Ascend/Descending Retreat

[LloydsGamble]

I don't understand how these cards are balanced in any way. They allow you to completely ignore the rules of capacity and allow you to freely take energy and card draw upgrades instead.

The stacks of synergistic creatures you can create are pretty much impossible for a boss to beat.

Loving the game, I just don't understand why these cards allow you to play by different rules.

[Firellius]

They're pretty rare, they give you less control over the unit order, and you still need to set it up. It breaks the game, sure, but when you draft the right spells AND the right monsters AND you draw them in the order you need them AND you manage to keep everything alive and in position long enough to pull off a cave-in, I think you should be rewarded with a complete and utter boss-stomp.

[.//slayer]

It takes time to set up a stacked floor - time which you might not have. And if you stacked a floor, you can never summon support units like imps and morsels there anymore, which can be a run-ender. And sometimes it's also the only way to beat a particularly difficult boss - without stacking, you might simply not have enough damage or survivability to win. Not to mention that you have to get ascension/descension cards in your deck in the first place, which is far from a guarantee and won't work on every run or with every clan.

I see nothing wrong with stacking.

[Misguided]

“Breaking” the game in various ways by finding OP synergies is the entire point of the game.

[Atomsk]

Most games are unwinnable if you can't bypass capacity and floor stack.

Don't complain about it

[LloydsGamble]

Fair enough, if y'all think it's fine, was just curious to hear some thoughts.

@Misguided I feel there is a difference between OP synergies and basic cards which ignore a whole facet of the game, but we can agree to disagree there.

It's not a 100% win condition by any means, but I think it's quite easy to play around personally.

Anyway obviously the devs know best and have deemed it fine, so I'll leave it there. Happy M-training boys.

[Dad]

Wait, so you you can use ascending/descending to move a unit to a full floor?

[Black Hammer]

Originally posted by AlRokerSurprise:

Wait, so you you can use ascending/descending to move a unit to a full floor?

Yep. Capacity only limits you directly summoning things yourself. So cards that move floors ignore it, as do minions that summon minions themselves.

[AncientSpark]

It's worth noting that Ascend/Descend has a very critical weakness; draw order, and it's weak in both directions.

Obviously, if you draw your minion after you draw your ascend/descend, that is bad; without the minion to play, your ascend/descend has no target. But, because ascended/descended units are pushed to the back, this means you're incentivized to have your ascending/descending units as backrow units. This means that drawing minion before the ascend/descend is also bad because it leaves your backrow units often vulnerable without some sort of additional setup.

So Ascend/Descend as a strategy is actually very vulnerable, especially as you get to higher ascensions and certain rows become increasingly dangerous to setup on.

Now further consider that scaling requirements become increasingly high as Ascensions go on and that problem becomes even worse; now you have to setup your Ascend/Descend combo very early into the fight or else you're in danger of not being able to get your scaling mechanisms up in time.

So with all that being considered, yes, when Ascend/Descend goes off, it's incredibly powerful, enough so that it's worth going for. But like most "very powerful things", it has a few glaring weaknesses that really hurt it for certain contexts.

[Dlanor]

They are extremely useful cards but they have downsides for sure. If you're drawing that, you're not drawing a different spell that lets you kill stuff, or protect your own stuff (though sometimes you can use these spells that way). They can move units, that's true, but you have to pay for the unit and then pay to move it, so in order to go over capacity you're paying not only extra energy but also a 2nd card, and even then you have no control over the unit order, it goes to the back instantly even if you'd want it somewhere else. Once all of your units are in the lanes you want, now you have a unit moving card that is much less useful than a spell that can help you, like getting an Ascend or Descending Retreat spell are both pretty much useless against a boss, which is when you need to be at your best for sure.

There's still a hard limit of 7, which you can reach easily even without Ascending/Descending if you're playing Umbra.

[LloydsGamble]

Good thoughts there guys @AncientSpark @Thegooblop, thanks.

[Dad]

Originally posted by Black Hammer:

Originally posted by AlRokerSurprise:

Wait, so you you can use ascending/descending to move a unit to a full floor?

Yep. Capacity only limits you directly summoning things yourself. So cards that move floors ignore it, as do minions that summon minions themselves.

That's awesome.

[Big Sneeze]

1. To make Ascend/Descend really strong, you need to have both of them.
2. You also need to have them both upgraded because they often cost 2 and have Consume.
3. You need to have emphasis on additional units when running these, especially if you don't have both Ascend/Descend in order to repopulate the floors you moved from.

As such, like every strong deck in this game, you need to put actual effort into it and build the deck up deliberately.

[Ichthyic]

don't forget there are other cards that do this for the entire floor, both you AND the enemies on that floor.

I think one is called "cave in" (umbra card iirc).

you can collapse every unit on a floor down into the floor below, all at once. it's hugely powerful. that said, I think there is a cap of 7 units per floor IIRC.

I have hit 7 on a single floor, but oddly have never tried 8 to see if it really is a hard cap, and what happens if you try to break it with cave in.

frankly I think they should add a bit of damage to cave in myself. maybe 4 damage per unit that falls to the floor below? something like that.

[Kynak]

Originally posted by AlRokerSurprise:

Originally posted by Black Hammer:

Yep. Capacity only limits you directly summoning things yourself. So cards that move floors ignore it, as do minions that summon minions themselves.

That's awesome. :lunar2019coolpig:

There is a hard cap.

You can't summon units over your capacity AND and you can't even move units once the floor reaches the total maximum capacity. Not sure of the number tho. I've had it with Umbra and you get a pop up saying that the floor is fully maxed and even moving creatures will not work (skip this floor if possible, or do nothing).

So I don't think this is really a big deal.

[Kynak]

It also prevents you from gaining inifite floor space with the umbra cards that give additional capacity.