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By PantsOfTheTalShiar (Jason Tang)
 - Delta Quadrant
 -  
#587178
Armus wrote: Fri Oct 14, 2022 5:16 pm
Hoss-Drone wrote: Fri Oct 14, 2022 4:58 pm
Armus wrote: Fri Oct 14, 2022 10:15 am
A story.
Its at this point that I think Brian I might be accidentally, partly responsible for your perspective as it seems, at least to me, that design, rules and balance have all been responding to me hammering everything you named with [Bor] and [Dom] wreck your face.

If solver so good and control so bad in this "power curve era" then how come they felt they had to 1. Keep up speed and it's tools while at the same time 2. Nerfing change of plans. 3 nerfing Elim starship 4. Nerfing Invasive transporters and 5. issuing adverse ruling after adverse ruling when I explored the edges of some of the rules.
Control is different than Aggro/Smash/Lockout, or, as you put it, "Wreck your face"

For simplicity I'll call it Aggro.

Aggro is very much an answer to Speed, but it's not usually the ONLY answer. In 1e, I'd say aggro is still very competitive, as evidenced by the consistently high placement of Battle Borg decks when piloted by players who know what to do with them.

The difference between control and aggro in the 1e context is that aggro smashes you off the board, and only after the threat is completely eliminated is there any attention given to actual mission solving/scouting (and that's assuming you aren't doing some crazy nonsense with Assimilate Counterpart and/or Assimilate Starship to win without even having to deal with dilemmas).

On the other hand, Control can get enough out early to be a deterrent, but not enough to be a total smash job, and in exchange are better than aggro at mission solving (though not as good as speed). On the other hand, they aren't quite as easy for aggro to smash as a speed deck is, and the maneuvering is more chess-like, as a control deck can knock out a couple pieces of an Aggro deck and maybe live to fight another day (and even do a mission or 2 in the process)

The problem with aggro as the ONLY answer to speed is that people don't like lockouts, so TPTB have rolled back some off the aggro power cards. Unfortunately, since they have ALSO rolled back/not made Control cards, there's not much reason to NOT play speed.

So while I don't necessarily disagree with your case, I think it's a different case than the one I was making (though I'm thinking the two things are at least somewhat related).
I mean, you could define Control to mean that in STCCG, but what you describe is really more analogous to Aggro-Control or Midrange than Control in MTG. So I think it's more confusing than anything to borrow MTG terms but use them to mean different things.
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By Armus (Brian Sykes)
 - The Center of the Galaxy
 -  
Regent
Community Contributor
#587180
PantsOfTheTalShiar wrote: Sun Oct 16, 2022 4:26 pm
Armus wrote: Fri Oct 14, 2022 5:16 pm
Hoss-Drone wrote: Fri Oct 14, 2022 4:58 pm

Its at this point that I think Brian I might be accidentally, partly responsible for your perspective as it seems, at least to me, that design, rules and balance have all been responding to me hammering everything you named with [Bor] and [Dom] wreck your face.

If solver so good and control so bad in this "power curve era" then how come they felt they had to 1. Keep up speed and it's tools while at the same time 2. Nerfing change of plans. 3 nerfing Elim starship 4. Nerfing Invasive transporters and 5. issuing adverse ruling after adverse ruling when I explored the edges of some of the rules.
Control is different than Aggro/Smash/Lockout, or, as you put it, "Wreck your face"

For simplicity I'll call it Aggro.

Aggro is very much an answer to Speed, but it's not usually the ONLY answer. In 1e, I'd say aggro is still very competitive, as evidenced by the consistently high placement of Battle Borg decks when piloted by players who know what to do with them.

The difference between control and aggro in the 1e context is that aggro smashes you off the board, and only after the threat is completely eliminated is there any attention given to actual mission solving/scouting (and that's assuming you aren't doing some crazy nonsense with Assimilate Counterpart and/or Assimilate Starship to win without even having to deal with dilemmas).

On the other hand, Control can get enough out early to be a deterrent, but not enough to be a total smash job, and in exchange are better than aggro at mission solving (though not as good as speed). On the other hand, they aren't quite as easy for aggro to smash as a speed deck is, and the maneuvering is more chess-like, as a control deck can knock out a couple pieces of an Aggro deck and maybe live to fight another day (and even do a mission or 2 in the process)

The problem with aggro as the ONLY answer to speed is that people don't like lockouts, so TPTB have rolled back some off the aggro power cards. Unfortunately, since they have ALSO rolled back/not made Control cards, there's not much reason to NOT play speed.

So while I don't necessarily disagree with your case, I think it's a different case than the one I was making (though I'm thinking the two things are at least somewhat related).
I mean, you could define Control to mean that in STCCG, but what you describe is really more analogous to Aggro-Control or Midrange than Control in MTG. So I think it's more confusing than anything to borrow MTG terms but use them to mean different things.
I don't play MTG so... *shrug*?
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First Edition Rules Master
By BCSWowbagger (James Heaney)
 - First Edition Rules Master
 -  
Community Contributor
#587184
I freely confess that everything I know about how the different deck types ought to be labeled, I learned from a single article about Yu-Gi-Oh:

https://ygoprodeck.com/article/understa ... gi-oh-4151

(That's... not actually the link I used to read, and there are minor differences -- such as the link back to MtG -- but I can't find the original and it's close enough.)

Control, then, to me, is defined simply: "Capable of responding to large threats with minimal investment. Slows the pace." (In this, I line up pretty well with Brian's view, perhaps because I don't play Magic, either.)

***

As for OP, I am having more fun than I was having in 2017, but this may be down to a change in myself rather than a change in the game.

Prior to 2017, pretty much all my decks had two components: a play engine and a draw engine. For me, the game consisted of finding different, creative ways of recombining those two elements. (I also tried battle decks in 2015, but, as Kris Sonsteby said at the time, "Watching James play a battle deck is like watching an idiot puppy pick a fight.")

Starting around 2017, I started to weave interactive elements into the DNA of all my decks. My decks stopped being 100% about making me win faster. They're still 75% that, but the part that interests me most is the 25% of my deck that is about making my opponent win slower. So now decks, for me, are play engine + draw engine + interactive element -- and I usually start deck designs by deciding on my interactive element and building backwards from there.

That shift in perspective made the game a lot more fun for me. And, despite everyone talking about speed solver dominance in this thread (no [SF] MACO complaints so far? how far we've come since 2017!), I, at least, have found ample opportunities for mischief making and interaction in recent sets.
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By Ausgang (Gerald Sieber)
 - Beta Quadrant
 -  
1E European Continental Quarter-Finalist 2023
#587209
BCSWowbagger wrote: Fri Oct 14, 2022 4:52 am Are you having more fun with the STCCG than you were in 2017?
No.
Why or why not?
What Armus said, more or less.
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