Hermaeus Mora's Setbacks Aren't Enough to Balance Out the Deck's Strength

GatheredMyst · December 2024

Hermaeus Mora's deck is balanced on its setbacks. Effectively, you're getting cheaper cards that pack a punch in trade for providing the other player with something in return. It's an interesting concept...

... that sadly falls apart when you look at how weak the setbacks are balanced.

Right now, Herma Mora's deck is:

Cheap. Its good cards cost between 3 and 4, at most five.
Powerful. Most of its cards hit harder than St Pellin.
Easy to combo: There's a ton of inexpensive contract cards that supplement the ones that you can get out of the tavern.

Continuing to ride on the comparisons to St. Pellin, Herma Mora's capable of generating *more* power for, on average, half the cost. If Herma Mora combos three cards, it's not uncommon to see power in the double digits.

The designer clearly had an idea to offset this: In trade for all of this punch, we're going to give the other player something in return. Coin, power, another card... something. The problem is that these setbacks are kinda...

... puny?

When i'm getting bludgeoned in one turn for 20 power with very little cards played, getting a setback total of maybe... one gold and an extra card doesn't feel like it really balances out. True, the person getting the cards shouldn't be completely crippled for playing them, but they also shouldn't be able to wield that kind of power in hand without the drawbacks of the deck really feeling meaningful.

So... something needs to give. Either give the other player something more via setbacks, or reduce the total power of the deck by a smidge. I don't want it smashed. I just want to see the actual design of the deck reflected in how it's played, because right now, the setback mechanic isn't reflective of its name.

fall0athboy · December 2024

I do agree that it's a really good deck. I pulled off a win with Mora against a dude running Crows, with most of my cards being Voracious Tomeshell (Destroy 2, Opponent Draw 1). I fully expected to get demolished but the power from Mora combos was great.

peregrinechemist · December 2024

One of my favourite decks, as well as probably least favourite patron power to use (although I don't mind it too much when the opponent uses it -- thanks, Hermaeus!)

I agree that the setbacks are quite far from compensating for the power generation, but I wouldn't want to change anything about the deck. I'd rather lose quickly with the opponent hitting 40 prestige before I can try to catch up than chase them to 80, if they get more Mora than I do.

fall0athboy wrote: »

I pulled off a win with Mora against a dude running Crows, with most of my cards being Voracious Tomeshell (Destroy 2, Opponent Draw 1). I fully expected to get demolished but the power from Mora combos was great.

Same here, just got the trifecta achievement with Mora. I never pick Crow, but I haven't lost to its infinite combos/deck-cycling draws in a while.

Personofsecrets · December 2024

Mora is horrendously designed and a big part of that is your observation.

In general, whenever cards are designed to have downsides, either card is just bad and never sees play or players find a way to not care about the setback. Sometimes the setback can even be a benefit.

In Magic, there is a card doing quite well and it's called "Psychic Frog." Frog has an evergreen effect of drawing a card when it deals damage to a player. There are some older successful cards that are similar such as Ophidian and Shadowmage Infiltraitor.

One issue with Frog is that it is just a 1/2 creature, so it can be easy to block. Because there are never meaningful setbacks in design anymore, design gave the Frog an activated ability to discard a card from hand for the effect of giving that Frog +1/+1. So a player pays a cost (setback) to makeup for Frogs downside. That is one way that downsides are circumvented built directly into the card.

The second way that downsides are circumvented is that players are often discarding cards such as Atraxa, Grand Unifier, Archon of Cruelty, or Griselbrand. These are big creatures with exceedingly powerful effects which are difficult to play. By putting them into the graveyard, they can be brought back into play with cheap spells such as Reanimate or Animate Dead.

And that's even another way where downsides are circumvented. Normally players may not want to use Powerful cards like Atraxa because they could get stuck in the hand with no way to build the mana base for hard casting them. Even for decks that plan to use reanimation spells, it can be that they draw their big creature, effectively losing that draw, rather than keeping it in the deck as an Entomb target. But oh no, in comes the powerful Frog with a built in card advantage engine and discard outlet for these big creatures to get into the graveyard.

It's all about cheating the downsides of cards. Mora isn't much different. Getting a turn one Voracious Tombshell is just a sick and disgusting move. It solves it's own problem. Yea, it gives the opponent an extra gold during the early game, but eventually it makes ones own deck so strong that it doesn't matter what advantages the opponent gets.

I'll admit that sometimes players use these cards with the downsides and don't realize that they just enabled their opponent to buy a powerful card like Currency Exchange or Knight Commander in the early game. That said, Mora even has built in protection from those kinds of issues because if one is really worried about having just given the opponent so many free resources via the setbacks that they will be able to buy a killer card, then one can just tap the Mora patron and get a copy of that card too. Afterall, Voracious Tombshell is ticking which means one will be able to play that powerful card sooner and more often anyhow, so the downside of the opponent getting a copy is mitigated.

Yup, and that's why I do declare with full confidence that designing with downsides so that a game piece can be powerful in some situations is an incredibly, incredibly, flawed way to go about things.

fall0athboy · December 2024

IMO there should probably be an additional setback with longer combos.

GatheredMyst · December 2024

fall0athboy wrote: »

IMO there should probably be an additional setback with longer combos.

A friend actually suggested this same thing when we were discussing it. Combo setbacks-- the more you combo, the worse the setbacks get.

It's a great idea IMO.

Personofsecrets · December 2024

Just a vindicating note. That card that I talked about from Magic the Gathering, Psychic Frog. Yea, it's banned now in a format that allows for super high power level.

Personofsecrets · December 2024

GatheredMyst wrote: »

fall0athboy wrote: »

IMO there should probably be an additional setback with longer combos.

A friend actually suggested this same thing when we were discussing it. Combo setbacks-- the more you combo, the worse the setbacks get.

It's a great idea IMO.

Instead it's sort of the opposite. Not only are players getting the main damage portion of Contract combos, but the Contracts all reward gold when comboing enough such that buying them almost becomes a free action. Yea, there is still a setback, but it's clearly not big enough to make people think or prevent toxic lines.

Seraphayel · January 27

As long as there is no limit to how many cards can be drawn in a single turn with Almalexia or Crow, Mora really doesn’t need more setbacks.

ESO_player123 · January 27

Personofsecrets wrote: »

Mora is horrendously designed and a big part of that is your observation.

In general, whenever cards are designed to have downsides, either card is just bad and never sees play or players find a way to not care about the setback. Sometimes the setback can even be a benefit.

In Magic, there is a card doing quite well and it's called "Psychic Frog." Frog has an evergreen effect of drawing a card when it deals damage to a player. There are some older successful cards that are similar such as Ophidian and Shadowmage Infiltraitor.

One issue with Frog is that it is just a 1/2 creature, so it can be easy to block. Because there are never meaningful setbacks in design anymore, design gave the Frog an activated ability to discard a card from hand for the effect of giving that Frog +1/+1. So a player pays a cost (setback) to makeup for Frogs downside. That is one way that downsides are circumvented built directly into the card.

The second way that downsides are circumvented is that players are often discarding cards such as Atraxa, Grand Unifier, Archon of Cruelty, or Griselbrand. These are big creatures with exceedingly powerful effects which are difficult to play. By putting them into the graveyard, they can be brought back into play with cheap spells such as Reanimate or Animate Dead.

And that's even another way where downsides are circumvented. Normally players may not want to use Powerful cards like Atraxa because they could get stuck in the hand with no way to build the mana base for hard casting them. Even for decks that plan to use reanimation spells, it can be that they draw their big creature, effectively losing that draw, rather than keeping it in the deck as an Entomb target. But oh no, in comes the powerful Frog with a built in card advantage engine and discard outlet for these big creatures to get into the graveyard.

It's all about cheating the downsides of cards. Mora isn't much different. Getting a turn one Voracious Tombshell is just a sick and disgusting move. It solves it's own problem. Yea, it gives the opponent an extra gold during the early game, but eventually it makes ones own deck so strong that it doesn't matter what advantages the opponent gets.

I'll admit that sometimes players use these cards with the downsides and don't realize that they just enabled their opponent to buy a powerful card like Currency Exchange or Knight Commander in the early game. That said, Mora even has built in protection from those kinds of issues because if one is really worried about having just given the opponent so many free resources via the setbacks that they will be able to buy a killer card, then one can just tap the Mora patron and get a copy of that card too. Afterall, Voracious Tombshell is ticking which means one will be able to play that powerful card sooner and more often anyhow, so the downside of the opponent getting a copy is mitigated.

Yup, and that's why I do declare with full confidence that designing with downsides so that a game piece can be powerful in some situations is an incredibly, incredibly, flawed way to go about things.

Yes, when the opponent gets a Voracoius Tomeshell on their first turn is often the case of game over.

vuwuv · February 5

Buffed tomeshell and the abundance of contracts is what holds me from ever picking Mora deck, it's just too random. Nerfing tomeshell back and removing some/all gold from the contracts might help a bit.