Almalexia should have been 2 decks, that is why it is broken

RCubed1967 · July 2023

Consider the following table, which considers all actions in cards and patrons.

Most decks offer only one major strategy. Some decks have two but have drawbacks. Crows amass huge gold and draw a ton of cards, yet you cannot use the patron again once if favours you. Rajhim can break prestige and dilute the opponent with bewilderment yet he collects no power or prestige. Sorcerers can generate prestige and create their own cards, yet their patron can be offset cheaply. Hlaalu's sacrifice removes the card from being used again.

Almalexia has four win conditions and no major drawbacks. Two are card cycling with donate (forward) or hand refresh (backward). The other two affect the opponent by discarding specific cards or confining them). The deck also collects gold, power and prestige.

The request to put taunt on the deck is not enough. Almalexia should have been two decks. The first should be based on its unique card cycling, while the second should be the opponent effects (with either taunt or limited card holds on the confines).

The deck is way too overpowered and requires immediate changes. It should be banned from rank play until the fix is in play.

I personally will not use this deck until it is fixed. I feel it is unsportsmanlike to use it without proper balancing.

ZOS - please balance decks better in the future. This is as bad as your ranking system.

IncultaWolf · July 2023

Crow is arguably still broken as well, it forces you to play rng who can get the most purple cards first even after the nerfs, you cannot leave crow cards in the tavern or you lose against someone who picked that deck. I've lost and won so many matches simply because I had more purple cards than my opponent. This could be fixed by having crow generate less power through combos.

spartaxoxo · July 2023

How are you defining major and minor? Because I would say taunt is definitely a major feature of Pelin. I also wouldn't consider hand refresh a major feature of Almalexia. But, maybe I haven't played against it enough. The donate/discard and confine seem to be the major features of Almalexia. At least from the matches that I have played. Hand refresh is nice but hasn't been the difference maker yet, certainly not a "win condition" level card thus far that I have seen.

rbfrgsp · July 2023

Almalexia power generation does not move beyond starter cards (IE: 1 power) until you build combos. It is on par with psijic, and below Hlaalu in terms of power / prestige gen. It's a multipurpose support deck, but it is still a support deck.

That's your balance.

I'd suggest use it more, don't ignore it. I personally think it is the most balanced add-on deck so far.

Druid is most OP, then Crow.

Seraphayel · July 2023

I agree that Almalexia does too much at the same time and can be incredibly nasty if your supporting deck gets you the cards you need. As soon as you have a taunt ready (through Pelin) and start stealing cards, the enemy is basically done unless he has a lot of luck. The thing is, higher level taunts are hard to kill with various decks and with Pelin‘s patron ability you can easily resummon your taunt for the next round. It just becomes unfair when you were lucky enough to draw the right cards early on.

This can happen for other decks as well, but none of them plays as nasty as Almalexia when its gotten momentum. If you start stealing or discarding an enemie‘s power cards, your agents / taunts become even harder to kill. Everything just gets worse with each round for your opponent.

If you’re nerfing Almalexia‘s patron ability, you destroy one integral part of the deck. If you make all the agents taunts, it‘s the same problem because you would never get that deck going when the agents are killed each round. I don’t have an easy fix for this deck, but in the right hands it’s absolutely powerful, moreso than any other deck in my opinion (I haven’t played once against someone with Orgnum, maybe nobody has that deck or likes it; I’m rank 20 on PS EU at the moment, so I have played quite some matches in the last two weeks). Almalexia is picked rarely, too, though.

rbfrgsp · July 2023

Good points. Almost every player from launch day has said the confiscate cards need taunt on them.

I don't believe that adding a taunt to them makes those cards instantly worthless. Taunt is, after all, a positive attribute in 90% of situations.

It may also help players to think more creatively in how they use and deploy their agents/contracts. Can you bait your opponent into killing off your confiscate agent because, in reality, you are attempting to generate a chimera and you need your druid agents to stay up for one more turn? That type of thing.

Still think confiscators must get that taunt next patch, though.

RCubed1967 · July 2023

@IncultaWolf - Alamexia is almost as good as Crows on card cycling. Combined with Crows, it is insane. That said, crows on their own can be beaten, and I often ignore the cards. It is highly dependent on what is offered on the board, what you already have and what your opponent has. The crows' cycling is mitigated by not being able to use the patron if it is already favouring you.

@spartaxoxo - it is subjective for sure. Pelin taunt is huge, and I almost put it as a major...but the winning strategy is more about the power aspects. The taunt slows down the opponent, but the power is what wins the game. Definitely a toss-up on whether taunt is a major or not.

@rbfrgsp - I agree fully with @Seraphayel assessment. When I talk about balancing, I mean relative to all other decks. Almalexia is too much comparatively. If we talk about Almalexia only, it is unquestionably a nice balance of offence and defence, but, again, it has to be balanced between all decks. I agree that taunt needs to be on confiscate immediately...but there may also need to be a limit on the number of cards each confiscate can hold.

@Seraphayel - I think breaking Almalexia into two decks would be the best. Call one a card cycling deck, which the donate, hand refresh, and current patron. The second one is based on the current confine (with taunt and limits) and discard functions, as well as a new patron of some type.

spartaxoxo · July 2023

it is subjective for sure. Pelin taunt is huge, and I almost put it as a major...but the winning strategy is more about the power aspects. The taunt slows down the opponent, but the power is what wins the game. Definitely a toss-up on whether taunt is a major or not.

I have most certainly used taunts to win the game, when my opponent had superior power generation. That's because I have put them in positions with the taunts that they can't really win. I think the taunts are similar to the bewilderment in that way, where your win condition is moreso making it so the opponent can't win.

But I digress as this isn't about Pelin.

I worry that putting a taunt on the confine agents would make them fairly useless, especially the contract ones. Perhaps if they instead had a different limit than until the card was destroyed. Or there was a limit to how many cards can be confined.

I played an opponent using both this deck and Rahjiin, and let me tell you, I genuinely couldn't do anything. I ended up quitting that game in frustration because any tactics I tried got immediately broken and then confiscated.

Personofsecrets · July 2023

Almalexia is definitely too busy.

Seraphayel · July 2023

Maybe just make the confine limited for two to three rounds? So an enemy gets the confined cards back at the end of his second turn after the card was confined.

I think this already would solve some issues with confine + taunts and that way there is no need to give the agents taunts.

So you wouldn’t completely break an enemy, but stagger him enough to take an advantage out of it.

rbfrgsp · July 2023

Some of the powers on the chart have been overstated, regardless of whether they are subjective or not:

Lexi opponent discards (chosen) is listed as major. Red eagle draw is listed as minor. Both activate the same way: once per turn, as patron action.

Lexi refresh (to hand) is listed as major; Psijic draw listed as minor. Both decks have a single card (appearing twice) that performs these actions.

On the other hand, you have missed that Almalexia does have a taunt agent.

RCubed1967 · July 2023

One final thought on this for future deck designs.

ToT uses four decks. In the table above, Almalexia offers four great win strategies that balance amazing card cycling and mitigation. That makes it unbalanced relative to other decks.

If the ZOS people really want to make single patrons with multiple-win strategies, each of those win strategies should be okay...not amazing.

No deck should be a one-shop stop in a four-deck build while you go game. No deck should ever be overpowered in two types of win conditions.

rbfrgsp · July 2023

Stood alone, Almalexia only has the one win strategy: put Philanthropy into play and then cycle your deck continually.

You might argue that you could technically force patron wins because the taunt agents have +1 patron move, but I have personally never seen that happen in a game. (Unlike Hlaalu's Currency Exchange, Sentinal/Mercymother has no additional resource generation built into it. So you can generate multiple patron moves in a turn, but it's much less likely you'll be able to activate them all).

Confine doesn't build a win; it slows an opponent's win.

And I have seen inexperienced players cycle cards until the time runs out on multiple turns, and at the end they have only a few gold and one power. So discard is not a standalone win strat, either.

For me, it is the most expertly balanced deck in the whole game. Druid is most OP, then Crow.

RCubed1967 · July 2023

@ZOS_Kevin - I suggest you put in a poll.

Make it simple: "Should Almalexia be changed in any way?"

Thanks

NoSoup · July 2023

rbfrgsp wrote: »

Almalexia power generation does not move beyond starter cards (IE: 1 power) until you build combos. It is on par with psijic, and below Hlaalu in terms of power / prestige gen. It's a multipurpose support deck, but it is still a support deck.

That's your balance.

I'd suggest use it more, don't ignore it. I personally think it is the most balanced add-on deck so far.

Druid is most OP, then Crow.

100% Agree. Druid is the most OP. Problem is 95% of players don't know how to use it. The most powerful card has a cost of 2 and when paired with the Psijic Deck its fairly easy to get 30+ points in one hand.

bongtokin420insd16 · July 2023

If you are going to put a taunt or a limit on the Confiscate cards, then lets allow them to be pulled from an opponents hand and or draw pile as well. That way you really can short circuit something for just a turn or two, but you can choose what that is.

Just a random thought.

Seraphayel · July 2023

NoSoup wrote: »

rbfrgsp wrote: »

Almalexia power generation does not move beyond starter cards (IE: 1 power) until you build combos. It is on par with psijic, and below Hlaalu in terms of power / prestige gen. It's a multipurpose support deck, but it is still a support deck.

That's your balance.

I'd suggest use it more, don't ignore it. I personally think it is the most balanced add-on deck so far.

Druid is most OP, then Crow.

100% Agree. Druid is the most OP. Problem is 95% of players don't know how to use it. The most powerful card has a cost of 2 and when paired with the Psijic Deck its fairly easy to get 30+ points in one hand.

I basically had exactly this happening today. I didn’t know about it and I was dumb enough to not kill the Druid agent that gives you 1 Power each time you discard. He made like 20 Power in one round due to constantly putting down cards with Psijic. I was completely baffled because I simply didn’t know about this strategy. I know it was my fault to not kill the agent, but I simply didn’t know better. Now I do. I’m not sure how that game ended, I think I must have lost.

About Almalexia: the deck can be nasty, but it can fail to achieve anything, too. Another game today I played Almalexia / Pelin (my go to deck combo since I haven’t unlocked Hunding, Rahjin, Orgnum and Druid yet; I’d switch to Druid / Almalexia then) and I was stuck at around 10 Power while the opponent was already at 35 (he played mainly Crows and my Pelin choice). Then I was lucky enough to set up my taunts and Almalexia agents and I was able to confine all his red power cards, therefore leaving him unable to kill my taunts. In the next round I was able to put down another confine agent and he was left with a handful of crappy cards for coins. The game was basically over by then because he couldn’t overcome my taunts and get his cards back.

Almalexia can be absolutely devastating if you get your necessary cards soon enough. Mother‘s Mercy is a monster of a card, too. But the deck needs support from other decks, like a lot. As a stand-alone deck Almalexia achieves nothing. But paired with the right deck and then getting the right cards, it might be the most powerful deck that exists. But each deck is super strong when you get the crucial cards early on and can unfold your strategy. I don’t necessarily see Almalexia as a problem, but the huge RNG factor that dictates the outcome of a match.

AnduinTryggva · July 2023

RCubed1967 wrote: »

Consider the following table, which considers all actions in cards and patrons.

Most decks offer only one major strategy. Some decks have two but have drawbacks. Crows amass huge gold and draw a ton of cards, yet you cannot use the patron again once if favours you. Rajhim can break prestige and dilute the opponent with bewilderment yet he collects no power or prestige. Sorcerers can generate prestige and create their own cards, yet their patron can be offset cheaply. Hlaalu's sacrifice removes the card from being used again.

Almalexia has four win conditions and no major drawbacks. Two are card cycling with donate (forward) or hand refresh (backward). The other two affect the opponent by discarding specific cards or confining them). The deck also collects gold, power and prestige.

The request to put taunt on the deck is not enough. Almalexia should have been two decks. The first should be based on its unique card cycling, while the second should be the opponent effects (with either taunt or limited card holds on the confines).

The deck is way too overpowered and requires immediate changes. It should be banned from rank play until the fix is in play.

I personally will not use this deck until it is fixed. I feel it is unsportsmanlike to use it without proper balancing.

ZOS - please balance decks better in the future. This is as bad as your ranking system.

My two cents:
I think Alma is one of the better thought decks in the game. While this may be true that it has four advantages it looks to my experience pretty balanced. The power generation is very low but consistent but also requires that you play your card smartly - which is not that much the case with the other cards that you can just play out as they come.
Which is btw its major drawback. Before playing your hand you have to think about it how you do it.

Also some advantages don't work always. Mostly your opponent has to have a cooldown stack otherwise the confine does not work.

What I think could be nerfed a bit is - similarly to crow although crow is much more burning in this regard - is the endless chain you can generate with Alma. However, up to now what I see mostly these cycling is without great benefit to the player as far as I can see. May be that people are still learning to use Alma though...