Officer ladder and deck 'power'

[BladeofSharpness]

I'm a modest level 14 officer and battle in the ladder, sometimes losing, sometimes winning.

Except that sometimes, I literally bump into a deck that should not be there, at this level. A monstrosity made of 80% Elite and Special, combo'ing in all directions on each card, and I get utterly, hopelessly crushed.

This is intriguing, in addition to being dispiriting and a bit infuriating. How can this player be so low in the ladder with a deck of such "cost"? Perhaps they're a whale, perhaps they waited some days before climbing the ladder but are a very high-level officer most of the time (ah yes, I forgot, it's not when the ladder resets, it's more than one week after the restart).

And so I suggest that depending on your current level, you can't enter the ladder with a deck with more than X or Y points of Special+. I'll leave to the devs how to best calculate that, but I'm sure they can come up with a good algorithm (I could, having been in IT for some years now).

Now, if they only want to cater to the whales, I can understand why they won't do a thing. These players are bringing the money to the game.

[puschit]

1) I already explained to you in the other thread that rarity of a card does not equal power. Please read that again.
2) You don't need to be a "whale" to have a good collection, you just need to play consistently. I for example can play whatever I want because I have a near-full collection but I never paid a single cent.
3) Having every card in existance doesn't make you a better player and could even overload you with options. Just because your opponent has lots of cards doesn't mean he knows how to wield it. And just because he curbstomped you doesn't mean he or his deck is invinceable - it could say more about your deck or the matchup of decks, some decks just roll over certain others but fizzle against everything else
4) At the end of each month you lose 25 stars. So, a) if you don't play enough, you fall back more than you gain. I for example get fo field marshall every month, get set back to rank 5 at the beginning of the month and fight my way back. Usually. But there were two poins in time where I didn't want to play much and got thrown back to rank 10. It happens. And b) when the ladder resets I usually use that opportunity to play some fun decks on ladder. When the month is about to close I switch to more serious decks to get FM again.

Here is a general advice: If you constantly seek for outside reasons why you lose, you will keep on losing. Stop blaming it on whales, stop blaming it on specials and elites, stop blaming it on the matchmaking etc. Instead, focus on your own gameplay, the mistakes you make, try to work with what you have and improve on it. You don't need a specific metadeck to get far, my main deck is a deck where I play only one copy of each card voluntarily and yet it's enough to get FM. It can be done but you need to, well, sorry for the phrase, you need to get good (or more precise: you need to get better than your peers!) in order to advance. And the first step towards getting better is acknowledging that. Blame-shifting everything on rarities and better collections is standing in your way.

[BladeofSharpness]

Rarity of cards typically indicates versatility and often, power. Your basic premise is incorrect. Try reaching the higher ranks using only commons, then you'll convince me. I began playing Magic in 1998 and continued for many years, even winning a few local tournaments. I’m not as clueless as you might think, with all due respect.

I rarely blame the other deck; 95% of the time, I acknowledge my deck's shortcomings or weaknesses. But sometimes, the deck I'm facing pulls off combos that can only happen because it’s overloaded with rare cards. If you believe that success is only about skills and not the cards, then you’re living in a fantasy egalitarian world.

[puschit]

I didn't say ONLY skill, I said that a full collection without skill is worthless. Of course you'll have better options if you have more cards but RARITY doesn't play much into it. I became field marshall within the first month I started playing (again, without paying anything). Granted, a lot of things were different back then and the competition was weaker but it is still possible today. In fact a common complaint is that (lower) parts of the ladder are infested with aggro decks and those barely need more than commons and uncommons.

Your claim to be a Magic veteran since 1998 puzzles me to be honest because as such you should:
- have an significant advantage over everybody else
- realize how generous Kards is regarding F2P
- know how to build budget decks and thrive in a low-rank meta
- stop ... focussing ... on ... rarity!

It sounds to me that you don't like the general idea of players not having the same tools available and if that's true, how the heck are you playing something like MTG for 25 years?

Adding artificial restrictions basing on rarities is a horrible idea that will not only not have the effect you desire, it would also have a plethora of unpleasent side effects.
I also gave you numerous other reasons how it can happen that you face a deck you deem as unfair. These won't be remedied either. And in the end, nothing of these actually needs any modification because this is a system that calibrates itself:
That deck you faced won the game, got stars and if it's really too strong for it's rank, it'll climb fast, problem solved. If, however, it'll stick aorund, then that means the pilot isn't any good or the deck isn't as good as you think it is. Either way the system regulates itself and the only problem here is your ego that gets riled up because of that loss.
I stand by me judgment that you won't grow as a player if you cling to this attitude. Shooting the messenger doesn't help either BTW, in fact it's part of the problem.

EDIT:
Combining your two threads:
On the one hand you are complaining that 2nd California is too strong for a common, on the other hand you now demand specials and rares to be limited/banned from lower ranks. This just contradicts itself but okay. Why don't you use those 4 Calis to build a deck and proceed to beat everyone, eh?

[76561199052420833]

Originally posted by BladeofSharpness:

Rarity of cards typically indicates versatility and often, power. Your basic premise is incorrect. Try reaching the higher ranks using only commons, then you'll convince me. I began playing Magic in 1998 and continued for many years, even winning a few local tournaments. I’m not as clueless as you might think, with all due respect.

I rarely blame the other deck; 95% of the time, I acknowledge my deck's shortcomings or weaknesses. But sometimes, the deck I'm facing pulls off combos that can only happen because it’s overloaded with rare cards. If you believe that success is only about skills and not the cards, then you’re living in a fantasy egalitarian world.

The famous German-US defense desk is exactly what you said. You can have tons of Elite and Special cards. All u have to do is sit there and play extremely strong defense. That is a typical money deck all about and a no-brainer indeed.

To accomplish that, one needs all those German ambush cards, elite or special, and money will talk.

But still, a boring aggro deck with play-first advantage can help you win that money deck easily,,,, A no-brainer civil war is the beauty this game.

[BladeofSharpness]

I had a good, albeit ironic, laugh when in two games in a row, two different players first pulled the Katyusha cards that retreat before being damaged, and then the Partisan card, which they used to quite good effect, I must say! The two games, where I believed I had the upper hand, went downhill pretty fast after that.

And then I reflected that until I had many more cards, I stood very few chances of climbing the ladder. I should probably stop craving these dopamine-inducing activities and do something more useful with my precious time.

Memento Mori guys. Each mn count ;-)

[puschit]

I bet you also have these moments versus common and limited cards, so what's your point here? Does it feel any better when you get Blitzkrieg'd? Is it less anoying when your toughness-1 smokescreened unit gets Bloody Sickle'd first turn? Are we cherrypicking anecdotal evidence that somehow fits the narrative? Do you also remember the stories where an elite card did not turn the tide or where it was sitting useless in their hand?

[BladeofSharpness]

I'll explain it to you then. The game's success is not 90% skill, 10% cards, but at the very least 50/50. But this, you can't accept it, somehow it would force you to reconsider that you are not purely talented, perhaps?

I'll refer to this:
https://www.kards.com/decks
Where the proposed successful decks range with an Elite card count between 13 and 30 (30, among 39 cards).
Now, just tell me the game is mostly about skill.

Magic, while being more complex, has a better card balance. Awesome combos could be pulled off, sure, but it requires more skill than this simple game that caters mostly to people having a complete collection. But this again, you could not accept.

Continue basking in the feeling you are reaching the top ladder because of your intellect, if it does make you feel good though. It's important to have a good opinion of oneself in life, so in this, you are totally right.

[puschit]

Well, just because someone lists those decks doesn't mean they are successful, nor that there are no alternatives. So, let's stick to those decks that have proven themselves like the World Champion decks. There are 3 of them on the main page you posted.
1) JKings deck "Push!" has a total of 3 Elite cards
2) Thanatron's US Frontline deck has a total of 4 Elite cards
3) Socialist's Token deck has a total of 2 Elite cards

Even if you look at non-WC decks or at the community decks I see Elite card counts from 1 to 9. So, tell me where your 13 - 30 comes from. 30 is literally impossible since every nation currently only has 29 elite cards total (standard).
I am not basking in my interlect, I am merely able to read statistics and to properly count ...

... and do yourself a favour and stop referencing Magic here. It had a good balance for decades and didn't make rare cards superior to lower rarities for a looong time but those days are clearly over. Magic is suffering from a very hefty case of the powercreeps for many years now and higher rarities mean more power for about a decade now! With very few exceptions commons are only filler cards for draft now.

[BladeofSharpness]

Ok, the count to 30 is in the "featured decks" indeed. If I check the right column, the "Top Community decks", I see

GER/FIN control, 11 Elite
White Shield, 17 Elite
JP&US suicide, 12 Elite
Artilharia, 20 Elite

So the count is not 1 to 9 either.

And sorry if I reference the good old times of Magic, that's what I know.

[sushi_komplett]

@puschit and BladeofSharpness:

Maybe there is a middle ground in your discussion that can be reached.
I myself do not consider myself an outstanding player. I'm not a totally bad one either I believe. I have an understanding of the mechanics, the cards, strategies and tactics etc. But there are probably a number of nuances I'm not aware of or which I don't apply, I don't have half of the cardpool memorized so I can reliably predict what my opponent is goint to play etc.
In the past, with a specific cardpool and specific, self-constructed decks, I was able to reach a certain place on the ladder. Not Field Marshal, not even a gold rank. First it was a bronze rank for me, and then a silver one. When I reached my first gold rank I was damn proud. And special and elite cards very much helped me do it. Would one of the decks mentioned above (Push OTK, Tokens etc.) have done it for me? Maybe. But i would have had to craft cards for these decks, because they have been fine tuned, and its not so easy to replace certain cards from them with something you happen to have in your small collection.

What I want to say is this: If you are a brilliant player, you may be able to consinuously win with a subpar deck, compared with those of many long-time players. But Elites and Specials will very well help you and make a lot of things a lot easier for you. And if your deck is subpar and your opponent fields Elites, you feel it. And when you finally have them, you feel the difference. So I can feel where BladeofSharpness's argument is coming from. Better cards (or the perfect combination of weaker cards) do help you, and sometimes they are necessary, unless you are just an awesome payer. And if you have no resources to craft them, it sucks.

On the other hand - you get them over time. When your collection is small and you lose over and over it is frustrating. Being one rank short of Brigadier General and losing over and over, never passing that ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ barrier to the gold ranks is incredibly frustrating. But when you do it the first time, it feels awesome. And when you keep playing and collecting, and you do a few good craftings of particularly strong cards, you will get there.

So, my conclusion: Specials and Elites are not Everything. But they aren't Nothing either.

[puschit]

This is a Screenshot from your link[i.postimg.cc]
As you can see, not a single deck has more than 9 elites, the average is about 4 to 5 elites. And more importantly: You can see that the professional decks on the left side use significantly fewer elites than the community decks!
Now, that says all you need to know about how importance elites are and how much the community overvalues them. And that's from YOUR source, not one I cherry-picked.

EDIT:
And actually all of this is besides the point. Let's talk about literal power of those cards. You mentioned the "Katyusha card that retreat before being damaged" aka BM-13N US6. Okay, hard to remember name, so I'll refer to just "BM".
Now compare those two: Katjusha does 1 and has a 50% chance to deal another, averaging at 1.5 damage per turn. BM does always deal 2 and retreats when attacked. For that it costs one kredit more to cast. That one more kredit is a huge increase (actually a 50% increase from the Katjusha) and you have to pay that extra kredit every time you make use of that special retreating ability. You also need to realize that the attacker takes no damage when it retreats. And about the damage you have to take into account that that one extra damage from Katjusha isn't treated as combat damage. As such it ignores armour for example. And if you deal with something like 2nd California, you benefit from the fact that you are dealing 1+1 damage instead of two at once.
All of that considered I'd say both cards are perfectly balanced. Depending on the situation one card is more useful than the other and since I use both of them in my main deck I can tell you from experience that both are equally often the better choice.
The only difference here is the rarity, BM is harder to get but it is NOT superior, just different. Of course, if your opponent has it, he'll have more options. But it's NOT the case that it got more power for the same cost.

And that's the fundamental difference here that we should really be discussing!

[BladeofSharpness]

Ok, I misread and reversed the reading, like a moron. I guess I have to admit you made your point, it's mostly about skills, finding the combos and less about having a large collection. A large collection I guess allows you to not engage the brain and brute force your way through most of the ladder.

[puschit]

Thanks for admitting that, no hard feelings.
And I am glad that I squeezed in my edit just in time :)