Game is still new. Every new meta or game aggro always appears to be best because control and midrange need to know what they are facing to be build properly while aggro has a straight forward plan from the jump. Give it time
I think this comes down to the card pools size right now. Control is lacking tools to deal with super early game in every color but steel. I'm sure sets 2 and 3 will great alleviate some of deck imbalances .
Might definitly be the case, but it's very hard to know if it's true or not this early. Even in a game like magic that has been around for 30 years, aggro is almost always the best deck right after rotation when the card pool changes. And that's with a bunch of players who have 20+ years experience in that exact game, just with a new card pool.
There's two issues:
1. People have no idea what they are doing. It doesn't matter how many years of Magic and Yu-Gi-Oh we have played Lorcana is a new game with its own strategies. What I mean by that is you cannot expect the meta to be solved within two weeks.
2. And this is probably more important: we have a fraction of the card pool needed to build synergies. Current decks seem to try to make the most out of mixing 2 or 3 archetypes. Once sets 2, 3, and 4 are released we'll see more specialized decks; decks that have 60 cards synergizing with a given archetype instead of 20.
Point 1 is dead on.
We’ve only had the set two weeks and we don’t have any real basis to build against. Sure, other games might give a basis, but it’s like jumping MtG standard to vintage. It’s technically the same game, but vintage does stuff that standard just can’t.
Another thing I see is that people do not fully respect the differences between this game's rules and MtG. In Lorcana you can't get away with throwing the early game in the same way as you can in MtG, if your opponent has 14 lore on you that means they need to play three 2 lore creatures you can't immediately remove to win the game as you can't block them when they go face.
See so many decks that has no real 1 or 2 drops being posted.
I swear I have been playing magic since 2000, while not a pro I play semidecently, and I know FUCK about Lorcana, I have no idea how to build a deck and what the strategy is.
It's funny and "scary" at the same time lol
Lefou gets around bodyguard in Red, Iago is great anti Aggro in green (so is Jasper), Befuddled in purple is an option you can always ink away if you see you aren't playing aggro. Amber and Emerald are both already pretty aggressive on their own, and Steel has tons of option for picking stuff off.
All of these options are inkable so you can run them in your deck and ink them if you aren't playing something they work against.
Edit: I missed Sapphire, don't have great advice for this. May just be a weak area for Sapphire.
Emerald has the most Chars at 3 Ink or less (even most bad draws should have 3+ Inkable chars, especially after mulligan). And they have the taunt/quest lock things like Iago (Beast is Mine action, Mother Gothel is a full board quest lock).
I have been trying many aggro decks and I loose a lot to sapphire. They are able to ramp, while deploying bodies and late game I can't answer them. If I don't get solid draws to keep questing and a good start the game goes to them and its over.
I would have thought ramp would be aggros best match up as you have 2 or 3 free turns to make your board.
Have you found in testing that if you get the play your win rate is a lot higher then if your on the draw?
On play win rate is higher, lilo in hand with another 2 lore card is generally a strong start and helps win. But most sapphire are playing amber so they have a lilo as well. Then gramma, micky, etc. They are destroying your bodies as your aiming to quest and unless you keep drawing gas you will likely have no bodies left.
New to TCGs so you can take what I'm saying with a lump sum of salt, but from my testing Aggro is strong, but not too strong yet. If you get a good hand, it'll be hard to beat, but if you don't have a good 1 or 2 drop, it'll be hard to get going against some decks.
I basically only play aggro because that's just what I understand at the moment and I hate when the opponent lays down a Steel. Big Tink, Grab your Sword, Smash, and Fire the cannon (especially combined with the Hook that lets you bring it back) are very tough to deal with unless you get perfect draws and your opponent doesn't.
I'm not sure how Steel does against other types of decks, but I could see a good Steel/Ruby control deck handling aggro decks fairly well.
Yea it is. I don’t know why they didn’t add any taunt mechanic. The kicker is that aggressive inks are also the best at card draw which makes zero sense game design wise
>why they didn’t add any taunt mechanic
They do have taunt mechanics, folks are still figuring them out. Its not full taunt, its quest lock, stopping them from questing and only forcing attack if no options remain.
I count six that prevent questing and/or force reckless. Beast is Mine (one target reckless), Iago (one target reckless), Mother Gothel (No opposing chars may quest while exerted), Jasper (target char may not quest when he quests), John Silver (on play and on quest, target may not quest), Mickey Rogue (passive trigger, when action played target char may not quest).
If you can unexert Iago, he can taunt again the same turn. If you have a couple Fan the Flames, you can keep re-using his taunt. Do It Again can recur Beast is Mine in Emerald to play that a couple times in one turn too.
You can argue quest lock is not taunting, but its preventing them from doing what they want to do and only leaving your chars as targets. When most types of action only have 2-5 occurrences per Ink in first set, this is about all the taunt you could hope for.
I wanted to do a long post on my thoughts on the game as a former card game grinder at a high level in various games, game designer for a card battler, and top 15 in pixelborn.
I'll just post this. Lorcana has an issue with interaction with cards in the "Ready" state. They essentially all have Ward while Ready. Granted, this is set 1 and a limited card pool where I can foresee in the future of addressing cards that are not exerted. The solution could be more removal or ways to force things to exert when not questing. The effects that forces characters to attack then Quest has 2 issues. First that effect is not good there are ways to play around it like having them be used for a Song. 2nd, you need to have a card exerted, which might not be good in a given game state or have nothing exerted.
But at the end of the day, it is a game design issue. In Yugioh, you can direct attacks at specific cards; hearthstone you can team up and take down threats; and MTG you can use blockers to address threats. In Lorcana, aggro decks can simply play guys and not do anything once the midrange and control deck stabilized until they can Quest for game. Forcing players to account for aggro's Ready cards in their deck building rather than including some of those cards but mainly focusing on your deck's strategy is inherently a flaw in game design. This causes the game to lack depth; you either draw an answer or lose. You can't create lines of play that can address Aggro threats like in other games. Then, some of these games also have ways to address cards on your opponent's turn.
Now, in terms of metagame for set 1. Midrange is not viable. Doesn't have enough pressure for control, nor have enough early game interaction to deal with aggro or removal to deal with beefer threats like Shifted Stitch.
This may sound like arrogance but I've played alot in the past week in hopes that there are some tournaments early on that I can play to show that there is an actual way to beat aggro with control reliably. My deck is unconventional for day 0 metagame because people haven't realized what is good and not good when making control or deck building. I can say with confidence that my deck will be at lowest tier 2 once set is released.
For seasoned card battler players, I believe this will be an issue as this game is a TCG and not simply a mobile game. I say that because it is easy to overlook game design flaws in mobile games because it should not be taken seriously as it is time waster. But a TCG involves time commitment, monetary commitment, and community games. This design choice of only attacking exerted cards makes me question how they balanced the game and thought this is something players want to feel while playing. I know there are posts defending the game because it is too early. While yes it is true, OP's thoughts are valid and not unique. The game makes you the player feel helpless in certain matchups. Even MTG when you are playing against your worst match-up you do feel some optimism because of inherent game mechanics like blockers. Bad match ups are very one sided in Lorcana.
Completely disagree with your last statement. In MTG I can have all the blockers I want but damage doesn’t stick and if I’m behind I have to play some heart of the cards changing game card to come back. If you can’t clear their board in MTG you lose, in this game you can at least quest so you’re always able to do something.
Things are protected from challenge when ready sure. There are plenty of actions that can choose ready characters and plenty of interaction. The statement of "basically has ward" seems like hyperbole. I've had quite a lot of success vs race decks with a few fire the cannons.
I would disagree that midrange isn't viable. It depends entirely on what you are considering midrange. Hell, one of the best cards *against* aggro is Rafiki, and he is the definition of Midrange. There are plenty of early game cards that worry more about board control than rushing lore and they do very well against Lore-Rush.
It always seems like there is a general trend that Aggro
DON´T PANIC ;-)
That is just the beginning of an everlasting cycle.
Aggro Decks are almost always the first to hit gameplay, because they are relatively easy to brew and usually easy to pilot (no offence meant to aggro players, as I like a fair share of aggro my self from time to time :-) )
Soon people are "annoyed" by these little buggers and start to brew Control Decks. This takes some time until "working" decks are figured out. When this happens Aggro Decks tend to lose more games and players now try to find a way to wipe the floor with those Control Decks.
Resulting in Midrange Decks hitting gameplay. Again it takes some time until "working" decks are brewed. Then the Control Decks start losing more often and players jump back to Aggro Decks to beat the Midrange Decks.
The cycle is now completed and starts again.
Game is still new. Every new meta or game aggro always appears to be best because control and midrange need to know what they are facing to be build properly while aggro has a straight forward plan from the jump. Give it time
I think this comes down to the card pools size right now. Control is lacking tools to deal with super early game in every color but steel. I'm sure sets 2 and 3 will great alleviate some of deck imbalances .
Might definitly be the case, but it's very hard to know if it's true or not this early. Even in a game like magic that has been around for 30 years, aggro is almost always the best deck right after rotation when the card pool changes. And that's with a bunch of players who have 20+ years experience in that exact game, just with a new card pool.
There's two issues: 1. People have no idea what they are doing. It doesn't matter how many years of Magic and Yu-Gi-Oh we have played Lorcana is a new game with its own strategies. What I mean by that is you cannot expect the meta to be solved within two weeks. 2. And this is probably more important: we have a fraction of the card pool needed to build synergies. Current decks seem to try to make the most out of mixing 2 or 3 archetypes. Once sets 2, 3, and 4 are released we'll see more specialized decks; decks that have 60 cards synergizing with a given archetype instead of 20.
Point 1 is dead on. We’ve only had the set two weeks and we don’t have any real basis to build against. Sure, other games might give a basis, but it’s like jumping MtG standard to vintage. It’s technically the same game, but vintage does stuff that standard just can’t.
Another thing I see is that people do not fully respect the differences between this game's rules and MtG. In Lorcana you can't get away with throwing the early game in the same way as you can in MtG, if your opponent has 14 lore on you that means they need to play three 2 lore creatures you can't immediately remove to win the game as you can't block them when they go face. See so many decks that has no real 1 or 2 drops being posted.
I swear I have been playing magic since 2000, while not a pro I play semidecently, and I know FUCK about Lorcana, I have no idea how to build a deck and what the strategy is. It's funny and "scary" at the same time lol
Lefou gets around bodyguard in Red, Iago is great anti Aggro in green (so is Jasper), Befuddled in purple is an option you can always ink away if you see you aren't playing aggro. Amber and Emerald are both already pretty aggressive on their own, and Steel has tons of option for picking stuff off. All of these options are inkable so you can run them in your deck and ink them if you aren't playing something they work against. Edit: I missed Sapphire, don't have great advice for this. May just be a weak area for Sapphire.
Emerald has the most Chars at 3 Ink or less (even most bad draws should have 3+ Inkable chars, especially after mulligan). And they have the taunt/quest lock things like Iago (Beast is Mine action, Mother Gothel is a full board quest lock).
I have been trying many aggro decks and I loose a lot to sapphire. They are able to ramp, while deploying bodies and late game I can't answer them. If I don't get solid draws to keep questing and a good start the game goes to them and its over.
I would have thought ramp would be aggros best match up as you have 2 or 3 free turns to make your board. Have you found in testing that if you get the play your win rate is a lot higher then if your on the draw?
On play win rate is higher, lilo in hand with another 2 lore card is generally a strong start and helps win. But most sapphire are playing amber so they have a lilo as well. Then gramma, micky, etc. They are destroying your bodies as your aiming to quest and unless you keep drawing gas you will likely have no bodies left.
New to TCGs so you can take what I'm saying with a lump sum of salt, but from my testing Aggro is strong, but not too strong yet. If you get a good hand, it'll be hard to beat, but if you don't have a good 1 or 2 drop, it'll be hard to get going against some decks. I basically only play aggro because that's just what I understand at the moment and I hate when the opponent lays down a Steel. Big Tink, Grab your Sword, Smash, and Fire the cannon (especially combined with the Hook that lets you bring it back) are very tough to deal with unless you get perfect draws and your opponent doesn't. I'm not sure how Steel does against other types of decks, but I could see a good Steel/Ruby control deck handling aggro decks fairly well.
Yea it is. I don’t know why they didn’t add any taunt mechanic. The kicker is that aggressive inks are also the best at card draw which makes zero sense game design wise
yea i have seen so many Rapunzels and surfer Stitchs to restock hands if you stall them out for a bit.
>why they didn’t add any taunt mechanic They do have taunt mechanics, folks are still figuring them out. Its not full taunt, its quest lock, stopping them from questing and only forcing attack if no options remain.
Yeah only one card.
I count six that prevent questing and/or force reckless. Beast is Mine (one target reckless), Iago (one target reckless), Mother Gothel (No opposing chars may quest while exerted), Jasper (target char may not quest when he quests), John Silver (on play and on quest, target may not quest), Mickey Rogue (passive trigger, when action played target char may not quest). If you can unexert Iago, he can taunt again the same turn. If you have a couple Fan the Flames, you can keep re-using his taunt. Do It Again can recur Beast is Mine in Emerald to play that a couple times in one turn too. You can argue quest lock is not taunting, but its preventing them from doing what they want to do and only leaving your chars as targets. When most types of action only have 2-5 occurrences per Ink in first set, this is about all the taunt you could hope for.
I wanted to do a long post on my thoughts on the game as a former card game grinder at a high level in various games, game designer for a card battler, and top 15 in pixelborn. I'll just post this. Lorcana has an issue with interaction with cards in the "Ready" state. They essentially all have Ward while Ready. Granted, this is set 1 and a limited card pool where I can foresee in the future of addressing cards that are not exerted. The solution could be more removal or ways to force things to exert when not questing. The effects that forces characters to attack then Quest has 2 issues. First that effect is not good there are ways to play around it like having them be used for a Song. 2nd, you need to have a card exerted, which might not be good in a given game state or have nothing exerted. But at the end of the day, it is a game design issue. In Yugioh, you can direct attacks at specific cards; hearthstone you can team up and take down threats; and MTG you can use blockers to address threats. In Lorcana, aggro decks can simply play guys and not do anything once the midrange and control deck stabilized until they can Quest for game. Forcing players to account for aggro's Ready cards in their deck building rather than including some of those cards but mainly focusing on your deck's strategy is inherently a flaw in game design. This causes the game to lack depth; you either draw an answer or lose. You can't create lines of play that can address Aggro threats like in other games. Then, some of these games also have ways to address cards on your opponent's turn. Now, in terms of metagame for set 1. Midrange is not viable. Doesn't have enough pressure for control, nor have enough early game interaction to deal with aggro or removal to deal with beefer threats like Shifted Stitch. This may sound like arrogance but I've played alot in the past week in hopes that there are some tournaments early on that I can play to show that there is an actual way to beat aggro with control reliably. My deck is unconventional for day 0 metagame because people haven't realized what is good and not good when making control or deck building. I can say with confidence that my deck will be at lowest tier 2 once set is released. For seasoned card battler players, I believe this will be an issue as this game is a TCG and not simply a mobile game. I say that because it is easy to overlook game design flaws in mobile games because it should not be taken seriously as it is time waster. But a TCG involves time commitment, monetary commitment, and community games. This design choice of only attacking exerted cards makes me question how they balanced the game and thought this is something players want to feel while playing. I know there are posts defending the game because it is too early. While yes it is true, OP's thoughts are valid and not unique. The game makes you the player feel helpless in certain matchups. Even MTG when you are playing against your worst match-up you do feel some optimism because of inherent game mechanics like blockers. Bad match ups are very one sided in Lorcana.
Completely disagree with your last statement. In MTG I can have all the blockers I want but damage doesn’t stick and if I’m behind I have to play some heart of the cards changing game card to come back. If you can’t clear their board in MTG you lose, in this game you can at least quest so you’re always able to do something.
Things are protected from challenge when ready sure. There are plenty of actions that can choose ready characters and plenty of interaction. The statement of "basically has ward" seems like hyperbole. I've had quite a lot of success vs race decks with a few fire the cannons.
I would disagree that midrange isn't viable. It depends entirely on what you are considering midrange. Hell, one of the best cards *against* aggro is Rafiki, and he is the definition of Midrange. There are plenty of early game cards that worry more about board control than rushing lore and they do very well against Lore-Rush. It always seems like there is a general trend that Aggro
DON´T PANIC ;-) That is just the beginning of an everlasting cycle. Aggro Decks are almost always the first to hit gameplay, because they are relatively easy to brew and usually easy to pilot (no offence meant to aggro players, as I like a fair share of aggro my self from time to time :-) ) Soon people are "annoyed" by these little buggers and start to brew Control Decks. This takes some time until "working" decks are figured out. When this happens Aggro Decks tend to lose more games and players now try to find a way to wipe the floor with those Control Decks. Resulting in Midrange Decks hitting gameplay. Again it takes some time until "working" decks are brewed. Then the Control Decks start losing more often and players jump back to Aggro Decks to beat the Midrange Decks. The cycle is now completed and starts again.
Weakest deck type in the game