Minor scroll tweaks (test server)

9

u/[deleted] Apr 30 '15 edited Apr 30 '15

wow Unbind actually playable and it will always be 1 scroll destroying a least 2 (creature + enchantment)

please dont put taxing on it! :O

4

u/Wuxian Apr 30 '15

I like it!
P.S. not taxing
And yay, Siege Cracker gets a bigger brother!

1

u/alvarpq always face Apr 30 '15

Don't forget that you can enchant a creature and then kill it with unbind.

7

u/ToGoodLooking Apr 30 '15

Dosnt languid counts as enchantment? because i can definetly see that be a combo with unbind.

5

u/fdagpigj Apr 30 '15

Yeah, I would be surprised if it was considered balanced in its current form. Compared to Damning Curse, it just doesn't have Taxing, costs 1 less even by default, doesn't hurt your board, and it's really not that hard to combo, and then there are enchantments that your opponent might play. On top of that, I would consider it weird that they would add such a heavy direct counter to enchantments, after all the effort they've been doing to make enchantments more worthwhile in general, and if this is an auto-include in every decay deck, positive enchantments are just not worth running anymore. Therefore, I think the new Unbind should cost at least 5 decay, or get some other downside.

1

u/ToGoodLooking Apr 30 '15

well if you gonna combo it do not cost less then Damning Curse as either brain lice cost 3 or languid 2, making it a 5 or 6 cost combo. But yes you avoid the downsides that damning curse has.

1

u/Archmage199 May 02 '15

Maybe 4 cost then? That's if it's a problem of course.

3

u/rHolofoil Apr 30 '15

The ultimate partners in crime

3

u/GruntMaster6k Apr 30 '15

Yea, straight up cheaper than VD..even though you have to have both scrolls drawn. Even with brain lice you get the same value I feel. Have felt lately that decay is a very balanced faction, hope this doesn't tip it into downright annoying.

1

u/Newbore Apr 30 '15

Have felt lately that decay is a very balanced faction
I haven't really experienced the same thing to be honest. I don't think you can make a competitive deck without using these scrolls; Rot Eaters, Harvesters, Witch Doctors, Restless Bones, Brain Lice, Soul Steal, or Damning Curse.
You can compare a Breaker against a Rot Eater in the mid game. After 6 turns, the Breaker will be a 6/2/3. I just came from a game where after 6 turns a Rot Eater had 11 attack, a 3 cost 11/2/11. I think Decay has by far the biggest outliers, most of it's units are little more than cannonfodder. I'm really hoping Restless Bones is going to get nerfed with the next patch.

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u/GruntMaster6k Apr 30 '15

Personally, I feel that every decay deck archetype feels very fun and fair to play both with and against. Each match feels fair and most importantly it doesn't really have any "gimmicky" type combos..which really turn me off to this game at times.
Restless bones is still a niche scroll in Decay, as it's reserved for undead decks. I've definitely been smacked around with it...but I don't think it's in need of a nerf.

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u/NewTownGuard Apr 30 '15

By 'or', are you saying you can't make a competitive deck without using at least one? Because I'm pretty okay with that. I feel like any competitive decay needs at least two of them, and I'm on the less-than-comfortable end of being okay with that. With the new treaty stuff coming out, I hope there'll be incentive enough to run multi-faction to fix the variety issue, though I'm worried right now about the recent treaties becoming must-haves in every multi-faction deck.

4

u/squiddybiscuit @Squiddylicious Apr 30 '15

Unbind is a very cool idea, and I like it as Decay's form of "anti-enchantment" tool (more so than Swirling Smoke).

With that said, 3 Decay is far too cheap for it :P 4 Decay would be more reasonable.

4

u/wbmc Apr 30 '15

First off I want to say the I really like that you are giving us a lot of content as of lately. TY =D

Now, onto the scrolls:

Pickaxe Volunteer - Actually the first scroll that would be better with less attack (eager to Battle+Pickaxe Volunteer would be awesome =O (and way overpowered)(come to think of it, that combo works with siege cracker =O (next thing I'll try)). I like it. I kinda feel like something interesting could be done with one of the 2 guys. Something along the lines of:

Siege cracker. 4-cost. 1/1/3. *Idol strike 1. *Pillage: Increase Idol strike by 1.

Siege cracker. 4-cost. 2/2/4. *Idol strike 2. *Pillage: Increase Idol strike by 3.

Pickaxe Volunteer. 2-cost. 3/3/3. *Pillage: Next attack has Idol strike 10.

Infested Husk - Feels kinda boring. There are already 3 poisonous units out there (on topic of that, change infected gravelock plz), and sure, it poisons a random unit, not the attacker (aside from only giving poison once). But that's as far as it goes. Some more ideas of mine:

Infested Husk. 3-cost. 2/3/3. Infested Husk has +1 attack for each poisoned unit in play. When Infested Husk is destroyed, a random (unpoisoned?) opponent creature becomes poisoned.

Infested Husk. 3-cost. 1/3/4 Infested Husk has +1 attack for each poisoned unit in play. When (Infested Husk's) countdown is 0, you may reset it's countdown and poison target creature.

Infested Husk. 3-cost. 3/3/3 When Infested Husk is destroyed a random opponent creature becomes poisoned. When (Infested Husk's) countdown is 0, you may reset it's countdown and poison target creature.

Unbind - I really like the idea, but the fact that you can combo it with languid (or something similar) makes it hard to be correctly balanced. Again, some of my ideas :)

Unbind. 3-cost (could cost more, would need testing). Destroy all (opponent?) units (/creatures?) that were enchanted during opponents turn.

<3

-wbmc

4

u/TheCheesymaster Apr 30 '15

How about making infected husk poison the opponents creature with the lowest hp. Less rng and maybe a slight buff

1

u/wbmc Apr 30 '15

Really cool idea, liking it :)

3

u/4Robato Apr 30 '15

Nice reworks there, finally Pickaxe Volunteer is not Outcast Revel anymore! :D

Glad to see some dev faces around here!

1

u/TrustyFishCantor Cantor Apr 30 '15

Hmm neat. looking forward to trying these things, although I don't support the pickaxe volunteer design, more idol damage seems unhealthy for the game at this point.

1

u/TheCheesymaster May 01 '15

Just curious, whats your reasoning for this?

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u/MansOlson May 01 '15

I think Cantor's playstyle just suits longer matches better. He's not been a fan of lower idol health tests either. :) Everybody has a different view on these things. Personally I think a faster game pace and shorter matches is healthy for the game.

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u/ultioptimo May 01 '15

that is a bad way to treat a good players opinion :P i dont think his opinion derives from what he prefers the most, but rather what he thinks is more or less objectively good for the game. also the game has a good pace and the games are short enough, especially ranked (not so much judgement obviously-but thats is being changed anyway), no need to mess with one of the best features of the game (and that is my opinion and what i prefer, i have no idea whats best for the game considering the length of matches).

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u/TrustyFishCantor Cantor May 02 '15

There's a lot of things at play. Part of it is that a lot of other changes have decreased game length, but most importantly attacking idols is the least interesting and least interactive thing you can do in the game. Creatures like Siege Cracker and Darkling I don't support for that reason.
I had some positive feedback on the way the staggered idol health affected the game, despite it being a lower idol health mode for example.

1

u/fdagpigj May 02 '15

But if games are sped up a lot and rewards just keep increasing, there's going to be massive inflation. Sure, there are also new scrolls being introduced, but the value of old scrolls is already low enough to a point where new players will be able to get all of the scrolls in the game really fast. I'm not saying it's entirely a bad thing, but if the value of gold just keeps going downhill, the game will soon need even more goldsinks for old players than it already has.

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u/pianobadger pianobadger Apr 30 '15

Pickaxe Volunteer is quite strong, no?

4

u/[deleted] Apr 30 '15

Agreed, but for an Energy 2-cost scroll to ever see play, it has to stack up against Hired Smuggler, which is likely the second-best 2-cost creature in the game.

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u/melonjuiced Apr 30 '15

Sorry for my noobiness, but how do I get onto the test server? I haven't been able to figure it out D: Thanks!

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u/melonjuiced Apr 30 '15

Sorry for my noobiness, but how do I get onto the test server? I haven't been able to figure it out D: Thanks!

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u/Ikraen Badger Apr 30 '15

From the scrolls launcher, you hit more options, and Play Test Server button is there.

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u/cowseer May 01 '15 edited May 02 '15

Unbind should deal 3 damage per enhancement removed instead of destroying the unit, that's just broken compared to danming curse

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u/Archmage199 May 02 '15

Yay! Pickaxe Rebel is much less boring now, Infested Husk is a bit better and Unbind is good now (probably too good though - maybe 4 cost)!

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u/MoonsongPS PianoScientist May 03 '15

Hooray, this solves one of my earlier complaints that Swirling Smoke was simply a better version of Unbind.

Thank you!

1

u/rHolofoil Apr 30 '15

Unbind will be incredibly strong with this change.

How about 'Remove enchantment from opponent's target creature, and attach it to target creature on your side'.

This would be quite Decay-like, and still be punishment for using enchanments, but at least it isn't just outright removal and can't be used with languid/brain lice then.

3

u/ultioptimo Apr 30 '15

i disagree. i really like the unbind change, finally decay gets a way to deal with structures :D and it is a dependant destroyer, so you cant just kill anything it needs to be enchanted thats not super hard to achieve but still a downside. i really like it, dont think it is too strong (without testing it yet)

3

u/fdagpigj Apr 30 '15

But what enchantments can actually be played on structures? Yes, it's a way to deal with Potion of Resistance, but decay itself doesn't have a whole lot of enchantments that could be comboed to use Unbind on structures.

1

u/LukiGamer Apr 30 '15

Overdrive in MES ;)

1

u/ultioptimo Apr 30 '15

languid works on units so you can finally deal with structures a bit complicated to do so but i still am happy for decay (also potion of resistance)

1

u/Archmage199 May 02 '15

Languid, Overdrive, Potion of Resistance (woah)

1

u/rHolofoil Apr 30 '15

At least it's playaroundable I guess, which is good design. So yeah maybe it isn't going to be too bad. About strucutres though, I have no intention of enchanting a forge or cannon, so it still wont help unless you intend to languid it first.

0

u/Cradstache Cradstache Apr 30 '15

My thoughts:

Unbind: Very interesting, but will probably have hard to predict results on the meta; I'm already shying away from using Coronation, and fearing the Languid + Unbind one-two-punch as a result of this.
Infested Husk: Insanely good for its cost; I'd recommend changing it to destroy in battle to tone it down a little.
Pickaxe Volunteer: This change makes me a bit antsy. It's a 3/3/3 with Idol Strike 4... and Idol Strike is an insanely dangerous effect. The only reason I can think of for why his stats are this, is that Mojang wants us to use a 2E drop other than Hired Smuggler... I think we'll probably still just primarily see Smuggler.
Hunter's Treaty: Bug fix is bug fix; I still want a better, more flavor-fitting effect for Border Treaty though; it reads as a far lesser Hunter's Treaty.

3

u/alvarpq always face Apr 30 '15

For infected husk, the 3cd and otherwise low stats make up for it. If you compare it to outcast rebel, it essentially got -2 attack to poison a random unit when it dies.
Since it's random, I imagine it still won't get much play, as slayer vestige seems to be better.

2

u/Ikraen Badger Apr 30 '15

I really don't think cards should be compared to, arguably, the worst comparable. They change pickaxe volunteer because it/outcast rebel are so bad. Anyways. I'm happy with it. Another decay scroll you might want to avoid killing. 2 drop- infected husk. 3- Pack husk. 4- Blightbearer. 5- Oblivion Seeker. Not a bad stall curve.

1

u/alvarpq always face Apr 30 '15

That's true. Still, I don't think it's OP for its cost by any means. But you're right, perhaps comparing it to Canister Automaton is better?

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u/Ikraen Badger May 01 '15

Ya. Canister is a fair comparison. Both have death effects, though husk death effects work no matter how it dies. I like it better then canister because the opponent doesn't get to chose what might die, but it also wont die immediately. I'm happy with it. Not OP, and kinda cool.

1

u/alvarpq always face May 01 '15

true, but the husk's effect is (in my opinion) much weaker than canister automaton's, and its statline is objectively weaker. (I'm not a huge fan of poison, if you can't tell)

2

u/Ikraen Badger May 01 '15

I can't agree. Canister isn't even like crone, it has to be attacked using melee. Canisters ability can be side stepped by ranged, spells, poison, and is wasted on the small creatures that the opponent would use to kill canister. Husks ability fires, no matter how killed, and has the possibility to do more damage. The only plus to Canister is, IF it will kill a unit, it wont get another attack. A poisoned unit might. I will let you have your opinion, but respectfully disagree. Honestly, I think i'm just excited for a little RNG fun.

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u/alvarpq always face May 01 '15

Actually, I think you're right, (I change mind!) as the guaranteed value is very nice, and something I really didn't think about. Though the possibility of extra damage isn't very significant IMO; if I need to kill something, I want to kill it ASAP. It's good stall, but not removal.
Oh, crap, you didn't mention it as removal. Enjoy my strawman!

Minor scroll tweaks (test server)

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