Why austerity is the wrong plan

Kyokudai

madwren said:

wereotter said:

@DuskPaladin

my frustration comes from feeling as though the events with higher rewards aren't on a level playing field when some are playing to objectives and others are only playing to win and ignoring anything else.

So, something to consider is that those people who have the resources to obtain new cards have the flexibility to play to objectives AND win.  I mean, I bought about 11 premium packs and filled my card inventory with rares. I can not only meet the objectives, but do so using powerful cards that facilitate that goal.

Compare to a newer player, or someone with a smaller collection. If they did not have that hoard of crystals (or cash) to invest in the new set, then they may lack the ability to fulfill the objectives. If that's the case, then they're likely going to do whatever it takes to win the game, regardless of objectives.

That's why austerity hasn't been working. By starving everyone of resources and currency, you penalize the newer or lower-tier players far more than those at the top. Instead of helping the little guy overcome his lack of cards, they've simply made it worse.

I had some optimism that over the long haul, this advantage would be mitigated. However, now that we're a month in, I'm starting to lose faith that will actually occur.

Also, real quick, it's a "moot" point. Thanks. ><

@madwren : this is spot on.

This is what the new player experience kind of is here in my opinion.  I'm still in silver, so my collection is relatively small.  Because of that and because of low level pw's and bugs I don't build decks to meet secondary objectives.  I would like to build for them, but I just don't have the cards for it. 

For ToS I wanted to use my new Koth and my Tezz 2 (since it is pretty reliable).  Put the Tezz on the first node and Koth on the second.  Koth had no chance of hitting the second zombie objective, but almost always got the 3rd obj.  Tezz sometimes got the 3rd and had no chance of hitting the second.  Of course, both of them locked into their first battle against lvl 60s.... stupid bug.  Tezz is 35 and Koth is...7.  Tezz locked down the board and pulled out that first win, Koth made a valiant effort and burned a Gideon down to 19 before he set up lifelinkers and I ran out of gas.  So I'm building around a limited card set and building around bugs.

Now, hopefully the new crafting system will help me to get some of the niche cards that I need to be building.  What would be nice for me, is to move the full pack reward lower on the reward tier.  If the crafting system is reasonable, it would also be nice on coalition rewards to leave the rares to the above 100 rank as it is, but for lower ranks award a half a rare through giving crafting materials.  That could go a long ways toward the issue.

In Summary:

I agree that low rewards is the wrong plan.  It does not level the playing field; it widens the rift between the 'haves' and the 'have nots'.  The 'haves' will keep playing because they can easily reap the lesser reward.  The 'have nots' will come in, realize they can't compete, then leave.

shteev

The argument for preserving the game's economy seems an unfounded one. The number of mythics given out to players has dropped by x%. I'd do some maths, but I can't be bothered today. That's a HUGE drop. (or, maybe it isn't. Do the math, and debate me. Or, just disagree without figures, and we'll get nowhere).

However, the game seemed to me to be going pretty strong for the last year and a half, or so... being a member of the megalliance with ties to The Power Nine I could see it grow with my own eyes. And then 1.9.2 turned up, and suddenly everyone starts quitting, and the rating of the game on the iStore drops from 4 to 2 stars.

I see no evidence that reducing the amount of value in the economy has caused the game to grow, or even remain at the same level; it very much seems to have shrunken.

Of course, my evidence is anecdotal, and the star rating doesn't necessarily translate into the 'health' of the game, but it's all I've got to go on. Does anyone have more solid evidence either way? The number of active players and income generated are figures that are unavailable to us (aren't they?)





Let's hear some more from players at the bottom end of the game, in Bronze and Silver. Are you getting more or less rares or mythics than your were before 1.9.2? If they're getting more stuff than they were before, then that kinda blows this whole thread out of the water. But what if they're getting less? Are they happy with getting less, knowing that there are players higher up the ranks who are getting even less than that, and that is the future that awaits them? Or are they perhaps not happy with getting less?

madwren

Kyokudai said:

In Summary:

I agree that low rewards is the wrong plan.  It does not level the playing field; it widens the rift between the 'haves' and the 'have nots'.  The 'haves' will keep playing because they can easily reap the lesser reward.  The 'have nots' will come in, realize they can't compete, then leave.

Thanks for sharing your perspective. I love to see more players in silver and bronze posting their experiences.

I've posted previously about how detrimental 1.9.2 was to the new player experience and how detrimental it is to significantly delay player progression and card acquisition.  As you indicate, the crafting system could go a long way towards remedying some of the inequities, but at this point I'm reluctant to put too much faith into them.

 If it truly allows card targeting and lets newer players turn some dupes into useful cards, it could be extremely good--and while that won't erase the advantage held by those of us with greater resources, it will narrow the gap a lot more effectively than the lottery pulls that we have now.

babar3355

Ohboy said:

They aren't. 

That's why they're changing it around all the time. They're trying to find the optimum spot. 

Meanwhile, you're advocating they switch back to the system they already tried and knows did not work. 

Do you hear yourself, or just blindly lash out at me? 

The answer to "Damn we screwed up... Is there any way to avoid long term austerity measures" is not "let's just keep doing what we did and pretend the problem will go away instead of compounding" 

I never said switch it back.  My entire post was about increasing rewards to everyone, and my primary recommendation was to do it by increasing the drop rates. 

I wasn't lashing out blindly at you, I was expressing frustration that its impossible to have a constructive conversation about the health of the games economy without you throwing baseless, glib comments or faulty claims into the mix.  It's the equivalent of calling someone a racist or bigot because they disagree on an issue with you.

No one said go back to the old system.  If you don't have anything constructive to add can you just refrain from bashing other peoples viewpoints on occasion?

wereotter said:

Sorin zombies I did both because it sufficed before and because Hixus, Binding Mummy, Cast Out, Forsake the Worldly. Also being able to combine Trial of Solidarity with Cartouche of Ambition. In hindsight, it might not have been the strongest choice, but it wasn't a poor one when taken in the context of the event as a whole.

I hear you.  I respect that you are introspective enough to see that Sorin might not have been the best choice. When I approach a node such as this one I am trying to minimize my chances at failure on any objective.  Sorin has a number of issues including a small life total and completely useless PW abilities unless you have an established board state. He is also 100% dependent on killing the opponent with creatures, which makes him susceptible to the lose 5 or more objective.   Ob, on the other hand, can focus 100% of his attention on meeting the 2 objectives while being able to win the game practically at will once the objectives are met and his loyalty is sufficiently high.    But, yeah, matchups are a big deal in this event.  Koth can go bonkers at times and if you faced a lot of black nodes in your G3, it was pretty much impossible to prevent losing more than 2.

But yea, I think the point is, people were playing decks not designed for objectives because its so hard to get the cards required to compete with objectives in the current game state. You can see the post above where the player admitted to exactly that.

andrewvanmarle

Ohboy said:

No I'm suggesting that instead of constantly talking about going back to the previous one that already had a year to prove its worth (and didn't), anything else would be preferable. 

So suggestions should be made that are not related to going back to the one they abandoned at great cost because it's either not going to happen, or they cave and we get another worse reversion to mean later on. 

It's not that the current situation is perfect. And you can tell they know because they are experimenting all the time. 

The only thing we know is that the previous one has had a long time to prove it works and failed. So I'm suggesting people stop talking about going back to it. 

The simplest reason to go back: The current state of the game is worse than it was. Tadaah

so go back, and see if there is a better alternative at some point, sticking to a new state just because is a bad idea.

logic.always.wins.

wereotter

Kyokudai said:

This is what the new player experience kind of is here in my opinion.  I'm still in silver, so my collection is relatively small.  Because of that and because of low level pw's and bugs I don't build decks to meet secondary objectives.  I would like to build for them, but I just don't have the cards for it. 

This is something I would consider a different situation. If you're in silver, you likely don't have the same extensive collection as someone in platinum. So at that point, it's a question of can't build to objectives rather than won't. I would expect literally every player in platinum at this point to at least have access to Fleshbag Marauder, Undead Servant, Returned Centaur, and Shambling Ghoul plus whatever collection of zombies you might have pulled from Amonkhet. So, for those in platinum, it seems more a willful decision not to participate rather than a lack of ability.

shteev said:

Let's hear some more from players at the bottom end of the game, in Bronze and Silver. Are you getting more or less rares or mythics than your were before 1.9.2? If they're getting more stuff than they were before, then that kinda blows this whole thread out of the water. But what if they're getting less? Are they happy with getting less, knowing that there are players higher up the ranks who are getting even less than that, and that is the future that awaits them? Or are they perhaps not happy with getting less?

 While, as I mentioned above, I'm not in gold or silver, I'm also not in a top coalition in platinum (we're usually around 25-26 in events) and I'm not one of the top players in the tier. For me, my collection of cards seems to be growing at about the same pace as usual. I tend to get all the common and uncommon cards as well as most of the rares through packs and event rewards. Mythics are something I only ever got from packs or buying them, but since I was able to use saved up unobtanium to buy Rhonas, I feel like my mythic collection is potentially able to grow faster than before.

babar3355

@wereotter Keep in mind that many players might not have time for objectives.  They might be on vacation, have visitors in town, have to work that weekend etc.  Maybe they are just trying to snag progression as fast as possible without really intending to compete.  I agree it can be frustrating, but its also to be expected.

Steeme

I'm actually getting more rewards than ever before.

More packs

More crystals

New jewel system which gets me a crack at specific cards

Heck, I'm even getting more Runes.

Don't tell D3H, but I think I'm actually spending less money.  Might be a different story when they start rolling the pre-purchases.

I have a feeling that the only players that miss the "mythic" rewards are the 0.1% of players that were collecting them.

andrewvanmarle said:

The simplest reason to go back: The current state of the game is worse than it was. Tadaah

so go back, and see if there is a better alternative at some point, sticking to a new state just because is a bad idea.

logic.always.wins.

Your assumption is that you think everyone feels like the game is worse right now.  With the event deck system and matchmaking changes alone, I feel like events are in a much better place than they used to be.

wereotter

babar3355 said:

@wereotter Keep in mind that many players might not have time for objectives.  They might be on vacation, have visitors in town, have to work that weekend etc.  Maybe they are just trying to snag progression as fast as possible without really intending to compete.  I agree it can be frustrating, but its also to be expected.

This may be true, but I would also consider people in the situation of being on vacation or having out of town guests to be the exception rather than the rule. I would more consider people just trying to snag progression to be the case, however, if I compare matches in Trial of Strength, which had higher rewards, to Trial of Ambition, which had similar secondary objectives and lower rewards, the number of decks built for the event was actually higher in Trial of Ambition.

This becomes relevant to the larger discussion as it seems higher rewards leads to people more likely to just pound through events with whatever deck rather than actually taking time to try and play with the other objectives. So to me, if this is what lower rewards means, than also from my perspective, lower rewards makes the game more enjoyable to play. I can't speak to what everyone else enjoys, obviously, but I'd rather have a game with fewer rewards that feels more fun to play than one with higher rewards that makes me want to smash my phone into a wall.

shteev

wereotter said:

I'd rather have a game with fewer rewards that feels more fun to play than one with higher rewards that makes me want to smash my phone into a wall.

Personally I think that's more of an argument for tweaking the tier system and card balance than for changing the prize structure... why should anyone except the top players of the game ever be exposed to decks which run 3 OP Masterpieces?

https://forums.d3go.com/discussion/64460/prize-abundance-a-case-study-eldritch-moon

Corn_Noodles

wereotter said:

I had a hard time competing, not because of card collection, but because of the way players decided to play the event. I only lost matches against decks that were obviously not designed to meet any secondary objectives. 

I've always wanted matchmaking based on your score so you play people at the same level as you. We'd also see less perfect scores if the perfect people had to play against one another.

wereotter

shteev said:

wereotter said:

I'd rather have a game with fewer rewards that feels more fun to play than one with higher rewards that makes me want to smash my phone into a wall.

Personally I think that's more of an argument for tweaking the tier system and card balance than for changing the prize structure... why should anyone except the top players of the game ever be exposed to decks which run 3 OP Masterpieces?

https://forums.d3go.com/discussion/64460/prize-abundance-a-case-study-eldritch-moon

That could work too. My only point is if higher rewards made people go all crazy and "do anything to win, forget fun, forget secondary objectives" then it's not helping win the argument, at least from me, that rewards need increasing. You see the same behavior when event mythics are being rewarded. 

hawkyh1

wereotter said:

babar3355 said:

@wereotter Keep in mind that many players might not have time for objectives.  They might be on vacation, have visitors in town, have to work that weekend etc.  Maybe they are just trying to snag progression as fast as possible without really intending to compete.  I agree it can be frustrating, but its also to be expected.

This may be true, but I would also consider people in the situation of being on vacation or having out of town guests to be the exception rather than the rule. I would more consider people just trying to snag progression to be the case, however, if I compare matches in Trial of Strength, which had higher rewards, to Trial of Ambition, which had similar secondary objectives and lower rewards, the number of decks built for the event was actually higher in Trial of Ambition.

This becomes relevant to the larger discussion as it seems higher rewards leads to people more likely to just pound through events with whatever deck rather than actually taking time to try and play with the other objectives. So to me, if this is what lower rewards means, than also from my perspective, lower rewards makes the game more enjoyable to play. I can't speak to what everyone else enjoys, obviously, but I'd rather have a game with fewer rewards that feels more fun to play than one with higher rewards that makes me want to smash my phone into a wall.

I don't agree with this. tos crippled players choice by
having g3 as a requirement. my dovin toa deck is a
much better deck than my g3 event deck. how many
white or colourless embalm creatures do you have?
how many can you expect to cast without losing the
battle?
I'm guessing those that were expecting to lose
ribbons with g3 didn't bother as much with the other
2 nodes objectives. players tried for the toa objectives
because it was still acceptable to do so.

(and it's 5 ribbons for a win instead of the usual 4)

HH

wereotter

hawkyh1 said:

wereotter said:

babar3355 said:

@wereotter Keep in mind that many players might not have time for objectives.  They might be on vacation, have visitors in town, have to work that weekend etc.  Maybe they are just trying to snag progression as fast as possible without really intending to compete.  I agree it can be frustrating, but its also to be expected.

This may be true, but I would also consider people in the situation of being on vacation or having out of town guests to be the exception rather than the rule. I would more consider people just trying to snag progression to be the case, however, if I compare matches in Trial of Strength, which had higher rewards, to Trial of Ambition, which had similar secondary objectives and lower rewards, the number of decks built for the event was actually higher in Trial of Ambition.

This becomes relevant to the larger discussion as it seems higher rewards leads to people more likely to just pound through events with whatever deck rather than actually taking time to try and play with the other objectives. So to me, if this is what lower rewards means, than also from my perspective, lower rewards makes the game more enjoyable to play. I can't speak to what everyone else enjoys, obviously, but I'd rather have a game with fewer rewards that feels more fun to play than one with higher rewards that makes me want to smash my phone into a wall.

I don't agree with this. tos crippled players choice by
having g3 as a requirement. my dovin toa deck is a
much better deck than my g3 event deck. how many
white or colourless embalm creatures do you have?
how many can you expect to cast without losing the
battle?
I'm guessing those that were expecting to lose
ribbons with g3 didn't bother as much with the other
2 nodes objectives. players tried for the toa objectives
because it was still acceptable to do so.

(and it's 5 ribbons for a win instead of the usual 4)

HH

This is literally the 6th time they've done this with a new planeswalker. This should be zero surprise to you that you have to have the latest planeswalker to play the node in the event. So saying Gideon was forced on you isn't really anything you should have been surprised by. I'll give you that the matchmaking system is busted and if you didn't get him early or have a stockpile of runes to level him up so you're not level 20 paired off against level 60, I can give you not having a perfect deck for him. It's possible that not everyone has embalm cards to run in his deck, even with many at common rarity. It's entirely possible people were missing cards.

But maybe it's just me, but if I know I'm going to potentially lose points on the Gideon node, it would seem to me it's all that more important to get every point possible on other nodes, which would mean I wouldn't register Koth on the zombie node or Nahiri on the cycling node. I'd want to get all those points if at all possible, not just the "I won the match" points.

babar3355

wereotter said:

shteev said:

wereotter said:

I'd rather have a game with fewer rewards that feels more fun to play than one with higher rewards that makes me want to smash my phone into a wall.

Personally I think that's more of an argument for tweaking the tier system and card balance than for changing the prize structure... why should anyone except the top players of the game ever be exposed to decks which run 3 OP Masterpieces?

https://forums.d3go.com/discussion/64460/prize-abundance-a-case-study-eldritch-moon

That could work too. My only point is if higher rewards made people go all crazy and "do anything to win, forget fun, forget secondary objectives" then it's not helping win the argument, at least from me, that rewards need increasing. You see the same behavior when event mythics are being rewarded. 

Ah, see I don't think this makes sense.  If the prize was Rishkar's Expertise and you KNEW you had to be top 50 to get a legitimately awesome prize, then you could NOT just ignore objectives.

I agree with @hawkyh1 that people decided to punt on the entire event because the prizes were tiered so that top 5 got most of the glory, but finishing 250th rather than 50th wasn't a big deal.  Why not just plow through progression and get what you get. 

I don't know anyone who punted on the T2 BP with Rishkar's Ex as the prize.

And I agree with @steeme on this one... they give out tons of packs and crystals and even pieces of mythics in the form of jewels.  Winning first or being in a top coalition only gets you a marginal increase in prizes.  So why would anyone pay in this environment.  Top players don't need to as they already have an advantage and mid tier players don't care to because the rewards don't justify the expense,

Yet again, more evidence that austerity is the wrong plan

Steeme

babar3355 said:

wereotter said:

shteev said:

wereotter said:

I'd rather have a game with fewer rewards that feels more fun to play than one with higher rewards that makes me want to smash my phone into a wall.

Personally I think that's more of an argument for tweaking the tier system and card balance than for changing the prize structure... why should anyone except the top players of the game ever be exposed to decks which run 3 OP Masterpieces?

https://forums.d3go.com/discussion/64460/prize-abundance-a-case-study-eldritch-moon

That could work too. My only point is if higher rewards made people go all crazy and "do anything to win, forget fun, forget secondary objectives" then it's not helping win the argument, at least from me, that rewards need increasing. You see the same behavior when event mythics are being rewarded. 

Ah, see I don't think this makes sense.  If the prize was Rishkar's Expertise and you KNEW you had to be top 50 to get a legitimately awesome prize, then you could NOT just ignore objectives.

I agree with @hawkyh1 that people decided to punt on the entire event because the prizes were tiered so that top 5 got most of the glory, but finishing 250th rather than 50th wasn't a big deal.  Why not just plow through progression and get what you get. 

I don't know anyone who punted on the T2 BP with Rishkar's Ex as the prize.

And I agree with @steeme on this one... they give out tons of packs and crystals and even pieces of mythics in the form of jewels.  Winning first or being in a top coalition only gets you a marginal increase in prizes.  So why would anyone pay in this environment.  Top players don't need to as they already have an advantage and mid tier players don't care to because the rewards don't justify the expense,

Yet again, more evidence that austerity is the wrong plan

I had made a suggestion a while ago that we need to have seasons and "invitational" type events.

Leave the rewards the way they are now, but the top "1 to n" players in every bracket of the weekend events should get an invitation to an exclusive end of season tournament.  Perhaps a limited-time exclusive card can be awarded, or some alternate art cards, or something.  Everyone participating gets a base prize, like some free deck slots or something.

This way, the top performing players get the prestige and rewards of their own private tournament, and they also get to face each other with exclusive matchmaking.

babar3355

I agree, but also multiply all prizes by 2 and increase drop rates by 2... then we are talking @steeme!

hawkyh1

wereotter said:

hawkyh1 said:

wereotter said:

babar3355 said:

@wereotter Keep in mind that many players might not have time for objectives.  They might be on vacation, have visitors in town, have to work that weekend etc.  Maybe they are just trying to snag progression as fast as possible without really intending to compete.  I agree it can be frustrating, but its also to be expected.

This may be true, but I would also consider people in the situation of being on vacation or having out of town guests to be the exception rather than the rule. I would more consider people just trying to snag progression to be the case, however, if I compare matches in Trial of Strength, which had higher rewards, to Trial of Ambition, which had similar secondary objectives and lower rewards, the number of decks built for the event was actually higher in Trial of Ambition.

This becomes relevant to the larger discussion as it seems higher rewards leads to people more likely to just pound through events with whatever deck rather than actually taking time to try and play with the other objectives. So to me, if this is what lower rewards means, than also from my perspective, lower rewards makes the game more enjoyable to play. I can't speak to what everyone else enjoys, obviously, but I'd rather have a game with fewer rewards that feels more fun to play than one with higher rewards that makes me want to smash my phone into a wall.

I don't agree with this. tos crippled players choice by
having g3 as a requirement. my dovin toa deck is a
much better deck than my g3 event deck. how many
white or colourless embalm creatures do you have?
how many can you expect to cast without losing the
battle?
I'm guessing those that were expecting to lose
ribbons with g3 didn't bother as much with the other
2 nodes objectives. players tried for the toa objectives
because it was still acceptable to do so.

(and it's 5 ribbons for a win instead of the usual 4)

HH

This is literally the 6th time they've done this with a new planeswalker. This should be zero surprise to you that you have to have the latest planeswalker to play the node in the event. So saying Gideon was forced on you isn't really anything you should have been surprised by. I'll give you that the matchmaking system is busted and if you didn't get him early or have a stockpile of runes to level him up so you're not level 20 paired off against level 60, I can give you not having a perfect deck for him. It's possible that not everyone has embalm cards to run in his deck, even with many at common rarity. It's entirely possible people were missing cards.

But maybe it's just me, but if I know I'm going to potentially lose points on the Gideon node, it would seem to me it's all that more important to get every point possible on other nodes, which would mean I wouldn't register Koth on the zombie node or Nahiri on the cycling node. I'd want to get all those points if at all possible, not just the "I won the match" points.

I was trying to say that the problem with mono
white g3 + embalm + do not lose 2+ creatures
makes for creature choices that are very
limited. my best fit cards are sacred cat and
anointed priest (other embalm cards I have
have vigilance). embalm doesn't even fit well
with g3 because they are too costly to cast and
in this case you can't get you mana's worth by
having them as one off come back blockers.
they are not game winners so are purely there
to meet objectives. battles takes longer than
normal to achieve objectives and win. to me
it's just one stumbling block after another. the
objectives plays to none of g3's strengths.

the toa white node looks similar but is a lot
more forgiving.

HH

wereotter

hawkyh1 said:

wereotter said:

hawkyh1 said:

wereotter said:

babar3355 said:

@wereotter Keep in mind that many players might not have time for objectives.  They might be on vacation, have visitors in town, have to work that weekend etc.  Maybe they are just trying to snag progression as fast as possible without really intending to compete.  I agree it can be frustrating, but its also to be expected.

This may be true, but I would also consider people in the situation of being on vacation or having out of town guests to be the exception rather than the rule. I would more consider people just trying to snag progression to be the case, however, if I compare matches in Trial of Strength, which had higher rewards, to Trial of Ambition, which had similar secondary objectives and lower rewards, the number of decks built for the event was actually higher in Trial of Ambition.

This becomes relevant to the larger discussion as it seems higher rewards leads to people more likely to just pound through events with whatever deck rather than actually taking time to try and play with the other objectives. So to me, if this is what lower rewards means, than also from my perspective, lower rewards makes the game more enjoyable to play. I can't speak to what everyone else enjoys, obviously, but I'd rather have a game with fewer rewards that feels more fun to play than one with higher rewards that makes me want to smash my phone into a wall.

I don't agree with this. tos crippled players choice by
having g3 as a requirement. my dovin toa deck is a
much better deck than my g3 event deck. how many
white or colourless embalm creatures do you have?
how many can you expect to cast without losing the
battle?
I'm guessing those that were expecting to lose
ribbons with g3 didn't bother as much with the other
2 nodes objectives. players tried for the toa objectives
because it was still acceptable to do so.

(and it's 5 ribbons for a win instead of the usual 4)

HH

This is literally the 6th time they've done this with a new planeswalker. This should be zero surprise to you that you have to have the latest planeswalker to play the node in the event. So saying Gideon was forced on you isn't really anything you should have been surprised by. I'll give you that the matchmaking system is busted and if you didn't get him early or have a stockpile of runes to level him up so you're not level 20 paired off against level 60, I can give you not having a perfect deck for him. It's possible that not everyone has embalm cards to run in his deck, even with many at common rarity. It's entirely possible people were missing cards.

But maybe it's just me, but if I know I'm going to potentially lose points on the Gideon node, it would seem to me it's all that more important to get every point possible on other nodes, which would mean I wouldn't register Koth on the zombie node or Nahiri on the cycling node. I'd want to get all those points if at all possible, not just the "I won the match" points.

I was trying to say that the problem with mono
white g3 + embalm + do not lose 2+ creatures
makes for creature choices that are very
limited. my best fit cards are sacred cat and
anointed priest (other embalm cards I have
have vigilance). embalm doesn't even fit well
with g3 because they are too costly to cast and
in this case you can't get you mana's worth by
having them as one off come back blockers.
they are not game winners so are purely there
to meet objectives. battles takes longer than
normal to achieve objectives and win. to me
it's just one stumbling block after another. the
objectives plays to none of g3's strengths.

the toa white node looks similar but is a lot
more forgiving.

HH

oooooooh gotcha  

Yeah, I suspect that node was bugged as  losing at least two creatures makes more sense if you're trying to do embalm, and the objective itself even said to lose at least two creatures. I was able to do it with Oketra's Attendant, Sacred Cat, Anointer Priest, and happened to pull Temmet which added a nice amount of power to the board, so I did get lucky there with having the creatures to meet the objective, but it was frustrating that his first ability was so dangerous in the event since the tokens might die and trigger you losing that objective.

PersonMan

I spent a good amount of money before.  Since the reduction in rewards and the introduction of Standard, I refuse to spend anymore.  Because now I know I don't really own whatever I buy.  I'm just renting it for 6 months or so (maybe a year?) until the block is rotated out of Standard and becomes useless.  

Now you may say, just invest your crystals in Origins, that seems like it may stay in Standard.  Well, over the past couple of months I've spent all of the crystals I've won on 4 Origin premium packs (and Gideon3) and have gotton precisely 0 new Origin cards, despite owning just a couple of Origin Mythics and 12 Rares.  I have 1-3 duplicates for some of those, which will be converted into useless cards when the crafting system comes out.  

I hope they eventually fix this.  I want to own what I buy, not rent it at an exorbitant rate.