Should Runick Fountain be unlimited now?

[Merilirem]

Its been awhile. You think 2 fountains would be too much?

[Silyon]

There's worse than Runick now. Not the least of which are more toxic stun decks. Two-for-one trades just aren't what they used to be. Go back to three, it's fine.

[Merilirem]

Originally posted by Silyon:

There's worse than Runick now. Not the least of which are more toxic stun decks. Two-for-one trades just aren't what they used to be. Go back to three, it's fine.

Its mostly its power when used in other decks that was the big deal iirc. Its super powerful when used right. Just kinda fragile with only 1 fountain.

[e-dood]

My personal bias aside (I find them kind of dull to play against), I think it can come back to to 2 should be fine.

[Silyon]

Originally posted by Merilirem:

Originally posted by Silyon:

There's worse than Runick now. Not the least of which are more toxic stun decks. Two-for-one trades just aren't what they used to be. Go back to three, it's fine.

Its mostly its power when used in other decks that was the big deal iirc. Its super powerful when used right. Just kinda fragile with only 1 fountain.

I mean at the end of the day, Runick is mostly just a collection of removal spells that self-recycle through fountain. They'll rarely win the game on their own and whatever they're being used with is going to do it's own share of the work. Strong engines will make Runick feel unbearable, weak engines and you'll barely notice it's presence.

[Merilirem]

Originally posted by Silyon:

Originally posted by Merilirem:

Its mostly its power when used in other decks that was the big deal iirc. Its super powerful when used right. Just kinda fragile with only 1 fountain.

I mean at the end of the day, Runick is mostly just a collection of removal spells that self-recycle through fountain. They'll rarely win the game on their own and whatever they're being used with is going to do it's own share of the work. Strong engines will make Runick feel unbearable, weak engines and you'll barely notice it's presence.

Its the draw power that sells it. Runick cards are pretty mediocre on their own. But being able to draw as many as you play. That makes them worthwhile. The fact that you can draw non-runick cards and mill them to do it. It just makes some rather strong decks with crazy resource loops.

Remember, banlists only care about the high end. Unless something is just really unfun like an FTK. Even still we have FTK's so its mostly just what is strong. Runick used in a bad deck doesn't matter if its used in a tier 1 deck.

[Raven]

I think the main issue might genuinely be Joshua Schmidt and a few people like him who are just extremely apt at taking Runik and taking another archetype and making it really dangerous. He's found ways to splash Runik into a lot of the newer archetypes and elevated them where it probably would be pretty unhealthy if fountain was at 2. It might flip things a bit where Runik becomes the main again.

That said, I think with fiend smith coming and turning into something everyone is going to use in a similar fashion, runick getting a boost might be an interesting change up?

edit: then again on the other hand, assuming everyone would be able to play and replicate that kind of play style is probably a stretch in terms of an excuse to not release it to everyone else. But as you said, Konami cares about the "high end", and more than a few world level players would find ways to use runick

[Astrallight]

No we dont want Runick to become even stronger in a BO1.

[Merilirem]

Originally posted by Astrallight:

No we dont want Runick to become even stronger in a BO1.

Is it strong now though? Like really?

[Raven]

Originally posted by Merilirem:

Originally posted by Astrallight:

No we dont want Runick to become even stronger in a BO1.

Is it strong now though? Like really?

I mean, he's not wrong, its one of those things that isn't hard to deal with if you can side for it, but without a side you can just be royally screwed over. The ways of dealing with it aren't the same as usual, it does take some weird tech choices.

That said, if it becomes a problem, its on people to adjust their decks accordingly which a lot of people still don't seem to want to do and rather just complain. You're going to lose in a Bo1 format, your goal when constructing a deck should be to minimize your losses to common match ups, Runick would be one of the more tricky to plan around.

[Merilirem]

Originally posted by Raven:

Originally posted by Merilirem:

Is it strong now though? Like really?

I mean, he's not wrong, its one of those things that isn't hard to deal with if you can side for it, but without a side you can just be royally screwed over. The ways of dealing with it aren't the same as usual, it does take some weird tech choices.

That said, if it becomes a problem, its on people to adjust their decks accordingly which a lot of people still don't seem to want to do and rather just complain. You're going to lose in a Bo1 format, your goal when constructing a deck should be to minimize your losses to common match ups, Runick would be one of the more tricky to plan around.

Sure but you don't actually have to remove it. So the methods of playing around it are a lot better than say a floodgate that stops you from even trying to go into the ED or use a monster effect or whatever you could use to deal with it. Its there to make the deck work so it should be difficult to deal with. Moreso than random backrow cards or secret village etc. Assuming you can't remove it, does it do too much is the question.

[Raven]

Originally posted by Merilirem:

Sure but you don't actually have to remove it. So the methods of playing around it are a lot better than say a floodgate that stops you from even trying to go into the ED or use a monster effect or whatever you could use to deal with it. Its there to make the deck work so it should be difficult to deal with. Moreso than random backrow cards or secret village etc. Assuming you can't remove it, does it do too much is the question.

I mean, if that's your question if it'd be too much at two, then yes; Runick fountain becomes very sticky at 2 and would very much be king of the flood gates. If you want to take it from that perspective, its still on the strong side.

[Merilirem]

Originally posted by Raven:

Originally posted by Merilirem:

Sure but you don't actually have to remove it. So the methods of playing around it are a lot better than say a floodgate that stops you from even trying to go into the ED or use a monster effect or whatever you could use to deal with it. Its there to make the deck work so it should be difficult to deal with. Moreso than random backrow cards or secret village etc. Assuming you can't remove it, does it do too much is the question.

I mean, if that's your question if it'd be too much at two, then yes; Runick fountain becomes very sticky at 2 and would very much be king of the flood gates. If you want to take it from that perspective, its still on the strong side.

I don't tie it to floodgates because its not the issue in that scenario. The floodgates are the ones causing issues. They do too much no matter how you get to them.

[Papa Shekels]

It should come back at this point, as long as the other problem cards are dealt with. Runick as a pure deck was always fine - it was only a problem when combo decks used it as extenders just to draw after getting free bodies, or when stun used it to draw into all their floodgates. Unfortunately, the design of runick is a bit too open-ended to bring it back without facilitating either of those, and they will always be the best thing to do with the cards over playing a real runick deck. Nothing short of an errata to either make the fountain draw a HOPT or put harsher restrictions than skipping a battle phase on the runick spells will be enough for this kind of format

[Silyon]

Originally posted by Merilirem:

Remember, banlists only care about the high end. Unless something is just really unfun like an FTK. Even still we have FTK's so its mostly just what is strong. Runick used in a bad deck doesn't matter if its used in a tier 1 deck.

It's not even the high-end play, really. It's what keeps people buying new packs. That's the real problem with Runick from Konami's perspective, it being an effective engine indirectly bolsters a lot of lower-teir decks that don't have proper interaction options on their own. This keeps people playing old decks instead of buying new ones, which is something the bottom line hates seeing.

Originally posted by Merilirem:

Originally posted by Astrallight:

No we dont want Runick to become even stronger in a BO1.

Is it strong now though? Like really?

It can be. Runick is like Labrynth, a deck that's not particularly difficult to deal with but requires you run specific counters that simply arn't good against most other decks. This isn't a problem when you can side deck for it, but in Master Duel we cannot. This alone makes it preform better than it does in the OCG/TCG.

It's a tough balancing act, how much backrow hate can you pack without creating bricks against decks that don't depend on backrow as heavily? What good is your monster removal against an engine that barely uses monsters?

[Raven]

Originally posted by Merilirem:

Originally posted by Raven:

I mean, if that's your question if it'd be too much at two, then yes; Runick fountain becomes very sticky at 2 and would very much be king of the flood gates. If you want to take it from that perspective, its still on the strong side.

I don't tie it to floodgates because its not the issue in that scenario. The floodgates are the ones causing issues. They do too much no matter how you get to them.

And that's where I go back to my old point that if konami would just use choice restrictions instead of banlists, we'd have far fewer cards on the banlist. Runick in itself isn't bad or a horrible archetype, but if people are given the chance, mixing it with stun becomes people's main priority. If runick wasn't tied into being used with so much stun, it wouldn't be a problem, but people WILL use it with stun; so you can't ignore that by looking at fountain in a vacuum.