These card-drawing cards seem grossly over-valued.

Here, let me point out two things that you´ve got grossly wrong in this argument.

1.Card Advantage ALONE won´t win you the control game, but rather, Card Economy. The concept of card economy is simple: You don´t value cards by quantity, but by effect. So for example, 1 Bludgeon is worth 2 Weak Strikes, therefore having 1 Bludgeon is usually better than having 2 Weak Strikes (Blocks and Frenzy aside). Control decks win by exploiting Card Economy, and in Card Hunter, this is no different. A Single Halt card is worth more than every single step and move card in your opponent´s hand, even if it is for a turn, and might even for the opponent to a discard, which is a pretty big thing in this game where you can only get so much value from someone that´s stranded from miles, this is why Frost is considered so powerful. Converselly, Parry has a very high Value, because it can elude a TON of powerful cards and even net you actual card advantage. Unholy Frenzy doesn´t nets you card advantage, but throw it into a mage and start spamming Slide Backs, see how the enemy warriors struggle as their life ticks down from being hit for 5 (I´ve faced this, it´s annoying). When they can´t get close to you, the Value of their cards is reduced to 0, and thus you have more Card Economy Advantage

Second, bar the obvious, very powerful interaction with Altruism, Inspiration allows you to do two things: Redistribute resources, and safely "pass". The first one is fairly obvious, and is mostly the reason i do not play Inspiration on the spot when i´m running it; my priest is usually not the guy that needs the extra card. I usually want one of the two warrriors on my party to have more armors or things to hit with, so i chuck it at them unless i´m really pulling for a heal. Also, if your Priest is idle and you don´t want to discard down to two, you can also redistribute it to balance your hand. In one crazy (albeit obviously corner) case, i actually succesfully baited a block with Inspiration and pulled the win, which is always a good thing to do, specially in SP

The second thing is a little trickier, and might actually rely on team compositions. Inspiration is a "Safe Pass", meaning you can just use it to cycle and your opponent cannot pass to end the turn. Why is this a good thing? Because in Card Hunter, you REALLY want your opponent to move out first. Your opponents burning their move cards mean they are more succeptible to Wall of Fire, Whirlwind Enemies, and Quick Run combos, specially if you can reveal or discard cards from their hand in the mean-time, so you effectivelly generate card advantage by Passing, as your opponent is trying to race you to whatever position while you spin other forms of plots. All this versatility is packed into the three magic words of card games: "Draw a Card"

And to be fair, if Inspiration was more than once on ANY item without power tokens, even if the third card was, lets say Fumble, i know a lot of people would play them in spades, simply because it would make their deck consistent and would grant flexibility to their team for no cost while you can get to your more Valuable cards and backseat the way to victory

 

This is precisely what makes Inspiration such a good card that you completely undervalue because you can't see the forest for the trees. It effectively stalls while generating card advantage on a character that can use the card advantage the most. As Blindsight pointed out it does all three of the things that you admit are its advantages very well even if you don't acknowledge it does anyone of them well enough. It is also a much better stall option than a heal because it adds a new variable instead of only taking one away. If your priest has four cards and my priest has four cards and neither of those characters can make use of those cards except one of my cards, inspiration and one of your cards Heal and both our warriors are locked in melee with 1 hitpoint each with zero cards in hand. My turn I cast inspiration on my warrior you now have a choice to pass and hope I pass because I didn't draw an attack off inspiration so you get first turn next round or cast your heal giving me the chance to pass and gain first turn next round with card advantage over your warrior or have it be for nothing because the attack I drew is 5+ damage.

BTW I've built an effective MTG blue/green/white combo control deck that acts almost entirely on my turn(atypical of control) and uses life gain to stall until I get a lock all the while digging through my deck with very simple card drawing mechanics.

Personally I've been playing more with Demonic Feedback for my card drawing because I enjoy the high risk that is unholy combined with the fat hitpoints that is dwarf. Again I understand that inspiration and the like just don't fit in your style of play so you don't consider it to be "good" because you like a heal priest over a buff priest. Inspiration is still a good card that can be used very effectively.

 

I understand card economy. I assert that inspiration does not provide strong enough card economy to make it good.

1: Deck Consistency: Because inspiration replaces itself it increases the reliability of your deck.
2: Card Redistribution: Because you can target another hero, Inspiration allows you to give cards “essentially” to the hero who needs them.
3: Safe Pass (Stall): Inspiration allows you to pass priority without letting the round end, so you can take actions after your opponent has finished.
4: Card Economy: Inspiration can do all of the above, all at once, making it a versatile card.

This is my response to each of these.

Deck Consistency: Every hero has a deck of 36 cards. This means you have 1/36 or 2.7% chance of drawing any specific card. If you have 3 Inspirations in your deck, then that essentially lessens your deck size to 33 so you have 1/33 or 3.03 % chance of drawing any specific card. However let’s assume that you’ve already seen 10 cards in your deck and about to draw 1 card. If you weren’t using inspiration, you would have 26 cards left and 1/26 or 3.8 % chance of drawing any specific card. If you were using inspiration and hadn’t seen a single 1 of the 3 in your deck you would have essentially a 23 card deck and 1/23 or 4.3% chance of drawing any specific card.

I don’t feel the increase in reliability is significant. However, if others do I’ll agree to disagree.

Card Redistribution:

I can agree that sometimes you want another hero to have some specific card or cards, but this situation should be incredibly rare. If it were the case that you often want another hero/class to have cards instead of your priest, then you should just trade in your priest for that class. You wouldn’t waste a turn looking for the card instead you would just have the card. Assuming this situation comes up rarely, and taking the above numbers into account, I can assume that more often than not I won’t get the card I’m looking for. Furthermore, if I am in a situation where I NEED some specific card, then I’m behind/losing and I’m probably going to need more than 1 card to turn the game around.

I conclude that the ability to redistribute cards is also very weak.

Safe Pass:

People assume that their opponent is just going to play out their entire hand. They are not. I personally will discard down to two cards before ever letting myself be in a bad position. I have no fear of passing and letting the round end. In fact I often want to be the first to pass, so I can go first the next round. To put it another way: Since so many of the cards in my deck are good, I’ll keep the cards necessary to burst down your weakest hero and toss everything else. Since I passed first, I’ll go first. If you use inspiration on an opponent who is playing like that, you are will be forced to play cards. Worst case we both have no cards and I’ll be ahead in damage and first to act. What usually happens however, I’ll put myself in a good position, pass, then my opponent not wanting to make his position worst will be also pass. Now I’m again ahead on damage, have a hand full of cards and I’m going first.

I conclude that safe passing is also very weak.

Card Economy:

A lot of weak effects added together can indeed make a good card. However in this case the sum total of the above effects is still less than heal. Heal works with altruism, so no loss with that combo; heal also works with talented healer which is just better. Heal not only helps your allies, it also negates some of the work your opponent has done. The only time heal is bad is when all of your party is at full health, so heal is bad when you’re winning, I’m ok with that. Also Heal’s effect is immediate, whereas inspiration’s effect on my ally won’t usually happen until after my opponent has acted.

I conclude that Card economy is also very weak.

Best case inspiration is just "ok". I don't want a deck full of "ok" cards, I want a deck full of Good cards. If I were to ever use inspiration, then it would mean the item that came with it, has some other really good cards. I would never go out my way to put inspiration in my deck.

 

The only problem I have with your logic here is that you don't seem to be taking into account that if you aren't drawing an inspiration you're drawing something else. Something else that may be a dead draw. Inspiration is never a dead draw in my opinion. Agree to disagree I guess.

Sometimes that ONE card you need can be any number of cards. Like just needing to draw that extra attack to finish someone off. I'm often loading up my warrior with 8-9 cards and letting him run rampant on the enemy.

I have no problem with using all of my cards. Generally though the 'safe pass' comes at the beginning of the round where you redistribute cards, get the hands you want and decide whether your deck is going to 'go off' or not. Meanwhile your opponent is doing something else which you can react to later. My deck is churning, and I don't really care what they are doing yet. and if they don't do anything...all the better. I'll likely be able to position my hand and characters better for the next round if I'm not ready to burst them all down yet -- and I've gone through more cards getting rid of ones that won't be useful for the task.

Heals can be pretty good. I do run a few bungled heals, which work really well with my play style but I don't think there are many cases that I would want it over an inspiration. A heal isn't going to compare to a step attack getting me into position to burst someone down for instance. Perhaps it's just play style. With my current deck I'm not very defensive, with my previous deck I was very defensive, but in a way that always needed to find the cards they needed at the time -- in both situations I would prefer Inspiration over a heal.

I think everyone will pretty much agree with you here, for the most part. There are other, better cycle cards but Inspiration on an item will bump it up on my items to consider list due to all the things it does decently, as opposed to other options that do only one thing decently and leaves me with less options.[/quote][/quote]

 

Card advantage is a mathematical concept. Card advantage = “Number of your opponents cards that were negated/destroyed” + “the number of new cards you gained” – “the number of cards you used” For inspiration card advantage is equal to 0;

Indeed, in the situation you describe, inspiration would be better than heal. However, that is a narrow case. I hope I can convince you as to why that is an unlikely situation.

If you’re only playing with a few inspirations then sheer probability dictates this exact circumstance is unlikely to happen. If you are playing with a significant amount of inspirations, then it is more likely that I will be ahead of you on damage as I will have acted first more often then you have. So it will be your warrior that is low on health and not mine.

Remember I’m not going to just play out my hand just because you want me to. I will hold cards in my hand if I’m in a better position. I also don’t care if I have to discard down to two to hold my position. It is my goal to incrementally gain advantage over you until the gap between us is so large that I just win.

The only way you’re going to get me to empty my hand is to take risk that will improve your position and make mine worst, i.e. use cards that aren’t inspiration. Since you stalled on the hope that I would be stupid, that means I would have acted first and will be ahead on damage until you take some risk that forces me to play cards. In this situation healing and inspiration serve the same purpose except healing improves my board position. So all else being equal, I’ll continue to act first, be ahead on damage and have healthier allies.

On a side note, Demonic feedback is card advantage and a much better card then inspiration.

 

I have a big problem with that. I don’t want to play the opponent’s game; I want him to play mine. This is another principal that comes from magic. You want to force your opponent to think as much as possible and make lots of hard choices, while at the same time you want to be able to make a few simple and easy choices. This will increase the chance that your opponent will make a mistake and decreases yours. So I very much disagree with any strategy that ignores my opponent.

Also if you aren’t using talented healer you are missing out on what is perhaps the most powerful priest strategy in the game. There are other forum posters that feel it’s too powerful and that it needs to be toned down.

 

That depends on what the Inspiration got me. If it got me another attack or perhaps even a parry for my warrior, all other things equal, I'm going to be up on you on damage -- even with you acting first.

 

You miss my point. They ARE playing my game. They use moves etc. while I load up my warrior and go kill two of his characters. It really doesn't matter what they do while I'm preparing. Certainly there are some things that could change some plans, but those aren't generally things you can avoid easily. I just finished a game where my warrior was left with 5 hp left after being battered by all three of the enemy characters only to run up and kill two of them on the next round and finishing the third a round later.

The worst thing for me to see at the beginning of a round is my opponent also churning their deck because it gives them more options, just like it does me.

Again, a lot of this comes down to play style. Some of it might also come down to the level of play.

 

If we're comparing Card Hunter to Magic, in Magic cycling/searching through your deck is an essential part of combo strategies. You don't care (too) much about what your opponent does since once you have all the parts of the combo, you win. It's part of Magic's general aggro/control/combo = rock/paper/scissors structure.

From there, I think the reason Inspiration isn't all that good is that Card Hunter doesn't really have combo decks. There isn't really a reliable combination of cards that says "if you don't have the exact counter to my next play, you loose here and now".

The closest thing to combo in Card Hunter might be dwarven wizards stacking Firestorm. You just hide in a corner and search for Firestorm, once you have it you search for either another Firestorm or Unholy Wellspring. Might even get that one Resistant Hide along the way. Then you fire it off and hope for the best.

In this situation Inspiration is quite good since it lets you search for your "combo" parts. You can't put that many Firestorm or Unholy Wellspring in those slots in your deck, but you can have many cards that lets you search for it or themselves again. Even Lateral Thinking would be good in that situation, just on the strength that it gets rid of cards you don't want anyway and lets you draw again.

The fact that these kinds of strategies in Card Hunter are usually pretty bad and gimmicky, due to the existence of victory squares or the overwhelming importance of board position or whatever, is what makes "draw again" cards bad.

 

Sorry dude, when it comes to strategy games I stop listening when you can't make up your mind. Your basic argument comes down to your strategy(talented healer priest + something) is the best because your strategy will always win over another strategy so another strategy that makes use of a card is bad and therefore that card is bad even though you admit it gives some advantages and can be used synergistically with your own character's deck as well as with your teams deck and has absolutely zero disadvantages unlike heal which you admit is useless when a party is at full health(such is the case at the start of every game and as long as a player doesn't attack you until they are ready to kill one to two characters as might be their strategy as such Blindsight implies and myself typically plays) even when making use of talented healer. But please ignore all that in how different strategies use different cards to win and how you could also take advantage of those cards, clearly you've figured everything out.

My opinion: Considering "draw a card" is such a powerful mechanic in a card game, especially one that has 6 separate decks; Inspiration is a good card and I would strongly recommend players experiment with it to see if it fits their play style/the equipment they have available.

 

Card hunter is ripe and full of combo decks. The talented healer heal priest is a combo deck to continually pull heals until your party is full health. There is even a lot of potential for combo decks that work in conjunction with other character's deck, such as loading a single warrior/mage with as many cards as you can make them draw plus buffs and then using that one character to single handily destroy a team after they've exhausted most of their options and outs(Clearly the strategy Blindsight makes use of and I've seen often in observing games).

 

There's plenty of that but that's merely synergy. In Magic jargon a Combo deck usually relies on a combination of cards that result in a 1 turn K.O. if it goes off, whether because it creates an infinite damage loop, summons an arbitrarily large number of monsters into play or things like that. For example some old decks would sacrifice all of their life but 1 on the first turn to draw about one third of their deck at once; if the full combo was assembled in that draw they just won right there.

Assembling and protecting the combo is basically chasing after a direct win condition which is why it's worth devoting the entire resources of the deck on assembling it, and cycling cards are crucial to that. There's no similar thing in Card Hunter, hence why I think cycling cards are worth less here.

Your point about Blindsight is a good one though, letting you choose which 36 cards subset of your 108 card deck to draw from is something unique to Card Hunter. I guess all targeted draw spells like Inspiration have an inherent card selection factor which make them better than cycling cards.

 

Um... here is a combo deck.
http://www.cardhunter.com/forum/threads/mp-builds.1773/page-2#post-28126

 

Yeah.

Agreed.

 

I am a former MTG player and combos were what I was known for. I would make decks (standard format) which created infinite infinite/infinite creatures, gaining infinite health, milled infinite cards from the top of target players deck, taking infinite consecutive turns, etc. So, I bring that analytical mindset when I build decks in Card Hunter.

Now, while I will agree that most decks do not work towards a single "combo." Still there are those that do, and not just the one I posted. Thus, it is about the player and their style which determines the value of cycling.

 

. . . whatever you wanted the combo to achieve. To believe that a combo deck in Magic is only a deck that can achieve a 1 turn kill ignores pretty much all of Magic except a non-existent broken format that's only played casually and no one really wants to play.

You are willfully ignoring endless possibilities for strategies because you believe there are no combo decks in CardHunter. Except firestorm; which, since you admit there is at least one possible combo deck than that should really open the door for you to theory craft others.

Yes I agree it is much more difficult to build a single character's deck towards a single "combo" than it is for a Magic deck because of the equipment system. But Card Hunter is a game of three separate decks that work together and that makes for a lot of different possible combinations between potentially three vastly different characters that is ripe and full of combo potential that the community is still discovering.

 

Your personal opinion is not fact.

Answering this would just be repeating what has been said, so I'll just advise you to try and read the previous posts again if you want.

 

If you'd like to understand Magic the Gathering the CCG better beyond just "jargon" as you called it, I strongly suggest you go to your local hobby store for Friday Night Magic. However if you really want to see several different combo decks in action in a legal tournament format(ban/restricted lists try to prevent the first turn win) I suggest you observe a Legacy tournament. Here is an entire forum dedicated to different combo decks for that format that do many different things to achieve victory. I personally have built a variation of this combo deck.

I didn't ask a question requiring an answer; I read your posts and made the observation that you were able to identify one combo deck(firestorm/volcano) but for some reason stopped there and assumed it was the only one. In my personal opinion that is willfully ignoring endless possibilities for strategies.
But maybe you prefer a simpler play style and wish not to consider those other options; to each their own.

 

I said it came closest, then proceeded to explain why it was not. I get that you disagree with my definition of combo, but repeating it over and over does not make you right. Implying that I prefer a simpler play style because of that is disingenuous.

 

You've made a lot of assumptions and narrowly defined what a magic the gathering combo deck is to support your assumption: there aren't any valid combo strategies in CardHunter. From my personal experience, experience from other magic the gathering players on this site, from internet sources that I've supplied to you, from observing tournaments, I can tell you for a fact(not my opinion) that your definition of a combo deck is extremely narrow and excludes the vast majority of Magic the Gathering Combo decks especially in regards to popular competitive tournament formats.

A combo deck doesn't "usually" rely on a combination of cards, it always relies are a combination of cards. That's why it's a "combo" deck. It isn't always to result in a first turn K.O.(in legal competitive play those are rare and are suppose to be rare hence the ban and restricted lists for different formats). It is always to achieve something(usually in part abusing one or more game mechanics) to help secure you a victory. Don't want to believe me, listen to Lance:

Standard format is a much more restricted format for magic where one turn K.O. just wont happen(and if they do a game designer literally dropped the ball and something is going to be restricted or banned to promote balanced competitive play). Your definition excludes all of Lance's decks from being combo decks because they don't achieve turn 1 K.O. even if his combo allows him to take infinite turns after turn three guaranteeing him a victory if his opponent hasn't thrown a wrench in his plans.

When your definition fails to include something that it should obviously include your definition is wrong and trying to repeatedly tell me "that's just like your opinion, man"(read as the dude), wont make your definition any more right. What you should be saying is "your not wrong Tasmanian Devil[Walter], you're Just an a--hole"(again read as the dude) for pointing out why your definition is much too narrow because it excludes far too many legitimate and tournament legal combo decks. At the very least you could yell "Over the line" or "shut up Donny"(read as Walter); because i'm literally "slamming them tonight"(read as Donny), of which you could respond "All right! Way to go Donny"(read as Walter).

You identify one possible combo deck but we see more of your assumptions and personal opinions that you try to play off as "fact" and don't really include any supporting evidence to explain why any combo deck or specifically volcano/firestorm/cycling/resistant hide is bad leaving you with only the semantically based argument that it doesn't count as a combo deck because it doesn't fit your extremely narrow definition of what a combo deck is. I encourage you to watch one of Lance's game if you see him on and he's running his firestorm/volcano combo squad. I watched him murder Mom in three rounds. He never once stepped foot on a victory tile. One of his wizards had only 6 remaining cards in his deck halfway through round 2 and two of mom's characters were dead by the end of that round. I'm not sure what a player could really have to stop or prevent the combo of cards he used short of running a similar build or something too specific to counter it that it isn't competitive vs anything else.


But please don't let my opinion that you willfully ignore potentially game breaking strategies and dismiss them all as bad stop you from willfully ignoring game breaking strategies.