Sorceror King Orgrum/Maormer deck needs to be deleted

spacefracking

It completely ruins the game. All other mechanics are out the window.

The only way out is getting a tithe I guess? It's beyond ridiculous and makes any game where it is picked a joke and profoundly unexciting.

Roxxsmom

I'm not a big fan of that deck either. The strategy for winning with it seems to be to get lucky with cards purchases first 2-3 turns, then beat the aI to the punch with clicking that patron every. Singe. Turn. It's hard to come from behind with that deck since you stop flushing the 1 cards early and you have to give up 3 gold each turn.

I haven't played other humans much, though, and never with that deck out, so maybe there's something I am missing.

KefkaGestahl

What needs to be changed is the unfavored penalty. It isn't balanced at all. If it's favored to your opponent and you activate it, you only get two power, but then your opponent can activate it and get power for every 6/4 cards they own, which is usually way more than two power. It's why people spam orgnum early and often, because the person who is unfavored is stuck in a race they cannot win. Honestly, it would make way more sense if it functioned similarly to the duke and you could never use it when it favors you instead.

Anne13

It takes 0 skill. Enough said.

adrianolara

Most boring and ridiculous patron mechanic for sure. A simple fix is to change its mechanic or at least prevent you for using it repeatedly

Foto1

No need

Reverb

I’d like to see all patrons work the way of the crow, where once it’s in your favor you can’t use it again and it provides you no benefit. That pushes us all to be very selective about when we use the patrons, since we won’t be able to use it again until after the opponent does.

vinnyml

100% agree. With that deck in play, it's a different game entirely. Utterly boring and monotonous.

And for the record, I'm not saying this because I'm butthurt about losing to people using Orgnum. I've literally never lost a match where I used it. I won like ten straight with it and got to Rubedite. Then I realized how broken it was and haven't since.

But it doesn't need to be deleted; it just needs to cost 5 coins to pay the patron. That is, there needs to be a reward and a risk.

Wandering_Immigrant

vinnyml wrote: »

100% agree. With that deck in play, it's a different game entirely. Utterly boring and monotonous.

And for the record, I'm not saying this because I'm butthurt about losing to people using Orgnum. I've literally never lost a match where I used it. I won like ten straight with it and got to Rubedite. Then I realized how broken it was and haven't since.

But it doesn't need to be deleted; it just needs to cost 5 coins to pay the patron. That is, there needs to be a reward and a risk.

I agree the best thing for it is to keep the mechanic but change the cost. My idea is a bit different though. I would have the cost change based on alignment, 4 for neutral, 2 for unfavored, 6 for favored. My initial thought was 8 for favored, that might be too much, but either way I think this would create more interesting play by making it harder to hold favor than to counter it, thus making it less spamy and more of an occasional power boost.

Heartrage

The problem with orgnum is that it does so much power so soon in the game that you can’t really build a strategy against it without good rng at the start. It’s really hard to swing the odds back to you as it rush to the end of the game. I think that a tug-of-war patron can be a good idea and fun, but I feel like orgnum misses the point of fighting to keep orgnum control.

If they removed the power from neutral and unfavored positions and made the favored position more threatening (less gold, more power), it would be more interesting to me.

spacefracking

Heartrage wrote: »

The problem with orgnum is that it does so much power so soon in the game that you can’t really build a strategy against it without good rng at the start. It’s really hard to swing the odds back to you as it rush to the end of the game. I think that a tug-of-war patron can be a good idea and fun, but I feel like orgnum misses the point of fighting to keep orgnum control.

If they removed the power from neutral and unfavored positions and made the favored position more threatening (less gold, more power), it would be more interesting to me.

Exactly. It would work fine if they just lowered the crazy amount of power it gives to whoever grabs it first after the right number of coin exchanges

Largomets

Nothing worse than finally making headway on the leaderboards and running into a few Organum spammers in a row. "Cool, lets throw skill out and let a coin toss decide who wins." I've actually started writing the names down of people who pick Organum so I can position my patrons accordingly the next time they pop up... shouldn't need to keep a hit list to protect leaderboard progress from coin toss gamblers.

spacefracking

Largomets wrote: »

Nothing worse than finally making headway on the leaderboards and running into a few Organum spammers in a row. "Cool, lets throw skill out and let a coin toss decide who wins." I've actually started writing the names down of people who pick Organum so I can position my patrons accordingly the next time they pop up... shouldn't need to keep a hit list to protect leaderboard progress from coin toss gamblers.

yeah, it's toxic to even select it as a deck for the match. ruins it

Tuonra2

I felt this way for a long time, now I tend to have about even chances vs orgnum and just satisfy myself with the idea that those who pick orgnum are desperate.

My strat is to let them do what they want for 2 turns while you focus on using your free coin first turn to buy a good card. To this end, I pick hlaalu and psijic patron.

It's still always close, but their strat is almost entirely predictable and rigid, so if you can catch up and pull ahead, they have to change plans or lose. And then you take advantage of them changing plans to just start using Orgnum yourself and then it's checkmate.

Simple but not easy.

Good luck.

Heartrage

Duke and red eagle can also beat orgnum. Deck thinning is bad for them so they don’t and they can’t build up enough duke cards because they don’t have gold generation.

Veryamedliel

spacefracking wrote: »

It completely ruins the game. All other mechanics are out the window.

The only way out is getting a tithe I guess? It's beyond ridiculous and makes any game where it is picked a joke and profoundly unexciting.

Why is it that when someone does not like a certain mechanic it's always "delete this" or "Nerf that"?
There are enough viable ways to counter the patron mechanic. The liar deck works quite well to counter patron spam. Also, Crow , Hunding and Palin are all faster prestige generators than Orgrum spamming and the deck itself is fine. Just because you don't know how to counter a deck or just because RNGesus is against you doesn't justify deleting an entire deck.

But if you're going on about deleting it, why not just delete the patron which lets you discard cards for prestige over and over? That too can be spammed and abused. I've seen it happen. And in both cases there's still ways to win the game.

Long story short, every deck can be countered. And with every deck, if RNGesus is against you, you won't win whatever deck you choose.

notyuu

Flip Orgrum's mechanic on its head and tweak them
F: Pay 3 power gain 1 gold for every 4 cards you have in your deck
N: Pay 3 power, gain 1 gold for every 6 cards you have in your deck >paton becomes favoured
U: Pay 3 gold, gain 1 maromer boarding party card in your cooldown pile > patron becomes Nutrual

Tuonra2

Heartrage wrote: »

Duke and red eagle can also beat orgnum. Deck thinning is bad for them so they don’t and they can’t build up enough duke cards because they don’t have gold generation.

Sure, but an orgnum player is going first, so if you give them good crow cards or a raid they just pick that and you are already behind.
Red eagle has a power card so can ruin your turn one 6g, and crow has good 4cost cards that give player 1 the edge.

Tuonra2

notyuu wrote: »

Flip Orgrum's mechanic on its head and tweak them
F: Pay 3 power gain 1 gold for every 4 cards you have in your deck
N: Pay 3 power, gain 1 gold for every 6 cards you have in your deck >paton becomes favoured
U: Pay 3 gold, gain 1 maromer boarding party card in your cooldown pile > patron becomes Nutrual

My suggestion was to have the favoured and unfavoured powers to be swapped.

So from neutral you get power/6 and become favoured, but from favoured you get 2 power and a boarding party AND make neutral again.

But if the opponent is favored you would get power/4 AND a boarding party to make it neutral.

This would promote playing to trigger the patron twice or not at all, and focusses on actual deckbuilding the rest of the time.

spacefracking

Tuonra2 wrote: »

notyuu wrote: »

Flip Orgrum's mechanic on its head and tweak them
F: Pay 3 power gain 1 gold for every 4 cards you have in your deck
N: Pay 3 power, gain 1 gold for every 6 cards you have in your deck >paton becomes favoured
U: Pay 3 gold, gain 1 maromer boarding party card in your cooldown pile > patron becomes Nutrual

My suggestion was to have the favoured and unfavoured powers to be swapped.

So from neutral you get power/6 and become favoured, but from favoured you get 2 power and a boarding party AND make neutral again.

But if the opponent is favored you would get power/4 AND a boarding party to make it neutral.

This would promote playing to trigger the patron twice or not at all, and focusses on actual deckbuilding the rest of the time.

Yeah, this is a good idea, but I guess they did sneak in a change on PTS!! It's just not in the patch notes. The 'maomer boarding party' card from hitting the patron while favored has been removed. Hopefully this is enough to make this deck not an absolute misery to play

JJMaxx1980

Veryamedliel wrote: »

spacefracking wrote: »

It completely ruins the game. All other mechanics are out the window.

The only way out is getting a tithe I guess? It's beyond ridiculous and makes any game where it is picked a joke and profoundly unexciting.

Why is it that when someone does not like a certain mechanic it's always "delete this" or "Nerf that"?
There are enough viable ways to counter the patron mechanic. The liar deck works quite well to counter patron spam. Also, Crow , Hunding and Palin are all faster prestige generators than Orgrum spamming and the deck itself is fine. Just because you don't know how to counter a deck or just because RNGesus is against you doesn't justify deleting an entire deck.

But if you're going on about deleting it, why not just delete the patron which lets you discard cards for prestige over and over? That too can be spammed and abused. I've seen it happen. And in both cases there's still ways to win the game.

Long story short, every deck can be countered. And with every deck, if RNGesus is against you, you won't win whatever deck you choose.

Any card game is going to have balance issues. It doesn’t matter if it’s MTG, Yugioh, Hearthstone or ToT. Cards get banned, updated, removed and changed.

Orgnum is not a bad deck. The direct prestige gain outside of power or coin is unique. The problem, as you can see by the overwhelming opinion of players is that the patron power is too strong. It doesn’t mean that it’s unwinnable against, it means that it’s not enjoyable to play against.

The issue is that once the patron is flipped from neutral to favored, the favored power is so strong that it absolutely cannot be left in its favored state. You or your opponent is forced to spend 3 coins to flip it back to neutral. It comes down to the first player to buy two additional cards, one of them being a power-generating card and flipping the patron. This is usually turn 2 or 3 and the game is all but over at that point. Now the player with a power card will push the patron from neutral to favored and the opponent will either have to spend 3 coins to get only 2 power or allow the player to hit it favored, which is super powerful. The patron tug of war is not enjoyable because there is no strategy, no counter moves.

I really hope that ZOS changes this patron in future patches. The community agrees that is not a good design and is a stain on a very enjoyable deck building game.

NeKryXe

I agree. But I'm starting to believe that they might have created the Orgrum deck to give a chance to players with difficulties to learn all decks and strategies. With Orgrum deck those players have a chance to rely only on luck and sometimes win a game.

Tuonra2

NeKryXe wrote: »

I agree. But I'm starting to believe that they might have created the Orgrum deck to give a chance to players with difficulties to learn all decks and strategies. With Orgrum deck those players have a chance to rely only on luck and sometimes win a game.

Lol and then they made that deck the absolute hardest to unlock? Yeah makes sense.

spacefracking

NeKryXe wrote: »

I agree. But I'm starting to believe that they might have created the Orgrum deck to give a chance to players with difficulties to learn all decks and strategies. With Orgrum deck those players have a chance to rely only on luck and sometimes win a game.

No, orgnum is just about learning all of the decks and being able to finish the game by turn 3 or 4 by doing the math out beforehand (ideally counting on potential good draws, which shouldn't happen with the right accompanying decks). Just have to do the math out, and make sure the other guy doesn't have the gold to 3 gold + "cost of good card that provides gold".

The other counters are tithe and picking red or green (sorta? can kinda backfire on you as if the sorceror-controller gets one, it's curtains).

Idk how I feel about the removal of the maormer boarding party as the nerf (that they have implemented, but were not included in the patch notes). I think the nerf should have accompanied or been replaced with a nerf of the /4 card favored patron ability. Removing the maomer boarding party card is probably the easiest to test and balance, but there were *definitely* better options.

The option I would see as good is the option where both players don't have to hit the orgnum deck every turn to not lose, because that's how it works (and I feel will still be how it works, as it's primarily math based).

Maybe someone will pull 6-7 gold after three turns 3-4 when the math is set, pick the right counter decks, AND get the right draws, on their turn (which is unlikely, cuz maomer guy is going to let the board sit once the math is set, so no new cards, and a barter will most likely benefit them), or a tithe will show up?

It's just so lame. idek. There just has to be some way to make it so the deck can be played together with the other decks instead of having an orgnum game just being about the orgnum patron ability.

Sigh. Definitely a flaw in the design, and upsetting, because it ruins a very well designed game (even with the change, cuz math). I want to be a playtester >:(

Maybe /6, /6 + maomer may have been the best choice. Who knows.

Tesman85

I've had one or two matches against Orgnum and dislike it heartily. It's just so low-brow strategy: Get patron's favor, keep spamming it. There are only two effective counter-strategies that I can think of, and both require one of the patrons being the crow.

First strategy: Get every single crow card you can - especially those that give additional draws as combo bonus - and pray the Orgnum spammer doesn't get to 40 before you have a solid deck of them. Also, get a few prestige cards or Hlaalu super-coin cards. Then, pull a crowcapolypse (a word I learned from a fellow ToT player) where you get almost the whole deck as additional draws, then use the crow patron to convert the coins to power. RNG being favorable, this can end the match in a single swoop.

Second strategy: Collect all Hlaalu coin cards and every prestige card you can. Then, when you get a particularly good coin haul, use the crow. After that, use Hlaalu grandmaster to sell cards for power.

I would like to see Orgnum changed so that it doesn't give anything anymore when the patron favors a player. The Boarding Party card should be the reward in the neutral position and could be boosted to give 3 prestige. That way it would be more sensible.

Neoauspex

Heartrage wrote: »

Duke and red eagle can also beat orgnum. Deck thinning is bad for them so they don’t and they can’t build up enough duke cards because they don’t have gold generation.

This. A lean purple/black deck beats Orgnum every time. When my opponent picks purple or black, I'll often pick Orgnum just to distract them from deck thinning cards. If they get better cards than you first turn etc then that's just like any other game, happens with red anytime Siege is out there turn 1... Probably gonna lose if your opponent gets better cards.

Sungod

Neoauspex wrote: »

Heartrage wrote: »

Duke and red eagle can also beat orgnum. Deck thinning is bad for them so they don’t and they can’t build up enough duke cards because they don’t have gold generation.

THIS.
People discredit the amount of influence a player can have in a game, by picking strategic decks. There is always going to be RNG, and sometimes the tavern is just gonna be cruel. Play as smart as you can, and have fun.

spacefracking

yeah, I've actually found a fair number of counters to orgnum, it really just involves a lot of counting.

Maybe I need to play in a higher mmr to really see the full potential for it to shred.

I think the removal of the maomer boarding party card draw for the favored patron ability might do the trick though. it makes it possible to miss maybe 1 orgnum patron turn-back to grab a valuable card.

I think the real danger may lie in not picking the right counter decks, and orgnum getting in as the 4th pick

I suppose that may just end up as part of the high mmr deck picking strategies though.

We shall see, basically. Hard to test on PTS rn cuz there's only ai's basically to practice against

EnerG

I dont have orgnum, the 2 times a comp match has used them on me i won, everyturn i just used orgnum, no trading in cards. Only buying cards if u could still afford to pop patron, and they let me stack boarding parties out the wazoo

spacefracking

EnerG wrote: »

I dont have orgnum, the 2 times a comp match has used them on me i won, everyturn i just used orgnum, no trading in cards. Only buying cards if u could still afford to pop patron, and they let me stack boarding parties out the wazoo

Since writing this thread, I've figured out how to play it, it's just frustrating and requires (instead of just is helped by) a lot of math

FrancisCrawford

Tesman85 wrote: »

I've had one or two matches against Orgnum and dislike it heartily. It's just so low-brow strategy: Get patron's favor, keep spamming it. There are only two effective counter-strategies that I can think of, and both require one of the patrons being the crow.

First strategy: Get every single crow card you can - especially those that give additional draws as combo bonus - and pray the Orgnum spammer doesn't get to 40 before you have a solid deck of them. Also, get a few prestige cards or Hlaalu super-coin cards. Then, pull a crowcapolypse (a word I learned from a fellow ToT player) where you get almost the whole deck as additional draws, then use the crow patron to convert the coins to power. RNG being favorable, this can end the match in a single swoop.

Second strategy: Collect all Hlaalu coin cards and every prestige card you can. Then, when you get a particularly good coin haul, use the crow. After that, use Hlaalu grandmaster to sell cards for power.

I would like to see Orgnum changed so that it doesn't give anything anymore when the patron favors a player. The Boarding Party card should be the reward in the neutral position and could be boosted to give 3 prestige. That way it would be more sensible.

I still play against NPCs only. I don't like to pick the Crow patron against them, because they generally play it so badly.

An expert NPC, with Orgnum and without Crow, is a serious challenge for me, to a much greater extent than any other NPC scenario has been.