Maniacal_cackle

McMourning 2 has some good tricks with corpses in general. Same with Reva. So they can do things with zombies. Anna Lovelace (Transmortis/Von Schtook keyword) can make and blow up zombies which can be quite potent (combos well with Reva). Seamus has a neat trick with the Carrion Emissary where the Emissary makes blocking terrain and a zombie, and then he teleports to the terrain and uses the zombie to take an extra shot. I don't think it is his best trick necessarily, but it is pretty cool. Unfortunately, overall the mindless zombie tricks aren't our best things, but there's some fun stuff in there (and ressers are pretty strong so even using the second best stuff is still really good). And of course there's lots of other zombies like flesh constructs, but you seem to already be aware of them. Oh, and Asura Roten is worth a look. Her specialty is mindless zombies and can fit into lots of crews (and can do weird things like score spread them out xD)

Yeah she is very strong this season I think!

Yeah totally agree he shouldn't be nerfed too hard. Always sad when a master gets that (like Som'er... man bayou gets some raw deals 😛 ). I think his attacks aren't quite master level AP without the triggers, but he does have the perk of free AP of movement. So tough call!

Stat 6 is nice and all, but 80% of the models in the game have Stat 5 or less df. I think it is workable if it isn't the only tool for AP. Interesting that you say the crew has enough discard mechanics, but how easy is it to get a Night Terror to discard out of activation? Off the top of my head, mainly just Molly and Noxious. So not many tools to abuse the philip/night terror fading combo.

One issue of course is that hole in the world is so game breakingingly good, that pulled here and there/knock aside sorta ones might see him be pretty mediocre. Which is possibly a fine outcome anyway xD But that's the sort of thing playtesting would fine tune of course.

The opponent can just give you their strategy tokens before killing you.

I'd be careful of prematurely judging things to be broken, just because assessing stuff without actually seeing it on the table is soooooo hard. For instance with the second title we've seen, he can delete any master that wanders near him... But can he force masters to wander near him? Probably not...

I was thinking earlier that typically when playing Yan Lo, it feels like the way to optimize his gameplay is to maximise the number of attacks he takes against enemy models. But his fun card design is based around targeting friendly models. So reworking him to be much more focused on targeting friendlies (even changing the reliquary to Yan Lo only being able to target a friendly rather than only target a model within 3") for example would be huge. And again rework the triggers on his obey because currently it just doesn't line up for friendlies very well other than his minions. Another angle would be to really embrace the minion theme and give him some more triggers relating to minion only, but then nerf other things to compensate.

Noting that Hydranixx has used Nexus 2 to terrorize us xD Have you lost a game with Nexus 2 yet, @hydranixx?

Oh somehow I missed that one. So another time he won against a high ranked player.

A simpler form is tournament winrate data, as you can generally assume that in tournaments these factors are accounted for (people are trying to win so are properly preparing). Except... Tournament data is so small it's really hard to draw conclusions. Even the 10/12 games listed above is such as small number and is one event.

In this case I think he was getting complacent from the raw power. I think if we played the matchup again a few times, he'd start winning it. To me that's what you're trying to reveal - if people know the matchup properly, are predicting things as much as they can, are adapting their lists as much as they can, etc, who wins out? And my suspicion is that it is Nexus, but that's a really hard thing to demonstrate.

Or to put it more succinctly... A few masters in each faction can stand a good chance when both players are teching? Probably strong but balanced. Only 1 or 2 masters per faction can stand a good chance when both players are teching, or the Nexus player isn't teching? Probably too strong. A faction has multiple masters so strong you can only win if you declare the right master? Super broken. Explorer's Society is definitely not in that third category anymore.

Yes and no. If I know in advance that my opponent is a Nexus player and the exact list they're playing, I can beat them with Neverborn potentially. If my opponent had built an anti pandora list with Nexus 2 I think I would have been in trouble, but hard to say for sure. Ressers are a bit easier as we have a horde hard counter (Kirai). It is also a bit easier because ES really only has two game-warpingly strong masters (Nexus and maxine), so if you declare a master that can deal with those two, you can handle the rest (as opposed to ressers who feel like they have several game-warpingly strong masters). Is a master balanced if you can only prepare for it by accurately predicting your opponent will pick it? Maybe. Is a master balanced if you can only prepare for it if you know the exact list your opponent is running? Probably not so much. I do think faction strength should be taken into account. If my opponent declares ES, I have a solid idea of the most dangerous things they might declare. If my opponent declares Ressers or Outcasts, it feels like there are many ways in which they can destroy me. ES has more raw power potentially, but I also believe flexibility is a key consideration. How easy is it for opponents to be prepared? I don't know what the target level of power level is, but for me I feel like cadmus is crossing the line from what I've observed. Only played 3-5 games against though, so grains of salt. You can also argue botanists are what break Nexus, but... I don't want to see another versatile nerfed for them.

I just played a game of Nexus vs Pandora with the five new schemes on guard the stash... They started with 12 models, and I started with 9. He had triple botanists and I had 2 sorrows and a Lyssa. Both felt excellent.. So I think it's true that the *good* crews with really cheap models are happy about this season.

Oh that's my playstyle, and I think M3E generally favours it. Almost all my lists have about 7 models, regardless of master xD Although I just played a Pandora list with 9 hires and 3 summons... I think GG3 will reward bigger crews.

Results so far for the event: Radek loses with Nexus 2 to me (4-3) Nexus 1 beats Molly 1 (5-4) They were worried about lethe's caress Radek wins with Nexus 2 vs Zoraida 1 (7-2) Nexus 2 beats zipp 2 (7-2) Nexus 2 beats misaki (7-6) Nexus 2 beats Euri 1 (5-2) Nexus 2 beats Tara 2 (7-6) Von Schtook beats Nexus2 (6-3)* Both players mid tables Nexus 2 beats dashel1 (8-2) Nexus 2 beats Mccabe 2 (8-4) Nexus 2 beats zoraida 1 (7-5) Radek nexus 2 beats Yan lo 2 (7-1) So that's 12 nexus games in the event so far, and other than the two games listed above, there's 10 games. Some were close enough I assume it could go either way, and many were absolute blowouts. Nexus is also the big threat on the block so people are pretty well prepared for it. Only one event, of course, but I think Longshanks and World Series data reflects similar results.

Stanley Eyes and ears Archivist Creeper Triple botanists Just so many actions to deal with and everything is so tanky. And I didn't even have to worry about the defense trigger! Video will be up soon.

So Radek has been running fixed list Nexus 2 for a couple months I think. He smashed a large tournament in person I believe, and then was rampaging through the world series until I put a stop to him! Here's what I needed to win: I spent a few weeks teching and planning for the matchup. I learned to play pandora 2 specifically for the matchup. I carefully teched my crew against him - incorporeal and stunned just wreck his crew. He didn't tech his crew around mine at all. I was attacker and abused that a bit. He misread schemes so missed an end point he thought he had set up. And so I managed to pull the 4-3 win! So conclusively demonstrated that Nexus 2 is beatable... however, I'm not sure I could have won with any of my usual crews or much else in neverborn. Granted Radek is an exceptional player, but this one has been terrorizing a few metas. My take is that Nexus 2 is overtuned on any pool where AP matters... and that's a lot of pools xD I think for many masters it is just an unwinnable game at times. What are your reckons?

Ooooooo boy, the final round happened today. Was Pandora vs Nexus. So intense. The video sound qualities haven't been fixed yet for which I apologise, but still one of the best videos I've made. Hopefully it'll be uploaded within the next few days

Trail of gore is the most notable thing on their card I reckon. But every time I have them in a list I end up cutting them. Seem like good summons for Zoraida 1 though.

That would be awesome if they didn't have a cross faction title box. Would be nice to move away from that xD

For damaging triggers you're thinking of Leveticus and his abominations. Nekima and her Nephilim have a similar mechanic.

It is the first one. So yes applies to join Us! Each model only has to make one test per action, since you check at the end of the action. This is never clearly defined what 'moved through' is, but most players accept it as any part of your base moving through any part of theirs. This is for all moves except places (walk, push, charge, swirling Spirit's, etc). Places don't work as you start and end in one spot and ignore everything in between. You don't move through anything.