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Post by Admin on Jan 4, 2015 20:49:19 GMT -8
You guys find bat swarm useful? Curious as to why. It fits the colors, is cheap and flying? Is the general consensus that spell fork is very good? Obviously it's a powerful card, especially for red casters. In general I think we'd rather buff weaker cards than nerf strong ones, so if you say yes we won't go weaken it tomorrow  |
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fitch
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Post by fitch on Jan 5, 2015 1:02:56 GMT -8
Spell Fork is very strong, at least prior to having all rank 4 stuff. Until more people figure out what's going on and counter it frequently, it almost feels necessary for a competetive team. Problem is some team with mountain troll, cave troll, ulthur and/or massive wall might survive it's round 1-3 onslaught but will lose to tons of other non-fork teams. Bat Swarm isn't that great in general but spell fork is expensive so you don't have the luxury of a big flying blocker (plus usually red stuff will be used with fork and Oblivion/Divine spirit can't block for them). Since the fork team hits so hard and fast, usually it'll survive plenty long enough to protect a squishy mage until everything is dead. It has the added bonus of reducing MaxHP so sometimes you'll face off against another spell fork team that uses the Soulstealer Lich and it can make the difference - as well as the Troll(s).
So personally I feel that bat swarm is perfect in its niche but generally pretty weak. In almost any other situation I'd never use it. I think there might be solid teams that can beat it but they'll require lots of rank 4 stuff that most of us don't have access to yet. I have a feeling that some TP or Uneasy Sleep setups could do it but haven't seen it yet.
Also I don't like to presume on game development/balance, but imho making herad better all around, and making a few other guys good vs magic would certainly make many other teams viable whereas they currently couldn't be competitive. Perhaps make it so some cards have little or no defense but shield 3 or 4, or a few guys like anti-air archer/vampire hunter/Farin executor type stuff but with bonuses vs mages, or a few ghost walkers that won't get annihilated by round 2 by a firesage. Currently the problem with most of the stuff that's any good vs the spell fork team is inadequate vs anything else - except mountain troll, it's still a solid 2 cost 8/3/20 vs anything else.
My 2 cents.
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Post by Zscout on Jan 5, 2015 7:51:55 GMT -8
I substantiate what Fitch articulated.
For the various reasons already listed, Bat Swarm has its niche. It's never going to be a primary card I build a deck around, but it can often beat some of its competition for the last slot on my roster.
Spell fork in general is strong, but it makes a few particular cards world beating contenders. Expressly - Lich and Wyvern. I would add other casters to the list, but they have other drawbacks that factor in. For example, Sage and corresponding Initiates have their HP reduction which is a powerful drawback and balances risk and reward. The randomness of the Dark Mage attack is also a sufficient drawback. Lich and Wyvern carry no such tradeoff that I can feel in game.
To be clear, Lich and Wyvern are my favorite cards. Right now both cards automatically make my lineup without much care of the supporting cast any time they are available. They are very powerful on their own, but at a cost of 2 they give you a LOT of options since you can still fit them with other big hitters. The abilities themselves are great, but I can't help but wonder if the game might be more competitive if they cost 3 instead of 2. This would force you to make decisions in keeping them on a roster. If they had a 3 handle on them, I would still pick them above many others in their category, but I wouldn't have the cake and eat too...
Again, no need to be rash. Let the field develop for a while before making changes - but I think it is something to consider.
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Post by xuande on Jan 5, 2015 10:08:21 GMT -8
The best comparison I can make is to compare Spell Fork to Magic Boost (the 3-cost Red version). Spell Fork is clearly the better of the two in pretty much all situations that matter. Whether Magic Boost needs a buff (I'd suggest reducing its cost to 2), or Spell Fork a nerf (to cost 4) is debatable, but there are solid teams out there that can stand up to Spell Fork, so I'd lean towards buffing Magic Boost.
Bat Swarm fits a strong niche. For 1-cost, you're getting a fairly sturdy flying blocker (28 HP, 4 Def) that also is capable of breaking healing stalemates if it lives long enough. When the best counters to Spell Fork teams tend to be Mountain Giant and out-healing, these are great traits to have. Its also important to note that Spell Fork + Water Wall teams are practically forced to run at least one black card to link Blue/Red, so if it isn't Soulstealer, it pretty much has to be one of the 1-cost tanks.
I did lose a League match yesterday to a Mana Convert+Heal team because I was running Bat Swarm+Mountain Giant in a Spell Fork team over a second caster (Fire Sage seems very popular right now, but Mountain Giant sucks vs the field...just not as much as Anti-Mage does), but against most teams, Fire Sage alone will provide the damage needed to break through. I really wish I had the evolve fodder needed to run a competent Lv4 team that isn't Spell Fork, but I'm not quite there yet.
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fitch
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Post by fitch on Jan 5, 2015 10:13:40 GMT -8
I was originally going with wyvern+lich. My only hesitation from wyvern is the fact that it has MP cost 20 for its power. The lich would be perfect for my roster except it costs 2 and I need a 1 cost guy since I used the sage (hence why I use initiate for the total cost of 4 for the two cards). Since wyvern's attack costs 20, it won't get it off until turn 3 (unless you use aether shaper to cast on second round but his cost of 3 is prohibitive in conjunction with the spell fork), the initiate/adept/sage/lich all attack on round 1, 2 and 3 with a water wall. I tried out a few lab things and seeing a guy die reliably first round then 1 or 2 more on second round was too compelling for me to go back to wyvern+lich. Also you can't put the lich in the back row, so a void fiend could seriously debilitate him (as could many other things like ninja master) so IMHO his cost of 2 is justified.
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Post by Zscout on Jan 5, 2015 11:31:07 GMT -8
I've been running the following deck in league for the past week or so:
Spell Fork, Lich, Turtle, Water Wall, Wyvern (rear), Oblivion
So far I have lost one close match to a perfectly placed opponent running a fire sage build, but have steamrolled everything else. Occasionally I'll come across someone who manages to kill a card or two, but even that is rare.
I'm not suggesting there aren't equally or more powerful builds, but I would suggest that to beat this type of build it will require something more specialized and will probably fail most other challenges.
It's still early though and competition is largely still figuring things out. People are innovative and surprising, so it will be interesting to see what happens in the next few weeks.
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Post by JD on Jan 5, 2015 11:38:42 GMT -8
Spell Fork might be more interesting if it applied to both teams, instead of just teammates.
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Post by Admin on Jan 5, 2015 19:41:38 GMT -8
That's an interesting idea. A lot of cards did that at one point then we moved away from it because it was a little too unpredictable and if you run into a similar team you have basically a dead card. (For example I think Cactus Bull was all animals / plants, rather than just your own) But that could make for an interesting meta shift in that to beat a spell fork team you basically want a similar team but without the fork.
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fitch
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Post by fitch on Jan 6, 2015 3:13:58 GMT -8
I think nerfing spell fork might be premature. For example a team that has aggression, Reya and L4 Ninja master - the ninja will be night unkillable. Add that to L4 battle tactician who gives 10TP, a slippery soldier and a mountain troll and it will be the spell fork team more often than not, it even does that with lower ranked ninja & troll in the lab. Also you can make uneasy sleep builds can deal with spell fork relatively consistently. We only see spell fork dominance because the other builds require a lot of L3-L4 stuff, spell fork starts powerful and easy to get a big boost with only a L3 initiate and water wall which are both commons.
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Post by xuande on Jan 6, 2015 3:57:42 GMT -8
The thing is, Spell Fork is more common because Campaign hands out (Spoiler Warning)...Lv4 Fire Sage, and as far as I know, no other leveled cards are handed out anywhere. So you're going to see more teams built around the free Lv4, which tends to be Spell Fork.
Not many people are constantly grinding at Campaign. I've done it more than most, roughly fifteen runs, and I still have tons of fodder left to go. In the meantime, I'm stuck with whatever Lv3-4 units I have so far - which with the exception of Spell Fork, look pretty weak right now. Not using a wiki to look up evolve spoilers means I've had to evolve a diverse cast to figure out what gets good vs bad evolve levels.
I wouldn't think a dodge team has any special edge vs a nuking team - they'd rather be getting hit physically to build TP, I'd imagine. Also, isn't the team you just listed sitting at 14 points? I'm sure there are good TP-based teams to make, but they seem biased towards rares. I know I'm still a far way away from making mine, I'd ideally want a Lv4 Volcano and Lv4 Great Red Dragon...which share an ugly rarity, so I only have them at Lv3 currently. There's probably a strong team based on Coven's effect...except half the cards I'd want to use for it are same-color rares, made worse since the Campaign doesn't hand any of those out specifically.
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fitch
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Post by fitch on Jan 6, 2015 7:16:30 GMT -8
Personally I'd probably still be using spell fork if I didn't have a L4 fire sage. And I agree most people probably aren't grinding campaign.
You're right I think I suggested a 14pt team, I was just spitballing and didn't really think about the point cost. Even without Reya, a Ninja Master would be gaining 14 points per round as he attacked twice (5+2 for agression per attack), and at L4 his power costs 15. If you have a battle tactician he begins with 10, so he'd have several rounds of consistently blocking attacks, even magic unless he is being hit by multiple attacks but even then he has a 5 defense so he doesn't die easy. Admittedly it may not, in practice, be as powerful as I imagine. It's probably influenced by my experience with that one campaign level that has 2 ninja masters; I never had the right cards to do it easily so maybe I'm biased. TP stuff would need a lot of rares, which is why I believe it hasn't been competitive with spell fork thus far. Same for uneasy sleep.
With all that said, IMHO it's still premature to nerf spell fork. Nerf it and you'll have more variety in top tier teams but only temporarily.
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Post by xuande on Jan 6, 2015 12:32:08 GMT -8
That's a fair stance, but if you're in favor of Spell Fork as-is, what should be done with Magic Boost? I think its fairly clear that its inferior in pretty much every team that can choose between both, so currently its limited to teams that run red magic and don't wish to run any of the +MP cards blue has...and I can't think of much that would want to do that.
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fitch
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Post by fitch on Jan 6, 2015 18:02:01 GMT -8
If my objective were to make magic boost as competitive in league play as spell fork without defeating the spirit of the original magic boost card, I'd probably reduce its cost and/or add an MP gain but give some limitation. Something like "Your heroes gain 1mpower at the start of each round to a maximum of 5. Your heroes also gain 1mp at the end of each round" and have it cost 2. As is I've managed to use magic boost effectively in a few drafts and campaign matches by dragging out a fight for like 13 turns then having an MPower 19 soulstealer lich take out the rest of the team solo. But that's unrealistic when you can reliably kill half an enemy's team in 2 - 3 rounds in league play. The above example is obviously untested but that sort of thing would encourage a slow building magic type build, maybe even make healers viable, which I suspect was the intent behind the card despite being in spell fork's shadow. It might make it worth using even if you have 1 mage only, depending on the build.
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Post by xuande on Jan 7, 2015 14:27:31 GMT -8
The League that I'm in currently is interesting, in the sense that every team in it has lost at least one match (I personally lost two, one to the well known Fire Sage coinflip, one when I was testing Mountain Giant and got out-walled by a Mana Convert team). Its the first time that's happened since I've been playing League.
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Post by Admin on Jan 12, 2015 17:27:17 GMT -8
I suspect Lich is probably too good, and that's exacerbated by Fork. He does good consistent damage and is a super tank - with Fork his low defense doesn't really matter at all.
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