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Messages - Knabbmaster

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1
League / Tournament Play / Colossus Belt Spring 2024
« on: March 01, 2024, 01:05:27 PM »
The Colossus Belt
The Colossus Belt is a series of matches where a champion takes on one challenger at a time until they lose, when the challenger wins they get the title and will then be the one to face more opponents.

It is a Bo7, using the latest playtest rules and matches take place every two months (with the games being played on OCTGN), this one will be taking place during March - April.

Before each match challengers may sign up, if there are several challengers, one will be chosen by the following tie-breakers:
TB1: Highest placement in a tournament in the last 2 years (must at least be top 4).
TB2: How recent that tournament was.
TB3: Highest placement in a tournament all time.
TB4: How recent that tournament was.
TB5: The champions choice

The tournaments looked at are GenCon, German Nationals and the ones held by Arcane duels, more might get added. The date of the tournament is the day that the last game finished.

If nobody sings up before the deadline, March 8th, whoever signs up first gets to play and if there still aren't any challengers by the 15th there will be no match until May.

Whoever lost the most recent match is still allowed to sign up, however everybody else will be prioritised over them, this is to prevent a situation where we have the same two players over and over again.

If the champion quits
If you become the champion you do not have to play the following match, you can simply quit the competition, having the next match be between two challengers chosen by the tie-breaker format. If this occurs the loser of the last match will be able to enter just like everyone else, since it's already clear that we won't have a repeated matchup.

Sign ups
A new challenger will be picked on the 8th of March, you have until then to message me here or on Discord if you want participate.

Also if you have really good tie-breakers but don't want to play, I would appreciate if you declared it so that other potential challengers can see. There have been players who don't think/want to play because they have thought someone else should take the spot.

2
League / Tournament Play / Colossus Belt Holidays
« on: November 01, 2023, 01:03:56 PM »
The Colossus Belt
The Colossus Belt is a series of matches where a champion takes on one challenger at a time until they lose, when the challenger wins they get the title and will then be the one to face more opponents.

It is a Bo7, using the latest playtest rules and matches take place every two months (with the games being played on OCTGN), this one will be taking place during November - December.

Before each match challengers may sign up, if there are several challengers, one will be chosen by the following tie-breakers:
TB1: Highest placement in a tournament in the last 2 years (must at least be top 4).
TB2: How recent that tournament was.
TB3: Highest placement in a tournament all time.
TB4: How recent that tournament was.
TB5: The champions choice

The tournaments looked at are GenCon, German Nationals and the ones held by Arcane duels, more might get added. The date of the tournament is the day that the last game finished.

If nobody sings up before the deadline, November 8th, whoever signs up first gets to play and if there still aren't any challengers by the 15th there will be no match until January

Whoever lost the most recent match is still allowed to sign up, however everybody else will be prioritised over them, this is to prevent a situation where we have the same two players over and over again.

If the champion quits
If you become the champion you do not have to play the following match, you can simply quit the competition, having the next match be between two challengers chosen by the tie-breaker format. If this occurs the loser of the last match will be able to enter just like everyone else, since it's already clear that we won't have a repeated matchup.

Sign ups
A new challenger will be picked on the 8th of November, you have until then to message me here or on Discord if you want participate.

Also if you have really good tie-breakers but don't want to play, I would appreciate if you declared it so that other potential challengers can see. There have been players who don't think/want to play because they have thought someone else should take the spot.

3
League / Tournament Play / Colossus Belt Fall
« on: September 01, 2023, 09:00:00 AM »
The Colossus Belt
The Colossus Belt is a series of matches where a champion takes on one challenger at a time until they lose, when the challenger wins they get the title and will then be the one to face more opponents.

It is a Bo7, using the latest playtest rules and matches take place every two months (with the games being played on OCTGN), this one will be taking place during September - October.

Before each match challengers may sign up, if there are several challengers, one will be chosen by the following tie-breakers:
TB1: Highest placement in a tournament in the last 2 years (must at least be top 4).
TB2: How recent that tournament was.
TB3: Highest placement in a tournament all time.
TB4: How recent that tournament was.
TB5: The champions choice

The tournaments looked at are GenCon, German Nationals and the ones held by Arcane duels, more might get added. The date of the tournament is the day that the last game finished.

If nobody sings up before the deadline, September 8th, whoever signs up first gets to play and if there still aren't any challengers by the 15th there will be no match until November

Whoever lost the most recent match is still allowed to sign up, however everybody else will be prioritised over them, this is to prevent a situation where we have the same two players over and over again.

If the champion quits
If you become the champion you do not have to play the following match, you can simply quit the competition, having the next match be between two challengers chosen by the tie-breaker format. If this occurs the loser of the last match will be able to enter just like everyone else, since it's already clear that we won't have a repeat pairing.

Sign ups
A new challenger will be picked on the 8th of September, you have until then to message me here or on Discord if you want participate.

Also if you have really good tie-breakers but don't want to play, I would appreciate if you declared it so that other potential challengers can see. There have been players who don't think/want to play because they have thought someone else should take the spot. And if your tie-breakers are terrible you still might have a chance as there has only been one person reaching out for each match thus far.

4
League / Tournament Play / Colossus Belt Summer
« on: July 01, 2023, 03:39:11 AM »
The Colossus Belt
The Colossus Belt is a series of matches where a champion takes on one challenger at a time until they lose, when the challenger wins they get the title and will then be the one to face more opponents.

It is a Bo7, using the latest playtest rules and matches take place every two months (with the games being played on OCTGN), this one will be taking place during July - August.

Before each match challengers may sign up, if there are several challengers, one will be chosen by the following tie-breakers:
TB1: Highest placement in a tournament in the last 2 years (must at least be top 4).
TB2: How recent that tournament was.
TB3: Highest placement in a tournament all time.
TB4: How recent that tournament was.
TB5: The champions choice

The tournaments looked at are GenCon, German Nationals and the ones held by Arcane duels, more might get added. The date of the tournament is the day that the last game finished.

If nobody sings up before the deadline, July 8th, whoever signs up first gets to play and if there still aren't any challengers by the 15th there will be no match until September.

Whoever lost the most recent match is still allowed to sign up, however everybody else will be prioritised over them, this is to prevent a situation where we have the same two players over and over again.

If the champion quits
If you become the champion you do not have to play the following match, you can simply quit the competition, having the next match be between two challengers chosen by the tie-breaker format. If this occurs the loser of the last match will be able to enter just like everyone else, since it's already clear that we won't have a repeat pairing.

Sign ups
A new challenger will be picked on the 8th of July, you have until then to message me here or on Discord if you want participate.

Also if you have really good tie-breakers but don't want to play, I would appreciate if you declared it so that other potential challengers can see. There have been players who don't think/want to play because they have thought someone else should take the spot. And if your tie-breakers are terrible you still might have a chance as there has only been one person reaching out for each match thus far.

5
League / Tournament Play / Colossus Belt May/June
« on: May 01, 2023, 11:37:00 AM »
The Colossus Belt
The Colossus Belt is a series of matches where a champion takes on one challenger at a time until they lose, when the challenger wins they get the title and will then be the one to face more opponents.

It is a Bo7, using the latest playtest rules and matches take place every two months (with the games being played on OCTGN), this one will be taking place during May - June.

Before each match challengers may sign up, if there are several challengers, one will be chosen by the following tie-breakers:
TB1: Highest placement in a tournament in the last 2 years (must at least be top 4).
TB2: How recent that tournament was.
TB3: Highest placement in a tournament all time.
TB4: How recent that tournament was.
TB5: The champions choice

The tournaments looked at are GenCon, German Nationals and the ones held by Arcane duels, more might get added. The date of the tournament is the day that the last game finished.

If nobody sings up before the deadline, May 8th, whoever signs up first gets to play and if there still aren't any challengers by the 15th there will be no match until June.

Whoever lost the most recent match is still allowed to sign up, however everybody else will be prioritised over them, this is to prevent a situation where we have the same two players over and over again.

If the champion quits
If you become the champion you do not have to play the following match, you can simply quit the competition, having the next match be between two challengers chosen by the tie-breaker format. If this occurs the loser of the last match will be able to enter just like everyone else, since it's already clear that we won't have a repeat pairing.

Sign ups
A new challenger will be picked on the 8th of May, you have until then to message me here or on Discord if you want participate.

Also if you have really good tie-breakers but don't want to play, I would appreciate if you declared it so that other potential challengers can see. There have been players who don't think/want to play because they have thought someone else should take the spot. And if your tie-breakers are terrible you still might have a chance as there has only been one person reaching out for each match thus far.

The Spring match
I won the last match vs Enti 4-1, cheers to him for signing up! I know he had not played in a while and we also had another tournament going on at the same time so I was happy that he showed up, as well as putting up a fight. It felt a bit closer than the final score would suggest, he often got an early advantage however I was not only luckier but also more alert whenever a mage was in danger of dying and ended up turning games by going for his mage.

We also saw Druid being played far more than any other mage, twice by me and four times by Enti, though that was mostly a style thing and it ended up having exactly 50% winrate, going 3-3 (or 2-2 if you don't count the mirror).

6
Events / Colossus Belt Spring
« on: March 01, 2023, 10:57:35 AM »
The Colossus Belt
The Colossus Belt is a series of matches where a champion takes on one challenger at a time until they lose, when the challenger wins they get the title and will then be the one to face more opponents.

It is a Bo7, using the latest playtest rules and matches take place every two months, this one will be taking place during March - April.

Before each match challengers may sign up, if there are several one will be chosen by the following tie-breakers:
TB1: Highest placement in a tournament in the last 2 years (must at least be top 4).
TB2: How recent that tournament was.
TB3: Highest placement in a tournament all time.
TB4: How recent that tournament was.
TB5: The champions choice

The tournaments looked at are GenCon, German Nationals and the ones held by Arcane duels, more might get added. The date of the tournament is the day that the last game finished.

If nobody sings up before the deadline, March 8th, whoever signs up first gets to play and if there still aren't any challengers by the 15th there will be no match until May.

Whoever lost the most recent match is still allowed to sign up, however everybody else will be prioritised over them, this is to prevent a situation where we have the same two players over and over again.

If the champion quits
If you become the champion you do not have to play the following match, you can simply quit the competition, having the next match be between two challengers chosen by the tie-breaker format. If this occurs the loser of the last match will be able to enter just like everyone else, since it's already clear that we won't have a repeat pairing.

Sign ups
A new challenger will be picked on the 8th of March, you have until then to message me here or on Discord if you want participate.

What about the last match with Juli?
He stopped communicating and I disqualified him because of it, exactly the same thing as a loss, I will prioritize other challengers above him for the spring match and he is welcome to join in May. You do not need to worry that I might do the same to you, he stayed quiet for weeks and you will be warned long before I disqualify you. I do feel conflicted about being both a player and a judge though and I think that is one of the biggest problems of the format and if someone wants to be a judge they are welcome.

7
Events / Colossus Belt Winter
« on: December 09, 2022, 07:05:25 AM »
Notes about the previous match
First of all cheers to pjotri for entering and putting up a fight! The final score was a 5-2 victory for me.

We decided before the match to play all 7 games regardless of the score and that we would only play each mage once. These rules will not apply to future matches, but if both players agree to it things like these might be done again, we did not break any rules of the format we just added extra restrictions.

What is the Colossus Belt?
The Colossus Belt is a series of matches where a champion takes on one challenger at a time, if the challenger wins they get the title and will then be the one to face more opponents.

It is currently a Bo7 format, using the latest playtest rules and matches will take place every two months.

Before each match challengers may sign up, if there are several one will be chosen by the following tie-breakers:
TB1: Highest placement in a tournament in the last 2 years, (must at least be top 4).
TB2: How recent that tournament was.
TB3: Highest placement in a tournament all time.
TB4: How recent that tournament was.
TB5: The champions choice

The tournaments looked at are GenCon, German Nationals and the ones held by Arcane duels, more might get added. If nobody sings up before the deadline, whoever signs up first gets to play.

Whoever lost the most recent match is still allowed to sign up, however everybody else will be prioritised over them, this is to prevent a situation where we have the same two players over and over again.

Pacing moving forward
As I mentioned earlier there will be a match once every two months, the one comming up will be scheduled to end before March, matches will then be announced on the first day of every odd month (january, march, may...) and a challenger will be picked on the 8th.

If the champion quits
If you become the champion you do not have to play the following match, you can also simply quit the competition, having the next match be between two challengers chosen by the tie-breaker format. If this occurs the loser of the last match will be able to enter just like everyone else, since it's already clear that we won't have a repeat pairing.

Sign ups
A new challenger will be picked on the 17th of December, you have until then to message me here or on Discord if you want participate. This match will last longer, until the end of February if needed, partly because it coincides with the tournament held by Arcane Duels.

8
Events / Re: Colosuss Belt
« on: November 16, 2022, 03:23:34 PM »
Update:

The first match will be between me and pjotri

I will likely announce the next match in mid December, so if you are intereted that is when to keep your eyes out.

9
Events / Re: Colosuss Belt
« on: November 09, 2022, 11:24:14 AM »
Thx, yeah, emergency judges would be the thing that would be the most appreciated. That and just getting people to play.

Ruducing the number of games is pretty painful, I could see doing it. The feedback that is the most valuable is the one coming from the players who contemplate joining.

10
Events / Colosuss Belt
« on: November 06, 2022, 10:54:07 AM »
Colossus Belt, named after the card, will be a series of matches where the current champion takes on one challenger at a time, if the challenger wins they become the champion. To keep the title the champion needs to arrange a match at least once every 3 months. Since there is not a champion at the moment, the two most qualified challengers (among those who are interested that is) go up against each other.

I will be one of the players in the first match (see rules to qualify further down).

It will be a 1v1 best of 7, using the most recent playtest rules. No restictions on which books you use for each game. The games will be scheduled induvidually, just like in other online events, with the goal to finnish within a month.

I initially wanted it to be a Bo9, but I don't want this to last long enough to coincide with the playtest tournament and I think it is good to test the waters with a Bo7 first.

If several players are interested, someone will be picked on the 14th of November by the following tie-breakers:
TB1: Your highest placement in a tournament in the last 2 years, (must at least be top 4).
TB2: How recent that tournament was.
TB3: Your highest placement in a tournament all time.
TB4: How recent that tournament was.
TB5: My choice (and later on, the champions choice).

The tournaments I'll look at are GenCon, German Nationals and the ones held by Arcane duels, more might get added. If nobody sings up before November 14th, whoever signs up first gets to play.

The reason that I'm following a set of rules is so that I or a future champ will not get to choose who to play.
If a player loses a match they are not allowed to participate for the next, but they may compete after that.

If you are interested, reply here on the forums or message me on discord, I'd also be happy if you mention your most relevant tournament result(s) and it's date. You are more than welcome to sign up, regardless of how good or bad you are, right now I'd just be happy if anybody sings up.

11
Rules Discussion / Re: fast + elusive + charge
« on: August 11, 2021, 06:41:25 PM »
Yes, you can.

12
Spells / Re: Top 10 (LVL 2 Creatures)
« on: March 04, 2021, 02:32:27 PM »
I really like the Zombie Minion, Emerald Tegu, Knight of the Red Helm and Afflicted demon.

13
General Discussion / Re: Card Quote Contest!
« on: October 30, 2020, 05:31:01 PM »
"Normally, I would consider this to be a win-win."

14
Creative / Alt Wizard speculation
« on: October 10, 2020, 07:14:31 AM »
Since we know that we might get an alt wziard/forcemaster in the upcomming set I thought it would be fun to come up with ideas for potential ablities that she might have.

Given that the current Wizard is not only strong but also extremly flexible, we are already be able to build around any arcane or air spell with him, this makes it so that the female wizard isn't required to support any specific stratergy, instead she herself should be intresting IMO.

The one restriction I see with designing her is that she can't be too strong, because she A has acess to Gate to Voltari which is already strong and B mana denail which we don't want to be seeing too much play. I think it would be highly risky to make her stronger than (or equal to) the original wizard.


Overall power isn't the only reason that mages see play though she could be highly specialized, based entirely on theme, be a fun mage or make it so that even though she is weak she will let the player using her avoid one frustration aspect of the game (frustrating aspects can be: too long games, too short games, hidden information, randomness and so on).

Basing her on theme (and the fact that she has an hourglass) I came up with the following:

120 spellbookpoint, 10 channeling, basic melee of 3 dice (almost obvious).
Trained in the Arcane school of magic (air is not a must IMO)
29 life, lumbering (she is an old lady, though to be fair if her hair was black she would almost look young).

Dissipate 7, 'Instead of removing dissipate tokes from your mage during the upkeep phase place them on your mage stats card, if you ever run out of dissipate tokens on your mage card you lose the game. '
(The sand in her hourglass is running out!)

'As a full action you may swap all the dissipate token on your mage card and your mage stats card.'
(She can flip the hourglass to avoid death.)

'You may move a dissipate token from your mage card to your mage stats card to:
  • Gain 1 extra mana during the channeling phase.
  • Let a friendly creature make an extra move action during it's activation.
  • When you cast a spell with dissipate X give it one more dissipate token.
  • After you cast an arcane incantation you may cast it again with new targets as a free action.

Each ability may only be used once per round.'
(She can manipulate time to get stronger, but then she will also run out quicker.)

'When you activate your mage, you may pay 1 mana and all your move actions this round are teleports to the next zone.'
(I just really think this is cool, and it makes her harder to kill.)

Do you have any ideas/speculations for the alternate Wizard?

EDIT: here is the actual art https://i.pinimg.com/originals/6a/f6/aa/6af6aab3d6f1f5db5aa6001e2dd1fd4a.png

15
General Discussion / My thoughts on mage wars wrap up
« on: October 06, 2020, 01:18:57 PM »
There are a few cards/changes from the mage wars wrap up project (https://www.dropbox.com/sh/nifbqikhcff4a6l/AAB3UZtoe9j96LvAz5PawA2Na?dl=0) that I am not a huge fan of, this has little to do with balance and obviously I feel much more stongly about certain issues than others.

The things that I am unhappy with are:
 
  • Alternate Wizard/Forcemaster
  • Natural pandemonium (the Elementalists spawnpoitnt)
  • The ehtereal change
  • The Elementalist
  • The Monk
  • The general philosophy

Alternate Wizard/Forcemaster
I think that it just makes sense to include the alternate Wizard and Forcemaster in the promo set. The artwork for these mages has been out for 5-6 years, including them would only take up 4 card slots in the expansion (so you would trade a playset of some random card for these 2 mages) and even though there isn't much time to balance them you could just make them really weak and thus make sure that they don't break the game. I certainly feel like prining weak versions of them is WAY better than not printing them at all.

Natural pandemonium (the Elementalists spawnpoitnt)
You could definitively make a good argument that this card is broken, but that is not really what I am trying to point out here. Against most spawnpoints you have 3 general stratergies: go for the mage, go for their creatures or go for the spawnpoint itself. Some spawnpoint like the Vine tree or graveyard make it HARD for the opponent to play in a certain way but not in the in the way that the Pandemonium makes it impossible for people to focus on creatures. I think it would be far less frustrating to play against if it was just really hard to kill all of the Elementalists creatures, like you don't really feel that creative about your solutions after you have decided to build a book that will try to destoy the enemy spawnpoint by round 4 for the 12th time in a row. I think you should limit the reanimation to once per round, make it cost more mana to reanimate and/or make the Pandemonium take damage whenever it brings something back. It feels good to have more options, even if they are bad.

The Natural Pandemoniums ability to get a discount based on the number of adjacent zones feels forced and unthematic imo (also this is not a huge deal). I understand why you gave it this ability, but I think it would be better if it made more thematic sense, some examples of how to make it feel better (to me): have it require something specific to actually be in those zones for it to get a discount, have it rotate 90 degrees during upkeep and only let it summon things in the zone it points to, pretend that is is massive in size and that it takes up a zone all of it's borders in order to be placed on the board, or litterally any change that helps explain the theme.

The ethereal change
I mentioned on discord that I thought it would be way better to buff incorporeal with a new card rather than a rules change. Knowing that not all rules in the rulebook apply makes it less reliable, the change makes the game slightly more complex and it could make the game feel even more different for a returning player. It should be easy to just make a card that either protects the incorporeal creatures or a card that gains a buff when they die, unless it is impossible to find artwork for such a card. Another crazy option would be to just leave incorporeal alone.

The Elementalist
Some very minor things. It feels awkward that the glyphs have different costs, I know that this might almost sound silly but it would be a lot less information to remember, probably feel smoother in a way and I don't think it would change her playstyle that much. I really think that she should have a basic melee of some sort, there really isn't any thematic explanation as to why she can't throw punches and I also think that not having a basic melee can make her harder to balance since she has so no reusable way to deal damage, which then requires compensation... and yeah. I also feel that both the monk and elementalist are slightly too complicated, I mean  I actually felt somewhat intimidated by the amount of text.

The Monk
It really didn't feel good for me to play the Monk I just felt really strangeled by not having any of the big plays that the quick cast markes offers. (IMO) There is also no good thematic explanation as to why he has 2 action markers, like if you showed me the ability without the theme I would probably guess that it had to do with time manipulation and not martial arts, I also think it is odd that he runs twice as fast as any other creature in the game and that he is the mage that has the least use for melee attack spells. The double action markers forces you to stop him from gaining melee + X which also makes no thematic sense and it is just to solve balance. He was supposed to be a solo-mage but all you really need for that to work is passive healing and burst damage.

A couple of suggestions to change him would be to: remove all ablitites aside form the once that have to do with ki, let him guard or melee attack with his qc marker (instead of removing it) or if you really want 2 action markers give him 2 mage cards (where one is a human and the other is just a spirit) so that there is no quad movement or things like that and actually makes more thematic sense.

The general philosophy
I have faced arguments such as: 'as long as it isn't more broken than the gate or melee attack spells it's fine', 'as long as it is not as frustrating to play against as mana denail it is fine', 'as long as it's matchups are not as onesided as the necromancers it is fine' and so on.
I really think it is unhealthy to use the worst possible examples as measuring sticks, A because you should try to replicate the best and not the worst things in mage wars and B because you could easily set a new bar by accident this way.
Aditionally I think that many of you value balance too much. The most important factor, even as a competetive player is that the strongest books are fun and skillful, because these are the books that you will actually be forced to sit down and play with for hours and hours.

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