Ban & Restricted v2

[PJetski]

Do you think any more cards should be added to the Banned/Restricted lists? Should any cards be taken off the Banned/Restricted list?

Although we don't have any cards on the same power level as Great Concussion, I have noticed the meta is settling around some specific cards that appear in nearly every deck. I have won three 16+ player events so far since Nightvault launched, and here's my shortlist of cards I think should be Banned or Restricted:

Banned

• Ready for Action - This card is in every deck. I think this card is similar in power to Time Trap, which also has a (well deserved) spot on the Banned list.
• Extreme Flank - It's just too easy to score, worth too much glory, and it encourages passive play.
• Tome of Offerings - A Destiny to Meet is Restricted, but this card is on a whole other level. It heavily favours specific warbands using it (warbands that focus on a single fighter) and gains far more value against warbands with lots of fighters (Skeletons, Skaven, Nighthaunt, Gitz). Why should it be banned rather than restricted? In a regular game this is a problem, but this is a HUGE problem in a tournament setting where Glory is used as a tiebreaker. Players that match against Gitz every round can generate a tremendous glory advantage over somebody that matches with Cursebreakers every round.

Restricted

• Harness the Storm - This is probably the single best objective in the game, and it's a big reason why Cursebreakers are so strong right now
• Inspiration Strikes
• Hidden Paths
• Deathly Fortitude and/or Sudden Growth
• Superior Tactician - Is this card imbalanced or is it just too popular?
• Supremacy - This is a controversial choice, but if Our Only Way Out is worth running at 2 glory, I think that makes Supremacy too powerful by definition. I think the power of this card is forcing the game into an aggressive meta, because if you can't stop Supremacy swings then you just can't win. In my opinion this card should not be 3 glory and scorable in turn 1 - making it Restricted is a better solution than printing an Errata for a core set card.

[Skyeline]

I'm not so sure that I agree with Extreme Flank and Tome of Offerings going onto the ban list. 

• Extreme Flank has earned a rightful spot on the restricted list, but I don't think objectives that award passive play are a bad thing unless they adversely drive too many meta decks that would prefer to sit and never interact with their opponent. I don't think this is an issue currently, but it does warrant keeping an eye on.
   
• Tome of Offerings I feel is simply too early to tell where to place it. My gut is telling me it's not going to be impactful enough to end up on the ban list, but time will tell if we begin seeing it creep in as an auto-include in specific aggro decks. 

Most of the restricted list makes me uneasy for one reason or another so I won't ramble on about them. I do  however agree wholeheartedly with Superior Tactician going restricted. I'm also a little surprised to see that Potion of Rage didn't make it onto this list. I'm seeing it show up in a huge amount of lists and I'm still expecting it to end up restricted. 

[Malakree]

Few comments. No faction cards should be banned/restricted imo. No matter how stupid harness the storm is.

Definitely don't agree with extreme flank being or tome of offerings being banned.

Banned cards

I cannot think of any which are close to as gamebreaking as quick thinker or great concussion.

Restricted cards

Superior tactician. This card has become staple due to the amount of score immediately cards. It buffs an already good strategy.

What armour. This card is far to easy to score for some warbands and is autoinclude if you have access to reasonable cleave.

Sorcerous scouring. Yes this essentially the shot at stormsires. 

Spoils of battle. It's a better version of ghoulish pact, would make the choice between the two interesting if.

Sudden growth and Deathly fortitude. These are just to powerful.

Faneway crystal. It's basically a version of illusionary fighter.

Great strength. With the addition of glory seeker this is now to much just like incredible strength was.

Maybe restricted

Shining example, strong start, martyred, potion of rage, hidden paths, inspiration strikes, glory seeker, supremacy.

[Mosquito onthe TenthFloor]

Is the Banned and Restricted list an official GW thing? Kinda wonder why they make the cards in the first place, if they then later ban them.

[PJetski]

24 minutes ago, Mosquito onthe TenthFloor said:

Is the Banned and Restricted list an official GW thing? Kinda wonder why they make the cards in the first place, if they then later ban them.

Cards are designed far ahead of time, there's only so much playtesting you can do. They need to be checked, localized, printed, packaged, and then shipped for a worldwide release... It's very likely they design the entire set all at once, so the Nightvault cards were probably getting finalized a few months after Shadespire came out and the second season was greenlit as a result of good sales.

Season 2 was probably designed before the idea of a BAR list.

[Mosquito onthe TenthFloor]

1 hour ago, PJetski said:

Cards are designed far ahead of time, there's only so much playtesting you can do. They need to be checked, localized, printed, packaged, and then shipped for a worldwide release... It's very likely they design the entire set all at once, so the Nightvault cards were probably getting finalized a few months after Shadespire came out and the second season was greenlit as a result of good sales.

Season 2 was probably designed before the idea of a BAR list.

So the banned and restricted list does come directly from GW then? Will keep that in mind.

[Phyriphiry]

I'm not so sure about putting ready for action on the banned list.

It is true that it comes in almost every deck and OK for me to ban it, but then you have to have solutions to make more actions then 4 in an action phase, maybe with some more restrictions.

Like second wind but then with other action types.

Maybe some new cards like 'ready for a move action' or 'ready for a special action'...

P

[Sleboda]

On 2/4/2019 at 8:56 AM, PJetski said:

 

• Supremacy - This is a controversial choice, but if Our Only Way Out is worth running at 2 glory, I think that makes Supremacy too powerful by definition. 

Remember that Supremacy came first. Three Glory is fair. It's Our Only Way Out that is the issue, giving extra Glory on top of the three.

I don't believe either should be restricted, but it's not a good justification to say that Supremacy is too good because another card awards fewer Glory tokens.

On 2/5/2019 at 9:37 AM, Mosquito onthe TenthFloor said:

Is the Banned and Restricted list an official GW thing? Kinda wonder why they make the cards in the first place, if they then later ban them.

Keep in mind that not everyone is playing this game at tournaments. If folks want to ignore the list, then they can.

[Malakree]

3 hours ago, Sleboda said:

Remember that Supremacy came first. Three Glory is fair. It's Our Only Way Out that is the issue, giving extra Glory on top of the three.

I don't believe either should be restricted, but it's not a good justification to say that Supremacy is too good because another card awards fewer Glory tokens

The restricted list lets them force people to make a choice between multiple good cards without removing them.

Putting supremacy on there will only matter to people already running 5 restricted cards. So thorns decks with shadeglass dagger might suddenly have to pick between the two. On the other hand a skele deck which is 100% objective focused isn't going to be affected.

I think it's a good restricted card because it forces you to choose between using a restricted slot or getting an extra glory.

[Sleboda]

Ok, but isn't It Only Way still the better candidate, then?

[Malakree]

2 hours ago, Sleboda said:

Ok, but isn't It Only Way still the better candidate, then?

No because the idea is to make it a meaningful choice. Do you choose to take Our Only Way Out and have 5 restricted slots for other cards but only gain 2 glory, or do you chose to have Supremacy and 4 restricted slots. Potentially you could make an objective deck with the "tactical supremacy" cards but what you're now doing is making that choice. The fact that the Farstrider supremacy is only 2 glory implies they knew 3 glory was to strong then. That's the purpose of the restricted list, to put all the "so good its an auto include" cards into a limited pool.

For objective decks Supremacy at 3 glory outshines all the other options. Putting it on the restricted list forces interesting deck building choices in the same way that putting the various weapons/damage abilities on the restricted list did for aggressive lists.

[Sleboda]

3 hours ago, Malakree said:

 The fact that the Farstrider supremacy is only 2 glory implies they knew 3 glory was to strong then.

Not in my opinion. In my opinion it shows that they wanted to offer a way to go all in, so to speak, in that approach to Glory, but wanted diminishing returns.

Let's not forget, Objective cards are a fixed/limited resource. You get 12. Period. To me, they are saying that if you want to be rewarded a second time for the same thing, then you can, but perhaps it should not reward you as much as the first one, but then again, you are giving up one more of your 12 slots to do it, so two Glory more (as opposed to maybe only one) is a fair trade.

In short, I don't think we can make the leap you are suggesting is implied.

Not saying it's not the case, only that we don't have the info needed to make that our conclusion.

In any event, Supremacy is already hard enough in this game. It's so darn easy to prevent in numerous ways. It really doesn't need to be restricted.

[Malakree]

1 hour ago, Sleboda said:

Not in my opinion. In my opinion it shows that they wanted to offer a way to go all in, so to speak, in that approach to Glory, but wanted diminishing returns.

Just looked it up and I'm actually wrong, the Farstriders one is 3 glory, it's a different objective which has a reduced amount (Annihilation is 3 for some reason). It's the Eyes of the Nine card which is 2 glory for supremacy.

1 hour ago, Sleboda said:

Let's not forget, Objective cards are a fixed/limited resource. You get 12. Period. To me, they are saying that if you want to be rewarded a second time for the same thing, then you can, but perhaps it should not reward you as much as the first one, but then again, you are giving up one more of your 12 slots to do it, so two Glory more (as opposed to maybe only one) is a fair trade.

It's also the most important deck since it not only allows you to apply upgrades but actually wins you the game.

1 hour ago, Sleboda said:

In any event, Supremacy is already hard enough in this game. It's so darn easy to prevent in numerous ways. It really doesn't need to be restricted.

That depends entirely on what you're playing and what cards you're playing to protect yourself from those methods. Which is the point of deck building.

The BaR list is there to ensure that there are interesting deck building decisions between the different options for all the different styles. Right now if you are going to build an objective deck supremacy goes in it, all the other cards are optional. I'm not arguing it should be removed entirely from the game, I really don't think it should be. What I'm saying is that putting it on the restricted list would mean it's inclusion now comes at the cost of something else on the list which makes deck building for objective lists more interesting.

Supremacy currently out performs all of the other objective based cards. Each of the Tactical Supremacy cards are potentially harder to score for 2 glory while the Tactical Genius cards require you to hold 3 specific objectives for 3 glory. In this case I feel it would be better for the broader health of the game to have the general Supremacy be restricted so that it is a choice against the other objective based cards. Notably I would then say that faction specific cards, such as the Farstriders, Eyes and Godsworn versions, are where the 3 glory supremacy should be found.

[Skyeline]

This debate around  restricting Supremacy is an interesting one. I stayed away from commenting on it at first despite typing up quite a bit about it because I was very conflicted about my feelings on it.

Ultimately, I feel like the BAR list was created to cover two key principles:
1. Tamp down on power creep
2. Diversify deck building

Looking at objective decks with those two principles in mind I do feel like we're seeing some cards over and over. Supremacy is the obvious stand out and seems to be a target for that 2nd principle. Restricting it would obviously shake up how folks are building their objective decks, since it's simply an auto-include.

Yet I'm not so sure that Supremacy is really a target for that 1st principle. Thorns and gits are clearly carrying the objective torch lately and they seem to be performing well-- but I'm not convinced they're performing so well that they need to be taken down a notch just yet. 

 

FWIW I feel the same way about Our Only Way Out. Restricting one or the other (or both?) in my mind simply comes down to an argument of how much someone wants to hit the strength of objective based decks. 

[Sleboda]

2 hours ago, Malakree said:

That depends entirely on what you're playing and what cards you're playing to protect yourself from those methods. Which is the point of deck building.

The BaR list is there to ensure that there are interesting deck building decisions between the different options for all the different styles. 

Supremacy currently out performs all of the other objective based cards.

(not sure how to break up quotes from one post)

First bit: Yes, of course. Deck-building is fun! That said, "protecting" yourself from Objective play in the current game is child's play.  Pushes, Earthquake, Shardefall (a card I never play without, btw), simple attacks... Objective play is a dead style, making Supremacy an afterthought for competitive play.

Second bit: Fer sher. The restricted list is indeed not all about power, but variety.  I agree.

Last bit: See first bit. Who cares if it's the best objective based card? Objective play is not really viable.

[Malakree]

6 hours ago, Sleboda said:

First bit: Yes, of course. Deck-building is fun! That said, "protecting" yourself from Objective play in the current game is child's play.  Pushes, Earthquake, Shardefall (a card I never play without, btw), simple attacks... Objective play is a dead style, making Supremacy an afterthought for competitive play.

My point was that an objective deck can build to protect itself from how people normally mess with it.

Great concussion was the only true hard counter because you couldn't just use it in response. Most aggro decks are not going to be running 100% hate because it means they lose the aggro mirror.

6 hours ago, Sleboda said:

Last bit: See first bit. Who cares if it's the best objective based card? Objective play is not really viable.

How to properly put this.

When a card exists every new card which is added has to be evaluated from the perspective of that card. With supremacy this means understanding anything which lets you get an objective is potentially 3 glory.  Restricting it won't hurt true objective decks at a srs because there are almost no pure objective cards on the bar list. What it does is hit the aggro decks which are using it for 3 free faction glory. Aggro decks are already struggling with what cards to use from the bar list.

What it comes down to is limiting the cards which are far stronger than their equivalents so that newer cards can be added for the altered power level.

For example, imagine 3 cards.

"Score this immediately if one of your fighters holding an objective is pushed by an enemy ploy or gambit spell"

"Ploy - reaction play this during an attack which your opponent could drive back a friendly fighter holding an objective. Move the objective to an adjacent empty hex then setup that friendly fighter on the objective. They cannot be driven back by this attack."

"Upgrade: This fighter cannot be pushed or driven back while they are holding an objective." 

These three cards all strengthen an objective deck. The problem you face is that the power level of the second two is based on what you can score with them rather than the cards themselves.

Hence what might be balanced for 95% of objective cards could be to strong purely because of supremacy. So what you're doing by putting it on the bar list is toning it down to the level of all the equivalent cards so that you can introduce things which boost all of them up without just making aggro decks take them with supremacy for free glory.

[Sleboda]

1 hour ago, Malakree said:

My point was that an objective deck can build to protect itself from how people normally mess with it.

No sarcasm here -

I'd love to learn how! I miss my Sepulchral Guard. Ever since ppl figured out that they really need to go for Objectives and that denying that style is supposed simple, I have not been able to make myself play with them.