I think the most important thing here might be pro vs casual.

When i read the game ends at turn 4-5 and then look at my games that tend to be really long i see how much of a gap there is. I still don't know how big it is because i've seen no such games that ware not "my deck was leagues better" games.

If you really have that limited of a time frame and opponent puts that much pressure some cards will work completely differently then in casual play when you have time to buid up your domains and play characters and running out of cards that fast is more of an issue. There Khopesh breaks the experience completely.

Maybe the solution would be "not advised in casual play list" that would be an official suggestion of cards that work awful in more casual setting. Sure you can houserule, no one is going to stop you, but this would be aimed at less experienced players to aid them what cards have such dynamics and can be avoided. Especially with limited card pool some cards like Ravager from the deep can break your play experience really hard. I think Khopesh is an example of such card.

If Khopesh doesn't win tournaments than it seems not that good ban candidate for pro scene indeed.

 You are still learning the game. As Graham pointed out, many of the people who have been playing for years are also still trying to master the game.

LCG's are like chess, short time to learn, a life time to master.

Khopesh is a card, much like Master of Myths that lets lesser players play up. It is like spotting an opponent a queen. If you are a better chess player giving an intermediate player that advantage isn't an insta-loss, it just puts you in a position where you have to pay attention. In this game knowing your opponent may have a Khopesh just means you come with a certain kind of deck or a certain strategy.  Most players try to wipe out boards when they get the Khopesh rather than using it to snipe characters that are really troublesome. This is the first of many bad plays I've seen with this card.

Now the card itself while letting intermediates play closer to the level of advanced players does not continue to scale up. It lets them beat their peers, but advanced players recognize the tempo loss most frequently caused by spending multiple cards to get rid of other cards if there is not a immediate gain, essentially you are draining two domains, spending two draws, and spending two cards to get rid of the same. The 1:1 advantage becomes greater if you are killing off characters that are strictly better than the ones you are throwing away, but it does not get you beyond the 1:1 unless the character you put the khopesh on has toughness itself.

It isn't a bad card, but if you divorce yourself from the attachment of any given card and look at the math behind the cards you start to see it isn't nearly as amazing as a lot of the early hype made it out to be. It skews the metagame but only because we allow it. I predict the winning deck at worlds will not have it, and I'd be surprised if the winning decks at the continental championships have it.

dboeren said:

I wasn't either Dboeren. I only lurked on the FFG forums during that period (2006? 2007? before the switch to the new forum format) and saw tons of arguments about that very card. I didnt even play CoC yet, I only was starting to gain interest and then the game died and became resurrected in that time.

The arguments were what you would expect from histrionic wailing and gnashing of teeth about the end of the world. Long story short.

As you can plainly see from the image that AUCodeMonkey provided (thanks J) it has a neat effect… but even in the LCG people would hardly call that a broken card. I get better use of out Alhazreds lamp, for less.

i dont think you can ever really master a game which relies on any amount of luck ( unlike chess ). the way i see it the game boils down to this:

16% - making a deck that is actually capable of winning and exploiting weaknesses in others decks

16% - the opponents decks either a) not exploiting a weakness in your own deck and b) also having decks capable of winning

i'll also point out that this would be much easier when the games creator is feeding you detailed descriptions of the meta game in so far as giving you the ability to actually mark keywords and counter them - ( classic COCLCG comment )

16% - player ability

16% - opponents ability

16% - your own luck of the draw on the day

16% - your opponents luck of the draw on the day

if you have the majority of these then the win is yours.

the final 4% is reserved to equal decks with equal luck and ability, then its touch and go.

so really, how could you ever master it ??

the only thing to do is refine your deck building and ability over a long period of time, and simply play the game to enjoy it.

to continue with my above statement, i think most of us would gain a lot more enjoyment if we focused more on the social gaming experience and playing some fun decks. far too much importance is being given to being the creator of some magnificent deck and winning some dinky little tournament against a very small percentage of actual CoC players, or whinging and griping about cards and opinions. it can sometimes bring out the worst in people ( which i've experienced myself ) and to that end i'm back benching this game to play with friends only and going back to the boardgaming scene. this was my first foray into card gaming and i hate to say it, but if current attitudes towards the 'be all and end all of making unbeatable decks' persists, as opposed to just having fun , then it will remain a very small community. which is perhaps why every week i meet with a group of 50+ boardgamers, have a great time, and yet struggle to find more than 1 or 2 card gamers to play with a month. the whole idea of competative tournament games and the importance given to them is seriously a turn off, and this has come from many mouths, along with an unfortunate dislike towards the attitudes of card gamers ( believe me, i've tried to sway many boardgamers ). it potentially breeds self inflated egos, frustration and disappointment when one cannot possibly be included or be competative, and my advice would be to forget this facet, focus less on making competative decks and more on making fun decks to build a local community, experience and develop the game yourselves, finding out just how enjoyable it is to discover things instead of reading them, house rule any problem cards until someones generates a counter, and play the game like any regular one, for fun.

"i think most of us would gain a lot more enjoyment if we focused more on the social gaming experience and playing some fun decks. far too much importance is being given to being the creator of some magnificent deck and winning some dinky little tournament against a very small percentage of actual CoC players, or whinging and griping about cards and opinions."

I think many of us ARE doing that.  We play casually most of the year, and then for some of us who are going to be in a Regional tournament there is a brief period where things get a bit more serious, and then we go back to casual gaming.

Also, there's a difference between complaining about cards and pointing out possible issues.  Jenica for example has a clear flaw - she needs to be restricted to once per turn or else you can basically draw all your Supports and stack your deck every turn.  This is one of those rare cases that goes beyond the "is it OP?" question into the realm of "yeah, they accidentally left that out".  It sticks out just like a missing word in a sentence.

Also, it's HARD to build and maintain a play group.  Many of us are concerned about how the game appears to new/casual players and if there is a card that looks like it might create a negative play experience we want to keep tabs on it.  That doesn't mean spazzing out at the sight of a new card, but it does merit some discussion with the goal of keeping an eye on the new card or combo and making sure it doesn't cause a problem.  Very few people are jumping to the conclusion that things need bans or restrictions right off, most of them just want to discuss and watch and make people aware of the potential issue so we as a community can test it out and determine whether the problem is real or imagined.

COCLCG said:

The game is almost entirely based around your deckbuilding ability, like any deckbuilding game. You should be able to counter your opponent's deck, if you build a good deck. Your draw will usually be good if you build a solid deck. If your opponent is a skilled deckbuilder also, then if you're better then you will beat them most of the time.

Occasionally you have a bad draw, but that's what mulligans are for. If you have 2 bad draws, then that's random chance as well. It's a known risk going in to playing a game. If I get bad draws, I analyze and see if I could've had a better draw if X card was in this deck instead of Y. If my opponent beats me, I try to figure out how I could adjust my deck to counter theirs, while still maintaining the balance I already have in place.

I love this game, both casually and competitively. I have built some fun decks that wouldn't be tournament viable that I thoroughly enjoy playing against my wife. My Things in the Ground deck was ridiculous if it got going, but it was just as much fun to frustrate my opponent when it didn't. Still, I love competition the most. Competition is what drives me to be better, and as I get a better grasp as to what cards work best with other cards, which are more efficient, etc. it drives me closer to mastering the game and it makes it more fun for me.

 I would say this game is as much about play skill as it is about deckbuilding. 

COCLCG you've popped into the game during the tournament season. Normally this group is more conversational and it is more about interesting deck ideas and and buzzing about the next expansion or latest spoiled card. Everyone right now is a little more buckled down because we're entering into GenCon with Liege around the corner.

I agree that skill is a major component.  There are a lot of decisions to make during play and an experienced/skilled player will choose correctly more often.  Just knowing what card to resource takes a fair amount of judgement, then moving up to more difficult things like recognizing what sort of deck your opponent is playing and anticipating cards you might have a more critical need for than normal.

 Resourcing alone pretty much destroys most arguments I've seen about deck building being the most important skill  in this game. I'm willing to bet that Giving Graham's deck to someone who has been playing for 6 months and giving Graham the 16th place deck from Liege would still have Graham winning 3 out of 5 times. It may be more competitive, but I have no doubt he'd come out the victor in a statistically significant showing.

Penfold said:

i'll pop back in for one more post, but the decks are already boxed and will probably never see the light of day again.

this to me is one of the problems with expanding the game. i came into this game filled with zeal and zest and thought it might be a way of pitching my intelligence against the intelligence of others, but unless you're from either USA or europe, then you're pretty much well left out of the tournament buzz and become something of a bystander to an event you'd give your left nut to be a part of. the game has been a classic FAIL here in australia. no-one wants to pay a huge amount of money for a game they get to experience only a part of, or test their abilities against what the rest of the world has to offer ( which has 2 sides, as the rest of the 'world' will never truly know if they're good enough to take on our best ). FFG has given absolutely no support to the game down here, the regional was something of a farce, and the players that attended have lost interest as soon as i defeated them, never returning any of my texts. and truthfully, it was somewhat a waste of my own money as i can go no further than a title which will never be taken seriously within the community.

over the past month or so, listening to all the excitement, i've become quite frustrated and aggressive about it all, and apologise for any provocations or incendiary comments that have been generated because of this, but yes, it is frustrating. i know that i'm an above average player, i've never been beaten, but i'll never know if i'm world champ material. and that to me is an unfulfilled question that is more annoying than productive. hence i shall play no more.

unless FFG does something about this and lends more support ( hell, i've paid enough for this game to pay for 2 tickets to the worlds event !! ) then it's only losing money because as things stand, there will never be a large australian community. why would we bother ?? the game definately induces a thirst for healthy competition and the trialling of our abilities, but here it just remains unfulfilled, unsatisfying and eventually, uninspiring. 

I'm a bit confused here.  First you were saying that you didn't like the over-emphasis on tournaments:

"i think most of us would gain a lot more enjoyment if we focused more on the social gaming experience and playing some fun decks. far too much importance is being given to being the creator of some magnificent deck and winning some dinky little tournament against a very small percentage of actual CoC players"

Now it sounds like you're saying that you're not happy because you're being left out of the tournament scene and casual play is unsatisfying:

"why would we bother ?? the game definately induces a thirst for healthy competition and the trialling of our abilities, but here it just remains unfulfilled, unsatisfying and eventually, uninspiring."

I think you were on the right track earlier, why not just enjoy the game for what it is?

one leads into the other.

the emphasis on tournaments drove me to want to compete.

the inability to compete drove me to give up the game.

That is too damn bad. Can I ask what kind of support you are wanting expecting from FFG? They don't do a heck of lot of major support, I suspect that hwat you got was what everyone else got in the US for regionals. The foreign partners have their own programs that they do for their nationals and for the EU championship.

Your decks were interesting and pretty innovative in comparison to what gets posted here on average. I for one will miss your thoughts.

OK, so you aren't in the US or Europe.  What do you realistically expect FFG to be able to do for you?  They don't have an official online version of the game, so they have to hold their major tournaments in person.  Therefore, everyone who isn't local to where the tournament is being held will have to travel.  Some will have to travel further than others.  For me (as an example) Mapquest says it's 8 hours and 11 minutes to Indianapolis for Gencon, and 17 hours and 45 minutes to Roseville MN for their World Championships.  That's a pretty significant journey, but it's entirely up to me whether I go or not.

Personally, I find the Gencon trip reasonable - but only because I can play a lot of other games while I'm there for 4 days.  I wouldn't go 8+ hours JUST for a single tournament that's only going to last a few hours.  I find the Roseville trip rather unreasonable, so I'm not planning to go.  If I happen to win Gencon (unlikely) it'll be tough, but that doesn't change the basic economics of time off and travel expenses at a busy time of year.  You've got the same choices, except that after deciding that the trips were unreasonable (which I agree with if you're in Australia) that this was somehow because of a deficiency on FFG's side (which I don't agree with).

They can't help where you live, or what cities or countries have the biggest fanbases.  Nor is it reasonable to expect them to pay for your travel.  Why should they?  If they're paying for you, why aren't they paying for all of us to go too?  How could they afford such extravagant measures?  Even if you say "only the Regionals champions get free trips" that's still a lot of money and I'm sure it is nowhere near justified by and added sales of the game for having a little bit bigger tournament.  So if we grant that they're losing large amounts of money, why would they consider such a thing?

I get what you're saying that you wish you could play against the "big dogs", but quitting in a huff doesn't seem to be the right solution.  Have you looked into learning to use LackeyCCG or some other online method?  You could potentially schedule some online games with other top players that way - will this scratch the itch enough for you?

Almost every last one of us feels your pain about not having local players, that's an issue nearly everywhere.  Honestly, if a large community is necessary for your enjoyment then you should be looking at Magic or possible L5R - they're the only card games I know which have a well developed community.  We can hope for Netrunner but even that will take lots of time to see what happens.

Edit:  I should add that if I didn't think you were a valuable member of the online community I wouldn't bother trying to talk you out of it :)  I know I haven't gotten to take part much in your deck design threads - I must (lamely) beg the excuse of a new baby in the house for that one but things seem to be starting to settle in a bit and I'm hoping to be showing my face a bit more often.  I've also got some deck ideas I'd like to develop and post and I'll miss your commentary on them if you're no longer around.