Beta Update: Version b02

[.haku]

So... I've made a lot of changes this week, maybe too many in such a short time.
Some of the changes might've been a bit too haphazardly made, but I thought that I might as well do some radical tweaking just to get some final feedback from you guys before the beta ends. So please do post any b02 comments or concerns you might have below.

Tweaked Cards: [AncientWar] [AncientWarEX] [AntiMuri] [BearMiner] [Bees] [BeesEX] [Bird] [BirdArrow] [BobsShip] [BossTrio] [Buni] [BusinessCasualManEX] [Dea] [DungeonConstruction] [FireMace] [FireSword] [Fishbun] [FishbunPileup] [Helios] [Heroism] [HeroismEX] [Hyperdusa] [JealousChest] [JennyBlueberry] [JennyBun] [JennyCat] [JennyLemon] [JennyMole] [JennyShark] [JennySlayer] [JennyTiger] [MaskedRuby] [MechaFishbunjin] [Metonym] [NeoDea] [Netherbird] [Orka] [Parrot] [PrimalFishbun] [Prince] [PrincessRemedy] [Raft] [SafetyJenny] [Simulacrum] [SimulacrumEX] [SkullCard] [SkullCardEX] [SkullKing] [ThatGuy] [TheBiggestFan] [TheLichousTurnip] [Tor] [ToscaEX] [Turnip]

New cards: [Frog Fan] [Lemon]

[Neo Dea] and [Fishbun Pileup] are no longer cards you can have in your deck.

Generally nerfed placement damage effects.
Generally buffed arrows and linking.

Added discard card effect.
Changed peek effect to look at multiple cards at once or at the opponents current hand.
Added pay token effect, if you can't pay the token the effect won't happen.
Tweaked some archetypes like bird, bun and jenny.

Bug fixes:
"It" effects ("transform it", "remove it") that refer to cards that've just been removed won't crash the game anymore.
Peeking at cards is a time'd action now.

We might be able to do one more patch before this beta ends, so hit me with your suggestions.

[qbicfeet]

Princess Remedy is completely broken. Healing whenever your opponent plays a card without requiring activation means that you can just drop it in the bottom left corner and stall the game forever.

[mantidactyle]

Princess Remedy is broken
(edited, removed comment about lichious turnip)

[.haku]

Yeah, reboot your games, Princess Remedy is fixed.

Originally posted by mantidactyle:

Lichious Turnip is another old Simulacrum X

What do you mean?

[mantidactyle]

Nevermind, it's on resolve. It's meh imo.
Good decision to restrict the Business Casual Man to 1 copy !

Thank you for the update btw :-)

[qbicfeet]

I can't say for sure yet but Simulacrum X seems pretty bonkers as well. With it active, Plasma Hydra deals 4 (!) damage on placement, Anti Muri deals 5 damage during its lifetime and That Guy and Metonym have their downsides turned into huge upsides.

I'd suggest something like "whenever you take 3 damage; deal 2 damage instead and discard this card".

Self damage in general still seems very strong even with the slight Business Casual Man X nerf.

[mantidactyle]

Yeah, I instantly replaced the third Business Casual Man X with Simulacrum X for that reason

[.haku]

Tiger Jenny needs to be changed a bit. I want there to be some kind of rotnip synergy but I'm not quite there yet.

Originally posted by qbicfeet:

...That Guy and Metonym have their downsides turned into huge upsides.".

I'll look into it. I like turning downsides to upsides though.

Originally posted by mantidactyle:

...Thank you for the update btw :-)

Thank you for playing.

[jakbu]

Will try the game tomorrow!

[TenQuatuor]

The dominant strategy right now seems to be BCM(X) + SimulacrumX.
Notably the tweaking of That Guy and Metonym has madd this strategy significantly better.

So far (with the aforementioned deck), I've drawn twice (Plasma Hydra saves the day) and KO'ed my opponents very quickly (7 turns?) twice with lots of health left.

Edit: An opponent adjusted his deck to include BCM(X) too and beat me.

[Regnslöja]

heads up ppl, i suspect space nörd (and probably X too) is causing errors/disconnects...? maybe

[mantidactyle]

I like the current Blueprint (DungeonConstruction), helps activating the new Helios /
Remedy

[kevin]

Here are my thoughts on the changes.

I like that Helios and Princess Remedy need to be activated now, but increasing their durations by 1 is a big buff. The change to Simulacrum X also indirectly buffs these cards, since Simulacrum X was one of the only ways to deal with the Passel/Helios/Remedy combo. Remedy and Helios were already slightly too strong, and now they're even stronger.

Metonym got a buff, even though it wasn't too weak before. It's not that hard to place it where it won't resolve, or you can just save it to use as a finisher when your opponent has 2 health left. It's basically just a card that does 2 damage on placement now.

In the previous version, self damage decks were strong, but not too strong. Now I think they're too strong. You can still have 3 cards that take advantage of self damage. Simulacrum X doesn't work with the 'take 1 damage' cards, but it's much stronger with plasma hydra. I think the most significant buff to self damage decks is that Simulacrum X can no longer be used as a counter to Business Casual Man, so Business Casual Man is much less likely to get removed.

I like the nerf to Hyperdusa, which was probably a bit too strong before, but I think placement effects as a whole are stronger now. Most of the nerfs were on cards that were already weak, like Fire Sword and Orka. At the same time, Metonym got buffed, Cyber Jenny was left unchanged, Plasma Hydra got indirectly buffed by making self damage decks better, and That Guy is probably about as strong as it was before.

Overall, I think the game isn't as well balanced as it was in the previous version. Some of the best cards got stronger, and one of the only two counters to Passel/Helios/Remedy/BCM got changed. The winner is often determined by which player draws the overpowered cards and combos first. That's partly because the best deck now is heavily reliant on self damage combos.

I do think that the old Simulacrum X was too powerful, so I'm kind of glad that it was changed, but I think there should be other ways to remove or silence cards. I think targeted removal/silence cards should be stronger than Razzle Dazzle, but weaker than Dumped X.

The cards that I think need nerfs are Potato, Cyber Jenny, Helios, Princess Remedy, Metonym, and maybe That Guy and Dumped X. I also think self damage decks should be nerfed, preferably in a way that limits how strong they are when they get a good draw, rather than reducing the consistency of getting good draws.

[Emilie Sackenball]

Found a bug in the Linux version (apparently the windows users worked fine)
Casual Bussines men recoil damage you get from your own sources, tested both ones CBM and CBM X
http://imgur.com/a/82ovz

[mantidactyle]

Here's my two cents:

• Helios / Remedy + Passel is even more powerful with the +1 duration. The fact they need to be activated is nice, though it's simply circumvented by playing Blueprints in addition to Passel and Key X (but at least it takes you one turn of setup, which is a good thing).

• An example of how good Blueprint can be on turn 1: https://image.prntscr.com/image/ecivaoCgRfy68Zkjj7_keA.jpg

• As kevin said, the change of Simulacrum X makes Business Casual Man / Helios / Remedy even stronger than before. The only remaining universal removal is the far too strong Dumped X. There is a need of a decent silencing card at the very least. Simulacrum X, on the other hand, is now a BCM-like card, which completely ruins the point of reducing BCM from 3 copies to 2. Instead of having BCM 1 / BCM 2 / BCM 3, you now have BCM 1 / BCM 2 / SimX.

• I found myself resorting to cards like Ancient War (X) because of said lack of silence cards, because that's one of the very few good answers to Passel combos.

• Metonym now reads: deal 2 damage, if you have BCM: activate to deal 3 damage, if you have SimX: activate to deal 4 damage.

• Plasma Hydra is absurd with the new Simulacrum X. The first guy to set up the combo is usually going to win the game.

• Princess Remedy is better than in b01, but I think this is a good thing, makes the games last a bit longer. Remedy was far from being a staple in the previous version, but I'm now having a hard time not playing her.

• Potato definitely needs a nerf (or at the very least needs to be at 1 copy). Free damage + playing a 22-card deck gives you better odds to draw into Passel / BCM / SimX combos. At least Bomb self-damages if you want to run 19~21 cards (though it's a non-issue once BCM is activated, but it's not a free 1 damage in addition to the advantage of playing a smaller deck).

• Cyber Jenny still reads: deal 3 damage. The fact it's red is not even a drawback (helps activate your red BCM, forces the activation of your own That Guy / Metonym once BCM is activated...). The free damage on draw is just the icing on the cake.

• Mecha Fishbunjin didn't need to be nerfed. The Bun archetype really needed it in its old version.

Here's what I run, with a good win rate atm:
1× Business Casual Man
1× Business Casual Man X
1× Simulacrum X
1× Passel
1× Blueprint
1× Key X
1× Paranoid Fish
2× Plasma Hydra
2× Goddess of Explosions
1× Metonym
2× That Guy
1× Cyber Jenny
2× Helios
2× Princess Remedy
1× Dumped X
1× Ancient War X
2× Potato
1× Bomb

The deck can be inconsistent at times (starting hands like 2 Plasma Hydra / 2 That Guy / 1 Remedy are complete trash), but most of the time you'll get one of the combos out and proceed to win if your opponent doesn't have an answer / doesn't have a BCM / SimX combo out before you.

[ScouSin]

I love, LOVE the changes. The game is much more balanced, and I feel you did a great job addressing the community's concerns. We brought the power of a lot of strong decks down, which has however, revealed (or pronounced) the strengths of some other really powerful cards. Here is the deck I ran today, which was able to beat a Business Casual Man deck with a high consistency (not the deck of the poster above me):

Rainbow Ring x1
Dark Lord X x1
Cyber Jenny x1
Dumped X x1
Portal World x1
Passel x1
Cruiser Tetron x2
Final Brutus x2
Potato x2
Jenny Flower x2
Fire Mace x2
Jenny Fox x2
Helios x2
Cardplaya x2
Princess Remedy x2

What I like is that there is much nuance to playing a deck in this game. Your card choices in a match are not obvious. Here is how I play this deck.

When possible, open with Final Brutus, his big drawback is an activation of 4, but he has lots of diverse arrows, this is ideal, as he also hits like a truck. If not him, Cruiser Tetron is also a great choice.

Jenny Flower is meant to help with sustain, and also if you attach it to activate a combo and leave the up or left arrow open, that forces your opponent to block it, or let you potentially continue your combo.

Passel with Princess Remedy or Helios is super powerful, and he is also excellent with Rainbow Ring. These cards all work fine on their own too, so comboing is not necessary.

There are plenty of direct damage cards here. Placement damage is still powerful, potatoes are still very, very powerful, and cyber jenny is still an amazing choice.

This deck does excel at a Business Casual Man deck thanks to all of the control it has (three steals and a Dumped X), but I predict it would be strong against most other decks as well. Best thing about the Cardplayas, is that it is easy to throw a Fire Mace or a Jenny Fox in a corner, so you can ditch those after you got what you want out of them.

And finally, the Portal World is good for rounding out the deck with arrows, and also allows you to re-place a placement damage card.

Concerns at this stage:

Once again, unless you are dreadfully afraid of fatigue damage, no reason to not have potatoes in your deck.

Cyber Jenny is also still extremely powerful, especially if you Rainbow Ring it.

Dark Lord X is also really powerful. Not overpowered per-say, but it is a scary card, since there are some powerhouse cards that take up to 4 ticks to activate. That is plenty of time to drop a steal card to take them, which yes by the way, that is part of the danger of these cards, but Dark Lord X, even as a legendary seems too free.

Dumped X is way, way too powerful, but also I feel like you need it to deal with cards like Business Casual Man, where you can't plan for their arrival ahead of time, but you absolutely must shut them down or they will obliterate you. A fair compromise to me: Don't let Dumped X remove an active card on placement. I don't know what to do with it, but don't let it do that. Instead, include cards that can tick the opponent's cards on placement. Helios, Princess Remedy, and Business Casual Man are all currently still very powerful, and players should have a way to help deal with them immediately. But removing on placement is too much, removing on resolution is too little (even at an active 1, since sometimes you just can't have a combo ready). Having a tick on placement effect seems to me like a fair compromise. If players are concerned about the opponent not having cards that they want to tick, maybe a rare that lets you tick any card on the table on placement? On top of this, I love that you can only have 2 Business Casual Mans, but perhaps an active of 4 is too powerful? I am unsure.

This update was a huge step in the right direction, and I look forward to trying more deck types out.