Durins Heir - I would like to address something that seems to be a bit of a misunderstanding about this process. This is my personal opinion, so please take it as it is. You are thinking as a passionate player and as a constructed deck designer. You are trying to create the most efficient and powerful constructed decks that you can from the card pool available while limiting yourself to commons and uncommons...
Sorry for this long absense... I had computer and health problems I just couldn't circumvent. But I'm able again.
You aimed with accuracy when said I'm a passionate constructed deck designer, and I understand that's not what we need right now. But if this Revised TS Sealed is meant to be in the spirit of Revised Movie, decks should be in the midpoint between a Poorman's powerful constructed deck and Decipher's lame basic starters. Thus,
powerful constructed proposals may be nerfed until reach that desired midpoint.
Let me explain it with some past examples: when we were starting the drafts there were few available Shadow options to dismiss, so
those we had found OP were nerfed instead of ditched. After empirical observation (that old Galilean thing...) the
Hate and Arrows original draft proved to be a Gatling Gun with those 3x
Moria Archer Troop and 2x
OoYMDT, and Sauron Trackers with 3x
Orc Patrol, 4x
UTWE and 3x
IMYS and 2x
Gate Sentry were just too much;
In Twilight was ripped from Twilight Nazgul before testing (and even
Nazgul Sword at that moment)...
It has been done before. We can nerf a deck until it gets a desirable amount of weakness:
1.
Gandalf TMAYOD + Ents: If the problem with Ents is overpopullation, we can reduce the Ent count to 4 and even discard
Host of Fangorn; if the problem is
Ent Moot, it can be replaced with a temporary event pump or even with non-pump tricks for Hobbits (
Meant to Be Alone,
Good Work,
Kept Safe) or Gandalf (
Intimidate,
Long I Fell,
Keep Your Forked Tongue... even
Treachery Deeper Than You Know or
Risk A Little Light).
Let that ol' Galilean thing tell us when to stop crippling, but not before...
If the problem with Gandalf is having him too early, 2 copies instead of 3 can be enough nerfing. Starting an Unhasty Ent can help to cycle out those Wizard tricks while there's no Wizard. Gandalf has powerful tricks so I added only 1 of each selected (except for pumps), and dismissed those OP table sweepers:
Sleep Caradhras and
Deep in Thought.
Keep in mind this: Gandalf's events require too many card slots to be added, thus coupling with another culture can be very difficult (while keeping a small deck) and would let most tricks out most of the time.
Gandalf
TMAYOD can merge well with Ents (
as far as we weaken them enough), as the latter don't mix well with anything except UB Hobbits: you can't couple well Ents with Dwarves, Elves, Gondor... If we include a Gandalf
TMAYOD + Rohan deck, both parts will be useful for too many coupling purposes... You can splash
Brego and
Horse of Rohan on any Gondor or Three Hunters deck and use Rohan allies to play those mounts (and pump/heal) instead of Rohan companions, AND aid with Gandalf's extremely useful
TMAYOD.
2.
Valiant + Allies Rohan: No one has pointed out any OP problem in my draft except for
LUBS (I know it must have more), that card may be removed. Nor anyone has tested it; it has only 2 event pumps and 2 (reusable) ally pumps instead of those 6 event pumps of the Rohan Allies deck, thus it should be stable but not OP at skirmishes...
Rohirrim Bow has proved to be too strong, so it should be replaced in every Rohan draft. May be changed to
Rohirrim Javelin for non-directed archery, or
Heavy Chain +
Rohirrim Shield for protection/healing, or even pumps or regroup events...
My draft couples better with Gondor or Elves into Mounted themes:
Leod and
Weland, 2x
Well Stored and
Horse of Rohan instead of
Rider's Mount... Merging both Rohan themes into one single deck would not only allow us to include one additional different theme (Gandalf), but improve coupling potential and have a better Rohan Serie 1 deck (nerfing it to prevent the feared OP property)...
What we should do is
TEST these drafts I propose instead of
just fear and speculate. These just can't be worse than those OP first tries at Sauron Grind and Moria/Uruk Archery... And we came victorious after nerfing them.
There's an awesome resource for crowd control we haven't talked about:
Ulaire Nertea, MoDG. Excessive companions = Key minions come back to the table:
Goblin Runner,
Moria Archer Troop,
Deathless Lord, Twilight Enquea,
Morgul Skulker, Gollum,
Easterling Pillager... If every Shadow deck in Serie 1 had 1x
Nertea, MoDG (just as 2x
Hobbit Sword and 2x
SHB in each FP side), to vomit each companion in hand would be much less atractive. And consider the fact Nertea needs 5 companions instead of 6, just as
StMTN...
I just can't like the idea of having to choose Gondor, Gondor or Gondor at Serie 2. Not only prevents the couplings, but forces non-Gondor players to choose Gondor cards instead of something useful (as a Dwarf player it annoys me a little). Besides, you said those Gondorian themes can't couple easily, so what's the risk of having 2 Gondor decks in Serie 2 (with Gandalf as 3rd choice) and 1 in Serie 3?
Boromir, Steward's Heir can use RB or UB Ranger events/possessions without many problems, and UB Rangers can share plain-ranger cards (
Gondor's Vengeance,
NSttS,
Pathfinder,
SotNK) with the RB ones... that would be helpful but not OP. I'd leave RB Rangers at the 3rd Serie.
Experimental fellowships and shadows go here to fill in some holes you may have missed. People will generally be choosing their starter in this series based on where their current holes are. Giving only two options to guarantee sam and 2 options to get gandalf and 2 options to get Aragorn means you have to choose decks that are not necessarily compatible on the shadow side to have some of the best companions in the block.
Maybe we should give 2 deck choices with Smeagol. RB Rangers + Smeagol and 2 or 3 tricks for him = truthful RB Companions... It's just an unrefined idea.
I think the work we have by now is much better than Revised Movie Sealed... new fresh ideas, wider representation, better coupling between decks...
I'm glad to be back. Hope to be useful with the remaining objectives.
Topic: Towers Standard Sealed Deck Lists and Replays (Read 42362 times)
