Terror in the Shadows – Feedback

Feagul

To maximize points in the Terror in the Shadows events, players by and large need to intentionally weaken their decks through the use of sub-optimal creatures and keywords. Even if your "randomly" selected opponent [hi again for the 137th time and 9th time in a row, Nitymp!] has decks made for the event--you aren't necessarily going to face them. From what the community has been able to gather, you can be matched against any planeswalker's deck that has a color present in the current PvP event. Oddly enough, you are far more likely to face a full powered non-event deck if they have a full stable of planeswalkers. Let's look at the breakdown:

• Blue: Jace 1 (1) / Jace 2 (2) / Kiora (3) / Saheeli (4) / Tezzeret (5)
• White: Ajani (6) / Gideon 1 (7) / Gideon 2 (8) / Nahiri (9) / Sorin (10)
• Green: Garruk (11) / Kiora (3) / Nissa (12)

You can select a maximum of 3 planeswalkers for Terrors in the Shadows event, which leaves a possible total of 9 other plaeswalkers that you can be matched against for any one player (75% chance of non-event deck). That's not even considering the fact that your opponents aren't even forced to play by the same rules.

Consider for a minute how paltry the payout has been from the recent event grindstone. Personally, burnout from both the event schedule has lead me to make my decks as efficient as possible while ignoring secondary objectives. The last thing I want is another 15 minute Kiora mirror match. Two out of three of my decks can still meet both secondary objectives, but I'm no longer stalling games to prioritize them or running a 5 mana common spirit with delirium to make hitting those objectives more consistent. The only reason I'm able to do this is that there are no true deck restrictions in place for the event. This applies to both deck construction and matchmaking you with an opponent's deck.

As more and more planeswalkers are released and players pick them up, the actual event deck pool will continue to decrease for all these PvP events due to the lack of deck restrictions. Until that changes, these events will never truly capture their intended theme.

octal9

Off-color PWs for the event can be picked for matchmaking in the event as well. I went against an Ob Nix earlier, and someone else went against Koth.

Feagul

octal9 wrote:

Off-color PWs for the event can be picked for matchmaking in the event as well. I went against an Ob Nix earlier, and someone else went against Koth.

Whoops, you're saying that their color doesn't have to be present in the event? Across all the Terrors in the Shadows events, I haven't seen or heard of this behavior--perhaps it's newly introduced from the latest patch?

octal9

I've heard of it here on the forums before, but hadn't experienced it first-hand myself until today. I went against an Ob Nix with a deck that could have done the event if the left node were black (diregraf, floorboards, kalitas, to the slaughter), but it was most definitely an Ob Nix.

It's bad enough going against non-event decks as your OP states. This just adds onto the dogpile.

Pacone

Ah yep, I fought Obnixilis too.

I have noticed a lot of low level pws in platinum. Although maybe it's just a few but I'm facing them over and over, darned matchmaking.

I welcome the quick easy match but, for someone more competitive, missing secondaries or stalling to a halt could be very annoying

Morphis

I think I won't bother ever again with terror event.
I play to get only one secondary if it is possible with not much effort.
If not I won't even try to get that.
I'll end up in top 25 if lucky/play well or not.

I don't care much at this point.
Not going to play boring match where all I do is wait many turns doing NOTHING just in hope I draw the objective cards.
Cause for most planeswalker it's either that or build a totally noob deck.

Only some planeswalkers can make well rounded decks for some specific secondary(and usually only one secondary).

Too much burden to get what will be most likely a useless dupe.

scydrex

I share your pain. I have been playing the latest Bant (Blue, White, Green) Terror event with my weakest possible deck (Jace), weakened even further by having to comply with the objectives (playing horrors and madness cards).

I faced off against two Chandra decks. The first game, she played Harness the storm and direct damage spells all the way. I won that game by an inch.
In the second Chandra encounter, every single creature had haste. While blue's main removal is mostly returning creatures to the hand. Without accounting for the fact that red decks are OP in enraged events, as they can do direct damage all day. Let's just say she wiped the floor with me.

If the battles had been regular Quick Battles I would not have minded. But facing off against a powerful, non-restricted decks that are not even allowed in the event because of color restrictions is simply not fun.

Ohboy

Don't you guys get tired of bashing your AI opponents into the ground with overpowered decks?

I got one am more eager to play theme events like soi than straight up muscle ones like nop.

Proper deck building is a forgotten art in the Era of online deck lists.

Sure, you'll meet strong non theme decks. But so does everyone. I am think it's great to meet these decks because it separates the good decks from the haphazardly configured decks to meet objectives.

Buret0

Pacone wrote:

Ah yep, I fought Obnixilis too.

I have noticed a lot of low level pws in platinum. Although maybe it's just a few but I'm facing them over and over, darned matchmaking.

I welcome the quick easy match but, for someone more competitive, missing secondaries or stalling to a halt could be very annoying

I appologize if any were mine. I'm not playing QB in order to make all of the events, so I've got 2-3 level 1 pws.

Tilikum

Morphis wrote:

Not going to play boring match where all I do is wait many turns doing NOTHING just in hope I draw the objective cards.
Cause for most planeswalker it's either that or build a totally noob deck.

That's pretty much how I'm starting to feel. Secondary objectives are straight up not fun.
They feel like busy work, like when you give a kid a kid's menu so he scribbles on it with a crayon and behaves.
I do enough un-fun stuff IRL. This is supposed to be my sweet, sweet escape.

Steeme

Tilikum wrote:

Morphis wrote:

Not going to play boring match where all I do is wait many turns doing NOTHING just in hope I draw the objective cards.
Cause for most planeswalker it's either that or build a totally noob deck.

That's pretty much how I'm starting to feel. Secondary objectives are straight up not fun.
They feel like busy work, like when you give a kid a kid's menu so he scribbles on it with a crayon and behaves.
I do enough un-fun stuff IRL. This is supposed to be my sweet, sweet escape.

Agreed. I exhausted my matches this morning, and quickly lost enjoyment facing some super-highly-optimized decks while I struggle with "whatever I can throw together" to meet the objectives. I make the same mistake every time.

(Side Note: I am in Gold tier)

I can usually get away with weaker decks when using planeswalkers that can compensate. Nahiri is decent because she has a decent selection of cards and she can also buff weaker troops into monsters with her first ability. That means you can play objective-based troops (ie. **** troops) and still win due to inflating their stats, especially since it's an enraged event.

The tides have turned recently though, some observations:

Kiora used to be able to compensate with a weaker deck before her first ability was nerfed, because you could swing some mana your way.. now, not so much.
Nissa... I always place her on Green and she is always the weakest - now that the Sage has been nerfed, I am easily beaten by optimal decks. The other "transform" creatures are so bloody expensive! You need a Nissa's Renewal banked in order to drop them on the battlefield!
Runaway Carriage - now that it is gone, I've noticed that players have no longer **** their decks, and as such it has lowered the probability that a less optimal deck will be sufficient

Unfortunately, I see only 2 solutions:
1. Keep your same old boring super-efficient QB decks and go for the progression rewards. This is basically the same as non-participation. There's no story, no immersion. Boring.
2. Acquire more useful cards. I've seen some very well designed decks, but all of them contain key cards I don't have.

Solution #2 is out the window given the horrid drop rates when looking for specific cards. There's no way to obtain them. I could spend 1000 dollars today and still not get the key cards.

Solution #1 is, well, Boring with a capital 'B'. I will do something else.

Perhaps what we need now is a new set to release. The game has run dry.

fox1342

You don't have to compete. I'm sure some other players would like the chance to reach top of their pools.

fox1342

The Blue node is Vampires of Horrors. Thanks. Sahelli for the top 1% of players can possibly cast a few very bad vampires. Everyone else is stuck on a few horrors.

Pqmtg-

fox1342 wrote:

The Blue node is Vampires of Horrors. Thanks. Sahelli for the top 1% of players can possibly cast a few very bad vampires. Everyone else is stuck on a few horrors.

This is hardly the first time we've had the blue node for this. Like you said everyone has the same limitations. What's the problem?

jimilinho_

fox1342 wrote:

The Blue node is Vampires of Horrors. Thanks. Sahelli for the top 1% of players can possibly cast a few very bad vampires. Everyone else is stuck on a few horrors.

You know it's Vampires OR Horrors, there's plenty in mono blue. Stichwing Skaab is an ucommon 7 mana 4/2 which is solid. Forgotten Creation was an event reward I think so almost everyone has that.

Oh and there has been 3 chances to win Saheeli so certainly giving everyone a chance.

fox1342

Pqmtg- wrote:

fox1342 wrote:

The Blue node is Vampires of Horrors. Thanks. Sahelli for the top 1% of players can possibly cast a few very bad vampires. Everyone else is stuck on a few horrors.

This is hardly the first time we've had the blue node for this. Like you said everyone has the same limitations. What's the problem?

It was Horror and Zombie which is much better for blue.

Pqmtg-

fox1342 wrote:

Pqmtg- wrote:

fox1342 wrote:

The Blue node is Vampires of Horrors. Thanks. Sahelli for the top 1% of players can possibly cast a few very bad vampires. Everyone else is stuck on a few horrors.

This is hardly the first time we've had the blue node for this. Like you said everyone has the same limitations. What's the problem?

It was Horror and Zombie which is much better for blue.

It's always been horror and vampires. The nodes don't change. Just the colours. Zombies have always belonged with spirits on the left node.

Corn_Noodles

Pqmtg- wrote:

fox1342 wrote:

The Blue node is Vampires of Horrors. Thanks. Sahelli for the top 1% of players can possibly cast a few very bad vampires. Everyone else is stuck on a few horrors.

This is hardly the first time we've had the blue node for this. Like you said everyone has the same limitations. What's the problem?

The previous Terrors event (09/24/2016 to 09/26/16) had the same colors on the same nodes and I believe the very first Terrors was also the same.

EDHdad

I really dislike the fact that the progression awards stop after about 25-30 wins, but the event drags on to a maximum of approximately 70 games. When it was just me, I was fine stopping after 25-30 wins and getting on with things, maybe playing a few extra games for fun. But with the coalitions, there's pressure to keep grinding away, even if your coalition has already locked in its tier for the coalition awards.

I would prefer a system where, if the progression awards top out at 150 points, you stop playing after you get 150 points. Your score could be based on the number of games it took you to get to 150 points. If someone wins all of their games and gets all of the secondary objectives, they'll reach this in 19 games. If someone blows off the secondary objectives, they'll get this in 30 wins. But I really don't like a system which encourages you to play up to 50 additional games for no incremental benefit.

If it's possible to score 630 points in an event, then there should be additional progression awards up to 600 points. If not, the award should be that we can leave the event and get on with other things, without jeopardizing our standing in the event or with our coalition.

glggwp

EDHdad wrote:

I really dislike the fact that the progression awards stop after about 25-30 wins, but the event drags on to a maximum of approximately 70 games. When it was just me, I was fine stopping after 25-30 wins and getting on with things, maybe playing a few extra games for fun. But with the coalitions, there's pressure to keep grinding away, even if your coalition has already locked in its tier for the coalition awards.

I would prefer a system where, if the progression awards top out at 150 points, you stop playing after you get 150 points. Your score could be based on the number of games it took you to get to 150 points. If someone wins all of their games and gets all of the secondary objectives, they'll reach this in 19 games. If someone blows off the secondary objectives, they'll get this in 30 wins. But I really don't like a system which encourages you to play up to 50 additional games for no incremental benefit.

If it's possible to score 630 points in an event, then there should be additional progression awards up to 600 points. If not, the award should be that we can leave the event and get on with other things, without jeopardizing our standing in the event or with our coalition.

it's not just you... i feel a little tired of playing **** as well... i now stop when i finish my progression

rob443

Personally i like the Terrors events the most. The simple reason for that is that the quick game play (enrage) and the 5 max nodes allow me to both work fulltime and play all of the possible games of the event.

I would love the other events much more, if i could just bank some more games.