I don't have much experience with the "other" decks, only when I get smeared by players that have them. That said, I find the lack of "neutral" to be a negative.

Also, the initial intro to the rules, which tells us they all have "favored" "neutral" and "unfavored" LIES

In short: No.

To further elaborate: There's only one patron that doesn't have a Neutral state currently, one out of eight (and soon to be nine) patrons is a fairly small number. In a game where you can select your patrons, it becomes even less of an issue - don't like that Ansei doesn't have a neutral state? Don't pick it.

Alternative victory condition via favours from patrons adds extra layer of strategy and if your opponent already has favours of 2-3 patrons and you're then worried that he can take the victory by a single turn of Ansei's dial then you lost not because of Ansei not having neutral state, but because you let your opponent get a huge lead on patron favours in the first place.

Keeping track of tributes to patrons is part of the depth that the game has over other duel deck builders, it's a perfectly valid strategy to try and turn all the dials towards you rather than go for raw prestige, just like it's a perfectly valid strategy to choose Celarus as one of the patrons in the game and then never purchase an agent to block the opponent from reaching the alternative victory condition.

spartaxoxo wrote: »

I think Ansei should have a neutral condition. You don't get to just not pick it, because your opponent also decides a deck. While going for patron victories is totally viable, it should be a bit more work than just a tithe+currency exchange to force an opponent to use a patron imo.

Yes, your opponent decides the decks as well, but if you're worried about it - pick Celarus then and block the opponent from achieving a patron victory (at the cost of not having any agents up, but between Delmene, Clearus and Ansei you already have fairly weak agent choices).

And again, it's a deck builder with a standard common trade/tavern/whatever deck - your strategies aren't set in stone at the start of the game and you have just as good odds of going for a tithe/CE-powered tribute victory as does your opponent. The tricky part is knowing when to go for a patron instead of purchasing a card, etc.

Plus, the way Ansei works currently - adding a neutral state would be a nerf to already fairly weak patron whose powers fall off in endgame. Fighting an early Ansei lead would also "punish" you by not giving you anything considerable in return for turning it away from the opponent.

I know how to play Tribute. I'm consistently in Rubedite, and I speed run to it each time. Tribute being a deck builder doesn't make every deck balanced. A deck picked 4th is not able to be counter picked. Every deck should be balanced within the context of the broader game and not rely only on having certain decks present as a counter pick. That's not how the game works. You cannot guarantee that any deck is always present against another deck unless you pick that deck every time you play. And if you need to pick a deck everytime you play 2nd just to counter that one other deck your opponent might play, then that deck is busted. Not that I think that this is necessary for Ansei, but it's not a good point in favor of the patron remaining the same.

Each deck has it's strengths and it's weaknesses, generally putting strong emphasis on a particular method of winning. Hlallu can patron swing hard but generates little power. Orgnum generates a massive amount of prestige and power, but the person who is using is severely limited in their ability to obtain cards from the tavern. Red Eagle generates basically no coin. Crow Patron can only be used once and relies very heavily on combos, forcing into a high risk and reward deck. Each deck has a varying level of balance as well.

Ansei generates a lot of power, gets around coin generation by allowing a lot of free picks, has a patron that can easily be swung to favored and generate 1 extra coin, and easily keeps combos going. Ansei's limitation is supposed to be its patron, and in some ways it is because the patron only generates 1 coin, which is significantly weaker than other patron powers. The only thing that keeps Ansei's patron from being the true liability that it should be is it's lack of a neutral state. I think it would be better balanced if it had that.

In the end, I think there are bigger balance issues like Orgnum's Patron, Currency Exchange, etc. But, I do think it should have a neutral state.

Morimizo wrote: »

As long as flipping the patron to neutral still has some value; for instance, one coin can still be generated on the turn it is flipped, but the player only gets the extra coin at the start of the next turn when favored. Without this alteration, I'm not sure that 4 power and 2 turns for one coin is a good value. As silly as the fight over Ansei can be during a match sometimes, I would be wary of nerfing it.

I like that idea. That makes it so the Patron isn't useless when Neutral.