[POLL] Paralysis Mark OP?

Well, let’s say Mark gets errated in some fashion to limit its strength. Then what? Do you have to go after Slinging/Walk/4th Ring support?

Basically, is there one particular root you can nip to fix the problem or is this a systemic issue where good support (hexes) and good support (fourth ring) have married together in a whole that’s greater than the sum of its parts? In which case, a single silver bullet isn’t the answer and you’d have to just keep pruning roots as card after card is named as the problem child.

And you have to look at it from the other side too. Okay so even Morgan can pull a win with hexes. That speaks that hex support is strong. But likewise, it can also be saying that Morgan and support for its themes are too weak, look at Morgan’s track record, it’s being played in tournies and it’s -placing- but there’s been no wins until recently for a deck that barely even uses Morgan’s supposed strengths. The deck author even says ‘this would probably be stronger as fourth ring’.

We’ve also got the 108 and Wardens hitting the scene and that’s certainly going to shake the meta game up considerably. That’s not saying that Hexes and Clowns aren’t a problem, but they may be less of a problem with a broader environment.

While it might suck, I’d at least wait for Light Shineth. If Clowns and hexes are still dominating after another round of Outfits and Pinebox sized support it’s worth looking at. As it is, it might be that yeah, the current environment is really strong for Clown Control but it’s also a transitory period before the new kids show up and a big pinebox drops introducing new decks. I can completely understand why design isn’t pushing to nip problem cards just yet because we could nip them now, then find that the new support would make dealing with it easier and now we’ve pushed the deck type further down than it would have. IOUF is legal in a little over 2 weeks (as of this coming Tuesday), LS will be out in 6 weeks, and both releases will be environment defining.

@Slade8 gozik was being sarcastic.

@Tredain clowns have been the strongest faction ever since NTNR, and we’ve been waiting for two saddlebag cycles and a pine box to change things, but they’re still dominating. Sure, let’s wait some more for the second pine box, hopefully it’ll bring something to fight clowns with. I myself don’t want anything to be banned / restricted / errata-ed, I think this problem can be solved by releasing new cards. I just wonder why it didn’t happen yet. And I definitely don’t understand people here who say that clowns and hexes are balanced and fine.

Firstly, 4ring with control is very strong, it really is. Everything I am about to say in no way undermines this truth. It is really, very, very strong. There are also other deck types that should be better. They can win, but it is extremely hard to make them work, but very often fall flat if they don’t have good luck. I don’t like changing existing cards, other than to fix unintended rules issues. I think introducing strong counter strategies is most effective. (IE: the call out dudes at home cards that counteracts Dudes and Deeds)

Lets look at some effective ways to handle PM, and the other forms of control. Your dudes value can be important. It often isn’t a guarantee to boot a Q or K dude, and so cards that raise your dudes value can sometimes make a huge difference. But if you end up with dudes booted, who you don’t want booted, you still have options. Cards that move booted dudes can keep you having board presence. Also, cards that unboot your dudes are great for countering PM. Lastly are very rare cards that can’t be affected by most hexes. A Sword of the Spirit-ed dude can’t be affected by opposing spells, Quaterman is extremely resistant, and telepathy helmet will give a lowball winner great resistance as well.
Lastly, and the one most people grown about the hardest. Yes, learning to play around them can help. Having surplus cheap dudes helps, smart movement helps. It can not be ignored as a factor.

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The problem with clowns is that you really need to work hard to beat them, or to make a strong deck that has a decent matchup against them. But it’s really easy to make a working clowns deck, and to win tournaments with it. I believe some of the people who posted the Sheriff-winning decks on dtdb are actually new players, or casual players, or Classic players that decided to try out Reloaded.

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I wouldn’t say dominating. They’re only about a 40~ish win percentage and when we’ve only got 4 factions, that’s not awful. I again point to Morgan’s near 0 win percentage. 4R Hex is certainly strong, but things are lopsided with Morgan not being viable. How long ago was it that people were asking how to beat Desolation Row and Sloane Super Mario? Sloane even beat out 4R for wins in July, going by the Sheriff Event Victories thread.

As for ‘why design hasn’t done anything’, they are, we’re getting new cards just about every month that shape things. if playtesters are flippant or shrug it off, it’s because they’ve seen what the larger environment looks like. When you’re designing and playtesting a cycle you’re not going to see how things are shaped so many months down the road when we’re still waiting on the full cycle to release. We’re beholden to the release cycle and we don’t have big empty periods where strategies and counters settle in, support is coming out monthly. When a strong decktype is countered by another deck that hasn’t come out yet, they’ve got to keep mum and just give out assurances, like say, with new factions. ‘Well it’s still a problem’, well, yeah, but that’s sort of the nature of the game, design is usually one step ahead and one step behind because of the dissonance in designing and playtesting the future while play environment actual moves at very different speeds and has a much bigger playtest laboratory amongst the player base. And seeing things like the GenCon Top 8 and big tournaments like Origins where AEG is in person to witness what tech the players are using and winning with.

Can I ask you if you started playing DTR on release or just recently ( two/three months ago)?

Neither, back at the start of April. We’ve only got tournament data for the past few months though so its hard to make a case before that without hard data.

This is not true, if you are a member of main FB group I would recommend reading discussions from December and January.

what’s not true?

I’m talking about forum threads here for tournament data. if we’ve got tournament data elsewhere, sure. Though I’m not going to facebook :stuck_out_tongue: awful site.

Yep, there was tournament data gathered by one player which shown circus domination in tournaments, but it was completely ignored. Also if you would read the discussion about balance from the end of last year I don’t think you would ever wrote the post similar to the one above (this is why I asked you when you started playing). I am going to stop posting in this topic since I promised myself I will never get involved in balance discussion again :slight_smile: ) .

I don’t know why people got the idea that Desolation Row was the strongest deck at some point. I never though of it that way, we here knew it was weaker than clowns all along.

Super Mario was a fun deck, but it was really rogue, it shook up the meta because it did something different and unexpected, not because it was very strong. Same thing with the new Silly Judge deck, it takes people by surprise, but it’s not hard to play around a deck with 3 upkeep and no starting money.

As to why Clowns are winning more tournaments now than they were a couple months ago, it’s not because they got significantly stronger recently. As @gozik said, and I agree with him on that, people in some metas never really knew what was strong, they just played some homebrew and didn’t netdeck much. Now that GenCon was dominated by Clowns (half the field they say, half spots in top 8, winner and runner-up), it got their attention, they decided to test it, and they found out it’s really easy to build and play and win.

As for design and playtest knowing what’s ahead on the road, I’ve heard that back before the pine box and after that, but the situation remains the same with Clowns - other factions get some stuff to fight them, they get some new toys themselves, and they’re still ahead. Really, back in the times of NTNR control clowns were outmaneuvering shooty decks but didn’t like to fight themselves much. Then someone thought it would be a good idea to give them some cheap stud hucksters and a body to soak 4 casualties, and some good cheating res at all their favourite values. Sure, now they can play control AND aggro, because why not?

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Well tournament data just updated, yeah okay, I’ll retract statements, ‘sweeping’ seems like a good term atm.

Though I still stand that IOUF will shake up the field a fair bit and we’ve got LS right around the corner. I’m more inclined to see what the pine box brings than to start stripping out power cards trying to fix the environment.

The issue at the moment is that Paralysis Mark, by itself is not OP. It’s just a strong control effect.

The combination of a 3 stud dudes 0 upkeep starting posse + Hex Slinging + What You Know makes for a very VERY strong package.

It’s not actually Para Mark that’s winning these events, it’s the support that it has - being able to reliably draw a 7-8 card shootout hand and then cripple your opponent with a 4 rank swing if you have 2 of the modifiers in hand is what’s doing it.

All Para Mark does is make sure there’s a guy you can hit with the combo.

That being said, the cards are already there that help fight against this.

Takin Ya With Me for example is amazing against the current clown deck because all their dudes have very few bullets.

Hot Lead Flyin’ is a viable build now we have El Grajo, Mcdroste, Isham to support the high values you need to reliably make it work (this gets even more hilarious when 108 start to see play as you can start 4 guys that trigger it and 2 bullet sponges)

Horse decks are a good counter to Clowns - lots of movement, lots of boot then call out effects, rope and ride to pull the problem clowns into fights on their own. The best thing about this deck is that it doesn’t care if your dudes are booted as you boot horses for most of the effects. Sadly it IS a bit cash intensive.

Sword of the Spirit makes your main dude completely immune to not only Para Mark but also it’s partner in crime Phantasm. In fact Blessed bring a LOT of toys to the table. Holy Roller means they are going to HAVE to use two rank modifier’s to do anything useful in a shootout. Consecration prevents your guys dying too. While walk the path gives you movement if they do get the drop on you.

Stand effects: Perry Inbody and Louis Pasteur keep your guys in the fight if the Para Marks start flying. Louis pretty much changes the text box of Para Mark to “pull, your opponent pays 1 GR, do nothing”

Gadgets: It’s nearly time for gadgets to shine. Especially in a meta dominated by clowns. Force Field does not care how many modifier cards you play - you’re still losing a dude. QUATERMAN laughs at Para Mark and a pair of them in Town Square make life seriously difficult for the circus freaks.

People seem to think that Para Mark decks are OP because they can’t beat them with their normal decks. it’s time to think outside the box and change up your game.

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I don’t play in tournaments so I cannot comment on it, but are you suggesting that people who participate in them just cannot figure out how to deal with circus? Our discussion here is one thing, but tournaments results show that hexes are dominating environment.

I wouldn’t be afraid of a clowns deck without Paralysis Mark and Blood Curse’s noon ability. If it’s just shootouts we are talking about, clowns and their hand rank manipulation are not game defining. Strong, but beatable using many of the things you mentioned. The problem is their ability to neutralize your dudes and set the rules for shootouts. If they don’t want to fight yet, they’ll control the board until they’re ready. No other deck can do that. The OP part of the equation is exactly Paralysis Mark and Blood Curse.

Hot Lead Flyin’ can do nothing if Clowns don’t want to fight in the town sqaure. @qkieu admitted that his deck auto-loses to Clown Control (but it steamrolls over the GenCon-winning shooter clowns).

Sword of the Spirit is an interesting card, but the Blessed decks are still lacking tools to become tier 1. It’s rather unreliable if you don’t draw a melee weapon early, but it has potential.

Louis Pasteur - I seriously would like to see that gadget deck of yours that does so well against the clowns. All I know so far is the number of Gadgetorium decks that won Sheriff events.

Force Field gets Unprepared. Quaterman gets Soul Blasted.

You say “think outside the box”, I call it meta-defining.

I don’t run it out of Gadgetorium as it only runs 4 gadgets :stuck_out_tongue: I’m sitting on it until the end of the sheriff season as I’m potentially taking it to London in a couple of weeks if I can smooth out the last couple of kinks. (Sadly LD owns it straight up)

A quick look through the winning clown decks so far shows barely any of them running Soul Blast because they can’t risk failing the control pulls. QUATERMAN is a straight up awesome meta call right now.

You do that man, you win a Sheriff event with a Louis Pasteur + 4x Quaterman deck in a field full of clowns, and you will have my respect, and a lot more weigth to your words. This will be a great achievement.

One more thing, if you build a deck that specifically counters a faction and is especially effective against one of the cards I would say that your opinion is: this faction is op, especially this card.

Disagree with everything @whizzwang said.

Clowns don’t need to shoot. Yes, they can and probably ovetshoot most of agrodecks. But the true power is that they win games by paralising everybody and cursing them to low infuence. Zero risk, high reward.

Morgan winner deck is evidence for this.

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actually my opinion is “this archetype represents a vast majority of the field, I’ll meta to beat it” that’s why it’s called a meta.

The fact that Gadgetoriums, Arsenals, and non hex decks are top 8ing shows that people are finding ways to beat it. The Arsenal at Hudds only went out to a bad starting hand and could easily have been in the final. Alas, at the end of the day, your hand crapping out is still going to cost you games.

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