[Suggestion] Eliminate 'infinite draw' decks

1 or 2 hours after Card Hunter was released i found "Wym's Lavastaff" I wondered if a Firestorm+draw deck would be worth it. So i created one and found out it was a blast. In the beginning i found it funny that my opponents got caught off guard since they were not used to this kind of strategy, the reactions i got was priceless. People in the beta might have made firestorm decks, but it was new to me. Did it to have som fun and to think outside the box. Currently i see a lot of players using the same strategy. This ofc makes it far less interesting to play. I still use it for farming items though, both in single and multiplayer.

 

The easiest way to nerf Vibrant Pain is to throw Cowardly on it. Except it seems to be out of flavor to have Common cards on a legendary item. The only rare handicap card in the entire game is Blind Rage.

 

I don't think nerfing that is needed as it's a expensive item to use and rare unlike the charm on both cases especially as the attacks themselves are low for the token cost.

 

I played the dwarf draw warrior deck up to third in the ranking system over the weekend and I ran with only 2 Nimble Strike from the Nifty Halberd. It is quite possible to almost always get onto a single character and kill it with a combination of other movement Slippery Shield and Dancing Cut weapons in my case were plenty for most battles. So I think the idea of nerfing Vibrant Pain in regards to draw decks kind of misses the point.

I'm not really sure what they should do, looking at the demon charms, inspiring presence, dwarf warcry, inspiration and altruism all together just adds up to quite a bit. Filling out your warrior with full buffs so each individual attack card is that much more powerful is what really makes the deck into feeling like your activating godmode sometimes.

There doesn't really seem to be a good counter available to anyone other then pulling off a decent first turn whirlwind, purge has been shown to not shutdown the deck and entangling roots sometimes will work but may not swing the game enough in the favor of the none draw deck.

If I look at my loses the vast majority of them have been from other draw decks with very few decks that are not running draw having much of a chance.

 

The draw decks are horribly and obviously broken, and in particular the 2nd Demon Charm is massively sleazable. Very hard to be competitive without it and it's the reason all the top decks anymore seem to have 2 priests.

Honestly, I don't think rampant drawing adds anything interesting to the game, or is easily balanced since the power of an extra card is so huge. Cards like Parry are fine because they're avoidable, don't always work, and require your opponent to cooperate -- yet even with such limitations are still very potent. Card advantage effects without significant drawbacks are simply overpowered, e.g. Dwarven War Cry or Unholy Power.

I'd suggest changing them en masse into either Leadership style card filters, or Pathfinding style "tutors". The game will be better if it sticks with it's PnP RPG roots where you simply can't do so many actions in one turn.

 

Hmm, makes me think that most card drawers should be changed to card cyclers (i.e. take up 2, but remove 2) with a only a few inspiration-like card in game. It would be still good to have them (so you an change the card if you had a bad draw / don't suit your current situation) but no god-mode.

 

This is indeed a ridiculous item and it needs to be nerfed. But also draw decks in general need to be...

 

The real problem with the draw decks is how Impenetrable Nimbus avoids the damage effects that go with some of the card drawing effects. I saw a game where someone took at least their whole HP worth of prevented damage while drawing their entire decks. Then you can't do anything to them because they have Missile Blocks.

 

Impenetrable Nimbus is a nice combo with it, but not strictly needed. Armor works too, and even 5 damage for one extra card is well worth it, doubly so when the draw cards come from a no-token item like 2nd Demon Charm.

My general rule of thumb comparison for the value of a draw is Vicious Strike at 7 damage and 2 move. Your average card utility might be a bit less (unless you're maximizing the sleaze with 3 priests and 6+ Demon Charms), but not by much and I think it's a good fit once you factor in the chance to recursively draw another card advantage card, or that higher damage no move attacks become more valuable once you run your opponent out of cards. Demonic Feedback also comes out ahead after such a comparison, and not just Dwarven Wary Cry or Unholy Power.

Such card advantage cards are degenerate when chained together, but even a few played by paying a high cost are a clear advantage, letting you work an effect similar to trading pieces when you're ahead in chess. The only way I can see to make card advantage balanced is to add a substantial chance your extra card won't be useful, e.g. Parry which again is still strong despite all its limitations, or Pathfinding as move cards are useful but not as much as damage once you run an opponent out of cards.

 

My perspective on the problem with card drawing decks is a little different: they should be removed or reduced because the process of playing against them is boring. Any competetive match where one player does ~60 actions in a turn versus someone who does ~15 actions has something seriously wrong with it.

Imagine playing against a 3 priest deck where, somehow, 90% of their cards were Inspiration. Regardless of if that build were strong or weak, regardless of if the opponent is an amazing tactical genious or not, the majority of time spent in the match would be mindlessly waiting while the opponent casts inspiration over and over on himself.

Card draw builds are overpowerful for various reasons (allowing the full power/deck of 3 characters to be concentrated into 1, having a huge action/card advantage over the opponent, being able to punish any slightly over-extended character for free due to action mismatch which forces for extremely conservative gameplay, etc), but even if they were not too powerful they are simply too boring to play against to be allowed to stay in the game.


As an aside, from what I've seen step cards and step blocks (Hard To Pin from Slippery Shield) are a large contributor to the power of the War/Pri/Pri build. I've run 1 dedicated control wizard (or even 2!) who could not push the berserk warrior away far enough that he could not immediately step right back.

 

As for proposed solutions (not all of these at once, but each individual possibility or a few together):

Soft nerfs / solutions:
-Increase token cost of items which allow for a positive # of cards drawn versus cards spent (I'm talking about you, Demon Charm #2)
-Increase health costs or drawbacks related to card draws / make damage associated with card draws unable to be reduced by armor/nimbus
-Introduce new/more cards which deal damage based on # of cards the target holds
-A mental feedback mechanic: if a character draws cards beyond a certain limit during a single turn, he starts taking unblockable psychic damage per card drawn

Hard nerfs / solutions:
-A hard cap on number of cards allowed in hand (7 or so would make card draw builds more risky and tactical)
-A hard cap on number of extra cards allowed to be drawn per turn
-A hard cap on number of actions taken per turn / turn automatically ends when one player passes a certain # of times
-Removal of the cards Inspiring Presence, Unholy Wellspring, and the Dwarven race from the game

 

Good post, Yth. I'd like to add a couple more idea for soft nerfs:

-"Drawback" cards should stop cycling cards. As it works right now they are actually superior to most bad or even marginal brown quality cards. Demonic charm of the second circle isn't just superior to the higher level versions because it doesn't require a token. It is just better period basically because it cycles a card.

 

Traits cycling cards is pretty integral to deckbuilding strategy in general. I don't see them as much of a problem because they are fast (not requiring an extra turn cycle). I did need a bit of time to get used to the idea that, for example, Trembling Staff with 3x negative traits could actually be useful because it lets you cycle your cards.

If traits (or just items with drawback traits?) didn't cycle a card and were just dead cards in your deck, I think it would require a huge amount of rebalancing.

 

i think this will be the best possible solution.. /no1

 

Unblockable extra damage for receiving extra cards sounds good, but then again, if you're a card drawing machine you can get the heals easily.

I can't imagine BH putting hard caps - they tend to be difficult to explain to the player and it's usually a last resort solution. Anyway, 7 cards in hand is still enough to kill 2 characters in one rush.

I think a few drawing cards could remain (like Inspiration, Martyr Blessing, Accelerated Thought) but change all other to card cyclers, which require you to discard as much cards as you take up.

 

Let's expand on this as there's lots of options.
-Stun the caster. Not all the draw cards, just some.
-Damage based on cards on hand. Adding Touch Of Death effect to Unholy Power seem fitting. Could be used on other occasions.
-Removing attachments from caster/target. Demonic Revenge with effect to remove all non-trait player controlled attachments would seem reasonable.
-Similar to the above, Demonic Feedback removing all player controlled effects would be a huge buff, while being decent handicap for draw decks.

 

I usually don't think drawing card decks are overpower but they are INCREDIBLY boring. Seriously!

But today I got the worse of it. In a game against "kardnel" where it came into a really abusive kind of playing. He was using the card draw deck with two clerics and they kept drawing forever. At Round 2 his deck got empty twice and the worse thing was that my timer was going down faster than his one even with me only Passing over and over again because while his cards were taking effect MY TIMER was the one going down.

 

Grimemking
Level 1 Human Priest

White Halberd​

​

White Halberd​

Inspirational Mail​

Maple Shield​

Spinning Top Boots​

Demon Charm Of The 2nd Circle​

Demon Charm Of The 2nd Circle​

Demon Charm Of The 2nd Circle​

Advanced Flexibility​

Focused Piety​

​

4 x Polearm Slash​

​

1 x Mail​

3 x Unholy Power​

1 x Slowed​

2 x Missile Block​

2 x Spin Around​

3 x Demonic Feedback​

2 x Draining Touch​

3 x Demonic Revenge​

2 x Leadership​

3 x Altruism​

6 x Inspiration​

1 x Jarring Block​

2 x Weak Chop​

1 x Charge​

​

Kingulfiron
Level 1 Human Priest

White Halberd​

​

Duality Mace​

Inspirational Mail​

Spellthwart Shield​

Spinning Top Boots​

Demon Charm Of The 2nd Circle​

Demon Charm Of The 2nd Circle​

Demon Charm Of The 2nd Circle​

Advanced Flexibility​

Focused Piety​

​

2 x Polearm Slash​

​

1 x Mail​

1 x Lifesaving Block​

3 x Unholy Power​

1 x Slowed​

3 x Missile Block​

2 x Spin Around​

3 x Demonic Feedback​

1 x Draining Touch​

3 x Demonic Revenge​

2 x Leadership​

3 x Altruism​

4 x Inspiration​

1 x Weak Chop​

1 x Charge​

2 x Impenetrable Nimbus​

2 x Touch Of Death​

1 x Chop​

​

Jonand
Level 1 Human Priest

Ripping Mace​

​

White Halberd​

Inspirational Mail​

Maple Shield​

Spinning Top Boots​

Demon Charm Of The 2nd Circle​

Demon Charm Of The 2nd Circle​

Demon Charm Of The 2nd Circle​

Advanced Flexibility​

Focused Piety​

​

2 x Polearm Slash​

​

1 x Mail​

3 x Unholy Power​

1 x Slowed​

2 x Missile Block​

2 x Spin Around​

3 x Demonic Feedback​

1 x Draining Touch​

3 x Demonic Revenge​

2 x Leadership​

2 x Purge​

3 x Altruism​

4 x Inspiration​

1 x Jarring Block​

1 x Lunging Bash​

2 x Shredding Strike​

1 x Weak Chop​

1 x Inspiring Presence​

1 x Charge​

​

That is the deck that will draw infinitely *very* reliably. Humans were the key pretty much... they are way better and more reliable than dwarfs when you think it through.

 

How do you stop the drawback from Demonic Revenge from killing you? It seems reliant upon Impenetrable Nimbus, which could potentially be risky?

 

I'm running a bastardized version of Turin's build currently. I'm missing whiteglow flails (I have 0), rhood's boots (I have 2/3) and slippery shields (I only have 1/3). Also my divine items are worse. With all of that said, I've been able to grind up to 1500+ again (currently 1551) from this comp (3 priests) with the following deck. If I had the appropriate items I think I could be top 5 easily (was able to grind to 6 before all of this insanity with 3 wizards). Here's what I'm running.:

Bioshock
Level 1 Dwarf Priest

St. Olf's Fiery Pike​

Glinting Eye Hammer​

Glowing Hide Armor​

Dueler's Buckler​

Argo's Boots​

Shielding Token​

Demon Charm Of The 2nd Circle​

Demon Charm Of The 2nd Circle​

Perfect Ferocity​

Superb Piety​

1 x Reliable Hide Armor​

1 x Raging Strike​

2 x Demonic Feedback​

2 x Altruism​

1 x Blind Rage​

1 x Parry​

1 x Hard To Pin Down​

1 x Purge​

2 x Impenetrable Nimbus​

2 x Unholy Power​

1 x Frenzy Aura​

1 x Dwarven Battle Cry​

1 x Consuming Touch​

1 x Thick Hide Armor​

2 x Demonic Revenge​

2 x Mighty Bludgeon​

2 x Officer's Harness​

2 x Stab​

1 x Unreliable Block​

1 x Block​

2 x Mass Frenzy​

1 x Invigorating Touch​

2 x Healing Rays​

1 x Powerful Bash​

2 x Fiery Stab​

Rapture
Level 19 Dwarf Priest

Duality Mace​

Glinting Eye Hammer​

Glowing Hide Armor​

Slippery Shield​

Rhood's Boots​

Ravenna's Incense​

Demon Charm Of The 2nd Circle​

Demon Charm Of The 2nd Circle​

Advanced Ferocity​

Advanced Piety​

1 x Powerful Bash​

1 x Reliable Hide Armor​

1 x Raging Strike​

1 x Rushing Aura​

1 x Greater Heal​

1 x Dwarven Battle Cry​

2 x Altruism​

1 x Lifesaving Block​

1 x Wild Run​

1 x Blind Rage​

3 x Hard To Pin Down​

1 x Purge​

2 x Impenetrable Nimbus​

2 x Unholy Power​

2 x Demonic Feedback​

2 x Touch Of Death​

1 x Team Run​

1 x Thick Hide Armor​

2 x Demonic Revenge​

1 x Cleansing Presence​

2 x Mighty Bludgeon​

1 x Inspiring Presence​

1 x Sapping Touch​

1 x Invigorating Touch​

1 x Healing Rays​

1 x War Cry​

1 x Chop​

Columbia
Level 20 Dwarf Priest

Inkdark Halberd​

Glinting Eye Hammer​

Dark Chain Shirt​

Parrying Buckler​

Rhood's Boots​

Shuddering Relic​

Demon Charm Of The 2nd Circle​

Demon Charm Of The 2nd Circle​

Advanced Ferocity​

Superb Piety​

1 x War Cry​

1 x Reliable Mail​

1 x Raging Strike​

1 x Hardy Mail​

1 x Rushing Aura​

2 x Demonic Feedback​

2 x Altruism​

1 x Enervating Touch​

1 x Polearm Slash​

1 x Wild Run​

1 x Blind Rage​

3 x Parry​

1 x Dwarven Battle Cry​

1 x Vulnerable​

1 x Purge​

2 x Unholy Power​

1 x Inspiring Presence​

1 x Team Run​

2 x Demonic Revenge​

2 x Mighty Bludgeon​

2 x Spear Of Darkness​

1 x Mass Frenzy​

2 x Bludgeon​

1 x Sapping Touch​

2 x Healing Rays​

1 x Powerful Bash​