Epic Cards Battle

So this is an imbalance in the game that has developed that I have noticed for 2 years now dating back as far as ecb1. Examination of very very top tier pro ladder (4-5 top players) reveals that against each other it is very often that both players will play two face down cards on round 2 probably close to 100% of the time. The reason for this is that most players play 3 units in round 1 and they are looking to disguise their strategy on the middle round. Here is the boring problem that results from this. Everytime I play a player I will see the same five cards in rounds 1 and 2. It will be the same three units in the start and the same two facedown cards in the middle. This leaves minimal strategy and variety in the game. The strategy is not from reading the board because you can’t. It’s the same every time. The strategy comes from the psychology of hey this is what he did last time I’m going to gamble and try this this time. Now this is definitely a viable form of strategy as it requires you to use strategic “guesses”. Some players (Heavy Roller for example) relies heavily on this form of strategy and it serves him well, however the issue of bots does even mess with his strategy because he is applying strategic guessing to a bot and not a real player so using the last battle vs that player as information becomes meaningless if he can’t tell if it’s a bot or not. It is a valid point. One could argue that a shake up is in order, here are some suggestion.

1. PROBLEM OF PLAYING THREE UNITS in ROUND 1. Currently all top players play 3 units in round 1. Playing a face down card in round 1 simply doesn’t work unless you are revolving that facedown card. NOw I will admit the ONLY way you can successfully play a facedown card in round 1 is if it is alternating between a spell and a trigger card. If you did not alternate it then Everytime you play that player you immediately know if it’s a spell or trigger card and can use a magic overwhelm sabotage or trap detect. Almost all spells and triggers are situational also so picking one that will serve you well in all battles is difficult. If you pick a heal spell then your opponent could defeat you Everytime easily with compulsory treatment. If you pick a trap then they can counter with monkey Everytime and waste your trap. If you use a spell Everytime then they can play sabotage Everytime and you can’t really play two spell cards safely on a match in fear that sabotage will take out the first spell on round 1. It’s just a higher risk strategy that restricts you more because there simply aren’t broad face down cards that can overcome this issue.

1. SOLUTIONS.
A. Invent new face down cards that can be successfully played in round 1 pro
B. Have round 1 be pick 2 cards instead of 3.
C. Have pro such that you do not pick round 1 cards until you see your opponent. This actually is my favorite because you really could play face down cards in round 1 this way. That opponent would have no idea what your planning and since most spells and triggers are situational it’s easier to play them in round 1 if you know your opponents tendencies.

2. THE PROBLEM OF 2 FACEDOWN CARDS IN MIDDLE: SOLTIONS
A. Invent new cards that deter this. For example the sunstroder card is great as it adeters two face down spell cards on round 2 if you play the strider in slot 4. This is a great card for upsetting the opponents blind round 2 strategy. Next is the divination card. If the opponent always plays two face down cards in middle then why not just play divination in round 2 Everytime. Well actually it’s a good idea I’ve been experimenting with it and the success is mixed. I definitely think this is a great card that has potential to upset the blind strategy I’ll Co to use to experiment with it. You could also create a new card that is free that could further address this issue and I think it would be great for the game.
B. Have round 1 be pick 2 then more than likely round 2 ends up being a more mix of three face down cards or two face down cards and a unit or one face down card and two units. It would probably NOT be the same game Everytime like it is now. I can say with certainty when I play certain players I will see the same first five cards Everytime which is. Same three units and same blind facedown middle.
C. Have round 1 not selected until you see the opponent. Again my personal favorite as it allows you the ability to play face down cards more easily in round 1 and probably results in a unique game experience Everytime the same two players match up again. Those players who refuse to adapt and play the same three cards in round one Everytime will be picked apart.

Well that’s it. Some of these suggestions could radically change the game and there could be players who totally disagree with what I am saying here so why not add an in game poll in A patch that allows hundreds of players to voice their opinions. Each player can vote yes or no to see if they want to see asome of these changes or not. The other alternative is to implement a major change on a trial basis. This means implement a change for four weeks as temporary then let players vote on if they like the change or if they prefer the old way better after the four week trial period.

As it relates to hardcore mode I don’t play it as much these days but whether or not players would want to wait to see the opponent to pick their first round I will defer to others opinions on the matter.

Dear Bookie,

Thank you for your in-depth feedback. Be honest, we don't catch up with your feedback clearly. Sorry.

We received feedback from Fireflies before about issue with 3-2-2 selection.
We evaluated it and decide to change it to 2-2-3 in v1.7. How do you think it will improve the situation.

As you know, the concept of ECB is less complication, that's why we stick to 3 rounds of input from player for Pro and HC instead of for example 1-1-1-1-1-1-1.

As for your another suggestion. We have thought of creature cards that can be faced down in selection stage. (Stealth) It might be avaiable in future.

Hi thanks. The stealth option actually sounds cool. Being able to play a few different creatures face down to disguise your hand could potentially open the doors to playing face down cards in round 1. If you are able to be successful at doing this then changing the format to 2-2-3 may be unnecessary altogether. I was hesitant to suggest changing it to 2-3-2 in prior post but was aware that fireflies had suggested it and it was worth consideration. 2-2-3 also has a similar hesitation which is that if you go back to 2 cards in the first round one of ecb1 biggest problems reappears which is that a few starting hands will begin to emerge as the dominant ones. This happened many times in many versions of ecb1 where all the top players started the same two cards in tound1. The three card round 1 idea has helped diversify selection by increasing the possibilities so much more so I deep down feel that if it can stay it should but exploring other options should always be on the table to think about the good and bad. In fact in all my experience with ecb2 I have never seen two different players with the same three card starting hand which is quite an amazing thing if you think about it. I remember the times of ecb1 where the top 3-4 players were all the same starting hand.

I also think more strategy and less guessing can be used on round 3 if there are more cards on the board (5 instead of 4) so going to a 2-2-3 format I fear results in more similarity on round 1 and more guessing in round 3 and ultimately less strategy.

Thus my favorite idea of seeing the opponent first then picking the cards could result in more first round card diversity. I would strongly suggest to keep the three cards in round 1 or if you feel you want to do 2 cards in round 1 then why not let the cards be picked after the opponent is seen so that you can introduce a new level of counter strategy by anticipating your opponents starting hand is gonna be.

Make sense?

Either way I like your stealth idea it has a lot of potential to solve some of these issues.

Another idea is to let a player have something like 5 saveable starting hands. Once players match up they can pick from the saveable starting hands. First round card selection could be lowered to 30 seconds or something like that.


First round card selection would also come quite in handy with hardcore mode since vs some players whose decks all bit dominate your first decks this gives you more ability to not be playing 2vs3.

Something like 2-3-2 with first round card selection could speed up first round card selection but keep in mind having to pick 3 cards in a 99 second round is not something that’s ever been tried before and could lead to some time to adapt or running out of time to pick a strategy.

Placing the 3 cards selection in round 1 is probably the easiest as There is less to consider at that stage and it is also likely that many players will still play the same 3 card starting hand Everytime and will continue to play the game the same way they’ve been playing it without change and be quite happy. This is a safe route as players don’t have to change if they like playing three cards in first round then they are still happy and they can play the same cards Everytime. In fact I could see myself playing the same three cards in round 1 more than 75% of the time but it would be nice vs some players who could beat me to be able to change strategies in the first round or spontaneously use a face down card as a surprise vs that player.

ECB-Bookie wrote: I would strongly suggest to keep the three cards in round 1 or if you feel you want to do 2 cards in round 1 then why not let the cards be picked after the opponent is seen so that you can introduce a new level of counter strategy by anticipating your opponents starting hand is gonna be.

That will actually make the actions to be 4 rounds which we are trying to avoid.

ECB-Bookie wrote: nother idea is to let a player have something like 5 saveable starting hands.

The cons is that it increases complexity of gameplay.

Those are very valuable feedback for us to consider. We will take note and think about it. And we hope more players can contribute feedbacks to this topic.

I’ve talked to several people who are hoping you do not go to a 2-2-3 format including myself as well. It’s just less of the board to read and will result in less variety in starting hands. If I could think of one advantage to it that would be that maybe players would be less prone to play two face down cards in the middle. But I think you can probably keep things the way they are and focus on developing cards that help create more variety. Most people I talked to like the three card starting hand and want to keep it that way. The question for you is ok how we can make it easier to play facedown cards in the first round of pro. There are few cards that can be played first round facedown:

1. Spells. Most attack spells are targeted to specific units. Perhaps create new spell cards that would be great to start in a first round selection and not easy to automatically counter with the sunstrider card.

2. Triggers. Traps are usually specific to opposing units however Angela’s amulet is a good one that could possibly be played in the first round. It is not as easily to counter with trap detect because amulet has 1 cd and is faster than trap detect so it could work.

3. Heal cards. Probably not possible. Once people figure out they are in your starting hand then compulsory treatment will be too strong a counter.

Solutions

Facedown cards: face down units probably don’t work in round 1. Most people try to find their best starting hand and stick with it. If it includes a facedown unit then people will figure it out and no which one you start with. For round 2 it could encourage more face down cards because people might play the facedown unit in round 2 selection yo truck the opponent.

2-3-2 format: well it’s not my favorite but there are some pros. You’re gonna probably end up with similar starting hands again but maybe you can overcome that with new card combos that break up the strongest starting hands. Playing three cards facedown in the middle could become risky. There are now three card slots a sunstrider could use to counter one of your spells instead of just 1 spot. A divination card would be even stronger if you could see three of the opponents cards.

New cards: a psychic unit card like divination that can see all the cards of the current round selection would definitely help solve the issue in either a 3-2-2 format or a 2-3-2 format. That actually could be a huge deal to have another u it card that does that.

New cards: more cards that counter spells and triggers will help. For example if you retroactively go back and add spell resistance to about 10 units this will help. You could Create a spell resistance ability just like stealth. Or you can just create new cards that deal with spells and triggers.

Improve cards: cards like spell vortex could be improved to be stronger or faster. Sabotage and trap detect could have higher success rate % to deter decks with 2+ spells.

Trickier cards: Imp: a weak unit card that swaps place with face down card in opposing slot. You play it in middle slots and it switches place with an opponents face down card. Could force fewer facedown cards in middle rounds.

So even without changing game format you can still take an approach where you solve the issues just by introducing new cards that solve these issues that way. Then nobody gets upset about changing formats to something they don’t like.