 3x WHCtK and 5x Char means you got a very easy combo.
Cardflow is everything, being stuck with a char for a whole turn or more is already detrimental (you were being sarcastic or ironic Marcos? :wink: ). Moreover if you do it after m/h phase you have an extra benefit to carddraw usually. Moreover, if opponent flips Heedless you can still play stuff, minions often need to play multiple stuff at sites to get the same amount of MP's (certainly Balrog), so more cardflow.

How can you not add 5 characters to your deck? (even as Balrog I'd add a few Orc-captains or whatnot). Characters are valuable MP's.
Only squatter decks don't benefit really from these cards (or lucky people depending on lucky draws).

Well define overpowered. I don't think that is the issue here.
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