Terrors in the Shadows General Discusion

Reaganstorme

We've had a chance to battle the Terrors in the Shadows PVP Event and i love to hear your thoughts.

There are only three nodes to lock in for this Enraged Event, and each one has different bonus ribbons granted for using some of the new Shadows Over Innistrad cards.

Title: Blood and Desire
Node: Blue
Featured Tribes: Vampires, Horrors
Featured Mechanics: Madness
Eligible PWs: Jace, Tezzeret, Kiora

Blue has no access to Vampires right now (nor Green), leaving Horrors as the only option for the Tribal reward. Its a shame that Prized Amalgam is buggy at the moment as it probably would have been a priority inclusion for most blue decks this Event if you've been lucky enough to unlock it. Kiora grants access to Kessig Dire Swine, a 24 mana 6/6 Common that makes short work of your enemies in this Enraged double damage Event if you can get it out. Can't say I've gotten much use out of the Madness cards boost effect as their prime activating PWs, Black discard decks, aren't eligible to join in the fun.

Title: Passion and the Hunt
Node: Green
Featured Tribes: Wolves, Werewolves
Featured Mechanics: Transform
Eligible PWs: Nissa, Garruk, Kiora

Bad luck if you didn't purchase Garruk before the update as he was removed from the store, as his wolf tokens and deck theme receive a boost from the many wolf-based effects introduced in the new expansion. I found most of the Green werewolves to be quite expensive in this fast format, requiring a commitment to mana boosting to reliably get them out. If you can drop a couple at once though, you need to wait a turn without playing anything for their Transform ability to kick in so don't forget to turn your cards off and on. Mirrorpool boosts both states and should be included as a matter of course.

Title: Flesh and Spirit
Node: White
Featured Tribes: Spirits, Zombies
Featured Mechanics: Delerium
Eligible PWs: Gideon BF, Gideon AoZ, Ajani, Nahiri

Nahiri is a beast. Her first Ability takes weenies into the Monsterous size very quickly, and her third will finish the game for you. With no red zombies available, it leaves only white's copious Spirits to get the bonus ribbons. Blessed Spirits is a solid performer, with Vessel of Ephemera a nice double booster.

So, what are your thoughts on the three battles? Got any deck lists you'd like to share? Or card combos to discus?

Netatron

Still 99% sure they mixed up vampires and zombies.

Barrelrolla

I'm with mixed feelings. The enrage mechanic promotes fast play, but the objectives promote slow play.
I had to kill and disable my own creatures in order to stall the game to get the second card I needed for the objective and I almost lost. When I got to 7 HP I decided it's time to give up on the objective and went all out for the win. Better get 5 points than nothing.

speakupaskanswer

I really like the event, especially Enraged, because it speeds up games significantly. The bug about blue Vampires and Horrors is incredibly dumb, but I like the goals in general. Yes, it forces (or encourages) you to play with cards you normally wouldn't, but it is a nice challenge and some cards work better than expected.

Reaganstorme

I have a feeling that the Zombies // Vampires choice is correct from a design standpoint. If all they change next iteration of the Event are the node colours, then here's what they cover:

Title: Blood and Desire
Featured Tribes: Vampires, Horrors
Featured Mechanic: Madness
Current Node: Blue
Colour Theme Matches:

• Vampires: Black, Red, White
• Horrors: Blue, Black, Red, Green, Colourless
• Madness: Blue, Black, Red

So, much more likely to rotate through Blue, Black, and Red.

Title: Passion and the Hunt
Featured Tribes: Wolves, Werewolves
Featured Mechanic: Transform
Current Node: Green
Colour Theme Matches:

• Wolves: Red, Green
• Werewolves: Red, Green
• Transform: Red, Green, White, Colourless

Much more likely to stay with only Red or Green, only small probability of White.

Title: Flesh and Spirit
Featured Tribes: Spirits, Zombies
Featured Mechanic: Delerium
Current Node: White
Colour Theme Matches:

• Spirits: White, Blue, Black, Green
• Zombies: Blue, Black, Green
• Delerium: Red, Green, White, Black, Colourless

Predominantly covering White, Blue, and Black, all colours are represented here. Not very likely that Red or Green will be featured at this node as there are only two green creatures and one red creature that could meet the requirements.

Note that unless they change the Tribal feature of Passion and the Hunt, if Blood and Desire is Red, Passion and the Hunt will have to be Green.

VladG0015

I, personally, thing that the secondary objectives are pretty stupid, since the event kicked in at the same time soi got released. In my experience, the only soi cards i got were the first intro pack they gave everybody. In other words there wasn't enough time/opportunities to collect enough of the appropriate cards for the secondary objectives to be attainable.
(Or ... I'm the only one who doesn't have blue vamp.s, zob.s, white spirits or green werewofs)

Morphis

Edited for double post

Morphis

Reaganstorme wrote:

Title: Passion and the Hunt
Node: Green
Featured Tribes: Wolves, Werewolves
Featured Mechanics: Transform
Eligible PWs: Nissa, Garruk, Kiora

Bad luck if you didn't purchase Garruk before the update as he was removed from the store, as his wolf tokens and deck theme receive a boost from the many wolf-based effects introduced in the new expansion. I found most of the Green werewolves to be quite expensive in this fast format, requiring a commitment to mana boosting to reliably get them out. If you can drop a couple at once though, you need to wait a turn without playing anything for their Transform ability to kick in so don't forget to turn your cards off and on. Mirrorpool boosts both states and should be included as a matter of course.

I think it is usually not worth not playing just to proc the transformation(also it is not needed for objective, just play the card).
Usually it will happen on its own fast enough.

About the event... I find it boring to play.

The thrilling aspect of pvp event shifted from "I do not want to lose" to "I do not want to lose while I wait to draw these stupid cards" at least for me.
Other people maybe have already some good one, but in my 3 SoI packs I got nothing worth mentioning that helps completing the objectives.

They should have waited at least some weeks(or even better a month) before enabling this event.
It is clearly an attempt to push massive packs buy at the start.
This line of development scares me...

Rootbreaker

One of my favorite things I'm doing this event is Zendikar Resurgent with Garruk to find my werewolves.

jimilinho_

I found this event pretty boring. Waiting for cards to turn up to complete objectives is slow and unexciting. Having the rage thing is just ridiculous, makes no sense in this event whatsoever.

On top of that the various bugs and glitches don't exactly help the experience either!

I'll give this game more time as up until the last week or so it's been pretty good, the devs just need to spend more time fixing existing issues and less on introducing new content (I'm hopeful not expectant tho)

EDHdad

I enjoyed the event, but I just ignored all of the objectives other than "win the match".

Barrelrolla

Well, the next expansion in paper released very recently, so unless they want to catch-up, I suppose there will be some time until the next drop of content (other than the planeswalkers they're about to release soon).
So hopefully, they will fix some issues now.

Irving

All I have to say is that enraged, Mirrorpooled Gaea's Revenges are ridiculously fun. Got a couple of two-hit kills this weekend.

Overall the "enraged" concept didn't change deckbuilding nearly as much as I thought it would. I run a controlling Jace deck using Dreadwaters and his ultimate to keep things from hitting the board, but I thought maybe I'd take too much damage either before the lock got set up or from the occasional creature that slipped through. Didn't happen that way, although it also may have been that there were much worse decks than usual. Presumably this was because people were trying to hit the objectives, but I also ran across several weird Garruk weenie decks with, like, Elvish Visionary and Leaf Gilder and stuff. Anybody have any idea what the point of that deck is? It seemed awful, but I saw a few of them so there must be *some* point.

Reaganstorme

@Irving - I figure those green weenie decks are the default deck lists you start with when you purchase him, but as he's not in the store i can't check.

madwren

I finished 1st in a Gold bracket. Some thoughts:

1. Secondary objectives really are secondary. I tried to attain them when I could, but since I only had 2-3 cards with each ability, I didn't obsess over it. What mattered was not losing the game. In my Garruk deck I only had one transform creature, Thraben Gargoyle, so that one in particular I almost never hit. The only one I got every time was wolves (Garruk) and spirits. The rest were hit and miss.

2. Thus, while "buy cards" was definitely a pretty transparent objective, I also don't think it was absolutely necessary. If you had a solid NoP deck, it would have worked fine, especially since you were often facing opponents who weakened their decks with secondary cards.

3. I suspect that the keywords being on off colors (like vampires for blue) is either a sign they're going to rotate the allowed colors in each event, or that they're leaving room for upcoming dual-colored planeswalkers that will open up those card types to that color.

4. I liked enraged. I thought it added some much-needed tension to the game. It shortens the clock and magnifies the effect of mistakes.

5. I liked only having 3 pw slots. From a free time standpoint, keeping up with 5 really pushes it for me. With 3, however, I found it much easier to stay on top of cooldowns.

Rootbreaker

madwren wrote:

I finished 1st in a Gold bracket. Some thoughts:

1. Secondary objectives really are secondary. I tried to attain them when I could, but since I only had 2-3 cards with each ability, I didn't obsess over it. What mattered was not losing the game. In my Garruk deck I only had one transform creature, Thraben Gargoyle, so that one in particular I almost never hit. The only one I got every time was wolves (Garruk) and spirits. The rest were hit and miss.

2. Thus, while "buy cards" was definitely a pretty transparent objective, I also don't think it was absolutely necessary. If you had a solid NoP deck, it would have worked fine, especially since you were often facing opponents who weakened their decks with secondary cards.

3. I suspect that the keywords being on off colors (like vampires for blue) is either a sign they're going to rotate the allowed colors in each event, or that they're leaving room for upcoming dual-colored planeswalkers that will open up those card types to that color.

4. I liked enraged. I thought it added some much-needed tension to the game. It shortens the clock and magnifies the effect of mistakes.

5. I liked only having 3 pw slots. From a free time standpoint, keeping up with 5 really pushes it for me. With 3, however, I found it much easier to stay on top of cooldowns.

What were the top scores like in gold? In platinum top 5 ended at 320.

madwren

Rootbreaker wrote:

madwren wrote:

I finished 1st in a Gold bracket. Some thoughts:

1. Secondary objectives really are secondary. I tried to attain them when I could, but since I only had 2-3 cards with each ability, I didn't obsess over it. What mattered was not losing the game. In my Garruk deck I only had one transform creature, Thraben Gargoyle, so that one in particular I almost never hit. The only one I got every time was wolves (Garruk) and spirits. The rest were hit and miss.

2. Thus, while "buy cards" was definitely a pretty transparent objective, I also don't think it was absolutely necessary. If you had a solid NoP deck, it would have worked fine, especially since you were often facing opponents who weakened their decks with secondary cards.

3. I suspect that the keywords being on off colors (like vampires for blue) is either a sign they're going to rotate the allowed colors in each event, or that they're leaving room for upcoming dual-colored planeswalkers that will open up those card types to that color.

4. I liked enraged. I thought it added some much-needed tension to the game. It shortens the clock and magnifies the effect of mistakes.

5. I liked only having 3 pw slots. From a free time standpoint, keeping up with 5 really pushes it for me. With 3, however, I found it much easier to stay on top of cooldowns.

What were the top scores like in gold? In platinum top 5 ended at 320.

I won with 343. I did not check the leaderboard for fear of somehow moving myself down in the rankings.

span_argoman

You get a total of 48 matches over the event.
That's a maximum of 384 points.

The top ranked in my Platinum bracket scored 359.
Second scored 355.
I scored third with 329.
Fourth iirc was 322 and I think there was a tie for 5 & 6 at 317.

At 317, that's 6.6 points per match including potential losses. I would say the secondary objectives are definitely necessary.

majincob

I won my Platinum bracket with 371 points, fifth and sixth had 312. I could have done an almost perfect run if I had started serious.

I had saved up crystals and had already bought 3 big boxes before the event started. But that is in Platinum where you expect the players to be more invested.

The key was to play enough control to live long enough to get the 2-4 cards you needed to complete the objectives. Plus there were some low level decks thrown in there which made it much easier.

I like playing slower control games with deckbuilding challenges, like the "boring" story mode objectives, so the event was fun for me.

shteev

In thoery I think I liked it. At least, I liked the idea that it made you construct your decks in a slightly different way.

In practice my feelings were mixed. Enraged and the objectives worked against each other, rather than being complementary... it encouraged you to build a deck that slowed the whole game down to give you time to get your objectives.

At least the objectives were less restrictive than they normally are in Story Mode... Doing something 2 times isn't as bad as doing something 10 times, where you're usually just hanging around the level bored controlling the game endlessly and waiting for the right cards to come up. This happened to me a few times in the Event, but not too much.

Still, it was nice to get a second PvP event that was so different from the first.

What I'd like to see now is an Event that restricts deck construction whilst not restricting gameplay.... e.g. requiring all players to play with only common cards, or only cards with one word in their name, or something like that

speakupaskanswer

shteev wrote:

What I'd like to see now is an Event that restricts deck construction whilst not restricting gameplay.... e.g. requiring all players to play with only common cards, or only cards with one word in their name, or something like that

I really like those ideas!