Rajhin, the Purring Liar deck makes for a very tedious game

SilverBride

I absolutely hate this deck. Every game takes at least twice as long with players gaining a few prestige only to have most of it removed by their opponent. Then it's the other players turn to do the same. Toss in a few bewilder cards along the way and you can slowly inch your way to someone winning, and by that point I don't even care who, I just want it over.

I don't care if I get a penalty for conceding, I am not sitting through any more of these.

redspecter23

You raise a valid point. A well built Rahjin deck can stall the game infinitely, essentially forcing you to concede in order to leave the match. There shouldn't be a penalty for conceding other than you losing the match and possibly forfeiting the defeat coffer in order to combat potential exploiting.

SilverBride

redspecter23 wrote: »

You raise a valid point. A well built Rahjin deck can stall the game infinitely, essentially forcing you to concede in order to leave the match. There shouldn't be a penalty for conceding other than you losing the match and possibly forfeiting the defeat coffer in order to combat potential exploiting.

I would gladly forfeit the reward coffer just to get out of those matches.

This deck really needs to be looked at to make it more than just a slow back and forth.

JJMaxx1980

You know for the 300+ games I’ve played I’ve never run into any opponent that seriously built with Rajhin. The cards are just so sub-par. Even people who pick it use it for the Patron Power not the actual cards.

Skvysh

JJMaxx1980 wrote: »

You know for the 300+ games I’ve played I’ve never run into any opponent that seriously built with Rajhin. The cards are just so sub-par. Even people who pick it use it for the Patron Power not the actual cards.

Rahjin's problem, IMO, is the fact that a lot of its power is hidden behind combos, with very little draw opportunities. While getting full combo on Twilight Revelry looks nice (and to pull it off, you usually rely on Ring's Guile/Bag of Tricks which also has a pretty strong full combo), it's difficult to get all the cards in one hand without having extra draw. In turn, you end up with a lot of its synergy relying on RG/BoT being on the table and having the gold to buy it.

The agents are quite weak without the combo as well, not working quite right as meat shields and requiring a pretty small deck size to be able to stop a full-on assault of a power-based deck.

On the other hand, Grand Larceny/Pound and Profit are nice throughout most of the game, especially if you can get one on first turn - strong gold generation only beaten by Hlaalu's cards, with the added bonus of a Knock-Out. Sleight of Hand is also a strong turn one pick, allowing you do to a Writ and pick up another 2 gold card (with the Remove coming in handy in some cases). RG/BoT are also pretty nice if you can get it for free via Acquire.

One of the biggest nonsense, though, is the fact that Discard action takes place before curses - you can discard your Bewilderment as a discard action and not really feel "hurt". This takes away quite a bit of power that a Rahjin deck could inflict on an opponent, though it would make Bewilderment spam even more powerful.

Overall, though, I generally pick Rahjin as a "I want less power in the game" deck, as the only fear I have is opponent picking up GL/PnP on turn one, as opposed to Armory/Midnight Raid. While power remains as strong of a resource as it is now, I feel like Rahjin allows for a more skill-based game by reducing the number of power-generating cards in play, while also introducing some interesting synergies with Celarus/Hlaalu/Crows. Bewilderment spam is an annoyance, yes, but it really depends on the game - sometimes the patron sees little-to-no use due to the fact that players are either not generating enough gold to have spare or there are often very good cards on the table.

BlueRaven

It's a defensively oriented deck, and I love it.



This was against a (proficient) npc, but c'mon! Amazing!!!!

I personally just play against the computer, not against other players. But it is one of my favorite card decks to use, particularly if I can use crows as well. Super powerful combo.

Dragonnord

JJMaxx1980 wrote: »

You know for the 300+ games I’ve played I’ve never run into any opponent that seriously built with Rajhin. The cards are just so sub-par. Even people who pick it use it for the Patron Power not the actual cards.

Same here. In around 250 games, I never went through that either.

Besides, that's the "power" of that deck. Otherwise, the deck is kind of useless and weak (remove the deck from the game then?).

I'm glad decks like Rajhin, Psijic and Hlaalu exist, just as they are now.
 

Woeler

I once ran into someone who did nothing but spam a Bewilderment card on me every single turn. Was surely weird, but I won anyway. Not sure what the tactic behind that was, getting me to ragequit perhaps?

SilverBride

Dragonnord wrote: »

JJMaxx1980 wrote: »

You know for the 300+ games I’ve played I’ve never run into any opponent that seriously built with Rajhin. The cards are just so sub-par. Even people who pick it use it for the Patron Power not the actual cards.

Same here. In around 250 games, I never went through that either.

You are lucky then. I've run into this a few times lately.

Yesterday I wanted to play a quick game before dinner, but my opponent chose Rajhin. We went back and forth for over half an hour until I finally just gave up.

Necrotech_Master

i like using rahjin against npcs as well

pounce and profit is a really good starter card with good gold gain as well as the ability to knock out an agent if in a combo

pair that with crow/hlaalu for more gold/patron uses and card draws (which also pairs with cards like twilight revelry and jarring lullaby)

there are many times ive defeated NPCs when i pass the 40 prestige mark and then force the opponent to discard their entire hand from a long combo so they have no counter

ive never played any queued matches against other players, but from using the deck enough it definitely is annoying

the 3 decks that can counter it are orgnum (you get more power for more cards in deck) and the reach (deck has a lot of ways to remove cards), and psijic (allows you to toss the bad cards)

SilverBride

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

i like using rahjin against npcs as well...

...ive never played any queued matches against other players, but from using the deck enough it definitely is annoying

That explains the difference. I mostly play ranked matches against other players. Playing against an opponent who is using this deck to remove your prestige and tossing bewilder cards every hand makes it very difficult to counter and not much choice other than to use the same strategy back against them. It's a very slow and tedious process.

This appears to be the way the deck was designed to play, which is why I think it needs to be looked at and some changes made.

Necrotech_Master

SilverBride wrote: »

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

i like using rahjin against npcs as well...

...ive never played any queued matches against other players, but from using the deck enough it definitely is annoying

That explains the difference. I mostly play ranked matches against other players. Playing against an opponent who is using this deck to remove your prestige and tossing bewilder cards every hand makes it very difficult to counter and not much choice other than to use the same strategy back against them. It's a very slow and tedious process.

This appears to be the way the deck was designed to play, which is why I think it needs to be looked at and some changes made.

whenever i play the NPCs, i always assume similar strategies would be used on me potentially and is one of the reasons i dont think i would enjoy playing other players as much

i dont have a 100% win rate against npcs (its like 85-90% range) because there are a few times ive pulled a good card from tavern only for it to be replaced by another good or even better card

redspecter23

Woeler wrote: »

I once ran into someone who did nothing but spam a Bewilderment card on me every single turn. Was surely weird, but I won anyway. Not sure what the tactic behind that was, getting me to ragequit perhaps?

That player possibly just unlocked the deck and was trying to get their card upgrade. I did my pvp upgrades in a similar way. I queued up, spammed specific patrons (at least the ones that could be spammed), usually took a loss and continued to the next game where I did the same until all were unlocked.

I didn't want my judgement clouded in a competitive setting with an achievement and card unlock left undone so went out of my way to get as many of them before I took any games seriously.

SilverBride

redspecter23 wrote: »

Woeler wrote: »

I once ran into someone who did nothing but spam a Bewilderment card on me every single turn. Was surely weird, but I won anyway. Not sure what the tactic behind that was, getting me to ragequit perhaps?

That player possibly just unlocked the deck and was trying to get their card upgrade. I did my pvp upgrades in a similar way. I queued up, spammed specific patrons (at least the ones that could be spammed), usually took a loss and continued to the next game where I did the same until all were unlocked.

I didn't want my judgement clouded in a competitive setting with an achievement and card unlock left undone so went out of my way to get as many of them before I took any games seriously.

I haven't actively worked toward the Achievements yet, but rather just let them happen naturally, but maybe I should. Are we able to get these playing NPCs as well as other players?

redspecter23

SilverBride wrote: »

redspecter23 wrote: »

Woeler wrote: »

I once ran into someone who did nothing but spam a Bewilderment card on me every single turn. Was surely weird, but I won anyway. Not sure what the tactic behind that was, getting me to ragequit perhaps?

That player possibly just unlocked the deck and was trying to get their card upgrade. I did my pvp upgrades in a similar way. I queued up, spammed specific patrons (at least the ones that could be spammed), usually took a loss and continued to the next game where I did the same until all were unlocked.

I didn't want my judgement clouded in a competitive setting with an achievement and card unlock left undone so went out of my way to get as many of them before I took any games seriously.

I haven't actively worked toward the Achievements yet, but rather just let them happen naturally, but maybe I should. Are we able to get these playing NPCs as well as other players?

Just players unfortunately. If you pvp Tribute enough most will just come naturally eventually. Some players may just want to get it ASAP. Other than Celerus and to an extent, Pelin, the patron card unlocks can all just be spammed to get the card.

Necrotech_Master

SilverBride wrote: »

redspecter23 wrote: »

Woeler wrote: »

I once ran into someone who did nothing but spam a Bewilderment card on me every single turn. Was surely weird, but I won anyway. Not sure what the tactic behind that was, getting me to ragequit perhaps?

That player possibly just unlocked the deck and was trying to get their card upgrade. I did my pvp upgrades in a similar way. I queued up, spammed specific patrons (at least the ones that could be spammed), usually took a loss and continued to the next game where I did the same until all were unlocked.

I didn't want my judgement clouded in a competitive setting with an achievement and card unlock left undone so went out of my way to get as many of them before I took any games seriously.

I haven't actively worked toward the Achievements yet, but rather just let them happen naturally, but maybe I should. Are we able to get these playing NPCs as well as other players?

the achievements for upgraded cards specifically state "match made games" which is using the queue, either ranked or unranked

ill probably do what redspector did and just farm the heck out of them, the psijic one will be awful to do though because some people would refuse to play an agent when it is present to prevent a patron victory

Oddemus

Rajin is my go-to deck and I have no shame in admitting that. uwu

AT LEAST IT'S NOT ORGNUM

SilverBride

Oddemus wrote: »

Rajin is my go-to deck and I have no shame in admitting that. uwu

AT LEAST IT'S NOT ORGNUM

I just did the NPC daily and they chose Orgnum and Rajhin. That didn't turn out well.

Sly80

I would not choose either Rajin or Orgnum as I dislike both, but if my opponent chooses one, I’ll pick the other. If they want to play mean, I’ll play mean.

Gaebriel0410

I love that deck, since imo a good card game isn't all about maximum time efficient power spam, and it allows for longer more tactical games. Sure it can be annoying as hell when used against you, but I think the existence of annoying combos or the ability to lock down games to prevent an opponent rapidly advancing in power is a good thing in card games like this.

Faded

Could not agree more.

SilverBride wrote: »

I don't care if I get a penalty for conceding, I am not sitting through any more of these.

I make sure anybody who picks that deck gets to sit with me as long as possible. Your strat is more prosocial.

Largomets

A few nights back I was in a game that was psijic, rajin, crow, and red eagle that lasted 45 minutes and I won when the other person got bored and conceded. At one point they actually did manage to combo so well they got over 40 points, but then it was so easy for me to walk them back down under that it just undid it and we were right back into our stalemate.

With that said, this was only an issue because we were having dead even luck and comparably skilled, and didn't have any solid "finisher" decks in play.

I'll still take it over red deck (and the people who pick red deck) any day, since it still involves playing well and not brute force RNG.

SilverBride

I know they are looking at the decks, I just hope they do something to stop Rajhin from holding players hostage.

spacefracking

playing against a well done rahjin strategy is fairly interesting. I like it. I just hate organum. it's so ridiculous

SilverBride

I just find it incredibly tedious. It's like trying to fill up a bathtub with an eyedropper.

DinoZavr

SilverBride, though Rajhin games are really kinda too loooong it is still a lot of fun for me.
Once i got a crushing defeat with 45-0 as we were playing low-power setup (Rajhin, Crows, Hlaalu, Eagle) and i was leading, when my smart opponent bought a hell lot of Rajhin agents and literally sucked all of my prestige (i had not enough power to kill 'em all and no Celarus to kill at least one with gold). Game took like 20+ minutes, but i enjoyed my epic fail and laughed a lot after this spectacular defeat. Lessons learnt, thou. Still was fun to play!

PrinceShroob

Since Hunding already subverts the usual unfavored/neutral/favored progression, I think it’d be interesting if Rajhin worked like this:

Neutral: Pay all your gold. Place a Bewilderment card in your opponent’s cooldown pile for every 3 gold you spend, rounded down. This patron now Favors you.

Favored: Remove all Bewilderment cards from your opponent’s draw and cooldown piles. Gain one Power for each Bewilderment card you remove. This patron returns to Neutral.

Unfavored: Pay 3 gold. Remove all Bewilderment cards from your draw and cooldown piles. This patron returns to Neutral.

Activation cost in Neutral, Unfavored cost to activate, and Power gained when Favored could be adjusted to taste. This gives the Rajhin user the ability to advance their win condition (rather than only being able to stymie the opponent’s progress) while also becoming more of a threat. One Bewilderment card is annoying, but Rajhin’s high gold generation means that several Bewilderment cards going into your deck at once becomes a must-answer—functionally meaning your opponent plays their turn at a 3-gold disadvantage. This ties into Rajhin’s general theme of denying your oppent—denying cards through discard and tavern manipulation, denying Prestige by removing it, and functionally denying gold through patron activation.

SilverBride

DinoZavr wrote: »

SilverBride, though Rajhin games are really kinda too loooong it is still a lot of fun for me.
Once i got a crushing defeat with 45-0 as we were playing low-power setup (Rajhin, Crows, Hlaalu, Eagle) and i was leading, when my smart opponent bought a hell lot of Rajhin agents and literally sucked all of my prestige (i had not enough power to kill 'em all and no Celarus to kill at least one with gold). Game took like 20+ minutes, but i enjoyed my epic fail and laughed a lot after this spectacular defeat. Lessons learnt, thou. Still was fun to play!

These games tend to take 30 minutes or more when I've been stuck with them, and I don't find the crawling pace the least bit fun.

merik1999

I love the deck but I dont play it much. Everyone gets pissed off when I play it and the cards fall right..

EnerG

I dont have Rajhin, everytime an opponent has used their rajhin i am the only one making bewilder cards... You picked the deck bro, use it lmfao.

Sweetpea704

JJMaxx1980 wrote: »

You know for the 300+ games I’ve played I’ve never run into any opponent that seriously built with Rajhin. The cards are just so sub-par. Even people who pick it use it for the Patron Power not the actual cards.

I actually do use the card for the gold amounts. You very quickly have gold to buy the expensive cards. It is a good foil for Pelin.