Top 10 masters that somehow slipped throught the beta

[trikk]

So since we kind of restarted M3E and have probably 10-15 games a week we're slowly getting opinions on the state of masters and their power (in our opinion of course) and I'm wondering how does it look in other metas. We didn't play all the masters yet so the list will probably vary.

 

Here is a list of 10 masters that probably should be toned down (and why) (poopstorm imminent)

 

1. Levi (especially in public enemies) - the fact everything in the crew is super durable (Marlena, Ashes, Deso, Levi, Rusty) and deals out significant amounts of passive and active damage, scoring points in Public Enemies is almost impossible if you don't have anti-demise tech.

2. Von Schtook (Undergraduates are so insanely undercosted, VS himself gives an AoE Focus, Anna is 6/6 with Armor, Assistant has a better shockwave than some whole factions, the card draw and By Your Side is absurd)

3. Ironsides (She is very specific and can't play all scenarios, but 14 Wds, built in reduction, built in defensive trigger, potential 4 actions, 2 built in triggers, Fitzsimmons aura, Captain aura means the crew has so many reductions that's she is no fun to play against if you don't spam irreducable damage)

4. Sandeep: Kandara drawing around 10 cards in the first turn is a joke and creating Focus +8 Golems seems like a bad turn with the Replace Mechanic (same with Rat Kings). He's also a master with a stat 7 summon, an obey, a decent ranged attack.

5. Kirai: my biggest issue with Kirai is that summoned Ikiryo is not slowed, doesn't have a summoning upgrade and you can summon her as an extra on the turn. Combine that with Stat 7 and Whisper and all the passive vengeance damage and it's slowly obnoxious.

6. Somer: So Somer himself would be decent if Lenny wouldn't be so stuck with buffs while still being a tanky henchman with min 3. The amount of buffs this crew gets is insane. We're still exploring him, so it might change a bit.

7. Ophelia: Flinch + bigger they are makes this crew way too tanky for it's cost and unless you're playing gremlins they hit like trucks while being tanky with no investment.

8. Hoffman in Guild: LLC + Phiona in Hoffs crew combined with Welding Torch allows you to counter aggression so hard a lot of crews spend a turn trying to kill phiona and after that she get's full healed with basically no flips. 

9. Hamelin?: Focus 7 rat kings for little expense and a cheap keyword can really be obnoxious

10. McCabe: a pretty tanky support master with a great ranged attack, great melee attack in a faction with very good versatiles?

 

Honorable mentions that can end up on the list once we get more playthroughts:
Colette, Yan Lo, Dreamer

Overall I think most of the pure-damage masters fall short this edition. The difference between a shooter/beater and a support/summoner master is not enought to justify loosing all the support/control pieces. They can have their better matchups and can win games, but most of the time the extra 1 min damage is not worth all the summon/control/support power you lose. 

[Filox]

I can agree that Phiona with LLC is a good model (especially in Hoff who heals her for free and can make her armor irreducible). Though we must remember that this is a Crew with no real defensive mechanics outside armor and none card draw. But If we truly wanted to fix Phiona in Hoff, we might kill Phiona in Nellie, so the changes must be applied to Hoff directly. The quick fix would be the change of a trigger on Wielding Torch to non-living. Then Phiona would not get heal for 3 and irreducible armor. OR just add TN to this action.

[ShinChan]

21 minutes ago, trikk said:

So since we kind of restarted M3E and have probably 10-15 games a week we're slowly getting opinions on the state of masters and their power (in our opinion of course) and I'm wondering how does it look in other metas. We didn't play all the masters yet so the list will probably vary.

 

Here is a list of 10 masters that probably should be toned down (and why) (poopstorm imminent)

 

1. Levi (especially in public enemies) - the fact everything in the crew is super durable (Marlena, Ashes, Deso, Levi, Rusty) and deals out significant amounts of passive and active damage, scoring points in Public Enemies is almost impossible if you don't have anti-demise tech.

2. Von Schtook (Undergraduates are so insanely undercosted, VS himself gives an AoE Focus, Anna is 6/6 with Armor, Assistant has a better shockwave than some whole factions, the card draw and By Your Side is absurd)

3. Ironsides (She is very specific and can't play all scenarios, but 14 Wds, built in reduction, built in defensive trigger, potential 4 actions, 2 built in triggers, Fitzsimmons aura, Captain aura means the crew has so many reductions that's she is no fun to play against if you don't spam irreducable damage)

4. Sandeep: Kandara drawing around 10 cards in the first turn is a joke and creating Focus +8 Golems seems like a bad turn with the Replace Mechanic (same with Rat Kings). He's also a master with a stat 7 summon, an obey, a decent ranged attack.

5. Kirai: my biggest issue with Kirai is that summoned Ikiryo is not slowed, doesn't have a summoning upgrade and you can summon her as an extra on the turn. Combine that with Stat 7 and Whisper and all the passive vengeance damage and it's slowly obnoxious.

6. Somer: So Somer himself would be decent if Lenny wouldn't be so stuck with buffs while still being a tanky henchman with min 3. The amount of buffs this crew gets is insane. We're still exploring him, so it might change a bit.

7. Ophelia: Flinch + bigger they are makes this crew way too tanky for it's cost and unless you're playing gremlins they hit like trucks while being tanky with no investment.

8. Hoffman in Guild: LLC + Phiona in Hoffs crew combined with Welding Torch allows you to counter aggression so hard a lot of crews spend a turn trying to kill phiona and after that she get's full healed with basically no flips. 

9. Hamelin?: Focus 7 rat kings for little expense and a cheap keyword can really be obnoxious

10. McCabe: a pretty tanky support master with a great ranged attack, great melee attack in a faction with very good versatiles?

 

Honorable mentions that can end up on the list once we get more playthroughts:
Colette, Yan Lo, Dreamer

Overall I think most of the pure-damage masters fall short this edition. The difference between a shooter/beater and a support/summoner master is not enought to justify loosing all the support/control pieces. They can have their better matchups and can win games, but most of the time the extra 1 min damage is not worth all the summon/control/support power you lose. 

1. Levi is pretty easy to counter, but you need anti-demise,  anti-healing or give stunned. He looked strong at the beginning of M3E while everyone was still adapting to the changes. After all, himself is a Stat 5 model in CC, which is easy to beat. Also just bring HtK models or models that can give Slow and models with 2" Obviously he's still a great pick in Public Enemies, but that's all. Actually we found that all the keyword is pretty straightforward, without movement/scheming tricks, very plain models without any interesting triggers/actions and very vulnerable to conditions (like most Outcast), so they're really underperforming in anything that is not killing.
2. I agree with the Assistant part, those shockwaves are awesome for the model's cost. Anna cost 10ss, so it's fair that she's that tanky (she can easily be taken down if needed tho). The keyword is pretty strong, but not even close to be impossible to deal with. I have nothing against focus pulses, as long as they're limited, and Schtook's one is limited to Transmortis models and once per turn.
3. I don't have an informed opinion about Ironsides
4. Sandeep is great and has a lot of card draw, but he needs to stay in the bubble or the card draw goes down quite fast. The replace rules for the focus stacking were a huge boost to the killing capabilities of those Fire Golems, but as simple to deal with as bringing some condition removal (actually my last game against Sandeep, the Fire Golem didn't kill anyone, spend the whole game pushing him with Gluttony to eat his own Pyre Markers and my Pit Traps).
5. Ikiryo summoning is just nuts. Between all the movement tricks and the possibility of giving her fast, it's just a cruise missile every turn. Reminds me to Lord Chompy in M2E. Other than that, the keyword is not that impressive (although quite good depending on the terrain and specially against bubbled crews).
6. I don't think that Som'er is that good. He has really good match-ups and others that are quite bad. Any crew that benefits from killing small models is going to do great against him. Another crew that also suffers a lot from anti-demise tech.
7. Ophelia's are not that resilient, with the exception of herself and François. And the crew has no healing, so just kill the Bokor first
8. Phiona with LLC is supergood in any crew, not only in Hoffmans. Add a lawyer to the mix to give her shielded +2 and she's almost immortal. I think the real problem is the LLC, that it shouldn't be able to be equipped to constructs (which I guess it was what they tried to do limiting it to "Living or Undead").
9. Hamelin a problem? It's a bubble that can't do much when they need to run to places. Also Rat Kings with Focus +7 die without much trouble against any beater (and they have range 0" ). Again, anti-demise tech really mess up with the crew, the same goes for pulses and blasts.
10. McCabe: He feels strong, but I don't play him and haven't faced him as much to have a really informed opinion.

 

In your list, I would add Yan Lo, Dreamer, Zoraida, Dashel... Other masters can be quite strong, like Colette or Shenlong, but only when played mostly OOK, so it's not realistic to say their keywords "over the top", it's most an individual problem of the master itself or the combination of OOK/Versatile picks, and the same could be applied for McCabe.

Most of the masters you mention, are not even in the top of the VWC (the biggest tournament for which data was collected in 2020): 

 

So far, it's been 1 year of M3E, and I strongly believe that the new Explorer's Society is going to shake up the meta quite a bit. In addition, we'll most likely see a new FAQ/Errata next year and maybe even a GG2, which would definitely swift the balance of power.

[Jesy Blue]

I only play one of these and don't even use the 7 Focus Rat King.... I'm officially not a cheeseball!

[trikk]

2 hours ago, ShinChan said:

1. Levi is pretty easy to counter, but you need anti-demise,  anti-healing or give stunned. He looked strong at the beginning of M3E while everyone was still adapting to the changes. After all, himself is a Stat 5 model in CC, which is easy to beat. Also just bring HtK models or models that can give Slow and models with 2" Obviously he's still a great pick in Public Enemies, but that's all. Actually we found that all the keyword is pretty straightforward, without movement/scheming tricks, very plain models without any interesting triggers/actions and very vulnerable to conditions (like most Outcast), so they're really underperforming in anything that is not killing.

Currently 2 factions have anti-demise tech. Anti healing is also not very popular (RR have some and?) Levi ignores HtK and has so much ping damage that I don't really think HtK is the answer. Levi will not win with a high diff but he will mostly likely win because the amount of damage those models give out is insane. 

As for blocking Healing: You have 3 factions (Jorogumo with Mark of Vengeance in TT, Aboms/Marlena/Ashen Core in Levi and Goryo/Onyro/Emissar in RR)

 

2 hours ago, ShinChan said:

1. I agree with the Assistant part, those shockwaves are awesome for the model's cost. Anna cost 10ss, so it's fair that she's that tanky (she can easily be taken down if needed tho). The keyword is pretty strong, but not even close to be impossible to deal with. I have nothing against focus pulses, as long as they're limited, and Schtook's one is limited to Transmortis models and once per turn.

Undegraduates and Studied opponent are probably the biggest issues in the crew. By Your Side is a stupid ability which could work in a crew with no card draw. By Your Side combined with AoE focus and Made to Kill is insanely undercosted. I believe if you draw <5 cards a turn with Transmortis you're doing something wrong.

2 hours ago, ShinChan said:

1. I don't think that Som'er is that good. He has really good match-ups and others that are quite bad. Any crew that benefits from killing small models is going to do great against him. Another crew that also suffers a lot from anti-demise tech.
2. Ophelia's are not that resilient, with the exception of herself and François. And the crew has no healing, so just kill the Bokor first

Raphael is 6/5 with HtK and Flinch. Francois is 6/6 with flnch and HtK and possible positives. Ophelia is 6/6 with Flinch and upgrades.

 

2 hours ago, ShinChan said:

1. Phiona with LLC is supergood in any crew, not only in Hoffmans. Add a lawyer to the mix to give her shielded +2 and she's almost immortal. I think the real problem is the LLC, that it shouldn't be able to be equipped to constructs (which I guess it was what they tried to do limiting it to "Living or Undead").

LLC is the only thing keeping Guild relevant IMHO. if you take it away from Phiona then Hofman in Guild becomes basically useless and most of the crews will melt instantly

 

2 hours ago, ShinChan said:

1. Hamelin a problem? It's a bubble that can't do much when they need to run to places. Also Rat Kings with Focus +7 die without much trouble against any beater (and they have range 0" ). Again, anti-demise tech really mess up with the crew, the same goes for pulses and blasts.

    

The amount of time spent to kill a rat king is not equivalent to the time requierd to create it. It will most likely charge and can kill a decent enforcer. The crew is also low-cost so it can add Mad Dog, Prospectors and probably another beater.

 

2 hours ago, ShinChan said:

In your list, I would add Yan Lo, Dreamer, Zoraida, Dashel... Other masters can be quite strong, like Colette or Shenlong, but only when played mostly OOK, so it's not realistic to say their keywords "over the top", it's most an individual problem of the master itself or the combination of OOK/Versatile picks, and the same could be applied for McCabe.

Most of the masters you mention, are not even in the top of the VWC (the biggest tournament for which data was collected in 2020): 

 

So far, it's been 1 year of M3E, and I strongly believe that the new Explorer's Society is going to shake up the meta quite a bit. In addition, we'll most likely see a new FAQ/Errata next year and maybe even a GG2, which would definitely swift the balance of power.

I don't have enough gametime with things like Dreamer, Yan Lo, Colette and Shenlong. I think Zoraida is strong but if you play her solo she's managable and I think Dashel is good but I don`t think he's better than the top 10 mentioned here.

 

As for M3E. I totally agree. GG2 and FAQ/Errata can shake things up and they probably will shift the power. I just wanted to know if those are our impressions or a general opinion

[touchdown]

15 minutes ago, trikk said:

Currently 2 factions have anti-demise tech. Anti healing is also not very popular (RR have some and?) Levi ignores HtK and has so much ping damage that I don't really think HtK is the answer. Levi will not win with a high diff but he will mostly likely win because the amount of damage those models give out is insane.

In melee, Levi can just leave you on 1 health, let you die from entropy and heal 1 for the privilege.

[trikk]

10 minutes ago, touchdown said:

In melee, Levi can just leave you on 1 health, let you die from entropy and heal 1 for the privilege.

Yes. And if he has HtK, it's super hard to kill him within 8" if he's not stunned

[Maniacal_cackle]

I think a lot of the perspective on this will be influenced by faction.

Ressers have a million tools against Leveticus so he can be countered, but that hardly helps if you're playing a faction with fewer tools.

FWIW, one of the world cup finalists argues Reva is the second best Resser master, not Kirai 😜

[theamazingmrg]

1 hour ago, trikk said:

LLC is the only thing keeping Guild relevant IMHO. if you take it away from Phiona then Hofman in Guild becomes basically useless and most of the crews will melt instantly

Now I'm the first person to admit that I'm not a good player but I've played several games with Guild Hoffman where I stayed entirely in Keyword and I have to agree with this, even though I haven't actually tried Phiona (next game I think I need to!)

 

Despite the Armor, most Augmented are low health and have no other defensive tech.  They die far too easily in my experience!  It's better in Arcanist where you have the Soulstoen Miner and the Upgrades so you can keep key models alive with SS reduction, but for Guild...  Yeah, nerfing Phiona will hurt.

[ShinChan]

1 hour ago, trikk said:

Currently 2 factions have anti-demise tech. Anti healing is also not very popular (RR have some and?) Levi ignores HtK and has so much ping damage that I don't really think HtK is the answer. Levi will not win with a high diff but he will mostly likely win because the amount of damage those models give out is insane. 

As for blocking Healing: You have 3 factions (Jorogumo with Mark of Vengeance in TT, Aboms/Marlena/Ashen Core in Levi and Goryo/Onyro/Emissar in RR)

Also Sloth, and those are just some of the ways to deal with him. In our meta (and for what I've played in Vassal), he's not an issue at all. 

1 hour ago, trikk said:

Undegraduates and Studied opponent are probably the biggest issues in the crew. By Your Side is a stupid ability which could work in a crew with no card draw. By Your Side combined with AoE focus and Made to Kill is insanely undercosted. I believe if you draw <5 cards a turn with Transmortis you're doing something wrong.

Then don't bring Anna too!  I think they could lose that Made to Kill and still be decent minions. For me, that's mostly anectdotic , since I use them as scheme runners in turn 3 onward and as pushing machines before that.

1 hour ago, trikk said:

Raphael is 6/5 with HtK and Flinch. Francois is 6/6 with flnch and HtK and possible positives. Ophelia is 6/6 with Flinch and upgrades.

And still, they die. Also, against practically a whole faction they're 5/4, 5/5 and 5/5, so I really don't see a problem with them.

1 hour ago, trikk said:

LLC is the only thing keeping Guild relevant IMHO. if you take it away from Phiona then Hofman in Guild becomes basically useless and most of the crews will melt instantly

Then I don't understand your point. Hoffman appears to be too OP while adding Phiona with LLC, but I think it actually doesn't matter if it's Hoffman or other one, since the real problem is a model with Take the Hit, Armor +2 and Df 6 that can use SS and can't be moved. I wouldn't like to nerf Phiona since that could impact Journalists. Same for LLC, I don't think it should be nerfed, but I believe that it says "(Living or Undead)" for a reason. Although if you believe that the problem is the combination Phiona + Hoffman, the solution proposed by  @Filox sounds great.

1 hour ago, trikk said:

The amount of time spent to kill a rat king is not equivalent to the time requierd to create it. It will most likely charge and can kill a decent enforcer. The crew is also low-cost so it can add Mad Dog, Prospectors and probably another beater.

Well, to generate a Rat king you need at least 4 rats, which in early game means 4 scheme markers within 4" of Benny. That's a big investment. If it happens later than turn 2, the value you could get from the Rat King starts to decrease (a Rat King in turn 4 is situationally useful, a Rat King in turn 5 is probably a waste unless you don't have anything better to do).

Df5 and 7Wds has never been a problem for me to deal with. Actually I almost never play Draugrs because they're too squishy for the cost (same as a Rat King) and they have HtW and Juggernaut.

1 hour ago, trikk said:

I don't have enough gametime with things like Dreamer, Yan Lo, Colette and Shenlong. I think Zoraida is strong but if you play her solo she's managable and I think Dashel is good but I don`t think he's better than the top 10 mentioned here.

 

As for M3E. I totally agree. GG2 and FAQ/Errata can shake things up and they probably will shift the power. I just wanted to know if those are our impressions or a general opinion

And it's a nice thread! I was actually quite surprise by most of your list, both based on my personal experience and in the numbers from the Vassal World Cup.

 

46 minutes ago, Maniacal_cackle said:

I think a lot of the perspective on this will be influenced by faction.

Ressers have a million tools against Leveticus so he can be countered, but that hardly helps if you're playing a faction with fewer tools.

FWIW, one of the world cup finalists argues Reva is the second best Resser master, not Kirai 😜

If you're talking about the person that was in the last TFW podcast, they're talking about a Vassal league that took place at the beginning of the year, not the Vassal World Cup. I don't think that Reva is weak (after the errata), but the keyword is definitely subpar (and if I recall correctly, he says the same).

[Ogid]

41 minutes ago, ShinChan said:

Then I don't understand your point. Hoffman appears to be too OP while adding Phiona with LLC, but I think it actually doesn't matter if it's Hoffman or other one, since the real problem is a model with Take the Hit, Armor +2 and Df 6 that can use SS and can't be moved. I wouldn't like to nerf Phiona since that could impact Journalists. Same for LLC, I don't think it should be nerfed, but I believe that it says "(Living or Undead)" for a reason. Although if you believe that the problem is the combination Phiona + Hoffman, the solution proposed by  @Filox sounds great.

I'd wait until tweaking her or GUI hoffman tbh... ARC has all the good stuff for hoffman, nerfing one of the few good synergies for GUI feels wrong; explorers are coming with that Phiona 2.0 Emissary they got (on top of whatever defensive upgrade that faction get to boost it); and Phiona is one of the key models of a faction that AFAIK is not one of the top dogs in competitive. That combo is good, but they need it.

[Saduhem]

41 minutes ago, Ogid said:

I'd wait until tweaking her or GUI hoffman tbh... ARC has all the good stuff for hoffman, nerfing one of the few good synergies for GUI feels wrong; explorers are coming with that Phiona 2.0 Emissary they got (on top of whatever defensive upgrade that faction get to boost it); and Phiona is one of the key models of a faction that AFAIK is not one of the top dogs in competitive. That combo is good, but they need it.

I'm not entirely sure about this whole Guild thing. Dashel, Hoffman, Lucius, and Nellie (In that order) are really good. Haven't most (or all) of these been played in the Vassal World Cup too? Not every faction can claim such representation.

[Maniacal_cackle]

Once again the Russian players have some great advice on the subject of Guild, but unfortunately the screenshots have been lost to the forum cleanup. Anyone got the screenshots from this thread?

From memory they basically said what Saduhem said, that those four masters are awesome.

 

[Jesy Blue]

1 hour ago, ShinChan said:

Well, to generate a Rat king you need at least 4 rats, which in early game means 4 scheme markers within 4" of Benny. That's a big investment. If it happens later than turn 2, the value you could get from the Rat King starts to decrease (a Rat King in turn 4 is situationally useful, a Rat King in turn 5 is probably a waste unless you don't have anything better to do).

You are aware you can hire Malifaux Rats, and on turn 1, first activation, first action, use Hamelin to Unclean Influence, which gives each Rat a Focus, and each Rat gets a free action, which 3 of them use to concentrate and 1 of them use to become a Rat King. 

Also, with correct positioning, you can use this 1 action to get two 7 Focused Rat Kings at once, who still have yet to activate this turn, and got a free 3" push.  Technically you can get more focus; 7 is the minimum, 23 in the maximum, 11 each is the maximum for both Rat Kings balanced.

[Maniacal_cackle]

8 minutes ago, Jesy Blue said:

You are aware you can hire Malifaux Rats, and on turn 1, first activation, first action, use Hamelin to Unclean Influence, which gives each Rat a Focus, and each Rat gets a free action, which 3 of them use to concentrate and 1 of them use to become a Rat King. 

Also, with correct positioning, you can use this 1 action to get two 7 Focused Rat Kings at once, who still have yet to activate this turn, and got a free 3" push.  Technically you can get more focus; 7 is the minimum, 23 in the maximum, 11 each is the maximum for both Rat Kings balanced.

Since focus can be removed, I'd still rate that below a model like Hinamatsu or Bete Noire with built in positive flips.

Although I have hard to wound across my faction, so I think I often underestimate how strong focus is.

[Jesy Blue]

Of course... Rat Kings are still a 7ss Minion.  Hinamatsu is still a 9ss Henchman. 

But Outcats can't hire Hinamatsu, so we make due.

[Math Mathonwy]

I love lists like these so I'll throw in one! My list of Masters that seem a bit over the top, in no particular order:

• Von Schtook - absolutely crazy maneuverability coupled with durability makes a VS crew incredibly difficult to stop in the correct Scheme pool while pulsed Focus gives them high threat and Summons keep the attrition going.
• Kirai - A superb Summoner with an extra powerful summon that just puts the opponent into a no-win situation. Also, mass Incorporeal can win some games based on the terrain alone, basically.
• Sandeep - A superb Summoner with an ultra powerful "totem" for free.
• Colette - Massively versatile and almost unkillable she has a very high skill cap.
• McCabe - one of the toughest, killiest, and fastest Masters but also buffs his crew amazingly well. Usually does more damage than Nekima while being better in all other aspects as well, to pick an example of a high-damage Master. Also has access to the crazy TT versatiles.
• Asami - the limiting factor of Flicker mechanic is more of a strength than a weakness. An absolutely superb summoner with access to the crazy TT versatiles.
• Misaki - almost unkillable when played well and removes models that she wants (nearly). The biggest thing is that her mobility being limited by the Shadow Markers doesn't really limit her mobility. Also has access to the crazy TT versatiles.
• Dreamer - A superb Summoner with an ultra powerful "totem" for free.

Then there's Levi and Ironsides who are bit more situational (I could see any of the above Masters winning a tournament even when played solo) but also probably overtuned in specific scenarios. Oh, and Jack Daw who is maybe the most polarizing Master in the game so probably could do with a tweaking even though his power level isn't necessarily over the top, an sich.

[Ogid]

11 hours ago, Saduhem said:

I'm not entirely sure about this whole Guild thing. Dashel, Hoffman, Lucius, and Nellie (In that order) are really good. Haven't most (or all) of these been played in the Vassal World Cup too? Not every faction can claim such representation.

I try not to jump in the GUI is poop meme bandwagon, not sure if I sounded like that XD. There are players like Legislat doing well in competitive and there are very good things in that faction; but GUI is not topping the charts right not. My point was more in that direction, competitive players use Phiona+LLC a LOT; weakening one of their best competitive combos doesn't feel right when the faction isn't overperforming unless it comes with significative buffs elsewhere; and specially when they got two of their powerhouses already tweaked (one of them outright nerfed) in GG1. If it's good or bad that a faction rely too much in a few models is a different topic...

The master representation isn't that strong tho, for example in that same tournament all NVB masters but NVB Marcus and Eurpides saw play. The success and how much each one of those masters were played is another history tho: Titania and Nekima were played 4 and 1 times respectively and endend with WR between 0% and 25%; NVB Lucius was only played twice, winning one of those games (50% WR). Dreamer was the most played master (12 games) ending with a 50% WR; Zoraida was played a bit less than dreamer (10 games) but ended with a better WR of 60%. Then Pandora, who only was played once, but she won that one game (100% WR). Not sure if I mised any NVB game tho.

[trikk]

On 9/26/2020 at 11:53 AM, Ogid said:

I try not to jump in the GUI is poop meme bandwagon, not sure if I sounded like that XD. There are players like Legislat doing well in competitive and there are very good things in that faction; but GUI is not topping the charts right not. My point was more in that direction, competitive players use Phiona+LLC a LOT; weakening one of their best competitive combos doesn't feel right when the faction isn't overperforming unless it comes with significative buffs elsewhere; and specially when they got two of their powerhouses already tweaked (one of them outright nerfed) in GG1. If it's good or bad that a faction rely too much in a few models is a different topic...

The master representation isn't that strong tho, for example in that same tournament all NVB masters but NVB Marcus and Eurpides saw play. The success and how much each one of those masters were played is another history tho: Titania and Nekima were played 4 and 1 times respectively and endend with WR between 0% and 25%; NVB Lucius was only played twice, winning one of those games (50% WR). Dreamer was the most played master (12 games) ending with a 50% WR; Zoraida was played a bit less than dreamer (10 games) but ended with a better WR of 60%. Then Pandora, who only was played once, but she won that one game (100% WR). Not sure if I mised any NVB game tho.

We're making some local polish stats. We'll see WR of masters for players that end up in top half of tournament finishers

[Mycellanious]

For me, Yan Lo just seems insane. The two masters I havent beaten in M3E yet are Dreamer and Yan Lo, and I just kind of dont understand how you are supposed to play against them. They are both Keywords that scale very strongly into turns 4 and 5, but at the same time are very strong in the first few turns of the game. I think I've been tabled in every game against them except 1, and 1 where my opponent took Hold Up Their Forces so he kept 2 models alive for points. In my opinion, the late Beta change to the Chiyaki broke the crew a little bit. I get that it was nerfed a little after GG1, but still the tremendous safety and buffs her Flute gives out, which were originally only intended to be given out on model death, dramatically changes the play style of the keyword. Yan Lo was originally supposed to keep small models near large models to catch their Reliquaries if they die, so as an opponent you should try to focus down the minions first. However, now Chiyaki can just throw the Upgrade on a Gokudo for a 4 first activation turn 1, keep that Gokudo safe in her deployment zone, suicide charge her Enforcer (usually Izamu) in for no risk, then Yan Lo can just bring him back AND teleport that Gokudo to the other side of the map. An opponent has almost nothing they can do about that, since not even Anti-demise tech would stop that. Furthermore, Yan Lo's stats aren't really as bad as they seem, and he scales insanely quickly. I think the intention was for the Player to choose an upgrade based on the currently game stat, but the problem is that some of them are just so crazy good they are always taken turn 1 and turn 2. I've have almost exclusively seen the Incorporeal upgrade attached Turn 1, and the Hazardous-Concealing Aura attached Turn 2. So you are supposed to try and attack Yan Lo early while his stats are low, however getting past Incorporeal and stones is not easy, assuming you could even reach him turn 1. Turn 2 he's now very difficult to shoot, and if you try to punish him for his low stats you end up taking a lot of damage, while most of your damage is mitigated. Then when he activates Turn 3 his stat's are now above average. And this is assuming the rest of Yan Lo's crew is AFK or something, because he was Extended Reach, TWO minions with Take the Hit, and the best healer in the game at his disposal. He's a mega model late (which is totally fine and cool) but he's also amazing at absorbing early aggression. There just doesn't seem to be a very viable path to beat him, because his crew is also very fast so you cant just out maneuver him. I think it's also very telling that according to that Vassal Cup statistics Yan Lo was played 8 times with a 63% win rate (he was the 6th most played Master). This makes him the 2nd best performing master at the Cup, just slightly behind Colette. 

[Thatguy]

I'm surprised Somer made the list. I really like him, but he's got a lot of bad match ups. 

Anything with blasts, pulses or shockwaves. 

Anything that has the mobility to get passed blocking models to take out your force multipliers. 

Anyone who likes corpses. 

Anyone who gets bonuses for killing cheap models like Arcanists' Soulstone Cache, Bounty Hunter, Into the Fray etc. 

On 9/27/2020 at 7:19 AM, Mycellanious said:

For me, Yan Lo just seems insane

I think many don't think he's insane because he isn't a powerhouse until turn 4 and 5. And by that time a it's possible that most of the points in the game have been scored. 

[Rufess]

Somer's attrition game and resource recycling might feels unbeatable in the right pool and match-up, but he is far from the best-tier. To me a best-tier master should have proper tools for all strategies and most schemes, and has good chance against most crews other than maybe a handful of exceptions.

Somer and Big Hat struggle with Symbols and any scheme that requires them to spread out or to travel a long distance. They also have tough counters among all factions. Plus the difficulty(fault tolerance) and the time limit in tournament, I would rank Mah higher than Somer within the faction, though he is close enough. I would put him in between the 1st and 2nd tiers.