i know. i know.

i'm being a crybaby. ( a lame haha )

its just a decision i'm going to have to make over the next few days. pump even more money into a game which in turns enthralls me and frustrates me, ( and given my mental condition is sometimes very unhealthy ), or devote my time to something else.

i do love the game ( been playing cthulhu since the 80's rpg ), but cost vs. time played and the effort FFG put into our country is a serious factor. and no, i don't expect them to fly regional champions around ( though it would be nice ), but it just ires me that not only do i have to spend all this money on their products, but being one of the main ambassadors in australia, i also have to put more time and money into spreading the word, so others can spend even more money on their products, all with zip support. no advertising, no campaigns, no fan base.

perhaps if they went to the effort of networking with local game shops to put on promo nights or gave them incentives to set up their own groups, then i see this as a way of increasing their sales and the community with little to no cost. i don't understand why they wouldn't be interested in doing this, but in australia its a "here's the product, you wanna play, you have to go and make us more money" kind of attitude. 

its a HUGE country, with a MASSIVE board and card gaming community, and boy are we dedicated when given the reason to be. last boardgaming convention ( not tournament ) was held in a little border town called albury over a 3 day long weekend ( only a 3hr drive for me ). but people flew from brisbane , adelaide, even perth just to attend. no prizes. no titles. just 3 days of 9am - 3am ( 18 hrs ) of boardgaming. the surrounding hotels BANK on this annual weekend.

i dunno. sometimes i'm high as a kite on this game, others i'm completely demoralised when i look at the $1000+ dollars sitting on my desk doing nothing. sometimes i'm even fatalistic ( see "i'm giving up this game" ). and i'm sure you guys are getting crazy sick of my mood swings.

i'm trying to set up a community and it goes 2 steps forwards, 2 steps backwards.

i think i'll just leave the decks boxed, have some time off over the tournament season and see if i get back into it later this year.

and thanks for the encouraging words and reality checks. if i'm back i'll try to be a lot nicer and non confrontational. i've gotten my gripes off my chest and will try to refrain when people push my buttons.

EDIT: i'm also going to see where the game is headed before i decide whether to pull the plug. EG: if miskatonic start having willpower thrown all over the place without the AO factions getting investigation icons, then they're simply swapping one demon for the other. i'm sure there will be a huge rush of cthulhu/miskatonic destruction PLUS pumped up investigation decks. 

EDIT2: i think what REALLY gets my goat, is the denotion of 'WORLD CHAMPION', like we here in australia and other far gone places aren't considered part of the CoC 'world'. perhaps if they changed it to 'CTHULHU CHAMPION' i might not feel so offended !! i know. petty as all hell.

NOW its all off my chest. its been a long time brewing, i'm sorry to all you folks for having to go through it, but i feel a whole lot better for it…………

EDIT3: and while i'm pondering what to do with the game, you guys can ponder the possibilities of LODGE DEFENCES setting up repetative loops with ritual of the lance / dedicated butler.

or for that matter, lodge defences / dedicated butler / dark secrets of the order.

COCLCD wrote some nonsense:

-->went to the tournament in liege and since I was the only one who knew how to use the khopesh, I was the only one who made it to the top 4 with it"

     This is not what was meant at all. The implication of that statement was that "if the Khopesh is so good, why did it not dominate the top 4". The reason I used myself as a comparator was that I was the only one with the Khopesh in his build in the top 4 - and I was probably also the only one who was resourcing it. If we follow the "Khopesh is broken" logic - I should have lost long before as I was resourcing it, and none of the other players should have even made the cutoff as they didn't have it in their deck, and they didn’t pack their decks with "Get it off", "Burrowing beneath" or other nonsensical cards. I never said I was the only one who knew how to use it, nor did I imply that.

 

-->"I never play CoC and only do large tournaments but am good enough to win them anyway"

-->"I built my deck on the plane ride over and still won"

     The original article was actually about something quite different - it was about belief systems. I was at work when I wrote it and the post was actually dragging into the size of a book, so just before posting, I cut out huge chunks of it. The original purpose of the above (and the MTG references) part was a lead in to why I was unaffected by "khopesh madness". In my MTG experience, often the meta-game shifted wildly in nonsensical directions when new cards were released. Once in a blue moon the tournaments were so bizarre that by then end of the tournament, everyone was confused as to what had just happened (instigated by cards everyone thought was broken - and were not). The lead in the above and its following statement were an explanation as to why I wasn’t dragged into "khopesh mania". Not knowing anything about the current state of the game, I didn’t focus on it - instead I simply attempted to build an efficient, competent deck. The moral of the story was that "efficiency" and "standard deck building" beat "Khopesh is ubar". That is actually my fault as that was an aggressively hacked that part of the write up. After I read what ended up coming out - I was highly unhappy with it, I should have cut quite a bit more.

-->"since then I’ve built 5 decks even better than this one, without the khopesh"

     If you were an analytical person, you would know that the first step in proving a point is building a proof of concept. This was conveying that I had taken my "new belief system" and had tested it via a proof of concept. Several people pointed out at the end of the tournament that "I won because I had Khopesh" - which was patently untrue. I was anticipating that response with the above. Note that as a competitor I am in a bit of a bind as I am not going to give up free deckbuilding ideas, so I am forced to do some hand waiving here. You can either take my word for it or not, I do not care. But given how obviously bad it has performed since Stahleck and the subsequent regionals, one would have to be a very poor player to not see it doesn’t take much to beat it. You are reading way more into this statement than was ever intended.

 

-->"if I built a deck for someone, I wouldn't include khopesh as they wouldn't be able to discern how to play it"

     If you actually read it, the very next sentence said "Whom I would assume is a new player". The example I was directly conjuring, was a hypothetical person who may have played MTG and knew card games, but had just picked up COC and hadn’t had time to properly master it yet. In that case, if I were to help the new player - having to do intense sessions with him for a period of time till he got up to speed would outweigh any minor advantages that the Khopesh provided. Since it is a marginal card anyway, this is high risk/high work with low gain proposition. Thus I would avoid it and recommend they avoid using the card.

-->"these are all my tournament wins, and the amount of khopesh like cards included in my decks"

     When I talked with people in Europe, some of them were dismayed by the amount of removal that was being carried around in a large portion of the decks. There were decks there that had well over 20 cards that were just kill. For newer players this can be daunting. I needed a concise way to "prove" that that strategy was inferior. I could have said "my opinion is" - but the whole point of the article is that opinions are meaningless. I thought it was a clever way to show data. I don’t know what other past winners played, nor do I have records of all the tournament decks ever played. By posting what I did know…e.g. what I had won with in the past…provided an absolutely data-driven "proof" that destruction heavy decks do not work - and that the people complaining about them, or finding them as "negative" play experience, should perhaps look at the game from a different perspective. I can think of no other concise way to convey this idea while avoiding opinioned statements (self aggradizement aside). When it comes to analysis and strategy, statements that begin with "I think" are meaningless and should be disregarded before the speaker finishes the statement.

-->"I won a tournament using a tech that I created and was later named 'jump tech' "

     This was showing how people, who clearly don't know what they are doing, yet for some reason feel that they should have input into the game, have a very direct negative effect on the game. For those CCG era players who know what this was about, this reference may make more sense - it was a quite large incident at that time, and the result was a total disaster for the game. Bottom line - taking popular opinion and basing rulings off it has had disastrous results in the past, and one should expect the same for future rulings.

-->"oh, and by the way, the khopesh isn't broken ( but really it’s hard to tell because no-one knows how to use it but me )"

     I will try to re-state in way that you can understand. The fact that most of the decks were Khopesh decks at this very large (and hence statistically relevant) tournament, and the relative performance of them during it, is undeniable proof that Khopesh is not overtly powerful - and in fact is clearly inferior. Since I clearly stated that - in fact it was the whole point of the article, I don’t know where you come to your parenthetical conclusion. At no point did I say that I have special powers known only to me that allows me to prove that. The whole point was the facts, and nothing but the facts and what those facts have to say.

Zephyr Wrote-->

The author might have been more humble. But his analysis is still valuable, and bragging when you’re contesting current meta seems like a way to be treated seriously, especially when it’s not made up and you really are a good player that saw sloppy Khopesh plays.

I apologize if this came across as arrogant, it was not intended to be so. If there was any emotion underlying it - I would say it is frustration. Note that driving reason for even writing it was a larger problem I see coming down the road. Finally, after a long drought, we have a great game designer at the helm. Many of the new cards that are coming out are very creative and quite clever on a technical level. I initially had no intention of writing anything…but my fear was that if something as simple as the Khopesh was causing this much of an uproar - that it would de-facto lead to many of the newer cards also being nerfed. As far as I can tell the real problem with the Khopesh seems to be that it exacerbates poor deck building. If I had to guess - I would say that many of the people complaining about getting mowed down by it are losing because they have far too many unplayable cards in their decks and are far too in-effecient. The problem here is, that if you remove khopesh - they still have the same root problem - which of course means they will just get beaten over the head with some other card - causing a endless "ban it" cycle. If you continue with this logic, eventually we will be debating the brokenness of “Degenerate Serpent Cultist" because he runs over someone’s poorly built deck. We saw this happen at the end of the CCG era. I am simply trying to stop it before it gets too much momentum.

Darkman:

     I was not implying that the European players did not have competent decks. My thought was that most of the players really got carried away with Khopesh and removal and at some point basic competent deck building went out the window. As mentioned above - I have seen this happen in other games. I think that it is very very hard to determine much else about deck building/strategy from that tournament as the results were very tainted by the removal overload. Ironically - it was somewhat obvious to me that Khopesh was an inferior card when decks like yours placed so high. In reality, Things in the Ground should intrinsically be overly susceptible to Khopesh (to be specific, since your chars come out insane and you had absolutely no way to deal with support cards, all that an opponent had to do was drop a khopesh and then wait for big characters to pop out and shoot them – this would have bought several turns easily). The fact that in-spite of a sea of Khopesh decks you got to second place, shows just how ineffective it really is. Had people just played normal rush/control/combo garden variety decks I think that the results of the tournament would have been different. My “negative view” of TITG decks is that it is intrinsically a lottery deck – statistically a non negligible portion of games, mulligan not withstanding, all 3 things will be at the bottom half of your deck, which is an auto lose situation. What I did like about your deck was that you correctly realized that focusing on the trigger of things and its effects, rather than the more obvious “I get big characters out”, is a much more potent effect – that is not an obvious conclusion and shows insight into the game.

 

   Historically, European players have always been weaker than the US players in this game (I am speaking of CCG era times), I do think the Euro players have finally come into their own and are now the stronger meta-group. That is my opinion though, I do not offer any quantitative evidence to back that statement up.

Zephyr Wrote

-->And there are really not that many cards that can get rid of it directly (missed any?) :

You are missing the point. If your deck is built correctly you do not need these cards. NONE of the Stahleck decks had those in them that placed high (and while I am at it, most of the published regionals winners dont have them either from what I can tell – yet Khopesh decks lost to them. People going out of their way to dump these cards in their decks are

1) Not going to address the real problem, which is poorly constructed decks

2) Compound problem #1 by adding even more situational/unplayable cards to their decks

Take Burrowing Beneath as an example. If your opponent is smart, he will simply wait till you don’t have a 2 domain open then play it…he gets to khopesh and you get 3 wasted cards in your deck and dead cards in your hand. If you leave the domain open, he just drops more chars and runs you over as you bleed out momentum. Cards like this (and Power Drain being another optimal example) are really just engaging in siege mentality. Once you resort to this you are all but setting yourself up for defeat.
 

Zephyr Wrote

-->Shocking transformation into Logan with khopesh and toughness +2 is playable form turn 2 (turn 1 if u transcient, but 5 wounds turn 1 are completly useless) and gives 5 wounds for character, event and 3 domain… or 3-4 wounds and Logan stays…

[logan and toughness

This has been tried and failed. Instead of recreating failure, it may be more prudent to search for why it lost and work backwards.

Penfold Wrote:

-->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.
 

You give me too much credit here. I am still bound the laws of probability just as much as the next guy. You give me a deck with a hoard of situational/ low efficincy cards in it and I will go down just as hard as the guy who built the deck. It is my observation that most players seem to decide if a card is good or bad based on the visual effect and not on its mechanical function. For example, take "Cursed Skull". I rushed multiple people playing this card and was somewhat amazed they dropped it against me (or even had it in their deck). They burned 2 domains and 1 card, to kill my 1 cost 1 domain card and literally bled themselves to death from itterative momentum loss. Even worse, since I got to pick, they often cleared distribution problems in my draws by soaking off a double drawn Unique char. As soon as I see a card like that dropped against a certain board configuration, I change my playstyle immediately. Im not saying it has no place in the game, but when you have decks full of cards based on "I think its good cause it kills stuff" and poor mechanics, it is very hard to salvage that even if you are aware of what is happening. Another good example is "things in the ground deck" - if forced to play that deck and at least on of the "things" is not in the top 12-15 cards, I am going to lose badly. No saving throw.

I think that one the things that irks me most about the "ban it crew" it the level of disservice they do to the game. This game can be insanely deep. Just when you think you know something, you find a new mechanic or playstyle that breaks it. At each level the game just gets deeper and deeper. For people complaining about this card - it clearly isnt winning, so the obvious conclusion is - you must not be "getting" something. Instead of complaining, perhaps analyzing why you are losing might lead you to the next level. I find this to be the most enjoyable part of the game by a mile. Imagine being part of a group that gets Khopesh banned, only to find out a month or so later that you now "get it" and actually it isnt that great. If the game was so easy that someone who plays casual can be instantly intermediate or even master level, then what is going to keep the interest for the rest of us?
 

As an update to this article, I am currently purusing the Regionals reports and it looks like even more epic fail for Khopesh. Given that many of these tournaments were almost 50% khopesh - and at most it may have won 1 tournament (additionally I might add that the winners auspiciously had no "anti khopesh cards" in their decks that I can tell) - the only really amazing thing here is that people are apparently still talking about this card and putting it in their decks. I guess that success by repetition of failure must be a new strategy.

If I told you that in 15 major tournaments where almost 50% of the decks had a card in it and those decks may have won 1, would you be excited to have this card in your deck?

P.S-> For those of you who messaged me….I assumed this new board was like the old board and had a message que…apparently I was wrong, or at least I cannot find it through this new user friendly interface. If you still want to talk to me or find my last reply cryptic, please try again.

i apologise profusely, for most of the last weeks comments, including this one. just hurry up and start writing more topics so this embarassing airing of my psychotic laundry can be shuffled off the main page. it was a very intense week of frustration, mania and cthulhu impotence and if it happens again i will STAY OFF the forum until it stabilises. once again. a big massive sorry.

 I don't care what anyone says, khopesh is meta defining. When people have to build their decks with khopesh in mind so they don't get blown out by it then I'd say its a pretty busted card. Now granted, my play group is rather small(only about 4-6),but it pretty much wrecks every other deck except for my Shub deck because it has support destruction in it.

Graham's point the whole time was that Khopesh actually isn't metagame defining. It's a card of average efficiency. Unless you have a guy with Toughness, it's 2 cards for 2 cards. You know what is AT LEAST that efficient usually. Feeding Frenzy! And it even works at Disrupt timing, in the middle of struggles! How freaking obnoxious would that be if you saw it more often from a Cthulhu player? You get chump blocked and then mauled. GG.

Khopesh also can be destroyed right after it's played. Burrowing Beneath before it kills anything? GG. Or let your opponent kill one thing, then destroy Khopesh or drive the creature insane, and you just destroyed 2 cards for 1. GG again!

There are plenty of things that are just as annoying as Khopesh. Master of the Myths is on the same level, though it's also an inefficient card. You limit yourself to 2 domains for deploying things just to have a guaranteed blocker… for most situations.

You know combo is just as annoying as Khopesh? Marcus Jamberg + Pawn Broker + Dimensional Rift/Cursed Skull/Ice Shaft. Being able to wipe the board always from turn 4 on is stupid good, even if it's using inefficient cards. Should we restrict Jamberg now? Or Pawn Broker?

You know what else would be "broken"? The Silver Key + Negotium Parambulens in Tenebris. I am actually planning on building a "for fun" deck around this combo just to be annoying.

My rambling aside, Khopesh is annoying but it can be easily dealt with. So are any of the things I just mentioned as well. Don't hamstring yourself by saying a card is broken and you have to build a deck to specifically combat ONE CARD.

AUCodeMonkey said:

Because it's so hard for casual/beginner players to find a card with Toughness?  I don't think you will often see Khopesh used on characters without it, normally even a duffer will catch on to the idea that cheap tough characters or high-toughness characters are the way to go which I hope we can all agree raises the card's efficiency.

Personally I think it's a card you should be aware of and put on your checklist when making a tournament deck.  Do I have anything to deal with Khopesh?  OK, yes I do, on to the next item.  There are things that can take it out, but it you don't have one you could be facing a surgical strike of several wounds being dealt in a targeted manner to your key characters.

Not many things can do that.  Most effects only hit a single character.  A lot of them are untargeted, allowing the opponent to pick who is affected.  Feeding Frenzy requires that they all be at the same story with your character, again you don't get to cherry pick.  It's the combination of cherry picking and possible high numbers of wounds being dealt that set the Khopesh apart from many other wounding effects into something it's worth your time to be aware of.

Just don't go overboard is all.  If you stuff your deck with too many attachment/support destroying cards then you'll be vulnerable against all the other decks from the lost efficiency.  Take some minor precautions if you need to (some deck archetypes may not need to do anything at all), and then get back to general tuning.

kamacausey said:

The Destruction deck type is meta defining. Khopesh is just another link in its near dominance.

Khopesh is strong, but I think (and the following is heavily dependent on exactly what deck you are playing) that you have to adjust your playstyle more than you have to adjust your deck build when keeping the Khopesh in mind.

Eric's Syndicate/Hastur deck was heavily geared to wards beating destruction, yet it still went unbeaten by every other deck it faced that day as well. So in a sense, even though his deck was geared to face destruction, you could say that his deck logically defines that local meta, with destruction being much less of a concern.

It all comes down to which deck type faces which other deck type. Some decks will have fits against destruction and have little hope in beating it, while other decks think of it as a nuisance and nothing more. A lot really does depend on matchups.

And matchup is also just one factor in numerous factors that say a deck is good or bad against another. You also have to consider bad or good card draws, how well cards are resourced and what cards follow in the draw, etc. etc.

AUCodeMonkey said:

I laughed hard at Feeding Frenzy! Great analogy! If there was a way to give reputation I would give it for this . Seriously, that was an amazing wrap up.

Carioz said:

His wife is a Cthulhu faction fangirl. So he likely has been stomped by that card making the scenario even more humorous. Then she might lay out a Mutant Spawn (Soft and Cuddly) at the end game to scare the piss out of him. GG indeed.

She is quite the Cthulhu fangirl. She hasn't used Mutant Spawn yet, but Shocking Transformation -> Cthuloid Spawn is a different story…

And yes, I hate Feeding Frenzy. I was a pretty heavy Agency fanboy, and then that card changes my attitude considerably. Not to mention Beneath the Mire. Rushers beware!