This is my main gripe with losing a the influence on Rico. He increases the total number of viable decks by allowing alternate starts against slide. A better answer to nerfing him could be better in-faction starting dudes so his ability isnt a necessity. Or these legends I’ve heard so much about.
Oh, or you could remove the look at hand part of the ability.
This idea is not unappealing, as it broadens the range of starting dudes available. However, my fear with such an approach is that it would produce a very samey game and dilute the flavour of individual factions if there were several strong grifters available at 3GR with 1inf (the standard baseline). We already got a taste of this with Rico showing up in a lot of decks.
@Inverted - I hear your concern on slide. I’ll monitor tournament results and we can discuss the issue here if this prompts a slide takeover (although I imagine design will beat mere playtesters like me to the punch on this topic!), although I hope it doesn’t and don’t think it will due to the current card pool. Depriving Rico of his hand peeking ability would have been interesting, as this ability strongly warped games and let you dominate the early game if your opponent had no cheatin’ punishment (or even just weak cheatin’ punishment). This was particularly strong in Den of Thieves with its grifter discount, strong economy plus the ability to cheat and boost its hand rank via the home/Barton Everest. It was near guaranteed success on early removal jobs, if you drew one.
With the relaunch and hopefully some new players I’ll try to put together an introduction article or strategy topic. @Doomdog and @Whizzwang (I think) wrote good articles on tackling slide and Spirit Fortress.
I don’t remember writing either of those articles - probably both @Whizzwang’s work. I did talk about strategies and counters to Spirit Fortresses in the descriptions and comments of my and others decks on dtdb. I haven’t played Fortress in over a year so they’ll be a bit out-of-date as some of the more recent sets have good anti-Fortress cards.
With regards to slide: By far the biggest thing that is needed to put slide in it’s place is to address the Rnadal problem. 4 cost, for 2 influence / 4 grit is on the high end of the powerlevel, but not OP. His ability, however, is insanely strong. He needs to gain an upkeep and/or only have his ability work from somewhere other than home.
Secondary issue is Hamshanks. As with Randall, Hamshanks needs an upkeep because he feels correctly costed without his ability, and then has an insanely powerful ability strapped on.
The key thing with both of those changes is that 108 slide would still be “viable”, just not ridiculously strong. Slide should exist, and should be about the same strength as MCC slide is. If you aren’t prepared and/or don’t have a plan to beat it, it should be able to win. But, it shouldn’t be so strong as to smash everything else out of the meta. Regulators and the new Sloane home were too much IMO, but they exist so it is what it is.
On The Grifter / DoT front – Den of Thieves exemplifies the major flaw with printing blanket discounts on homes. From now, until the game dies (again), every single grifter is going to be 1) overcosted outside of DoT, 2) undercosted inside of DoT, or 3) have some extra mechanic preventing DoT from playing it.
It feels clunky, but option 3 is likely the best bet. Option 1 makes unplayable grifters, and option 2 makes DoT even more powerful.
Aye. I might revisit them in this new post errata Rico world, but I’m not sure it’s overly needed. There are many ways to start 5+ influence out of your chosen faction these days (Howard, Clem and Joker’s Smile being a good option)
Aggro Slide is strong, but I haven’t seen too much ‘pure slide’ nee ‘Dudes n Deeds’.
For the latter, 4X kidnapping or kill jobs work pretty well to counter DnD.,
The slide deck I took to the last Sheriff events could seamlessly transition between fighting and slide, with 19 deeds and 19 dudes. But, without the 108 broken home, and the 108 broken starting dudes it wouldn’t work.
Dropping the word “repeat” from it would make it perfect (imo).
My question to you db0 is what you consider “powered”. I see it as a card which occupies a unique design space and is playable as such. Over-powered is hard to justify not using. Under-powered is hard to justify period. Gina is, imo, right on target. Rico has obviously been in the stratosphere ever since he was printed. Reducing his influence is a logical step to undermine his auto include status. Lets see how it shakes out in a new environment before jumping to conclusions.
I may be reading your post wrong, but obviously Jake Smiley is not a Grifter. However, I do like your idea of additive errata. It is similar to my own preference for progressive correction as opposed to regressive. I just prefer the thought of new cards which synergize rather than the number-fudging game. Its a darn slippery slope, am I right?
My reference to Jake Smiley is intended - to me he is an often-unthematic “band-aid” that attempts to address the disparity in cost between Influence and Control Points (which “Slide” capitalizes on). Decks that employ him are typically trying to prevent an otherwise 3 or 4 Influence start which is essentially one casualty from game state danger.
I could imagine a card base where there are a few Grifters with influence (Gina and Rico and maybe even Jake) whose abilities are just generally good alongside Faction Grifters with Influence whose abilities are tailored thematically to cards that synergize with their respective factions (like if Andrew Burton, Butch Deuces, and Howard Aswell had a point of Influence).
In short, I see Grifters as an opportunity.
This would increase the value of Shootout and Resolution cards that ace, discard, or send dudes home booted.
What about if it only worked for Lowball or Shootouts?
Not if Faction dudes offered competitive Cost-Influence ratios!
I think all this is a band-aid on the real problem: there should be intermediate states in between “no progress toward winning or losing” and “someone has won the game”. It wouldn’t be as crucial to be able to start cheap Influence if not doing so didn’t lead to you losing the game before you actually get to play it.
Only lowball or shootouts would be better than now, but if it was only lowball that would be too much nerf. If it were only shootouts that would be not enough.
The big problem is it is basically +1stud in every shootout. Almost garunteed lowball win is also an issue, but not as big of one.
If you limit it to once per turn, then it’s on par with DoT.
Maybe it’s highest time to change pinned Rules/FAQ post on main page of this forum?
I think I am getting your meaning?
I might condense your view as the difference between a 3-4 influence start and a 4-6 influence start.
What I’m saying is that if there were a few more 3-cost 1-influence dudes (or similar ballpark), you could safely do the latter and still have some cash on hand to purchase a few of those 5 cards in hand without having to resort to using Jake Smiley.