Rate Masters into tiers

[Myyrä]

18 minutes ago, trikk said:

I know its possible but your plan doesn`t take into account the rest of his army. And 18" is less than Vik charge range (Walk, Sisters in Spirit, +2dmg, Accomplice, Oathkeeper, walk, charge, whirlwind, melee expert)

And this is why you should never play Hoffman against Viks if you want to win.

[Myyrä]

Because I don't really feel like working right now, here's my tier list:

Tier 1: Perdita, Sonnia, Seamus, Ramos, Colette, Dreamer, Lilith, Leveticus, Vikkies, Ophelia, Wong
Tier 2: McCabe, Nicodem, Resser McMourning, Tara, Molly, Kirai, Kaeris, Marcus, Rasputina, Mei Feng, Lilith, Collodi, Zoraida, Jack Daw, Von Schill, Misaki, Hamelin, Ulix, Somer, Mah Tuckett, Shenlong
Tier 3: Guild McMourning, Lady Justice, Hoffmann, Yan Lo, Ironsides, Brewmaster, Lynch, Pandora
Tier 4: Lucius

I hilighted the ones that differ from @Math Mathonwy's estimates.

Practically all changes I made were because of how easy it is to counter the masters. If Hoffman doesn't deserve tier 2 then neither do Lynch and Pandora, as there are at least as many if not even more effective counters against them. I suppose bringing Hoffman to tier 2 could also have been an option. Collodi and Kirai also fell to tier 2 because it is possible to counter them quite efefctively, even thought there aren't that many good options for that.

Jack Daw came down because I can't figure out a single reason he deserves to be tier 1.

Seamus and Lilith went up, because there are no real counters against them and they can excell in practically any scenario. It's possible to make both of them unable to utilize some of their tricks with the right crew composition, but they have so many of them that they will never be useless. Viktorias went up for a similar reason, but not by their own virtue. They owe their tier 1 spot mostly to the rat factory.

As for the strength differences between tiers, I feel like a two tier difference is going to mean noticeably higher chance of victory all else being equal.

[Math Mathonwy]

Great stuff PanzerHarris and Myyrä - thank you!

2 hours ago, PanzerHarris said:

Zoraida I don't feel offers anything particularly special. The only time she was a pain in the neck was with Entourage in the scheme pool and she just Animal Shape'd her way across the table. Couldn't reach her to stop her. Otherwise, she tends to summon the voodoo doll that can occasionally be annoying but that's about it.

I think that Zoraida offers Gremlins plenty. Nurses and Waldgeists do stuff that Gremlins don't do and Obeys are very yummy with 1 AP Charges of Rooster Riders and Pigs. All in all Obeys are very versatile and something that Gremlins can utilize really well due to their long threat ranges, high damage output and general squishyness (Brewie needs a Suit and Mah can only Push and her stat is low).

[LunarSol]

2 hours ago, Red Moon Head said:

I have a standing theory that people concentrate too much on the construct theme whenever they take him and end up picking a whole crew based aorund powerlooping. 

I honestly think you are better having 3 powerloop targets and build the rest of the crew with otehr things like scheme runners or anti scheme runners. That way you are only really spending 1 ap from hoff (Which is usually from OSA anyway) to loop your 3 constructs. Then go to town with healing/machine puppets.

Hugely agree with this.  I've actually really started feeling like the Metal Gamin is a trap with him, as you waste a free power loop making the others slightly more reliable.  Spend the free one to reliably loop in 4 when you could just use the free one and get 2 more almost as easily.

Personally, while he's no where as powerful as say, Perdita in my opinion, I rate him in a similar category.  For me, Perdita's big draw is mobility and armor piercing over Sonnia, which aren't generally enough to make her better, but make her a good tool situationally.  Hoffman's the same way.  Good tool to have at your disposal, but you definitely have to know when not to use him too.

[Kobayashi]

So,

I am a new player and don't know what my take-away is with that list, especially after getting Yan Lo with some of his friends (Toshiro, Izamu (Genbu), Onryos, Tengus). Is this seen from a competitive standpoint, i.e. these masters (with some shifting, depending on playstyle and preference) will get you far?

[Patzer]

53 minutes ago, Kobayashi said:

So,

I am a new player and don't know what my take-away is with that list, especially after getting Yan Lo with some of his friends (Toshiro, Izamu (Genbu), Onryos, Tengus). Is this seen from a competitive standpoint, i.e. these masters (with some shifting, depending on playstyle and preference) will get you far?

I think competitive in the sense that they don't have bad or very bad match ups, or how they can play around a bad match up. 

[Kobayashi]

9 minutes ago, Patzer said:

I think competitive in the sense that they don't have bad or very bad match ups, or how they can play around a bad match up. 

I see... so more of safe bets...

That puts the ops comment more into perspective (that a Tier 3 can wipe the floor with a Tier 1; given matchup AND schemes). Thanks

[huntroll]

2 hours ago, Kobayashi said:

So,

I am a new player and don't know what my take-away is with that list, especially after getting Yan Lo with some of his friends (Toshiro, Izamu (Genbu), Onryos, Tengus). Is this seen from a competitive standpoint, i.e. these masters (with some shifting, depending on playstyle and preference) will get you far?

Rathnard recently won a 45 SS fixed list tourney in Australia with Yan Lo and Lynch. He has a bad reputation, but I've noticed that recently people started to recognise that he is not as bad as he seems to be. 

[trikk]

I think those lists are more of a "Big tournament, best of the best" lists. In most games if you`re the better player you win unless the crew you bring has no sense

[Myyrä]

2 hours ago, huntroll said:

Rathnard recently won a 45 SS fixed list tourney in Australia with Yan Lo and Lynch. He has a bad reputation, but I've noticed that recently people started to recognise that he is not as bad as he seems to be. 

The Emissaries were also a siginificant boost for Yan Lo. His Emissary upgrade is pretty bonkers.

[Rathnard]

Well at least based on my own experience and opinions, here's how I'd rank the Masters;

Top Tier: Leveticus, Colette, Kirai, Lilith.

Middle Tier: Everyone not listed above or below.

Lower Tier: Lucius (Guild), Ironsides, Mah Tucket.

For the ones on the top tier, they seem to have a strong playstyle with few easily exploitable weaknesses. But more importantly, they have the flexibility to do most of the strategies and schemes really well. 

I don't believe the Lower tier Masters are bad per se, but they're a little harder to play really well and may struggle if the strategy and schemes don't suit their playstyle. 

Of all the Masters however, I'd put Guild Lucius right at the bottom. He seems to really need a hand of decent cards to do what he wants and the Guild don't have many standout minions for Issuing Commands to, especially if you need someone to kill things in melee. At least Neverborn Lucius can get around both those issues. He's got the Primordial Magic, Wings of Darkness and better access to Regen/healing (for spamming Devils Deal) to help out the control hand, and a great stable of strong minions to throw around (Waldgeist, Illuminated, Stitched, Young Nephilim...).

 

As for Yan Lo, I think he's a little like Marcus was in Malifaux v1.5. By just looking at his card/upgrades it's not easy to see his value. But once you figure him out he's actually pretty great. It just takes a bit of persistance.

And yeah, as huntroll said I won a tournament using Yan Lo/Lynch just a few days ago. At this stage in my adventures with him he's not a Master I'd want to take for every strategy/scheme matchup (hence why I paired him with a Lynch list). But he's amazing at what he does and he's a long, long way from being noncompetitive. 

28 minutes ago, Myyrä said:

The Emissaries were also a siginificant boost for Yan Lo. His Emissary upgrade is pretty bonkers.

For what it's worth, the list I used for my Yan Lo games didn't use the Emissary. It's amazing of course, but not essential to get the most out of Yan. In my case I excluded him because I needed the healing/condition removal from Sensei Yu and the straight up killing power from Izamu. So the Emissary sat on the bench. 

[trikk]

5 minutes ago, Rathnard said:

Of all the Masters however, I'd put Guild Lucius right at the bottom. He seems to really need a hand of decent cards to do what he wants and the Guild don't have many standout minions for Issuing Commands to, especially if you need someone to kill things in melee. At least Neverborn Lucius can get around both those issues. He's got the Primordial Magic, Wings of Darkness and better access to Regen/healing (for spamming Devils Deal) to help out the control hand, and a great stable of strong minions to throw around (Waldgeist, Illuminated, Stitched, Young Nephilim...).

I wonder if people will try him with the Emissary upgrade. You can SS for cards pretty often (as minions can regen 3 on activation with Dues Paid trigger) and min damage 3-4 seems quite nice and offer some new ways of spending his activations.

For minions I think the best he can get is 2 Freikorps Trappers to get 4 focused shots per turn.

 

Other thing is giving him an upgrade that gives +1/+2Ca  or just rework the card as I find him to be a Master that Wyrd really didn`t want to be OP, so they went way too far on the other side of the spectrum.

[Rathnard]

7 minutes ago, trikk said:

I wonder if people will try him with the Emissary upgrade. You can SS for cards pretty often (as minions can regen 3 on activation with Dues Paid trigger) and min damage 3-4 seems quite nice and offer some new ways of spending his activations.

For minions I think the best he can get is 2 Freikorps Trappers to get 4 focused shots per turn.

I'll admit, I had given almost no thought to Lucius with a Brutal Emissary until now, and what it offers is indeed a really great boost to him. He could still do with some serious melee minions, but at least I can see some decent potential with a Lucius/Emissary crew. 

[trikk]

I think updating his card with lower TN would be better

Commanding Presence with TN 12 would be ok.

The Horror check with TN 11 would also be decent (and would severely decrease the need for a Lawyer).

Also, get rid of that darn in Hidden Sniper 

 

That wouldn`t fix him, but it would certainly make him more usable. I think working on all Mimics and Guardsmen (not just minions) would also be decent, as Guild Sergeants would also get a boost with that.

[Coweringomega]

3 hours ago, trikk said:

I think updating his card with lower TN would be better

Commanding Presence with TN 12 would be ok.

The Horror check with TN 11 would also be decent (and would severely decrease the need for a Lawyer).

Also, get rid of that darn in Hidden Sniper 

 

That wouldn`t fix him, but it would certainly make him more usable. I think working on all Mimics and Guardsmen (not just minions) would also be decent, as Guild Sergeants would also get a boost with that.

It's so sad that Lucius gets such a low rating from basically everyone. His flavor is just so great.

I'm a relatively new player and have been having fun with McCabe. Having gotten used to relying on minions to pull a bit more weight, I wanted to try Lucius out. I found that his problems for me were two-fold.

1. He is so intensely resource dependent that you can't get even 1/2 of the stuff done that you want. Discarding cards for putting people at  flip attacks, needing "high" moderate cards for horror duals, needing  for hidden sniper, needing to burn a stone for his sword cane trigger (right? I don't have the card in front of me), needing a AND a  to pass off the damage from an attack to a nearby minion (forgot upgrade name) means burning a SS to allow a minion to take the effects of an attack (the damage is still being taken and now a SS is gone), etc... Meanwhile, McCabe is handing out  flips to Ml and WP with Promises. His "buffing" via tossing around upgrades occurs with his zero action so the resources used are minimal. You may have to cheat in a if you want to toss 2 things or a low card if you fail the flip, but that's basically it.  
2. He doesn't do much on his own. He has his sword-cane is OK and the brutal emissary can help, but honestly, if his minions aren't around, there isn't much he can do. McCabe himself is both a tank and a beater. I know that they fill slightly different slots, but since their crew composition is often minion focused it's hard not to directly compare them.

Lucius really needs access to far more resources or the "tricks" that he is trying to pull off need to have decreased TNs/less suits. It would be great if he had some way to heal bring back minion models to provide some level of durability. As it stands, it feels like Lucius is "Hamstrung". 

[trikk]

I know that this wouldn`t make him good.

 

But you would feel a lot less like you`re struggling to do anything if you would need 5s instead of 7s and the Ram from Hidden Sniper TN would be gone you would have some decent range threat.

[Coweringomega]

1 hour ago, trikk said:

I know that this wouldn`t make him good.

 

But you would feel a lot less like you`re struggling to do anything if you would need 5s instead of 7s and the Ram from Hidden Sniper TN would be gone you would have some decent range threat.

Maybe, but you are still paying 2 SS for an attack option that is difficult to pull off. It's still against their defence, so you still need that high ram to meet the TN AND to score the hit. I'm not sure the upgrade is worth it. Even if it is a zero action.

[Ludvig]

I'm all for ranting about how bad Lucius is but this thread was about something else. We have several threads dedicated to it if you come to the guild or neverborn sections  

He should just add hard to kill to all friendly minions on the board and get +2 Ca for a 0 cost upgrade.  

[Coweringomega]

17 hours ago, Ludvig said:

I'm all for ranting about how bad Lucius is but this thread was about something else. We have several threads dedicated to it if you come to the guild or neverborn sections  

He should just add hard to kill to all friendly minions on the board and get +2 Ca for a 0 cost upgrade.  

Point taken  Sorry the blood gets up.

 

Another interesting consideration from my POV is the killing power of the master. From what I've seen from the more recent bigger US tourneys, the winner was typically an excellent player and had a crew that would slaughter everything on the board. I suspect that trickiness is fun and flexible, but at the end of the day, you have lots of flexibility if the opposing crew is dead. I didn't notice much of that in many of the rankings within this thread. I'm curious about the tier perception vs. the data.

I'd currently hypothesize that excellent players are drawn to complicated masters and they will excel at them. However, if players with equal skill levels faced off, the one who had the master and crew with the most killing power would likely win. I suspect that we don't see that as a blatant trend because many of those excellent players find the "killy" masters too straightforward and don't enjoy playing them.

At least that's my current hypothesis. Killing power still trumps flexibility.

 

[Ludvig]

Rattrap + Killjoy + Viks doesn't sound very subtle to me so you might be on to something.  

I'd like to see the pool were Lucius could beat that (come on, that's at least semi-on topic).

[LunarSol]

I suspect its not necessarily killing power directly but just a question of the value you get out of the AP they spend and just how much AP they get to spend on valuable stuff.  For example, Lady J's AP is quite valuable, but she spends so much less of it on valuable stuff compared to Perdita or Sonnia simply by needing to move into range.  There's another thread about how great masters don't spend AP walking, and I suspect that's a good example of the idea.  Similarly, great masters don't die easily so that they get to spend all of their AP well.

If I were to look for a commonality behind the great masters and more importantly, figure out what a lower tier master needs to do to be great, I would definitely start by getting an idea of just what the best get out of their ~15 AP over the course of the game.

[Jordon]

I guess I understand why people would place Ironsides on the bottom of the stack but I honestly think it's mostly due to a misrepresentation of how she plays. The first few games I've played with her were a real struggle for me and it wasn't until I took her in a whole new direction that I've been able to see her true strength. 

As a strait up brawler she falls way under the curve and by looking at her card, she's definitely advertised as such. I've had huge success with treating less like a brawler and more like a support master. She's got a huge array of tools that make her extremely versatile.

Don't get me wrong, she does have some bad matchup's but trust me though, giving your whole crew free focus on every single attack can be extremely effective. 

[HPN]

On mercoledì 27 aprile 2016 at 3:33 AM, Jordon said:

I guess I understand why people would place Ironsides on the bottom of the stack but I honestly think it's mostly due to a misrepresentation of how she plays. The first few games I've played with her were a real struggle for me and it wasn't until I took her in a whole new direction that I've been able to see her true strength.

As a strait up brawler she falls way under the curve and by looking at her card, she's definitely advertised as such. I've had huge success with treating less like a brawler and more like a support master. She's got a huge array of tools that make her extremely versatile.

Don't get me wrong, she does have some bad matchup's but trust me though, giving your whole crew free focus on every single attack can be extremely effective.

So much this!

I have always seen her played as a countercharge menace and to tie up in melee enemy models keeping them busy for some turns, due to her being quite tanky. And then abusing her buffing aura, leaving to other models the heavy lifting. I was quite suprised  when on the forum i read that she's considered a low-tier master!

[Confused1]

Hi, I'm really not understanding how many of you ranked Resurrectionists. Having played them so much at this point, I'm really surprised at a lot of the common trends in how everyone ranked them, because it doesn't resemble what I expected at all. I was hoping some of you, particularly tournament Ressurectionist players like Stryder, could please explain to me how you evaluated these. I've read the thread about how much terrain, I'm up to date with the latest FAQs and Errata, I understand how close together tiers are, and I'm judging based on how well they deal with GG 2016 Schemes and Strategies against all 7 factions assuming statistically average fate decks. The Ressur tier list arrangements were just so bewildering to me that I registered to ask what's up.

The only things that made sense to me were Nicodem and his long list of summons that come in without slow being top tier, and poor one-dimensional Yan Lo being on the bottom. I can see Kirai as being one of the faction's best, but is she really that much better than Nicodem, if she's better at all? Why?

On The Clock seems like Guild McMourning's biggest strength and without it he's overly reliant on Sebastian and Expunge. Ressur McMourning always feels like I need to build my list around; I want my conditions to disrupt their play, not the other way around. If a Witchling, Low River Monk, Johann, or whatever spends AP to remove Fast/Slow/Adversary, I'm always able to make that work in my favor. If they remove Poison from my expunge target, or one of my models, it's a massive setback. I feel like his summoning is gimmicky at best and nigh-impossible to pull off against good players, who will make sure that even if I land Expunge I will drain far too many resources to get a Flesh Construct. He feels like a bad Killjoy with Use Soulstone which makes him forgiving to learn, but I don't see why he's that much better than Yan Lo. They're both heavily reliant on set-up, vulnerable to disruption at the wrong point in a turn, and have one trick each that makes them any good in scheme missions, and one for movement tricks. Am I using him wrong? What am I missing that makes him so good?

I like Molly, I do, but her defensive mechanisms heavily tax her resources, as she needs those cards she's pitching to negate damage. The Lost Toys trigger is a card filter, not a hand refill, and Take Back the Night is less effective when you need it most: before your damage-dealing summons come in. On paper Masterful Dead looks amazing, but you can't convince me that throwing a Seishin or Mindless Zombie under the bus is at all comparable to two cards. Using Sybelle for mobility means you're losing lots of 8s, missing out on Attend to Personally, and spending Yin or Datsue-Ba worth of points. Is it worth taking Sybelle just for that mobility? If you take her upgrades, is she worth Rogue Necromancy/Izamu? At some point you're giving up an Enforcer Horror/Spirit just to make sure Molly doesn't have to walk. Mortimer's Fresh Meat at least nets Tempo by shambling your crew forward, but it can't get Molly out of danger. Molly's summons typically come in with 3 or less wounds, but she lacks healing like Nicodem and Kirai do. In addition, the other top-tier Ressurs she's getting placed alongside have ways to make their summons lose slow, or artificially inflate the Ca for their summon action. Nicodem can also improve his spells or even Raspy them through the Vulture, and while Kirai's Sundering is affected by cover, it helps her Summons hit and even spawn more Gaki.

On the other hand, I get the impression not many posters here are very familiar with Ressurectionist Tara. She's a totally different beast, pun intended. Temporal Shift is really, really, really, good. Like, Time Walk good. Rotten Belles make it much easier to use, and Dead Doxies make her less reliant on using her own AP to Walk into position. The Nothing Beast, Void Wretches, and especially Death Marshals make great additions to the Ressur hiring pool, offering a Sh 6 Peacebringer, a healer, a beatstick that targets Wp, 2 good scheme runners, and situationally high Df.  You're no longer reliant on Karina for summons, though she's still an option, and if you grab Spare Parts and/or focus on acting as Toshiro or Datsue-Ba's enabler, you can meld her AP Control playstyle with summoning. Despite lacking innate summons, I find she's better as an offensive support summoner than Molly, since she doesn't rely on Moderate/Severe damage to deny AP, donating her 6 AP to your crew is better than donating Molly's 0 once, and can effectively remove entire threats with a Marshall or enough Glimpse trigger harassment. Her Sword is actually rather nice, and with good positioning (Doxy helps) and Reactivate, you can do massive damage with a Nurse using Hallucinogens for 4/5/7 damage and built-in Glimpse trigger. She lacks McMourning's Hard to Wound or the 5 wounds/turn you can steal, but Through the Hole makes the approach easier, the extra inch and Eternal Moment's extra AP mitigate the penalties of Hallucinogens, and Eternal Journey means you don't need to drain wounds, you can sacrifice your bonus AP to re-position.

If she's bad in Outcasts because she has one predictable strategy and is outclassed by everyone else, by the same logic wouldn't being incredibly versatile (Bete/Beast Bomb, Melee AP Control, AP Control/front line summon support) in Ressurs and outclassing others at the close-range support niche? Or am I the internet's worst Molly and McMourning player?

Finally, Seamus. I don't know. I think this is more of a subjective thing. He's a Ninja, pure and simple. Pop out, assassinate an isolated target, and either stick around to strike fear into your enemies' hearts and Wp until Copycat Killer shows up, or throw a corpse marker smokebomb and run off. He does it reliably. He does it well. He's definitely viable. But is that one trick good enough to make him competitive? I just don't see it. I think if you want to deal death from afar and not much else, Rasputina and Ophelia are better one-trick ponies. Again, maybe I'm missing something. Maybe if Horror duel spam was a consistent, reliable strategy, I could see Seamus being top-tier, and not a firm #4.

Sorry, that was a big post, but I thought it'd be good to justify my opinions with reasons and explanations. Thanks for any help!

[Durza]

Hey Confused1, try playing Mcmourning without using expunge for a few games, see what else you can get out of him, he's insanely fast with some other great actions, focusing on expunging something every turn is a trap in my opinion, especially if your entire crew is set up just to build and move a stack of poison around.