So, I was intrigued by the gold leagues and thought I'd give it a shot, though I normally don't play multiplayer. In three out of four rounds of Death March, my opponents drew Wall of Stone on the first move and simply blocked me off from the victory point. Then since all they did was pass, they got to move first and instantly recasted Wall of Stone as soon as it was lifted. The only round of any interest was the one where I drew whirlwind enemies, only to get trapped by more Wall of Stone. I thought that the chest reward was very generous, but it didn't quite make up for how boring the battles were.
Death March is definitely a niche map - as many of the league maps are. I would definitely recommend checking out the fixed deck league too, it might be more up your alley. In addition if you're looking for a counter for wall of stone, and if you have the items to put it together, potential counters are teleport, firestorm, whirlwind, etc. With Death March you definitely need a counter if you're going to take it on.
Yeah Death March pretty much requires Wall of Stones and ways of getting around it. Some balancing of Wall of Stone would be nice, such as the ability to cleanse or somehow destroy it.
For information, I have a 17 win streak in deathmarch without using any wall of stones. So you don't need it to win but you definitly need some ways to counter it and I'll add terrain attachments that remove ennemy LoS to that list (illusion barrier/wall or smoke bomb).
Hedgehog, just play a whirlwind wizard and 2 hitters. That way WoS won´t bother you, just have to live with the fact that the build is cheesier than playing with walls.
First, for some reason i havent seen much stonewall in the ~15-20 games i played, so i dont share the view of it being a overly present gamebreaker. But i bothered to implement one counter, or so i thought: Fly. Turns out you cant fly over the Stone wall, which weirds me out. Maybe it fits a dungeon setting, but i think there is no clear indication that fly is useless. Why whould a whirlwind lift characters over it, while they themselves have to teleport? Everytime you make a player play a whirlwind build, a puppy dies somewhere. So the general suggestion is: Change Flying so it adds to the criminally small list of counters to Stonewall. Do it for the puppies.
Another thought about Stonewall: Bigdiff asked for a way to cleanse or destroy it: Would it be possible to give the stones HP and make them attackable? Make it 15 HP or so and you could break through it with brute force, which would be unique and awesome.
I'm not sure that Death March was a good board idea, given Wall of Stone. Ultimately, what I'd like for a board like this is deck building constraints to prevent that card being used in this league.
What about Whirlwind, if there would be no WoS the complains would just mitigate to Whirlwind or Firestorm builds. WoS is no ultimate strategy is just one of many and the above mentioned Whirlwind Wizard with 2 Hitters is a lot more successful. And on the plus side you don´t even have to change your deck if you play in a high rank, because you switched back to the Gladius boards which are a wankfest for Whirlwind/Stepattack builds. And don´t pain yourself that you made a mistake with the Death March league, it is fantastic compared to Graveyard Gambol where the person with the most movement in the first two rounds wins 80% of the time.
WoS was designed to be indestructable. Some hate it, some like it, and some just deal with it. Make your arguments, and maybe the devs will change it. I understand not being able to fly through blocked terrain, and whirlwinds should logically work the same way. It's one of the few ways to get past WoS, so I'm sure some people will be upset if it changes. Trying to please everyone is a no-win, and I don't envy the devs that.
Any map in which your first thought is "Looks like I'll need to play WW/WWE", is a bad map. This map pretty much requires it.
Definitely shows that not everyone thinks the same way, or prioritizes WW(E) in the same manner. "3x2 with 6 VPs? You bring elves, I'll bring volcano!"
so I've wanted to check hows the deathmarch league looks and decided to spectate a match to see how it goes ... WWE followed next
So I've played that league today, each time it was a wall of stone and/or WWE spam. Managed to pull of some combos like using advanced training to pass of a teleport self to my nimbused warrior to cross over a stone wall, but then another WWE followed and it didn't matter (had 2-3 immovable per char, didn't help). I even had 4 whirlwind-type card played against me during one round by a single wizard (after I've teleported through the wall and the opponent was just playing it like a slot machine but instead of streaks he was looking for the right positioning). Unbelievably boring games. Managed to win one game only but still got to the second place since nobody dared to play the league (wonder why) and just signed up for the chests. I think the board idea was awesome, it's just the poor state of meta that renders it unplayable. Those leagues are great for coming up with completely fresh and intriguing game boards, it's just the cookie-cutter copy-cats who care about the wins not the challenging and fun gameplay. Restrictions would be definitely a good way to go. EDIT: If the board isn't working well currently, as Jon admitted himself, then why not take it off until restrictions is a thing?
