The Devs are Right

This game has become all about deck building. I challenge any limited player to make a deck consisting of non-meta rune and maintain their rank. Stuff like SL beasts doesn't count. By maintaining their rank I mean not dropping by 10 places.

 

It's always been about deck building.

 

I meant exactly what Senshu said.

 

One of the funnest times I had, and the only time I played competitively, was when Highlander was around. For the month before the highlander tournament, there was a tremendous level of diversity and exploration in BG building because you literally had more opportunity for expression; no 2X auto-includes cluttering your BGs. Funnily enough, many of the "top" players got their hats handed to them playing highlander when they couldn't just copy and paste an uber BG and run it as is.

So, in contradiction to the above statements, this game is not about deck building. It's about copying someone else's idea and prosecuting it well most of the time because 2X autoincludes hamstring deck diversity and because these kinds of decks and uberized champs make it easier to play a BG you didn't think up because subtlety isn't needed when you are playing dodgeball with nuclear weapons.

The funny thing is that most players don't want diversity, as much as you'll hear them say it. Highlander attracted roughly a third of the playerbase and the rest hated it. There is no easier way to create diversity than highlander. Personally, I thought it was a better game requiring more thought and quick thinking but I am, of course, biased.

 

I recall one of the reasons FW hated Highlander was because skeletons was unrunable in that format. Today it would be a different deal.

 

Just wondering, why doesn't SL beasts count?

Also I've been running a battle fatigue recently with moderate success.

 

As far as Highlander goes, it is a very viable way to build a deck. Typically, I autoinclude certain runes, and then highlander everything else. The runes I autoinclude are very few (less than 3) and I think it works out quite well most of the time.

 

Because of snogvie yo.

 

I loved highlander.... It format created fun games rather than pure meta madness.

 

So, if you want in competitive game be the best you shouldn't use best stuff?

 

Snogs be harmless, it's dem bearcats you gotta watch out for.

 

"moderate" success

fight me irl


also SL beasts doesn't count because herder's ability is amazing, and as more beasts get made good/almost good it gets even more amazinger. and we've been getting more gooder beasties.

 

I really enjoyed highlander - but I rarely played it. I think one of the things that really hurt it was the lack of on-the-fly deck building. It was a very big pain to modify and build decks back then... despite the improvements in the deck building system now, I still feel that this would be an issue hindering Highlander.

But to get a bit more on topic... yes... deck building (stacking) has always been an issue. I think SOE took themes too far and guided the players too much on the builds. They made is so that A+B was needed and there was no room for C.

I know some people play to win and some people play because they enjoy collecting and trading. I enjoy the game for the strategy and the excitement of building decks and creating something unique that can be somewhat competitive (being 500 is just fine with me). That enjoyment has really been squashed over the last few years.

I'm looking forward to the new-old dev team. You have my blessings. Mix this sucka up!

 

My point wasn't that great players didn't rise to the top; the highlander ladder was a who's who in good people (and one guy who just got lucky a lot). My point was that some players who were ranked well in "regular" games got pwned in highlander because, in my opinion, they relied a bit too much on a far simpler build that is easier to prosecute.

The best part was seeing how often players could and did switch up runes in their BG because it was about choices rather than just efficiency for around 5-7 runes in any particular BG. I ran around 20 BGs that were very different which made them fun to play and reduced those "I've seen this BG a million times and know what to do" moments. In most cases today, you may have one or two spaces to put your own stamp of "individuality" which, to me, is like picking what Chinese character you're getting for a tattoo to express yourself.

As for KF, it absolutely ruled in highlander and you'd think FW lagged but it wasn't as much as you'd think; just a very different build and style of play from what was in meta.

 

you say highlander ladder like it was a real thing. wouldn't it be cool if there really was a highlander ladder? there should be more ladders.

 

The ladder was the top 8 in each faction in a tournament sponsored by developers (winners got 1 of each rune) who played each other in faction and then the factions winners faced each other. If I remember right, FW won but I can't remember. I was too busy crying because I made a dumb move in my last game which only a moron could have lost with the draw I had.

 

I also feel like this thread is exaggerating/idealizing highlander a little. Yeah there was some variety in decks but it really wasn't as much as people are implying. And back then some themes were completely shut out from highlander because the runepool was smaller and they relied on a few enabling runes. FW skeletons with Tomb Lord and Toll-taker, for example.

I personally played Moga (ofc), so for me changing my deck to highlander was just, like, remove 1 Slinger and 1 Trapper for Moga Cannon and random melee Moga. Remove 1 Avalanche for Bad Blood. It was cool to see a few different bgs in the ladder but there really weren't that many alterations to the average deck that you'd face.

I mean no offense by this but egami, you may have liked highlander a lot because you played KF and it had a lot of options. It wasn't the same for every faction.

 

We definitely got off track bellagion. Wasn't my intention (at least consciously). My larger point was that reducing auto-includes tends to free up deck building to become more diverse and still remain relatively powerful. It also puts a premium on deck building which I disagreed is that important most of the time in this game; there are just too few efficient builds and many/most players are drawn to copy rather than innovate.

I spent the majority of my time when I did play modding Anything Goes where you'd see all the experimentation with deck building. It's always been the part of the game I really like. I loved playing commons only and circus and pretty much anything that led to playing and seeing lots of new things. Personally, I'd love to see the devs sandbag a few meta runes each week just to shake things up and see who swaps out there BGs the fastest to adapt.

There are always enough trailblazers to establish power decks which tend to calcify what you see played in ranked when they become widely adopted. I hope the rebalancing/revamp/whatever reduces efficiencies in a handful of BGs which will expand options and place more of a premium on finding and creating your own style and building around it.

 

- Highlander should have been considered as a secondary ladder...light years before that 2v2 nonsense.