I agree on Uniques needing to be higher at the bottom end and a little less crazy at the top. I have heard that they have stated that they have fine tuned them more going forward, however the issue remains though around uniques in BTGs that were more powerful are still around. Robin needed the nerf, and Equinox did actually warn people that Robin was for the chop a month before they did it.
Equinox didn't warn people in a clear manner via a post of their website, though. I don't like the notion that everyone was aware, and victim blaming players who spent a lot of money on cards who might not have been aware. Equinox made a comment about Robin Hood it in an AMA video that a lot of people wouldn't have seen. That's not informing the player base. Some players don't have time to watch all this stuff and constantly check the discord to not miss news. The announcement should have been via the website to provide the whole community with an update that a ban was going to happen. Obviously, people might not check the website either, but at least then they did everything they could to inform the player base. The issue comes from people who had no idea and brought cards, and I think they are okay to be upset about that.
@@gavkenny I think a similar warning to Robin would be good but now I'm starting to feel like if they are going to make a change it would be nice if it was done sooner rather than later. It will be awkward if the marketplace drops and a lot of money changes hands for cards that get nerfed shortly after. I don't want them to get in a situation where they feel like they can't nerf cards that need it.
As more time passes and more uniques enter the market, there will be no amount of advance warning that would prevent people losing money on older cards. Currently the only way they truly know what to ban is after people play it and it is shown to be broken. One way to speed things up is more communicy theorycrafting that would point out the broken stuff early after a set release and for Equinox to then take action once they test it and confirm its a problem. Only for most outrageous cases, but some combos were spotted and published very early and were played for a while until banned. There is probably a way how to make early warning a regular thing in general.
Thanks for making this video. I'm really pulling for the success of Altered. I'm so glad that even if Altered Insights is shelved that you are still making Altered content.
I think challenge 1 is definitely a balance. To keep the game from getting too heavy, there needs to be a level of luck. Luck also is part of what makes it fun, otherwise we'd all be playing chess. I think "or" effects will be key, that and more cards in the card pool.
@@stephenelliott6761 this is true. In the extended version of this video I talked about this more but it already got super long. Basically I don't like friendly matches because it means I am less likely to face meta and even when I play something fun I still want to try my hand against the best decks. For other TCG you can usually get away with this in ranked because you won't suffer as much for a loss if it is against a player of your level.
I really need all altered content creators that can manage to interview top 4 players on all biggest tournaments to see how many bought uniques for outrageous prices. Or interview someone at equinox to hear them either admit pay to win was something they knew would happen and are fine with or how they are working to fix this like, SOON. No journalist is gonna bother with a game's woes, so only the people with the proximity to the company and the top can do this!
@@kenshokram in my interview with Charles he said they are working on the unique algorithm a lot and we can expect it to be better in set 2. He didn't share all the secrets but I'm very excited to see for myself!
I agree with the BGA sentiment so much. Whatever rating I get to playing meta, I'll just lose again by testing or playing something new or cool. This much to the point that I just stopped caring about rating entirely. Would love to see the system be less punishing. Tournaments on BGA are very fun, would definitely recommend playing those for that competitive itch.
I’m going to be attempting to reply with this with some constructive comments and play a little bit of the devil’s advocate here. I understand most of your points and where they come from and even agree with some, but disagree on others. Hopefully none of this comes across as negative, but instead as a counterpoint. Apologies for the massive wall of text, but I wanted to give a thorough outline of my thoughts. First off, I understand the competitive mindset you’re approaching this with. As a competitive player myself, I agree on lots of the things you bring up regarding the game and its future. I would love large scale in-person tournaments all across the world and a full-on competitive circuit. I think that competitive play, unfortunately, isn’t the main goal of Equinox for this game. Instead, they are marketing it towards the average and/or casual player. The game is geared to be a lower barrier to entry (not cost-wise but knowledge-wise) than other TCG’s on the market, and I think that they’ve done a good job with that if that is their goal. For your first challenge with how certain cards feel polarizing when drawn too consistently, that unfortunately is just part of card games in general. You can view datasets from other online TCGs on card winrates when drawn in the first X turns versus afterwards, and there will always be cards with that. Whether it’s a Unique in Altered, a combo card in MTG, or an aggro card in Hearthstone, some cards naturally have higher winrates the earlier they’re drawn or vice versa. Additionally, things like Small Step, Giant Leap are much better when you don’t have them clogging a hand spot early on and instead you see your playable cards. Unlike in games like Hearthstone or Magic though, those cards that are serving a niche purpose can always be used as mana which gives them far more utility. I do, however, agree with you that I wish more high-cost cards could see play. I would love to consistently see people play cards like Issitoq or Sakarabru or Hydracaena as they feel powerful to play with. I am curious to see how they take this direction to allow higher-costed cards to shine. For the second challenge, I think that you should make a clear distinction when talking about competitive events that you’re referring to in-person competitive events outside of Europe. As of right now, there are a plentiful number of online tournament circuits that you can choose to compete in with strong players. The Altered Weekly Online League just finished up their Season 1 Invitational yesterday, Altered Corner Events has their Season 2 Finale upcoming, the Exalts have their online Celebrations and other tournaments, the Go4Altered Championship is almost underway, and nearly half a dozen other competitive events exist. To ignore those events because they aren’t in-person is not good in my opinion. Some of the best players in the world for card games only get the chance to compete online so we shouldn’t ignore this aspect. On the topic of BGA’s rating system - honestly, the points do not matter in the slightest. As someone who was Top 50 consistently last season and was experiencing the +2-5 points for a win and -10-35 for a loss, I cannot stress how little it matters until you actually receive something for your placement. It’s just a bragging rights title at this stage of the game. For the last challenge, I do think that Uniques provide a weird market-space currently. The market is wild and the expense for some of the best Uniques is a major detriment to being competitive in a lot of ways. I do think there are plenty of good Uniques you can find to work in decks in the $10-30 range, but there are definitely some power outliers. But I also think that you don’t need to be buying multiple Top Tier uniques for multiple decks. If your goal is to play competitively, it’s best to pick a faction that has a Hero that you can be competitive with and find Uniques that work well with that Hero. Sure, some variety is good, but it is excessive to be searching for high-tier Uniques for every deck you want to play when you can get serviceable ones for cheaper. And there are also a handful of competitive decks that don’t need crazy Uniques to function like Treyst or Kojo, so those are solid options for people to branch out into if they would like to play multiple Heroes On the topic of those who spent $1000 on Robin Hood uniques, the phrase “a fool and their money are easily parted” has never been more relevant. You yourself bring up the lack of competitive tournaments at this point - so why drop so much money when you’re playing for virtually minimal stakes? No prizing for tournaments so far (outside of PAX U’s Icebound oversized cards) has been so exclusive that it does not have a price tag. Spending this amount of money this early in the game’s lifespan on Uniques is just foolhardy. Anyone thinking that the infinite Armorer+Boost combo needs to be banned right now too with how the metagame has developed is just not paying attention either. If Bravos infinite combo was as strong as people say it is, it would have more results. It also is completely counterintuitive to your point in the first challenge where you say that removal invalidates certain cards from seeing play. The Bravos infinite combo has clear disruption points where you can answer the first card played, or sabotage part of the combo if they’ve already done it once. That’s even ignoring the fact that it is a two-card, 5+ mana combo that has little room for redundancy since you have to be using your Unique slots on it. I think that you are too harshly grading Uniques too, you are looking at them as the 1% of the playerbase that needs them for competitive purposes. 99% of the time, a Unique that is just a side-grade or slight upgrade to a Rare is adequate for the average player. It is only the hardcore tournament grinders that would need the best of the best uniques, and why should Altered cater to the minority of their playerbase and not the majority? I have seen so many players locally open a Unique that isn’t absolutely busted but still excited and put it into their deck because it does something new. I think this is the goal that Altered has been focusing on and I think they’ve done a good job on it. As a whole, I think you have good points for the competitive side of the game but they shouldn’t be catering towards the competitive players if they are in the minority. Focusing on the playerbase and community as a whole, I’d wager that there are far more casual and locals-only players than competitive ones. It just makes the most sense for them as a business to focus on them. I’m excited to see what TBF brings as well, so hopefully it can revitalize your interest in the game!
For the uniques: I think what isn't talked about enough is also accessibility of the game as a whole. Uniques can really put a stop to the flow of the game. I had quite some games that I lost because I missed something about a unique. My learning basically was to take the time to really understand, what they will do, but that's not necessarily fun for me. I feel like 95% of the uniques right now would not be printed like that as a rare or common card, because the effects/stats/costs are just so ... off. Like, they dont follow the normal rules of what and how much a card usually does. Or how much text is ok for very minor effects. Some are just unplayable from hand or reserve but broken from the other. So they break the expectation, that a card will... make sense in it's entirety. Which could be fun, I guess... but like you said. It really becomes a hunt for the few top uniques.
@@gnomenschuh7606 I understand how you feel haha. I have seen or been a part of some rules misunderstandings around uniques even at the top tables of events. Reading them carefully is probably something we'll all have to learn the hard way and I don't really see how to get around that even if they are designed well.
I’d certainly like to see a narrower range for uniques. Either all mildly or all much stronger than the rare version. Though I couldn’t care any less for anyone who wastes money on a $1k Robin Hood. If you’re spending the kind of money that you could take your kids for a nice day out to Disney on a card game with no big events to win, then that’s on you, not the developers.
Yeah totally agree on the unique part. When I discovered Altered, I wanted to be all in on the competitive aspect of the game, did all online tournaments on ExAltered. But with the impossibility to get good uniques (not the time, not the money), the big tournaments like Angers or Paris, and even online on BGA made me quit the competitive scene. I now only play casually at my LGS, and I’m having a lot of fun in the local meta where no broken unique is there. I have found this is the way I will enjoy this game, playing casually. I don’t know how they will handle these broken uniques in the future, but right now the competitive meta feels unbalanced and unfair
I fully agree. I really wanted to dive into the competitive aspects of the game, maybe even get some great uniques. But then I found myself asking the question "what for?" There are no tournaments, BGA is not satisfying to tryhard at and even though I am lucky enough to have a decently sized local scene it's not super competitive. I feel like if I played a deck with top tier uniques there I would just be ruining peoples evenings. At this point I am only excited for sealed, a few casual constructed games and updating my cube when it comes to trial by frost.
@@cto2702 @timandgames7491 yeah, I've heard a lot of stories like yours. I hope that good uniques will be plentiful enough eventually that they are easy enough to get and we won't have to feel like scum when we roll an opponent with a normal deck. Especially when significant prizes are on the line in the future it will feel bad if things seem too pay to win.
I agree with all your points. Fingers crossed equinox will manage the game well. I think altered is fun enough that im willing to give it abit more time. Maybe take a short break and come back when you are ready!
@@bengenesis1989 thanks! I am pretty hopeful for TBF. I've basically taken a break from hunting for uniques which has helped. I just hope when I need to put a competitive deck together in the future I won't feel disadvantaged for not putting enough time and money into the search.
The lack of efficiency of the community management is unreal. I've seen a shop trying to be part of the Adventure Pass program for some month, to the point he called for help with an annoyed tone on one of the Facebook group, just to be received with passive aggressive answer from Lokinox who didn't like to be exposed not doing his job
@@fulgurobaboon1321 I can't really comment on this but I hope that anyone or any store that wants to be more involved is given the opportunity. The Equinox team has been working nonstop so I wouldn't get mad at them. I think there has been more to do for the new game than they've had resources for which is slowing some things down.
I love how they handled the unique system for my part, maybe it's ot perfect but for over 250 games, i've encountered what.. 5 to 10 games at most where the opponent could set up a durable if not permanent deadly combo (muna anchoring /boost or bravos / axiom). I'm playing a white/black in magic with 2 cards entering a loop with "when you inflict one damage you gain 1life" and the other "when you gain one life the opponent takes 1 damag. This is a set up i make at least one over 4/5 games. I just think uniques are great the way they are and hardly game breaking due to the "ephemeral" aspect of each card (i play fen with 15 to 30$ uniques..)
Thanks for your video, I love Altered competitively and for the collection, and it's always a good thing to discuss and argue about problems or bad feeling on a game we love, specially with a young company (Equinox) which listen/read what the community has to say. For your points : 1 - Yeah, when I meet an axiom player who play double haven on the first 2 days, I KNOW whatever deck I'm playing and even if my opponent have a bad draw after this play, the odds of losing increase hugely for me 😅. But to be honest I'm sure we can say this for almost all faction (small step, festival, bastion Muna, Fen big CA & Sigi big aggro,...). But really not a internal game problem currently, only the fact that card pool is still low today, we had only one edition. In the future we'll have so much cards with different effect, we'll be able to manage any threat I think and we'll have more choice to develop more startegie, counter meta, create new meta...In the set 2 we can obviously see that some inexistent heroes will have a big push (gulrang, sierra, Auraq, Rin) with the new cards, and all of this will create an even more versatile and changing meta like never before. Only thing on this point I really agree with you is : From the very start when starting playing the game I found that 3 cards on the start is really sad ! I love that we draw 2 each turn, I love the supply mechanic, I love the start when we put cards in mana and keep the rest BUT I'm sure the game would have been better having just 1 more card at the start. Draw 7, put 3 in mana, keep 4, go ! Really keeping only 3 at the start can prevent a lot of choices/creativity in the first 3 days. It's a shame because I learnt in an interview that during a long time when play-testing the game and fine tuning it, it was 7 cards and keep 4 !! And then after they decided to cut 1 and go with 3. Please please make the 7th cards coming back. You can play 2 cards, start the day 2 with 2 cards un supply, 3 in hands, 4 mana : soooo many choices. You can keep for long term for the matchup while playing short term etc. 2 - Rapidly here : Yes but it was known from the very start that the competitive fields will really begin with equinox on 2025 and not before...Yes, things take time, specially outside Europe/Around France, but we have to not forget one thing : It's not Disney behind, it's not Bandai, it's not Wizard of the Coast, it's a very young and "little" company which start all of this...They don't have an empire with tons of sales/commercials with millions and millions to burn rapidly to extends the game all over the world and organize lot of attraction. But we can see that they are putting all their efforts to convince and extends their game in USA, it's only the very beginning, the game is 4 months-long since the retails of the first edition...they need time to grow, build, refine, consolidate the innovative features, fine tune the ecosystem, etc. I have no worries on this subject : I see all the effort. They really want to stay a very long time, so don't worry if some are quitting because too frustrated with the cards pools and/or not enough scene to play: They'll come back (we hope so) when the cards pool will be bigger and the scene in usa bigger and all the digital features and meta refined. 3 - Yes I agree. I don't know if you know it (because you don't speak about it, so maybe you can make a pin post about it in the comment section or write it in your video in the part where you talk about it) but Equinox has heard the legit complaint about the fact that too many uniques we get are average/less powerful than the rare too often. So they have increased the minimum % power of the uniques starting with the set 2 and all editions after. This means that the gap between an excellent top S unique and the other uniques will be less big, and that when you open an unique it should be with a good probability something interesting/powerful enough. We'll see ! For the robin it was very very toxic to prevent the opponent to play any cards during so many turns...now that some time and tournaments have passed since the nerf, we can actually confirm that they were right with the decision : The meta is more diverse/interesting now compared to before the nerf. Yeah armorier bravos is SS tier, but already with the set 2 we have some interesting cards which can do a lot of damage to this (return all character of one expedition to reserve) and you can play around "accepting" to lose 1-2 expedition this turn, then sabotage/put fleeting on the unique and don't see it a second times. Finally, if this kind of problem really comes up again and again, I'm sure they will easily find a way to solve this competitively with some rules. For example : Now your 3 uniques can't share exactly the very same effect/text. You can have one unique for example with "hand effect: Sabotage", another unique "When a character you control gain a boost - Sabotage" and another "When a character enter in one of your expedition - Sabotage" because it's not exactly the same text accross all uniques, but you can't have 2 or 3 uniques with the same text as the third one in the example even if the stats/support effect/mana/etc are different. Doing this allow much more of very strong cards with S-tier capacity to be available to purchase for others (because you can't have more than one with this text) AND avoid degenrate effect to be abused x3 in a deck AND this change will push creativity of deckbuilder even furthest and deep because you'll have to think about what mix of ability your deck need (instead of just thinking "okay this effect is top I want 3 of them and done). And it increase the adaptation and surprise effect playing our match, uniques can be seen as our "toolbox".
Unique part I agree with so much, we also need big regional tournaments but just having these 500 euro uniques is just crazy, makes it so not fun to play someone online that has these.
@@Giinoo_5716 yeah I feel like this will really be a problem if it persists. People don't like to feel limited. Even if other viable options are around nobody wants some outside factor taking away options from them. Right now even if you wanted to spend 2k to get uniques for your favorite deck before an event they probably aren't for sale.
This kind of feedback is so important for the game, especially coming from the bigger content creators in the Altered world. Videos like this will be heard and make the game better in the long run!
The base floor of uniques needs to be raised as they allow for packs to be better to open, and for the average unique to be more playable. The ceiling for uniques is either correct or could be lower just a little bit.
Thank you. Yes. #3. The uniques. I wrote several posts about exactly this on Reddit and everyone just called me crazy (basically). It’s nice to know i’m not alone on this.
@@SeanRussell87 yeah I think the Altered community on average feels like it's 100% support or bust. I've noticed a lot of people expressing valid concerns that get shut down but I think discussion of stuff like this is perfectly healthy.
I like the idea of competitive league play for this game, but anything like traveling for prizes at a tournament is basically a non-starter unless you have absolutely busted uniques which is a pretty tall order. The removal in this game is great, but the lack of any sort of sideboard makes it pretty lackluster. I would like to see them taking approach like the game flesh and blood, where it's still a best of one game but players can sideboard before the match starts. I think that is the only way for this game to be competitively viable going forward.
@@zigeif777 honestly a sideboard would be so nice. A lot of decks are forced to run cards that are terrible in most matchups to have a chance against specific decks. Even with the mana system you still need to draw two playable cards at times or in decks that resupply you can't always just put the dead card in the mana.
A dedicated app ala LoR with good matchmaking would definitely be my biggest expectation. The work developpers did on BGA is fantastic, but they are limited given the platform is intrisically not adapted to a TCG. I think they mentioned once it would not happen before a few years at least, I hope this is added to Equinox roadmap sooner. I liked to play Lorcana in LGS anytime work schedule allowed me to, but I dropped completely after Pixelborn disappeared. No point buying cards if you cannot test deck list ideas before bringing them in a tournament. I'm definitely the opinion that in 2025 a s-tier application stimulates in-person play. No doubt your constructive critics will help Equinox bring Altered where it deserves to be :)
Yeah I think the app would be very beneficial but I don't see it making it to the top of a priority list soon sadly. With pod and marketplace still delayed among other things there are still a lot of other stuff in line ahead of it. They'd also probably need new resources not currently in the team.
I like the unique system, I just don’t like the balancing behind it. There are so many dud uniques that it makes you really think “what is the point”? Sooo many times I see a unique and think “filler”.
i definitely think uniques need to be tuned, it rly is, to me, a fairly normal balancing issue where they undervalued certain abilities and overvalued others. year 1 is always super rough for TCGs, but it seems to me like EQ is learning from their mistakes even set-to-set, so block-to-block i anticipate massive improvements. altered at its best is, to me, a lot like Xyz era yugioh in a lot of ways, with explosive turns, interesting resource management, tempo being a strong focus, all with distinct and viable outs to any strategy
You gave a very balanced review of this innovative game poised on the release of set 2 Trial by Frost which will likely reward the skill of the best players such as yourself. It is understandable that competitive players such as yourself will immediately gravitate toward the constructed=standard play of 39 cards plus a Hero. However in my opinion Altered really shines in Limited, that is Sealed or Draft. I would suggest that Equinox favor Limited in its official Organized Play and reward winners handsomely with special juiced up opportunities to obtain uniques. I myself opened four KS displays and four more regular BTG displays and got the 40 or so uniques expected but only three or four were slightly better than corresponding rare cards.
Those aren't great pull ratios haha. You are probably right that limited could be a great format to explore more! It's been hard for me to try extensively playing mostly on BGA
@@TricksterCG Marketing Director Eric D. from Equinox said in his recent AMA that offering Limited on BGA is something that they are exploring with the BGA coding team and may be offered for Set 3 or 4. He also acknowledged that sales have been less than expected in North America but that they can't keep up with demand in France with LGSs ordering five or ten times more product than Asmodee anticipated.
@@pauldestefano8469 thanks for the update! That all makes sense. France got enough players from the beginning that it's been easy for the game to become self sufficient.
I think some issues might exist because we draw 2x cards instead of one like most games every turn, but the devs have balanced the game like all the rest . Got no solution for it though. I'll wait and see how the new expansion performs now that more decks have an identity
The option to play online is a double edged sword. The game needs to be played in person so we form social bonds and a sense of community. I already saw the few early players in my area start talking about tournaments, to then say "ok, online then", only for things to quiet down and stores saying people just stopped coming. I suspect everyone just gets lazy, hops online and plays against the French hordes, I have to travel to a smaller city where for some reason there is a tabletop Altered community to even play. But we know the players are here, just not showing up in person. That said, I can't recommend my friends to get into the game until the market place is online. Right now the only reasonable way is to dump a fortune into boosters. Once that is improved, I feel like I can recruit myself and drag people to the stores again.
Playing online is probably better than quitting altogether I guess. I really do think the marketplace could do great things for the games growth. Hope it comes soon and works well!
limited deck search for permanents and/or spells only could be a good feature. there also needs to be ways to play the more expensive cards without instantly getting punished. sadly the only viable cards that cost more than like 4 or 5 are cards with powerful on-play effects OR have tough
deck search also helps with consistency. if you can consistently get your permanents out and have your essential spells, the characters themselves are less impactful
I have admittedly stopped playing as much ever since the Gamers Guild event. I have no one to play in person with, and there's only so much I can grind on BGA. I also haven't felt like deck crafting too hard beyond what I've already done (about a half dozen decks or so), because I lack the uniques to really make the deck flow.
for the record, I have opened quite a few kickstarter boxes, and still am lacking in solid uniques, even just faction speaking, let alone hero specific
@@bIeaq for a second I thought I wrote this haha. It is really hard to keep up with the game without the exciting cards or opportunities to play motivating you.
I hope the game lasts a bit. I just picked it up last month. Played a dozen bga games to learn and love its change of pase. Love the art and mechanics. Lot of 3d print accessories. I hope the game sticks around.
I really hope it can last too. I agree the mechanics and overall product is so great. I just hope the team can find the resources to handle some of the balance and accessibility issues that have overshadowed at times everything else that is so great.
@TricksterCG the points about bga are spot on. My 31 rep vs 256+ rep players france and Italy. Exaltered is dead and i was excited to try its interface. Still gonna buy a display or 2. My first ever pack was a unique bravos flying squirel dude.
I quit after seeing the first big tournaments--why would I play a meta where decks cost thousands of dollars (because of a few key cards) for a brand new TCG? I played a decent amount with my precons on Board Game Arena, then felt the gameloop was solved. That said, I appreciate all the thoughtful analysis, Trickster.
I hear what you're saying about wanting games to be less about whether you draw your answer before your opponent establishes their wincon engine. But I'm not sure about your suggestions. Modality seems to be the right progression for card games--c.f. Richard Garfield realizing what Kicker, then Cycling did for gameplay, and now how there's all kinds of mechanics in MTG allowing you to chose from among multiple effects on a single card--but it unquestionably raises power level, as well as complexity (which is better for power-gamers, less so for those wanting a more casual vibe). As for wanting tutors, it sounds like you want something like the Pokemon TCG, where opening turns are about churning through your deck to establish your wincon on the battlefield, and then asking your opponent whether they can answer that. This is also a kind of Commander style of design, in which each respective player is battleshipping towards "doing the thing" (establishing their wincon engine). Sure, this can be fun, and sure, variance feels bad; but why should it be possible to construct a wincon engine with any level of consistency in the first place? That seems broken game design (something more common to eternal formats, where there's not so much curation in card interactions). To again reference Magic, if you're able to construct basic archetypes that have been proven in TCGs (aggro, midrange, control), then you can rely on fundamentals of skill to win in the course of play. (Also, the Professor loved variance in TCGs for allowing less-skilled players to ever have a chance sitting down to play greater-skilled players--giving them a reason to not quit.)
You have some good analysis here. I was mostly suggesting a bunch of different options to get the conversation going but I haven't taken enough time to determine which would be the best fit. I was trying to show that there are some ways to address the challenge but I still got a lot of "this is a thing in every tcg" comments anyways haha
Many of these reasons relate to why I have picked up a secondary game and worry it will become primary. It is one, first set the future is bright. I hope the landmark subtype will shift to quirkier uses in later sets compared to Haven. Buying and trying competitive decks is awkward when you can't pick up even an understatted unpreferred version of a certain affect to try it out, it's a text line that appears on uniques of a specific name, and a fraction of that name.
@@mayhayden5786 yeah not being able to test does make it hard for competitive players that want to be informed and try all of the options. I do agree that the future is bright! Maybe the gears which stick around temporarily will be similar to what you are describing for landmarks. By the way. What's your 2nd game?
I agree with these views, specialy with the uniques problem. The amount of trash ones I saw when reading them is insane. My first unique was an unplayable stinker that I dont even want to see anymore. The main problem is that the unique version can be a downgrade from the rare one or worse. I understand the idea of them, but the result is not healthy. Here's a quick idea I just came up with to make uniques: The unique is gonna use the rare version of the card as the base. Each alteration to it has a "weight" to determine how many things are added to the card. For example: the unique card has a weight limit of 5. A cost reduction on one of the costs of the card weights 2, while changing a "from hand" effect to a "whenever you play" effect could weight 3. Adding a new hability to the card could vary depending on the effect, so for example, adding "draw a card if x happens" could weight 3 while "if x happens, resupply" could weight 2 and so on. Maybe adding a reserve discard effect to a card that didnt have one could weight between 2 to 3 and who knows how many ways you can mix and mash these things to create a "unique" card. The idea is just a random thing I came up with just now, but the point is: your unique would, at the very least, be better than the already existing card that you might own. It might come with new art and what not, but this way you would be excited to see them appear cuz you would know for sure that it will be an straight upgrade. Sure, it would still create some cards that might be outliers, but at least these uniques would be playable.
@@dalol90 that's an interesting way to design them! I'd love to get a designer on here especially after we see set 2 to hear how they've been refining the process. It would be nice if more of them were at least good enough to substitute straight across with some of the good rares.
Point 1: You are right, but I excuse this and call it set 1 syndrome. Not sure how many new card games you have jumped into recently, but this has always been the case during the first set of any new card game. This was even true for Yugioh, Yugi-Kaiba format (where we only had the cards from those two starter decks) was infamous for this. Point 2: Very true for America. Have we had anything since Gamers Guild that wasn't at a convention? Lol. Im grateful for my small locals group, but I'm expecting more events I can travel to during Trial by Frost. Point 3: You explained this perfectly, and didn't miss any points. I was already out of the Market for S-Tiers so I didnt feel bad about releasing the Strongest Unique Effects video lol, I can't afford them. Uniques won't turn me off from the game, but I do consider the rollout for Uniques a failure. They can fix these issues moving forward, but unfortunately you can't close Pandora's Box once you open it.
Idk how big altered decks are but in magic we have 2 of removals we hope to draw sometimes and in a control deck would simply try to draw through enough cards to get to the card we want...i guess the main problem of any card game that doesnt have a best of 3 format with sideboards is that there will always be cards you cant answer with your current deck and without the ability to change sideboard you just keep losing to the same deck
@@MrWaves-oj9ge a side board would be nice. It's too bad that it doesn't fit Altered very well. With the complex rarity rules for deck building and Bo1 in tournaments. Without combat in this game removals could end up being even more important in matchups with annoying threats.
@TricksterCG yeah that's rough. It's hard to have a truly competitive card gave with bo1. Part of a card game is the luck of the draw and you will never have 1 deck that can handle everything. If every game is 'I hope they don't draw that card' then idk how the game functions at that point. I think the power level of every single card has to be extremely high or it doesn't feel fair
@MrWaves-oj9ge hence the video haha. I think it isn't as big a problem for some decks or matchups, but in others you can really feel. If you haven't tried the game though you should! Despite a couple of challenges it still has a ton of strategic depth I enjoy and new mechanics to master that set it apart from other games.
I definitely have faith that removal will both get better, as will the targets so you're not having to run specific removal for specific targets. Really feels like a set one issue more than anything. The best of one setup meaning no side deck is a pain. I wish more games that aim to be best of one did a sideboard and did preboarding. Then you could have some answers you get to bring in. Although even a Mulligan would help a bit. Festival and to a greater extent Bastion are very good since you need specific removal for them. If we can get more playable permanents they'll likely get worse as it will be easier to justify running good removal. I'm with you 100 percent on it being hard to play Altered. I get to play maybe once a month. I've got 3/4 regular players at my LGS. I want Equinox to bring back the road show and they need to get some more advertising to shops. I'm planning an event for TBF release handing out common decks and 3 packs at my LGS for sealed so I'm hoping to get the community going a bit more, but my ability to float the game only goes so far if they don't make the game appealing to the LGSs to try and get into it. Altered not having a digital client at launch is a travesty. BGA is fine, but having a permanant in house client would be great. Uniques are a bit wild. I love them a lot and appreciate the swinginess they add. You're right though, they need to tighten the power band on them. I got a ton of absolutely unplayable uniques, and a handful of absolutely insane ones. Of course, more than anything, we need more product opened and the marketplace to actually move them. I think once the game is bigger the prices won't be as crazy. With more sets too they'll settle down as there will be significantly more replacement options. Of course my real advice is, and you say this, don't buy anything at the current price. The game isn't big and we're not having huge events. You can wait to get your uniques. General odds and ends, I hope Altered makes it. It's a great game and if it can make it a year two and beat the growing pains I think it could really find. a niche. It does what Lorcana attempted to do with a "no fighting" game and actually executed on that. Definitely going to miss Altered Insights. Was great to get some high quality Altered chat, but I feel you on the timing being bad. Doesn't matter how good a concept is of the people making it don't have the time. Alright. I'm going to bed. Thanks for the video. Appreciate your thoughts and time going into some deeper issues than the usual "No marketplace, no POD" talk you see.
One thing I was thinking about is that as the cardpool and mechanics increases that in future sets uniques formerly in the dumpster will rise from the ashes like dumpster fire phoenixes. Basically something that is clunky and bleh given the current cardpool could all of a sudden be decent in a future cardpool. Also, with the current cardpool it is easier to optimize the "best" decks. In the future will not a larger cardpool open more possibilities and diversify the meta or is that just wishful thinking?
I think it is unfortunately, at least at a competitive level. More cards will equal more opportunities for fun brews and cool interactions but more cards does not necessarily equal more meta relevant decks. Yugioh, for example, has over 10000 legal cards and they spent a large part of last year playing in formats with one clear best deck. That said I am still very hopeful for the future and agree that it would be cool to see old uniques come in and be good when no one expects them to be.
I think all uniques should be at a level above rares. You can only have three of them so I’d rather be struggling to pick which three I should be putting in my deck then struggling to find three worth playing. Uniques are the “chase cards” of any altered set they should make you feel good when you pull them.
Competitive scene shouldn't be left behind, yet going forward the game should absolutely not be primarily geared towards tournaments, the primary targets need to be new and casual players. Anything that would increase complexity of decision to them is a risk. Every TCG desperately needs an element of randomness that will be distasteful to pros and tryhards. It also makes it feel more possible for a less experienced player to win some of the time.
This is true. You do want even new players to have a chance to win sometimes. Hopefully though it can find that perfect balance between being a coin flip and chess where both groups stay interested!
Never seen that unique Amelia before. That is insane. Whats something like that worth? 300 ? 4? More? I do have a big problem with permanents. I want to get some uniques that remove them, but many decks just don't play any permanents, making my choices worthless. I know I could just play them as mana but it could have been a much better card. The low prices of sealed really makes me worried. I opened up 9 kickstarter boxes and I got 2 god packs that was super lucky. I also opened up one of those 300$ brassbug makers. (It was just when it gains a boost, not when any guy gains a boost). Again super duper incredibly lucky. But like you, I didn't open any unique at all that I want to keep. I play them because its what I got and its better than a common. But I've been buying better ones when I can. That does suck that as a content creator, you are hurt by making content 🤮 gotta make some anonymous accounts to buy stuff 😥
Pricing has been wild recently. Auctions can send prices through the roof and other times people get lucky and snag a card before anyone notices for cheap. I'd say minimum 250 but it could easily go for 400 or more. Removal in this game is one of the most annoying things to me so I feel your pain with using uniques as permanent removal. Depending on what you face you will be ecstatic or frustrated beyond belief.
I think once u have a good playset and only miss certain rares, there is no real motivation to buy retail boxes bc 4-5 uniques per box is just not good enough when the chance of getting a good one is super low in addition to that. KS Displays are the exception here but I kinda want to open TbF now but after opening 2 displays I dont get why I should buy new ones...
There honestly isn't much of a reason to keep opening packs. Knowing that the best unique cards I've pulled are B+ tier at best and that most seem worse than a rare doesn't make me believe it will be worth it. I'd recommend to most people to only buy one display for the commons and then buy the rest online once we get pod and the marketplace.
Okay, most people playing this game have never played a successful TCG when it first launched… the first two are definitely issues a new game will have to deal with. The unique thing will also balance out as more sets release. It just comes down to how this game handles itself. Do we get a standard rotation, or is the game eternal.
14:20 that was also a thing I recognized with krossmaster. The French are really nationalistic and in that way they neglect anything outside their own country. But they need such international structures to keep it up. I am afraid they are making the same mistake.
For example: the first big tournament was at the same weekend in France as the SPIEL' in Essen. They had a small event at the SPIEL' but it was not really compatible with this huge national event. That was a huge missed opportunity that they didn't prevent that overlap
@@philippniemann8842 I hope it doesn’t end up like that. While the support has been slower outside of France I have seen equinox putting a lot of effort into supporting the US too. Fingers crossed they don’t give up on other regions.
The amount of draw in decks will gradually go up over time as new expansions get released. Whether you chose to play that draw over other more pwerful cards is something that is a deck choice. Now, your complaint about not always having the solution you want ... sorry this is a TCG and there will always be some amount of RNG involved. I find Altered less bad than Magic in that regard.
Totally. If the guy play a finisher and a dont have removal for him killing me, i lost. Ok. In Magic there’s basic: sorry bro you win because i dont have 3 lands for play. Now i won because you draw 4 lands in a row
Everyone keeps saying this is a TCG and RNG is to be expected. Does that mean we can’t talk about this topic at all 😂 If Altered was able to do better than Magic then I’m sure it’s possible for Altered to do better in the future than it does now. I don’t think Altered is doing a bad job but there are definitely more options to explore moving forward.
Almost all the Altered stories and pictures shared on their social media is in French and they do not seem to be embracing what it means to be a TCG in English. I hope Altered can gain traction more here in North America but for now it seems to be a Euro/French TCG
Even trying to navigate the temporary marketplaces can be very hard with all the screenshots of cards in French. Even my team which is supposed to be English speaking decided to hold our weekly meetings in French and is going to start a competitive group that will have French as the dedicated language. Hard not to feel left out.
Uniques card in displays could see play HOWEVER most seemed irrelevant when you see some token spawners, ancre engine, etc ... they need to nerf the Super-uniques to make normal/good uniques see play.
Even limiting it to 2 or maybe 3 times could be good enough for some. Or say it costs 1 after the first time. The high power level is fun so it might be OK to keep too but the cards would need to be a lot more accessible.
I also have to disagree with most of your points here. Other commenters have explained it very well, so i'm not going to repeat the points to spare you reading work. Let me just clarify for point 3: you SEVERLY overstimate how good people are at rating uniques. The price of a unique doesnt depend on the strength, it depends on how strong the general community thinks it is. One of the core skills of Altered deckbuilding, is searching for uniques that get overlooked, yet are super strong. Being able to correctly rate a uniques rather than following the echo chamber is a skill that is rewarded. You can definitly build competitive decks with relatively cheap cards. You just need to spend time looking for them.
Thank you for the video, but I gotta disagree with most of it video. If you play a card game you have to deal with variance, yugioh has a giant, glaring problem of every game pretty much being the exact same if you play 2 of the same deck. Tutors (searches) and extra decks are great offender of this imo. Variance is great, even in competitive settings. The way to fix this perceived problem (honestly, it's still way better than how some other games deal with it) is probably the first thing you said: just wait for more powerful cards to be printed, so we have more options to deckbuild. I hope they fix some of the wordings that is probably kept the same for uniques algorithm reason. Why can't we get a card that costs 1 and send to reserve/discard a character or permanent with cost 2 or less? The reason bastion is so oppressive right now is that there's not a single efficient way to remove it. Giving more varied values to removal is extremely important imo. Treyst got a really powerful card, if they only gave him the common version of bastion, the deck would be way more balanced. Right now is one card centered for a bunch of fixable reason, none of which, imo, are tied to reducing variance
This is fair. I was mostly trying to show that there are a lot of options and not determine which would be best. I think that more strong cards will fix the struggle for most decks like you are suggesting and a handful of "OR" options in text lines could be nice. I do think that search could be nice for certain decks like ones that use Foundry Axiom Bastion or other cards that have a very specific effect you want to build around and are in trouble without. Alternatively, creating redundancy with a second similar card can be just as good. If the search cards are specific enough, the end result is almost identical to having redundancy with multiple cards with similar effects. I think the main problem is if search is too versatile then it can be anything you need and not just additional copies of something required for a specific strategy.
Challenge 2: It is very difficult to get the right to offer official events :( This keeps us back here at my area. The communication is veeeery slow and if you do not have a real boardgamestore it seems to be very hard. If this does not work out for my region, I am out too :(
They should just ban uniques in competitive tbh. Make them just pure casual fun cards. i've never seen a unique and ever been like wow this is so fun. it just feels dirty to win with them and horrible to play against.
As a casual player I love uniques! I think its so fun to see what my opponent has and take pride whenever they take an interest in mine. Deckbuilding around the uniques that I have even if they're not great is just so fun knowing that nobodys deck is exactly like mine. I do agree however that competitively its a problem, it creates a weird pay to win rat race to claim the best uniques and that AT the top level it stunts deckbuilding because the "best" uniques are so clearly defined. I was thinking that they should create a 2nd competitive format that only allows for rares and commons. Local game stores would continue to host the "wild/open" format but when it comes to the altered grand prix/ altered ranked ladder or whatever, they only allow for commons and rares. I think it would allow for those that are interested in going super competitive to have that experience and would even get rid of the "if i draw into my unique I win" issue we have. I think it'd be great for casual play too because it would mean that uniques can be more powerful more consistently, get rid of those limiters that are making the uniques and make them do even MORE insane stuff! It's awesome to see someones unique go absolutely nuts under the context that the game your playing is not competitive but for "funsies" and would make opening a unique that much more fun instead of opening a mediocre unique that leaves you dissapointed. Of course there are issues with a 2 format idea, splitting the already small player base into casuals and competitive will stunt the population of both. I know personally I would just end up never touching the competitive side. The other thing is that doing so might just kill the appeal of uniques entirely. Why should I care about opening a unique when I can't "play" it anyways type mentalities might develop. I think altered has carved a very unique (pun intended) identity in the card game space with its innovation making the game fun first at the casual level at the DETRIMENTAL cost of balanced and healthy competitive play. With a 2 format system however I think they can have both.
I do agree the wild ones are a lot of fun. I'm sure casual players would enjoy collecting and getting to show off more impressive cards. The balance is hard for competitive though. I don't know if no uniques is the solution because it hurts the core identity of the game but maybe specific effects could be banned in the highest levels of play to preserve competitive integrity while remaining playable in more casual venues.
I'm sorry, but if someone spent $1000 to have an inaccessible card so they could have a better deck than everyone else, I don't feel bad for them after said card was nerfed.
That's fair haha. Even if it's $250 or a more reasonable amount I'm sure it would hurt. The tipping point will be different for a lot of people but it is hard if cards like these exist for those who feel limited in deckbuilding because of the cost alone and for those who are willing to pay if they need to constantly fear a ban. It also opens up the potential for people to take advantage of other buyers if they somehow hear about it in advance. I'm sure French players will be more likely to pick up hints when they get to hang out so closely with game designers. I just hope we don't have to worry about cards like these when world championships and serious competitions are on the line. If there could be enough to push the price closer to 100 it would reduce some of the drama I'm sure.
Caring about your rank in a multiplayer online game is bad for improving. Yes, it can be frustrating, but you get better by losing too, not only winning. I play Tekken besides Altered online, and yeah it feels bad when you de-rank, but you know why you de-ranked. Maybe different factions should have different ELO, like Tekken characters have different ranks.
the uniques are a trap :-D Once someone buys a playset of a unique for 1500 USD, Equinox must tread lightly if they want to ban and nerf too many of them. They talk about compensations, but how the hell do you compensate these guys if you slash their uniques 😀 Honestly, I think uniques are exciting and a good reason to want to open packs, but there needs to be either a lot of errata for them, or we need 0-uniques tournaments for newbies. I am fine with uniques being a thing in a super pro worlds level, but I would love if they were different but still rare-level power. Unique does not necessarily mean strong. They can finetune the weights in their generator machines to suppress the power level across the board...
I think Altered is mechanically so tight that its more obvious when something is even slightly above curve. Things like Magic are so swingy and asymmetrical anyway you just kinda shrug when a top tier deck for 500USD stomps your budget deck. In Altered, you do actually have a chance to overcome tough opponents so the moment that isnt really true due to some unique is so much more memorable. Especially because of the back and forth where you can respond to try to balance out everything. In magic, there was more often than not a situation where I knew after three turns that I have no response to the other deck and got killed in three more. In Altered, I feel like it takes much longer in many situations to really lose hope, so when you get that definitive "oh, he played this and that means I am 110% dead" situation, your heart sinks so much deeper...
@ great points. Unique really doesn't need to mean better. I'm sure they could still make cards plenty exciting though while staying far away from how it is now.
The game is dead in my area. It had a strong start but quickly fell off. Nobody wants to buy product anymore, especially when the lack of printing makes foilers useless so there’s no pretty chase cards. Everyone locally has already traded every card they’re willing to part with. There’s basically no singles market because the digital marketplace, half of this game’s hype, STILL isn’t up and you’re at the whim of the seller, hoping they haven’t scanned the card like they claim. Everyone got sick of playing the same decks each week. I’m literally just waiting for the marketplace to hurry up and release so I can sell everything and recuperate some of my costs
@PorgChampTCG I hope when we get the marketplace card accesibility will go up and with more decks and things to try your scene will come back to life. Think a lot of people are in a similar situation. Where I'm at there weren't really opportunities to trade even early on.
I think hand size is one of their biggest problems. I understand that hand size and hand advantage is always something to balance a game around, but hand size has a direct correlation to how much luck is involved in a game. With altered, I play a purple control deck and still feel like it's just autopilot. Draw 2 cards, count my mana and how many cards I can play that turn. Charge the card I can't. Play every card available to me. We have a decent local scene and everybody pretty much feels the same way no matter what color they are playing. The game is just, who has higher numbers in their hand? I have 5 decks and purple control requires the most strategizing, but even then a simple flowchart could play the game for me.
Yeah, too few cards does lead to not enough options and less strategy. I have the most fun playing the small number of decks where I can have a bigger hand and a couple of options. There are definitely still games where I am playing everything in hand though in a relatively predictable order.
Thanks for your honesty! I appreciate you acknowledging that this is from the POV of a competitive (constructed) player. Would e.g. sideboarding in best-of-three alleviate any of your concerns with challenge 1? You hit on two issues with challenge 3 I really agree with: - At the moment, engaging with the marketplace is required to be in the top 1% of competitive play - There's an unfortunate disincentive to share ideas because it might make it harder to find the uniques you want
Glad to get some validation from a competitive player I admire! I think side boarding could help a lot for some decks and matchups. One of the biggest obstacles for that is the game is an awkward length that can be just a little too long and in future formats this could get more extreme if you even just add one extra day on average. A lot of tournaments aren't bo3 because of time and side boarding would make the ones that are bo3 even longer. Maybe a pre boarding could work for bo1 but that doesn't feel perfect in all situations because it could be possible to play the same hero in very different ways in the future at which point you can't actually be reactive (especially to playsets of specific uniques). The second thing is it would be hard to enforce the deck building rules when you side board. I'm sure people could accidently swap a rare with a common and if side decks are limited in size it gets very hard to make one when certain cards can only be swapped out with other specific cards.
The 3rd challenge is definitely what worried me from the start. Some unique are worse than their rare counterpart and some are OP. It doesn't feel incredible discovering a unique cause most likely you won't be able to use it. So I would do less unique but very strong ones. But most of all, we need a new rarity. Since uniques are, unique, the odds of getting the one you want is close to null. Rares don't feel scarce. I feel like an Epic rarity with maybe a limited supply could add a bit more collection thrill.
That's honestly a good idea. Maybe you could use the last 3 spots for either uniques or the cards of the new rarity. Maybe they could print one epic for each character in slightly higher frequency that is basically just a unique with an effect they want to guarantee access to. All of this would probably not be necessary if they can get the unique balance right in the long run.
are you really quiting just cuz of that? That looks so "meh" to quit, respectfully. Here in Fortaleza we didn't have one single promo booster even we have 12 to 20 players in locals with a spike of 34 on release which may looks a few but make us one of the two biggest Altered communities in Brazil, and even with that Galapagos (ower distribution company) only sand promos to south and southeast regions even with the next set releasing this weekend... Oh, TbF was delayed to february 24th in Brazil. The "challenge 2" is similar, but don't get any compensation seens disrespectful, cuz we're expending ower money and time and geting nothing back. It has been an active effort to call new people and keep the old ones but majority droped (luckly much others get into the game). And in the end just looks like the company doesn' give a sh... I traveled to Porto Alegre on christmas and even they have only 8 players weekly they got the promos since early december, looks Galapagos just hates Brazil's northeast. If in the 1st set they didn't give prizes, what should happens nearly with set 2 and pod? And even majors events. How could I invite new people Altered when there is pkm, One Piece and other TCGs that at least give something to them? And I don't agree with the challenge 1, but nice video. I just needed to speech those things cuz them piss me off
I hope you get better prizing. I'm not going anywhere, but I think you can relate to being frustrated about some things. The hardest part for me and some of my friends who actually quit is we don't have opportunities to play. You are saying you have 10-20 players and other places have at least 8. A lot of areas have 1-3 and that's it. If there aren't even consistently opponents at some point it doesn't make sense to keep playing haha
True, true and true ! Uniques had to be as powerful or a bit more powerful than rares versions. That was the promess. That's the biggest fail of the game. They need to find a way to balance it or the game will be dying. Getting a format with no unique is not a solution. It's like changing the game. Thanks for the video. I hope Equinox will react and propose solutions to those problems.
Resourcing 3 cards it’s literally discarding half your hand. This game needs resource 2 starts (as SWU), mulligan, bo3 and sideboard. Otherwise as you say on the video you just play with what you draw, few cards, few choices, no strategy, no way to play high cost cards, and basically just wishing to top deck the card you need.
The issue of players not wanting to open product is a massive issue. I'm not going to buy any sealed product going forward and will just buy singles. It's not worth my money to buy sealed product as a competitive player. If more and more players do this, the game will die.
For now I feel like it still makes sense to buy product because there’s not a better way to get all of the cards to test on BGA. Once we finally get a marketplace and POD I could see that changing fast where I can get everything for cheap and get the physicals of what I eventually need delivered fast. I definitely don’t see a reason to keep opening now though after I get most of the rare cards.
The concept of uniques is really good. I love the little twist they can bring to the game, when someone plays an unique you stop everything and read it. They can also enable some kind of new strategy that may be frustrating for the opponent, I am the owner of 3 S tier spindles for afanas and I can tell you that the make the difference. Also from what I've sseen so far set 2 is trash :( I'm considering a pause too.
Let me know if you want to sell those spindles xD. Yeah, after playing with 3 S tier spindles myself as well as 3 S tier cards in other decks I can really say that they do make a difference. Maybe you still have a chance with worse uniques and you can make it work... but there is a gap. Hope you find a way to enjoy set 2!
Yeah, Bravos Bastion is broken i'm tired sick of that card and i don't enjoy playing and losing against worst players just because they copypasted the Treyst deck and Bastion wins them games alone.
I stopped caring about Altered after they nerfed Robin Hood and "altered" it so drastically with how the card played after only one month of the game's release. Frankly this decision alone ruined any kind of real integrity this game could have had.
I would note that there is integrity in admitting you over tuned a card and it was creating an experience you didn't want. I'd rather a company do something about cards like that than let them languish. That's definitely integrity of design and gameplay goals.
Robin Hood is such a sensitive subject haha. I'm sure others think the opposite and that not nerfing it sooner ruined their trust. I hope we can get to a point where there aren't as many cards or issues that are splitting the community so dramatically. There has been more deck diversity after the change. Even if a different change may have been better I hope you can give Altered a second chance during Trial by Frost!
@@Monkey_D._Elliott I agree with this. I can also understand the sentiment some have that it may have been better to nerf the cost of the card or outright ban it to protect the original identity of the card. I can't say what the best change would have been but I do feel like they did my boy Robin dirty.
Lol ... way more people would have quite altered if they had not adressed the RobinHood issue (sorry if you spent $500 lol) ... they have way more nerf of way OP uniques to do if they want the game to be good.
I think it was important for them to do this for the health of the game. Since the nerf the meta has been so much moe open and most of all fun. I think they might have over nerfed Robin, but similarly errata and bans are a standard part of TCGs
My biggest challenge is that there is a void of locals around me, so I just cant play in person
I agree on Uniques needing to be higher at the bottom end and a little less crazy at the top. I have heard that they have stated that they have fine tuned them more going forward, however the issue remains though around uniques in BTGs that were more powerful are still around. Robin needed the nerf, and Equinox did actually warn people that Robin was for the chop a month before they did it.
Equinox didn't warn people in a clear manner via a post of their website, though. I don't like the notion that everyone was aware, and victim blaming players who spent a lot of money on cards who might not have been aware.
Equinox made a comment about Robin Hood it in an AMA video that a lot of people wouldn't have seen. That's not informing the player base. Some players don't have time to watch all this stuff and constantly check the discord to not miss news. The announcement should have been via the website to provide the whole community with an update that a ban was going to happen. Obviously, people might not check the website either, but at least then they did everything they could to inform the player base.
The issue comes from people who had no idea and brought cards, and I think they are okay to be upset about that.
@@mightychunx I think more clear communication on their website would be beneficial if they want to make sure the word gets out.
@@gavkenny I think a similar warning to Robin would be good but now I'm starting to feel like if they are going to make a change it would be nice if it was done sooner rather than later. It will be awkward if the marketplace drops and a lot of money changes hands for cards that get nerfed shortly after. I don't want them to get in a situation where they feel like they can't nerf cards that need it.
As more time passes and more uniques enter the market, there will be no amount of advance warning that would prevent people losing money on older cards. Currently the only way they truly know what to ban is after people play it and it is shown to be broken. One way to speed things up is more communicy theorycrafting that would point out the broken stuff early after a set release and for Equinox to then take action once they test it and confirm its a problem. Only for most outrageous cases, but some combos were spotted and published very early and were played for a while until banned. There is probably a way how to make early warning a regular thing in general.
Thanks for making this video. I'm really pulling for the success of Altered. I'm so glad that even if Altered Insights is shelved that you are still making Altered content.
Glad you like the content! I really hope that I can stick with Altered and enjoy watching it grow far into the future.
I think challenge 1 is definitely a balance. To keep the game from getting too heavy, there needs to be a level of luck. Luck also is part of what makes it fun, otherwise we'd all be playing chess. I think "or" effects will be key, that and more cards in the card pool.
I for sure feel the resource tightness throughout every game I play.
For playing off meta, can't you just play "friendly" games to protect your record?
@@stephenelliott6761 this is true. In the extended version of this video I talked about this more but it already got super long. Basically I don't like friendly matches because it means I am less likely to face meta and even when I play something fun I still want to try my hand against the best decks. For other TCG you can usually get away with this in ranked because you won't suffer as much for a loss if it is against a player of your level.
I am lucky to live in an area with a lot of events.
The uniques are the bigest flaw in the game, I do hope they will do something about them.
Sad to see Altered Insights go, but not surprised (the lack of new episodes was obvious). Thanks for sharing your thoughts as always, Trickster
I really need all altered content creators that can manage to interview top 4 players on all biggest tournaments to see how many bought uniques for outrageous prices. Or interview someone at equinox to hear them either admit pay to win was something they knew would happen and are fine with or how they are working to fix this like, SOON.
No journalist is gonna bother with a game's woes, so only the people with the proximity to the company and the top can do this!
@@kenshokram in my interview with Charles he said they are working on the unique algorithm a lot and we can expect it to be better in set 2. He didn't share all the secrets but I'm very excited to see for myself!
I agree with the BGA sentiment so much. Whatever rating I get to playing meta, I'll just lose again by testing or playing something new or cool. This much to the point that I just stopped caring about rating entirely. Would love to see the system be less punishing.
Tournaments on BGA are very fun, would definitely recommend playing those for that competitive itch.
I’m going to be attempting to reply with this with some constructive comments and play a little bit of the devil’s advocate here. I understand most of your points and where they come from and even agree with some, but disagree on others. Hopefully none of this comes across as negative, but instead as a counterpoint. Apologies for the massive wall of text, but I wanted to give a thorough outline of my thoughts.
First off, I understand the competitive mindset you’re approaching this with. As a competitive player myself, I agree on lots of the things you bring up regarding the game and its future. I would love large scale in-person tournaments all across the world and a full-on competitive circuit. I think that competitive play, unfortunately, isn’t the main goal of Equinox for this game. Instead, they are marketing it towards the average and/or casual player. The game is geared to be a lower barrier to entry (not cost-wise but knowledge-wise) than other TCG’s on the market, and I think that they’ve done a good job with that if that is their goal.
For your first challenge with how certain cards feel polarizing when drawn too consistently, that unfortunately is just part of card games in general. You can view datasets from other online TCGs on card winrates when drawn in the first X turns versus afterwards, and there will always be cards with that. Whether it’s a Unique in Altered, a combo card in MTG, or an aggro card in Hearthstone, some cards naturally have higher winrates the earlier they’re drawn or vice versa. Additionally, things like Small Step, Giant Leap are much better when you don’t have them clogging a hand spot early on and instead you see your playable cards. Unlike in games like Hearthstone or Magic though, those cards that are serving a niche purpose can always be used as mana which gives them far more utility. I do, however, agree with you that I wish more high-cost cards could see play. I would love to consistently see people play cards like Issitoq or Sakarabru or Hydracaena as they feel powerful to play with. I am curious to see how they take this direction to allow higher-costed cards to shine.
For the second challenge, I think that you should make a clear distinction when talking about competitive events that you’re referring to in-person competitive events outside of Europe. As of right now, there are a plentiful number of online tournament circuits that you can choose to compete in with strong players. The Altered Weekly Online League just finished up their Season 1 Invitational yesterday, Altered Corner Events has their Season 2 Finale upcoming, the Exalts have their online Celebrations and other tournaments, the Go4Altered Championship is almost underway, and nearly half a dozen other competitive events exist. To ignore those events because they aren’t in-person is not good in my opinion. Some of the best players in the world for card games only get the chance to compete online so we shouldn’t ignore this aspect. On the topic of BGA’s rating system - honestly, the points do not matter in the slightest. As someone who was Top 50 consistently last season and was experiencing the +2-5 points for a win and -10-35 for a loss, I cannot stress how little it matters until you actually receive something for your placement. It’s just a bragging rights title at this stage of the game.
For the last challenge, I do think that Uniques provide a weird market-space currently. The market is wild and the expense for some of the best Uniques is a major detriment to being competitive in a lot of ways. I do think there are plenty of good Uniques you can find to work in decks in the $10-30 range, but there are definitely some power outliers. But I also think that you don’t need to be buying multiple Top Tier uniques for multiple decks. If your goal is to play competitively, it’s best to pick a faction that has a Hero that you can be competitive with and find Uniques that work well with that Hero. Sure, some variety is good, but it is excessive to be searching for high-tier Uniques for every deck you want to play when you can get serviceable ones for cheaper. And there are also a handful of competitive decks that don’t need crazy Uniques to function like Treyst or Kojo, so those are solid options for people to branch out into if they would like to play multiple Heroes
On the topic of those who spent $1000 on Robin Hood uniques, the phrase “a fool and their money are easily parted” has never been more relevant. You yourself bring up the lack of competitive tournaments at this point - so why drop so much money when you’re playing for virtually minimal stakes? No prizing for tournaments so far (outside of PAX U’s Icebound oversized cards) has been so exclusive that it does not have a price tag. Spending this amount of money this early in the game’s lifespan on Uniques is just foolhardy. Anyone thinking that the infinite Armorer+Boost combo needs to be banned right now too with how the metagame has developed is just not paying attention either. If Bravos infinite combo was as strong as people say it is, it would have more results. It also is completely counterintuitive to your point in the first challenge where you say that removal invalidates certain cards from seeing play. The Bravos infinite combo has clear disruption points where you can answer the first card played, or sabotage part of the combo if they’ve already done it once. That’s even ignoring the fact that it is a two-card, 5+ mana combo that has little room for redundancy since you have to be using your Unique slots on it.
I think that you are too harshly grading Uniques too, you are looking at them as the 1% of the playerbase that needs them for competitive purposes. 99% of the time, a Unique that is just a side-grade or slight upgrade to a Rare is adequate for the average player. It is only the hardcore tournament grinders that would need the best of the best uniques, and why should Altered cater to the minority of their playerbase and not the majority? I have seen so many players locally open a Unique that isn’t absolutely busted but still excited and put it into their deck because it does something new. I think this is the goal that Altered has been focusing on and I think they’ve done a good job on it.
As a whole, I think you have good points for the competitive side of the game but they shouldn’t be catering towards the competitive players if they are in the minority. Focusing on the playerbase and community as a whole, I’d wager that there are far more casual and locals-only players than competitive ones. It just makes the most sense for them as a business to focus on them. I’m excited to see what TBF brings as well, so hopefully it can revitalize your interest in the game!
I think you did a good job summarizing how I felt about this too.
For the uniques: I think what isn't talked about enough is also accessibility of the game as a whole.
Uniques can really put a stop to the flow of the game. I had quite some games that I lost because I missed something about a unique. My learning basically was to take the time to really understand, what they will do, but that's not necessarily fun for me.
I feel like 95% of the uniques right now would not be printed like that as a rare or common card, because the effects/stats/costs are just so ... off. Like, they dont follow the normal rules of what and how much a card usually does. Or how much text is ok for very minor effects. Some are just unplayable from hand or reserve but broken from the other. So they break the expectation, that a card will... make sense in it's entirety.
Which could be fun, I guess... but like you said. It really becomes a hunt for the few top uniques.
@@gnomenschuh7606 I understand how you feel haha. I have seen or been a part of some rules misunderstandings around uniques even at the top tables of events. Reading them carefully is probably something we'll all have to learn the hard way and I don't really see how to get around that even if they are designed well.
I’d certainly like to see a narrower range for uniques. Either all mildly or all much stronger than the rare version. Though I couldn’t care any less for anyone who wastes money on a $1k Robin Hood. If you’re spending the kind of money that you could take your kids for a nice day out to Disney on a card game with no big events to win, then that’s on you, not the developers.
Yeah totally agree on the unique part. When I discovered Altered, I wanted to be all in on the competitive aspect of the game, did all online tournaments on ExAltered. But with the impossibility to get good uniques (not the time, not the money), the big tournaments like Angers or Paris, and even online on BGA made me quit the competitive scene. I now only play casually at my LGS, and I’m having a lot of fun in the local meta where no broken unique is there. I have found this is the way I will enjoy this game, playing casually. I don’t know how they will handle these broken uniques in the future, but right now the competitive meta feels unbalanced and unfair
I fully agree. I really wanted to dive into the competitive aspects of the game, maybe even get some great uniques. But then I found myself asking the question "what for?" There are no tournaments, BGA is not satisfying to tryhard at and even though I am lucky enough to have a decently sized local scene it's not super competitive. I feel like if I played a deck with top tier uniques there I would just be ruining peoples evenings.
At this point I am only excited for sealed, a few casual constructed games and updating my cube when it comes to trial by frost.
@@cto2702 @timandgames7491 yeah, I've heard a lot of stories like yours. I hope that good uniques will be plentiful enough eventually that they are easy enough to get and we won't have to feel like scum when we roll an opponent with a normal deck. Especially when significant prizes are on the line in the future it will feel bad if things seem too pay to win.
I agree with all your points. Fingers crossed equinox will manage the game well. I think altered is fun enough that im willing to give it abit more time. Maybe take a short break and come back when you are ready!
@@bengenesis1989 thanks! I am pretty hopeful for TBF. I've basically taken a break from hunting for uniques which has helped. I just hope when I need to put a competitive deck together in the future I won't feel disadvantaged for not putting enough time and money into the search.
The lack of efficiency of the community management is unreal. I've seen a shop trying to be part of the Adventure Pass program for some month, to the point he called for help with an annoyed tone on one of the Facebook group, just to be received with passive aggressive answer from Lokinox who didn't like to be exposed not doing his job
@@fulgurobaboon1321 I can't really comment on this but I hope that anyone or any store that wants to be more involved is given the opportunity. The Equinox team has been working nonstop so I wouldn't get mad at them. I think there has been more to do for the new game than they've had resources for which is slowing some things down.
There are very little cards that cost low to remove low cost landmarks. IMO
I love how they handled the unique system for my part, maybe it's ot perfect but for over 250 games, i've encountered what.. 5 to 10 games at most where the opponent could set up a durable if not permanent deadly combo (muna anchoring /boost or bravos / axiom). I'm playing a white/black in magic with 2 cards entering a loop with "when you inflict one damage you gain 1life" and the other "when you gain one life the opponent takes 1 damag. This is a set up i make at least one over 4/5 games.
I just think uniques are great the way they are and hardly game breaking due to the "ephemeral" aspect of each card (i play fen with 15 to 30$ uniques..)
Thanks for your video, I love Altered competitively and for the collection, and it's always a good thing to discuss and argue about problems or bad feeling on a game we love, specially with a young company (Equinox) which listen/read what the community has to say.
For your points :
1 - Yeah, when I meet an axiom player who play double haven on the first 2 days, I KNOW whatever deck I'm playing and even if my opponent have a bad draw after this play, the odds of losing increase hugely for me 😅. But to be honest I'm sure we can say this for almost all faction (small step, festival, bastion Muna, Fen big CA & Sigi big aggro,...). But really not a internal game problem currently, only the fact that card pool is still low today, we had only one edition. In the future we'll have so much cards with different effect, we'll be able to manage any threat I think and we'll have more choice to develop more startegie, counter meta, create new meta...In the set 2 we can obviously see that some inexistent heroes will have a big push (gulrang, sierra, Auraq, Rin) with the new cards, and all of this will create an even more versatile and changing meta like never before. Only thing on this point I really agree with you is : From the very start when starting playing the game I found that 3 cards on the start is really sad ! I love that we draw 2 each turn, I love the supply mechanic, I love the start when we put cards in mana and keep the rest BUT I'm sure the game would have been better having just 1 more card at the start. Draw 7, put 3 in mana, keep 4, go !
Really keeping only 3 at the start can prevent a lot of choices/creativity in the first 3 days. It's a shame because I learnt in an interview that during a long time when play-testing the game and fine tuning it, it was 7 cards and keep 4 !! And then after they decided to cut 1 and go with 3. Please please make the 7th cards coming back. You can play 2 cards, start the day 2 with 2 cards un supply, 3 in hands, 4 mana : soooo many choices. You can keep for long term for the matchup while playing short term etc.
2 - Rapidly here : Yes but it was known from the very start that the competitive fields will really begin with equinox on 2025 and not before...Yes, things take time, specially outside Europe/Around France, but we have to not forget one thing : It's not Disney behind, it's not Bandai, it's not Wizard of the Coast, it's a very young and "little" company which start all of this...They don't have an empire with tons of sales/commercials with millions and millions to burn rapidly to extends the game all over the world and organize lot of attraction. But we can see that they are putting all their efforts to convince and extends their game in USA, it's only the very beginning, the game is 4 months-long since the retails of the first edition...they need time to grow, build, refine, consolidate the innovative features, fine tune the ecosystem, etc. I have no worries on this subject : I see all the effort. They really want to stay a very long time, so don't worry if some are quitting because too frustrated with the cards pools and/or not enough scene to play: They'll come back (we hope so) when the cards pool will be bigger and the scene in usa bigger and all the digital features and meta refined.
3 - Yes I agree. I don't know if you know it (because you don't speak about it, so maybe you can make a pin post about it in the comment section or write it in your video in the part where you talk about it) but Equinox has heard the legit complaint about the fact that too many uniques we get are average/less powerful than the rare too often. So they have increased the minimum % power of the uniques starting with the set 2 and all editions after. This means that the gap between an excellent top S unique and the other uniques will be less big, and that when you open an unique it should be with a good probability something interesting/powerful enough. We'll see ! For the robin it was very very toxic to prevent the opponent to play any cards during so many turns...now that some time and tournaments have passed since the nerf, we can actually confirm that they were right with the decision : The meta is more diverse/interesting now compared to before the nerf. Yeah armorier bravos is SS tier, but already with the set 2 we have some interesting cards which can do a lot of damage to this (return all character of one expedition to reserve) and you can play around "accepting" to lose 1-2 expedition this turn, then sabotage/put fleeting on the unique and don't see it a second times. Finally, if this kind of problem really comes up again and again, I'm sure they will easily find a way to solve this competitively with some rules. For example : Now your 3 uniques can't share exactly the very same effect/text. You can have one unique for example with "hand effect: Sabotage", another unique "When a character you control gain a boost - Sabotage" and another "When a character enter in one of your expedition - Sabotage" because it's not exactly the same text accross all uniques, but you can't have 2 or 3 uniques with the same text as the third one in the example even if the stats/support effect/mana/etc are different. Doing this allow much more of very strong cards with S-tier capacity to be available to purchase for others (because you can't have more than one with this text) AND avoid degenrate effect to be abused x3 in a deck AND this change will push creativity of deckbuilder even furthest and deep because you'll have to think about what mix of ability your deck need (instead of just thinking "okay this effect is top I want 3 of them and done). And it increase the adaptation and surprise effect playing our match, uniques can be seen as our "toolbox".
I'm sad to hear about the podcast, I was a big fan and thought you guys did a great job of discussing the current state of the game.
Unique part I agree with so much, we also need big regional tournaments but just having these 500 euro uniques is just crazy, makes it so not fun to play someone online that has these.
@@Giinoo_5716 yeah I feel like this will really be a problem if it persists. People don't like to feel limited. Even if other viable options are around nobody wants some outside factor taking away options from them. Right now even if you wanted to spend 2k to get uniques for your favorite deck before an event they probably aren't for sale.
This kind of feedback is so important for the game, especially coming from the bigger content creators in the Altered world. Videos like this will be heard and make the game better in the long run!
@@ctmartin2159 thanks for the support!
The base floor of uniques needs to be raised as they allow for packs to be better to open, and for the average unique to be more playable. The ceiling for uniques is either correct or could be lower just a little bit.
@@ShadowThe6th looking at the TBF uniques I am a little disappointed by the floor again but I do need a bigger sample size
Thank you. Yes. #3. The uniques. I wrote several posts about exactly this on Reddit and everyone just called me crazy (basically). It’s nice to know i’m not alone on this.
@@SeanRussell87 yeah I think the Altered community on average feels like it's 100% support or bust. I've noticed a lot of people expressing valid concerns that get shut down but I think discussion of stuff like this is perfectly healthy.
I like the idea of competitive league play for this game, but anything like traveling for prizes at a tournament is basically a non-starter unless you have absolutely busted uniques which is a pretty tall order. The removal in this game is great, but the lack of any sort of sideboard makes it pretty lackluster. I would like to see them taking approach like the game flesh and blood, where it's still a best of one game but players can sideboard before the match starts. I think that is the only way for this game to be competitively viable going forward.
@@zigeif777 honestly a sideboard would be so nice. A lot of decks are forced to run cards that are terrible in most matchups to have a chance against specific decks. Even with the mana system you still need to draw two playable cards at times or in decks that resupply you can't always just put the dead card in the mana.
A dedicated app ala LoR with good matchmaking would definitely be my biggest expectation. The work developpers did on BGA is fantastic, but they are limited given the platform is intrisically not adapted to a TCG. I think they mentioned once it would not happen before a few years at least, I hope this is added to Equinox roadmap sooner. I liked to play Lorcana in LGS anytime work schedule allowed me to, but I dropped completely after Pixelborn disappeared. No point buying cards if you cannot test deck list ideas before bringing them in a tournament. I'm definitely the opinion that in 2025 a s-tier application stimulates in-person play. No doubt your constructive critics will help Equinox bring Altered where it deserves to be :)
Yeah I think the app would be very beneficial but I don't see it making it to the top of a priority list soon sadly. With pod and marketplace still delayed among other things there are still a lot of other stuff in line ahead of it. They'd also probably need new resources not currently in the team.
I like the unique system, I just don’t like the balancing behind it. There are so many dud uniques that it makes you really think “what is the point”? Sooo many times I see a unique and think “filler”.
@@ulysses2134 yeah... the ratios in set 1 don't excite me to open product.
i definitely think uniques need to be tuned, it rly is, to me, a fairly normal balancing issue where they undervalued certain abilities and overvalued others. year 1 is always super rough for TCGs, but it seems to me like EQ is learning from their mistakes even set-to-set, so block-to-block i anticipate massive improvements. altered at its best is, to me, a lot like Xyz era yugioh in a lot of ways, with explosive turns, interesting resource management, tempo being a strong focus, all with distinct and viable outs to any strategy
You gave a very balanced review of this innovative game poised on the release of set 2 Trial by Frost which will likely reward the skill of the best players such as yourself. It is understandable that competitive players such as yourself will immediately gravitate toward the constructed=standard play of 39 cards plus a Hero. However in my opinion Altered really shines in Limited, that is Sealed or Draft. I would suggest that Equinox favor Limited in its official Organized Play and reward winners handsomely with special juiced up opportunities to obtain uniques. I myself opened four KS displays and four more regular BTG displays and got the 40 or so uniques expected but only three or four were slightly better than corresponding rare cards.
Those aren't great pull ratios haha. You are probably right that limited could be a great format to explore more! It's been hard for me to try extensively playing mostly on BGA
@@TricksterCG Marketing Director Eric D. from Equinox said in his recent AMA that offering Limited on BGA is something that they are exploring with the BGA coding team and may be offered for Set 3 or 4. He also acknowledged that sales have been less than expected in North America but that they can't keep up with demand in France with LGSs ordering five or ten times more product than Asmodee anticipated.
@@pauldestefano8469 thanks for the update! That all makes sense. France got enough players from the beginning that it's been easy for the game to become self sufficient.
Amazing and necessary feedback video! thanks
I think some issues might exist because we draw 2x cards instead of one like most games every turn, but the devs have balanced the game like all the rest . Got no solution for it though. I'll wait and see how the new expansion performs now that more decks have an identity
It will be fun now that several other heroes have enough tools for a full deck!
The option to play online is a double edged sword. The game needs to be played in person so we form social bonds and a sense of community. I already saw the few early players in my area start talking about tournaments, to then say "ok, online then", only for things to quiet down and stores saying people just stopped coming. I suspect everyone just gets lazy, hops online and plays against the French hordes, I have to travel to a smaller city where for some reason there is a tabletop Altered community to even play. But we know the players are here, just not showing up in person.
That said, I can't recommend my friends to get into the game until the market place is online. Right now the only reasonable way is to dump a fortune into boosters. Once that is improved, I feel like I can recruit myself and drag people to the stores again.
Playing online is probably better than quitting altogether I guess. I really do think the marketplace could do great things for the games growth. Hope it comes soon and works well!
limited deck search for permanents and/or spells only could be a good feature.
there also needs to be ways to play the more expensive cards without instantly getting punished. sadly the only viable cards that cost more than like 4 or 5 are cards with powerful on-play effects OR have tough
deck search also helps with consistency. if you can consistently get your permanents out and have your essential spells, the characters themselves are less impactful
I agree with these points but it is nice though to not have to shuffle!
I also think that the pull rate for uniques should be one in six. To buy a display and get at least six uniques would be a good thing
I got a display from "trial by Frost" and pulled six uniques. Did they increase the pull rate or was I just lucky?
I have admittedly stopped playing as much ever since the Gamers Guild event.
I have no one to play in person with, and there's only so much I can grind on BGA. I also haven't felt like deck crafting too hard beyond what I've already done (about a half dozen decks or so), because I lack the uniques to really make the deck flow.
for the record, I have opened quite a few kickstarter boxes, and still am lacking in solid uniques, even just faction speaking, let alone hero specific
@@bIeaq for a second I thought I wrote this haha. It is really hard to keep up with the game without the exciting cards or opportunities to play motivating you.
I hope the game lasts a bit. I just picked it up last month. Played a dozen bga games to learn and love its change of pase. Love the art and mechanics. Lot of 3d print accessories. I hope the game sticks around.
I really hope it can last too. I agree the mechanics and overall product is so great. I just hope the team can find the resources to handle some of the balance and accessibility issues that have overshadowed at times everything else that is so great.
@TricksterCG the points about bga are spot on. My 31 rep vs 256+ rep players france and Italy. Exaltered is dead and i was excited to try its interface. Still gonna buy a display or 2. My first ever pack was a unique bravos flying squirel dude.
I quit after seeing the first big tournaments--why would I play a meta where decks cost thousands of dollars (because of a few key cards) for a brand new TCG? I played a decent amount with my precons on Board Game Arena, then felt the gameloop was solved.
That said, I appreciate all the thoughtful analysis, Trickster.
I hear what you're saying about wanting games to be less about whether you draw your answer before your opponent establishes their wincon engine. But I'm not sure about your suggestions. Modality seems to be the right progression for card games--c.f. Richard Garfield realizing what Kicker, then Cycling did for gameplay, and now how there's all kinds of mechanics in MTG allowing you to chose from among multiple effects on a single card--but it unquestionably raises power level, as well as complexity (which is better for power-gamers, less so for those wanting a more casual vibe).
As for wanting tutors, it sounds like you want something like the Pokemon TCG, where opening turns are about churning through your deck to establish your wincon on the battlefield, and then asking your opponent whether they can answer that. This is also a kind of Commander style of design, in which each respective player is battleshipping towards "doing the thing" (establishing their wincon engine). Sure, this can be fun, and sure, variance feels bad; but why should it be possible to construct a wincon engine with any level of consistency in the first place? That seems broken game design (something more common to eternal formats, where there's not so much curation in card interactions). To again reference Magic, if you're able to construct basic archetypes that have been proven in TCGs (aggro, midrange, control), then you can rely on fundamentals of skill to win in the course of play. (Also, the Professor loved variance in TCGs for allowing less-skilled players to ever have a chance sitting down to play greater-skilled players--giving them a reason to not quit.)
You have some good analysis here. I was mostly suggesting a bunch of different options to get the conversation going but I haven't taken enough time to determine which would be the best fit. I was trying to show that there are some ways to address the challenge but I still got a lot of "this is a thing in every tcg" comments anyways haha
Many of these reasons relate to why I have picked up a secondary game and worry it will become primary. It is one, first set the future is bright.
I hope the landmark subtype will shift to quirkier uses in later sets compared to Haven.
Buying and trying competitive decks is awkward when you can't pick up even an understatted unpreferred version of a certain affect to try it out, it's a text line that appears on uniques of a specific name, and a fraction of that name.
@@mayhayden5786 yeah not being able to test does make it hard for competitive players that want to be informed and try all of the options. I do agree that the future is bright! Maybe the gears which stick around temporarily will be similar to what you are describing for landmarks.
By the way. What's your 2nd game?
@@TricksterCG Flesh and Blood
I agree with these views, specialy with the uniques problem. The amount of trash ones I saw when reading them is insane. My first unique was an unplayable stinker that I dont even want to see anymore. The main problem is that the unique version can be a downgrade from the rare one or worse. I understand the idea of them, but the result is not healthy. Here's a quick idea I just came up with to make uniques:
The unique is gonna use the rare version of the card as the base. Each alteration to it has a "weight" to determine how many things are added to the card. For example: the unique card has a weight limit of 5. A cost reduction on one of the costs of the card weights 2, while changing a "from hand" effect to a "whenever you play" effect could weight 3. Adding a new hability to the card could vary depending on the effect, so for example, adding "draw a card if x happens" could weight 3 while "if x happens, resupply" could weight 2 and so on. Maybe adding a reserve discard effect to a card that didnt have one could weight between 2 to 3 and who knows how many ways you can mix and mash these things to create a "unique" card.
The idea is just a random thing I came up with just now, but the point is: your unique would, at the very least, be better than the already existing card that you might own. It might come with new art and what not, but this way you would be excited to see them appear cuz you would know for sure that it will be an straight upgrade. Sure, it would still create some cards that might be outliers, but at least these uniques would be playable.
@@dalol90 that's an interesting way to design them! I'd love to get a designer on here especially after we see set 2 to hear how they've been refining the process. It would be nice if more of them were at least good enough to substitute straight across with some of the good rares.
Point 1: You are right, but I excuse this and call it set 1 syndrome. Not sure how many new card games you have jumped into recently, but this has always been the case during the first set of any new card game. This was even true for Yugioh, Yugi-Kaiba format (where we only had the cards from those two starter decks) was infamous for this.
Point 2: Very true for America. Have we had anything since Gamers Guild that wasn't at a convention? Lol. Im grateful for my small locals group, but I'm expecting more events I can travel to during Trial by Frost.
Point 3: You explained this perfectly, and didn't miss any points. I was already out of the Market for S-Tiers so I didnt feel bad about releasing the Strongest Unique Effects video lol, I can't afford them. Uniques won't turn me off from the game, but I do consider the rollout for Uniques a failure. They can fix these issues moving forward, but unfortunately you can't close Pandora's Box once you open it.
I think the GGAZ one was it. It's only up from here!
Idk how big altered decks are but in magic we have 2 of removals we hope to draw sometimes and in a control deck would simply try to draw through enough cards to get to the card we want...i guess the main problem of any card game that doesnt have a best of 3 format with sideboards is that there will always be cards you cant answer with your current deck and without the ability to change sideboard you just keep losing to the same deck
@@MrWaves-oj9ge a side board would be nice. It's too bad that it doesn't fit Altered very well. With the complex rarity rules for deck building and Bo1 in tournaments. Without combat in this game removals could end up being even more important in matchups with annoying threats.
@TricksterCG yeah that's rough. It's hard to have a truly competitive card gave with bo1. Part of a card game is the luck of the draw and you will never have 1 deck that can handle everything. If every game is 'I hope they don't draw that card' then idk how the game functions at that point.
I think the power level of every single card has to be extremely high or it doesn't feel fair
@MrWaves-oj9ge hence the video haha. I think it isn't as big a problem for some decks or matchups, but in others you can really feel. If you haven't tried the game though you should! Despite a couple of challenges it still has a ton of strategic depth I enjoy and new mechanics to master that set it apart from other games.
I definitely have faith that removal will both get better, as will the targets so you're not having to run specific removal for specific targets. Really feels like a set one issue more than anything. The best of one setup meaning no side deck is a pain. I wish more games that aim to be best of one did a sideboard and did preboarding. Then you could have some answers you get to bring in. Although even a Mulligan would help a bit.
Festival and to a greater extent Bastion are very good since you need specific removal for them. If we can get more playable permanents they'll likely get worse as it will be easier to justify running good removal.
I'm with you 100 percent on it being hard to play Altered. I get to play maybe once a month. I've got 3/4 regular players at my LGS. I want Equinox to bring back the road show and they need to get some more advertising to shops. I'm planning an event for TBF release handing out common decks and 3 packs at my LGS for sealed so I'm hoping to get the community going a bit more, but my ability to float the game only goes so far if they don't make the game appealing to the LGSs to try and get into it.
Altered not having a digital client at launch is a travesty. BGA is fine, but having a permanant in house client would be great.
Uniques are a bit wild. I love them a lot and appreciate the swinginess they add. You're right though, they need to tighten the power band on them. I got a ton of absolutely unplayable uniques, and a handful of absolutely insane ones. Of course, more than anything, we need more product opened and the marketplace to actually move them. I think once the game is bigger the prices won't be as crazy. With more sets too they'll settle down as there will be significantly more replacement options. Of course my real advice is, and you say this, don't buy anything at the current price. The game isn't big and we're not having huge events. You can wait to get your uniques.
General odds and ends, I hope Altered makes it. It's a great game and if it can make it a year two and beat the growing pains I think it could really find. a niche. It does what Lorcana attempted to do with a "no fighting" game and actually executed on that.
Definitely going to miss Altered Insights. Was great to get some high quality Altered chat, but I feel you on the timing being bad. Doesn't matter how good a concept is of the people making it don't have the time.
Alright. I'm going to bed. Thanks for the video. Appreciate your thoughts and time going into some deeper issues than the usual "No marketplace, no POD" talk you see.
Love all of the insight here. I hope your efforts can help grow your local scene! Thanks for typing this up.
One thing I was thinking about is that as the cardpool and mechanics increases that in future sets uniques formerly in the dumpster will rise from the ashes like dumpster fire phoenixes. Basically something that is clunky and bleh given the current cardpool could all of a sudden be decent in a future cardpool. Also, with the current cardpool it is easier to optimize the "best" decks. In the future will not a larger cardpool open more possibilities and diversify the meta or is that just wishful thinking?
I think it is unfortunately, at least at a competitive level. More cards will equal more opportunities for fun brews and cool interactions but more cards does not necessarily equal more meta relevant decks. Yugioh, for example, has over 10000 legal cards and they spent a large part of last year playing in formats with one clear best deck.
That said I am still very hopeful for the future and agree that it would be cool to see old uniques come in and be good when no one expects them to be.
I think that could definitely be possible! We'll have to wait and see.
I think all uniques should be at a level above rares. You can only have three of them so I’d rather be struggling to pick which three I should be putting in my deck then struggling to find three worth playing. Uniques are the “chase cards” of any altered set they should make you feel good when you pull them.
@@ryanyoung2815 preach it! It would be awesome to get excited opening packs again.
Competitive scene shouldn't be left behind, yet going forward the game should absolutely not be primarily geared towards tournaments, the primary targets need to be new and casual players. Anything that would increase complexity of decision to them is a risk. Every TCG desperately needs an element of randomness that will be distasteful to pros and tryhards. It also makes it feel more possible for a less experienced player to win some of the time.
This is true. You do want even new players to have a chance to win sometimes. Hopefully though it can find that perfect balance between being a coin flip and chess where both groups stay interested!
7:10 Well we can say that for every TCG
In the next expansion Unique will be more powerfull because a lot people thinks they are a bit useless haha
Hope so!
Never seen that unique Amelia before. That is insane. Whats something like that worth? 300 ? 4? More?
I do have a big problem with permanents. I want to get some uniques that remove them, but many decks just don't play any permanents, making my choices worthless. I know I could just play them as mana but it could have been a much better card.
The low prices of sealed really makes me worried. I opened up 9 kickstarter boxes and I got 2 god packs that was super lucky. I also opened up one of those 300$ brassbug makers. (It was just when it gains a boost, not when any guy gains a boost). Again super duper incredibly lucky. But like you, I didn't open any unique at all that I want to keep. I play them because its what I got and its better than a common. But I've been buying better ones when I can.
That does suck that as a content creator, you are hurt by making content 🤮 gotta make some anonymous accounts to buy stuff 😥
Pricing has been wild recently. Auctions can send prices through the roof and other times people get lucky and snag a card before anyone notices for cheap. I'd say minimum 250 but it could easily go for 400 or more. Removal in this game is one of the most annoying things to me so I feel your pain with using uniques as permanent removal. Depending on what you face you will be ecstatic or frustrated beyond belief.
I think once u have a good playset and only miss certain rares, there is no real motivation to buy retail boxes bc 4-5 uniques per box is just not good enough when the chance of getting a good one is super low in addition to that. KS Displays are the exception here but I kinda want to open TbF now but after opening 2 displays I dont get why I should buy new ones...
There honestly isn't much of a reason to keep opening packs. Knowing that the best unique cards I've pulled are B+ tier at best and that most seem worse than a rare doesn't make me believe it will be worth it. I'd recommend to most people to only buy one display for the commons and then buy the rest online once we get pod and the marketplace.
Okay, most people playing this game have never played a successful TCG when it first launched… the first two are definitely issues a new game will have to deal with. The unique thing will also balance out as more sets release. It just comes down to how this game handles itself. Do we get a standard rotation, or is the game eternal.
That’s fair. Like you said though the game will have to deal with some of them even if they are to be expected for new games.
14:20 that was also a thing I recognized with krossmaster.
The French are really nationalistic and in that way they neglect anything outside their own country. But they need such international structures to keep it up.
I am afraid they are making the same mistake.
For example: the first big tournament was at the same weekend in France as the SPIEL' in Essen.
They had a small event at the SPIEL' but it was not really compatible with this huge national event.
That was a huge missed opportunity that they didn't prevent that overlap
@@philippniemann8842 I hope it doesn’t end up like that. While the support has been slower outside of France I have seen equinox putting a lot of effort into supporting the US too. Fingers crossed they don’t give up on other regions.
@@TricksterCG I hope so too. The game has no chance if they concentrate only on their national support
The amount of draw in decks will gradually go up over time as new expansions get released. Whether you chose to play that draw over other more pwerful cards is something that is a deck choice. Now, your complaint about not always having the solution you want ... sorry this is a TCG and there will always be some amount of RNG involved. I find Altered less bad than Magic in that regard.
Totally. If the guy play a finisher and a dont have removal for him killing me, i lost. Ok. In Magic there’s basic: sorry bro you win because i dont have 3 lands for play. Now i won because you draw 4 lands in a row
Everyone keeps saying this is a TCG and RNG is to be expected. Does that mean we can’t talk about this topic at all 😂 If Altered was able to do better than Magic then I’m sure it’s possible for Altered to do better in the future than it does now. I don’t think Altered is doing a bad job but there are definitely more options to explore moving forward.
the range of uniques power is probably the worst point rn.
Almost all the Altered stories and pictures shared on their social media is in French and they do not seem to be embracing what it means to be a TCG in English. I hope Altered can gain traction more here in North America but for now it seems to be a Euro/French TCG
Even trying to navigate the temporary marketplaces can be very hard with all the screenshots of cards in French. Even my team which is supposed to be English speaking decided to hold our weekly meetings in French and is going to start a competitive group that will have French as the dedicated language. Hard not to feel left out.
Uniques card in displays could see play HOWEVER most seemed irrelevant when you see some token spawners, ancre engine, etc ... they need to nerf the Super-uniques to make normal/good uniques see play.
was thinking a when effect bé a one time effect could avoid Infinite snowball
Even limiting it to 2 or maybe 3 times could be good enough for some. Or say it costs 1 after the first time. The high power level is fun so it might be OK to keep too but the cards would need to be a lot more accessible.
I dont play this TCG but I would just buy the starter decks and play it with my friends.
That sounds nice ☺
I also have to disagree with most of your points here. Other commenters have explained it very well, so i'm not going to repeat the points to spare you reading work. Let me just clarify for point 3: you SEVERLY overstimate how good people are at rating uniques. The price of a unique doesnt depend on the strength, it depends on how strong the general community thinks it is. One of the core skills of Altered deckbuilding, is searching for uniques that get overlooked, yet are super strong. Being able to correctly rate a uniques rather than following the echo chamber is a skill that is rewarded. You can definitly build competitive decks with relatively cheap cards. You just need to spend time looking for them.
Thank you for the video, but I gotta disagree with most of it video.
If you play a card game you have to deal with variance, yugioh has a giant, glaring problem of every game pretty much being the exact same if you play 2 of the same deck.
Tutors (searches) and extra decks are great offender of this imo.
Variance is great, even in competitive settings. The way to fix this perceived problem (honestly, it's still way better than how some other games deal with it) is probably the first thing you said: just wait for more powerful cards to be printed, so we have more options to deckbuild.
I hope they fix some of the wordings that is probably kept the same for uniques algorithm reason.
Why can't we get a card that costs 1 and send to reserve/discard a character or permanent with cost 2 or less?
The reason bastion is so oppressive right now is that there's not a single efficient way to remove it.
Giving more varied values to removal is extremely important imo.
Treyst got a really powerful card, if they only gave him the common version of bastion, the deck would be way more balanced. Right now is one card centered for a bunch of fixable reason, none of which, imo, are tied to reducing variance
This is fair. I was mostly trying to show that there are a lot of options and not determine which would be best. I think that more strong cards will fix the struggle for most decks like you are suggesting and a handful of "OR" options in text lines could be nice. I do think that search could be nice for certain decks like ones that use Foundry Axiom Bastion or other cards that have a very specific effect you want to build around and are in trouble without. Alternatively, creating redundancy with a second similar card can be just as good. If the search cards are specific enough, the end result is almost identical to having redundancy with multiple cards with similar effects. I think the main problem is if search is too versatile then it can be anything you need and not just additional copies of something required for a specific strategy.
Challenge 2: It is very difficult to get the right to offer official events :( This keeps us back here at my area. The communication is veeeery slow and if you do not have a real boardgamestore it seems to be very hard. If this does not work out for my region, I am out too :(
Hope you get some more events soon! I'm sure some people will be forced out by point 2 who have no other complaints.
I think they should make uniques 5-10 more frequent in boosters. Uniques are super fun, but they are just too rare for often being bad
They should just ban uniques in competitive tbh. Make them just pure casual fun cards. i've never seen a unique and ever been like wow this is so fun. it just feels dirty to win with them and horrible to play against.
As a casual player I love uniques! I think its so fun to see what my opponent has and take pride whenever they take an interest in mine. Deckbuilding around the uniques that I have even if they're not great is just so fun knowing that nobodys deck is exactly like mine. I do agree however that competitively its a problem, it creates a weird pay to win rat race to claim the best uniques and that AT the top level it stunts deckbuilding because the "best" uniques are so clearly defined. I was thinking that they should create a 2nd competitive format that only allows for rares and commons. Local game stores would continue to host the "wild/open" format but when it comes to the altered grand prix/ altered ranked ladder or whatever, they only allow for commons and rares. I think it would allow for those that are interested in going super competitive to have that experience and would even get rid of the "if i draw into my unique I win" issue we have. I think it'd be great for casual play too because it would mean that uniques can be more powerful more consistently, get rid of those limiters that are making the uniques and make them do even MORE insane stuff! It's awesome to see someones unique go absolutely nuts under the context that the game your playing is not competitive but for "funsies" and would make opening a unique that much more fun instead of opening a mediocre unique that leaves you dissapointed. Of course there are issues with a 2 format idea, splitting the already small player base into casuals and competitive will stunt the population of both. I know personally I would just end up never touching the competitive side. The other thing is that doing so might just kill the appeal of uniques entirely. Why should I care about opening a unique when I can't "play" it anyways type mentalities might develop. I think altered has carved a very unique (pun intended) identity in the card game space with its innovation making the game fun first at the casual level at the DETRIMENTAL cost of balanced and healthy competitive play. With a 2 format system however I think they can have both.
I do agree the wild ones are a lot of fun. I'm sure casual players would enjoy collecting and getting to show off more impressive cards. The balance is hard for competitive though. I don't know if no uniques is the solution because it hurts the core identity of the game but maybe specific effects could be banned in the highest levels of play to preserve competitive integrity while remaining playable in more casual venues.
I'm sorry, but if someone spent $1000 to have an inaccessible card so they could have a better deck than everyone else, I don't feel bad for them after said card was nerfed.
That's fair haha. Even if it's $250 or a more reasonable amount I'm sure it would hurt. The tipping point will be different for a lot of people but it is hard if cards like these exist for those who feel limited in deckbuilding because of the cost alone and for those who are willing to pay if they need to constantly fear a ban. It also opens up the potential for people to take advantage of other buyers if they somehow hear about it in advance. I'm sure French players will be more likely to pick up hints when they get to hang out so closely with game designers. I just hope we don't have to worry about cards like these when world championships and serious competitions are on the line. If there could be enough to push the price closer to 100 it would reduce some of the drama I'm sure.
Caring about your rank in a multiplayer online game is bad for improving. Yes, it can be frustrating, but you get better by losing too, not only winning. I play Tekken besides Altered online, and yeah it feels bad when you de-rank, but you know why you de-ranked. Maybe different factions should have different ELO, like Tekken characters have different ranks.
I really want a oficial plataform for play, trade and order POD
the uniques are a trap :-D Once someone buys a playset of a unique for 1500 USD, Equinox must tread lightly if they want to ban and nerf too many of them. They talk about compensations, but how the hell do you compensate these guys if you slash their uniques 😀
Honestly, I think uniques are exciting and a good reason to want to open packs, but there needs to be either a lot of errata for them, or we need 0-uniques tournaments for newbies. I am fine with uniques being a thing in a super pro worlds level, but I would love if they were different but still rare-level power. Unique does not necessarily mean strong. They can finetune the weights in their generator machines to suppress the power level across the board...
I think Altered is mechanically so tight that its more obvious when something is even slightly above curve. Things like Magic are so swingy and asymmetrical anyway you just kinda shrug when a top tier deck for 500USD stomps your budget deck. In Altered, you do actually have a chance to overcome tough opponents so the moment that isnt really true due to some unique is so much more memorable. Especially because of the back and forth where you can respond to try to balance out everything. In magic, there was more often than not a situation where I knew after three turns that I have no response to the other deck and got killed in three more. In Altered, I feel like it takes much longer in many situations to really lose hope, so when you get that definitive "oh, he played this and that means I am 110% dead" situation, your heart sinks so much deeper...
@ great points. Unique really doesn't need to mean better. I'm sure they could still make cards plenty exciting though while staying far away from how it is now.
The game is dead in my area.
It had a strong start but quickly fell off. Nobody wants to buy product anymore, especially when the lack of printing makes foilers useless so there’s no pretty chase cards. Everyone locally has already traded every card they’re willing to part with. There’s basically no singles market because the digital marketplace, half of this game’s hype, STILL isn’t up and you’re at the whim of the seller, hoping they haven’t scanned the card like they claim.
Everyone got sick of playing the same decks each week.
I’m literally just waiting for the marketplace to hurry up and release so I can sell everything and recuperate some of my costs
@PorgChampTCG I hope when we get the marketplace card accesibility will go up and with more decks and things to try your scene will come back to life. Think a lot of people are in a similar situation. Where I'm at there weren't really opportunities to trade even early on.
I think hand size is one of their biggest problems. I understand that hand size and hand advantage is always something to balance a game around, but hand size has a direct correlation to how much luck is involved in a game. With altered, I play a purple control deck and still feel like it's just autopilot. Draw 2 cards, count my mana and how many cards I can play that turn. Charge the card I can't. Play every card available to me.
We have a decent local scene and everybody pretty much feels the same way no matter what color they are playing. The game is just, who has higher numbers in their hand? I have 5 decks and purple control requires the most strategizing, but even then a simple flowchart could play the game for me.
Yeah, too few cards does lead to not enough options and less strategy. I have the most fun playing the small number of decks where I can have a bigger hand and a couple of options. There are definitely still games where I am playing everything in hand though in a relatively predictable order.
Thanks for your honesty! I appreciate you acknowledging that this is from the POV of a competitive (constructed) player.
Would e.g. sideboarding in best-of-three alleviate any of your concerns with challenge 1?
You hit on two issues with challenge 3 I really agree with:
- At the moment, engaging with the marketplace is required to be in the top 1% of competitive play
- There's an unfortunate disincentive to share ideas because it might make it harder to find the uniques you want
Glad to get some validation from a competitive player I admire! I think side boarding could help a lot for some decks and matchups. One of the biggest obstacles for that is the game is an awkward length that can be just a little too long and in future formats this could get more extreme if you even just add one extra day on average. A lot of tournaments aren't bo3 because of time and side boarding would make the ones that are bo3 even longer. Maybe a pre boarding could work for bo1 but that doesn't feel perfect in all situations because it could be possible to play the same hero in very different ways in the future at which point you can't actually be reactive (especially to playsets of specific uniques). The second thing is it would be hard to enforce the deck building rules when you side board. I'm sure people could accidently swap a rare with a common and if side decks are limited in size it gets very hard to make one when certain cards can only be swapped out with other specific cards.
The 3rd challenge is definitely what worried me from the start.
Some unique are worse than their rare counterpart and some are OP. It doesn't feel incredible discovering a unique cause most likely you won't be able to use it.
So I would do less unique but very strong ones.
But most of all, we need a new rarity. Since uniques are, unique, the odds of getting the one you want is close to null.
Rares don't feel scarce. I feel like an Epic rarity with maybe a limited supply could add a bit more collection thrill.
That's honestly a good idea. Maybe you could use the last 3 spots for either uniques or the cards of the new rarity. Maybe they could print one epic for each character in slightly higher frequency that is basically just a unique with an effect they want to guarantee access to. All of this would probably not be necessary if they can get the unique balance right in the long run.
are you really quiting just cuz of that? That looks so "meh" to quit, respectfully. Here in Fortaleza we didn't have one single promo booster even we have 12 to 20 players in locals with a spike of 34 on release which may looks a few but make us one of the two biggest Altered communities in Brazil, and even with that Galapagos (ower distribution company) only sand promos to south and southeast regions even with the next set releasing this weekend... Oh, TbF was delayed to february 24th in Brazil.
The "challenge 2" is similar, but don't get any compensation seens disrespectful, cuz we're expending ower money and time and geting nothing back. It has been an active effort to call new people and keep the old ones but majority droped (luckly much others get into the game). And in the end just looks like the company doesn' give a sh...
I traveled to Porto Alegre on christmas and even they have only 8 players weekly they got the promos since early december, looks Galapagos just hates Brazil's northeast. If in the 1st set they didn't give prizes, what should happens nearly with set 2 and pod? And even majors events. How could I invite new people Altered when there is pkm, One Piece and other TCGs that at least give something to them?
And I don't agree with the challenge 1, but nice video. I just needed to speech those things cuz them piss me off
I hope you get better prizing. I'm not going anywhere, but I think you can relate to being frustrated about some things. The hardest part for me and some of my friends who actually quit is we don't have opportunities to play. You are saying you have 10-20 players and other places have at least 8. A lot of areas have 1-3 and that's it. If there aren't even consistently opponents at some point it doesn't make sense to keep playing haha
True, true and true !
Uniques had to be as powerful or a bit more powerful than rares versions. That was the promess. That's the biggest fail of the game.
They need to find a way to balance it or the game will be dying.
Getting a format with no unique is not a solution. It's like changing the game.
Thanks for the video.
I hope Equinox will react and propose solutions to those problems.
I agree that removing uniques is not the solution. I hope they can turn into one of the game's strengths in the long run!
Resourcing 3 cards it’s literally discarding half your hand. This game needs resource 2 starts (as SWU), mulligan, bo3 and sideboard. Otherwise as you say on the video you just play with what you draw, few cards, few choices, no strategy, no way to play high cost cards, and basically just wishing to top deck the card you need.
The issue of players not wanting to open product is a massive issue. I'm not going to buy any sealed product going forward and will just buy singles. It's not worth my money to buy sealed product as a competitive player. If more and more players do this, the game will die.
For now I feel like it still makes sense to buy product because there’s not a better way to get all of the cards to test on BGA. Once we finally get a marketplace and POD I could see that changing fast where I can get everything for cheap and get the physicals of what I eventually need delivered fast. I definitely don’t see a reason to keep opening now though after I get most of the rare cards.
Ho ! My Amélia !😮
The concept of uniques is really good. I love the little twist they can bring to the game, when someone plays an unique you stop everything and read it. They can also enable some kind of new strategy that may be frustrating for the opponent, I am the owner of 3 S tier spindles for afanas and I can tell you that the make the difference. Also from what I've sseen so far set 2 is trash :( I'm considering a pause too.
Let me know if you want to sell those spindles xD. Yeah, after playing with 3 S tier spindles myself as well as 3 S tier cards in other decks I can really say that they do make a difference. Maybe you still have a chance with worse uniques and you can make it work... but there is a gap. Hope you find a way to enjoy set 2!
Yeah, Bravos Bastion is broken i'm tired sick of that card and i don't enjoy playing and losing against worst players just because they copypasted the Treyst deck and Bastion wins them games alone.
Hopefully some set 2 cards will help other decks catch up!
I stopped caring about Altered after they nerfed Robin Hood and "altered" it so drastically with how the card played after only one month of the game's release. Frankly this decision alone ruined any kind of real integrity this game could have had.
I would note that there is integrity in admitting you over tuned a card and it was creating an experience you didn't want. I'd rather a company do something about cards like that than let them languish. That's definitely integrity of design and gameplay goals.
Robin Hood is such a sensitive subject haha. I'm sure others think the opposite and that not nerfing it sooner ruined their trust. I hope we can get to a point where there aren't as many cards or issues that are splitting the community so dramatically. There has been more deck diversity after the change. Even if a different change may have been better I hope you can give Altered a second chance during Trial by Frost!
@@Monkey_D._Elliott I agree with this. I can also understand the sentiment some have that it may have been better to nerf the cost of the card or outright ban it to protect the original identity of the card. I can't say what the best change would have been but I do feel like they did my boy Robin dirty.
Lol ... way more people would have quite altered if they had not adressed the RobinHood issue (sorry if you spent $500 lol) ... they have way more nerf of way OP uniques to do if they want the game to be good.
I think it was important for them to do this for the health of the game. Since the nerf the meta has been so much moe open and most of all fun. I think they might have over nerfed Robin, but similarly errata and bans are a standard part of TCGs