St. Alessia: Pelinal Whitestrake/Whitestrake Ascendant and Morihaus Are Ridiculous

El_Borracho

The deck as a whole feels unfinished and miserable to play against, but these 4 cards are flat out awful. I can't understand why they are not contract actions, or even contract agents, but regular agents that can reappear after being knocked out. And not just reappear, but reappear often thanks to other cards in the St. Alessia deck or if you pair it with Pelin. They are so overpowered it makes the game a joke.

Seraphayel

What exactly do you mean when you say they are overpowered? I played about 30-40 ranked matches with Alessia and I don’t find them too strong. They just add to the entire concept of the deck. Morihaus is a great counter if you have many agents set up and your opponent is going to sweep them away as it can easily give you half a dozen coin, but that’s exactly what the entire deck is about.

I don’t find any of them overpowered, overall I think the deck itself is rather underwhelming and lackluster. And what do you mean reappear after they’ve been knocked out? Because they’re regular cards? Why should they be contract agents in your opinion?

El_Borracho

The problem I have with it is you have an agent that you can use to eliminate 1-2 agents, depending on the card, at will, as long as the agent is active. Compared to Rahjin, where you either have to combo Pounce/Larceny or use Lullaby/Slumber to knock out the same number of agents, and as they are action cards, you are subject to the shuffle. It plays back into the RNG problem where the first person who gets it is in a very strong position until the opponent gets one to counter. Then you add in the part where you can rez it into your hand again and continue to use it.

I get where there needs to be a counter to a deck that has multiple agents and is agent-reliant on utility, But to give an agent the ability to knock out other agents, and not make that a contract agent, is too much in my opinion.

I do agree that the deck is lackluster, but I also find it to be annoying to play and a play against.

Largomets

Yeah, this deck is really poorly designed and very imbalanced. There are no redeeming qualities to good players who want a skilled game.

Player 1 has an absolutely MONSTEROUS advantage with this deck, because if they turn the dial turn one, they get an agent. If their opponent turns the dial on turn 2, they only get power. So I can build my deck as player 1 without actually buying anything, AND block player 2 from being able to buy anything. Conversely, player 2 can buy something from the tavern instead of turning the dial, but now player 1 just gets 2 agents. So the only way player 2 can win a game with alessia in play is if there is good tavern RNG for them, and/or they get Saint's Wrath.

So basically the game is nonsense cheese worse than even Orgnum was when the game came out, where going first or second has a massively disproportionate effect on if you will win.

BUT, if I play well as player 2 and get a good deck going, I still will have a REALLY boring/long/slow game because the alessia deck is TEDIOUS. It's not tedious in a good way (like rahjin, which can be tedious but in a way that requires skill and lets you combat the RNG spam decks like crow/druid/mora) and it doesn't add value, it's just boring.

So best case scenario as player 2 you have a long boring game, and worst case you lose because you didn't stand a chance simply for going second.

Great job ZOS.

sayswhoto

It seems much of the strategic component of St. Alessia is dependent on what's available in the tavern. Otherwise, it's whoever was able to control the patron first. I like how the deck has a new playstyle, but the implementation of it feels very off.

Compared to Rahjin, which can also trend toward longer games, it's noticeable how Rahjin strategies play out more organically, in the sense that they are more seamlessly integrated to ToT. It could be that this deck was released earlier and, therefore, had more time to develop interactions with other decks. However, with the distinct playstyle of St. Alessia this might not happen.

Example:

I won't write too much, and I think most people are already familiar with Rahjin. Here are just some of deck interactions:

Psijic to counter Rahjin: Cycle to counter Bewilderment. Also, cycle in itself has a bit of detail for optimal use.
Rahjin + Pelin: Dilute your opponent deck while picking up power generators. Even if both decks are diluted you need to skew the odds in your favor to reach 40 prestige. This makes even "weak" Pelin cards valuable.
Orgnum to soft counter Rahjin: Bewilderment adds to the number of cards for the Orgnum patron power.
Rahjin + Red Eagle/Mora: This combination has the most deck thinning cards.

For St. Alessia, I can only see two significant deck interactions so far:

Alessia + Druid: Agent synergy.
Alessia + Hlaalu: Hlaalu speeds up the slow pretige generation of Alessia and you can get rid of some of the weaker agents as the game progresses.

Last comparison is that Rahjin spam effectiveness depends on the criteria of strong economy cards to support losing 3 gold every turn to the patron power and the number of power/prestige generators available. This requires some judgement call between the deck composition of both players. Alessia patron spam basically only depends on if better cards are available in the tavern, which is a common criteria for all decks. The 2 power from the unfavored status can be a strategic consideration in certain situations since Alessia generates prestige slowly for large portions of the game.

kmfdm

Largomets wrote: »

Yeah, this deck is really poorly designed and very imbalanced. There are no redeeming qualities to good players who want a skilled game.

Player 1 has an absolutely MONSTEROUS advantage with this deck, because if they turn the dial turn one, they get an agent. If their opponent turns the dial on turn 2, they only get power. So I can build my deck as player 1 without actually buying anything, AND block player 2 from being able to buy anything. Conversely, player 2 can buy something from the tavern instead of turning the dial, but now player 1 just gets 2 agents. So the only way player 2 can win a game with alessia in play is if there is good tavern RNG for them, and/or they get Saint's Wrath.

...

Alessia immediately becomes my priority Patron because I think it is clever and much less luck-dependand than other Patrons. Many people think similarly to what you mentioned and that is that they need to spam Alessia. My stats so far with Alessia - from 124 games, (101W-23L - 81.5% winning rate), which is higher than my long-term average win rate (which is at 77%).

Here’s my perspective on the Patron: If you start the game and spam Alessia in the first two rounds, in round 3, you end up with a 12-card deck containing zero, one, or two quite useless +1P cards, one even more useless +1G Agent, one +3G/+2P card, and one +2G/+1P card. Meanwhile, your opponent has only a 10-card deck, free of useless +1P cards. The 0-gold agent is likely gone from their deck as well, and they have two +2G cards (plus any other potential cards from the market that you may have ignored). Even if the market offers no valuable options, in round 3, the chances are fairly equal for you and the opponent. However, if you continue spamming Alessia’s ability in later rounds, your opponent only needs to use it occasionally to kill your Agents, while you keep filling your deck with weak end-game cards, and their leaner deck might give them a better position for the end-game. This isn't black and white situation - whether and how much you should use it depends heavily on the market and other factors, but from my experience, when my opponents played first and spammed Alessia, they have lost almost everytime.

El_Borracho

But the issue with St. Alessia is the same, the agent-destroying agents and RNG. If you can get one of those agents, you have a huge advantage as its going to be very tough for your opponent to amass the agents necessary to make the deck work, or any other agent-heavy deck (Druid, Almalexia).

@Largomets pointed out the other problem of the patron spam. If you let it go, your opponent is getting 3 coin/2 power agents for 4 coin. While I agree that if there is something better in the tavern, you should grab it, you could start the game as Player 2 by cashing a card and getting a 2/1 agent in round one. If you let it go, it turns into a 3/2 agent. At that point, Player 1 is playing from behind unless they can get a Pounce/Larceny, or Customs Seizure, or similar cards to make up the coin gap.

The real problem with the patron spam is early on, Player 1 can not thin their deck and counter the agent spam. He has to amass enough coin cards in the hopes of later countering the agent onslaught or pray they get Saint's Wrath. 2 power isn't going to overcome the 2/1 agent Player 2 will get the next turn, let alone the 3/2 agents if you let it go. The only way to flip the agent spam in Player 1's favor is with Tithe and enough coin to do it. So the strategy of cutting your deck down as Player 1 is not really an option. Plus, Player 2 is cutting their deck with the agent spam because the agents are effectively removed from the deck each time they are played, but since they are agents their benefit remains, making it easier for Player 2 to further trim their deck and amass coin or power, which means they will likely be in the position to buy one of these 5/7 coin agents. The only card that can really save Player 1 from this cycle is Saint's Wrath, which means Player 1 is again subject to RNG. And heaven help Player 1 if Player 2 can grab that and recycle their cooldown.

Short story long, if my opponent chooses Alessia, I'm choosing Mora. I'll put that RNG up against Alessia's RNG and see which wins. Its not agent-reliant and forces the Alessia patron spammer to make decisions instead of forcing me to counter their spamming.

There are cards in the deck I really like, with Saint's Wrath and the other "nuclear option" destroy all agents cards. Those force players to make strategic decisions and prevent agent runaway games. But the current setup favors Player 2 way too much

Seraphayel

kmfdm wrote: »

Largomets wrote: »

Yeah, this deck is really poorly designed and very imbalanced. There are no redeeming qualities to good players who want a skilled game.

Player 1 has an absolutely MONSTEROUS advantage with this deck, because if they turn the dial turn one, they get an agent. If their opponent turns the dial on turn 2, they only get power. So I can build my deck as player 1 without actually buying anything, AND block player 2 from being able to buy anything. Conversely, player 2 can buy something from the tavern instead of turning the dial, but now player 1 just gets 2 agents. So the only way player 2 can win a game with alessia in play is if there is good tavern RNG for them, and/or they get Saint's Wrath.

...

Alessia immediately becomes my priority Patron because I think it is clever and much less luck-dependand than other Patrons. Many people think similarly to what you mentioned and that is that they need to spam Alessia. My stats so far with Alessia - from 124 games, (101W-23L - 81.5% winning rate), which is higher than my long-term average win rate (which is at 77%).

Here’s my perspective on the Patron: If you start the game and spam Alessia in the first two rounds, in round 3, you end up with a 12-card deck containing zero, one, or two quite useless +1P cards, one even more useless +1G Agent, one +3G/+2P card, and one +2G/+1P card. Meanwhile, your opponent has only a 10-card deck, free of useless +1P cards. The 0-gold agent is likely gone from their deck as well, and they have two +2G cards (plus any other potential cards from the market that you may have ignored). Even if the market offers no valuable options, in round 3, the chances are fairly equal for you and the opponent. However, if you continue spamming Alessia’s ability in later rounds, your opponent only needs to use it occasionally to kill your Agents, while you keep filling your deck with weak end-game cards, and their leaner deck might give them a better position for the end-game. This isn't black and white situation - whether and how much you should use it depends heavily on the market and other factors, but from my experience, when my opponents played first and spammed Alessia, they have lost almost everytime.

This. Spamming Alessia only works when the tavern offers poor options. Spamming Alessia alone won't win any game especially with how easy it is to kill of Alessia agents.

The thing everybody saying spamming Alessia is too strong is forgetting is that you're filling your deck while retaining worthless 1 Coin cards. If you don't use Psijic to accordingly sort your deck, many rounds will be wasted with useless Coin cards.