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By boromirofborg (Trek Barnes)
 - Beta Quadrant
 -  
1E North American Continental Quarter-Finalist 2023
2E North American Continental Quarter-Finalist 2023
#570304
In the beginning, Decpher made treaties. They couldn't be seeded and they could be blown up by The Devil. Even then, Decipher knew no to let Kevin Uxbridge destroy them.


Since then, we've gotten lots more treaties, ways to seed them, but only one additional way to destroy one. (Quinn).

Clearly, there isn't much desire to blow them up - for good reason, IMO.

I am a big believer in every strategy having counterplay, but The Devil can really shut a deck down too hard. (See Dogs of War release).

I would find interesting gameplay possibly in suspending treaties for a turn or two, disrupting the gameplay of decks that rely on them, but not completly shutting them down.

Thoughts?
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First Edition Rules Master
 - First Edition Rules Master
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Continuing Committee Member - Retired
Community Contributor
#570309
boromirofborg wrote: Thu Jan 20, 2022 3:18 pm I am a big believer in every strategy having counterplay, but The Devil can really shut a deck down too hard. (See Dogs of War release).
Dogs of War is the example of why we *need* Devil - it's the answer to "why doesn't everyone just play Treaty decks?"

Devil is an extremely niche card - it hits treaties (but not emblems or other mix-and-match cards like Children of Light), it hits *one* specific artifact, and one specific dilemma. It doesn't seed, nobody downloads it as a freebie... and there are better uses for a card slot unless you know you're going to face a lot of treaty decks.

It's no different then why when Feds start to get a bit *too* uppity you see more Stop First Contact - it's the natural counter. Hopefully design has learned that making a set where every deck is expected to be the same thing means players will stock counters for that thing, because 1E players ain't dumb.
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By Armus (Brian Sykes)
 - The Center of the Galaxy
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Regent
Community Contributor
#570319
Ensign Q wrote: Thu Jan 20, 2022 6:10 pm the errata of Open Diplomatic Relations made treaty decks safe to play already
Indeed. And I'd submit a seed slot for "treaty insurance" is fair. You choose not to run it, and your treaty gets nuked, that's on you.

That said, I still think Staging Ground should've had built-in treaty protection given its built-in drawback of no free plays - makes it VERY hard to recover if you get derailed, to the point where the downside risk is GREATER than in a standard issue treaty deck, which makes me really hesitant to play it again.

Maybe it's just release event PTSD (which shouldn't be a thing, but we've beaten that horse to death already), but even accounting for that, and even in a more "open" meta where you're less likely to get your treaty nuked, the downside impact is just so crippling, if not scoop worthy, that it makes it real hard to choose over better - and SAFER - options.

:twocents:
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By Ensign Q
 - Delta Quadrant
 -  
#570321
Armus wrote: Thu Jan 20, 2022 6:20 pm
Ensign Q wrote: Thu Jan 20, 2022 6:10 pm the errata of Open Diplomatic Relations made treaty decks safe to play already
Indeed. And I'd submit a seed slot for "treaty insurance" is fair. You choose not to run it, and your treaty gets nuked, that's on you.

That said, I still think Staging Ground should've had built-in treaty protection given its built-in drawback of no free plays - makes it VERY hard to recover if you get derailed, to the point where the downside risk is GREATER than in a standard issue treaty deck, which makes me really hesitant to play it again.

Maybe it's just release event PTSD (which shouldn't be a thing, but we've beaten that horse to death already), but even accounting for that, and even in a more "open" meta where you're less likely to get your treaty nuked, the downside impact is just so crippling, if not scoop worthy, that it makes it real hard to choose over better - and SAFER - options.

:twocents:
i think the justification for staging ground was, that you can just stock backup treaties and fetch them with
Kai Winn or Senator Vreenak
outside the release, no one will ever have more than one devil (2 with nanoprobes)

outside [1E-DS9] , you can also run the new Captain Kirk (Second Star to the Right)
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By Armus (Brian Sykes)
 - The Center of the Galaxy
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Regent
Community Contributor
#570323
Ensign Q wrote: Thu Jan 20, 2022 6:29 pm
Armus wrote: Thu Jan 20, 2022 6:20 pm
Ensign Q wrote: Thu Jan 20, 2022 6:10 pm the errata of Open Diplomatic Relations made treaty decks safe to play already
Indeed. And I'd submit a seed slot for "treaty insurance" is fair. You choose not to run it, and your treaty gets nuked, that's on you.

That said, I still think Staging Ground should've had built-in treaty protection given its built-in drawback of no free plays - makes it VERY hard to recover if you get derailed, to the point where the downside risk is GREATER than in a standard issue treaty deck, which makes me really hesitant to play it again.

Maybe it's just release event PTSD (which shouldn't be a thing, but we've beaten that horse to death already), but even accounting for that, and even in a more "open" meta where you're less likely to get your treaty nuked, the downside impact is just so crippling, if not scoop worthy, that it makes it real hard to choose over better - and SAFER - options.

:twocents:
i think the justification for staging ground was, that you can just stock backup treaties and fetch them with
Kai Winn or Senator Vreenak
outside the release, no one will ever have more than one devil (2 with nanoprobes)
Sure, Winn is gettable easily enough with Guest Quarters, but Vreenak is no guarantee, and if you don't have him out when your treaty goes down you're kind of in trouble.

Doesn't change my overall analysis. It's worth packing Devil and cycling cards if you think Staging Ground is gonna be a thing because if you do manage to land it, the game becomes basically an auto win, which I'm not sure is good for business, especially in a world where I can run [OS] [Fed] and more or less have a reliable chance to win every game I play.
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By winterflames (Derek Marlar)
 - Delta Quadrant
 -  
#570324
Ensign Q wrote: Thu Jan 20, 2022 6:10 pm the errata of Open Diplomatic Relations made treaty decks safe to play already
Agreed. At a Cost of one seed, 2 cards from hand, and a regular card play, you can trump your opponents trump.
 
By Dunnagh (Andreas Micheel)
 - Delta Quadrant
 -  
Contender
#570382
winterflames wrote: Thu Jan 20, 2022 6:41 pm
Ensign Q wrote: Thu Jan 20, 2022 6:10 pm the errata of Open Diplomatic Relations made treaty decks safe to play already
Agreed. At a Cost of one seed, 2 cards from hand, and a regular card play, you can trump your opponents trump.
I think you need to reevaluate your opponents cost. He needs to have The devil in his deck - which seems to be a dead card in many situations OR play with Q´s Tent stacked in his deck to get some option, but then again, those doorways arent THAT cool (and cost you card draws).
It´s obviously a meta choice to include the devil in your deck - and there may be swiss army knives decks out there that work, but overall its probably never just "playing the devil"
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By winterflames (Derek Marlar)
 - Delta Quadrant
 -  
#570407
I am going to assume you hit the wrong quote. Your counter argument has no application to my list of things I have to do to get my treaty back.
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By Armus (Brian Sykes)
 - The Center of the Galaxy
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Regent
Community Contributor
#570420
Hoss-Drone wrote: Sat Jan 22, 2022 9:11 pm Hawt taek:. Devil banned, original treaties banned, new treaties made that are limited like the quad treaty, the tech sharing treaty, etc. (Only [1E-TNG] , only [1E-DS9] , etc)
I respectfully disagree with this Hawt Taek

That feels a bit too 2e-ish for my 1e tastes.

Sandbox decks should always be at least a playable option. That's where all the fun combos that Design never intended come from.
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By Armus (Brian Sykes)
 - The Center of the Galaxy
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Regent
Community Contributor
#570424
Ensign Q wrote: Sat Jan 22, 2022 10:02 pm i suggest armus gets over his release ptsd instead ;)
Meh, I ran a treaty deck at the Chairman's Challenge and didn't have any trouble keeping my people working together.

I've vented about that release tournament enough. The Devil wasn't the problem - that card has been around since the beginning and I'm still playing... I guess it's The Devil I know.... :wink:
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First Edition Rules Master
By BCSWowbagger (James Heaney)
 - First Edition Rules Master
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Community Contributor
#570428
Since the day Staging Ground was released, it has appeared in 9 official, posted OTF decks (excluding the release event). One of those decks won Worlds.

In that same span of time, The Devil has appeared in just 2 decks. Both decks included only one copy. (And one of them was Maggie's deck for Regionals, which was immediately after the release event where she had been unexpectedly bedeviled -- so I think we can chalk that one up to an abundance of caution after getting burned.)

Indeed, the Devil has appeared in only 10 decks total in the past 3.5 years... and fully 6 of those decks were at the infamous DoW release event.

I recognize that the release event was a calamity -- the result of a very unique, completely untested meta. I recognize that it felt like scorpions in a barrel for those of you who were in it. I recognize it left a lot of players involved limping around with some NPE scars. I recognize that some players involved may never return to DoW because of that NPE. And I recognize that we've heard a lot about it in part because almost everyone in that event was/is a Very Active Forum Poster.

But it was a one-off. There's been zero repetition in the almost-a-year since. Staging Ground players swiftly solved the problem (hallo Winn) and so did Dominion Command players (hallo Turrel). Design put out a new tool for dealing with it in ODR. It really is, like Armus is saying, a simple case of release-event PTSD. That meta had never existed before and never will again.
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