For posting 1E deck designs for feedback from other players and members of the community.
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By Ausgang (Gerald Sieber)
 - Beta Quadrant
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1E European Continental Quarter-Finalist 2023
#582847
This is the thread to document and discuss the local deviation of the Warp Speed Cube originally designed by @PantsOfTheTalShiar which can be found here.

For the purpose of supporting 8 players for the side events at the upcoming European Championships at Kaiserfest, I remoduled the cube in a way that one can easily switch between a size adjusted for 6 or 8 players by adding resp. removing an extension.

At the moment I don't have the time to detail every update to the list, but most of the stuff was for keeping the right mixture of card types, supplementing existing mechanics, and adding a few more gimmicks. Since this version hasn't been tested yet, all is based on conjecture anyways for now ;-)

Cube contents:
6-player version
8-player version

I have also put to together a little guide for cube drafting which already used to be helpful for new players, but also as a reference sheet for the piggyback cards during the draft itself.
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By martok88
 - Beta Quadrant
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1E World Champion 2023
1E European Continental Quarter-Finalist 2023
1E British National Champion 2023
1E German National Champion 2024
1E Swedish National Runner-Up 2018
1E Austrian National Second Runner-Up 2023
#582848
Love it, Gerald. If you get around to it, you could do a feature on our youtube channel. Looking forward to playing it at Kaiserfest :thumbsup:

Two suggestions to make it even more balanced:

1. Starting player
In warp speed, it's extremely valuable to go first. Can this be balanced out a bit? E.g.: player not going first has 3 card-plays on turn 1?

2. Treaty vs. no treaty
You basically choose between playing one or two affiliations (no treaty vs. seeding a treaty). I did several test runs and it seems to me that 2 affiliations with a treaty is almost always favored, even though it costs a seed card. Have you guys come up with the same conclusion? Maybe I'm wrong.

Just a wild suggestion in case I'm right: how about an additional slight penalty for treaty decks? E.g. in matches with treaty vs. no treaty, the player with no treaty goes first? (I think it also combines well with my suggestion on 1.)
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By Ausgang (Gerald Sieber)
 - Beta Quadrant
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1E European Continental Quarter-Finalist 2023
#582860
martok88 wrote: Tue Aug 09, 2022 3:59 am 1. Starting player
In warp speed, it's extremely valuable to go first. Can this be balanced out a bit? E.g.: player not going first has 3 card-plays on turn 1?
I don't have enough experience with the format to make a proper suggestion here. Before imposing external rules, I would rather see whether players adapt their seed card (personnel, ship, equipment) and/or playstyle when going second.
2. Treaty vs. no treaty
You basically choose between playing one or two affiliations (no treaty vs. seeding a treaty). I did several test runs and it seems to me that 2 affiliations with a treaty is almost always favored, even though it costs a seed card. Have you guys come up with the same conclusion? Maybe I'm wrong.
Our first draft certainly indicated a tendency towards treaty decks. This is quite natural for drafting behavior I suppose as branching out in more directions (i.e. affiliations) early in the draft lets you stay open (since you cannot know how hard your neighbors will cut a certain affiliation. And that is probably enhanced by the convenience of getting the treaty no matter what.
Just a wild suggestion in case I'm right: how about an additional slight penalty for treaty decks? E.g. in matches with treaty vs. no treaty, the player with no treaty goes first? (I think it also combines well with my suggestion on 1.)
I think we should get more field experience before taking such steps. Another idea is that you must seed the treaty instead of the personnel/ship/equipment. This tones down their speed slightly; in return they have the same amount of seed slots as everyone else. But not being able to setup any personnel or ship could increase the appeal for single-affiliations significantly.
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By Ausgang (Gerald Sieber)
 - Beta Quadrant
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1E European Continental Quarter-Finalist 2023
#583675
Going to update the Cube soon, but first I wanted to ask for some feedback, especially from those who participated in the last draft: @martok88 @Kaiser @Mogh, Son Of Worf @Clerasil ToB @Caretaker's Guest @admiral-mogh @lotop

Personal impressions:
(1) Treaty decks were less popular than before, presumably getting another seed slot was deemed more valuable than combining the power of two affiliations.
(2) Overall, there seemed to be a tendency to forfeit as many non-dilemma seeds as possible in order to include more dilemmas.

Questions:
(3) There was a little confusion about the second copy of Assign Mission Specialists. Reasoning: To make AMS work I need to include a certain number of specialists for all three affiliations. If there was only one copy of AMS more than 2/3 of those specialists will become somewhat inferior; a second copy of AMS balances this disproportion a bit. Alternatively, using only one AMS would mean to curb specialists which in turn makes AMS less reliable hence underwhelming. I think in this case it is worth to break the singleton stipulation, but I am open to suggestions.

(4) When selecting the single affiliation missions I favored those which do not require attributes. Especially for the Romulans I wasn't sure if that was a good move, since getting all the Treachery for i.e. Strategic Diversion might be easier to setup than Covert Installation. But, since the dilemmas are catered towards an attrition war, being able to leave back fewer personnel that can solve the mission and throwing the majority into overcoming dilemmas appeared better to me. I didn't play Romulans, but I'd like to know opinions about that matter.

(5) Should we make the starting facility a free seed?

(6) What is the opinion about little theme cards like Resistance Tactics, or Patient Schemer? My current inclination leads toward cutting them for more interrupts.

(7) Anything else you want to share, but especially recommendations about dilemmas is very welcomed as it is quite hard to keep up the 50% [Dual] and there's currently a lot of chaff that I want to throw out.
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By PantsOfTheTalShiar (Jason Tang)
 - Delta Quadrant
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#584890
Love this btw. I don't have time now to really work on my cube so it's awesome you're running with your own version. I'll have to steal some ideas.

Just a few notes:
Yep, ideally Treaty decks should be balanced with single-affiliation decks, but it's better to err on the side of Treaties being more powerful since that makes the draft smoother. The number of affiliations won't always be divisible by the number of players.

I have tried to track how often the player going first wins, but I have been forgetful and disorganized. In my experience/opinion, the second player wins enough that going first isn't TOO overwhelming of an advantage, but it is something to watch.

I originally included 2 copies of AMS just because it was such an iconic card, and I used the fact that it had two printings as an excuse to break the singleton "rule". AMS is a complicated subject and there are probably several ways you could go with it (or not go with it).

One card I want to add is Quantum Slipstream Drive. Part of that is as a counter to the borderline-OP Cytherians, which I see you've cut. But it might be nice to have in general just because the spaceline itself is a bigger challenge in Warp Speed.

One dilemma I've wanted to include is Dangerous Liaisons, but it felt wrong that it could be so easily passed with a starter deck personnel. Since you're not using Ty Kajada, you don't have to worry about that.

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