Marcus can self-Detonate Ramos !?

[r4st4f4n]

Ramos' Uncontrolled Detonation is a Tactical Action, and not an Attack Action, as it could reasonably be (it can target only friendly Constructs, so you could easily choose to auto-fail resist, or cheat it down).
This allows Uncontrolled Detonation to target Ramos himself, being a "friendly Construct".
While I see this well-fitting the character of the doctor (a gleam in his eye, before he plays his very last card), if it is Marcus the one taking the Action during an Alpha to Ramos, I think this is by far the worst interaction with Marcus' Alpha

[PolishSausage]

noooo, the worse is when he blows up howard, mechanical rider and them himself! funzies for days

[rb_man]

You can do this with any obey too so Perdita can do this too. 

[brdparker]

Yep, that's a pretty brutal one. Ramos players... watch out for it and get your Counterspell at the ready. The counter would probably be to keep Ramos the frick away from Marcus, block LOS, and try to kill/paralyze Marcus before he can do that. Alpha uses 2 actions, so Slow is good to use unless he's already in Alphaing distance.

 

For the record, that's one of those interactions I feel dirty pulling off, but yes it's completely legal..

[Malal]

you can't obey a master

[Hateful Darkblack]

Obey does not work on leader models.

[rb_man]

you can't obey a master

 

Obey does not work on leader models.

I need to checking my wording more before I say stuff. My bad.

[hypoking]

Sybelle also says hello.

[Fetid Strumpet]

If she takes that upgrade.

[Omenbringer]

For the record, Marcus has been able to do these types of things since last edition.

[The Godlyness]

Yet no one played him since her was quite terrabad

[dgraz]

Yet no one played him since her was quite terrabad

I always played him. He actually had quite a following

[joediamond]

-Counterspell will make this much more difficult to do, as you will need three suits as opposed to one.

 

-Howl will increase Ramos' Wp to a 8 when he becomes a Beast.

 

-Domesticate's debuff can be cancelled out using soulstones.  Also, if you use Domesticate to soften Ramos up for Alpha, you then need to focus or spend soulstones to cancel out the   on his casting attempts for Uncontrolled Detonation.

 

-Uncontrolled detonation requires a tome.  If Ramos has Counterspell in addition to this, that's even MORE suits that you need to flip/stone for.  What's worse is most of them are Tomes, so this is very taxing on a single suit in your deck.

 

Honestly, though, Brdparker's advice is much better.  Keep Marcus from being able to execute this at all instead of simply making it more costly/risky to do so.

[zFiend]

Howl is a pulse not an aura, so if you do that before Ramos has the Beast characteristics his WP won't go up to 8.

[joediamond]

Howl is a pulse that applies a Condition until the end of the turn.  The Condition modifies Wp based on whether the target is a Beast or not.

 

If Howl directly modified Wp, or applied a "beast +2WP" Condition and a "non-beast -2WP" Condition, then I'd totally agree.

[Bengt]

-Uncontrolled detonation requires a tome.  If Ramos has Counterspell in addition to this, that's even MORE suits that you need to flip/stone for.  What's worse is most of them are Tomes, so this is very taxing on a single suit in your deck.

 

Uncontrolled detonation is not an "enemy Ca action" so Counterspell doesn't do anything.

[zFiend]

I could very well be wrong. Since I have just started reading into Marcus, I need to read the cards again.

Uncontrolled detonation is not an "enemy Ca action" so Counterspell doesn't do anything.

I guess he referred to Alpha.

[joediamond]

Uncontrolled detonation is not an "enemy Ca action" so Counterspell doesn't do anything.

 

I meant the spell requires 16    , so you need an extra tome from somewhere to cast it with your Alpha Ramos.  What I meant was if they have counterspell, you need to provide a bunch of extra suits...

• A   for the Counterspelled Feral
• A     for the Counterspelled Alpha
• A   to meet the TN of Uncontrolled Detonation

Sorry I was unclear about that.

[dgraz]

Joediamond has it exactly right with all of those things. The other downside is that if you use Domesticate on Ramos then he will be at a   when he casts Counterspell. 

 

I'd personally just wait until I have two 13's (you can use 12's if you know the RJ is out) in hand, if Ramos has Counterspell, then one of those needs to be a  or a  .....(this is such a devastating attack that it will be totally worth it to SS for cards every turn to try to get those cards)......then you SS for the other suit you need and push it through without Howl or Domesticate.

 

If you see Ramos across the table, it's totally worth doing everything in your power to make this happen....even if that means not cheating for a couple turns because you happened to pull an 8+  or two....hang on to those.

 

It's certainly possible to do this without being so secure depending on how late in the turn you are and what kind of hand Ramos has but it's very resource intensive to be totally certain it's going to happen. But, even a middling Marcus player could do it........a Marcus pro will almost certainly get it. I personally would only even think about it in a serious tournament situation and even then I probably wouldn't....it's just too dirty.

[Omenbringer]

Yet no one played him since her was quite terrabad

 

I seem to recall an old saying last edition that "Marcus was horrible at everything but actually winning the game". I know we had a player from out of state play him in a tournament and do quite well despite Marcus being "Terrabad".

 

Of course Marcus was in good company with the complaints of being absolutely suckish, at least until some one actually learned to play them. My favorite was Som'er and the gremlins being called horrible until very near the end of 1st edition, when he became "uber broken".

 

Malifaux takes a while for most people to understand that straight killing power is not usually the deciding factor in games.

[Math Mathonwy]

I seem to recall an old saying last edition that "Marcus was horrible at everything but actually winning the game". I know we had a player from out of state play him in a tournament and do quite well despite Marcus being "Terrabad".

 

Of course Marcus was in good company with the complaints of being absolutely suckish, at least until some one actually learned to play them. My favorite was Som'er and the gremlins being called horrible until very near the end of 1st edition, when he became "uber broken".

 

Malifaux takes a while for most people to understand that straight killing power is not usually the deciding factor in games.

The problem with Marcus was that if you tried to play him like you "should" taking beasts and playing to theme, then he sucked. But if you took a list of generic, competent Arcanists and just used Marcus as a fast solo, he worked wonderfully being rather killy and really fast. Often Kaeris (a Henchman then) would be real star of the show with Marcus being used as an Enforcer, essentially (not that there were Enforcers back then, of course).

As for Somer, I don't actually remember him being considered all that broken. CalmDown and that one other fellow whose name escapes me at the moment got excited about him and theorized that Somer would be superb but I don't think it was actually realized. I might remember wrong, though.

[Fetid Strumpet]

Magicpockets.

[Omenbringer]

The problem with Marcus was that if you tried to play him like you "should" taking beasts and playing to theme, then he sucked. But if you took a list of generic, competent Arcanists and just used Marcus as a fast solo, he worked wonderfully being rather killy and really fast. Often Kaeris (a Henchman then) would be real star of the show with Marcus being used as an Enforcer, essentially (not that there were Enforcers back then, of course).

 

I dont entirely agree with that as I have seen Marcus run very well with his beasts many times. Lawyers ramped him up quite a bit but he was effective with out them and when playing to Strats/ Schemes rather than trying to kill everything.

 

 

As for Somer, I don't actually remember him being considered all that broken. CalmDown and that one other fellow whose name escapes me at the moment got excited about him and theorized that Somer would be superb but I don't think it was actually realized. I might remember wrong, though.

 

Som'er has a very long history with allegations of "Brokenness".

 

It started with the "Infinite Red Joker Draw" and even after that "fix" there were plenty of things that could still be exploited if you understood them. The second round of "Broken" cries came about once the "Infinite Skeeter Activation" became common place much to the chagrin of those of us that were working to temper Som'er and his crew. There was a fairly vocal minority that championed Som'er's amazing effectiveness from very near the start but most of the community couldn't see past the comedic nature of the crew.

 

It wasn't until some of his tricks were plainly laid out (Pig Boomerang's, the Truffle Shuffle, Pig Ladders and my personal favorite the Bacon Bombing Assassination Run) and the British communities really started taking him seriously that it gained a lot of traction. For the last few months of 1st edition there were many threads decrying his "brokenness". Granted some of them were due to incorrect interpretations of interactions however the keys to really breaking him was Get Your Bro being used as a card draw mechanic (which still remains), the Rats producing full health Skeeters and extreme out activation. A close fourth though was the "Quality" of players piloting the Hog Boss and his brethren.

 

I know you disagree with me on the effectiveness of Deck Shaping and Deck Cycling but their competitive communities saw it first hand. During the last few months of 1st edition Calmdown, Magicpockets and Spiku all ran him very well and from the posted reports dominated their competitive scenes which featured excellent players. This stirred the last round of "Broken" cries and was more than likely responsible for some of the balances enacted on the M2e Gremlin's.

[Adran]

Cheers for that Omenbringer, I was going to post something similar, btu you've said it better that I could really remember, and the post was worthy of more than just a like

[Math Mathonwy]

I dont entirely agree with that as I have seen Marcus run very well with his beasts many times. Lawyers ramped him up quite a bit but he was effective with out them and when playing to Strats/ Schemes rather than trying to kill everything.

He was better than his reputation but I never really saw him winning anything substantial when ran to theme. I might've missed something, of course.

Som'er has a very long history with allegations of "Brokenness".

 

It started with the "Infinite Red Joker Draw" and even after that "fix" there were plenty of things that could still be exploited if you understood them. The second round of "Broken" cries came about once the "Infinite Skeeter Activation" became common place much to the chagrin of those of us that were working to temper Som'er and his crew. There was a fairly vocal minority that championed Som'er's amazing effectiveness from very near the start but most of the community couldn't see past the comedic nature of the crew.

I didn't include those since they were errataed somewhat early but yeah, true. If the deck only holds a Red Joker (with the rest of the cards in your hand) it makes for quite a silly game.

 

It wasn't until some of his tricks were plainly laid out (Pig Boomerang's, the Truffle Shuffle, Pig Ladders and my personal favorite the Bacon Bombing Assassination Run) and the British communities really started taking him seriously that it gained a lot of traction. For the last few months of 1st edition there were many threads decrying his "brokenness". Granted some of them were due to incorrect interpretations of interactions however the keys to really breaking him was Get Your Bro being used as a card draw mechanic (which still remains), the Rats producing full health Skeeters and extreme out activation. A close fourth though was the "Quality" of players piloting the Hog Boss and his brethren.

I don't remember the many threads that were not based on mistaken ideas on how he worked. That said, for the random observer, I kinda suggest listening to Omenbringer on this rather than me since he was a lot more active on all things Somer back then.

 

I know you disagree with me on the effectiveness of Deck Shaping and Deck Cycling but their competitive communities saw it first hand. During the last few months of 1st edition Calmdown, Magicpockets and Spiku all ran him very well and from the posted reports dominated their competitive scenes which featured excellent players. This stirred the last round of "Broken" cries and was more than likely responsible for some of the balances enacted on the M2e Gremlin's.

I would still like someone to run the numbers (aside from me, that is). My calculations really didn't show anything substantial (or rather, the effect was a +1 or +2 and you hand to work extremely hard to shape your deck to achieve that). It's not a matter of opinion. But it is possible that my calculations were wrong - who knows. I just hope that someone else would do it so we could compare.