I played in my first pizza league today, Triple Duel. I won 3/4 matches, ending up first in my pod. Build I played a set of 3 identical (so far as equipment permits) dwarf wizards as below. Teleport Self was critical to ganging up on the most vulnerable enemy. Short Perplexing Ray served as both defense and offense. Solid Rock let the wizard step into a vulnerable position in order to get a kill or to strip cards. Improved TK was important for freeing up victory squares, and also offered another line of defense to hold off attackers. Matches First match was ok, but I lost to @Whimsical after he ganged up on my wizards with his warrior and priest. He drew Teleport Self off of Greenguard Boots before I drew any of mine. He also had experience from previous matches as his pod had kicked off before mine. I don't remember my second match, but I won it. >_> Third match was a nailbiter against @Inkfingers, where I won with <30 seconds on the clock. Inkfingers started off with a team move to take all three victory squares, and I drew 5 of the 6 Brain Burn in my build in the starting hand. It took me five turns to finally kill off both his priest (a vamp/frenzybot) and warrior (who was holding dodge and flimsy blocks). After which I held down the victory squares for the final two points. Teleporting completely across the map several times was crucial to achieve sufficient damage output / hand denial, and to escape the warriors. The fourth match was against my podmate alfonso, who was playing step warrior elves. I drew an amazing hand with each wizard holding a Teleport Self. They flocked to the central arena and ganged up on the first elf warrior for a second-turn kill. Alfonso had moved one of the remaining warriors over to assist, but it drew Flammable and quickly fell to the combination of Flame Jet and electric attacks boosted by Spark Generator. Commentary I was hesitant to enter this league because the prize figure is decent, but not outstanding. (I don't much care about winning chests or pizza.) Furthermore, the Triple Duel concept seemed like playing top-deck and RNG roulette. Drawing a block or rolling poorly at the right time would be far more important than tactical skill. For this reason, I chose to avoid melee combat completely. It took my pod a good 10 minutes to fill, and if it were possible I might have withdrawn during that period due to second thoughts and spectating a match. Once the pod filled, each match felt incredibly tense, due to having pizza invested in the outcome. I knew I had a decent chance of recouping some of my pizza, but there was too much randomness to be able to set reasonable risk/reward expectations. (I have zero interest in casino gambling, btw...) On the whole, these four matches were incredibly draining (only partially due to the matches themselves) and that's why I'm typing out a long commentary instead of playing more CardHunter at the moment. I want the dark elves more than I wanted the prehistoric human figure, but I'm not sure I want to jump on this rollercoaster again. I certainly won't play the Triple Duel again, and I think it was an interesting experience to be truly "competitive" just once, but no more. -_- Peering into the future, I'm apprehensive that there will be figures I really want (as in, would pay double or triple the price in pizza to have) but that I'll have to plunge through some utterly terrifying league to get them. (I have played the astral league in casual, and it seems sufficiently fun that I'll just play without worrying about prizes. I'm really uncertain about entering Golden Shrine.)
Some more coherent (maybe?) rambling from a larger distance... I decided against entering Golden Shrine tonight because I want a relatively stress-free night, and I know that the league won't do that for me. It might be that I'm just not the target audience for the current rotation of leagues, but I would guess that there are more serious-fun players like me than "pro-circuit" players (as I shall hereafter call the competitive ratings grubbers ^_^). Reflecting on my decision not to play, I want to muse about what sort of risk/reward structure would not make me super-stressed out. First, the most discomfiting aspect of league play is that they (may) have prizes I really really really really want (sweet figures!), but those prizes are only available for a miniscule window of time and only to 1st place. This means that I have to worry about (a) whether my schedule will sync with the league schedule, (b) whether the particular league is going to be frustrating, and (c) being uber-competitive to get the only prize I care about. I would be tremendously relieved if the devs would make a statement about the future availability of league prize figures. I think it's a huge shame that most players won't ever get to play with the Karen, Gary, and Melvin figures. I am apprehensive that certain figures (*cough* cats *cough*) will be league-exclusives which I won't be able to obtain. I would be very happy for myself and for the entire player base if league figures were eventually available through Cuthbert's, even if they cost more than normal figures. I also hope that leagues will run for a longer cycle in the future. I've taken many multi-week breaks from CH over the past year. I would be tremendously sad if a league was completely gone because it runs during the week when I have to help a friend move, or during crunch week at work, or etc... At present, each league will be accessible to me only once (or not at all) due to the rotating schedule, which further increases the stress because I know I have no second shot. Second, I am still uneasy about the possibility of players farming pizza from leagues. Admittedly, it will be much harder due to the self-selection of competitors in pizza leagues, but there's something in me that doesn't like handing out a free ride. (I might be more happy about it if gifting were possible, so that pro-circuit players could demonstrate magnanimity by passing off some of that excess pizza... ^_^) This isn't a terribly large concern, but it leads into my final point... Last, 50 pizza is ~$1.50, which is a little too much for my tastes to spend on a single hour of gameplay. (I will throw pizza down a black hole for the figures, but they're the only reason I would currently enter a league.) However, I personally wouldn't blink at tossing 25 pizza for an interesting gameplay experience. This is a prize structure that would make me inclined to participate in pizza leagues for the sake of league play (rather than for the sake of figures), and be willing to enter multiple times: - 25 pizza entry fee - pizza: 25/25/15/10/0 - gold: 0/0/100/200/400 <-- some gold would be a decent consolation prize, perhaps even for 0 wins? - chests: 1E/1E/2M/2M/1M alternatively (with figures) - 25 pizza entry fee - figures: 1/1/0/0/0 <-- super important that both 1st and 2nd get the figure - pizza: 15/15/10/10/0 <-- I don't really care about recouping my entire fee - gold: 0/0/100/200/400 - chests: 1E/2M/1M/1M/4C <-- I also don't really care about chests, so long as 1 or 2 of some sort are thrown in
I haven't had the chance to participate in the leagues yet due to way too many internet issues, but having read feedback from people who have (and also being someone who is solely interested in amassing cool figures) - the suggestion of awarding a figure to both first and second place seems like a particularly great one. All the discussion over what to do with the tiebreaking might even be a less pressing matter for some if both first and second were guaranteed a figure, depending on their own particular priority in prizes. I really agree with your above post as a whole, honestly. And the last part made me think about my opinion of the current incentives. The way I see it, I'm not a great player, so getting the figure, the only prize I really want, is relatively unlikely without a good amount of luck. And second, I'm not much of a gambler, so gambling pizza... to enter a competition... and get chests, a gambler's reward? Personally, not worth it to me.
