I quite liked the bit of the zombie theme when they all had Lumbering and Zombie Herder removed it. Just another opinion.
They don't all have lumbering, their summons/swarms have lumbering. Fleshblight Zombie, Festering Corpse and Afflicted Corpse have it, but Fleshblight has Manic which helps compensate. I agree it was flavorful that Fleshweaver Witch could use Zombie Herder to remove that with CD4. Zombie BGs had a mix of the lumbering champs and non lumbering champs, and usually ran more champs than a typical BG to mitigate the risk of only having lumbering champs.
I want them to get some kind of mark that causes zombies within 5 spaces to move one spaces towards the marked champion at the beginning of their turn.
what makes you say nothing in FW is bad, yet somehow 2 top tier themes in lonx and Barbs are the worst in there factions? Both lonx and barbs Bane Shift all over skellingtons, and vampyres especially are awful.
I mean, this is just from the impressions I've gotten from playing. It's not like there's competitive pox tournaments where you see what's meta (I don't think?). I literally never play against lonx, the one or 2 times I have I have had no problem beating them, and I'm not even good. Maybe the deck I used was particularly strong against them, Idk, but every single ST player seems to run flying right now. What's bad in ST then? Everything seems mediocre except flight which seems really strong.
I change my answer to trolls then. I said barbs because I never see anyone run pure barbs, IS is all dwarves, constructs, and the occasional paladin deck. Trolls are super fun but seem limited by their lack of utility. No good options for dispell, anti-equip, detection, or movement.
Ferren and that's pretty much it, Jakei have a super strong phalanx going, beasts efficiency and meat is amazing. Flyers get AP gen just for moving. Elementals have efficeint units and great champion interaction synergies. Yeti are just stat monsters, boring as firk (i don't actually mean firk, firk are awesome) but really good stat wise.
Based on what I've read, here's what I'm looking at starting with: FS: Aquatics or Salaman Leaning towards Salaman, as I'd like to explore what went wrong with their rework. There were a number of good ideas bouncing around, then we saw several new champs released. Anything in particular I should highlight? IS: Trolls or Wings Leaning towards Trolls, as every time I've made suggestions for Wings, they were pushed aside. Any objections to experimenting with splits, here? One of my favorite Troll BGs has always been my IS/SP "Slagmaw" BG. I'd try a FF Trolls kit, as well. KF: Garu I'd play Centaur, but Garu was one of the themes I spent a lot of time working on; I'd like to see it properly reworked for the better. Were they changes they received simply enough, or were they left behind by powercreep? ST: Ferren Didn't see anything else that suggested a real need for improvement (outside of boring themes). Currently, what's their biggest weakness I should focus on addressing? FW: Vampyres? Didn't see much talk of anything else. I know Creepers (Worms) were a problem for a while, and Witches/Liches received a lot of attention shortly thereafter. Are Vampyres (Siphon Life focus) really the worst they've got, right now? SL: Mutants or Myx Leaning toward Myx, as Mutants hasn't really had a cohesive theme for some time. Are they worse with a Sand sub-theme, or as purely Myx? SP: Slags Seems everyone agrees they need some luvin'. Is Oozeking still the least cost effective of the bunch? UD: Deep Elves or Spiders I'm on the fence, as I have played both extensively. It sounds like Deep Elves is more of an ability problem than an overall thematic issue, since they have so many dang champs to pick from. Unless there is a specific grouping of Deep Elves folks are wanting me to experiment with, I'm leaning towards Spiders. Let me know what y'all think before I start acquiring the runes necessary to update my BGs for these themes
I can chime in on the Garu for you: The issue isn't their powerlevel, they've got pretty strong champs etc - what they heavily lack is some sort of greater synergy to bind them together in comparison to things like Fairies, Magic Amp module, D'elim, Treefolk or even Archer module. It's their cohesion as a theme that suffers combined with theme supports having a fair bit of sandbag abilities. Note that this is mainly a subjective opinion of mine that others may disagree with.
A lot of those decks are still tier 1 or 1.5 With the population as low as it is a lot of what you end up facing is a result of who is on a break right now rather than what is OP. I've played a bit of spiders this expansion and they are absolutely fine. They got a new champ with arrow eater and sunder FFS, and k'lzik's equip got buffed so it's now a better & cheaper vicious harpoon. You can't rely on protect the nest as much anymore but that's not such a bad thing. Trolls are a bit map dependent since they don't have any flying/teleport units and can be outmaneouvred on some maps, but they are still a well developed and easy to play phalanx deck in a faction that supports phalanx extremely well. Norathat has been playing a wings deck and doing very well for himself with it. I just started playing FS/IS salaman and I don't understand why people think they are suddenly bad now. Positioning now matters and you don't get free damage from summoned relics but they still scale extremely well in the early/midgame and spell hate is a powerful archetype against most decks we see these days. I'm not sure about Garu, they look pretty good on paper with commander, protective, guarded, blitz, and warcry - there are loads of strong synergies and strong stand alone abilities in there. If there's something wrong with garu it's probably the same thing that's been keeping (non-wizard/faerie/beast) KF in general from making a big dent in the meta. At the same time, I haven't seen any of the good KF players take a crack at it so it's hard to tell where it fits. The other ones look like a mixed bag between outright bad and a few tweaks/champs away from being competitive.
http://forums.poxnora.com/index.php?threads/kalasles-ff-tier-list-planar-disturbances-8-9-16.13070/ There are my opinions, in a more complete form.
Surprised nobody said FS beasts or FS plants, because both of those are in such a trashy place that the AI might prove a decent challenge when using those.
Full on Myx have no magic damage whatsoever and too many fat 2x2s. Also the sand module is very tricky to make use of due to a lack of sand generation outside of a few things. Drone sand dont last very long and also doesnt happen if you incubate the pupaes into slashers/spitters, Matriarch sits way at the back, Incubator with sandbreach needs to get in line of fire to generate sand which is risky as it is not a combat champion (I hoped Drive triggered Sandbreach but it doesnt ), thats all i can think of. Sand spitter is not a Myx but is crucial if u want to use sand as its only bug with Sandspray. Edit: Just make a new Myx thats 1x1, is magic attack type and has sand generating abilities on upgrades.
Just enough champs that the Muckers can be left at home. What I find most awkward is working the 2x2 support champs around each other: the Mireoaks (shroud) and the Coral Creepers (commander, noble sacrifice). The new Thicket Crawlers have done a world of good, but it still feels like you need all the support champs out for it to work effectively.
