[Complete] PYRA Mudcrawler Is Devastating - The Tournament

[Duthlet]

Game 1 Mint vs Duthlet is starting now

[Mint]

And Duthlet vs Mint on Mining Colony is over!

Duthlet: Dwarvish Fighter, Elvish Archer, Ulfserker, Vampire Bat, Mage and Shaman, with a Drake Warrior leader

Mint: Orcish Grunt, Dark Adept, Elf Archer, Saurian Skirmisher, Wolf Rider, Ulfserker, with a Marksman leader.

Spoiler:

Duthlet defends my early attack with many fighters, and when my pillaging skirmisher doesn't die from multiple attacks the game was over, by which time Duthlet hadn't recruited a single mage or shaman.

[Duthlet]

Duthlet vs Horus game 2 has just begun.

[Kira1]

Kira1 vs mumma on scared foothills

Spoiler:

Op first night rush and footpad who took vilage in the start made it difficult for him

[Snowman]

Madmoo vs. Snowman, first game on Freelands is starting right now.

Aaand the game:
This should draw especially the attention of those opposed to adepts and grunts being present in every game. Here you will, somewhat originally, see mighty ogres fighting devastating mudcrawlers..

Spoiler:

..and eventually splashing them.

[Horus2]

Updated the board on the first page, and also did a list there showing everyone's played maps.

Once again, watch for the once per tournament map restriction! Abstract accidentally already commited this with Weldyn Channel; could have been a bitter experience if he happen to win the second game on it, but this way there is no need to interfere.

Here is my other debt:

We played both of our games with Duthlet, on first axe-throwing men raided the north area of the map, and on second you can witness a defense line of another type of manly men trying to withstand the test of a well-timed daog.

White Mage as me - Blood Bat, Dwarvish Scout, Poacher, Saurian Augur, Saurian Skirmisher, Thug
Lieutenant as Duthlet - Elvish Shaman, Fencer, Goblin Spearman, Ghoul, Mage, Spearman, Thief, Wolf Rider

Lieutenant as Duthlet - Dark Adept, Dwarvish Ulfserker, Ghost, Orcish Grunt, Saurian Skirmisher, Thief
Orcish Slayer as me - Drake Burner, Dwarvish Ulfserker, Elvish Shaman, Heavy Infantryman, Peasant, Skeleton Archer

Spoiler:

i lost both

[abhijit]

Kira1 vs abhijit, game 1 is live!

[Kira1]

Kira1 vs abhijit on Aethermaw
That's what i call a nice game; you wont loose your time to watch it.

Spoiler:

God bless the beautiful shaman who gave me the game!!!

[Oook]

Oook v amikrop, first game starting now

[amikrop]

Map: Aethermaw
Oook: p1, Elvish Marksman - Thief, Thug, Fire Elemental, Saurian Skirmisher, Giant Scorpion
amikrop: p2, Elvish Marksman - Spearman, Fencer, Drake Glider, Mage, Drake Fighter

Spoiler:

Winner: with some extra dodginess, amikrop

[Danniel_BR]

Danniel vs Amikrop - 2nd game- starting now

[Horus2]

Mint vs Horus on Scarred Foothills, starting in minutes.

EDIT: over, see replay attached.

Drake Warrior as Mint - Dark Adept, Dwarvish Guardsman, Dwarvish Ulfserker, Elvish Archer, Goblin Impaler, Saurian Skirmisher
Troll as Horus - Elvish Scout, Fire Guardian, Ruffian, Skeleton, Skeleton Archer, Saurian Augur, Young Ogre

Spoiler:

I spammed skeletons while Mint didn't has any meaningful counter for them, so he started to spam adepts and thus he won. Twist ending!

[Velensk]

By what standard are adepts not a counter to skeletons?

[Horus2]

By what standard are adepts not a counter to skeletons?

Very good question.
Well, we can call DA a soft counter to Skeleton if the DAs have the initiative to attack. But this time, it was DA on the high ground and Skeletons attacking. In theory, you are overpaying for a big cold damage, which you cannot use, and for both attacks being magical, which also had very little use, since it increases the hit chance by 10% only. Of course in a spam vs spam situation, you are also overpaying for the Skeleton's other resistances, but only to a lesser extent. According to this, if i force my opponent to spam a unit that is less cost effective than my spam and luck is equal, i can expect to have the upper hand in the match. In practice, that was not the case, Mint demolished me without a sweat. There can be only one possible interpretation ladies and gentlemen, and all the players were suspecting it already: because i underestimated the value of magical attacks by a long shot, it is an exponential curve going up with potential damage output, and this curve is more steep than i estimated.

DAOG has been considered OP officially.

First, i would like to thank for all the beast of the players (that means YOU!) for the high quality feedback the era got in less than two weeks, some of these games to my own expense. Ironically i am the first to surely drop out in round 1, but that was not in vain. You need to know that it was among my plans to ask for the opinion of the people regarding the many factors of playing with magi. After the first week, i had intentions to release a new pyra version between the rounds and to increase the price for all kind of magi, and already mentioned it to co-admins. Now i'm certain of the source of the problem, all i need to know now is your opinion on how severe it is. I made a list of what i think about the infamed DAOG strategy.

• I am still certain about the price of the grunt, mostly because this is one of the units i based all my calculations on. OG was the most popular unit of the previous tournament, with DA and ulf closely following. What makes OG problematic is that while his attributes are weighted righteously when been compared to other units, his distribution of attributes at a low price makes him superior in current metagame. His mountain of hitpoints makes him able to soak the damage in the opponent's powerphase, survive attack from 2 hexes, and still commit a fair counterattack. In numbers, they can swarm a defense having too many situational units, since then the opponent overpays for abilities he/she cannot use to the maximal potential. In other words, it was the DA all along what made OG so good.
• The different kind of magi outperformed the other breaching units both in efficiency and in popularity. By breaching units i mean the magic-wielders, berserkers, slowers, chargers, poisoners, and while not present in advanced, the stunners and and distractors; units that help against a defense line, claim advantageous terrain for you, and give an upper hand. Breaching by magical attacks was by far the fastest, most diverse and reliable way to take ground.
• The different kind of magi outperformed the archers. Why suffer from a resistant unit on the high ground, when you can as well spam magic-wielders instead archers. They are so reliable and cost-efficient as well as having a nice rare attack type, that the situational advantages outweighted the situational drawbacks.
• You don't consider them as units to take care of, they are throwaway invaders, which feels a bit weird and is very specific to the pace of the era. Once i thought it is a necessity to easily cover the random madness of the enemy team composition and were even cheaper. It is clear now that the only factor forcing a player to go on the magic way is their cost efficiency, enemy compositions can be still covered otherwise.
• Bloody intense gameplay, while entertaining to watch and do, misses and strikes can be more decisive and there is less time for luck to even out. A different perspective, but also against cheap magi.
• If the price of the DA goes up, price of Mage should go up too as the value difference between the two units is still around 1 gold; the misjudged factor was the high magical burst damage and Mage has even higher. While having lesser importance, other magic-wielders may have to be altered as well.
• Higher magic-wielder prices can also mean a better balanced state for other units. OGs will feel less forced, and the counter of OGs, like Heavy Infantrymen, Skeletons, Ghouls, Dwarvish Guardsmen, Drake Clasher, Drake Fighter (and the list goes on) become more appealing. Fishes become better. Elusivefoot units become better. Dwarvish Ulfserkers will not have a full time job of truncating DAs turn after turn.

In the end, i can offer three screenplays for the current scenario, and it is up to you, the participants which one should i choose between Round 1 and Round 2:


Plan A - the modest version

Change the prices a bit, but not too much, so previous game experiences and the whole meta will no go instantly out of the window, even if paralelly admitting that the solution may be superficial. Or not.

Dark Adept = 18
Mage = 19
Mermaid Initiate = up to discuss, my 2 cent goes that if those two above goes up by 1, she should as well, therefore 20
Saurian Augur = does below 20 potential damage in powerphase, price should stay at 18

(Dusk Faerie, Forgotten Faerie, Old Orcish Shaman, Rogue Mage, Sprite also go up by 1 in Extended and Ultimate)


Plan B - the drastic version

If the problems are so recognisable, it must be severe. Intense gameflow gets clipped, metagame changes to have a more default push and pull vibe, where the loss of a Mage can force you to take a break.

Dark Adept = 19
Mage = despite the awkward feeling, once again, just like in default, 20
Mermaid Initiate = 20
Saurian Augur = 19

Ghost = indirectly, because of the absence of the former magus spam, may or may not go back to 20

(Dusk Faerie, Forgotten Faerie, Old Orcish Shaman, Rogue Mage, Sprite also go up by 2 in Extended and Ultimate, Apprentice Mage is debatable whether to increase by 1 or not)


Plan C - the conservative (aka rekt Horus git gud) version

We actually enjoy playing DAOG, and/or we don't want any changes mid-season.




I am collecting the votes here, post your choice here, and if you are feeling involved, give a suggestion for the debatable parts of the plans!

A: |
B: ||
C: |||||

Once again, thanks for everyone who abused DA despite what i thought, your reward for your gamesense was itself!

[Velensk]

I'm not playing but if I could offer a comment:

You're running into the problem of trying to balance units against units instead of factions against factions hard here. And I can see the reasoning shaping. You talk about paying for an overpriced cold attack when fighting skeletons which is based on theoretical efficency. The fact is, that in any situation the effective state is frequently different. Fact is that a dark adept does a significant amount of damage to skeletons due to arcane weakness (significant as by proportion of the skeletons hitpoints, the effect amplified by them both being the same allignment, and the fact that no skeleton is ever resiliant). Skeletons also deal a significant amount of damage to adepts however it is easier to be in a situation where a dark adept will be able to smash a skeleton than vice versa for a few reasons:
-Skeletons are more likely to be in the front line than dark adepts.
(in general)You're more likely to have melee units being your meatwall as they have on average lower cost and higher hp. With units like skeletons and heavy infantry sometimes you don't want them to be a meatwall but in those events you're paying a lot for them to not do what they're strong at). Heavy Infantry and (and in PYR skeletons) are priced to be meatwalls despite occasionally not being much better at it than much cheaper infantry (like when adepts are around).
-Adepts can get the quick trait and are thus more likely to be able to land first strike and/or reach an addital hex.
-If an Adept is standing on high defense terrain he becomes much more resistant to a skeletons attack whereas there's nothing that can stop a skeleton who is attacked by two adepts at night from having a good chance to die.

Any one of those would be enough to tip the fact that skeletons and adepts are roughly equally deadly to each other (factoring in that 2/3 adepts are resiliant) in favor of adepts but all three of them together I'd say amounts to a definate counter.

Of the options given I'd go for A (never had problems with throwing updates into tournaments, if they're really good they'd be able to adapt) but I think you have it backward: the reason adepts are so good, is because they're so powerful with proper support and grunts are extremely good support. In the role of a melee meatshields there is nothing as efficent as a grunt which is why I find it odd that you choose it as your baseline for everything. By the standard of the grunt for the roll it fills, every other unit is subpar. Now grunts don't do everything but they don't have to they just have to be the best at doing the needed roll. If you want to balance this fact out, no amount of making the things a grunt supports worse will make the grunt worse; if you want grunts to be seen/used less you can't do it by making the things they support worse (they'll just be used to support something else) you have to make it so that other things can compete with them better which would be eaisest by making them just a hair more expensive. They'd still be distinct from these other units and quite efficent.