Card drawing completely broken in PvP

Looking at all this, there's one thing that strikes me as quite obvious:

The one card that is making or breaking these decks is the Demon Charm Of The 2nd Circle. Basically, because it has draw 4 for the price of only 2 cards (the third is a trait that is redrawn and made free with Nimbus) and zero tokens. That is where the imbalance is.

I see three reasonably easy fixes:

A) Add a single token cost to Demon Charm of the 2nd Circle.
B) Change Demon Charm of the 2nd Circle to replace Unholy Power with Unholy Frenzy.
C) Amend Demonic Revenge with "this damage cannot be prevented by any means" (in other words, allow the damage to bypass Nimbus).

Any of the above should render the card balanced, but not usable as a primary draw engine.

 

Or have it remove all Holy cards attached to you before dealing damage.

 

This is even better. Upon reflection, I am not completely certain that option C is going to be enough to address the issue. Your suggestion probably is.

 

What's the problem here? I don't understand what's wrong here. It's not like you can just go infinite instantly without your opponent doing anything. What is stopping the opponent from just killing you before you "go infinite". It shouldn't be very hard with all the self damage they do and having hardly any healing spells.

 

Well, it is only round 2 and they've drawn most if not all of their decks. Plus 2 of them have Impenetrable Nimbus which means you can't do any damage to them. At least, that's my understanding of the situation.

 

It all happens in one round, you have limited option and cards during that one round. Infinite imply they have any card at their disposal, and can kill you easily once all your options ran out. If you are smart and use your card wisely, you can keep him away and he likely wont survive the next turn. If you don't that's when you pass while watching him murder your party.

As I said, the build is strong, but yet to be proven reliable, or foolproof OP. It has counter and can be beaten.

 

imho, a lot of people are missing the point (or what should be the point I think)

-is this build likely to win every game? no.
-are the decks that counter this strategy? yes (somewhat)
-does this build generate exclusively feast-or-famine gameplay where the team is either mercilessly slaughtered in the 1st 2 rounds (resulting in little or no fun for either player) or becomes literally unbeatable once they are able to draw their entire decks in a single round? yes.

to me it shouldn't matter what counters there are; this deck promotes toxic no-thought gameplay, and requires all other players warp their decks to counter this *single* build, and thus is a negative influence on the game. especially when it could be so easily fixed with a simply hand size maximum or 8 or so cards. this wouldn't even kill draw decks entirely; it would just stop truly infinite loops from occurring.

 

I've put 12 games in now and have not gone infinite yet. I am not saying it cannot go infinite, but it certainly is not consistent like it was with the pre-nerfed cards in beta. It is a very boring deck to play and I'm sure it is awful to play against. I also got hold of 3 of the double leadership human traits and put the human build together. Only two games in on that version but neither of them saw the draws go infinite. When that draw dries up you have a hand full of garbage.

 

Yeh, that's the hand full of garbage part which makes the build incredibly boring but ultimately not-so-effective.

That's why I'm suggesting we try out sacrificing a bit of card draw potential and seeing how things go.

Gentlecow is testing something along those lines with a 2priest-war set up, I'm eager to know what the results are

 

I do maybe play fast and loose with the term "infinite draw;" I realize that in beta that was (and thankfully only very rarely, still is) a real thing. My beef with current draw decks is two fold, and you actually reference both in the above paragraph:

-it's a very boring deck to play and to play against. no way around this, and I think it's an important reason to discourage all but the lightest forms of draw-focused play.

-you have a hand full of garbage. A common sentiment, but I have to disagree. Sometimes, yes, it happens. But the reality is, when you have 12-16 cards in your hand, even if they're ****ty they are usually enough to move wherever you like and nickle-and-dime at least one enemy to death, all while he stands there and passes over and over again.

draw-focused clerics that are used to get a badass warrior or wyzzard a 7-8 card hand to go ape**** with are all well and good; but cyclical drawing to dredge up an insurmountable mountain of "bad" cards makes for boring play, even (or especially?) if it doesn't work. A simple hand limit does not constrict the former, while encouraging the latter to actually play.