Why bother trying to stick to the Race for Orazca theme?

Jonster78

 A bit frustrated as user as trying to set up a merfollk deck on one of the nodes that tells you that Merfolk get +1/+1 for each spell you cast., only to find out that the event  extra points has set up Anti-magic.  Why bother even with a theme at that point? Just bring your good stuff and go to town, don't worry if it is not a pirate or a vampire or a merfolk or a dinosaur.  It's a joke. 

Mainloop25

That's pretty much what I did last time. 

Bullvinne

I went for tribal on all nodes and lost 2/5 nodes and missed 3 objectives on the 3 I did win.

I am going to tweek my decks for the second set of nodes, but if that also fails to get good results I am dropping the tribal stuff and going for competitive wins/cycling

Kinesia

I _want_ the themes to work, I'd prefer the objectives get _completely_ dropped than run again as they are, it'd be better with zero objectives.

Matthew

I just wrote up something about this on another thread. I completely agree. There's no point in trying to make the theme work, what with the rewards being as large as they are. The current EP will only be around for 2 weeks (less, now!), so there's a lot more riding on a perfect score right now.

Mburn7

I really think the issue is the secondaries.  If they were tribal objectives (think Terror in the Shadows secondaries) the themes would be not just viable, but vital.  Then we'd actually see merfolk spell decks and pirate treasure decks like they want us to.

With the current stupid and annoying objectives (even with their nerf to be easier), there is no reason to play any themed strategies at all.

Bullvinne

Even after revamping I did not get great results from tribal themed decks on the second set of charges. I am currently 53/90.

Time to go to Cycling and HUF/Approach or HUF/Inferno Jet decks where able

FindingHeart8

Jonster78 said:

 A bit frustrated as user as trying to set up a merfollk deck on one of the nodes that tells you that Merfolk get +1/+1 for each spell you cast., only to find out that the event  extra points has set up Anti-magic.  Why bother even with a theme at that point? Just bring your good stuff and go to town, don't worry if it is not a pirate or a vampire or a merfolk or a dinosaur.  It's a joke. 

they should go back to Avacyn's Madness style objectives like:

+2: Take 20 or less damage during this battle.

+1: Take 45 or more damage during this battle.

Mburn7

FindingHeart8 said:

they should go back to Avacyn's Madness style objectives like:

+2: Take 20 or less damage during this battle.

+1: Take 45 or more damage during this battle.

I prefer Terror in the Shadows style objectives, but these would be fine too

FindingHeart8

Mburn7 said:

FindingHeart8 said:

they should go back to Avacyn's Madness style objectives like:

+2: Take 20 or less damage during this battle.

+1: Take 45 or more damage during this battle.

I prefer Terror in the Shadows style objectives, but these would be fine too

either is an improvement really

Szamsziel

Remember that rix and xln are just for a month. F2p players were usually not able yet. To build decent collection (especially having on mind that good tribe cards are in mythic slot). I wouldn't mind switching to tribes in few months. 

Bullvinne

Ok so I went away from tribal on all nodes except Blue (my saheeli Pirates deck does well there) and switched to 3 cycling decks and one HUF + Inferno Jet deck and I won all nodes and only missed a single objective so a near perfect set of nodes. At least I should be able to finish out decent now that I am down 39 ribbons testing out tribal

1st set of nodes: Tribal decks - 21/45 ribbons
2nd set of nodes: Revamped Tribal Decks, still didnt do well - 53/90 ribbons
3rd set of nodes: Went away from tribal decks, near perfect round - 96/135

Tribal in general is just not competitive unless they change the objectives to be Tribal based objectives. Otherwise its just going to be Cycle decks for the forseeable future in RtO.

ZW2007-

I think they missed the point about why we were complaining about the objectives in the first place. It seems like they thought we felt the objectives were too difficult and/or too tedious. In reality the complaints were that the objectives run contrary to the special aspects of the nodes.

White node special abilities really say "play vampires" but the objectives tell me to limit the creatures I cast and to take damage. If I play non-token vampires, they will often die without casting a lot of reinforcements and I probably won't take a lot of damage.

Blue node wants you to play creatures and not cast spells. It wants you to play pirates and merfolk but if you can't cast spells for removal, you need to cast creatures that double as removal. Pirates and merfolk (except one, from Origins) don't really double as removal.

Black node is just all sorts of a mess if you ask me. There is no point in playing pirates or vampires if you are trying to avoid taking 30 damage while avoiding losing creatures. To do both of those things, you need to win quickly and efficiently without creatures. Sorin could probably pull off something with vampires but why risk it when he has a harder time winning without creatures and has such a low health total?

Red node is the closest to being alright. Pirates have haste so you can go shot for shot and get below 40, just need to be careful not to kill them too fast but also not play too slowly. It's a delicate balance and you need to fling spells as well, another thing red does just fine.

Green node is just silly. If you could easily kill 5 creatures and win in 10 turns, you can kill 4 and win in 12. If you couldn't, you probably still can't. The turn counter is fine for green since it encourages you to do what green does, play big dumb green creatures. Killing a certain amount of creatures goes against that.

Maybe get creative with objectives and have one that ties into each of the two tribes represented?
White could care about having a creature reinforced a bunch of times (counting tokens) and gaining a certain amount of life. Blue could care about making a certain amount of treasures and buffing a creature a certain amount of times. Black should just be the opposite of what it is, take damage and lose creatures. Red could be deal X damage to creatures and gain X loyalty throughout the match (since pirates rely on each other being loyal to survive and the sun empire relies on the dinosaurs being loyal to them). Green could be have a creature with power greater than X and I'm out of idea at the moment but you get the drift.A

DumasAG

I wan to point out as well for the black node, your vampires get plus attack when the enemy is damaged. However, rather than have the special support deal damage to the opponent on your turn (and you on theirs) and thus enabling this cool perk for vamps, it's the opposite, making it literally meaningless except to give you less time in which to complete the ribbon. Even with this, I still pushed Sorin vamps (with what I have) and discovered something. Swinging with Sanctum seeker, when he pings the opponent it doesn't buff my vampires. Why is this not taken into account, when you actively want people to play the new vampires on this node?

Agreed with you that they shouldn't have made the ribbons less difficult. They should have focused them for the special supports on the battlefield.

wereotter

DumasAG said:

I wan to point out as well for the black node, your vampires get plus attack when the enemy is damaged. However, rather than have the special support deal damage to the opponent on your turn (and you on theirs) and thus enabling this cool perk for vamps, it's the opposite, making it literally meaningless except to give you less time in which to complete the ribbon. Even with this, I still pushed Sorin vamps (with what I have) and discovered something. Swinging with Sanctum seeker, when he pings the opponent it doesn't buff my vampires. Why is this not taken into account, when you actively want people to play the new vampires on this node?

Agreed with you that they shouldn't have made the ribbons less difficult. They should have focused them for the special supports on the battlefield.

On a related note, I pulled and put Paladin of Atonement in my deck for that node, and the one life I lose at the start of my turn isn't triggering the creature to get +1/+1

Seems some of the interactions aren't functioning properly.

Mburn7

@wereotter they have stated that the start of turn life loss will not trigger vampires getting stronger from life loss.  
The Sanctum Seeker is weird, but probably a result of them differentiating between "lose life" and "take damage" for the first time ever

wereotter

Mburn7 said:

@wereotter they have stated that the start of turn life loss will not trigger vampires getting stronger from life loss.  
The Sanctum Seeker is weird, but probably a result of them differentiating between "lose life" and "take damage" for the first time ever

I'm not referring to the general buff to vampires as a result of the start of turn life loss, Paladin of Atonement is supposed to get +1/+1 every time I lose life if there are 8 or more white or black gems in play. I've never seen him buff himself from the start of turn damage on that node. The card does specifically say lose life as opposed to take damage, so I would excuse it if that were the case, but it's not.

Kinesia

I think actually changin the objectives would take longer for them to do and the "easier" objectives was their quick fix, but hopefully they are listening and workign on it in the background and I think they are....

Firinmahlazer

I didn't. My W:L ratio isn't any worse or better for it. The objectives don't match the gimmicks so there's really no incentive. 

bk1234

I had a lot of fun building tribal. I actually G3 and I only ever used him once -- in the event which he was required -- and Angrath -- I'm at -8 with one node left, which is generally the ballpark I score in. 

I think it's cool. Still hate the red node objective, just because it's not fun -- but everything else has been challenging and interesting. 

ElimGarak

I'd like to have your problems :-D, I had 8 app-crashes on fight-startup so far