Flattening the Curve

[Hazardville]

I wanted to chime in on the discussion about Tiers. Coffeepass did ask a similar question in another thread, to which I responded, but I’ll reiterate it here, in no small part because I don’t remember which thread that was. Let me lead with this: I largely agree with Hunter.

Let me explain why.


It’s important to note here that I’m speaking only of the competitive perspective, but if we’re talking about tiers, we’re focusing on the competitive side regardless. Playing off-the-wall casual decks at the kitchen table has no bearing on how the Majors metagame should play out, so I’ll be focusing on the latter for this discussion.

I agree with Hunter’s assertion about competitive games involving multiple characters/decks/etc. with unique abilities, playstyles, and, therefore, strengths and weaknesses. If there is only cosmetic separation between the choices, then sure, everything will even out because there are no practical differences between the available options. But if there are tangible distinctions, the game will naturally separate into tiers, regardless of the intent or actions of the designers, and this kind of stratification is largely unavoidable. Certain strategies will simply have native advantages over others, and the basic structure of the game will favor or disfavor certain options. That is also unavoidable.

If we try to set as our goal a meta in which every deck is 50/50 against every other deck, we are simply setting ourselves up for failure. For one thing, as previously noted, strategic differences will lead to good and bad matchups as a matter of course. Correcting all of those matchups is at best daunting and at worst a fool’s errand. For another, as other games have learned, there is a 0% chance that Design and Playtesting can account for every possible iteration of cards and thus they can’t know precisely what the meta will look like. Attempting to engineer a meta in the way that has been suggested is an utter impossibility for this reason. Some interaction will be missed, some card will prove weaker or stronger than intended, some small percentage edge will be found that was invisible in the dozens of games in playtesting but becomes evident in hundreds or thousands of games in the wild. Once that happens, the entire house of cards falls apart. One deck will rise up and the meta will stratify around decks good against or weak against that deck, then the decks that can tech to find edges against those decks, and so on. D&D can attempt to correct that with errata, but it will simply happen again, and again, ad infinitum. There’s no point in trying to fight it.
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So I agree with everything you say here. I'm not sure that is what I or others (but they can speak for themselves), are trying to say. What you are describing is reality, it IS the meta. At least to me, I think there is something that is missing. When people talk about the goal of getting decks to 50/50, I don't think they actually believe we can have a perfectly even 50/50 meta - that is impossible just given that the dark and light cards are different from one another even. Rather, when people quote that they are referring to it as an overarching goal to strive for, not an end point, which I would agree is a false utopia. Even if someone focuses on balancing by bringing up lower decks and curbing higher end decks, you are still going to have decks that fall into tiers. That IS the meta, and it will always be happening.
Something I think is interesting is the rate at which the meta defines itself and shifts decks into different tiers. With the theory that Hunter and others adhere to, I think you would have a faster meta shift that categorizes decks into tiers than you would if you had a lot more viable options since it would take longer to determine which decks were better in the first place.
With the meta we have, it's more like we have very clearly defined top tier decks, with the rest way far behind, so things shake up much quicker.
One question we should each ask ourselves is: Do we think a good meta is a changing/evolving meta, or a meta that has mostly set into place and is more fixed as it's not changing by much?
I don't think there is a right or wrong answer there as they are subjective, but a meta that has mostly settled is much more stale to me then a shifting meta where many decks are competing against each other to establish themselves as the best.
So sometimes in our conversations online even peoples 'timing' of the meta makes a difference.

I'm not sure I understand why you don't think that's what we have.

I'm reading an implication that the current meta is the stale, settled meta that you're describing, and I'd agree most competitive players are ready for a change. For one thing, as MHT/Silverglen showed, there's still room for innovation in such a meta. In fact, the meta has shifted around a fair bit since the last change to the card pool, which I believe was the release of the Tweak set. AOBS fell off, ISB rose, split into several different builds that have since largely settled into a character-heavy trooper build as the best one (but still with some variation depending on meta expectations, as demonstrated by the OCS playoff decks). CCT Scum emerged as a viable alternative to Court, Hunt Down dropped off, Watto emerged as a Tier 1.5 option, Court got more refined. TRM fell off despite a rise in Scum decks, Legend got more refined and improved, No Idea did the same. Even within that, we can see people succeeding with off-meta decks, EchoBaseTrooper/Adam Fletcher being the prime example with his performance with WHAP. So, even in a "solved" meta, there was a lot of movement and jockeying, and it's possible that there could still be more to come even without a new set or errata (although I welcome both). So, it seems that after quite a lot of months of evolution, the meta is in a pretty stable (read: stale) spot, but it did take a while to get there, and a lot of decks moved around in order to come to this configuration.

For another, I'm not sure we can draw a lot of conclusions about how fast or slow the meta settles itself in regards to current Design philosophy. We faced an unprecedented global situation that both ramped up online play and put the brakes on the development and release of the next set. Thus, the meta went longer than originally intended without a forced update, and it evolved more quickly than it had in the past, both due to outside factors. I don't think the number of "viable" decks in the meta really changes that much, if for no other reason than it takes time to determine if a deck is "viable" or not. In fact, I think it's easy to see how the changes in the tweak set were intended to widen the field, SSAv as the prime example. That card alone is responsible for several deck archetypes jumping to prominence, or even existing at all when they didn't before.

I wouldn't argue this meta is perfect, nor that some tweaks to power down top decks aren't called for, as they definitely are, and they're coming tomorrow. I'd agree for sure that, for instance, ISB is too high in the meta and it's presence depresses the appearances of both LS decks that have a hard time fighting it and DS decks that operate on similar axes but in less efficient ways, so taking it down a notch is well worth doing. Those things will happen sometimes, and D&D has, I think, done a good job of addressing them when they do. But I also don't think they've done a bad job at all of giving us new, fun options to play with, or of creating an engaging environment for us to experiment in.

[Hunter]

In my opinion SWCCG nirvana is every objective being equally viable and having a 50/50 matchup against everything else. Obv we wont get that w/o unlimited resources but we should try to get as close as possible.

Having unlimited resources would NOT make that possible.
You could get all of the objectives to the point where they were *roughly* equal in viability.
The majority of matchups would be severely lopsided. I can't imagine any way of preventing that, without warping most of the decks to the point where they all operate the same.

If his scenario of "20 decks for each side" did also include "and "there are no autowins of autolosses, but they're all fairly balanced against each other in terms of win percentage" it would defeat his "no room for tech cards against bad matchup" idea and the rps argument (and randomness might as well raffle comment).

Agree.

Certainly doesn't seem realistic.

Amen to that. lol

I wonder at what number it is realistic. 3? 5? Not even those? (I think Hunter would argue not even at 3 would you have all 3 for each side fairly equal vs each other, thus his comment about good/bad matchups even in the 3 deck scenario).

Right, even if there are only 3 decks per side in the top tier, you're still not going to have "even" matchups across the board. In my opinion, the whole idea of the "50/50 matchup" is more fantasy than reality. There was never a time when anyone asked me "who should win in a matchup between [deck] and [other deck]?" and I said "It's 50/50. Whoever plays better or gets luckier should win."

No, there were literally zero instances where I didn't know which side of the table I would prefer. And if I eliminated player skill as a variable (by playing both sides of a matchup) there were DAMN few that were close. "Best 3 out of 5" matches against myself featured a ton of 3-0 sweeps, and it wasn't even that rare for one deck to beat the other by 20+ differential in all 3 games of the sweep, even if both decks were good enough that I was considering them for whatever upcoming event I was preparing for, and even if I'd already won several tournaments with each of them. In my experience, most deck matchups are pretty badly lopsided, if the decks are just built pure.

[The_Emp]

Moreover, I also agree with Hunter that, from a competitive standpoint, even if we could do this, it would be a mistake to do so.

Consider: if every deck was engineered by Design to have a 50/50 matchup against every other deck, what’s the point of trying to brew something new? Just to use cards nobody’s used before (nobody, that is, except Design because they must have in order to ensure the meta would be perfectly balanced)? But so what? What if you find a cool new interaction that nobody’s played before? You know going in that Design will simply cut it out from under you if it ends up being strong, and if it’s weak then you just wasted a lot of time and effort when you could have literally played any other deck. Thus, the only real incentive to brew would be to find D&D’s mistakes, which means you’d still be hoping that they failed to create the perfect balance so you could exploit it.

Now consider the alternative: In a world like what Hunter espouses (the world in which we actually live, by the by), there’s a lot of incentive to brew. You might find something that can beat the Big Three decks, in which case you’d have a huge edge in the upcoming tournament you’re preparing for and stand to reap the rewards of your work. You need look no further than the TRM Guts deck that Silverglen and MHT came up with in the last few weeks. Their deck has a huge edge over the Scum and Cloud City decks that have cropped up at the top of the meta recently.

It’s also worth remembering that a deck like TRM Guts is only possible because the top of the meta is so clearly defined. For reasons already highlighted by Hunter and others, the wider the meta gets, the harder it is to prepare for an event. If, in addition to the Big Three decks, other varied options were equally viable, it becomes far more difficult to develop an interesting alternative, particularly if the other opposing decks attack from different angles. Basically, any time a techy deck pops up, a stratified metagame is the reason such a deck is found, or indeed the reason it can exist at all. After all, if the meta were truly 50/50 across the board, why would you bother trying to find a secret weapon deck at all? Just play No Idea or Legend or Operatives. They’re all even bets to beat ISB and Court anyway, right?

I do agree with some opposing thoughts echoed by others that encouraging a larger meta might be beneficial. But, on the whole, I don’t believe that the goal of a perfectly balanced metagame is either achievable or even desirable. Design’s goal should be to make fun and interesting cards, rather than to engineer a metagame, fully balanced or otherwise. It’s fine to have secondary goals, such as trying to correct overly powerful cards or even to boost up decks that could use help, but a perfectly balanced metagame would require much more focus than that.

But every deck won't be perfectly 50/50, that is utopia. But let's say for argument that we do come close to having a balanced game where matchups aren't so skewed like they are now, are we really arguing against that? That is competition. I'm probably misunderstanding here because in general people don't want to have a high degree of favor in a competitive match that is about to be played do they? Then you aren't having a competitions, its fixed in favor of somebody else.
Your point about a new innovative deck type is exactly what I'm trying to say, you will have much more innovation if you have decks that actually stand a chance. If there is no chance on creating an innovative deck, why bother? On the contrary, you will have much more innovation and playable cards if you allow many decks a chance to compete with one another. I would argue we saw much more diversity and deck creativity with cards like Jedi Business v or Slip Sliding Away then we did with Shadows of the Empire right?
I agree with your point about having a set top decks and if you created deck that could be those, but the big word and difference in that is IF, because the gap is alot bigger to make a deck to beat those, than by a meta that many more decks competing against one another.

After all, if the meta were truly 50/50 across the board, why would you bother trying to find a secret weapon deck at all? Just play No Idea or Legend or Operatives. They’re all even bets to beat ISB and Court anyway, right?

I think that is where there is a difference. Again, you have a much lower chance of finding a secret weapon deck and having it actually beat a top tier deck when the gap is so large. If we constantly are mostly improving just a few decks, then the gap gets wider and wider as time goes on. We can see that is the case with each virtual set that is released and the year that go by where decks are still irrelevant.
I'm going to guess that of the 48 some objectives we have, that only even half see any kind of play and among that I would guess that what, 20% of those comprise of 90% of all decks played in the OCS or competitive tournaments? Just the fact that a Jawa format exists tells us a lot I think.
I'm going to guess we see a lot more of a variety of decks and creativity in Jawa formats than we do in the OCS right?

[The_Emp]

No I think you are misunderstanding me. I think anyone who believes there should either be 1) a few top decks or 2) A lot of top decks, both feel that way because it would be the most fun. I think it'll be less fun with less decks at the top (#2 camp) and you think it'll be less fun with more decks at the top (#1 camp). No biggie and understandable.

Okay. I didn't read your "makes the game less fun" as merely being a statement of your opinion. It came off (to me) as just a statement of fact, so thanks for clarifying.

If I'm on D&D and improve a Mynock up so it sees play 10% of decks instead of 0, then yes I have 'power creeped' but not by much and it didn't change the game much. In fact it added variety and uniqueness and creativity. But if I take a tier 1.5 AOBS that is played often, and add helper effects to it that bump it up to being Tier 1 and played the most often, then in my opinion we have power creeped up that deck even further than all the rest of the decks/cards out there that don't see play. That is a larger power creep. Maybe the card isn't super powerful, but when added into the tier 1.5 objective, it added enough power to distance it even more from the rest of the pack.
That isn't fun to me.

I feel like you should be able to see how easy it is to use this example against you. There were Tier 1 decks. There was a deck (AOBS) that was NOT Tier 1. It received helper effects that added it to the group of Tier 1 decks. Now there are more Tier 1 decks than before. And that's...bad?
That's...not fun to you?
That would seem to run directly contrary to your earlier arguments. Now it sounds like you actually oppose having the group of Tier 1 decks enlarged, UNLESS it isn't just by a few, and instead D&D somehow finds a way to drag ALL of the other decks up to Tier 1 status as well. But I assume that even you would agree that kind of "No Deck Left Behind" policy would not be practical. So when a deck gets "called up" to Tier 1, it does so by leaving the chaff even further behind in the rearview mirror. That is ALWAYS the case.

Yeah I think we just aren't seeing eye-to-eye. Yes if we 'dragged' up all decks to Tier 1 then that means we have a competitive match up against each other, where people aren't going into match ups as major favorites. That is what I advocate for and what I think alot of other people are as well.
My point in saying that was, why didn't we add a helper to the tier 4 or 3 or 2 decks?
How many cards has it been, vsets that were released, and years that have gone by where we leave some kind of deck like RTP or AITC or whatever up to irrelevancy? That was what I was trying to illustrate.
Also, I think if we have a deck that is tier 1, that we don't nuke it down too low so it becomes mostly irrelevant too.
If we think CCT's damage of 8 is too harsh, then let's water it down to a more modest amount, not remove it off the map by reducing it down to 1 with pretty easy parameters to meet. If we see a change that we make hurts a deck so badly, it only makes sense to adjust it so that it's in balance with power.

[Hazardville]

Moreover, I also agree with Hunter that, from a competitive standpoint, even if we could do this, it would be a mistake to do so.

Consider: if every deck was engineered by Design to have a 50/50 matchup against every other deck, what’s the point of trying to brew something new? Just to use cards nobody’s used before (nobody, that is, except Design because they must have in order to ensure the meta would be perfectly balanced)? But so what? What if you find a cool new interaction that nobody’s played before? You know going in that Design will simply cut it out from under you if it ends up being strong, and if it’s weak then you just wasted a lot of time and effort when you could have literally played any other deck. Thus, the only real incentive to brew would be to find D&D’s mistakes, which means you’d still be hoping that they failed to create the perfect balance so you could exploit it.

Now consider the alternative: In a world like what Hunter espouses (the world in which we actually live, by the by), there’s a lot of incentive to brew. You might find something that can beat the Big Three decks, in which case you’d have a huge edge in the upcoming tournament you’re preparing for and stand to reap the rewards of your work. You need look no further than the TRM Guts deck that Silverglen and MHT came up with in the last few weeks. Their deck has a huge edge over the Scum and Cloud City decks that have cropped up at the top of the meta recently.

It’s also worth remembering that a deck like TRM Guts is only possible because the top of the meta is so clearly defined. For reasons already highlighted by Hunter and others, the wider the meta gets, the harder it is to prepare for an event. If, in addition to the Big Three decks, other varied options were equally viable, it becomes far more difficult to develop an interesting alternative, particularly if the other opposing decks attack from different angles. Basically, any time a techy deck pops up, a stratified metagame is the reason such a deck is found, or indeed the reason it can exist at all. After all, if the meta were truly 50/50 across the board, why would you bother trying to find a secret weapon deck at all? Just play No Idea or Legend or Operatives. They’re all even bets to beat ISB and Court anyway, right?

I do agree with some opposing thoughts echoed by others that encouraging a larger meta might be beneficial. But, on the whole, I don’t believe that the goal of a perfectly balanced metagame is either achievable or even desirable. Design’s goal should be to make fun and interesting cards, rather than to engineer a metagame, fully balanced or otherwise. It’s fine to have secondary goals, such as trying to correct overly powerful cards or even to boost up decks that could use help, but a perfectly balanced metagame would require much more focus than that.

But every deck won't be perfectly 50/50, that is utopia. But let's say for argument that we do come close to having a balanced game where matchups aren't so skewed like they are now, are we really arguing against that? That is competition. I'm probably misunderstanding here because in general people don't want to have a high degree of favor in a competitive match that is about to be played do they? Then you aren't having a competitions, its fixed in favor of somebody else.
Your point about a new innovative deck type is exactly what I'm trying to say, you will have much more innovation if you have decks that actually stand a chance. If there is no chance on creating an innovative deck, why bother? On the contrary, you will have much more innovation and playable cards if you allow many decks a chance to compete with one another. I would argue we saw much more diversity and deck creativity with cards like Jedi Business v or Slip Sliding Away then we did with Shadows of the Empire right?
I agree with your point about having a set top decks and if you created deck that could be those, but the big word and difference in that is IF, because the gap is alot bigger to make a deck to beat those, than by a meta that many more decks competing against one another.

After all, if the meta were truly 50/50 across the board, why would you bother trying to find a secret weapon deck at all? Just play No Idea or Legend or Operatives. They’re all even bets to beat ISB and Court anyway, right?

I think that is where there is a difference. Again, you have a much lower chance of finding a secret weapon deck and having it actually beat a top tier deck when the gap is so large. If we constantly are mostly improving just a few decks, then the gap gets wider and wider as time goes on. We can see that is the case with each virtual set that is released and the year that go by where decks are still irrelevant.
I'm going to guess that of the 48 some objectives we have, that only even half see any kind of play and among that I would guess that what, 20% of those comprise of 90% of all decks played in the OCS or competitive tournaments? Just the fact that a Jawa format exists tells us a lot I think.
I'm going to guess we see a lot more of a variety of decks and creativity in Jawa formats than we do in the OCS right?

Yes, I am absolutely arguing against that, because it's an impractical and unachievable goal. I actually don't really agree that top tier players would always want all matchups to be close. What you'd want (selfishly) is to go into every match a huge favorite. It's hard to achieve that when every deck is at worst 45% to win so people can play a lot of different decks and you can't tech for the field to get an edge.

Now, from a holistic standpoint, would the overall format be better if more decks were playable vs. less decks? Yes, and we have that now, or at least the framework for it. I grant that we are in the tail end of a mostly solved format so it's maybe a little less true right at the minute, but seriously, how many decks could you have taken into an OCS game, or to TMW or MPC, and had a 45% chance or better to win? According to the OCS stats, 13 on each side, 10 if you discount the decks below a 12-game sample. That's a lot of decks, and while the end of the meta features big 3s on both sides of the Force, it's not like Tier 1.5 and 2 are devoid of reasonable options. That says to me that no drastic change is needed, and that what D&D is doing right now seems to be working out just fine.

I think I made this point but I'll reiterate: I do not agree that you will get more innovation if more decks are in the running for Tier 1. As I pointed out, you don't get techy decks if the top of the meta is murky, which it is in a field with 6 Tier 1 decks instead of 3. The assertion that innovative decks can't emerge in the current design environment seems by the numbers to be fundamentally untrue. We've already seen it on numerous occasions this year. Hell, CCT Scum with Rtic/Broken Con was an innovative deck when it first came out, and now it's enough of a Tier 1 threat to get Rtic errataed!

It feels like your point is arguing that we shouldn't just boost the Tier 1 decks, which I agree with on a base level, but I'm confused why you're making said point. I don't see that as a thing that's been done, certainly not on purpose. ISB was a nothing deck before the Tweak set, SSAv and Gideon seem to be exactly the kind of thing you wanted. I haven't seen a card explicitly designed to help TRM...basically ever? There's been far more effort by Design to take the top decks down a notch than to help them. What am I missing here?

[JarJarDrinks]

In my opinion SWCCG nirvana is every objective being equally viable and having a 50/50 matchup against everything else. Obv we wont get that w/o unlimited resources but we should try to get as close as possible.

Having unlimited resources would NOT make that possible.
You could get all of the objectives to the point where they were *roughly* equal in viability.
The majority of matchups would be severely lopsided. I can't imagine any way of preventing that, without warping most of the decks to the point where they all operate the same.

- Having unlimited resources WOULD make that possible.
- You could get all of the objectives to the point where they were *precisely* equal in viability.
- The majority of matchups would NOT be severely lopsided.

There now we've both provided the same evidence to back up our points. Man whoever said arguing w Hunter was difficult?

[CoffeePass]

I feel like one thing that makes SWCCG uniquely awesome is the depth of skill in game play. Like, even if you have the "book" on a matchup, a player experienced with a deck can often find a way to win vs. someone less experienced in that matchup. (Example for the most recent meta and this isn't to toot my own horn but just my experience: the consensus seems to be that TRM soundly beats Court, but I played a ton with Court -- well over 200 games in a year -- and I felt like I knew the correct lines to take to maximize my chances at winning this "bad" matchup and honestly reached the point where I much preferred to face TRM instead of Legend or No Idea.) This is because SWCCG has a depth of play that a lot of other games don't (e.g. a lot of top tier Magic decks are linear -- you can be the best Burn player in the world but you're always going to be an underdog vs. Sneak and Show and the in game decisions where you could gain an edge are very minimal); it is very rewarding to able to master a deck and be competitive with it.

I think when people envision lots of good decks per side this is what they mean (or at least it's what I mean). The problem becomes when the top decks on each side is so powerful that even a player experienced with a deck can't figure out a way to get even a small edge, and that's not very satisfying. I also think it somewhat behooves design to think of things this way because we are a legacy game people come in-and-out of. Like Magic can be fine with a set top tier meta everyone plays in since it is constantly changing and because they have a huge tournament scene. I think we want a design mentality that supports players who don't have all the time in the world to play but instead have a couple of decks they really know well and should feel comfortable taking to a major through the ebbs and flows of a metagame they might not have the time to pay attention to.

[BButter19]

It should be obvious what objectives have had attention and haven’t. The proof is what are in the virtual sets and what isn’t.

It is not a misleading statement because again the proof is what are in the virtual sets. There are a significant amount of cards not being used that are both decipher AND virtual. We could be utilizing an already available huge resource base but the decks that have seen the majority of resources spent on them recently are based on the Disney Star Wars content. It seems like a wasted opportunity. Strong foundation = strong future.

Greater diversity of decks in tournaments = more fun.

Yeah I think it's pretty obvious after so many years and so many virtual sets that there a few decks that D&D focuses on to be top tier. If they did release a card or cards for lower end decks the magnitude of improvement for the lower tier decks wasn't large enough to make it relevant. Not sure why we continue to leave them down and buff other ones that are already towards or at the top of the curve?
I think it all comes down to mindset is what I'm starting to discover. Some people view balance as setting just a couple viable decks and reducing down the variables that could make them potentially lose to another creatively made deck, so that they have the same match ups and cards over and over again.

*THIS*

[arebelspy]

I don't think that's the case. I think there are multiple options for each side.

What I want is a shakeup of tier 1 regularly. I want the meta to change.

Things get stale not for me because it's 3 decks at the top, but because it's the same 3 decks at the top for a long time.

If what is/isn't tier one is in flux, that's a lot more fun for me personally. Idk how others feel, if they like the same decks always being top, or want to see it change.

[JarJarDrinks]

What I want is a shakeup of tier 1 regularly. I want the meta to change.

Things get stale not for me because it's 3 decks at the top, but because it's the same 3 decks at the top for a long time.

If what is/isn't tier one is in flux, that's a lot more fun for me personally. Idk how others feel, if they like the same decks always being top, or want to see it change.

I feel p much the same. Coming up w builds for decks that have yet to be optimized while analyzing an unknown meta is like the most fun thing in SWCCG to me.

[sac89837]

How many people are actually playing: Hidden Base, DBO, City In the Clouds, Agents in the Court, Imperial Occupation, DS & LS Combat, My Kind of Scum, MBO, Rebel Strike Team, Rescue the Princess, Twin Suns?

I can answer some of these:

City in the Clouds/Twin Suns - These are demo decks that are meant to teach the game and play against each other. They were specifically designed to be simple to play and will never be competitive.

Imperial Occupation - Operatives were killed by rule by Decipher. Someday we might bring back Walkers, but not Operatives.

Combat - This deck has seen a ton of play post reset. We just blanked the effect counters and their is a new Qui-Gonn and Dooku. The deck will always suffer from the worst starting ratio and bad match ups against decks that don't play Jedi. But that's how it was designed by Decipher.

DBO - We actually tried to bring this one back, but any attempt to bring back DBO has to prevent the deck from playing Menance Fades and will require a ton of helpers. If we virtualize it and make it a squadron deck, how is it going to be different than EBO, YOBS and Hidden Base? Maybe someday we will take it on again.

Hidden Base - Two of the first cards I made were Anoat(V) and ANSB(V) so Hidden Base would be playable. It's won plenty of tournaments and every time we create LS space cards they can go in this deck. I don't think it really needs any more deck specific helpers any more.

RTP - This ones a tough one as I want to make a TK-421 and TK-422 and it's such a good theme. Problem is the 7 side is NPE and so just accelerating the deck is not a way we can go. Again with DBO if we virtualize it, then we have to make sure the helpers don't make NON-V RTP too powerful.

RST - Some of our first V-Sets had RST helpers and I have seen it around. Wicket with Sabine and Stun Blaster is brutal. Imperial Decree(V) being everywhere due to No Idea hurt the deck. We might see a resurgence now as Decree(V) isn't needed for No Idea.

AiTiC - This deck is really good with General Jar Jar as your rep. Gungan Energy Shield is a really good card. Plus set 13 has even more alien helpers to make turning on Ancient Watering Hole, plus a reacting Chewie. I bet we see some in competitive play.

MKOS - This decks problem is it's the third best scum option behind Court and CCT. Maybe someday we can make better MKOS specific cards.

MBO - What's really hurting this is Great Shot, Kid!. Again like RTP if we made it easier and faster to blow up the Death Star, it gets out of hand. We have thrown abound starting over with this deck, but it's going to take a lot of playtesting.

[Madmanwithabox]

Just on the combat thing - every single dark side player card I have (previous, current and potential future ones) is aimed at bringing this up to being tournament playable. However long that takes.

[sac89837]

Just on the combat thing - every single dark side player card I have (previous, current and potential future ones) is aimed at bringing this up to being tournament playable. However long that takes.

DS Combat is always a viable call in Match play against Mains players. I don't know if the playing against non-Jedi decks in swiss play will ever be solved without changing the starting activation.

[TechTerror]

I think what the_emp and bbutter were getting at is that it feels like there aren't helpers for all the decks, just the near-top decks.

Ok I watched Gogolens twitch so I'm just going to talk about the new spoiler set 13 cards here to give present day examples.

For instance, HITCO is already pretty good and I thought it would be a go-to anyway after the errata to Wokling directed at TRM, but (spoiler alert so we can talk current-day)

Spoiler

Show

it is getting serious Set 13 helpers - but not just 1 helper card, it is getting guaranteed activation puller, a new site, the ability to get out Yoda and send him wherever you want, and two helper interrupts one of which lets you recycle Luke's saber which will get around coward shield to let you put it back on him next turn you deploy him.

unless you want to play new WYS cards, you would be a fool not to play HITCO after Set 13 and this feels almost Tier 0 like when Shadows came out. The sentiment is, why ~5 cards to help this tier 1.5 deck instead of helping some other decks? Feels like we aren't "flattening the curve" as this thread title suggests but merely switching up the meta to make it fresh.

I do appreciate all the new cards and frankly it looks real fun to try out 4 new decks really soon. But all scum decks are getting hurt and I would contend that AOBS will decline as well with the boosts to HITCO, so if you want to play DS aliens you will have to play the

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new crimson dawn objective

[The_Emp]

I don't think that's the case. I think there are multiple options for each side.

What I want is a shakeup of tier 1 regularly. I want the meta to change.

Things get stale not for me because it's 3 decks at the top, but because it's the same 3 decks at the top for a long time.

If what is/isn't tier one is in flux, that's a lot more fun for me personally. Idk how others feel, if they like the same decks always being top, or want to see it change.

I agree, I like to see the meta shake up more often, or more specifically I think it's a fun 'meta' when it is moving and changing and not becoming state or "settling" so to speak. Especially with GEMP + COVID + OCS it seems to have accelerated the meta balancing to it 'settles' quicker.
Another reason why more decks being competitive or relevant would help, it would take longer to figure out the meta since there are additional variables.

[The_Emp]

Just on the combat thing - every single dark side player card I have (previous, current and potential future ones) is aimed at bringing this up to being tournament playable. However long that takes.

This is great news, just to see Combat more relevant again would be awesome.
One thought I had was rather than only kiling off a spy, and rather than deciper's version killing a character off, what if we had a destiny draw per turn that needed to be greater than a specific number (like Y4Ops) or greater than their defense value?
That seems like a midway point to helping it.
That and of course helping it out with a startable effect to give +1 activation if starting combat, or an interrupt that works with the combat objective specifically to pull a location.

Those are light buffs that would perhaps make it just enough of a bump to make it more relevant again.

[BButter19]

I think what the_emp and bbutter were getting at is that it feels like there aren't helpers for all the decks, just the near-top decks.

Ok I watched Gogolens twitch so I'm just going to talk about the new spoiler set 13 cards here to give present day examples.

For instance, HITCO is already pretty good and I thought it would be a go-to anyway after the errata to Wokling directed at TRM, but (spoiler alert so we can talk current-day)

Spoiler

Show

it is getting serious Set 13 helpers - but not just 1 helper card, it is getting guaranteed activation puller, a new site, the ability to get out Yoda and send him wherever you want, and two helper interrupts one of which lets you recycle Luke's saber which will get around coward shield to let you put it back on him next turn you deploy him.

unless you want to play new WYS cards, you would be a fool not to play HITCO after Set 13 and this feels almost Tier 0 like when Shadows came out. The sentiment is, why ~5 cards to help this tier 1.5 deck instead of helping some other decks? Feels like we aren't "flattening the curve" as this thread title suggests but merely switching up the meta to make it fresh.

I do appreciate all the new cards and frankly it looks real fun to try out 4 new decks really soon. But all scum decks are getting hurt and I would contend that AOBS will decline as well with the boosts to HITCO, so if you want to play DS aliens you will have to play the

Spoiler

Show

new crimson dawn objective

*THIS*

The D&D want new things, not sure if the community wanted this. And as they have wanted Disney objectives, they left everything else behind.

A lot of what sac was saying is that we will get around to it at some point, again we are 6 years and 13 sets deep here... so dunno when that would be.

The stats speak for themselves, and credit to those who have done the work to keep track of the decks in recent years. A lot of objectives have been the minority of the decks played in tournaments so not sure what sac is trying to say, because the numbers and virtual set releases support what we are saying.

[stimpy]

I think what the_emp and bbutter were getting at is that it feels like there aren't helpers for all the decks, just the near-top decks.

Ok I watched Gogolens twitch so I'm just going to talk about the new spoiler set 13 cards here to give present day examples.

For instance, HITCO is already pretty good and I thought it would be a go-to anyway after the errata to Wokling directed at TRM, but (spoiler alert so we can talk current-day)

Spoiler

Show

it is getting serious Set 13 helpers - but not just 1 helper card, it is getting guaranteed activation puller, a new site, the ability to get out Yoda and send him wherever you want, and two helper interrupts one of which lets you recycle Luke's saber which will get around coward shield to let you put it back on him next turn you deploy him.

unless you want to play new WYS cards, you would be a fool not to play HITCO after Set 13 and this feels almost Tier 0 like when Shadows came out. The sentiment is, why ~5 cards to help this tier 1.5 deck instead of helping some other decks? Feels like we aren't "flattening the curve" as this thread title suggests but merely switching up the meta to make it fresh.

I do appreciate all the new cards and frankly it looks real fun to try out 4 new decks really soon. But all scum decks are getting hurt and I would contend that AOBS will decline as well with the boosts to HITCO, so if you want to play DS aliens you will have to play the

Spoiler

Show

new crimson dawn objective

*THIS*

The D&D want new things, not sure if the community wanted this. And as they have wanted Disney objectives, they left everything else behind.

A lot of what sac was saying is that we will get around to it at some point, again we are 6 years and 13 sets deep here... so dunno when that would be.

The stats speak for themselves, and credit to those who have done the work to keep track of the decks in recent years. A lot of objectives have been the minority of the decks played in tournaments so not sure what sac is trying to say, because the numbers and virtual set releases support what we are saying.

Ok but if I’m not mistaken you still haven’t named a single deck or theme you think has been snubbed. Someone else did, and sac gave a thoughtful response. It’s hard to know what else you want here. And no, you don’t speak for the community when you say we didn’t want new themes - I’m very glad to see solo cards and look forward to episode 9 stuff much more than anything that could rework operatives or mkos. The main older theme that I have seen repeatedly requested over time is blowing up the hoth generators, that would be nice to see if done well. But you also may not be allowing for the fact that design is and has been working on redefining old decks, but have been patient with releasing anything to make sure it’s done right. Mwyhl comes to mind, they’ve taken a slow approach with it

[BButter19]

Nitpicking doesn’t take away from the points I have mentioned, unless you want them too. Did I say I speak for everyone - clearly I didn’t but then let me know who does. 6 years plus is definitely taking your time...

[imrahil327]

I am not sure why the compass points to what Disney is doing vs what the community would like / needs.

This sure sounds like speaking for the community to me.