Is the Alessia Patron another problem deck?

Personofsecrets · June 6

I've been having a number of 15 to 30 minute games with Alessia. I don't mind that a ton, but I know that some do.

The Patron sort of seems mandatory to flip.

Other strategies can overcome multiple Patron flips, but it takes getting really strong cards that can deal with agents and provide other forms of value at the same time. Pounce and Profit or Dreaming Cave come to mind.

At first, some of the cards in the deck seem sort of weird. That feeling is diminishing as I evaluate the cards more on what they do by themselves and how they may fit in with non-Alessia strategies.

That said, the Patron seems toxic. When there are mediocre Tavern options, it seems like one needs to flip the Alessia patron as fast as soon as possible or lose.

Then comes the double-edged sword. In the early to mid game, flipping the Patron back is basically no compensation for ones troubles. Two power is nothing and it's likely the case that the opponents generated agents aren't even in play yet to try remove with the power. So one wouldn't really want to counter-flip Alessia, but not doing so, let's the opponent just activate here again and again.

Maybe I'm playing things incorrectly, but it seems to be the case that we got another Patron spam issue with the new deck.

Anyhow, I don't want to be negative yet since I'm still learning things. I'm interested in knowing what you all think.

LunaFlora · June 6

doesn't seem like a problem deck to me same as the previous decks.

i like that each patron is different

ESO_player123 · June 7

I played this deck for the first time yesterday. I do not have it yet myself, so my opponent chose it (they were going first). It was just like you said. The opponent started flipping the deck immediately, and at the start of the game those two powers to counter did nothing useful (while consuming 3 valuable coins). I did ignore flipping occasionally, and managed to buy some useful cards but was put at a disadvantage. I did manage to win by patron victory, but only because they somehow missed this (no idea how).

Since it was my first time playing it, I was not exactly sure what I was doing (and still not sure what the good patrons to counter this deck would be). I chose Ansei (for several cheap power generation cards) and Celarus. I doubt that Celarus will help for dealing with agents in this situation (too many of them), but hoped for some good cards at the start.

Necrotech_Master · June 7

ive only played tribute once since the patch so far (against the new tribute master), the NPCs definitely like to spam the alessia patron, but they would regularly miss out on valuable tavern cards

ended up clobbering the tribute master within 10 min 47-4

ill need some more time to play with it, but it did seem like spamming the patron gives you a lot of decent freebie agents which can be used to generate either coin or power depending on your needs that turn

i could see it as a slight counter to rahjin with coin generation, if the opponent gives you a lot of bewilderments, you could still generate coin through agents as long as the opponent didnt get a lot of rahjin agent knockouts

sayswhoto · June 16

I didn't play on PTS, so I just copied over the questions they asked for feedback.

Did you find this new deck fun?
No. It's more or less trying to control the Alessia patron every single turn. This is worse than Orgnum and Rahjin which each have conditions that need to be met (most of the time) before the patron spam can be effective.

The games are longer, and that's something people have asked for. However, it is lengthened in an artificial manner, almost dragged out. You can pretty much tell who is going to win about mid game, you just have to wait longer now for them to win.

Conceptually this was a great way to provide something new, but implementation of the deck was flawed.
Were you able to understand what the new Patron power did?
Yes
Were the effects of the cards in this deck easily understood?
Yes
Do you have any other general feedback?
It would be nice to have developer comments for the ToT section of the patch notes, just like class changes. Also, a few videos of developers playing the decks (not against AI) would better help to understand the thought process behind the design.

Seraphayel · June 16

Curious to try the deck next week when the update hits consoles, but if it’s a deck that extends the duration of a match I already know I won’t like it. I hate long, drawn out matches that are just long for no reason whatsoever.

Necrotech_Master · June 17

Seraphayel wrote: »

Curious to try the deck next week when the update hits consoles, but if it’s a deck that extends the duration of a match I already know I won’t like it. I hate long, drawn out matches that are just long for no reason whatsoever.

from what ive played with alessia, it doesnt seem like a stalling type

it is very agent heavy, and the agents you get from the patron usage can significantly increase your gold or power gain when you get them on the field (it gives you the option to choose gold or power)

when the patron favors you and you use it, it gives you the upgraded version of the agent (the base agent gives you either +2 coin or +1 power), the upgraded one is +3 gold or +2 power

as far as i could tell none of the alessia agents have taunt though, and the deck also adds a lot of agent control (such as cards with "knock out all" which knocks out all agents for both players), there is also the morihaus agent which its main function is a knockout (and it gives you 1 coin every time an agent is knocked out)

some of the other agents also have a combo of direct prestige grants instead of power generation, so getting a lot of alessia agents ends up generating prestige pretty fast as well, even without the patron usage

in general i think its a fun deck, though i will say it does kind of getting annoying when you do have a huge amount of alessia agents that you need to choose an effect (as almost all of them have a "choice" effect)

Sepultura_13 · June 17

I'm still working on getting this patron, but have played against it on NPCs. From my experience, using a combo of Red Eagle / Rhajin is fairly effective. If you don't have Rhajin then Red Eagle / Delmene Hlaalu isn't bad either, especially if the opponent picks Hlaalu and Alessia. At that point I'd suggest Red Eagle and Psijic Loremaster if you don't have Rhajin.
So far I've done pretty well against NPCs. I don't care for matches against other players because they drag the game out infinitely just to be jerks.

Personofsecrets · June 17

It's sort of funny that the patch notes today list a fix for Alessia that is needed during longer games.

The time isn't a big concern for me, but some care about that issue. It was also pointed out that there is sort of an artificial feel to more time being required for the games natural conclusion to be reached and I tend to agree with that. I'll go more in depth soon.

Seraphayel · June 23

I‘ve played about 10-15 matches now with Alessia and yes, flipping the patron seems pretty mandatory, at least keeping it at neutral at all times. I find using this patron more devastating than constantly using Orgnum or Rahjin. But I think that’s what makes the deck because the cards itself are rather lackluster when you have no agents to support it.

Necrotech_Master · June 24

the biggest problem ive noticed with the alessia deck is actually the starter card, its an agent but has 0 effect unless you have at least 1 other alessia card in your deck

its only moderately useful against the npcs because they are dumb enough to waste power destroying it lol

kmfdm · June 24

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

the biggest problem ive noticed with the alessia deck is actually the starter card, its an agent but has 0 effect unless you have at least 1 other alessia card in your deck

its only moderately useful against the npcs because they are dumb enough to waste power destroying it lol

What? It's actually much smarter to kill the Agent, even tho it isn't doing anything, because basically for 1 power, you make your opponent draw 1 less card on one of the next turns, which is absolutely essential especially during the early phase of the game.

Necrotech_Master · June 24

kmfdm wrote: »

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

the biggest problem ive noticed with the alessia deck is actually the starter card, its an agent but has 0 effect unless you have at least 1 other alessia card in your deck

its only moderately useful against the npcs because they are dumb enough to waste power destroying it lol

What? It's actually much smarter to kill the Agent, even tho it isn't doing anything, because basically for 1 power, you make your opponent draw 1 less card on one of the next turns, which is absolutely essential especially during the early phase of the game.

the best strategy would probably be to just treasury the agent asap

and its not a guarantee the player would draw the agent on the following turn either, the starting amount is 10 cards, so at best it would be a 50/50 chance it would show up in their hand again

the way i see it burning power on it is just as much waste as it is keeping it in your deck lol

Seraphayel · June 24

1 Power early on means nothing, so killing that agent is pretty mandatory as the poster above said, it’s one additional card for your opponent that does nothing unless they’re playing Alessia. Letting your opponents ramp up Alessia agents is the main reason why you‘re going to lose a match.

They might not seem strong on their own, but the sheer quantity of them is what makes it such a strong deck. It struggles a lot against Power decks though, because you can easily wipe a handful of agents if your opponent plays Hunding / Pelin / Reachmen / Mora or even Orgnum.

The most effective deck against Alessia in my opinion is Mora due to how fast it can build up Power. Alessia struggles a lot against power decks and I’m not sure if there’s a way to counter it, tanks might be the best option, but that only works with either Pelin or Rahjin. Strong combos are also missing from the deck as of now. Overall, I like it a lot though.

kmfdm · June 25

In my opinion, the Alessia deck is quite smart. It requires strategic thinking and synergizes well with Ansei or Pelin. One thing to note is that simply spamming Alessia usually isn’t sufficient. If you overuse it while your opponent employs it every 3-4 rounds, your deck will be filled with agents with only 1 health and 1 or 2 power, who are quite weak for the end-game. Even though they also give a lot of gold, by the time they provide you with any substantial advantage, your deck will be swamped with these agents, reducing the frequency of your most powerful cards.

I draft Alessia quite often, and I see that my opponents think they have to spam it frequently, and it rarely works for them. My winning rate with Alessia is slightly above other Patrons right now.

Personofsecrets · June 25

I likely won't be including Alessia as a normal pick. The game type that happens enough to keep me not so interested is the one where one player is using the Patron while the other get's just average tavern cards.

Although there are interesting games when the Alessian patron use isn't of so much importance or even disadvantageous to try and use, there are also too many games that feel bad because of the asymmetry with her Patron effect.

I'll write more on the subject some time soon.

Necrotech_Master · June 25

kmfdm wrote: »

In my opinion, the Alessia deck is quite smart. It requires strategic thinking and synergizes well with Ansei or Pelin. One thing to note is that simply spamming Alessia usually isn’t sufficient. If you overuse it while your opponent employs it every 3-4 rounds, your deck will be filled with agents with only 1 health and 1 or 2 power, who are quite weak for the end-game. Even though they also give a lot of gold, by the time they provide you with any substantial advantage, your deck will be swamped with these agents, reducing the frequency of your most powerful cards.

I draft Alessia quite often, and I see that my opponents think they have to spam it frequently, and it rarely works for them. My winning rate with Alessia is slightly above other Patrons right now.

its not purely just the power generation, but the gold generation they can provide as well which can help acquire more tavern cards

the strength in the agents you get from alessia lies in the fact they can give you gold or power, and the ones you get at favored are 3 gold or 2 power, 4 agents would be worth 12 gold in 1 turn in addition to any other cards in your hand

playing against the npc ive noticed times when some turns i needed extra gold and would use the agents for gold to grab key cards, other turns i didnt need the gold and just had them add power, so the strength is in the flexibility