Removal

[earley207]

There is too much cheap removal in the game currently. We have a local top player who runs a deck where 1 in 3 cards is some form of character removal. 20 plus removal cards in a deck of 75 makes efficient deck building difficult.

[Bizze]

In terms of removal, I think that a lot of the removal cards of the Rogue trade are pretty well-balanced. They all have some kind of condition, like not killing characters unless they have 4 life or less. This means that you can counter them by running characters with lots of life or use items to boost you characters' life. Also there is Scrag, but that one also has a limitation that makes it more useful in mid- to late game or if you focus on milling your opponent's deck away.

However, I think that Banker has several removal cards that are a little too easy to use with no or very few drawbacks. Having such a defensive potential as it is, I wonder if that trade could be something to look at.

@earley207: What kind of trades are your top player playing?

[earley207]

Deck is Rogue/Banker

snooty doorman, subordinate demotivation, strangulate, scrag, roulette wheel, extravagant contusion, essence of deception (death touch for the 4 speed rogue characters used)

This is a lot of cheap removal when my opponents only paying two maybe three to remove a character that cost me four or more to put into play, ie 4 life or more. Big resource disadvantage for me

[Lioge]

I have to say that I disagree with this being overpowered. The majority of removal (specifically those in the previous post) are one-for-one removal cards. Since many characters in the Spoils have additional benefit like Micromajig Shipping Container, Overinsured Figurehead, Deadly Striker, Multi-Attachment Man, Balking Foecrusher etc... the spot removal should be cheap. The cards that have to be balanced are those with sweeping effects.

Cards with sweeping effects like Shriever Attack, Downsizing, Walk the Plank, etc... are the cards that can heavily unbalance the game if they are too aggressively costed.

Remember this basic theory behind deckbuilding, if it costs more for you to lose the character than it costs player in average removal, you want to heavily consider the reason for the character's inclusion in your deck. (Opportunity cost is hard to value, since it is hard to give a numerical value to synergy.)

[Strmtrpr81]

I have to say that I disagree with this being overpowered. The majority of removal (specifically those in the previous post) are one-for-one removal cards. Since many characters in the Spoils have additional benefit like Micromajig Shipping Container, Overinsured Figurehead, Deadly Striker, Multi-Attachment Man, Balking Foecrusher etc... the spot removal should be cheap. The cards that have to be balanced are those with sweeping effects.

Cards with sweeping effects like Shriever Attack, Downsizing, Walk the Plank, etc... are the cards that can heavily unbalance the game if they are too aggressively costed.

Remember this basic theory behind deckbuilding, if it costs more for you to lose the character than it costs player in average removal, you want to heavily consider the reason for the character's inclusion in your deck. (Opportunity cost is hard to value, since it is hard to give a numerical value to synergy.)


I agree 100 Percent with Lioge on his response to this post. If a deck is packing 20+ removal cards, then thats totally fine. Everytime he is playing a removal card, he is not being very aggressive.

The game play might go back and forth for a while, but I dont think the deck with all the removal will have such a great way of winning, especially with all the disruption in the spoils that can occur.

-Dan

[lighttigersoul]

The deck that plays 20+ removal is also planning on firing removal at everything on the table, and is likely to miss a bomb or two if you hold them for the appropriate times. The player running 8-16 spot removal is likely going to hold that one in hand until it does him the most good.

[earley207]

Thanks for the insights guys. Maybe I just really s&%k at deck building. The problem I encounter when I play against this deck, is that every time I drop something, he removes it, all the while dropping characters of his own. Leaving me with no or almost no board presence taking 5 or often more damage per turn. Too many turns like this and its game over.

Trying to recover from having no characters in play, against all the removal I've found all but impossible. This deck piloted by its creator is nothing if not efficient. I've seen it have resource trouble a few times. It has early game speed dropping characters, mid game strengths, and if it goes long, stamina to deck out opponents.

[lighttigersoul]

Splash Warlord for Tactician Vacation, then. It'll stop removal for a turn at least.

[cravix]

Splash Warlord for Tactician Vacation, then. It'll stop removal for a turn at least.

You could also splash banker for limited liability. Also as mentioned alot of times removal has certain conditions to be made or gives you something like draw a card. Find ways to make it harder to meet those conditions. If you run rogue run martial artists, things like that.

[Sperpurber]

Lots of cheap characters. Play more 1-2 cost guys than he can drop 2-4 cost removal.

[Lioge]

Seriously consider cards that generate card advantage like Micromajig Maker, Master, Toolbox Elf, etc...

[La_Sin_Grail]

If we're talking about constructed, some of you seriously need to have some more experience playing a variety of decks here. Removal is absolutely terrible if you're playing 20 copies!! The T8 of Gencon had at least 3 Free trade agreement style banker-based decks against whom many of those pieces of removal are dead cards. I would say it doesn't matter how good the 13th-20th copies of removal are, they're still not going to be useful across a spectrum of constructed decks.

Also, many of the point brought up are quite valid- micromajigs/gearsmith in general avoiding removal being a problem. But removal in an actual competititve tournament is not going to be as good as it is at your local kitchen table or FLGS.

[lighttigersoul]

My experience basically says smart combat and 2 choices of solid removal are more than enough to carry games.

[tgrtrax]

2 choices as in cards or as in 2 playsets?
i am guessing playsets.....cause 2 cards would be useless.....
________
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[lighttigersoul]

Indeed, I meant two playsets. My picks are 90% of the time playsets, so discussing picks as single cards is a bit on the pointless side.

[Hordak]

I think the point on removal is being made wrong. Right now removal can be played around by playing cheap characters or self-defending characters. Will Morgan has made this point very well in the past just using very basic math. It is easy to play cards that are more cost effective than the removal which kills them. The problem with that is it only encourages playing characters that are cheap cheap cheap. It takes away variety, and that should be what's emphasized as bad. If anything I think weenie destroyers need to be a little more common and spread across trades better.

[ishinken]

removal is fine.

though bankers really have too many different "killswitch" cards vs. characters...

one for lowest cost, one for highest cost, one for X vs cost, one cheap that you loose influence from, one cheap that makes opponent draw a card, and it goes on beyond that!

and they are not really "one card vs another" trades either since they can be played in responce to somebody playing a tactic or a gear on a character then it vanishes underneath effectively nullifying useage of gear and so forth. which I find boring.

Also as previously stated, choosing mostly just cheap cheap cheap characters takes away alot of variety to me aswell

[UtopiaTree]

play efficient characters that give you something, that he won't even want to kill, like deadly striker and flabbergasting philosopher. Violating Anomaly. Swarm of gnats. If his deck has cheap aggro dudes, then play cheap guys that give you something, like key man or maybe even gnat. Then play lots of recursion cards, like revivitate, and postmortem debenture. Now, every time he kills something, he loses a little bit of footing. Outlast him, and you win. Wait until he drops a dude, then EOT drop a philosopher, and on your own turn, drop something else. Chances are, he can't kill BOTH of them right then and there. Which gives you more time to drop more dudes.
Alternatively, you can play stuff that makes your characters harder to kill. Secret handshake is hilarious and unexpected, although really only helpful against strangulate, and early scrags. Somebody mentioned tac vac. you could even play noble sacrifice, if he tends to have some dudes out when he's killing yours.

As for whether removal is too good right now? I don't think so, although Banker removal did become pretty ridiculous in seed. I remember when anesthetizing opulence was played heavily... then seed came out, and every copy of that card in existence became useless.

Spot removal should be cheap and effective, for the reasons mentioned in this thread. But I have to admit that banker seems to have a little TOO much cheap, effective removal.

[thegnomishone]

Every copy of Anesthetizing oppulence became useless when people realized that 4 cost plus a card for your opponent was too much to pay to kill all but the most powerful of characters.

[Hordak]

Every copy of Anesthetizing oppulence became useless when people realized that 4 cost plus a card for your opponent was too much to pay to kill all but the most powerful of characters.

Or you want them to draw cards ;) (Dancing Coins)

[koikaze]

removal is fine.
though bankers really have too many different "killswitch" cards vs. characters...


That is part of the Banker Faction Identity. You could argue that Gearsmith has too many different, cheap characters. A 5/5/3 for 4 with one threshold!? Broken......

Banker has really slim pickings for characters because their meat and potatoes are removal and defensive cards.

Not all factions have even footings and that is why this game is amazing.


Or you want them to draw cards ;) (Dancing Coins)

Yep yep, a good player can turn cards with "negatives" into positive.

[Kealios]

Wait until he drops a dude, then EOT drop a philosopher, and on your own turn, drop something else. Chances are, he can't kill BOTH of them right then and there.

Pardon my n00bness. I am just discovering this game and am really enjoying what Ive seen so far, and am working to "reawaken" it at my FLGS...

I thought you could only play Tactics or Use an Ability (606.1 and 606.2)? I had thought of this, of saving resources to play a Character at the end of an opponent's turn, but it doesnt seem like the rules support this?

Interesting thread. Thanks for humoring me.

[repek]

You can't play a char during opponent's turn. :) Unless character's card allows you to [usually it says that it can be played when action card could be played].

Regards and Majigs

[Hordak]

Pardon my n00bness. I am just discovering this game and am really enjoying what Ive seen so far, and am working to "reawaken" it at my FLGS...

I thought you could only play Tactics or Use an Ability (606.1 and 606.2)? I had thought of this, of saving resources to play a Character at the end of an opponent's turn, but it doesnt seem like the rules support this?

Interesting thread. Thanks for humoring me.

The character in question specifically overrides that rule with its text:


Strength/Life/Speed: 3/3/3
Trade: Banker
Cost: 6
Threshold: GG
Edition: Seed
Rarity: Common
You may play this card whenever you could play a tactic.

When this card enters play, your faction gains 4 influence.

FLIP UP: 4 GG

[WasabiSushiSama]

I saw that someone had mentioned that Anesthetizing Opulence was considered useless because it costs 4 + a card draw for an opponent. While letting your opponent draw a card may suck if they hit a bomb, I learned from playing Magic that a card like Howling Mine, where everyone draws and additional card during their draw step, isn't necessarily a bad thing. The key to Banker, as with most draw (aka Blue) decks in Magic is that you know that whatever card you could potentially draw will benefit you more than whatever card your opponent will draw could hurt you. (I know the logic sounds a little backward, but I also play with 1 or 2 less Resources than recommended because I have enough flip up that I can stand to go a few turns drawing Resource intense cards vs having 2 or 3 Resources and no chance to play them. So I guess you could say that with my deck, 6-7 times out of 10 I'm drawing removal or something to delay my opponent instead of a bomb character or Resource)

If you're playing Banker (mono or even heavy Banker with a splash), you should have enough removal and draw cards that work only for you that letting them draw a card isn't the worst thing. Playing a mono Banker deck, I'd much rather let them draw a card than have them gain influence off a Caboodling Gladhander or Irresistible Bribe. Imagine killing something huge with one of those cards... not only did your opponent just gain a butt-load of life, but now you're gonna have to work just as hard to kill them. Life gain isn't always all it's cracked up to be, but from my (limited) experience of playing Spoils (with a mono Banker mind you), I've found that 9 times out of 10 that letting them draw a card is far easier than bouncing them from kill range and then out again. It could just be my play style, but I've sat with Irresistible Bribe or Gladhander in my hand towards the end of a game enough times wishing that I had ANYTHING else but that, that I took them out of my deck.

[thegnomishone]

Card advantage is very, very important in most card games. It's more important in Magic than in The Spoils, but it's still one of the most important facets of a Spoils game. The Spoils just allows us to quantify it better. A card in hand is worth approximately 3 resources (the cost to draw a card using the faction's draw ability). With a card like Free Trade Agreement, you can let each player draw two cards. When you do, you give each player the equivalent of a net gain of 6 resource points. That's a balance that works much like your howling mine example. Anesthetizing Oppulence, however, costs you 7 (4 + 3 for a card). If you kill, for example, a Plodding Brute, you spend 7 and they only lose 4 (the cost of the brute), because they get the cost of the card recouped.

Fundamentally, removal doesn't win games, it just allows you to ply a winning strategy in the absence of a threat. A card like Irresistable Bribe gives them influence, certainly, but, used properly, it opens them up for more influence loss than they gain from the bribe. I would always rather give my opponent influence than a card, particularly in exchange for a known threat.