Your thoughts on the strongest and weakest masters in the game?

[esqulax]

I am still fairly new to Malifaux, but have been playing a lot of other tabletop games over the years. I have noticed that the players of most others games I have tried typically have a pretty uniform agreement on what the strongest and weakest factions/masters are, but in Malifaux  that opinion seems to change considerably from player to player and meta to meta. Especially since the last errata.

 

So because of that I feel it would be fun to hear what people consider some of the strongest masters in the game and some of the weakest? If nothing else than to just see if I am right that it varies a lot

 

[Ludvig]

Not sure I could decide on either. If you mean in a "take only one master to a tournament where you don't know what strats and schemes will show" there are a few that are very flexible but the design of the game where you can pick from an entire faction after knowing your objectives makes most masters have a place. You might need to specify what "strongest" means.

Skill and a flexible hiring pool probably always wins out over master picked. Back when Lucius was crap we still had a guy who kicked everyone's ass even with him.

[esqulax]

Well, ofc the skill of the players is considered to be high and equal. 

 

I know it might be a bit tricky to answer, but it wasn't really considered to be a definitive list. It is just fun to hear peoples opinions and see how they collide with our own very new meta. 

 

I was also thinking mostly if you had a strategy and scheme pool that is considered beneficial to the master, which one is the absolute hardest to beat? And in the same vein, in regards to weakest, which master with a strategy and scheme pool that is very good for them, doesn't do anything that others don't do better? 

[Dogmantra]

The answers I generally see for weakest master are Yan Lo, Brewmaster and Mah Tucket, but there seems to be a lot less of a consensus on strongest. I have a lot of thoughts on this topic but I'm tired so no posty now.

[esqulax]

We are just 6 guys who started the game 6 months ago and have only played each other, so our little group doesn't have a grasp of the finer points of the game. Even if we do play pretty regularly. But one of our guys started with Yan Lo and Brewmaster and hearing them referred to as the weakest is so very weird to me. Especially since I feel like he has had a lot more success with them over other 10T masters. 

[-Loki-]

Even saying 'which is the strongest master if all schemes and strategies go their way' isn't a good way to judge them. If all the schemes and strategies of their way, they don't necessarily go the opponents way, and it's still lopsided.

This is why I like the tier method used on this forum, basing it on how many schemes and strategies the maser is actually good at. Outside of a very few masters, every master is strong in its own way, and even those masters have their supporters. Some are just better at a wider variety of schemes and strategies, so they are more likely to hit the table.

[Sir Andersen]

I don't know the game well enough to declare a singular "strongest".

 

But looking at Titania and what her themed crew/options have of synergies, I fully expect her to emerge over the next year or so as a VERY dominant Master

[Pikciwok]

Sandeep has everything. EVERYTHING!

[-Loki-]

On 5/13/2017 at 4:10 PM, Sir Andersen said:

But looking at Titania and what her themed crew/options have of synergies, I fully expect her to emerge over the next year or so as a VERY dominant Master

She's not. She's strong in the schemes and strategies that suit her, but it's a narrow selection. Pandora is strong in mostly the same schemes and strategies and she's hardly 'dominant'. Very unpleasant to face in those that suit her, but she's not wrecking tournaments.

[Math Mathonwy]

If someone put on gun on my head and told me to answer, I'd say that Sandeep is the strongest and Brewmaster the weakest. That said, a good Brewmaster player will beat a weak Sandeep player all day.

[Rathnard]

From my experience, I'd say the weakest are currently Mah Tucket and Kaeris. The former by reputation (though I really want to try her myself) and the latter has some cool synergies that just don't seem to work well enough. 

 

Strongest is harder, but the ones I hear alot about (both locally and online) are Sandeep, Parker and Reva. All new Masters, which actually makes me feel that some of it has to do with people not being used to facing them.

 

EDIT: I think alot of people underestimate the power of Brewmaster. There's some neat tricks in his arsenal, but the Swill condition in particular is brutal. Just take a solid crew of models with him and they'll clean up anyone Brewie hands drinks to.

[Math Mathonwy]

2 hours ago, Rathnard said:

From my experience, I'd say the weakest are currently Mah Tucket and Kaeris. The former by reputation (though I really want to try her myself) and the latter has some cool synergies that just don't seem to work well enough. 

 

Strongest is harder, but the ones I hear alot about (both locally and online) are Sandeep, Parker and Reva. All new Masters, which actually makes me feel that some of it has to do with people not being used to facing them.

 

EDIT: I think alot of people underestimate the power of Brewmaster. There's some neat tricks in his arsenal, but the Swill condition in particular is brutal. Just take a solid crew of models with him and they'll clean up anyone Brewie hands drinks to.

I've played lots of Brewski (with a huge emphasis on Swill - you're very far from the first person to suggest it!) and lots with Mah - Mah is, IMO, hands down better. Mah's main problem is that she is just worse than Zipp while doing the same thing (positioning and melee damage). Brew at least is unique, lousy though he may be.

Also I'm really weirded by someone considering Parker as the best - I wouldn't put him in top three of Outcasts, let alone the whole game. Which just goes to show how subjective this all is.

[Four_N_Six]

It's really hard to make this call.  In general, people consider my drinking buddy one of the weakest, but I just took 2nd place a couple of weeks ago in a tournament using literally only Brewmaster.  That's not because the schemes fell perfectly into place for me or because my opponent completely screwed up.  Matches were against Titania, Hoffman, and Sandeep.

With so many variables, I don't know that I like questioning a master's power in the game.  Mostly because a game doesn't hinge on a master.  The master just adds their tricks to it, but you have 50 soulstones worth of models backing the master up and working independently of it.

You can tell me all day that my master can't do the scheme pool, but if I have the First Mate or Fingers running schemes and getting me 6 points, then it doesn't matter much what master I bring along with them.  It plays a factor, of course, but if I have a crew designed that can score me points, the master shouldn't effect it much.  Those are the games when Mah Tucket comes out.  If it's a scheme/strategy pool that my crew can handle alone, I can let Mah just mess with my opponent.  Or Brewmaster Swill.  Or Zipp displace enemy positioning.

There are masters that can be considered better, but I like to think that a lot of it is just them not getting enough action.  People have masters they "prefer" to use, but that doesn't necessarily mean that Master A is 100% of the time better for the particular scheme pool than Master B is.  You might have an easier time, and make different crew selections, but A and B should both be able to handle it just fine.

Then, you also have to look at opposing faction as a factor.  A lot of people will consider Som'er to be a great choice for a huge selection of scheme pools.  However, if you're going against Ressers or Neverborn and having to worry about a lot of horror duels, then I'm not sure an army of Bayou Gremlins are the best option.

[Dogmantra]

On 13/05/2017 at 1:42 AM, esqulax said:

We are just 6 guys who started the game 6 months ago and have only played each other, so our little group doesn't have a grasp of the finer points of the game. Even if we do play pretty regularly. But one of our guys started with Yan Lo and Brewmaster and hearing them referred to as the weakest is so very weird to me. Especially since I feel like he has had a lot more success with them over other 10T masters. 

Well I think it's very easy to overstate how big the difference is between the strongest and weakest. I also find typically for whatever reason often the masters considered the "strongest" tend to have more playtime among better players (e.g. Brewmaster was delayed a long time, and being wave 2, Mah was released quite a long time after Som'er, and by that time I was personally much more comfortable with Som'er to find it hard to justify learning Mah to the same extent if I was going tryhard). For Yan Lo I think he has a little bit the same issue that I find with Shenlong, that is he can be effective but the shenanigans you need to do are fairly complex and you could get the same results out of e.g. McCabe. I still enjoy him though and I love Lightning Dance.

4 hours ago, Rathnard said:

EDIT: I think alot of people underestimate the power of Brewmaster. There's some neat tricks in his arsenal, but the Swill condition in particular is brutal. Just take a solid crew of models with him and they'll clean up anyone Brewie hands drinks to.

It's true. Recently I've been playing mostly Mah & Brewmaster, and Swill is nasty. But imo Death is the best crowd control and while you can shut down a few key models with Swill, you can also often dump blasts onto weaker models with Som'er or Wong and then use your superior activation control as defense. I do love hitting my opponent's master with a Swill and making them useless for a turn (and hopefully just killing them then, works great against models with mediocre defense like Titania), but you need the cards to consistently drop those negatives.

 

1 hour ago, Math Mathonwy said:

I've played lots of Brewski (with a huge emphasis on Swill - you're very far from the first person to suggest it!) and lots with Mah - Mah is, IMO, hands down better. Mah's main problem is that she is just worse than Zipp while doing the same thing (positioning and melee damage). Brew at least is unique, lousy though he may be.

idk, Mah does a bit more damage than Zipp in my experience, but then I've played Mah quite a bit more (I still tend to forget that Zipp exists if I'm honest). Zipp is still overall a better choice tho imo.

3 minutes ago, Four_N_Six said:

Then, you also have to look at opposing faction as a factor.  A lot of people will consider Som'er to be a great choice for a huge selection of scheme pools.  However, if you're going against Ressers or Neverborn and having to worry about a lot of horror duels, then I'm not sure an army of Bayou Gremlins are the best option.

Liquid bravery! Or just bring Burt and Francois with their inexplicable Wp7

 

EDIT: actually that brings up a point that I think sometimes happens in discussions like these is that people tend to think of masters as themed, so they'll not just think of Brewmaster, they'll think of him with Moon Shinobis and Fingers and while I'm a Shinobi apologist, I just don't think that's a very effective crew for Brewie. Same with Von Schill imo, people see the Freikorps synergy and take slightly underwhelming models, then sometimes blame the master for not being good enough.

[Math Mathonwy]

6 minutes ago, Dogmantra said:

idk, Mah does a bit more damage than Zipp in my experience, but then I've played Mah quite a bit more (I still tend to forget that Zipp exists if I'm honest). Zipp is still overall a better choice tho imo.

She does a bit more damage but Gremlins do damage well - Zipp OTOH bypasses lots of defenses that otherwise can be problematic for the Gremlins so he sorta fills the role better IMO.

[Four_N_Six]

When I did that tournament with Brewmaster the only model that came consistently was Fingers because he's a great scheme runner and I love his heal.  I only brought Wesley in one game.

And I know Liquid Bravery is a thing.  My point is just that the scheme pool isn't always the only factor when choosing a master and crew.

[enderwiggin]

I think some of the old standbys are also still considered strong (Ramos/Lillith/Criid), but it'd be easier to start arguing tiers and going faction by faction tbh. Across factions, I think it gets much harder. I'll echo that Reva and Sandeep are strong though, I'd add Nellie too though in the new ones as the top three new masters to consider. I'm just more glad I'm not hearing Levi kvetching all day every day now.

 

Support has been coming stronger in the form of models/upgrades for a number of masters though and happily I'm finding a more level playing field to be forming in many cases. I think a meta where you can reasonably use multiple factions to great effect is desirable though, so I'm okay if we all have differing opinions.

[Dereikt]

While she's my favourite master, Kaeris certainly also feels like one of the most limited, while also lacking the concentrated power of the true specialists. Not so much a jack of all trades as an 8 or 9. She also suffers badly from a lack of themed models which actually support her abilities in a useful manner, and a flawed central mechanic that tries to change nearly every aspect of the burning condition.

By contrast, the wave 4 masters seem to have a lot less limitations than their predecessors, not just in flexibility of how many things they can do, but also in how much they can do, with abundant useful (0) actions, and several bonus actions that occur outside the normal pattern of activating and spending AP. Hard to pick a top one due to limited actual experience, but I'd certainly place Asami pretty high.

[katadder]

Kaeris is quite good and I have done well with her. I like gunsmiths to take advantage of the burning she brings, as well as fire gamin plus a beater or 2 (looking at carlos when he releases). just arcanists have so many good masters with maybe only ironsides falling behind the rest.

I think collodi is one of the top masters, he easily gets 4 actions a turn for no real downside and consistently puts out damage with some real nasty control triggers as well.

[TeddyBear]

If we talk only about masters, and what they can do (without its crew) i say Marcus. Marcus is a swiss knife.

 

I don't know about weakest..

[Joel]

On 5/13/2017 at 7:10 AM, Sir Andersen said:

I don't know the game well enough to declare a singular "strongest".

Me neither...and given my history with the game and performance in events I don't think I need to elaborate further.

[yool1981]

Some masters are easier to play than others and/or are more flexible in their choice of strategies & schemes.

However, player level and playstyle preferences is also to be taken into consideration.

I perform with Lilith and Zoraida (pre-Wisps) while I really struggle with Pandora. A lot of people consider Pandora more competitive than Zoraida though.

 

It depends also on the meta and the terrain you play on. A heavy shooting meta will make me tend to think that games with Lilith are easier.

So all in all, it is difficult to judge. A few masters though feel as if they don't have a real purpose/theme/crew synergy or achieve results similar to others masters but in a very complicated way.

In NB, Titania would come to my mind (but it seems some people like her) while in Arcanists Kaeris seems to be far more difficult to play than Sandeep or Collette.

[Four_N_Six]

1 hour ago, TeddyBear said:

If we talk only about masters, and what they can do (without its crew) i say Marcus. Marcus is a swiss knife.

 

I don't know about weakest..

I like the idea of talking only about masters without the crew.  Only issue is then you see masters that are considered on the better side, like Zoraida, and all of a sudden she's one of the weakest without a crew to buff and obey.

 

[Dereikt]

In considering the strength of a master the crew is, quite simply, far too important a factor to just ignore. Some masters are more independent than others, but there are few if any that don't rely on their crew in at least some small way. Marcus, to use the example quoted, needs Beasts to use as ablative armour, lacking any other useful defences. The Viks gain a few extra pushes that help them make sure of getting their blows in first, Rasputina needs minions to ice mirror through, etc. 

It does become a weakness when a master is so focussed on supporting a crew that they lack good actions when seperated from them, if only because it's usually easier to kill the models around a master than it is to kill a master. It's certainly been one of my key difficulties with Kaeris that the situational nature of her support actions often leaves her with no other option but her weak attack actions. Masters which run the other way are somewhat rarer, but there are also situations where it's the wrong circumstances to attack, and it helps to have other useful actions. The scariest masters I've faced would be ones which *always* seemed to have a powerful action or ability in use, whether that was attacking or supporting their crew.

[TeddyBear]

but in this way maybe considering also the crew.. most powerful base crew are those have greater ss costs..like ramos for example (imo)