Just nerf crow already

Zarathustra88

First I must take issue with the braindead claim. The most braindead deck in ToT is obviously Orgnam. It's so braindead that I actually managed to lose to an NPC once because of it, which I hadn't thought possible before. They just bought cards that gain power regardless of the deck and hit the patron every turn. Braindead!

Now on to crow. Being on the losing side of endless crow combos is frustrating, but winning with crow is more than just buying every crow card. Knowing how to use other decks to help such as deck cycling with Celarus to find your crow cards or destroying cards with Red Eagle to get the combos more often, or using Hunding to set up your combos. And if I see my opponent buying up crow cards early, I know I must alter my strategy. Crow needs time to set up and you may be able to focus on obtaining quick power to win before the combos take over. I've also watched my opponent go through turn after turn of multiple draws but because the combos were all draws they didn't get any power from it. Or the opposite, they had lots of crow cards but the combos had no draw so it wasn't that overpowered.

As far as crow cards being a must buy, not really I constantly see players taking pool of shadow over cards like luxury exports or scrying globe on the first turn, which I think is a mistake. If you don't combo it the first time drawn it will stunt your progression. Not to mention you can usually make a writ and buy those other cards on your 1st turn which is a way better choice. And yes cards like toll of flesh and toll of silver are great 1st turn picks, cards like warrior wave and prophesy are just as good if not better in the early rounds.

I both love and hate crow decks depending on which side I'm on. But I love them more when playing them than I hate them while against them.

AnduinTryggva

Zarathustra88 wrote: »

First I must take issue with the braindead claim. The most braindead deck in ToT is obviously Orgnam. It's so braindead that I actually managed to lose to an NPC once because of it, which I hadn't thought possible before. They just bought cards that gain power regardless of the deck and hit the patron every turn. Braindead!

Now on to crow. Being on the losing side of endless crow combos is frustrating, but winning with crow is more than just buying every crow card. Knowing how to use other decks to help such as deck cycling with Celarus to find your crow cards or destroying cards with Red Eagle to get the combos more often, or using Hunding to set up your combos. And if I see my opponent buying up crow cards early, I know I must alter my strategy. Crow needs time to set up and you may be able to focus on obtaining quick power to win before the combos take over. I've also watched my opponent go through turn after turn of multiple draws but because the combos were all draws they didn't get any power from it. Or the opposite, they had lots of crow cards but the combos had no draw so it wasn't that overpowered.

As far as crow cards being a must buy, not really I constantly see players taking pool of shadow over cards like luxury exports or scrying globe on the first turn, which I think is a mistake. If you don't combo it the first time drawn it will stunt your progression. Not to mention you can usually make a writ and buy those other cards on your 1st turn which is a way better choice. And yes cards like toll of flesh and toll of silver are great 1st turn picks, cards like warrior wave and prophesy are just as good if not better in the early rounds.

I both love and hate crow decks depending on which side I'm on. But I love them more when playing them than I hate them while against them.

Sorry but Crow is pretty braindead. It has a high win probability - even compared to Orgnum, that can be more easily fought. I hope that the new modifications will reduce the op nature of Crow enough to make other strategies more competitive.

I cite from a rich playing experience from day 1 of release.

AndreNoir

Zarathustra88 wrote: »

but winning with crow is more than just buying every crow card

No, man, it's exactly "just buy every crow card" with tiny exceptions form that with Knight/6 and Claw/4 cards which the only one have no draw on themself

tsaescishoeshiner

For Necrom, Crow is getting some cost nerfs on Draw cards, as well as having some Draw effects moved to Combo 3 instead of Combo 2. I think that's fair.

Crow seems so stronk because it provides powerful combos with hand optimization tools all on its own. As opposed to Pelin/Orgnum, which have power but less hand manipulation, or Psijic/Almalexia, which have hand manipulation but much less power on their own.

I use Crow sometimes to prevent drawn-out Rajhin games (I don't want to spend 25 minutes on a match!). I think it should be used as an example to make Orgnum more synergistic with itself.

WitchyKiki

Good job ZOS, that crow nerf did nothing. Still consistently losing to red eagle/crow combos with endless draws and boring myself to tears watching other people play the full clock.

NoSoup

Red Eagle / Crow isn't that bad of a combonation to fight against. Don't see Crow needing any more nerfs. The biggiest problem is that 90% of players refuse to learn counters to the RC/C combo. Druid King pairs well with a select few other patrons to easily counter Crow - you just have to learn to use them to their strengths

Personofsecrets

WitchyKiki wrote: »

watching other people play the full clock.

Just wait until people get Almalexia and have to start deciding which card(s) they need to discard on the turn and what other cards they are hoping to draw into.

WitchyKiki

Personofsecrets wrote: »

WitchyKiki wrote: »

watching other people play the full clock.

Just wait until people get Almalexia and have to start deciding which card(s) they need to discard on the turn and what other cards they are hoping to draw into.

I'm at a point where its becoming boring to play TOT. I don't want to sit there for however long looking at a card-show. I want to play as well. And quite honestly, a few crow cards still trigger that massive effect that braindead wins, even with the 'nerfs' which were barely that.

AnduinTryggva

WitchyKiki wrote: »

Good job ZOS, that crow nerf did nothing. Still consistently losing to red eagle/crow combos with endless draws and boring myself to tears watching other people play the full clock.

The nerfs are there and there was never a need to break crow. Some of the very powerfull cards were suitably nerfed.
Nerfing does not mean to break it and make re/c a losing combination. Simply to reduce the op.

That said I still think crow generates too much power. To be honest, crow should generate much less to no power at all since the basic mechanic is generating gold that can turned into power by patron click and this was not stringently implemented up to now.

WitchyKiki

AnduinTryggva wrote: »

WitchyKiki wrote: »

Good job ZOS, that crow nerf did nothing. Still consistently losing to red eagle/crow combos with endless draws and boring myself to tears watching other people play the full clock.

The nerfs are there and there was never a need to break crow. Some of the very powerfull cards were suitably nerfed.
Nerfing does not mean to break it and make re/c a losing combination. Simply to reduce the op.

That said I still think crow generates too much power. To be honest, crow should generate much less to no power at all since the basic mechanic is generating gold that can turned into power by patron click and this was not stringently implemented up to now.

I hate compelled play, thats what crow becomes. That, paired up with red eagle just continues to turn into games that are a competition over who gets purple cards first in order to win. The nerfs didn't change this at all. You still *have* to pick up crow.

AnduinTryggva

Mh. Meanwhile with a sound combination of patrons I now often win against crow-eagle but of course not each time. And this is exactly how it should be. Sometimes I lose against crow-eagle, sometimes I win against crow-eagle.

Personofsecrets

Crow is stupid. There, I said it.

spartaxoxo

AnduinTryggva wrote: »

Mh. Meanwhile with a sound combination of patrons I now often win against crow-eagle but of course not each time. And this is exactly how it should be. Sometimes I lose against crow-eagle, sometimes I win against crow-eagle.

Same here. I suspect the nerf will make that even more true. But I can't evaluate the nerf as I'm on console.

WitchyKiki

spartaxoxo wrote: »

AnduinTryggva wrote: »

Mh. Meanwhile with a sound combination of patrons I now often win against crow-eagle but of course not each time. And this is exactly how it should be. Sometimes I lose against crow-eagle, sometimes I win against crow-eagle.

Same here. I suspect the nerf will make that even more true. But I can't evaluate the nerf as I'm on console.

Cross over to PC! its worth it

Largomets

Personofsecrets wrote: »

Crow is stupid. There, I said it.

Come on in, the water's fine!

While the deck is fairly cringe, and the nerfs weren't nearly strong enough, what bothers me the most about crow at this point is that too many people have crutched it so hard for so long they actually can't play the game any other way than picking crow and chasing crow cards.

With how small the ToT community is, trying to do ranked games you end up playing the same person over and over somewhat regularly, so when you get 2 or 3 games against a crow spammer, you're stuck with *** RNG farm games exclusively. A lot of people have moved on from ToT, so the leader boards no longer have diverse/interesting games in them, and 99% of the time I'm just playing a crow spammer, usually several games in a row.

WitchyKiki

Just cap crow, thats the nerf we need. Literally so tired of long-winded crow games won by crow-chasers. People who concede when they don't get their little crow cards on the first few turns and then go and spam the game with crow turns.

CAP HOW MANY CARDS DRAW. period. Make it so red eagle cant be hit once its facing you. Crow spam is over.

AnduinTryggva

Almalexia is even worse with card draw-discard chains...

WitchyKiki

AnduinTryggva wrote: »

Almalexia is even worse with card draw-discard chains...

Yeah but theres a penalty, unlike crow that its endless draws and its a cheap way to win games. I hate crow players so much, they spam crow/red eagle and then they love to hold games hostages, refusing to hit that 40 cap and just stalling for their own amusement. Just literally had this happen, it always seems to be the same offenders picking this deck combo.

AnduinTryggva

I have now played a bit and still encounter many happy crow spammers. It is still one of the most frequently selected decks. This indicates that it is still a very very strong deck and the nerfs are not fully sufficient.

As I mentioned already here the "draw additional card" should go to the third level of synergy requiring 3 crow cards to pop. And power output of crow should be heavily reduced or even removed entirely from the cards.

WitchyKiki

I'll just keep picking Orgnum/Rahjin and laughing when they pull 3+ bewilderments in a row. I think Crow is ridiculous paired up with red eagle, but I have a lot of fun spamming these players.

rbfrgsp

It's a noob deck and the changes signal they want it to stay a noob deck. I agree that it should have its power adjusted. It should have lower power output than Hlaalu, which has at least been balanced relatively fairly. They clearly realised high gold gen + high power gen could break the game, but didn't anticipate that high deck cycling would be equally breaking.

My guess is though that lowering crow power would not actually change it that much. The high frequency cycling you get from crow lets you generate power from other decks without needing any directly from the crow itself.

AnduinTryggva

rbfrgsp wrote: »

It's a noob deck and the changes signal they want it to stay a noob deck. I agree that it should have its power adjusted. It should have lower power output than Hlaalu, which has at least been balanced relatively fairly. They clearly realised high gold gen + high power gen could break the game, but didn't anticipate that high deck cycling would be equally breaking.

My guess is though that lowering crow power would not actually change it that much. The high frequency cycling you get from crow lets you generate power from other decks without needing any directly from the crow itself.

ToT is a power race and of course cycling can do this trick. This is why I actually advocate to remove power generation entirely from that deck. If necessary one can activate the patron to transform gold to power. There is zero need for generating any power by the deck.

Also increasing the need to have three cards for initiating the cycling will limit the early high head start by some lucky early picks and increases the chances to break that endless chain.

I've been requesting this since months. I hope they aquire that wisdom soon.

WitchyKiki

AnduinTryggva wrote: »

rbfrgsp wrote: »

It's a noob deck and the changes signal they want it to stay a noob deck. I agree that it should have its power adjusted. It should have lower power output than Hlaalu, which has at least been balanced relatively fairly. They clearly realised high gold gen + high power gen could break the game, but didn't anticipate that high deck cycling would be equally breaking.

My guess is though that lowering crow power would not actually change it that much. The high frequency cycling you get from crow lets you generate power from other decks without needing any directly from the crow itself.

ToT is a power race and of course cycling can do this trick. This is why I actually advocate to remove power generation entirely from that deck. If necessary one can activate the patron to transform gold to power. There is zero need for generating any power by the deck.

Also increasing the need to have three cards for initiating the cycling will limit the early high head start by some lucky early picks and increases the chances to break that endless chain.

I've been requesting this since months. I hope they aquire that wisdom soon.

That or cap how many cards crow can draw, as well as nerfing red eagle patron, if it faces you, no more. The deck cycling is tiring and its pure RNG to see who gets the most purple cards.

WhisperLFE

I think it'd be fairly amusing if they reduced the hand timer for every crow draw someone plays.

I just wish they'd reduce the hand timer to begin with, at least early in the game. Or offer a speed-play option for folks who don't want to sit through a minute-plus of someone deciding on their second turn whether they want gold or power from way of the sword.

Eliran

Crows and Saint Pelins are pure RNGfeast and 0 skill, only people with low self esteem pick them in my opinion ..

Best solution would be to finally add an option to BAN 1 PATRON before anyone pick, that way you get rid of them.

rbfrgsp

Eliran wrote: »

Crows and Saint Pelins are pure RNGfeast and 0 skill, only people with low self esteem pick them in my opinion ..

Best solution would be to finally add an option to BAN 1 PATRON before anyone pick, that way you get rid of them.

Pellin is quite an intelligent deck. Its actual strength is the interplayer between its power generation, its Taunt agents, and its patron mechanism. You can try to zergrush your opponent with power gen but it rarely works in time. Mastering Pellin as your tank makes it a much more effective pick.

spartaxoxo

Pelin is extremely RNG. I have only ever lost to the NPC barring extreme RNG to two decks. Pelin and Sorcerer King. Both because they got early power cards and the game snowballed even with the mindless play of the AI.

None of the other decks are as heavily favored as those ones.

Yesterday I beat a good player who I recognized as a Rahjiin spammer with Organum. I bought 3 cards from the tavern, 1 was a turn 1 high power card. The other was a couple of 2 coin Orgnum cards that give a low amount of prestige that happened to come up on my turn. The other player actually tried, I just spammed the patron. I won. Such skill.

Northwold

I do think Crows needs a little bit of a rebalance so that not quite so many cards pull in an extra card. If the luck of draw delivers too many crow cards to one of the players early on the game can get hugely imbalanced because they can draw card after card after card almost ad infinitum. As a deck it's pretty strange in that the others at least do multiple things, whereas crow is just card pulling almost all the time.

AnduinTryggva

Yes. despite the very careful nerf crow is still far, far too strong.

The crow cards that cost 4 gold and that draw one additional card on first level synergy should be nerfed such that one needs 3 crow cards in one's had and their price should go up.

I also think crow cards should generate no power at all.

rbfrgsp

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Pelin is extremely RNG. I have only ever lost to the NPC barring extreme RNG to two decks. Pelin and Sorcerer King. Both because they got early power cards and the game snowballed even with the mindless play of the AI.

None of the other decks are as heavily favored as those ones.

Yesterday I beat a good player who I recognized as a Rahjiin spammer with Organum. I bought 3 cards from the tavern, 1 was a turn 1 high power card. The other was a couple of 2 coin Orgnum cards that give a low amount of prestige that happened to come up on my turn. The other player actually tried, I just spammed the patron. I won. Such skill.

NPC uses pelin to zergrush. Players who learned from npcs and mimic their tactics try to zergrush with it. Good players use it tactically to set and reset taunt tanks. Zergrushing in PvP is as you say a game of chance and more often than not it can be thwarted.

On topic, I find the 4gold crow cards to be the game breaking ones. I'd like to see some of the 4gp crow pieces lose their single card powers (2 power / 2 coin), OR also have their 'draw 1' power moved up to a 3 combo. But because drawing is sort of the crow decks flavour, I think it'd be preferable to drop their coin/power bonuses instead.