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Competitive Decklists and Metagame Discussion - Latest Update: April 26 (S8)


Tuvillo
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So is the current meta basically just run as many flyers as possible in a deck for the 30 support, and running anything that would offer 10 support (even with an Emblem boost) is generally just bad?

Most of the decks I've browsed through seem to be flyer heavy, and that kind of makes me sad.

It's really hard, because supports are so important in this game and flyers offer the best support (Archers offer better IIRC but only during your attack. Pretty sure they give +40)

It doesn't help that a good number of flyers are also great cards which gives you more reason to run them.

A 10 support would have to be a REALLY strong card on the field to be considered over a flyer IMO, because you're guaranteed to lose more fights with the 10 support, than if they were replaced with a 30 support.

I don't know if that can ever really change outside of them making flyers horrible cards, or giving a new class a 30 - 40 support down the track. Either that or they make say Ike SO GOOD of a card, it doesn't matter if he's a 10.

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Well, all the Lords so far are 20. Fliers are 30, Everyone with range is 20, fighter types are 10.

Fliers compensate by always having -10 attack over the base value, and everyone with range also has -10. (Kite Warriors have -20)

Base values: level 1 40, level 2 50, level 3 60, level 4 and 5 have 70.

Cards with negative effects usually have +10, but there's a few with +20. (Navarre and Ogma) Conditional effects allow cards to gain attack, more conditional means more attack usually.

As long as they follow this format, the game should stay balanced in its current state.

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I'm not actually a player of the game yet, although having played Magic the Gathering in the past, I do see an appeal in a card game related to a beloved game series, even if it plays somewhat differently….

Cordelia is my favorite character ["waifu bias"], but from these discussions I get the feeling that having a flier as the leader is just begging to hemorrhage orbs due to their lower power making you lose somewhat more frequently, particularly if facing Archer units.

What might be good decks that prominently include Cordelia in an important role, even if she's not the actual main character?

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Well, all the Lords so far are 20. Fliers are 30, Everyone with range is 20, fighter types are 10.

Fliers compensate by always having -10 attack over the base value, and everyone with range also has -10. (Kite Warriors have -20)

Base values: level 1 40, level 2 50, level 3 60, level 4 and 5 have 70.

Cards with negative effects usually have +10, but there's a few with +20. (Navarre and Ogma) Conditional effects allow cards to gain attack, more conditional means more attack usually.

As long as they follow this format, the game should stay balanced in its current state.

The thing is, is that really balanced? If we take the extremes and assume an all flyer deck vs an all melee deck using your values, we're looking at:

On Attack

30 + 30 vs 40 + 10 = Flyers will always win the encounter (even if you mixed in 20 supports from ranged units)

50 + 30 vs 60 + 10 = Same result

Basically, the only way a melee unit will ever survive a flyer supported by a flyer is for the melee unit to be supported by a flyer itself (or the Defense Emblem). And ranged units will just plain die regardless if the flyers have a way to reach 1-2.

On Defense

30 + 30 vs 40 + 10 (+20) = Flyers will some of the time survive because CCS units are just 10 all the time

50 + 30 vs 60 + 10 (+20) = Same result

Looking at this, despite the flyers having lower base power, they're theoretically going to win most engagements and actually have a higher likelihood of staying on the field. Not to mention, as far as Cost 1 Supports go, Flyer Emblem is just plain better than the Emblems you see on base 10 Supports, where the effect is solely to make the value equal to flyers.

Edited by xNinjaOfChaosx
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Fliers are generally weak units and you cannot win a game with them as your primary combat force. This causes the balance of 12~16 fliers in a deck.

Decks basically do not play 10-support units except for the MC promotions sometimes.

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So how is that a balanced game? That basically invalidates a good portion of cards and forces a player to dedicate 1/3 of their deck to flyers (even if they provide no real synergy with MC) in order to be viable.

Now, I'm no stranger to TCGs and of course there will be cards that no one uses, but the reason a card shouldn't be used should be that its effect isn't useful (or another unit offers more for the same cost). But in this game, a card isn't viable unless it's your MC or offers a decent support value, which to me isn't indicative of balanced design.

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It's cost and effect. Several decks have topped using Navarre4 or Gaius3 because they do what they do. You play various cards for various reasons, and each has costs and benefits.

You play fliers for offensive and defensive support values, but are weaker than an average other card when you draw into it.

You play everything else for offensive value (Cards that actually have base attack and useful effects) but lower your deck's average support value. (MC cards follow a similar line of logic)

As I said, 100 is the magic number for what your MC needs to hit because that's the highest number a random deck is going to get. (70+30) Optimization leads to the need to maximize on fliers, but keep it low enough so your deck actually still does things. As long as fliers remain -10 base power, they will be relatively balanced gameplay wise. Do you call it imbalanced that every deck needs healers and a fairly large number of MC cards to stand a chance over a large number of games? Do you call it imbalanced that every deck needs ranged characters or a way to move enemies?

As soon as we stop seeing the flaw in it and rather see it as an aspect of the game's optimization, you'll notice that there's a billion fliers to play, and each of the combinations of fliers changes the deck more than you think.

Edited by Tuvillo
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As I said, 100 is the magic number for what your MC needs to hit because that's the highest number a random deck is going to get. (70+30) Optimization leads to the need to maximize on fliers, but keep it low enough so your deck actually still does things. As long as fliers remain -10 base power, they will be relatively balanced gameplay wise. Do you call it imbalanced that every deck needs healers and a fairly large number of MC cards to stand a chance over a large number of games? Do you call it imbalanced that every deck needs ranged characters or a way to move enemies?

I would actually argue that decks don't need any of the other things you listed. Bond heavy decks would be very unlikely to run healers (whether you mean priests/clerics or orb generation, doesn't matter) and enemy position manipulation even less so. So no, I couldn't say needing them is imbalanced because that isn't really true. What IS imbalanced is that you can make a deck with an MC and nothing else but flyers (which as you point out, there's a large pool of) and it'd probably be just as good if not better than a deck without them.

And the bolded part is what I have issue with. As I pointed out above, a flyer with a pretty much guaranteed 30 support will run over pretty much anything of equal cost value. Looking through the decks you posted one more time, with the exception of the MC, a lot of the other units can't break 100 without some resource cost (or a late game conditional). So with a typical 70 power MC with reliably consistent 30 supports, the only threat will ever be those units that can break 100, but even then that's dependent on if they check 30s themselves, which is not as consistent as your defense.

The majority of ranged units will never hit you without Cost 1 Archers as their Support, and same with anything below Cost 4. You've just invalidated the offense of more than half the cards just by running pure flyer + MC. Meanwhile, plenty of flyers are perfectly capable of breaking 100, whether it be Triangle Attack, Sumia + Cherche, Gerome4, Camilla, etc, so it's not like your deck of pure flyer is going to have the same issue of hitting their MC.

And while this is just a minor aside, using Gaius3 as an example is pretty weak, since he's put into the deck solely for a cheesed win and would only be run at 1-2 copies. Don't get me wrong; I like this game and love that almost any card can be a viable MC. What I don't like is that flyers make a lot of other cards obsolete (and I especially hate looking through these tourney decks and seeing random Cost 1 flyers in there just for the sake of having 30 support).

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Cost 1 fliers have some value. Notice that black mixed decks rarely play Camilla because she's terrible.

I acknowledge that flier inflation is a thing but I don't see it as a problem. On another note, I've never really thought about how other units rarely hit 100. I've literally played over a hundred games by now and I've never had problems with killing things. I assume this is the case because your stuff hits 80 or 90, and the enemy lord is not guaranteed to hit a flier.

Now take a look at decks with the highest possible number of fliers, Marth and Inigo. Those decks are not actually a thing anymore. A deck with 1 threat is not good enough. (Ryoma decks tend to play other threats at 60 base) Level 1 fliers are just dead cards lategame that are almost -1s just by drawing into them, and the other fliers do their thing (hopefully) and then die because the enemy doesn't have a hard time killing them.

In summary, I am of opinion that there is a balance to how many fliers you play to optimize your deck and that your power falls off after a certain number, whereas you are of opinion that your deck improves with each flier you add.

Edited by Tuvillo
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To be honest, Fliers are a staple in pretty much every deck.

I don't necessarily like it, but I understand it. They add consistancy, they add mobility, and they let you increase offense/defence with supports.

Draw a Flier? Bond bait, or throw it in the backline as use it as a mobility tool with rescue (if they have it)

Unless you're VERY late game, to the point where all your bonds are set up and you have a dominant board with no real need to move units around, then fliers are dead. Otherwise, Fliers are good in your deck, they're good in your hand, and because most of them have good effects, they're good on the field, even if it's for nothing more than clearing rank 1's.

Despite how the meta is going at the moment, it's hard to deny fliers are really good in most circumstances.

If they ever give you a reliable way to search your deck, I could see MC + Flier decks becoming incredibly dominant. Search your deck for copies of yourself for evades, run nothing but fliers. Thin your deck out, beat your opponent by sheer consistacy.

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Wow... Could you even imagine that?

A cleric with 30 support and flying emblem as an attack skill. Weak to bows, but let's be honest, a cleric isn't surviving any battles most of the time anyways, she fulfills 2 roles on your team.

I guess it's not that crazy after all given Elice and Sakura both relatively powerful units that also function as clerics.

That sounds really good, then again, I've jumped the gun on sets being amazing because of 1 or 2 cards.

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Well, set 2 gimmick might get in the way.

Elincia1
20/30

Heal

Lvs2: This unit gains 10 attack and can attack?

That'd be pretty funny.

Anyway, lets go back to our base disagreement: What happens if you add only fliers?

Roughly speaking, that means your lord is "soloing" at ~100% 100 power, right? That means you'll basically never lose on offense and lose on defence whenever the enemy hits 100. I'm not so sure it's a good thing to have a one-threat deck.

I've played tons and tons of games against my friend's Ryoma, which has various build paths as well- Mostly the ones where Ryoma is accompanied by a bunch of cards at 50 attack. Once you realize Ryoma is the only threat, the deck suddenly doesn't feel so broken anymore.

Edited by Tuvillo
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Well to be fair I played tons of games against my friend's Ophelia deck, which he uses to troll me basically.

When you do play a deck with like... gajillion fliers, it's as you say, there isn't that much threats.

Also I feel a flying healer would be really good.

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Well to be fair I played tons of games against my friend's Ophelia deck, which he uses to troll me basically.

When you do play a deck with like... gajillion fliers, it's as you say, there isn't that much threats.

Also I feel a flying healer would be really good.

Well yeah but Ophelia is an exception because it sets the baseline for the entire game. It can never reach 100, and therefore loses battles an equal fraction to the fraction of flyers in the enemy deck. Every other deck has a chance to WIN (on offense) equal to the fraction of flyers in their OWN deck. (Assuming 70 vs 70)

The dynamic for stuff that isn't 70 gets a bit harder. In that case your attack success rate is a combination of your number of archers in the deck and the number of non-flyers in your opponent's

Edited by Tuvillo
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I suppose it really depends on the deck right? Harems are built on the idea of having a 1 card threat. Inigo or Soleil are going to usually hit 100 (60 + 10 for being supported by a female + 30 for a Flier = 100, then after they win they become an 80 + 10 + 30 = 120 which is nigh untouchable without critical hits)

But the issue with those decks is their over reliance on their MC, the deck is built around having your MC hit 100 - 120 as frequently as possible.

Marths at least have Ogma, Navarre in addition to Marth to apply pressure.

Having vsed a few Ryoma decks the past couple of weeks I'm surprised at how good it is, Ryoma is the only threat after your MC promotes, but before that you can lose Orbs REALLY quick because the deck can swarm well, and Saizou and Kagerou are a 40 1-2 range while they can safely attack you from the backline and they have a pretty decent good of winning against your standard 40 MC.

Once you promote though, Ryoma is the only real threat outside of them getting crits off, though a 90 1 - 2 unit is rather scary.

I honestly can't think of a tier 1 deck at the moment that has threats other than MC though.

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I don't actually play the game yet, but this sort of discussion interests me….

How would a Chrom main-charcter deck work in interaction with cards like Cordelia.

Particularly, we have level 4 Chrom's ability, “Shepherds” / & / [Once per Turn] After an ally unit class changes, until the end of this turn that unit’s attack is increased by 20 and the orbs that it destroys as a result of combat is now 2..

And we have level 3 Cordelia's ability, ”Galeforce” / & / [Once per turn] After this unit defeats an enemy with an attack, return this unit to the pre-action state.

So once we get Chrom level 4 out, then afterwards if we promote Cordelia we can get her to 70 ATK herself for one turn [50 ATK default + 20 temporary attack from Shepherds ability], which can spike up to 100 if she nets a flier support bonus. Shepherds would let Cordelia take out two orbs if she wins the combat, and then Galeforce would let her attack again and potentially take out another two…. four orbs down just from Cordelia on that turn, potentially.

Later in the game, Level 5 Chrom could also give a last ditch power boost… +30 power, so that's getting Cordelia up to 80 ATK before supports, [50 + 30]. We could get her to 110 ATK if she lands a flier support. Promoted Sumia or Promoted Cherche could even amplify Cordelia further to 120 or 130 [if both] on such an attack, although that's probably unlikely to have such a set-up on the field.

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So once we get Chrom level 4 out, then afterwards if we promote Cordelia we can get her to 70 ATK herself for one turn [50 ATK default + 20 temporary attack from Shepherds ability], which can spike up to 100 if she nets a flier support bonus. Shepherds would let Cordelia take out two orbs if she wins the combat, and then Galeforce would let her attack again and potentially take out another two…. four orbs down just from Cordelia on that turn, potentially.

Yes, unless you guard Cordelia's first attack, you can potentially take 4 orbs from Cordelia alone.

Later in the game, Level 5 Chrom could also give a last ditch power boost… +30 power, so that's getting Cordelia up to 80 ATK before supports, [50 + 30]. We could get her to 110 ATK if she lands a flier support. Promoted Sumia or Promoted Cherche could even amplify Cordelia further to 120 or 130 [if both] on such an attack, although that's probably unlikely to have such a set-up on the field.

Cordelia most likely won't be surviving after the turn she's played, 50 power is too weak to keep on board.

Chrome does apply pressure as long as you have Class Changed Units once per turn.

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I did recently add a Chrom deck to the list with that strategy.

As for decks with multiple threats- Pretty much every deck plays Nowi3, a lot of decks play Kanna3, and most blue decks play Gerome4.

Also a lot of 60s nowadays with a reasonable chance to get over 70.

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I wish there was a better answer, but she's also a flier. He even gives Ryoma1 +40, and sets up with Setsuna for ridicculous archer turns.

Yeah she's super awesome for helping level 1 Ryoma, and giving plus 10 to level 4, but As awesome as that setsuna combo is that deck isnt running it haha. She only helps the other flyer and gurei

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