Just nerf crow already

Sheezabeast

The Crows have forced me to play Druid, I hate playing the Druid deck, but now I pick it to counter the Crows by controlling the tavern more so I can make sure neither of us get the cards.

AnduinTryggva

I wonder when ZOS will understand that Crow is still slightly too powerfull.

It needs noticibly more tavern luck to beat crow than to win with crow.

Meji

Crows definitely still does too much. Should have the power generation reduced/removed and just be a gold generation. Right now it does everything too well.

rbfrgsp

Suggestion:

Pool of Shadow: remove the two power from the first action. Keep the rest unchanged.


Toll of Flesh: Move draw one combo from a two-card combo to a three-card combo. Leave the coin gen unchanged.

These are the truly OP cards. What's really broken about them is that there is no downside to buying even if you have no other crow cards. Their one card powers are nothing to complain about. If you manage to hit a combo off them, then that means a pocket full of extra resources at no expense.

Increasing card costs is not the solution here. It's the resource density and the stackable nature of drawing that.makes them OP.

AnduinTryggva

Devs please make a statistics how many ppl chose which patrons and combinations. In ranked you will see that the overwhelming majority picks crow/red eagle clearly indicating how unbalanced and op this deck still is.

And you wonder why less and less ppl play ToT? Why more and more ppl abandon ranked matches?

ToT as it is now is providing 80% frustration to average players. Combine this to stupid time penalty and high treshold for rewards...

Seraphayel

Crow is without a doubt the most broken and nasty patron. I had several matches the last rounds were opponents were just chain drawing cards til infinitum. And the worst is, they just get another round of Crow cards and the drawing continues. It‘s hilarious how overpowered this gets as soon as you have a decent amount of Crow cards. And the best is, you can basically do nothing about it.

There‘s just no way to stop or counter this. There absolutely needs to be a limit on how many cards you can draw per round (and how many you can confine, as Almalexia has the same problem). I‘d say three times is the absolute maximum. With this they can not only buy all of the tavern if needed, they can just chain any kind of combo. Crow needs to be dramatically nerfed in this regard.

As soon as somebody picks Crow (usually I never pick it because I simply hate it) your only chance is to play Crow, too. You cannot let the enemy get the Crow cards because as soon as they reach a critical amount of Crow cards you‘ve lost. So the only way to counter or beat Crow is to play Crow yourself then. And I think this is just terrible.

AnduinTryggva

Seraphayel wrote: »

Crow is without a doubt the most broken and nasty patron. I had several matches the last rounds were opponents were just chain drawing cards til infinitum. And the worst is, they just get another round of Crow cards and the drawing continues. It‘s hilarious how overpowered this gets as soon as you have a decent amount of Crow cards. And the best is, you can basically do nothing about it.

There‘s just no way to stop or counter this. There absolutely needs to be a limit on how many cards you can draw per round (and how many you can confine, as Almalexia has the same problem). I‘d say three times is the absolute maximum. With this they can not only buy all of the tavern if needed, they can just chain any kind of combo. Crow needs to be dramatically nerfed in this regard.

As soon as somebody picks Crow (usually I never pick it because I simply hate it) your only chance is to play Crow, too. You cannot let the enemy get the Crow cards because as soon as they reach a critical amount of Crow cards you‘ve lost. So the only way to counter or beat Crow is to play Crow yourself then. And I think this is just terrible.

It is true that Alma can lead to chains. However, unlike crow Alma requires to discard a card in one's hand and this means often that you have to make a trade-off like: shall I play the 3 power card or drop it in the hope that I get the 6 power card...

Alma is much more balanced than crow. However I do agree that the number of confined cards should be limited. Here I'd suggest that the player in possession of the confining agent can release a confined card to replace it with another one from the opponent's cooldown stack in case the limit is reached.

AnduinTryggva

Power generation by crow cards HAS to go away. It makes no sense for this deck to generate power by playing out deck cards.

MindOfTheSwarm

The problem with Crow is that it heavily rewards RNG more than other cards. A lucky Rally or Armory is nice but three or four crows in a row and your opponent is unlucky with none and it’s a wrap before the game even starts.

Seraphayel

The moment your opponent (or you) gets to buy two or even three Crow cards from the Tavern early on while the other player gets nothing, you basically can concede already. That‘s how broken Crow is. And this situation happens a lot and quite soon as those 4 coin cards are still way too powerful.

AnduinTryggva

This has been said in this thread and in many other threads. Also that the small nerfs are still insufficient. But we still have it as is.

I will continue to concede as soon as my opponent gets an unbeatable advantage. Unfortunately we still have the useless and stupid time penalty. I circumvent it by relogging to another toon. Which is dissatisfactory.

Northwold

I wonder if it wouldn't be appropriate to classify the patrons in terms of their ability to chain / do out of control combos. I'd say there are broadly four of the eight decks that, when you chain same-suit cards together, the combos can get rather stupidly out of control:

First and foremost Crows, but also Almalexia in the top group. And then druid, and Rajhin.

Maybe picking any one of those should lock out the availability of the others. Or maybe just the number of cards you can have in play at any one time should be capped. The latter because all these decks except Crow (the agent cards for which aren't all that) make things worse by having too many agent cards triggering quite powerful combos that can make them quickly unstoppable.

OR introduce a couple of cards in Treasury that allow you to kill one of the other player's cards and *remove it entirely from the game*.

Put it this way, when the decks are making it so that so many effects are happening it's almost impossible to play your hand within the turn time, something is really wrong.

EDIT: Another suggestion. At deck selection stage, give each player the option to veto one deck of their choice.

And get rid of the deserter penalty. Games with Crow by and large are utterly boring, whether you're on the winning or losing side, and not worth the waste of time in playing them.

Quelindor

Actually i think you can counter it by using Purring Liar patron power. Combine it with Hlaalu and get much coin you can get, then spend money every turn for Bewilderment. And try to use it twice by both Currency Exchange and card that give you bonus patron in a turn. Eventually you will spoil his deck order and crow will be useless. He would try to turn bewilderment cards to writs but it doesn't matter since you are pushing him adding more cards to his deck. Crow is useless if your deck have billion cards in it.
Also you can try to get key crow cards before him, then you can discard them by using hlaalu patron power.

Or you can just get st pelin and finish the game early by focusing collect power cards.

Seraphayel

Quelindor wrote: »

Actually i think you can counter it by using Purring Liar patron power. Combine it with Hlaalu and get much coin you can get, then spend money every turn for Bewilderment. And try to use it twice by both Currency Exchange and card that give you bonus patron in a turn. Eventually you will spoil his deck order and crow will be useless. He would try to turn bewilderment cards to writs but it doesn't matter since you are pushing him adding more cards to his deck. Crow is useless if your deck have billion cards in it.
Also you can try to get key crow cards before him, then you can discard them by using hlaalu patron power.

Or you can just get st pelin and finish the game early by focusing collect power cards.

This really doesn’t work. Crow cards do more than just give you the opportunity to draw additional cards, they’re quite cheap and chaining them is easy. Using Rahjin constantly locks you out of getting expensive cards and from using better patrons. Plus it takes way too long to be an effective counter measure. Almalexia is a better counter when you can confine the draw cards, but it takes too long, too.

AnduinTryggva

Druid, Pelin and Hlaalu could probably be a good approach in trying to win the power race. But it boils, as most strats and counter strats in ToT down to RNG, that is getting the right cards early on that allows thwarting the other guy's strat.

Seraphayel

I hate Crow. I just hate this patron. Each and every single time an opponent picks it, I’m already raging inside. It‘s such a broken and unfun way of playing ToT, it just enrages me. Those 4 coin cards do way too much for their costs. They should be 5 or better 6 coins instead.

AnduinTryggva

Seraphayel wrote: »

I hate Crow. I just hate this patron. Each and every single time an opponent picks it, I’m already raging inside. It‘s such a broken and unfun way of playing ToT, it just enrages me. Those 4 coin cards do way too much for their costs. They should be 5 or better 6 coins instead.

I still think that power gen should just be entirely removed from the cards. It is a cycling deck and power gen should come from other decks or patron activation.

Personofsecrets

AnduinTryggva wrote: »

Seraphayel wrote: »

I hate Crow. I just hate this patron. Each and every single time an opponent picks it, I’m already raging inside. It‘s such a broken and unfun way of playing ToT, it just enrages me. Those 4 coin cards do way too much for their costs. They should be 5 or better 6 coins instead.

I still think that power gen should just be entirely removed from the cards. It is a cycling deck and power gen should come from other decks or patron activation.

That is most likely why Crow has power generation. Otherwise players are cycling their decks and not doing anything meaningful. The cards having power generation at least causes the game to eventually end.

AnduinTryggva

I disagree here. Power gen comes thru patron from this deck. And there is a reason why you select a second patron. So you simply select a patron that gives you good power and you use crow for cycling to the power cards and generating gold for buying good power cards and at end game use patron for a final power push.

Personofsecrets

I also want to take time to review a recent game.

I was playing a dedicated Crow deck. I had received 2 Dreaming Cave, Plunder and Squawking Oratory.

The opponent was playing a dedicated Rajhiin deck. They had received a Dreaming Cave, MANY agents, Shadows Slumber, and Twilight Revelry.

The opponent had given me Bewilderment cards many times throughout the game. The tavern cycled several times during the game. Eventually, I was able to get the 2nd Squawking and the Pilfer. Eventually the opponent got the Jarring Lullaby.

My opponent was removing all of my prestige, making me discard 2 to 4 cards, gaining 15+ gold, and playing a field full of agents every single turn.

Two out of the 3 turns that I had discarded 4 of my 5 cards, I was still able to have a huge turn were I drew through most of my deck, put pressure onto the Tavern, and removed 15 to 20 health worth of Agents from the opponents board.

One of the turns where I discarded nearly my entire hand, I was still able to use Dreaming cave to set up an extremely powerful game shaping move on my following turn.

No other deck could even remotely fight through discarding 2 to 4 cards every turn, losing all of it's prestige many times, and having to deal with 15 to 20 power of agents again and again. All the while doing these above things came using card destruction cards to make the deck nearly free of Bewilderment cards despite the opponent having inserted a ton into the deck starting from their second or third turn of the game.

But Crow can do that. Crow did just that. I won that game in around 35 minutes of time. Many decks can do strong things and Crow shows such strength via it's card draw giving it both extreme burst power, gold generation, and resiliency to disruption. It does everything and most of the cards only cost 4 gold!

Necrotech_Master

Personofsecrets wrote: »

I also want to take time to review a recent game.

I was playing a dedicated Crow deck. I had received 2 Dreaming Cave, Plunder and Squawking Oratory.

The opponent was playing a dedicated Rajhiin deck. They had received a Dreaming Cave, MANY agents, Shadows Slumber, and Twilight Revelry.

The opponent had given me Bewilderment cards many times throughout the game. The tavern cycled several times during the game. Eventually, I was able to get the 2nd Squawking and the Pilfer. Eventually the opponent got the Jarring Lullaby.

My opponent was removing all of my prestige, making me discard 2 to 4 cards, gaining 15+ gold, and playing a field full of agents every single turn.

Two out of the 3 turns that I had discarded 4 of my 5 cards, I was still able to have a huge turn were I drew through most of my deck, put pressure onto the Tavern, and removed 15 to 20 health worth of Agents from the opponents board.

One of the turns where I discarded nearly my entire hand, I was still able to use Dreaming cave to set up an extremely powerful game shaping move on my following turn.

No other deck could even remotely fight through discarding 2 to 4 cards every turn, losing all of it's prestige many times, and having to deal with 15 to 20 power of agents again and again. All the while doing these above things came using card destruction cards to make the deck nearly free of Bewilderment cards despite the opponent having inserted a ton into the deck starting from their second or third turn of the game.

But Crow can do that. Crow did just that. I won that game in around 35 minutes of time. Many decks can do strong things and Crow shows such strength via it's card draw giving it both extreme burst power, gold generation, and resiliency to disruption. It does everything and most of the cards only cost 4 gold!

i have actually had a similar experience with the npc, though the npc certainly did not play it as effectually as you did lol

i was playing mostly rahjin and made the npc discard 4 cards, but because of i think a reach patron and either a dreaming cave or one of the crow draw cards or the tavern draw card, the npc ended up doing far more in that turn than i was expecting with only 1 card left in their hand (though certainly not enough to recover the position they were in)

drawing cards is one of the most powerful effects in the game

AnduinTryggva

Personofsecrets wrote: »

I also want to take time to review a recent game.

I was playing a dedicated Crow deck. I had received 2 Dreaming Cave, Plunder and Squawking Oratory.

The opponent was playing a dedicated Rajhiin deck. They had received a Dreaming Cave, MANY agents, Shadows Slumber, and Twilight Revelry.

The opponent had given me Bewilderment cards many times throughout the game. The tavern cycled several times during the game. Eventually, I was able to get the 2nd Squawking and the Pilfer. Eventually the opponent got the Jarring Lullaby.

My opponent was removing all of my prestige, making me discard 2 to 4 cards, gaining 15+ gold, and playing a field full of agents every single turn.

Two out of the 3 turns that I had discarded 4 of my 5 cards, I was still able to have a huge turn were I drew through most of my deck, put pressure onto the Tavern, and removed 15 to 20 health worth of Agents from the opponents board.

One of the turns where I discarded nearly my entire hand, I was still able to use Dreaming cave to set up an extremely powerful game shaping move on my following turn.

No other deck could even remotely fight through discarding 2 to 4 cards every turn, losing all of it's prestige many times, and having to deal with 15 to 20 power of agents again and again. All the while doing these above things came using card destruction cards to make the deck nearly free of Bewilderment cards despite the opponent having inserted a ton into the deck starting from their second or third turn of the game.

But Crow can do that. Crow did just that. I won that game in around 35 minutes of time. Many decks can do strong things and Crow shows such strength via it's card draw giving it both extreme burst power, gold generation, and resiliency to disruption. It does everything and most of the cards only cost 4 gold!

I think that Rhajin was conceived to counter Crow. So instead of fixing Crow they invented a deck that can be extremely destructive. Find the flaw in this approach

spartaxoxo

I personally think Crow counters Rahjiin, because what Rahjiin can accomplish gets pretty extreme and it's meant to be a powerful deck that you acquire later. Yeah, you can somewhat counter crow with Rahjiin because of bewilderment spam.

But, no other deck can counterplay Rahjiin at it's peak.

One of the turns where I discarded nearly my entire hand, I was still able to use Dreaming cave to set up an extremely powerful game shaping move on my following turn.

No other deck could even remotely fight through discarding 2 to 4 cards every turn, losing all of it's prestige many times, and having to deal with 15 to 20 power of agents again and again. All the while doing these above things came using card destruction cards to make the deck nearly free of Bewilderment cards despite the opponent having inserted a ton into the deck starting from their second or third turn of the game.

What was the four decks? It sounds like Rahjiin, Red Eagle, Psijic, and Crow.

And it sounds to me like it took using dreaming cove, red eagle, and crow to beat this opponent primarily using Rahjiin cards (and dragging the game out to 35 minutes). I would have to see the game, but this description sounds like it took good use of three decks to beat Rahjiin. And yet, the story seems to be shared to show that crow was the problem.

Personofsecrets

spartaxoxo wrote: »

I personally think Crow counters Rahjiin, because what Rahjiin can accomplish gets pretty extreme and it's meant to be a powerful deck that you acquire later. Yeah, you can somewhat counter crow with Rahjiin because of bewilderment spam.

But, no other deck can counterplay Rahjiin at it's peak.

One of the turns where I discarded nearly my entire hand, I was still able to use Dreaming cave to set up an extremely powerful game shaping move on my following turn.

No other deck could even remotely fight through discarding 2 to 4 cards every turn, losing all of it's prestige many times, and having to deal with 15 to 20 power of agents again and again. All the while doing these above things came using card destruction cards to make the deck nearly free of Bewilderment cards despite the opponent having inserted a ton into the deck starting from their second or third turn of the game.

What was the four decks? It sounds like Rahjiin, Red Eagle, Psijic, and Crow.

And it sounds to me like it took using dreaming cove, red eagle, and crow to beat this opponent primarily using Rahjiin cards (and dragging the game out to 35 minutes). I would have to see the game, but this description sounds like it took good use of three decks to beat Rahjiin. And yet, the story seems to be shared to show that crow was the problem.

Regarding Red Eagle, which was in play, it was as much of a problem deck for me as it was my opponent. My opponent had thinned their deck, used their own Dreaming Cave, and gotten so many Agents that they were able to use Combo 4 of Twilight Revelry every turn. Yes, a dedicated crow deck being able to overcome this type of wall shows how overly powerful crow can be. In this case Crow countered Rahjiin, but it can go either way depending on what cards the players get and what they chose to do with them. My perspective is that it doesn't really matter if there are "counters" to specific gameplay. I care more about if there are individual cards that do too much on their own and enable a degenerate type of play were games are decided based more on the merits of the cards rather than the merits of the user of the cards.

spartaxoxo

Personofsecrets wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

I personally think Crow counters Rahjiin, because what Rahjiin can accomplish gets pretty extreme and it's meant to be a powerful deck that you acquire later. Yeah, you can somewhat counter crow with Rahjiin because of bewilderment spam.

But, no other deck can counterplay Rahjiin at it's peak.

One of the turns where I discarded nearly my entire hand, I was still able to use Dreaming cave to set up an extremely powerful game shaping move on my following turn.

No other deck could even remotely fight through discarding 2 to 4 cards every turn, losing all of it's prestige many times, and having to deal with 15 to 20 power of agents again and again. All the while doing these above things came using card destruction cards to make the deck nearly free of Bewilderment cards despite the opponent having inserted a ton into the deck starting from their second or third turn of the game.

What was the four decks? It sounds like Rahjiin, Red Eagle, Psijic, and Crow.

And it sounds to me like it took using dreaming cove, red eagle, and crow to beat this opponent primarily using Rahjiin cards (and dragging the game out to 35 minutes). I would have to see the game, but this description sounds like it took good use of three decks to beat Rahjiin. And yet, the story seems to be shared to show that crow was the problem.

Regarding Red Eagle, which was in play, it was as much of a problem deck for me as it was my opponent. My opponent had thinned their deck, used their own Dreaming Cave, and gotten so many Agents that they were able to use Combo 4 of Twilight Revelry every turn. Yes, a dedicated crow deck being able to overcome this type of wall shows how overly powerful crow can be. In this case Crow countered Rahjiin, but it can go either way depending on what cards the players get and what they chose to do with them. My perspective is that it doesn't really matter if there are "counters" to specific gameplay. I care more about if there are individual cards that do too much on their own and enable a degenerate type of play were games are decided based more on the merits of the cards rather than the merits of the user of the cards.

But the cards that were doing too much on their own were the Rahjiin cards. It took 35 minutes and 3 decks to overcome just playing orange. Red Eagle, as well, because it was crucial to both of your strategies. It allowed the combos you talk about because it got rid of the bewilderments and it also allowed for that person to get more out of twilight revelry than they should have.

Cards doing too much on their own, is in part, defined by their ability to be counterplayed. The crow deck for example, you can rush it down or use agents to soak up the power it generates since it doesn't generate a lot of power on its own unless there's a huge combo. A combo isn't down to the power of one card, but inherently, down to the power of a lot of different cards being played at once. That each card in crow does not do too much, and it's only in combo that it becomes overwhelming, allows for counter play strategies to enter the picture. Things like breaking combos with bewilderment, rushing them down before it's possible to build combo chains, turning their strategy against them by buying up card pruning cards while they focus on drawing cards, etc. Counterplay is what allows for tactics and strategy. Counterplay is what allows the merits of the user to overcome the merits of the cards.

I don't consider that description to be an example of crow being too powerful. I see the big problem in that story being Rahjiin being so overwhelming that it narrowed the possible counterplay to a single deck, and even that deck only worked because of two other decks helping to setup its combos. This new information just makes me see Red Eagle as also needing a nerf because it allows for the removal of filler cards that made both Rahjiin and Crow more reasonable to play against. It frankly does that to every deck it touches.

Seraphayel

You played a very unlucky Rahjiin match, that’s all. That deck needs way too many turns to be effective (like Almalexia) and that your match was taking half an hour is just proof of that. In over 100 Rubedite ranked matches I did not have a match taking over 20 minutes, let alone 30.

Crow can generate an advantage within the first five rounds you’re not able to overcome , depending on tavern RNG. All you need to get is two to three 4 coin cards and that deck already gets so much steam that you’re only playing catch up. With each additional Crow card the opponent gets your situation only gets worse and you can do less to counter it, especially with slower decks.

Your only option is to try to generate more power with decks like Pelin or Hunding, but it will still be a tough task to outplay your opponent when he’s able to constantly draw additional cards. Rahjiin in general is just way too slow to stop Crow from doing what it does.

Personofsecrets

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Personofsecrets wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

I personally think Crow counters Rahjiin, because what Rahjiin can accomplish gets pretty extreme and it's meant to be a powerful deck that you acquire later. Yeah, you can somewhat counter crow with Rahjiin because of bewilderment spam.

But, no other deck can counterplay Rahjiin at it's peak.

One of the turns where I discarded nearly my entire hand, I was still able to use Dreaming cave to set up an extremely powerful game shaping move on my following turn.

No other deck could even remotely fight through discarding 2 to 4 cards every turn, losing all of it's prestige many times, and having to deal with 15 to 20 power of agents again and again. All the while doing these above things came using card destruction cards to make the deck nearly free of Bewilderment cards despite the opponent having inserted a ton into the deck starting from their second or third turn of the game.

What was the four decks? It sounds like Rahjiin, Red Eagle, Psijic, and Crow.

And it sounds to me like it took using dreaming cove, red eagle, and crow to beat this opponent primarily using Rahjiin cards (and dragging the game out to 35 minutes). I would have to see the game, but this description sounds like it took good use of three decks to beat Rahjiin. And yet, the story seems to be shared to show that crow was the problem.

Regarding Red Eagle, which was in play, it was as much of a problem deck for me as it was my opponent. My opponent had thinned their deck, used their own Dreaming Cave, and gotten so many Agents that they were able to use Combo 4 of Twilight Revelry every turn. Yes, a dedicated crow deck being able to overcome this type of wall shows how overly powerful crow can be. In this case Crow countered Rahjiin, but it can go either way depending on what cards the players get and what they chose to do with them. My perspective is that it doesn't really matter if there are "counters" to specific gameplay. I care more about if there are individual cards that do too much on their own and enable a degenerate type of play were games are decided based more on the merits of the cards rather than the merits of the user of the cards.

But the cards that were doing too much on their own were the Rahjiin cards. It took 35 minutes and 3 decks to overcome just playing orange. Red Eagle, as well, because it was crucial to both of your strategies. It allowed the combos you talk about because it got rid of the bewilderments and it also allowed for that person to get more out of twilight revelry than they should have.

Cards doing too much on their own, is in part, defined by their ability to be counterplayed. The crow deck for example, you can rush it down or use agents to soak up the power it generates since it doesn't generate a lot of power on its own unless there's a huge combo. A combo isn't down to the power of one card, but inherently, down to the power of a lot of different cards being played at once. That each card in crow does not do too much, and it's only in combo that it becomes overwhelming, allows for counter play strategies to enter the picture. Things like breaking combos with bewilderment, rushing them down before it's possible to build combo chains, turning their strategy against them by buying up card pruning cards while they focus on drawing cards, etc. Counterplay is what allows for tactics and strategy. Counterplay is what allows the merits of the user to overcome the merits of the cards.

I don't consider that description to be an example of crow being too powerful. I see the big problem in that story being Rahjiin being so overwhelming that it narrowed the possible counterplay to a single deck, and even that deck only worked because of two other decks helping to setup its combos. This new information just makes me see Red Eagle as also needing a nerf because it allows for the removal of filler cards that made both Rahjiin and Crow more reasonable to play against. It frankly does that to every deck it touches.

Substitute the cards from every other deck in for the crow cards and no combination will ever play out of discarding 2 to 4 cards per turn for what must have been 10 or more turns.

No combination of Pellin cards will play out of a discard 4 cards and deal 15 damage to agents turn
No combination of Delmene cards will play out of a discard 4 cards and deal 15 damage to agents turn
No combination of Celarus cards will play out of a discard 4 cards and deal 15 damage to agents turn
No combination of Ansei cards will play out of a discard 4 cards and deal 15 damage to agents turn
No combination of Red Eagle cards will play out of a discard 4 cards and deal 15 damage to agents turn
No combination of Orgnum cards will play out of a discard 4 cards and deal 15 damage to agents turn
No combination of Rajhin cards will play out of a discard 4 cards and deal 15 damage to agents turn
No combination of Druid cards will play out of a discard 4 cards and deal 15 damage to agents turn
No combination of Almalexia cards will play out of a discard 4 cards and deal 15 damage to agents turn

I list all of those out so that we can think of the powerful things that each deck is capable of.

A combination of Crow cards can and did play out of a discard 4 cards and deal 15 damage to agents turn multiple times

Crow is therefore the nail that sticks out. And if Crow isn't that powerful, but Rajhin playing at it's maximum couldn't beat Crow, then your statement of Rajhin being overwhelming is negated. In this case it obviously wasn't overwhelming enough. Did the Rajhin cards do a lot on their own as you point out? Yes, but obviously they didn't do nearly as much as the crow cards were doing evident by the result. Finally, the game is even a somewhat rarity because strong Rajhin piles don't happen that often, but strong Crow piles happen in every game where someone starts buying crow.

And this end game scenario isn't the only place where Crow shines. TOT is about escaping the early game as fast as possible and few cards compete with a Toll of Flesh or Silver. I've taken the non-crow card such as Prophecy a number of times and way more often than not, not taking the Crow cards becomes a regret. The major counter play to Crow is to try and be the person that ends up with more Crow cards. How telling!

There are other outliers in the game that allow certain unbalanced things to happen at certain points of the game. Obviously those can be addressed too. Red Eagle spam may not make ridiculous turns like what Crow can accomplish, but Red Eagle can easily create decks with a sufficiently strong power level and winning without much strategy other than destroying the coins every turn.

spartaxoxo

Personofsecrets wrote: »

Crow is therefore the nail that sticks out. And if Crow isn't that powerful, but Rajhin playing at it's maximum couldn't beat Crow, then your statement of Rajhin being overwhelming is negated. In this case it obviously wasn't overwhelming enough.

Rahjiin is the deck that makes opponents discard cards, for the most part.

Rahjiin was not beaten by crow. It was built by a crow setup to do combos using 2 other decks (red eagle and psijic). Needing 3 decks to beat one deck does not indicate that any of 3 decks are the problem.

I list all of those out so that we can think of the powerful things that each deck is capable of.

No. Because those statements don't tell what the other decks are capable of. Each deck has it's a own unique thing. No other deck draws as much as crow. But, what sounds more impactful.

No other deck has as many taunts as Pelin?

Or

Crow doesn't have as many taunts as Pelin
Rahjiin doesn't have as many taunts as Pelin
Druid doesn't have as many taunts as Pelin
Almalexia doesn't have as many taunts as Pelin

Etc. Etc. The repetition makes the unique feature seem more powerful. But every deck is unique and has something they offer that makes them standout compared to the other decks.

What determines whether or not something is too powerful is counterplay and power budget.

The major counter play to Crow is to try and be the person that ends up with more Crow cards.

No. The major counterplay against crow is to rush power before the deck gets a chance to burst an opponent down. This can be accomplished in a variety of ways by a variety of decks.

Seraphayel

spartaxoxo wrote: »

No. The major counterplay against crow is to rush power before the deck gets a chance to burst an opponent down. This can be accomplished in a variety of ways by a variety of decks.

This can be accomplished by one and a half decks and that’s about it. And I say one and a half because Hunding is only half as good as Pelin when it comes to doing that in the early game. These two decks can generate power easily (Pelin can do so early on quite good) and therefore win the race against Crow, but other decks cannot. And overall Crow combos are way stronger than Pelin ones.

So yes, the best way to beat Crow is to play Crow because in no scenario should you allow your opponent to buy multiple (cheap) Crow cards. Even if you don’t use them, you must remove them from the opponent one way or another. Letting your opponent stack up on 4 coin Crow cards eventually leads to your own demise.

spartaxoxo

Seraphayel wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

No. The major counterplay against crow is to rush power before the deck gets a chance to burst an opponent down. This can be accomplished in a variety of ways by a variety of decks.

This can be accomplished by one and a half decks and that’s about it. And I say one and a half because Hunding is only half as good as Pelin when it comes to doing that in the early game. These two decks can generate power easily (Pelin can do so early on quite good) and therefore win the race against Crow, but other decks cannot. And overall Crow combos are way stronger than Pelin ones.

So yes, the best way to beat Crow is to play Crow because in no scenario should you allow your opponent to buy multiple (cheap) Crow cards. Even if you don’t use them, you must remove them from the opponent one way or another. Letting your opponent stack up on 4 coin Crow cards eventually leads to your own demise.

I've had more success with Hunding than Pelin because the opponent can't use taunts to slow me down, and I can keep putting the power cards back to the top of my deck.

I can also use Psijic to do it with only a small amount of power cards thanks to deck cycling (Psijic is also good at playing the use crow against them game). But, Psijic requires another deck.

I don't play much Orgnum but if I did, I could probably figure out how to do it with that deck as well.

Druid King is also good, albeit not with that strategy, against crow.