Let's chat: Katophrane decks

[Skulltula]

38 minutes ago, Anthony225 said:

Yeah I think 1 glory per relic is to little while 2 glory per relic is to much. Not sure what else they could do about it though.

 

I don’t know what else either. Community feedback and results was fairly clear a change needed to happen. Beyond that, I don’t think it’s for the playerbase to give solutions, just feedback to contribute to decisions. We don’t have anywhere near the data to make the best decision. I just hope GW know what their plan is. The fact we’re beta trialling isn’t confidence filling though.

[Goblin-King]

Talking about changing the glory cost is a weird conversation to me. Let me ask... What if you wanted to actually use the relics only for their first 3 abilities (re-roll defense, attack and draw cards). Would 2 glory per piece still be reasonable? If you say "no", then this solution is straight up the wrong one.

Secondly... Just change the f****** cards already! This is the very first iteration of the game. It has had a strong start and I can see it staying for a long time. Just hard fix what needs fixing in this early stage. Include the updated cards in the next core pack. Print them as promos for the stores. Do whatever it takes. Just make the BEST solution for the game.

[Malakree]

3 hours ago, Goblin-King said:

Talking about changing the glory cost is a weird conversation to me. Let me ask... What if you wanted to actually use the relics only for their first 3 abilities (re-roll defense, attack and draw cards). Would 2 glory per piece still be reasonable? If you say "no", then this solution is straight up the wrong one.

I made a suggestion that they go for 1/1/1/3/3/3 but remove spoils of battle being able to equip a relic.

I agree just reprint them. Put them in the S2 box with tournament style art and nobody will care!

[Goblin-King]

I can see where you are going with this balance wise. But quite frankly I think it's way too complex. Two different equipment costs and a card exception?

The problem is that's it's incredibly hard to do an elegant solution without changing the words on the cards. 
I assume the implied beta-solution is "All relic upgrades cost 2 glory to equip" - As opposed to it being a special rule JUST for the Katophrane relics.
Using "Relic" as a keyword in the rule book is a good idea though. The way they did it is not though... 

[Reo]

Hi,

first time poster here. I have little to no experience, but boy, I'm hooked by Shadespire

On topic though:  What would you think of the following rule change?

 

KATOPHRANE RELICS

A player can only play a Katophrane Relic upgrade card by spending one groly point for each other Katophrane Relic upgrade card he or she has played this game, and applying the upgrade card to an eligible fighter.

FAQ

Q: Can I use Spoils of Battle to apply a Katophrane Relic card to a fighter.

A: Yes.

So... 0 / 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5.

Using Spoils of Battle on the last relic would sum up to 10 glory points spent. Just like the current version. However it would push early game availability. Two relics would cost one glory to play, while having a similar effect as Trusted Defender.  Three relics are beginning to be powerfull, but you already spent 3 glory to play them. And so on and so on...

What do you guys think? Did I miss something crucial?

[Kaptain Murder]

Thought about this change and pit a couple ideas together, then did some playtewting (ie: game until the end 2nd round, katoprane achieveable?)

 

Scaredy cat is out

Skaven or unded objective control is in

Aggreassive Eternal or balanced vanguard(!?!?) Is in

Faced with orruk ir khirne aggro its hard but a playavle game

Slayers don't work :(

 

[Daveman]

I've yet to see a Katophrane deck, but it seems to me an easier way to balance things would be to reduce the amount of glory the 6-piece bonus allows.  That way the set is just as attainable as it is now, still provides the other benefits of the set, it just doesn't provide the same amount of glory.  Guaranteed glory for an action is very strong... maybe make it 2 instead of 4?  1?

[Malakree]

Or 6 glory points if the character wearing it is alive during the third end phase.

[Skulltula]

I don’t think they want to go down the route of having cards do something markedly different from the wording on them - and I tend to agree, it’s an awful play experience to have to refer to faqs and erratas heavily in a TCG.

I somewhat expect the ‘beta’ changes will stick. It gives the community what they asked for (ban relics: well they’re dead) with the least bloodshed (as a politics graduate I can definitely admire the stance of it not technically being a ban). Plus going to a different solution would be messy. Players want a stable format.

hopefully they revisit the mechanics in a future set. That’s the realistic best chance people who wanted to play relics outside of what we did with Kat will get. On everything else, I think this has become a bit of a dead discussion and I’m definitely done talking on it. I’ve largely accepted things will be as they are now and I’m pretty much just doing me in terms of how I feel about that etc.

[Daveman]

But if something like the proposed beta rule goes through they're already altering how the cards are played vs. what's printed on the card.  Changing the glory cost per card isn't different from saying the 6-piece ability grants X glory instead of 4.

I think the more straightforward way would be to ban them from competitive play, if they continue to remain dominant and\or encourage "passive" play. 

[Skulltula]

They’re not changing what’s written on the card though. They have the keyword Katophrane relic. They’ve added a rule that says Katophrane relics cost 2 glory to equip.

at this point a ban, costing 2 glory, costing 10 glory per etc isn’t far off being functionally the same. The 6 cards are dead competitively

[Malakree]

It's one of the reasons that I hope they remove it and instead ban bloodless, sigmars bulwark, concecrated area, honest opponent and perfect planning. 

Removing those would have the same effect but leave the interactive kataphrane decks alive. 

They also need to stop spoils from working on it and ban great concussion because those are silly.

[Goblin-King]

9 hours ago, Malakree said:

It's one of the reasons that I hope they remove it and instead ban bloodless, sigmars bulwark, concecrated area, honest opponent and perfect planning. 

Removing those would have the same effect but leave the interactive kataphrane decks alive. 

Agreed. If they want a more interactive game, those objectives are the ones that need to go, not the Relics.

[Skulltula]

2 hours ago, Goblin-King said:

Agreed. If they want a more interactive game, those objectives are the ones that need to go, not the Relics.

Some of. I don’t think all need to go. Leaving say bulwark and consecrated at least gives the SCE some form of identity when the game already has a problem with a lot of the factions feeling very samey.

You also have to be willing to prune other cards or introduce improvements - right now objective decks are clearly not a good enough choice, so if you remove defensive as well then all you have is aggro. Interactive, yes but they all feel very similar. I feel if you want a board game where you run equivalent but subtly different models into each other then chess still exists.

This might be why we just have to wait until the next set. Does anyone genuinely want further upheaval while GW take another stab at getting it right? It’s better optics to just let the season play out and fix things with set 2. Hopefully by printing better faction locked cards, rotating some of their mistakes out, being damn well careful what they make powerful and neutral and triple checking the testing any time they want to put gain glory options into power deck cards.

[Malakree]

@Skulltula that's one of the big reasons great concussion needs to go. It's a hoser for objectives unlike any other cards, it almost auto-scores alone in the dark, it's defensive or offensive and can be both at the same time.

It's just to good AND it ruins objective decks.

[Skulltula]

2 minutes ago, Malakree said:

@Skulltula that's one of the big reasons great concussion needs to go. It's a hoser for objectives unlike any other cards, it almost auto-scores alone in the dark, it's defensive or offensive and can be both at the same time.

It's just to good AND it ruins objective decks.

I'm absolutely on agreement. I wanted GW to take the time to analyse properly before acting on relics (but at least put a community notice out that they were aware and evaluating). I expected if they'd done so there'd have been a conclusion that Concussion needed to go in order to strengthen objective decks and then likely the relics as well still (glory on upgrades is a problem, it's abusable if not properly restricted and really hard to balance to the level of just about right). That may have been enough to spare any need to prune passive objectives if key decks just threaten to outscore anyway, while finding life rough vs aggro getting in and using knockback etc.

Instead GW have made changes and I feel we have to live with them until a suitable window. Flip flopping between changes every couple of weeks is worse and players will not commit to the game. Why commit time learning a deck this week if massive shifts happen and it's bad next week?

[Malakree]

So what I believe, and hope, is happening is that the relic change was a stopgap measure while they worked out a better longterm fix. They couldn't allow that deck to continue existing because of how it was ruining tournaments but getting a real fix is complicated. 

It's why I'm still discussing it, I think they are internally testing and considering other ideas.