How am I supposed to make basic progression?

Steeme

I've failed Tezzeret 3.3 three times over. Didn't even come close. First try was Dovin Baan, not a chance. Second time Kiora, not a chance. Third time Koth, not a chance.

It doesn't help that Tezzeret gets free Fabricate tokens every turn as a passive ability, nor does it help that he plays creatures with 12+ toughness that keep getting stronger due to the free fabricate tokens.

So I'm going to write off 3.3 (yes, I've seen some decks posted, but I'm missing key cards like Crush and Startled Awake)

What are my options now? Actually, there are no options, since node 3 is now completely locked out. I concede to Tezzeret, but that means I gain no more points from that node.

I think we need the option to skip an encounter. Different encounters already reward a certain amount of points, I don't see any harm in a player being able to skip 3.3 and cycle back to 3.1. Perhaps after the second loss, it should skip the encounter. (I do see the value in "try, try again" but in this case it makes for a poor experience because it's not possible for me to compete in that node).


Edit: Just failed a fourth time with Kiora. At least I did some damage to him this time.

Edit Feb 14:
Beat him on the 5th try. Shout out to BKen for the winning deck.

In addition, props to the community, I'm surprised this thread generated so much activity. Love seeing all the deck ideas. Alas, each deck usually has at least 1 or 2 key cards that I'm missing, and they are usually the winners.

This was the deck I beat him with, finished with full health. Skipped the vehicle objective. Spit on Tezzeret afterwards for good measure.

Ob Nixilis

Support:
Shrine of the Forsaken Gods

Creature:
Olivia
Smuggler's Copter

Spell:
Grip of Desolation
To the Slaughter
Unholy Hunger
Die Young
Infinite Obliteration
Lost Legacy
Behold the Beyond

THEMAGICkMAN

Steeme wrote:

I've failed Tezzeret 3.3 three times over. Didn't even come close. First try was Dovin Baan, not a chance. Second time Kiora, not a chance. Third time Koth, not a chance.

It doesn't help that Tezzeret gets free Fabricate tokens every turn as a passive ability, nor does it help that he plays creatures with 12+ toughness that keep getting stronger due to the free fabricate tokens.

So I'm going to write off 3.3 (yes, I've seen some decks posted, but I'm missing key cards like Crush and Startled Awake)

What are my options now? Actually, there are no options, since node 3 is now completely locked out. I concede to Tezzeret, but that means I gain no more points from that node.

I think we need the option to skip an encounter. Different encounters already reward a certain amount of points, I don't see any harm in a player being able to skip 3.3 and cycle back to 3.1. Perhaps after the second loss, it should skip the encounter. (I do see the value in "try, try again" but in this case it makes for a poor experience because it's not possible for me to compete in that node).


Edit: Just failed a fourth time with Kiora. At least I did some damage to him this time.

try this deck, most of the rares/mythics are replaceable:

Jace2

Creatures:
Metalwork Colossus (replaceable with another good defender)
Incubator Drone

Spells:
Disperse
Anchor to the Aether
Gone Missing
Scour from existence
Ghostly wings

Supports:
Lumbering Falls (not necessary but its always just sitting in my J2 deck, couldn't be bothered to change it )
Sphinxes Tutelage
Tamiyos Journal (an important card, but trail of evidence is an alright replacement)

try it and let us know how it goes

Steeme

Fine, I'll try it. I don't have Metalwork Colossus, but I'll use Bomat Courier instead.

Just as a hint, I already had Moon, Frog, Disperse, etc. in my Kiora deck but it was ineffective as he can just replace/buff creatures faster than I can draw/cycle cards.

Alve

Some folks had plenty of success with Creatureless Ob. Remember that cards like Die Young/Harnessed Lightning that clear Energy from the board can be quite useful - you make sure that he doesn't start getting infinite turns.

For me Kiora with lots of green gem changers works quite well, as it clears the Energy/Servos too, but the deck is very mythic-heavy, so I wouldn't recommend it to everyone. Peacewalker Colossus, as useless as it looks, saved my butt a few times (a brave sacrifice) in the first encounter with Tezz, before I managed to drop Kiora's octopi and UH. If you have some of those big gem-changing spells, try using them either with a board-lock or a PA loop (or both - I use the loop, no board lock so far). Perhaps test red with some creatures that destroy blocks of gems/Harness/Demolish? I haven't tried it, just a random thought. Either way, good luck. It's difficult to win against him if he cascades and steamrolls you in three turns

Feyda

I feel like they really need to retune 3.3. His psychotic mana gains and obnoxiously cheap cost loyalty make it half impossible to lock down his board. Even just making his loyalty cost 6..... as much fun as it is for him to pop loyalty plus 20 mana worth of cards every single turn is....

Stormbringer0

I beat him with my Kiora the third time in a row.

Creatures
Decimator of the Privences
Ulvenwald Hydra
Distendend Mindbender (replaceable)

Spells
Nissa's Renewal
Season's Past
Exert Influence
Artificer's Epiphany
Talent of the Telepath

Supports
Prism Array
Nissas Oath (replaceable)

Main thing is surviving with Renewal and matching loaded gems. With Exert Influence you can snatch the opponents biggest creature and Hydra is for blocking lesser creatures (unless it becomes huge, then it blocks fatties as well). Prism Array stops creatures too.

The combination of destroying oppo's creatures with Hydra/Decimator and matching loaded gems works for me. Pretty mythic heavy, though.

Stormbringer0

Feyda wrote:

I feel like they really need to retune 3.3. His psychotic mana gains and obnoxiously cheap cost loyalty make it half impossible to lock down his board. Even just making his loyalty cost 6..... as much fun as it is for him to pop loyalty plus 20 mana worth of cards every single turn is....

I don't think that they have to balance him. He is the hardest boss of the event and he is absolutely beatable. I know, it's frustrating, if Tezz steamrolls you, but the community complains way too much anyway. Some objectives are nearly impossible to achive (win within three rounds, trololol), but if you get the ribbons forthis, it's much more likely to earn a better place in the rankings (in this event at least your coalition does), becuase others didn't get the ribbons.

Steeme

Stormbringer0 wrote:

Feyda wrote:

I feel like they really need to retune 3.3. His psychotic mana gains and obnoxiously cheap cost loyalty make it half impossible to lock down his board. Even just making his loyalty cost 6..... as much fun as it is for him to pop loyalty plus 20 mana worth of cards every single turn is....

I don't think that they have to balance him. He is the hardest boss of the event and he is absolutely beatable. I know, it's frustrating, if Tezz steamrolls you, but the community complains way too much anyway. Some objectives are nearly impossible to achive (win within three rounds, trololol), but if you get the ribbons forthis, it's much more likely to earn a better place in the rankings (in this event at least your coalition does), becuase others didn't get the ribbons.

Right. You built a deck using 5 of the top tier 1 mythic cards available, and you managed a victory. Not sure how that translates into "I don't think that they have to balance him."

This is the problem. Players with competitive decks are forcing events into increased difficulty. Casual players are getting left behind.

I'm not against the difficulty, fine, I suck, I can't beat him.. but I can't skip the encounter. The entire node is locked.

watman

Koth's deck I use:
Akoum Firebird
Unlicensed Disintegration
Corrupted Graftstone
Volcanic Rambler
Embermaw Hellion
Avaricious Dragon
Wolf of Devil's Breach
Scour from Existence
Inner Struggle
Tamiyo's Journal

Not sure what cards do you have/are you missing, but the big critters can be easily replaced by other big critters, the key card here seems to be Corrupted Graftstone, that helps tremendously with Koth's mana...

Stormbringer0

Steeme wrote:

Stormbringer0 wrote:

Feyda wrote:

I feel like they really need to retune 3.3. His psychotic mana gains and obnoxiously cheap cost loyalty make it half impossible to lock down his board. Even just making his loyalty cost 6..... as much fun as it is for him to pop loyalty plus 20 mana worth of cards every single turn is....

I don't think that they have to balance him. He is the hardest boss of the event and he is absolutely beatable. I know, it's frustrating, if Tezz steamrolls you, but the community complains way too much anyway. Some objectives are nearly impossible to achive (win within three rounds, trololol), but if you get the ribbons forthis, it's much more likely to earn a better place in the rankings (in this event at least your coalition does), becuase others didn't get the ribbons.

Right. You built a deck using 5 of the top tier 1 mythic cards available, and you managed a victory. Not sure how that translates into "I don't think that they have to balance him."

This is the problem. Players with competitive decks are forcing events into increased difficulty. Casual players are getting left behind.

I'm not against the difficulty, fine, I suck, I can't beat him.. but I can't skip the encounter. The entire node is locked.

Maybe I'm seeing this from a higher spot, you're right (no pun intended).

The possibility to skip an encounter is pretty fair. Why not choosing one of the three every time? So you can beat the opponent witch is on your level.

Feyda

Twice in a row now ive lost to him steamrolling the match from turn one or two... all it takes is one half decent cascade and he has infinite loyalty ability, and his mana gains are so high he easily pumps out his biggest creatures every single turn. I beat him the first time with creatureless ob but he is ridiculously scaled and puts out far too many high powered creatures to reliably be able to nuke down. When he is able to consistantly get 2 or even 3 creatures down every turn, its almost impossible to stop that kind of momentum

Sortash

Today i was finally able to beat him for the first time. I was using davin baan with a support-heavy deck including drowner of hope, thopters +decoction module and gontis aetherheart. Was able to create multiple turns from 3 round. Built up the third PW-ability and stomped him in 2 attacks. But the other attempts i got crushed so miserably (1-hit-ko from from a multiple-reinforced aethertide whale ... was funny to watch this happen O.o)But depending on who gets the rewards from gontis first this victory was still hell of a gamble after all.

Also tried to deny him the energized gems with harnessed lightning and confiscation coup on my 2nd try. But his PW-ability was just too strong, i couldnt keep up with removal and in the long run his 500 HP where too much.

buscemi

Steeme wrote:

This is the problem. Players with competitive decks are forcing events into increased difficulty. Casual players are getting left behind.

I'm not against the difficulty, fine, I suck, I can't beat him.. but I can't skip the encounter. The entire node is locked.

So, wait, both competitive AND casual players don't like this event?

Makes you think, doesn't it?

It's often suggested on the forums that competitive players stop whinging about how challenging/random some of the secondary objectives are, and accept the fact that they are not SUPPOSED to get them with a 100% guarantee. Surely the same argument could be levelled against casual players and the progression rewards that they are shooting for?

morgue427

i beat him with no mythics in the deck with jace 2 can be done takes luck getting a decent start imprision helps because him getting more mana gain isnt going to hurt him really insidious is crucial just to make him waste some creatures race to his 3rd ability and just get some creatures out and comence beating his azz i use the life linker just to make sure i can stay alive prision one of mine and smugglers copter just to add an extra draw per turn.

Alve

buscemi wrote:

Steeme wrote:

This is the problem. Players with competitive decks are forcing events into increased difficulty. Casual players are getting left behind.

I'm not against the difficulty, fine, I suck, I can't beat him.. but I can't skip the encounter. The entire node is locked.

So, wait, both competitive AND casual players don't like this event?

Makes you think, doesn't it?

It's often suggested on the forums that competitive players stop whinging about how challenging/random some of the secondary objectives are, and accept the fact that they are not SUPPOSED to get them with a 100% guarantee. Surely the same argument could be levelled against casual players and the progression rewards that they are shooting for?

It'd be easier if the guaranteed rare was somewhere in the middle of progression (and then, imo, progression should extend into infinity with a small reward for every 100 points above max, to motivate people to keep playing). 'I can't get that rare card' is a better reason for frustration than 'My score isn't perfect anymore'. As much as I know you like your perfect scores :P

Being able to skip an encounter is a great idea, provided that you need to sacrifice a refresh to do that, or lose twice first. Or that the difference in rewards is big enough to make sure that players don't skip harder encounters by default in order to rake in more ribbons.

I'd just like to note that this event actually is better designed when it comes to casual/new/low-level players - the power creep is smaller in every single node, so truly casual players aren't locked out from two or three nodes after the first few encounters. The problem of getting stuck at one encounter is as old as pve events in this game.

Steeme

buscemi wrote:

Steeme wrote:

This is the problem. Players with competitive decks are forcing events into increased difficulty. Casual players are getting left behind.

I'm not against the difficulty, fine, I suck, I can't beat him.. but I can't skip the encounter. The entire node is locked.

So, wait, both competitive AND casual players don't like this event?

Makes you think, doesn't it?

It's often suggested on the forums that competitive players stop whinging about how challenging/random some of the secondary objectives are, and accept the fact that they are not SUPPOSED to get them with a 100% guarantee. Surely the same argument could be levelled against casual players and the progression rewards that they are shooting for?

You can't compare "Optional" objectives with a "Mandatory" victory condition. But I get it, the solution is to just give up and sit out the event. I made that suggestion about the EC event, the solution was to make progression and give up on the objectives. I will take a dose of my own medicine: I will ignore objectives and just make the basic prog... oh wait, I can't even make progression. Ouch.

Compare it with the Avacyn event. I found 3.3 to be a bit of a challenge. I lost the first try, and it wasn't the first loss either. But there was never a point where I didn't have a chance at all. Just a few adjustments to fine tune the deck specific to the encounter, and I was able to overcome the hurdle.

Nevertheless, I'll give it one more try with Magic's J2 deck above. My node recharges in like 15 minutes.


Edit: Tried Magic's deck and failed miserably. The mechanics are there, but I could not cast cards fast enough to keep up with the AI.

Steeme

THEMAGICkMAN wrote:

try this deck, most of the rares/mythics are replaceable:

Jace2

Creatures:
Metalwork Colossus (replaceable with another good defender)
Incubator Drone

Spells:
Disperse
Anchor to the Aether
Gone Missing
Scour from existence
Ghostly wings

Supports:
Lumbering Falls (not necessary but its always just sitting in my J2 deck, couldn't be bothered to change it )
Sphinxes Tutelage
Tamiyos Journal (an important card, but trail of evidence is an alright replacement)

try it and let us know how it goes

Unfortunately this did not work with Bomat Courier swapped for the Colossus. I did not have enough mana gain to keep up with the AI. Boomship clears the board and you cannot bounce it as it will just re-clear the board. Aethertide Whale also cannot be bounced as it floods the board with energy, further propagating Aehterworks Marvel and Aether Heart.

By the time I laid down J2's ultimate, I did not have any creatures on the board to benefit. When I finally laid down incubator drone, I did not get to draw a ghostly wing for it to make a difference, so he was able to just fly over the defenders doing 40 damage per turn.

It's a good deck, and I felt like the mechanics were in place, but it cannot keep pace with the AI playing 4 key mythics + a free 4/4 token + 2 free fabricate tokens per turn.

THEMAGICkMAN

Steeme wrote:

THEMAGICkMAN wrote:

try this deck, most of the rares/mythics are replaceable:

Jace2

Creatures:
Metalwork Colossus (replaceable with another good defender)
Incubator Drone

Spells:
Disperse
Anchor to the Aether
Gone Missing
Scour from existence
Ghostly wings

Supports:
Lumbering Falls (not necessary but its always just sitting in my J2 deck, couldn't be bothered to change it )
Sphinxes Tutelage
Tamiyos Journal (an important card, but trail of evidence is an alright replacement)

try it and let us know how it goes

Unfortunately this did not work with Bomat Courier swapped for the Colossus. I did not have enough mana gain to keep up with the AI. Boomship clears the board and you cannot bounce it as it will just re-clear the board. Aethertide Whale also cannot be bounced as it floods the board with energy, further propagating Aehterworks Marvel and Aether Heart.

By the time I laid down J2's ultimate, I did not have any creatures on the board to benefit. When I finally laid down incubator drone, I did not get to draw a ghostly wing for it to make a difference, so he was able to just fly over the defenders doing 40 damage per turn.

It's a good deck, and I felt like the mechanics were in place, but it cannot keep pace with the AI playing 4 key mythics + a free 4/4 token + 2 free fabricate tokens per turn.

Damn, I've beaten tezz twice with that deck, the second time I won through the gontis aether heart dynavolt tower combo. Each turn he'd steal critters out of my deck, reinforce them all, play the big whale etc. Etc. But I still beat him

buscemi

Steeme wrote:

You can't compare "Optional" objectives with a "Mandatory" victory condition. But I get it, the solution is to just give up and sit out the event. I made that suggestion about the EC event, the solution was to make progression and give up on the objectives. I will take a dose of my own medicine: I will ignore objectives and just make the basic prog... oh wait, I can't even make progression. Ouch.

I fail to see how competing in this event is 'mandatory'.

Astralwind

I won 1 time and lost 1 time in 3.3 using my Jace2.
I had good control of the creatures but got killed by dynavolt tower.
I think this level of difficulty is fine and I like the challenge.
But some feedbacks are valid - allow an option to pick 1 out of 3 from the nodes so people don't get stuck there forever.

sageofhalo451

If you can't remove the creatures fast enough.
If you can't block them enough because they come too fast and run you over.

Then you can't keep trying to compete mana to mana, creature to creature. You can't keep up that way.

You need an advantage. J2's ult and others like it are the right idea but you need more.

How do you prolong the life of a blocker? First Strike

So you need a First Striker that gets buffed up to be able to block the big 16/16s and even up to the mid-twenties depending on fabricates.

It also needs to be able to take hits from Skysovreign and not get blown out. So you need a way to continually pump it up.

Nahiri's first, Dovin's third, Sorin's third to a degree. There are cheap buff spells that will help you on your way as well. If you have Saheel's Artistry that is a must as it will use the energy generated by the AI against it.

Make First Strike work and you can win this fight.