Finally done with Cov 25, now i can go back to Cov 1 and try and gold all the cards.
The tried and true method of big dumb demons crowding a single floor gets me there again.
Yeah, i'm poking a Cov 1 run again, and you know what? It's fun! A lot more fun than Cov 25 is. And it's mostly because your deck is lean, so there's more interesting turn by turn choices to be made. Ah well. Hopefully the game will get some more love and fixes applied as patching comes.
That or there's mod support and we convince some poor sap to program our proposed changes and fixes in
Heh. Messing around at Covenant 1 to gold some cards, tripped into an infinite combo. Unlimited attack power and gold are mine for the taking. With some tweaks, could also be unlimited frostbite and a few other silly things.
Key part is slim deck, two Offering Monument, and Sacred Wicks with cost reduction and Consume removed. Plus any other zero cost spell, and you can loop as much as you want
Got a good run with Melting/Hellhorned. burnout Rector is real good. 150/150 and I could reform him if he even did die. But the real mvp's were the two Legion of Wax I had upgraded.
I probably should've been playing Covenant 1 way before this. It's a lot more fun, with the extra cards thrown in. Can start a deck on a strategy right away.
Also, I only learned today that you're guaranteed to draw at least one non-champion/non-starter unit on your first turn. Kind of feel like that's a workaround for the bloat problem that would be much better fixed by not, you know... making bloat be such a fucking problem.
Also, I only learned today that you're guaranteed to draw at least one non-champion/non-starter unit on your first turn. Kind of feel like that's a workaround for the bloat problem that would be much better fixed by not, you know... making bloat be such a fucking problem.
Not really though. Even small decks (unless they're five cards or less) could have a chance of not getting a needed non-champ unit in the opening draw. It'd also vastely restrict what could be considered a good deck or strategy, because that change would very much incentivize a tiny deck that had only cards that were either powerful enough on their own or a decklist capable of massive inflation.
edit: Huh. I looked up the draw mechanics on the wiki, and they're even a little more involved than I thought. Sounds like they're even worse for "a workaround to the bloat problem" than first stated.
The player's champion starts in their hand; it does not count against the cards drawn for that turn.
The player is guaranteed to draw at least one major unit each turn, as long as:
there is one in the draw pile, and
the discard pile has not been reshuffled yet.
A "major" unit is one which appears in the unit-only card pool used for Unit Draft rewards and Unit Banner events. In contrast, "minor" units appear alongside spells in the general card pool used for pack rewards. The Hellhorned units are a good example: all Demon units are major and all Imp units are minor.
The other cards are drawn normally from a randomized deck. Note that these may also be major units.
Yeeeah, that's even worse than I thought/understood. It also fucks with those high energy cost units that seem like they'd be good as long as you could get an energy producer out/into your hand first... except oops, apparently the former are weighted to come out first.
So, that draw rule ruins channel song, because it basically guarantees you draw your good minions before channel song.
Basically it means, when taking Channel Song, that you don't want that one single target for it. You'd want 2-3. or Endless on a target you'd like Channel Song to hit. Or just don't assume the game will let the player build a deck that's expecting to hit a specific target with Channel Song reliably.
Yeeeah, that's even worse than I thought/understood. It also fucks with those high energy cost units that seem like they'd be good as long as you could get an energy producer out/into your hand first... except oops, apparently the former are weighted to come out first.
More or less, yeah. What it does illustrate is that a deck that relies on having two unique cards in hand at the same time isn't likely to get both in the hand on the same turn. Not without holdover or permafrost or endless. So the way to play is to instead have a pool of cards that fulfill the same role, either multiples of the same card or different ones that mostly fulfill the same purpose.
Channelsong can pull units from the discard pile. The description doesn't sound like it would, but it does. So that helps somewhat, even if pitching a playable unit just to keep Channelsong useable feels kind of bad.
Channelsong can pull units from the discard pile. The description doesn't sound like it would, but it does. So that helps somewhat, even if pitching a playable unit just to keep Channelsong useable feels kind of bad.
I'm 99% certain that it can't, as I've struggled to use it almost every time I have it precisely because of that.
Yeeeah, that's even worse than I thought/understood. It also fucks with those high energy cost units that seem like they'd be good as long as you could get an energy producer out/into your hand first... except oops, apparently the former are weighted to come out first.
Agreed. that is so... Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrgh.
It's just so CLUDGEY. I understand why the way it is, but... like
Okay, one, you kill interesting drafting decisions. This means it's objectively correct to take a very amount of units because you're going to get them anyway. So just take good units and sink all the expensive upgrades into them.
Two, it's a cludgy fix to the bloat you're inflicted with. At this point i want to say you should only everh ave 2x of the starter cards of each faction, and train stewards should be Purge (+a buff so they dont die the moment something looks at them funny).
Three: You hurt card draw within a turn and similar syngeries. Which is already something I've noticed just going back to StS - this game feels way more rigid in what works with what. Like why would you over take the draw 1, discard 1 card if you dont have offering cards in your deck? it's literally a negative on card draw. (As the process of drawing it costs you a draw that you could have drawn whatever instead). Even with offering cards, i'm pretty sure it's still correct to not take it, and just make your offering cards cheaper to play most of the time.
Grrgh. I wanna l;ove this game, but you are killing me here devs.
ArcticLancerBest served chilled.Registered Userregular
edited July 2020
Yeah, I'm feeling really bad about it at this point. I've been stuck on Cov9 for days, and I can't tell you why I'm failing. I've had numerous decks that were running roughshod over the game until whichever of the 8th or 9th rings completely destroyed me. Considering what an easy time I had getting up to this point I have no idea what the tipping point was.
Precisely because of that I don't feel like I could properly evaluate the game or some of its elements. But the one thing that seems to be at the fore for me is that I think it would be helped if your deck was actually two decks (spells // units) and you could choose how to draw your cards rather than be forced. It feels like it's too easy to not be able to establish a board, or to have your board wiped just by virtue of the hidden draw mechanisms. Just let me pick up two units if I really need two units, you know?
*shrug*
The game has hooks, but it doesn't leave me feeling good or satisfied. I think I'll shelve it for a bit ...
Yeeeah, that's even worse than I thought/understood. It also fucks with those high energy cost units that seem like they'd be good as long as you could get an energy producer out/into your hand first... except oops, apparently the former are weighted to come out first.
Agreed. that is so... Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrgh.
It's just so CLUDGEY. I understand why the way it is, but... like
Okay, one, you kill interesting drafting decisions. This means it's objectively correct to take a very amount of units because you're going to get them anyway. So just take good units and sink all the expensive upgrades into them.
Two, it's a cludgy fix to the bloat you're inflicted with. At this point i want to say you should only everh ave 2x of the starter cards of each faction, and train stewards should be Purge (+a buff so they dont die the moment something looks at them funny).
Three: You hurt card draw within a turn and similar syngeries. Which is already something I've noticed just going back to StS - this game feels way more rigid in what works with what. Like why would you over take the draw 1, discard 1 card if you dont have offering cards in your deck? it's literally a negative on card draw. (As the process of drawing it costs you a draw that you could have drawn whatever instead). Even with offering cards, i'm pretty sure it's still correct to not take it, and just make your offering cards cheaper to play most of the time.
Grrgh. I wanna l;ove this game, but you are killing me here devs.
Offering Token isn't negative on draw, it's neutral. You draw it from your deck and it replaces itself in your hand with another card, aka the card you would have drawn in its place.
The discard part isn't really powerful without an Offering card in the deck, I agree. But unless a deck can play through its entire hand every turn, there's going to be one or more cards left in hand at the end of the turn, those are the cards you'd chuck to the discard from Offering Token.
Is it a power card that will win a run? Absolutely Not. Does it have a synergy with Incant. yup. Would I take it in a card pack if the other options weren't super strong or went against my deck's plan? probably. As I have done that in the past. Granted, I'm not talking about how it feels at Cov 25, I haven't gotten that high and I'm not even sure I will.
Yeeeah, that's even worse than I thought/understood. It also fucks with those high energy cost units that seem like they'd be good as long as you could get an energy producer out/into your hand first... except oops, apparently the former are weighted to come out first.
Agreed. that is so... Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrgh.
It's just so CLUDGEY. I understand why the way it is, but... like
Okay, one, you kill interesting drafting decisions. This means it's objectively correct to take a very amount of units because you're going to get them anyway. So just take good units and sink all the expensive upgrades into them.
Two, it's a cludgy fix to the bloat you're inflicted with. At this point i want to say you should only everh ave 2x of the starter cards of each faction, and train stewards should be Purge (+a buff so they dont die the moment something looks at them funny).
Three: You hurt card draw within a turn and similar syngeries. Which is already something I've noticed just going back to StS - this game feels way more rigid in what works with what. Like why would you over take the draw 1, discard 1 card if you dont have offering cards in your deck? it's literally a negative on card draw. (As the process of drawing it costs you a draw that you could have drawn whatever instead). Even with offering cards, i'm pretty sure it's still correct to not take it, and just make your offering cards cheaper to play most of the time.
Grrgh. I wanna l;ove this game, but you are killing me here devs.
So Offering Token isn't negative on draw, it's neutral. You draw it from your deck and it replaces itself in your hand with another card. The discard part isn't really powerful without an Offering card in the deck, I agree. But unless a deck can play through its entire hand every turn, there's going to be one or more cards left in hand at the end of the turn, those are the cards you'd chuck to the discard from Offering Token.
Is it a power card that will win a run? Absolutely Not. Does it have a synergy with Incant. yup. Would I take it in a card pack if the other options weren't super strong or went against my deck's plan? probably. As I have done that in the past. Granted, I'm not talking about how it feels at Cov 25, I haven't gotten that high and I'm not even sure I will.
The problem with Offering is that you've already spent a card draw to draw offering in the first place.
So you draw 5 cards. One of these is offering. You play offering. You draw card 6.
...in the deck where you didnt have offering, you drew card 6 already. It's only benefit is it's interactions with Incant and discard, otherwise it's literally just clogging your deck. Which in a game where card draw is at a massive premium is a huge problem. (There's a card in StS, Prepared, that has the exact same issue. The only difference is that Prepared ugprades to draw 2, discard 2, making it actually halfway decent at both digging your deck and filtering your hand.)
And yeah, i'm coming at this from a cov 25 perspective where card draw is precious and crowded as hell.
Yeeeah, that's even worse than I thought/understood. It also fucks with those high energy cost units that seem like they'd be good as long as you could get an energy producer out/into your hand first... except oops, apparently the former are weighted to come out first.
Agreed. that is so... Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrgh.
It's just so CLUDGEY. I understand why the way it is, but... like
Okay, one, you kill interesting drafting decisions. This means it's objectively correct to take a very amount of units because you're going to get them anyway. So just take good units and sink all the expensive upgrades into them.
Two, it's a cludgy fix to the bloat you're inflicted with. At this point i want to say you should only everh ave 2x of the starter cards of each faction, and train stewards should be Purge (+a buff so they dont die the moment something looks at them funny).
Three: You hurt card draw within a turn and similar syngeries. Which is already something I've noticed just going back to StS - this game feels way more rigid in what works with what. Like why would you over take the draw 1, discard 1 card if you dont have offering cards in your deck? it's literally a negative on card draw. (As the process of drawing it costs you a draw that you could have drawn whatever instead). Even with offering cards, i'm pretty sure it's still correct to not take it, and just make your offering cards cheaper to play most of the time.
Grrgh. I wanna l;ove this game, but you are killing me here devs.
Offering Token isn't negative on draw, it's neutral. You draw it from your deck and it replaces itself in your hand with another card, aka the card you would have drawn in its place.
The discard part isn't really powerful without an Offering card in the deck, I agree. But unless a deck can play through its entire hand every turn, there's going to be one or more cards left in hand at the end of the turn, those are the cards you'd chuck to the discard from Offering Token.
Is it a power card that will win a run? Absolutely Not. Does it have a synergy with Incant. yup. Would I take it in a card pack if the other options weren't super strong or went against my deck's plan? probably. As I have done that in the past. Granted, I'm not talking about how it feels at Cov 25, I haven't gotten that high and I'm not even sure I will.
It's negative card advantage because the discard is forced. It does not improve velocity because it adds to the deck size equal to the draw.
Think about it. If your deck is 5 cards exactly with 5 draw and enough energy, every turn you play your entire deck. If your deck is 5 cards and Offering, every turn you draw offering you can only play four real spells.
I'm generally not playing all the cards in my hand every turn, so the drawback on Offering Token is minimal. I don't usually build for Incant (because most of those units suck IMO and also there's the whole "shortage of units to acquire" thing), so for me the value is usually just in being a discard outlet. I'm rarely excited to see it, but if I start with Crypt Builders I'll usually try to pick one up, and vice versa.
Yeeeah, that's even worse than I thought/understood. It also fucks with those high energy cost units that seem like they'd be good as long as you could get an energy producer out/into your hand first... except oops, apparently the former are weighted to come out first.
Agreed. that is so... Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrgh.
It's just so CLUDGEY. I understand why the way it is, but... like
Okay, one, you kill interesting drafting decisions. This means it's objectively correct to take a very amount of units because you're going to get them anyway. So just take good units and sink all the expensive upgrades into them.
Two, it's a cludgy fix to the bloat you're inflicted with. At this point i want to say you should only everh ave 2x of the starter cards of each faction, and train stewards should be Purge (+a buff so they dont die the moment something looks at them funny).
Three: You hurt card draw within a turn and similar syngeries. Which is already something I've noticed just going back to StS - this game feels way more rigid in what works with what. Like why would you over take the draw 1, discard 1 card if you dont have offering cards in your deck? it's literally a negative on card draw. (As the process of drawing it costs you a draw that you could have drawn whatever instead). Even with offering cards, i'm pretty sure it's still correct to not take it, and just make your offering cards cheaper to play most of the time.
Grrgh. I wanna l;ove this game, but you are killing me here devs.
Offering Token isn't negative on draw, it's neutral. You draw it from your deck and it replaces itself in your hand with another card, aka the card you would have drawn in its place.
The discard part isn't really powerful without an Offering card in the deck, I agree. But unless a deck can play through its entire hand every turn, there's going to be one or more cards left in hand at the end of the turn, those are the cards you'd chuck to the discard from Offering Token.
Is it a power card that will win a run? Absolutely Not. Does it have a synergy with Incant. yup. Would I take it in a card pack if the other options weren't super strong or went against my deck's plan? probably. As I have done that in the past. Granted, I'm not talking about how it feels at Cov 25, I haven't gotten that high and I'm not even sure I will.
It's negative card advantage because the discard is forced. It does not improve velocity because it adds to the deck size equal to the draw.
Think about it. If your deck is 5 cards exactly with 5 draw and enough energy, every turn you play your entire deck. If your deck is 5 cards and Offering, every turn you draw offering you can only play four real spells.
Ok, sure. I agree with that. But how realistic is that hypothetical? How often is a player going to have a 5 card deck in Monster Train?
I made the assumption that most decks won't be playing their entire hand every turn, so there would be cards left in hand at the End Turn button. Given that assumption, I'm saying that Offering Token isn't hurting the number of real spells played.
And if the player does have a deck that plays through its entire hand every turn, it wouldn't take Offering Token in the first place.
Yeeeah, that's even worse than I thought/understood. It also fucks with those high energy cost units that seem like they'd be good as long as you could get an energy producer out/into your hand first... except oops, apparently the former are weighted to come out first.
Agreed. that is so... Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrgh.
It's just so CLUDGEY. I understand why the way it is, but... like
Okay, one, you kill interesting drafting decisions. This means it's objectively correct to take a very amount of units because you're going to get them anyway. So just take good units and sink all the expensive upgrades into them.
Two, it's a cludgy fix to the bloat you're inflicted with. At this point i want to say you should only everh ave 2x of the starter cards of each faction, and train stewards should be Purge (+a buff so they dont die the moment something looks at them funny).
Three: You hurt card draw within a turn and similar syngeries. Which is already something I've noticed just going back to StS - this game feels way more rigid in what works with what. Like why would you over take the draw 1, discard 1 card if you dont have offering cards in your deck? it's literally a negative on card draw. (As the process of drawing it costs you a draw that you could have drawn whatever instead). Even with offering cards, i'm pretty sure it's still correct to not take it, and just make your offering cards cheaper to play most of the time.
Grrgh. I wanna l;ove this game, but you are killing me here devs.
Offering Token isn't negative on draw, it's neutral. You draw it from your deck and it replaces itself in your hand with another card, aka the card you would have drawn in its place.
The discard part isn't really powerful without an Offering card in the deck, I agree. But unless a deck can play through its entire hand every turn, there's going to be one or more cards left in hand at the end of the turn, those are the cards you'd chuck to the discard from Offering Token.
Is it a power card that will win a run? Absolutely Not. Does it have a synergy with Incant. yup. Would I take it in a card pack if the other options weren't super strong or went against my deck's plan? probably. As I have done that in the past. Granted, I'm not talking about how it feels at Cov 25, I haven't gotten that high and I'm not even sure I will.
It's negative card advantage because the discard is forced. It does not improve velocity because it adds to the deck size equal to the draw.
Think about it. If your deck is 5 cards exactly with 5 draw and enough energy, every turn you play your entire deck. If your deck is 5 cards and Offering, every turn you draw offering you can only play four real spells.
Ok, sure. I agree with that. But how realistic is that hypothetical? How often is a player going to have a 5 card deck in Monster Train?
I made the assumption that most decks won't be playing their entire hand every turn, so there would be cards left in hand at the End Turn button. Given that assumption, I'm saying that Offering Token isn't hurting the number of real spells played.
And if the player does have a deck that plays through its entire hand every turn, it wouldn't take Offering Token in the first place.
The problem is that even in decks that aren't playing their entire hand... all offering does is benefit if you if you already have an discard card or an incant unit. It's otherwise just a nothing draw.
Yeeeah, that's even worse than I thought/understood. It also fucks with those high energy cost units that seem like they'd be good as long as you could get an energy producer out/into your hand first... except oops, apparently the former are weighted to come out first.
Agreed. that is so... Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrgh.
It's just so CLUDGEY. I understand why the way it is, but... like
Okay, one, you kill interesting drafting decisions. This means it's objectively correct to take a very amount of units because you're going to get them anyway. So just take good units and sink all the expensive upgrades into them.
Two, it's a cludgy fix to the bloat you're inflicted with. At this point i want to say you should only everh ave 2x of the starter cards of each faction, and train stewards should be Purge (+a buff so they dont die the moment something looks at them funny).
Three: You hurt card draw within a turn and similar syngeries. Which is already something I've noticed just going back to StS - this game feels way more rigid in what works with what. Like why would you over take the draw 1, discard 1 card if you dont have offering cards in your deck? it's literally a negative on card draw. (As the process of drawing it costs you a draw that you could have drawn whatever instead). Even with offering cards, i'm pretty sure it's still correct to not take it, and just make your offering cards cheaper to play most of the time.
Grrgh. I wanna l;ove this game, but you are killing me here devs.
Offering Token isn't negative on draw, it's neutral. You draw it from your deck and it replaces itself in your hand with another card, aka the card you would have drawn in its place.
The discard part isn't really powerful without an Offering card in the deck, I agree. But unless a deck can play through its entire hand every turn, there's going to be one or more cards left in hand at the end of the turn, those are the cards you'd chuck to the discard from Offering Token.
Is it a power card that will win a run? Absolutely Not. Does it have a synergy with Incant. yup. Would I take it in a card pack if the other options weren't super strong or went against my deck's plan? probably. As I have done that in the past. Granted, I'm not talking about how it feels at Cov 25, I haven't gotten that high and I'm not even sure I will.
It's negative card advantage because the discard is forced. It does not improve velocity because it adds to the deck size equal to the draw.
Think about it. If your deck is 5 cards exactly with 5 draw and enough energy, every turn you play your entire deck. If your deck is 5 cards and Offering, every turn you draw offering you can only play four real spells.
Ok, sure. I agree with that. But how realistic is that hypothetical? How often is a player going to have a 5 card deck in Monster Train?
I made the assumption that most decks won't be playing their entire hand every turn, so there would be cards left in hand at the End Turn button. Given that assumption, I'm saying that Offering Token isn't hurting the number of real spells played.
And if the player does have a deck that plays through its entire hand every turn, it wouldn't take Offering Token in the first place.
The problem is that even in decks that aren't playing their entire hand... all offering does is benefit if you if you already have an discard card or an incant unit. It's otherwise just a nothing draw.
Ok. I think we're talking around the same things, but approaching it from two different perspectives. I'm trying to say where I see Offering Token has value interactions and isn't a dead draw. But it feels that you're saying Offering Token is a dead draw except where it does have value interactions.
I'm also much more conversant with MTG, and I'm using valuations built from that game in addition to experience in Monster Train. A card that draws its own replacement for free and removes a card from hand that you can't play this turn is itself something of value.
And I've already said Offering Token probably isn't worth taking just for that, apologies if that wasn't clear. I wouldn't in most situations, but if I have cards with Offering on them or Incant triggers, which I have had good results with those strategies in Cov0, I don't see a downside to Offering Token in those cases. In any case, I'm getting frustrated at myself, so I'll leave this as my last response.
EDIT: Ok, breaking my word on that last bit because this is something I want to add. I really wish Stygian had more support of the Offering mechanic. IIRC, there's only what 1 card with Offering on it and only Offering Token to really take advantage of it? Offering as a mechanic is something that appeals to me, and maybe that's coloring my evaluation of Token.
One other thing Offering Token is good for is getting deadweights, blights, or those "your pyre takes damage" cards out of your hand when you don't have the ember to play them.
EDIT: Ok, breaking my word on that last bit because this is something I want to add. I really wish Stygian had more support of the Offering mechanic. IIRC, there's only what 1 card with Offering on it and only Offering Token to really take advantage of it? Offering as a mechanic is something that appeals to me, and maybe that's coloring my evaluation of Token.
There's also the crypt hammer card. There's a discard your hand, draw 5 which is really good. That's another discard your hand, daze everything, seems solid. There's also the lightning lash that does damage and discards at random
As to the MTG experience, that may just be the reason why we're evaluating things differently. I'm looking at it from the STS perspective where cantrips are a modest bonus, but only really good when welded to strong effects (and like I mentioned, offering is identical to an incredibly weak StS card).
Part of that's just down to the discard your have draw 5 each turn thing these games have going on, as it shifts the value of discard and draw quite a bit . Cantripping and controlled discard are way stronger when you don't discard your have, but there's no runic pyramid equiv in MT to let you hold cards for maximum effect (without investing in permafrost, which gets awkward for the discard cards since you want to play them every time they come up anyway)
When I'm playing Remnant + Stygian (in either order), I often end up Permafrosting my cards with Offering, because Remnant tends to have vast amounts of money, so might as well if that's what comes up in the magic shop.
One enjoyable combo is Holdover Offering Token with Holdover (anything with Offering). That gets you a pretty powerful effect every turn for zero ember, and a net of only one of your cards-per-turn (since Offering Token draws a card)
Fry on
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ArcticLancerBest served chilled.Registered Userregular
I mean, if i wanted to be pithy, i could say "You didnt snowball 'ard enough".
...which honestly, i'm not sure how pithy that really is.
Yeah, I don't think you're wrong, but I have no idea how I could have snowballed harder in most cases. The level-to-level ramp seems too high for the options you're given sometimes, and the first 1/3rd of the game is too samey to make that feel right.
Yeah. You're super at the mercy of what your starting relic and champion upgrade are + what the first bonus is.
If you get like spiked strap or cuttlebeard, the bonus is gold, and it's start with something in every floor? You're off to the races.
If its armour you're probably fucked (I mean you'll live, but the difference is immense)
Whether you can kill the Cherub easily or not also contributes.
There's so few fights that there's just no real way to pull back a run that's loosing. You can't route for a high risk/high reward play, or take a safer route to play for long term power.
And once the ball gets rolling out can be very hard to stop you... Till the random bonuses align in such a way as to screw you over. (I remain irritated that different units share visuals, or at least are sufficiently samey as to feel like they do. It's an unccesary level of difficulty to the game, and something that AtS doors way better. Actually most games do this way better)
Yeeeah, that's even worse than I thought/understood. It also fucks with those high energy cost units that seem like they'd be good as long as you could get an energy producer out/into your hand first... except oops, apparently the former are weighted to come out first.
Agreed. that is so... Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrgh.
It's just so CLUDGEY. I understand why the way it is, but... like
Okay, one, you kill interesting drafting decisions. This means it's objectively correct to take a very amount of units because you're going to get them anyway. So just take good units and sink all the expensive upgrades into them.
Two, it's a cludgy fix to the bloat you're inflicted with. At this point i want to say you should only everh ave 2x of the starter cards of each faction, and train stewards should be Purge (+a buff so they dont die the moment something looks at them funny).
Three: You hurt card draw within a turn and similar syngeries. Which is already something I've noticed just going back to StS - this game feels way more rigid in what works with what. Like why would you over take the draw 1, discard 1 card if you dont have offering cards in your deck? it's literally a negative on card draw. (As the process of drawing it costs you a draw that you could have drawn whatever instead). Even with offering cards, i'm pretty sure it's still correct to not take it, and just make your offering cards cheaper to play most of the time.
Grrgh. I wanna l;ove this game, but you are killing me here devs.
Offering Token isn't negative on draw, it's neutral. You draw it from your deck and it replaces itself in your hand with another card, aka the card you would have drawn in its place.
The discard part isn't really powerful without an Offering card in the deck, I agree. But unless a deck can play through its entire hand every turn, there's going to be one or more cards left in hand at the end of the turn, those are the cards you'd chuck to the discard from Offering Token.
Is it a power card that will win a run? Absolutely Not. Does it have a synergy with Incant. yup. Would I take it in a card pack if the other options weren't super strong or went against my deck's plan? probably. As I have done that in the past. Granted, I'm not talking about how it feels at Cov 25, I haven't gotten that high and I'm not even sure I will.
It's negative card advantage because the discard is forced. It does not improve velocity because it adds to the deck size equal to the draw.
Think about it. If your deck is 5 cards exactly with 5 draw and enough energy, every turn you play your entire deck. If your deck is 5 cards and Offering, every turn you draw offering you can only play four real spells.
Ok, sure. I agree with that. But how realistic is that hypothetical? How often is a player going to have a 5 card deck in Monster Train?
I made the assumption that most decks won't be playing their entire hand every turn, so there would be cards left in hand at the End Turn button. Given that assumption, I'm saying that Offering Token isn't hurting the number of real spells played.
And if the player does have a deck that plays through its entire hand every turn, it wouldn't take Offering Token in the first place.
The problem is that even in decks that aren't playing their entire hand... all offering does is benefit if you if you already have an discard card or an incant unit. It's otherwise just a nothing draw.
Ok. I think we're talking around the same things, but approaching it from two different perspectives. I'm trying to say where I see Offering Token has value interactions and isn't a dead draw. But it feels that you're saying Offering Token is a dead draw except where it does have value interactions.
I'm also much more conversant with MTG, and I'm using valuations built from that game in addition to experience in Monster Train. A card that draws its own replacement for free and removes a card from hand that you can't play this turn is itself something of value.
And I've already said Offering Token probably isn't worth taking just for that, apologies if that wasn't clear. I wouldn't in most situations, but if I have cards with Offering on them or Incant triggers, which I have had good results with those strategies in Cov0, I don't see a downside to Offering Token in those cases. In any case, I'm getting frustrated at myself, so I'll leave this as my last response.
EDIT: Ok, breaking my word on that last bit because this is something I want to add. I really wish Stygian had more support of the Offering mechanic. IIRC, there's only what 1 card with Offering on it and only Offering Token to really take advantage of it? Offering as a mechanic is something that appeals to me, and maybe that's coloring my evaluation of Token.
In MTG, you have a minimum deck size. A free draw spell is beneficial because it lowers the effective size of your deck for no cost, or for a benefit (e.g. Street Wraith in Death's Shadow decks). That is not the case here; a "free" draw spell that discards a card afterwards has a very real cost (you lose a card) and is always one more card in your deck than you'd be running otherwise. It is equivalent to running 4x Street Wraith in a 64 card deck, except even worse because it's card disadvantage.
The draw rule is also why consumer of crowns gets drawn before your imps.
Jesus, learning about that thing makes so many of my losses make so much more sense.
i am so irrationally annoyed about that draw rule. It is just grinding my gears so bad and has dropped my opinion of the devs significantly. its' a really silly reaction, but boooy i'm irritated XD
ArcticLancerBest served chilled.Registered Userregular
It's an understandable solution, even if it is a bad one. I'd like to see if they are willing to change it given feedback and suggestions. If they decide to keep it after that, then I would lower my opinion of them. :P
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AuralynxDarkness is a perspectiveWatching the ego workRegistered Userregular
edited July 2020
Cleared Cov 19 on Stygian / Umbra. Nothing too remarkable except to say that if you can only find unit-based Frostbite, Endless Largestone Titan Sentries works.
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AuralynxDarkness is a perspectiveWatching the ego workRegistered Userregular
And then Cov20 down on an Awoken / Umbra run which required multiple retries of the sap Seraph before I realized that just slamming every possible buff that wouldn't prevent a unit being lost on an Awoken Hollow should work. It did.
My self-imposed no-clan combination repeats rule can be lifted.
Patch notes for the upcoming patch. The volatile gauge change makes me roll my eyes - it's good because of the card draw. The random energy cost increase is not really going to weaken how good having an extra +2 cards per turn forever is. Clear the chaff and it'll actually get weaker at high asc, because you'll have more control.
*grouch grouch grouch* (Okay, i'm annoyed because it's like the exact same reasons why Snecko eye gets better at high asc in StS, just... increased)
Also ahaha, wow, they made Shadowsiege even harder to cast. That's a choice alright. (It now takes up 6 capacity, meaning it's impossible to cast without some way of increasing your trains capacity. better dedicate a boss relic and have voltaile gauge i guess! *rotate*)
The harvest/morsel change is actually sensible, but yeah, i'm unimpressed.
Patch notes for the upcoming patch. The volatile gauge change makes me roll my eyes - it's good because of the card draw. The random energy cost increase is not really going to weaken how good having an extra +2 cards per turn forever is. Clear the chaff and it'll actually get weaker at high asc, because you'll have more control.
*grouch grouch grouch* (Okay, i'm annoyed because it's like the exact same reasons why Snecko eye gets better at high asc in StS, just... increased)
Also ahaha, wow, they made Shadowsiege even harder to cast. That's a choice alright. (It now takes up 6 capacity, meaning it's impossible to cast without some way of increasing your trains capacity. better dedicate a boss relic and have voltaile gauge i guess! *rotate*)
The harvest/morsel change is actually sensible, but yeah, i'm unimpressed.
A lot of the unit buffs make total sense, as do most of the Remnant and Umbra choices, but several of the changes to big splashy cards look like Darkest Dungeon-style "It works consistently? Nerf it." reactionary-type decisions.
They should just give the Wardens purge and the new stats from their buff relic minus the multistrike. I'm increasingly convinced it'd be an elegant solution to the thinning zone problem.
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Yeah, i'm poking a Cov 1 run again, and you know what? It's fun! A lot more fun than Cov 25 is. And it's mostly because your deck is lean, so there's more interesting turn by turn choices to be made. Ah well. Hopefully the game will get some more love and fixes applied as patching comes.
That or there's mod support and we convince some poor sap to program our proposed changes and fixes in
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The candle people are great by themselves or as support, managed to clear Hellhorned a second time after struggling to make the others work.
Got a good run with Melting/Hellhorned. burnout Rector is real good. 150/150 and I could reform him if he even did die. But the real mvp's were the two Legion of Wax I had upgraded.
I probably should've been playing Covenant 1 way before this. It's a lot more fun, with the extra cards thrown in. Can start a deck on a strategy right away.
Also, I only learned today that you're guaranteed to draw at least one non-champion/non-starter unit on your first turn. Kind of feel like that's a workaround for the bloat problem that would be much better fixed by not, you know... making bloat be such a fucking problem.
Not really though. Even small decks (unless they're five cards or less) could have a chance of not getting a needed non-champ unit in the opening draw. It'd also vastely restrict what could be considered a good deck or strategy, because that change would very much incentivize a tiny deck that had only cards that were either powerful enough on their own or a decklist capable of massive inflation.
edit: Huh. I looked up the draw mechanics on the wiki, and they're even a little more involved than I thought. Sounds like they're even worse for "a workaround to the bloat problem" than first stated.
Source: https://monster-train.fandom.com/wiki/Battle
Basically it means, when taking Channel Song, that you don't want that one single target for it. You'd want 2-3. or Endless on a target you'd like Channel Song to hit. Or just don't assume the game will let the player build a deck that's expecting to hit a specific target with Channel Song reliably.
More or less, yeah. What it does illustrate is that a deck that relies on having two unique cards in hand at the same time isn't likely to get both in the hand on the same turn. Not without holdover or permafrost or endless. So the way to play is to instead have a pool of cards that fulfill the same role, either multiples of the same card or different ones that mostly fulfill the same purpose.
I'm 99% certain that it can't, as I've struggled to use it almost every time I have it precisely because of that.
E:
A quick Google to verify brings up a Reddit thread precisely on this stuff.
https://www.reddit.com/r/MonsterTrain/comments/gwlbx5/channelsong_discussion_a_rare_card_thats_amazing/
Agreed. that is so... Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrgh.
It's just so CLUDGEY. I understand why the way it is, but... like
Okay, one, you kill interesting drafting decisions. This means it's objectively correct to take a very amount of units because you're going to get them anyway. So just take good units and sink all the expensive upgrades into them.
Two, it's a cludgy fix to the bloat you're inflicted with. At this point i want to say you should only everh ave 2x of the starter cards of each faction, and train stewards should be Purge (+a buff so they dont die the moment something looks at them funny).
Three: You hurt card draw within a turn and similar syngeries. Which is already something I've noticed just going back to StS - this game feels way more rigid in what works with what. Like why would you over take the draw 1, discard 1 card if you dont have offering cards in your deck? it's literally a negative on card draw. (As the process of drawing it costs you a draw that you could have drawn whatever instead). Even with offering cards, i'm pretty sure it's still correct to not take it, and just make your offering cards cheaper to play most of the time.
Grrgh. I wanna l;ove this game, but you are killing me here devs.
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Precisely because of that I don't feel like I could properly evaluate the game or some of its elements. But the one thing that seems to be at the fore for me is that I think it would be helped if your deck was actually two decks (spells // units) and you could choose how to draw your cards rather than be forced. It feels like it's too easy to not be able to establish a board, or to have your board wiped just by virtue of the hidden draw mechanisms. Just let me pick up two units if I really need two units, you know?
*shrug*
The game has hooks, but it doesn't leave me feeling good or satisfied. I think I'll shelve it for a bit ...
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...which honestly, i'm not sure how pithy that really is.
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Offering Token isn't negative on draw, it's neutral. You draw it from your deck and it replaces itself in your hand with another card, aka the card you would have drawn in its place.
The discard part isn't really powerful without an Offering card in the deck, I agree. But unless a deck can play through its entire hand every turn, there's going to be one or more cards left in hand at the end of the turn, those are the cards you'd chuck to the discard from Offering Token.
Is it a power card that will win a run? Absolutely Not. Does it have a synergy with Incant. yup. Would I take it in a card pack if the other options weren't super strong or went against my deck's plan? probably. As I have done that in the past. Granted, I'm not talking about how it feels at Cov 25, I haven't gotten that high and I'm not even sure I will.
The problem with Offering is that you've already spent a card draw to draw offering in the first place.
So you draw 5 cards. One of these is offering. You play offering. You draw card 6.
...in the deck where you didnt have offering, you drew card 6 already. It's only benefit is it's interactions with Incant and discard, otherwise it's literally just clogging your deck. Which in a game where card draw is at a massive premium is a huge problem. (There's a card in StS, Prepared, that has the exact same issue. The only difference is that Prepared ugprades to draw 2, discard 2, making it actually halfway decent at both digging your deck and filtering your hand.)
And yeah, i'm coming at this from a cov 25 perspective where card draw is precious and crowded as hell.
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It's negative card advantage because the discard is forced. It does not improve velocity because it adds to the deck size equal to the draw.
Think about it. If your deck is 5 cards exactly with 5 draw and enough energy, every turn you play your entire deck. If your deck is 5 cards and Offering, every turn you draw offering you can only play four real spells.
Citation: has a win at Cov 25
Ok, sure. I agree with that. But how realistic is that hypothetical? How often is a player going to have a 5 card deck in Monster Train?
I made the assumption that most decks won't be playing their entire hand every turn, so there would be cards left in hand at the End Turn button. Given that assumption, I'm saying that Offering Token isn't hurting the number of real spells played.
And if the player does have a deck that plays through its entire hand every turn, it wouldn't take Offering Token in the first place.
The problem is that even in decks that aren't playing their entire hand... all offering does is benefit if you if you already have an discard card or an incant unit. It's otherwise just a nothing draw.
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Ok. I think we're talking around the same things, but approaching it from two different perspectives. I'm trying to say where I see Offering Token has value interactions and isn't a dead draw. But it feels that you're saying Offering Token is a dead draw except where it does have value interactions.
I'm also much more conversant with MTG, and I'm using valuations built from that game in addition to experience in Monster Train. A card that draws its own replacement for free and removes a card from hand that you can't play this turn is itself something of value.
And I've already said Offering Token probably isn't worth taking just for that, apologies if that wasn't clear. I wouldn't in most situations, but if I have cards with Offering on them or Incant triggers, which I have had good results with those strategies in Cov0, I don't see a downside to Offering Token in those cases. In any case, I'm getting frustrated at myself, so I'll leave this as my last response.
EDIT: Ok, breaking my word on that last bit because this is something I want to add. I really wish Stygian had more support of the Offering mechanic. IIRC, there's only what 1 card with Offering on it and only Offering Token to really take advantage of it? Offering as a mechanic is something that appeals to me, and maybe that's coloring my evaluation of Token.
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There's also the crypt hammer card. There's a discard your hand, draw 5 which is really good. That's another discard your hand, daze everything, seems solid. There's also the lightning lash that does damage and discards at random
As to the MTG experience, that may just be the reason why we're evaluating things differently. I'm looking at it from the STS perspective where cantrips are a modest bonus, but only really good when welded to strong effects (and like I mentioned, offering is identical to an incredibly weak StS card).
Part of that's just down to the discard your have draw 5 each turn thing these games have going on, as it shifts the value of discard and draw quite a bit . Cantripping and controlled discard are way stronger when you don't discard your have, but there's no runic pyramid equiv in MT to let you hold cards for maximum effect (without investing in permafrost, which gets awkward for the discard cards since you want to play them every time they come up anyway)
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One enjoyable combo is Holdover Offering Token with Holdover (anything with Offering). That gets you a pretty powerful effect every turn for zero ember, and a net of only one of your cards-per-turn (since Offering Token draws a card)
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If you get like spiked strap or cuttlebeard, the bonus is gold, and it's start with something in every floor? You're off to the races.
If its armour you're probably fucked (I mean you'll live, but the difference is immense)
Whether you can kill the Cherub easily or not also contributes.
There's so few fights that there's just no real way to pull back a run that's loosing. You can't route for a high risk/high reward play, or take a safer route to play for long term power.
And once the ball gets rolling out can be very hard to stop you... Till the random bonuses align in such a way as to screw you over. (I remain irritated that different units share visuals, or at least are sufficiently samey as to feel like they do. It's an unccesary level of difficulty to the game, and something that AtS doors way better. Actually most games do this way better)
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Jesus, learning about that thing makes so many of my losses make so much more sense.
In MTG, you have a minimum deck size. A free draw spell is beneficial because it lowers the effective size of your deck for no cost, or for a benefit (e.g. Street Wraith in Death's Shadow decks). That is not the case here; a "free" draw spell that discards a card afterwards has a very real cost (you lose a card) and is always one more card in your deck than you'd be running otherwise. It is equivalent to running 4x Street Wraith in a 64 card deck, except even worse because it's card disadvantage.
i am so irrationally annoyed about that draw rule. It is just grinding my gears so bad and has dropped my opinion of the devs significantly. its' a really silly reaction, but boooy i'm irritated XD
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Perhaps I can interest you in my meager selection of pins?
My self-imposed no-clan combination repeats rule can be lifted.
Cov 20 hurts deep though.
Patch notes for the upcoming patch. The volatile gauge change makes me roll my eyes - it's good because of the card draw. The random energy cost increase is not really going to weaken how good having an extra +2 cards per turn forever is. Clear the chaff and it'll actually get weaker at high asc, because you'll have more control.
*grouch grouch grouch* (Okay, i'm annoyed because it's like the exact same reasons why Snecko eye gets better at high asc in StS, just... increased)
Also ahaha, wow, they made Shadowsiege even harder to cast. That's a choice alright. (It now takes up 6 capacity, meaning it's impossible to cast without some way of increasing your trains capacity. better dedicate a boss relic and have voltaile gauge i guess! *rotate*)
The harvest/morsel change is actually sensible, but yeah, i'm unimpressed.
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A lot of the unit buffs make total sense, as do most of the Remnant and Umbra choices, but several of the changes to big splashy cards look like Darkest Dungeon-style "It works consistently? Nerf it." reactionary-type decisions.
They should just give the Wardens purge and the new stats from their buff relic minus the multistrike. I'm increasingly convinced it'd be an elegant solution to the thinning zone problem.
Personally, I'd be doing that + trimming the clan starter cards down to 2 of each (and then buffing then a bit, as they're all hilariously weak)
That or if they've determined to have 5 cards... Make them different! Starting with a few imps would be huge for hell horned, for instance.
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