Opinion: crews shouldn't consistently be able to summon 10+ stones in a turn.

[Maniacal_cackle]

After a bit of complaining about specific crews, I noticed a common theme.  Crews that can summon 10+ stones of models a turn are bad for the game, in my opinion.

They aren't necessarily always broken (though it seems many are), but they warp the game around themselves so much more than conventional summons (9 stones or less).

For example...

• Molly & Kirai (13-16 stones)
• Dreamer & Zoraida (11-15 stones)
• Yan Lo double Ashigaru (10 stones)
• Cadmus (10-14 stones)
• Etc.

All of these crews just present such an insane summoning engine that you have to answer it. It may take a bit of setup, but often by the end of turn 1 you've basically made your stones back. And often the setup is actually quite small, and a card draw engine sorts out the rest.

Don't get me wrong. I like summoning and think it adds an interesting dimension to play against. But when you hit 10 stones in a turn consistently and efficiently, I think something has gone wrong.

I don't really object to things like Reva + Toshiro + Kirai, since that is a weird amalgation that can't do it consistently.

But the crews/models that seem to have it built in seem like they take more from the game than they give.

Thoughts?

[Mycellanious]

I think crews that focus on heavy summoning typically lack in other areas, most commonly cards. 

I am unfamiliar with double ashigaru, but as far as the other combinations you have named are unique because they are exceptional at card drawing. Perhaps the problem is not "Summoning 10ss a turn" but "summoning 10ss a turn while also having constant card advantage"

[Maniacal_cackle]

5 minutes ago, Mycellanious said:

I think crews that focus on heavy summoning typically lack in other areas, most commonly cards. 

I am unfamiliar with double ashigaru, but as far as the other combinations you have named are unique because they are exceptional at card drawing. Perhaps the problem is not "Summoning 10ss a turn" but "summoning 10ss a turn while also having constant card advantage"

Yeah, I think card draw is an important component (although notably not for Cadmus). But it is hard, because you can't just nerf card draw for a whole faction to avoid strong summons.

I think a good guideline would be targeting the combos that summon 10+ stones when they over perform.

Two of my fixes are:

Ikiryo ignoring once per turn limitation is leader only. So then Kirai can still summon 24 stones, but spread over three turns.

Zoraida hand cycle should be leader only.

Yan Lo - not sure. Chiaki? Toshiro adjustment? Seems inelegant but you could have a "if no friendly Ashigaru were summoned this turn."

Cadmus - opinions pending.

[Mycellanious]

4 minutes ago, Maniacal_cackle said:

Yeah, I think card draw is an important component (although notably not for Cadmus). But it is hard, because you can't just nerf card draw for a whole faction to avoid strong summons.

I think a good guideline would be targeting the combos that summon 10+ stones when they over perform.

Two of my fixes are:

Ikiryo ignoring once per turn limitation is leader only. So then Kirai can still summon 24 stones, but spread over three turns.

Zoraida hand cycle should be leader only.

Yan Lo - not sure. Chiaki? Toshiro adjustment? Seems inelegant but you could have a "if no friendly Ashigaru were summoned this turn."

Cadmus - opinions pending.

could you explain how 2 ashigaru are summoned per turn?

And also I think the better fix for Ikyrio would be "If this model was hired at the start of the game" so it doesnt impact Leader Kirai, and you can still do the summon shenangians if you want, but its a 7ss upgrade

[Maniacal_cackle]

1 minute ago, Mycellanious said:

could you explain how 2 ashigaru are summoned per turn?

You kill Toshiro, then Rebuild Corpus with Yan Lo, I believe. So Toshiro gets two activations, and counts as a separate model, so can do its once per turn summon a second time. Come to think of it, I'm not sure you even need Chiaki to do it. It at least is a bit involved/takes a fair bit of effort from your crew and some specialised models (Anna to blow up Toshiro is the most efficient way to kill him).

3 minutes ago, Mycellanious said:

could you explain how 2 ashigaru are summoned per turn?

And also I think the better fix for Ikyrio would be "If this model was hired at the start of the game" so it doesnt impact Leader Kirai, and you can still do the summon shenangians if you want, but its a 7ss upgrade

I think it'd be 9 stones, but yeah, that's an option too. Would be a bit sad, though, as Ikiryo is really useful tech for Ressers (since it is one of our two sources of irreducible damage, with the other being Molly). So it is really hard work to get irreducible damage for Ressers already!

[ooshawn]

Probably fine if you just focus on scheming, maybe?

[Maniacal_cackle]

6 minutes ago, ooshawn said:

Probably fine if you just focus on scheming, maybe?

For sure that is the best thing to do against summoning in general. I'm not sure it applies as well against these 'super summoners', though, since they drown you in AP advantage so quickly (and all four of the crews I listed actually have amazing schemers and/or denial pieces as well xD).

To clarify, I've never lost any games to these crews (mostly from lack of opportunity), but I have won with some of them and spectated the others.

[ooshawn]

you should play me as kirai, so I can play her on the tabletop once I get jaakuuna ubume from somewhere. literally never played that crew before

[Maniacal_cackle]

8 minutes ago, ooshawn said:

you should play me as kirai, so I can play her on the tabletop once I get jaakuuna ubume from somewhere. literally never played that crew before

I'm actually really bad with Kirai as a primary master xD But I'd be keen next week!

[ooshawn]

ooshawn on discord, works for  me

[Azahul]

Does Benny fall into this category? Five rats a turn is the maximum standard summon from him (assuming no enemy scheme markers/extra placement effects from Prospectors/dying Vermin/Hodgepodge Emissary), and all it takes is six AP across six models in fairly precise locations to summon in 10 stones of mindless models. As summoners go that seems like the low end of efficiency to be honest, but technically meets the definition! 😅

[Maniacal_cackle]

45 minutes ago, Azahul said:

Does Benny fall into this category? Five rats a turn is the maximum standard summon from him (assuming no enemy scheme markers/extra placement effects from Prospectors/dying Vermin/Hodgepodge Emissary), and all it takes is six AP across six models in fairly precise locations to summon in 10 stones of mindless models. As summoners go that seems like the low end of efficiency to be honest, but technically meets the definition! 😅

Haha, well, at least they're mindless so they're not acting until next turn. So I'd say it is close, but not quite 😜

[Azahul]

39 minutes ago, Maniacal_cackle said:

Haha, well, at least they're mindless so they're not acting until next turn. So I'd say it is close, but not quite 😜

Yessss, still escaping judgement.

 

Ahem, you may proceed.

[Math Mathonwy]

I think that Summoning needs to have a cost to balance it out. The cost of Summoning is AP and cards (and very rarely interaction with the opponent - Von Schtook for example).

I have to admit that I'm not familiar with Yan Lo double Ashigaru but if it takes a lot of faffing around with AP and TNs it might be balanced but if it doesn't take much in the way of AP and cards then it isn't.

Take Cooper Jones, for example. Her summoning requires a Scrap Marker (basically Akaname, who takes a Flicker token to produce it along with a 5 of any suit), then someone needs to pump her up with Poison (takes AP but depending on how you do it, you might not be massively inconvenienced by it since you can charge her - but you might want to be giving Poison to other stuff in your list and you need to bunch up which might be awkward or even risky depending on the deployment, terrain, and the opponent) and finally you need a card to pull the summon off and you get a Whiskey Gamin which is sorta OK as a model but nothing to write home about. So you need to build your list to support the summoning, use AP and cards for it, and the end result is sorta-kinda mediocre. And since the crew is full of TNs and not a whole lot of card draw it isn't as trivial as you may think to even pull off even without suit requirements.

Those double Master set-ups you listed do the Summoning very efficiently with relatively little set-up required and have a wide toolbox of summons available for all sorts of situations.

Von Schtook is an interesting case because the AP and card cost of things is also taking out enemy models so it might not be a cost at all but rather the summon is a byproduct of the things you would be doing anyway. Of course it also means that the opponent can foil your summoning which isn't possible when facing "conventional" summoners.

I wonder how massively out of whack things would be if summoning was allowed only from the second turn onwards  

[Plaag]

10 hours ago, Maniacal_cackle said:

After a bit of complaining about specific crews, I noticed a common theme.  Crews that can summon 10+ stones of models a turn are bad for the game, in my opinion.

They aren't necessarily always broken (though it seems many are), but they warp the game around themselves so much more than conventional summons (9 stones or less).

For example...

• Molly & Kirai (13-16 stones)
• Dreamer & Zoraida (11-15 stones)
• Yan Lo double Ashigaru (10 stones)
• Cadmus (10-14 stones)
• Etc.

All of these crews just present such an insane summoning engine that you have to answer it. It may take a bit of setup, but often by the end of turn 1 you've basically made your stones back. And often the setup is actually quite small, and a card draw engine sorts out the rest.

Don't get me wrong. I like summoning and think it adds an interesting dimension to play against. But when you hit 10 stones in a turn consistently and efficiently, I think something has gone wrong.

I don't really object to things like Reva + Toshiro + Kirai, since that is a weird amalgation that can't do it consistently.

But the crews/models that seem to have it built in seem like they take more from the game than they give.

Thoughts?

i think summon is bad at all

most of crews have limited resourses, but summoners makes resourses from air

[Harlekin]

3 hours ago, Plaag said:

i think summon is bad at all

most of crews have limited resourses, but summoners makes resourses from air

I think card draw is bad. Most crews have limited ressources, but card draw crews create ressources from thin air.

I think healing is bad. Most crews have limited ressources, but healing crews create ressources from thin air.

I think extra movement is bad. Most crews have limited ressources, but extra movement crews create ressources from thin air.

I think giving out upgrades is bad. Most crews have limited ressources, but crews handing out upgrades create ressources from thin air.

I think extra actions are bad. Most crews have limited ressources, but extra action crews create ressources from thin air.

etc. etc.
 

I do see the point of the topic (and the non-Leader Kirai is really... a bit much) but the question should be different. If we start talking about "imba", there are other things in Malifaux. What about Masters (or crews?) who can easily kill 10+ Stones in models per activation? What about Masters (or crews?) who can easily invalidate the actions of 10+ Stones in models per activation? What about...? 

I guess the thing is mainly a psychological issue. Especially as summoner crews typically escalate quickly, when you don't put enough pressure on them. Ressource drain for summoning is a huge thing which typically isn't recognized by the other table side as you don't directly "feel" those precious 10+(+suit/Stone) hit in your face. 

Tl;dr: Summoning crews can be a bad thing to face but don't challenge me most. 

[Maniacal_cackle]

11 hours ago, Plaag said:

i think summon is bad at all

most of crews have limited resourses, but summoners makes resourses from air

They don't make them from thin air, they usually have to spend cards/stones, and their crews start out a bit less efficient than normal crews (usually).

7 hours ago, Harlekin said:

I guess the thing is mainly a psychological issue. Especially as summoner crews typically escalate quickly, when you don't put enough pressure on them. Ressource drain for summoning is a huge thing which typically isn't recognized by the other table side as you don't directly "feel" those precious 10+(+suit/Stone) hit in your face. 

Tl;dr: Summoning crews can be a bad thing to face but don't challenge me most. 

I agree that for regular summoners, you can pressure them and abuse hand sizes or stone pools. But the 10+ stone combos tend to come with ways to gain cards and/or stones. So that only goes so far - in fact, I've had games with Molly/Kirai where I had both severes in the top 3 and was able to do both summons without expending a card and only one stone (despite filling my hand with severes from Molly).

And in the Kirai example, you're really only looking for a 9+, so it isn't like you really need to break the bank to get the summons out.

On top of that, when you can mega-summon like this, you don't have to summon after turn 1. Even if the enemy team dive bombs and kills your summoner early turn 2, you may have gotten all the advantage you need (in fact, I like to actively sacrifice my Kirai after she has done her summoning, to tie up the enemy crew).

So I'm not sure the usual anti-summoning tips work that well here.

7 hours ago, Harlekin said:

I do see the point of the topic (and the non-Leader Kirai is really... a bit much) but the question should be different. If we start talking about "imba", there are other things in Malifaux. What about Masters (or crews?) who can easily kill 10+ Stones in models per activation? What about Masters (or crews?) who can easily invalidate the actions of 10+ Stones in models per activation? What about...? 

Yes, there's certainly other issues that seem ridiculous - for me it would be positioning as another contender. Dead Rider Reaping things 4-20 inches is pretty imbalanced IMO xD

But for most of my top complaints other than Colette, mega-summoning has been a common trend for me. Colette is the repositioning issue xD

[ooshawn]

It does seem like a good way to derail you're precariously balanced game system that you just redesigned by allowing double masters. 

[Maniacal_cackle]

2 minutes ago, ooshawn said:

It does seem like a good way to derail you're precariously balanced game system that you just redesigned by allowing double masters. 

Oh, is this the first edition that they've done double masters?

If so, I'm impressed at how few problems there are xD

[Cats Laughing]

11 minutes ago, Maniacal_cackle said:

Oh, is this the first edition that they've done double masters?

If so, I'm impressed at how few problems there are xD

In previous editions, Master's had a Cache (soulstone cache) pricing, which wasn't how much they cost, but instead how many additional soulstones they brought for their pool (which could not be spend on models during hiring).  As such you could only have multiple masters in a scenario that specifically allowed it (and likely was a custom or non-tournament one).

You could play Molly/Lucius/Collodi/Kaeris with other masters in 1.5 when they were just Henchmen, but that changed when they got promoted to Masters.

[thewrathchilde]

the game is about trade-offs....some masters (and models) summon well and influence the game through bringing more models (and force tailoring) to the game mid-stream, others do it by buffing and increasing the efficiency or effectiveness of their models. Some masters more directly engage and impact the game through direct control (obeys), imposing limitations (condition spam, hazardous terrain, etc), or directly killing models. 

Every master has a niche where either the specialize in something you can build your crew and strategy around to win or they are one of the few utility masters that may not over specialize in one area but instead are pretty decent all around. All of them need resources to (time, targets, cards, stones, etc) to affect the game and perform their role. If you allow the other player the space/time/resources/target choice/etc to play the game the way they want then any of these are going to be effective.

Against any master or crew a players needs to determine what strengths or advantages they have and how they can leverage them to win versus the opposing crew. Sometime sit is attacking directly, sometimes it is attacking certain key pieces or resources, other times it may be disrupting their play with specific models while you play a different game (strategies/schemes) with your other models.

 

Sure, Kirai can potentially summon 16 stones worth of models in a turn (Ikiryo + Goryo) but that does require her to have 2 x Severe Crows or 2 x Severes + Stones for the suit. This also means that she is using two of her AP on the given turn to summon instead of attacking, scoring, or doing some other action. Sure that seams like an easy trade-off but the models she is summoning can't interact do many of the things required to score a lot of the strategies or schemes on the turn they are summoned. 

Plus that is two less Severe cards she had to use for attacks, damage, or defense during the turn. All of this assumes that she has the cards and opportunity to use them. If you are attacking other key models you may be forcing her to use Soothe Spirit instead, if you are attacking her you may be forcing the use of the cards and/or stones to reduce damage or redirect attacks with protected or using the cards for defense.....if you are forcing her to stay in the backfield so she isn't pressured from your attacks then even through she can summon forward you are making it harder for her to win as a lot of the strategies and schemes require models to accomplish specific things in the center or other side of the board.

 

Not saying that everything in the game is perfect.....but I think that summoning is a little bit of a boogie man and like @Harlekinillustrates above the same reaction can be made to almost any master or aspect of play and I recommend instead looking at what options you have for playing your game instead of theirs. 

 

[Adran]

31 minutes ago, Maniacal_cackle said:

Oh, is this the first edition that they've done double masters?

If so, I'm impressed at how few problems there are xD

It was an option in first edition, but rarely seen and it was a set game type so you knew it was a two master game. There were crazy combinations that could totally dominate the game so people knew it was a fun thing only. 

[Maniacal_cackle]

39 minutes ago, thewrathchilde said:

Not saying that everything in the game is perfect.....but I think that summoning is a little bit of a boogie man and like @Harlekinillustrates above the same reaction can be made to almost any master or aspect of play and I recommend instead looking at what options you have for playing your game instead of theirs. 

Totally agree. I actually quite enjoy playing against summoners and the challenges it poses.

Although I think they are a LOT stronger in GG1, and I hope that GG2 will not favour summoners as much.

In GG0, I quite enjoyed doing things like laying down three Plant Explosive tokens while the enemy summoner was messing around summoning turn 1, then spending the rest of the game stealing their bombs and laying down more. They never could quite catch up.

Even Corrupted Idols there was a decent chance to just control idol placement and start snowballing idols from turn 1. Or power ritual you could set up a scheme in your deployment zone. Etc.

In GG1, there is a lot less you can do on turn 1 to set up your points (and don't even get me started on Recover Evidence for summoners xD). But overall, most summoners still feel beatable on GG1 to me.

I do think the 10+ stone combos are OTT though.

39 minutes ago, thewrathchilde said:

Sure, Kirai can potentially summon 16 stones worth of models in a turn (Ikiryo + Goryo) but that does require her to have 2 x Severe Crows or 2 x Severes + Stones for the suit. This also means that she is using two of her AP on the given turn to summon instead of attacking, scoring, or doing some other action. Sure that seams like an easy trade-off but the models she is summoning can't interact do many of the things required to score a lot of the strategies or schemes on the turn they are summoned. 

Plus that is two less Severe cards she had to use for attacks, damage, or defense during the turn. All of this assumes that she has the cards and opportunity to use them. If you are attacking other key models you may be forcing her to use Soothe Spirit instead, if you are attacking her you may be forcing the use of the cards and/or stones to reduce damage or redirect attacks with protected or using the cards for defense.....if you are forcing her to stay in the backfield so she isn't pressured from your attacks then even through she can summon forward you are making it harder for her to win as a lot of the strategies and schemes require models to accomplish specific things in the center or other side of the board.

Kirai needs a 9 and 11 to be effective as a second master IMO, and has a ~78% chance of getting at least one of those from The Whisper, I believe. Granted, this is the particular combo of Molly and Kirai that I'm saying can 'consistently' do the mega-summon. I haven't encountered any other pairing that seems OTT to me (although I've not tried the other pairings).

As another note for Molly & Kirai, with the activation control you can typically do it after the opponent has activated everything, so you're often looking at Kirai moving forward 10 inches and then double summoning another 6, so that's basically 16+ extra inches of movement for the summons. So the summons are typically well positioned to score the next turn.

The other combos have similar ways to do it consistently, I believe (although Yan Lo is probably the most balanced since it really does take tons of resources/effort from what I can tell).

I generally agree with most of the arguments made about summoners, but for the 10+ stone crews, the fact that they can do all their setup turn 1 and be set for the rest of the game if the pressure is too high can be over the top.

[thewrathchilde]

I apologize if this comes across as rude because that isn't my intention but unless these crews and approaches are consistently dominating play and tournaments i don't see the issue.

My bigger concern is the echo chamber I often see created in different games about specific models/crews/rules based on opinion or small sample size data sets that continue to generate more echo and hype way overemphasizing their impact in actual casual or even tournament play.....and this in turn results in heavy handed and unnecessary nerfs that end up making models and/or crews unplayable. 

In the short history of M3E we have already seen Tara nerfed, Shenlong nerfed (via Style changes), Zoraida nerfed (rules & GG changes), Mah nerfed, Steam Arachnid Swarms nerfed, Soulstone Miners nerfed, Brin, the First Mate, Stitched Together, the Riders, Ashes & Dust, several other models and probably hit the hardest Archie and Yasunori........ Yasunori to the point where most Thunders players don't even field him anymore (not even situationally).

I like having a game with tons of options, models, variations, abilities, etc. and I don't want any more models or crews setting on the shelf along side Yasunori waiting for a new edition somewhere in the future where he may once again make his way to my game table and I don't want to play a game where every model or crew ends up the same- if I wanted that I would play some other game. 

[Maniacal_cackle]

21 minutes ago, thewrathchilde said:

I apologize if this comes across as rude because that isn't my intention but unless these crews and approaches are consistently dominating play and tournaments i don't see the issue.

Well, to be fair, my impression is that most tournaments don't even allow double masters to begin with (particularly this year with Covid and the UK scene setting the standards for the world series, and practice tournaments for the world series mirroring the rules set).

On top of that, even if we had perfect data for all the tournaments played, the data is way too biased. For example in the local scene for my city, the best player will win every tournament regardless of what they're playing.

A game like MTG has 10,000s of games to rely on to make this kind of analysis, but it is a bit harder here.

EDIT: It is also a bit more complex because there at 16 deployment/strategy combinations, and thousands of pools. Any given crew is probably going to auto-win certain pools and faction matchups, but how many is too many? If you're at an 80% win rate on 7/16 combinations, is that too powerful?

That said, I generally agree M3E has been more nerf-happy than I personally would like. It doesn't take much to just throw an entire crew out the window essentially. And since many of us have limited funds, it really sucks to lose a crew!

However, it'd be nice if:

• As the edition and future editions progress, they take this into account.
• If they do make nerfs, I'd like to see these cases examined.

IMO the best time to make changes is during edition changes. I don't know if they plan to do an edition 3.5, but that would be a great time to tackle the idea of limiting the scope of summoning a bit.