40enTue, 23 Oct 2012 04:16:47 GMTTue, 23 Oct 2012 04:16:47 GMT
I feel like it all comes down to good old-fashioned math... Let's imagine that abilities and bonuses (or is it boni?) are interchangeable. For our purposes, I think they are. Now let's go through your example.

The hand you're suggesting is definitely a bit scary under the right conditions. A 3-round win is possible against many hands, and an early Gil win or something like that does set up a 50/50 situation (if you don't block the next pill manip guy, and you're probably going to lose.) But here are some important differences between that hand and the proposed clan:

1) There's a lot more pill manip than 2 per card. Gil has 3 and Nobrodroid has 4.
2) Because of the Junkz bonus, all of these cards have attack manip built in. That is important because it makes 3-rounding with this hand much easier. What are the odds that, when playing mono Theoretical Clan, I will draw a hand full of 8 attack manip on ability?

This is why #2 is really important... Imagine that I attack you with a 2-pilled Gil. Now imagine that because you are pretty sure he's a 1-pill bluff, you just 3-pill a 7 power with, say, a damage bonus. Gil still wins, resulting in a net loss of not 3 but 4 pills. See how the attack manip functions there?

If you can imagine a hand where everybody has +2 pills, and diverse abilities instead of all +8 attack, you will probably find that it is much less likely to create a 50/50 3 round situation.]]>Tue, 23 Oct 2012 01:41:04 GMT
according to UR's style, the next clan should have a bonus as defeat: +2 life or something like copy bonus oppo, or even protect power and damage, let's see.]]>Tue, 23 Oct 2012 01:16:50 GMT
Ah, I see the disconnect. You're talking about 50-50 cards instead of clans and treating +pill as an ability. Having 1 or 2 pill manip cards in your deck is totally fine and not 50-50ish at all. Heck, I've used grudg to get to 1400 elo before and I'm a huge fan of Tremorh. A timely pill manip played in the third round is a great way to *prevent* 3rd/4th round 50-50s.

However, having an entire deck made up of pill manip cards is *very* chancey.. Instead of facing an opponent with Tremorh, you're facing a opponent with a hand of Tremorh Taham Nobrodroid and Gil. There's a very good chance your game will devolve into a 50-50. A pill manip card or two in a deck is fine. Making a clan full of them can very well lead to unnecessarily chancey situations. It's like the difference between putting Jean in your deck and playing mono GHEIST ]]>Mon, 22 Oct 2012 18:13:54 GMT
"Yes, overpilling with a pill manip card to cover for an attack deficiency is great when you win, but what happens when you lose? You lose both life *and* pills."

Sorry, but that's just not making any sense to me. I think you are seeing net gains/net losses where there are none. You don't actually *have* two extra pills just because your bonus says that you get two if you win; it's conditional. You are not losing pills if you let an opponent's card through -- in fact, if your opponent was expecting you to pill hard on the first turn, you may be creating a much bigger pill advantage by letting his card through.

To me, a 50/50 card is something that almost always decides the outcome of the game if it lands (Askai, Cliff, Greem, Azel, Avola, Kenny, Kalindra, etc etc.) So, just a matter of opinion of course, but a card that doesn't cause a rather large amount of life gap, or enough pill gap to actually 3-round your opponent, isn't a 50/50 card. There is no reason why this clan would necessarily have more of them than any other clan does.]]>Mon, 22 Oct 2012 16:08:54 GMT Yes, overpilling with a pill manip card to cover for an attack deficiency is great when you win, but what happens when you lose? You lose both life *and* pills. What I'm saying, and what people don't seem to understand, is that +pill and attack manip are two completely different beasts.

Attack manip gives you something when you win (life gap) and something when you lose (pill gap), and punishes you for overpilling. +pill gives you everything when you win (life and pills) and nothing when you lose (unless you've successfully bluffed), and rewards you for overpilling. If you've ever played against opponents with too many pill manip cards in their hands, you'd know how often these games devolve into 50-50s.

I reiterate, there's no such thing as an "overpowered" bonus. But some cards, by virtue of creating 50-50s, degrade the UR gaming experience. Which is why I oppose a pill manip bonus.]]>Mon, 22 Oct 2012 14:42:34 GMT
This is the part of your argument that I'm not understanding... How does winning with a +2 pill bonus necessarily create a positive pill gap? The bonus is essentially equivalent to attack manip. For example, when you have to play at least 8 pills to beat an opponent from Sentinel who 6 pilled, *where* does the positive pill gap comes from?

@Alhalish:

My thoughts exactly, but replace "weak" with "balanced." It's definitely not a bonus that offers a huge strategic bonus by itself. It would have to rely on synergy with abilities to really make it shine. SoB and CoB sound really good in this clan, as does pill recovery, etc. A card with support: attack manip could really play some mindgames with your opponent, as well...

You might think that those abilities work great in any clan, but I can see situations where those abilities combined with pill gain would be a very effective way to punish your opponent for early overpills. I think it could result in a pretty unique play style, if done right.]]>Mon, 22 Oct 2012 14:22:10 GMTUppers/Montana/Rescue ONLY when you win. It is interesting to see that some people think the clan would be OP or break the game, when we already have three clans that basically get two extra pills per round through their attack manip REGARDLESS of whether they win or lose...yet they are ok...]]>Mon, 22 Oct 2012 13:14:26 GMT
Unlike a real attack manipulating bonus however, this bonus can't help you in a tight spot, such as outpowering Spyke and Caelus Cr, and unlike the Vortex bonus, which can guarantee an easy 2HKO if you play your cards right, this bonus doesn't work well with Revenge based abilities or Frozn.

The only way to fully utilize this clan's bonus, is by pairing it with power/atack manipulating clans. In mono, this clan will work just like Freaks. That of course, if this clan has many cards with 7 or 8 power and good abilities.]]>Mon, 22 Oct 2012 11:29:09 GMT
I think you have misunderstood my post...I'm not talking about +2 pills being overpowered. It simply promotes 50-50s by needlessly increasing the importance of winning each round. Comparing +2 pills with Vortex or attack manip clans is quite frankly illogical, since those clans have a fallback when they lose and a +2 pill bonus is win-or-bust. Let me break it down for you:

Win with attack manip: Gain life gap, lose pills
Lose with attack manip: Gain pill gap (since opponent has to spend pills against attack manip), lose life

Win with +2 pill bonus: Gain life gap, gain pill gap
Lose with +2 pill bonus: Lose life, lose pills

Guess which bonus promotes 50-50s? It's not "math", it's logic

Of course, a +2 bonus would be great for bluffing, in which case you could potentially lose life but gain pills, or, as you repeatedly stated in your post using pills as some sort of placeholder for attack manip, overpill and gain life but lose pills. But both bluffing and overpilling are very 50-50ish moves, since there's no way you'd know if your opponent calls your bluff (in which case you would lose a lot of life *without* gaining pills) or not falling for your trap (in which case you lose a lot of pills while gaining minimal life gap).

I reiterate, there's no such thing as an "overpowered" bonus, only overpowered cards. A +4 power bonus would not be overpowered if every card in that clan has a base power of 4. However, certain abilities/bonuses promote 50-50ing.]]>Mon, 22 Oct 2012 11:10:17 GMT I posted it few years back, but always thought it's not possible to be introduced, but we have such ability now, so why not?]]>Mon, 22 Oct 2012 05:23:29 GMT
We've got precident on balancing pill clans, by the way. Piranas rely on their bonus to keep their low power from getting stomped by attack clans and Junkz have damage low enough that one good round can beat them. Here's the advantage they have over this theo clan: Piranas outright block the +pillz and the Junkz bonus is basically a free pill every round.

Ghelas, I applaud your math and logic.

I would design this theo clan like Jungo, Berzerk, and Freaks; a clan with solid cards that don't need their bonus to win rounds or matches, but certainly like having it and can use it to destroy unwary players. The focus should be on the cards specific abilities and stats.]]>Mon, 22 Oct 2012 04:05:02 GMT
This theoretical clan's bonus is +2 pills

A 7 power in this clan would need to use 2 extra pills to beat a 7 power in any pill manipulation clan

Can someone explain in a rational way why they might be OP? Their bonus is situationally very handy, but takes the spot where, in ELO, you usually see SoB, SoA, or heavy attack manip. They would not end up with a huge pill advantage. They would not end up with some kind of unearthly synergy with Vortex, because, once again -- if you lose with a Vortex card and gain a pill, *you still have to overpill by 2 to beat any attack manip clan in a subsequent round.*

Does anyone have an objection that's based on math and numbers and stuff, as opposed to bad experiences with people who overpill Grudj/Naginata/Scubb?]]>Mon, 22 Oct 2012 00:53:54 GMTVortex or make them one of the most broken 1-2 punches in the game and consequently get a number of both clans banned.

now i'm not saying i wouldn't entertain the idea straight-up,but if we're talking confidence +2 pills or a -1 pill minimum 5 like Eklore,sure,why not,let's make it happen,but straight up? eh,not really.]]>Sun, 21 Oct 2012 15:36:57 GMTScubb don't really compare to this clan idea... Scubb has SoB, which means he is better at beating Rescue and Montana than a 7 power.... And he gains 4 pills instead of 2. I don't see a hand full of +2 pill cards creating a 50/50 situation, personally.

Another way of looking at a clan with a +2 pill bonus is: they will get less extra pills in a typical game than a Vortex deck. Most ELO players consider mono Vortex pretty much unplayable.]]>Sun, 21 Oct 2012 13:26:20 GMTSun, 21 Oct 2012 10:32:12 GMTSun, 21 Oct 2012 03:28:38 GMT A major difference between attack manip and +pills is that attack manip forces your opponent to either spend pills or take a hit, and therefore encourages moderate pilling, since you gain a life advantage if you win or a pill advantage if you lose. +pills only works if you win the round, which encourages overpilling and turning games into mindless 50-50s, even if the +pill card is theoretically "balanced".

For example, look at how people use Rowdy, compared to how they use Scubb (even though Scubb is the more balanced of the two)]]>Sun, 21 Oct 2012 02:29:55 GMTPiranas) or a round winning bonus (Shann, Tremorh, etc.) As these guys would need to pill up a little harder to overcome attack manip clans, that +2 pills bonus wouldn't be nearly as scary as it initially seems. Most attack manip clans already offer a 2-pill benefit against a 7 power with no round-winning bonus.

Moreover, like the Vortex, they could make up a strong pill-related bonus with shaky base stats. Vortex abilities help make up for those, but they suffer greatly vs SoA... So you could expect to see something like a 3* with 7/2 +3 Life, and it would compare well to existing cards. They might also have a couple of cards with good all-around stats, but with interesting Backlash abilities. I can imagine a 5* with 8/7 stats but a Backlash of Poison 1 min 1... Comparable to Selma in many situations, sometimes a bit better, sometimes a bit worse.]]>Sun, 21 Oct 2012 02:07:36 GMTUppers/Montana/Rescue basically get +2 pillz every turn, except it happens before they win or lose...]]>Sat, 20 Oct 2012 15:29:09 GMT]]>