Maniacal_cackle

Well... After seeing Madness in action, there's been a lot of support for Balancefaux in some of the competitive scenes 😂 'Draw 18' Shenlong, 'delete your master' Damian, and 'deal 20 damage' Tiri all seem to be riling some people up xD That said, there's currently a divide between people who would rather just see Madness content banned (which I'm calling "SanityFaux"), and going all the way to the Balancefaux format. So if you see those names floating around, the difference between SanityFaux and Balancefaux is that Balancefaux also bans the Malifaux Burns versatiles.

A card is potentially: A heal A focused attack A focus A card draw Once you get her engine running xD So yeah I think we both mean the same thing - a crew that gets card draw AND other powerful stuff is pushing it, or can do really efficient stuff with that card draw.

A big difference with Tiri is she can do this without interacting with the opponent. Infamous at least is only ever card cycling, and Transmortis... Well, they were nerfed even with having to interact with the opponent I'm not ready to call Tiri OP, but I certainly don't like the trend of adding a ton of card draw on top of a very powerful crew. The entire game is sorta balanced around the idea that card limitation is a factor. Card draw inherently breaks this after a point. Eventually with enough card draw, you're cheating every or most important duels. Then flips are much less relevant to the game. Fun to be the one getting to just always do your thing. Not so fun to be on the receiving end, and a bit miserable when both players are doing it IMO.

Just played a game of Tiri, and we kept being disgusted by the card draw there as well. Uncapped card draw is something they should be super cautious about IMO. I was against Perdita, who had better uncapped card draw... So it really feels like the game is becoming a race of "draw tons or be irrelevant." Which just makes for a miserable game when the flips don't matter because everything important can be cheated.

For the Koji Shenlong combo, worth noting it has a few variants depending on matchup. The simplest version is just "totems run away scheme running with Koji and avoiding the fight" in which case you may 'only' be drawing 4-6 cards a turn. But 8 stones for that many cards is pretty established to be wildly powerful.

Just to build upon this as it isn't immediately obvious: Some markers specifically prevent removal. The most common form of this is strategy markers. Clear the path cant remove a strategy marker as they have a special rule that makes them immune to general marker removal. For any other markers that dont specifically prevent it, Yan Lo choose a path may remove them.

The affected models are the models moving so they each get to be affected once. So I believe all of them can come along for the ride.

Mostly doing this from memory, but your core is three botanists and some models to make web markers so you can grow them. So I think people included nightsilk creeper and archivist. And... That's 34 stones? So basically room for one more model of your choice and maybe some upgrades. Or potentially two cheap models!

Often the existing players move on after a nerf, and often the answer in Malifaux is "try it out and share your results!" That said, I'd try the old Nexus 2 plus botanist build on carve a path and see how that goes.

With McMourning 2, he doesn't have as big of payoffs for poison and has some incidental poisons 2s throughout his gameplan, so often feel like I don't need poison stacking (and if I do, Sebastian as another source of blood poisoning seems so important I'd take him over Rafkin every time). With McMourning 1, the payoffs for stacking poison are bigger, but then sometimes I just wonder if I want to hire his keyword at all. And again, you probably don't need *so* much that the slight efficiency gains of rafkin are worth it. I'd just hire Sebastian again. They have two nearly identical roles, and Sebastian has significantly more upside.

How foolish of me, this is clearly the true list!!!

Occasionally i've wished for a way to make a corpse to enable wyrd combos like Bete Noire as an OOK... But Noxious to enable Bete is not really what I'm looking for xD If he had fly with me AND corpse making it'd be super sweet, and I'd play him in most molly lists (well, maybe... Dead rider and manos would maybe still be better). I suspect the corpse is there for the Nephilim half of his keyword.

Most of this video is not about Balancefaux, but 1/3 of it is so it seemed like a good place to post: I list some positives and negatives about many different formats, and give advice on when I think they are best applied for optimal experience.

My struggle with the Noxious is he is a slow lumbering model (max speed of 10 inches before triggers or assistance), and with df 4 dies very easily. I'd prefer models like Archie, Dead Rider, or Manos for mobility. For slower moving models, Valedictorian, Anna Lovelace, Madame Sybelle, etc are probably more appealing to me. That said, he is one of the only severe six models in faction so plays well with focus. Due to the above I wouldn't rush to buy it, but it is a fun option and if you like playing in keyword it is worth having.

There are 7 masters that start with M in the game, and TWO of them have better poison synergies in their crews than mcmourning 🤣 Somehow theres only three neurotoxin models in the game. One goes with Molly, one goes with Marcus. And the third... is Mr Ngaatoro with an M 🤣 Poor McMourning is the fourth best M at using poison in the game

Risk of reason for card draw I think. Plus a min 3 attack to hit things when they unbury.

Competitively, there seem to be two camps. One goes for stuff that can attack buried stuff with Death Marshal recruiters (potentially comboed with guild mage and domador for a surprisingly durable setup). The other goes for pale rider and 33 and just tries to kidnap things. Personally for a casual list I'd probably take a middle road. I also like Judge with Domador to risk of reason for cards and then heal up if I fail.

Yup, only one of each reliquary since they aren't plentiful (Per side, so your opponent can have one if both playing the model)

@trikk do you know anyone in that area?

Oh as in scenarios designed to get people playing their first games, guidance on how to deal with ES starter and weird core boxes (ES starter plus Nexus core is possibly the most awkward way to start the game ever), etc. The vassal lfg discord is huge: https://discord.gg/pgVV3cny

I think it is super useful if one player knows the rules well, so yeah would recommend some online games. Personally what I have done is run starter leagues. I'm actually writing one that uses the starter boxes that I hope to release next year, although not all factions have starter boxes so that is complicated... But feel free to contact me next year if you need a league pack just tag me on here and I'll post it if it is done by then. But I find it is really cool to get a starter league as you can get 4-10 players diving in at the same time and learning the game together. Each one I've run has had about 10 people.

You get to look on one of the places, and that could be Widow Weavers start of activation place so you can see cards and know if you need to stone or filter a weak etc. For me what I like about Lady Yume is all the little value adds- look at cards on place, unbury an alp and injure someone into made to kill, card draw, etc. I don't know that she is great but I enjoy her. It does feel like models like Candy might be better, although candy's healing doesn't feel as relevant to the crew.

My first advice would be to try out your list! The best way to test a list is to play it. Second advice would be if you're upgrading Archie, try him with Whisper or GST and see which upgrade you like more. Third advice would be if you need another model to try out, maybe give Manos a go. He does a lot to complement Molly's playstyle, although he isn't as good this GG. P.S. Rogue necro is a monster with McMourning 2, so you'll want it on the table eventually even if you don't like it with Molly!

Although if Wyrd came out and said "we have errataed all the Malifaux Burns content we thought needed an errata", I would 100% change my position xD But only hitting ~10 cards feels like the job isn't done.

The goalposts didn't ever really move, since the goal is to make a format that is fun, fair, and balanced competitively. Ideally there'd have been pretty clear errata cycles to align with that since previously it largely worked that way, but for whatever reason we got an errata 1/3 the size of normal. Anyway I hope people give it a go once they've had a chance to play Madness content for a while, as I think the ~640 cards left in the format will offer a pretty sweet experience.