RandomCasualty wrote:It takes a really broken card to get the attention of a deck builder and you bet the deck builder himself is going to use that broken card until it's banned.
Some do, yes. Mostly because, unlike in RPGs, you can't just agree to not use the broken stuff.
On deckbuilding:
I have played both M:TG and L5R successfully in tournaments. I enjoy building decks. The deck I won the German championship with, the deck I played at GenCon and each and every deck I played to a tournament all have one thing in common: they are not combo decks.
Sure, I pick cards that work well together. That much is common sense - I want to win after all. I also pick cards because I like the art (as long as they are not
too bad that is). I have won a tournament with a deck built entirely to influence the storyline.
Oh, and I also enjoy playing Battletech and have dabbled in a few other tabletop wargames.
So, what the heck am I? I like building decks, I don't like combo decks, I enjoy a good story, I enjoy fluff, I enjoy wargames. That does not seem possible according to your categories.
RandomCasualty wrote:What causes the deck builder to complain is something the opponent is using, not something in general. It's likely a deck builder won't look over the new set of cards and start complaining right away, he won't start whining about it until it's used against him and he gets killed.
Flat out wrong. Feel free to check out any L5R forum that has a subforum for previews of new expansions. Notice how again and again especially powerful cards are complained about. Heck, I can think offhand of a couple of occurences where gamebreaking rule loopholes that could easily have been used to win tournaments where instead pointed out to the designers to get them fixed before the cards arrive in stores.
RandomCasualty wrote:I've played magic the gathering and I can certainly say that aside from blue control decks, "good" decks aren't about countering anything, they're about killer combos. Take the Yawgmoth's bargain deck for instance. That's all about setting up an infinite card drawing loop with drain life, scourge familiar and Yawgmoth's bargain. Then there's the typical "green rush" deck, which constitutes a bunch of fast mana and beat down creatures that hit the opponent fast.
Whoa, wait a second. No, make that an hour. "Fast beatdown" is a
combo deck now? What exactly is comboing with what? Maybe the current beatdown decks differ from the decks I used to know, but from what you state you are confusing a focused deck with a combo deck.
RandomCasualty wrote:The fact is that tournament decks play a lot like D&D power high level power builds. They have their super combo and they play out until they set it up and then hit you with a knockout punch.
From back when I played M:TG:
- blue time control has no combo to set up, it just delays and whittles the opponent down
- red speed/burn has no combo at all, just raw speed
- sligh has no combo parts at all, just raw efficiency
- 5 color green has no combo parts, though it does have synergy here and there.
-4/ 5 color black has no synergy at all, much less a combo.
- Necropotence (one of the most dominant decks ever) has no central combo.
currently viable L5R decks (note that due to the sheer amount of printed abilities on each and every card
every deck will have little combos built in - it is close to unavoidable):
- Crab Waterzerker - a basic beatdown deck, with the possibility of comboing for multiple provinces quite early.
- Crab Yumasu - half combo deck, half straight military
- Crane holding destruction - no notable combos
- Crane harriers - no notable combos
- Crane Dueling - no notable combos
- Crane Honor bomb - half honor runner, half combo
- Dragon Charge - pure combo deck
- Dragon Watermonk - see Waterzerker
- Dragon defensive dueling - no notable combos
- Lion swarm - no notable combos
- Lion Harpoon - several small combos, none of which are essential to the deck
- Mantis raiding - lots of synergy, but no real combos
- Ratling speed military - no notable combos
- Ratling enlightment - pure combo deck
- Scorpion Ninja Military - about 5000000 two card combos. Not a combo deck though
- Scorpion PK - no notable combos
- Shadowlands Oni Summoner - usually half combo and half personality kill
- Shadowlands Chi kill - no notable combos
- Unicorn Khol Wall Military - straight military with some notable combo parts
I am not sure how Magic looks nowadays, but I can tell you for sure that combo decks are in the minority in L5R tournaments. There is one really good combo deck (Dragon Charge) and a few decks that can combo out (Waterzerker, Watermonk, Unicorn Military, Crane honor Bomb, ...).
Also good tournament decks will always be about countering your opponent's strategy. If you do not want to be knocked out of the tournament by getting paired against a deck that can stop your plan with a single well played card while continuing it's strategy you better be able to fight back. Heck, Magic has sideboards for exactly that purpose. I also distinctly remember seeing Disenchants in tournament winning decks. If those are not counter cards I don't know what is.
RandomCasualty wrote:When a card of combo permits you to build a deck that is an automatic win regardless of the situation its not a "killer magic deck" its something that the players of these games HATE and which is promptly banned, house ruled etc...
In casual games, sure they are hated. And the same thing happens in D&D with power builds. If there's one thing about extreme deckbuilding it's that it can actually drain the fun out of a game fast. I've played Yawgmoth bargain decks, super blue control decks and a few other big tournament decks. And let me tell you, they're no fun to play against at all. You hardly really get to do anything before you're either locked down completely, dead or just waiting to die.
That is not a problem of power decks, that is a problem of power disparity. Guess what, I have no fun playing with my lion swarm deck against some weird third-tier deck a friend of mine has thrown together on a whim. I know I will win fast and brutally and so does he - so neither of us has fun. It is however great fun when playing against the same guy's Scorpion military, which is possibly a tiny bit worse than the Lion deck. But it is close enough to have fun. Just as much fun - heck, probably more - as we have playing with two weak decks.
Again, using your deck - character analogy:
No, cleric archers, frenzied berserkers and dragon wildshaped druids in a party filled with straight fighters and multiclassed casters are not fun. But characters of equal power are fun, no matter how high their power level. Note that this does not apply to game-breaking builds, be they decks or characters. Caster level 900 Holy words in DnD are just as bad as type I "whoever goes first wins" decks in Magic are.
But apart from that you can have just as much fun with high powered decks and characters. Sure, depending on your game your fights may get shorter (DnD, L5R) but that is not necessarily a bad thing, just a matter of preference.