Seeing as there's not much of a way to balance going first vs. having the coin, why not let the player with the coin have access to an option that offers your opponent the coin and puts the fourth card back in your deck?
I might have miss understood this but.. Wouldn't that lead to the exact same situation we have now? Except for that the one with the coin at the beginning of the game sends the coin to the opponent and then goes first?
I had to edit the text in my post a bit to be a bit clearer. You offer your opponent the coin to go first. If they accept the coin, you put the fourth card back in your deck, and they get the coin, going second.
You start the game with one more card because you are going second. Then you give away your bonus card and coin for going first. Now your opponent gets a coin.
So your opponent starts the game with 3 cards (NO bonus card) and goes second?
Sounds not like something that brings balance to the game. It actually increases the problem.
Edit - didn't see the part where you offer the coin. But why would anyone accept that offer?
You mean the game should start with a die roll. Higher roll chooses to play first or draw/coin BEFORE you see cards
No, what are you talking about? You would offer the coin to your opponent at the mulligan stage. The game starts with a dice roll anyway. Nothing's changing except you can offer the coin to go first.
You start the game with one more card because you are going second. Then you give away your bonus card and coin for going first. Now your opponent gets a coin.
So your opponent starts the game with 3 cards (NO bonus card) and goes second?
Sounds not like something that brings balance to the game. It actually increases the problem.
Edit - didn't see the part where you offer the coin. But why would anyone accept that offer?
You'd likely just draw two cards at the start of your turn if you accept the coin. It'd be hard to justify writing the system in a way where you look at four cards after accepting the coin. Too much to do with timers, so you'd get the coin and draw twice when your turn starts.
With going first being an advantage nobody would ever want to go second unless their deck could make use of the coin in some way (as mentioned before in thread) but then your opponent even has to be so "stupid" as to give your deck that fringe advantage of the coin. It's basically a choice that is no choice at all and only there for the peace of mind of some. It's pretty much just the illusion of choice.
With going first being an advantage nobody would ever want to go second unless their deck could make use of the coin in some way (as mentioned before in thread) but then your opponent even has to be so "stupid" as to give your deck that fringe advantage of the coin. It's basically a choice that is no choice at all and only there for the peace of mind of some. It's pretty much just the illusion of choice.
Basically this. Baring VERY RARE fringe cases, you'll be best off going first in almost every game. The coin is specifically designed to make you FEEL more powerful, but you aren't.
So basically everyone going second is going to be able to swap to first if I'm reading this right (if you have the coin, you can choose to go first instead and give hte opponent the coin). OR if their deck is, in the rare cases, advantaged going second, they can choose to stay that way instead. There's also some mulligan situations where yu are better off going second (if you don't have a 1 drop but you have 2 2-drops) which you now get to manipulate since you get to see your mulligan before your choice.
So by this you gave one player basically the ultimate advantage of setting up first/second based on their situation while the other player is SoL.
No. Just NO!
The first/second situationi doesn't need to be fixed with changing the system. It used to be almost completely even between going first and second. The recent card additions, especially the 1 drops, have made Tempo such an important factor that going first is just that much more powerful. But that's created by the cards andd, thus, can be fixed by the cards. It's also dangerous to change the fundamental system since another set of cards can shift the balance yet again to something uglier.
And even if we are going to make a change, giving the person going second so much power is insane.
With going first being an advantage nobody would ever want to go second unless their deck could make use of the coin in some way (as mentioned before in thread) but then your opponent even has to be so "stupid" as to give your deck that fringe advantage of the coin. It's basically a choice that is no choice at all and only there for the peace of mind of some. It's pretty much just the illusion of choice.
Basically this. Baring VERY RARE fringe cases, you'll be best off going first in almost every game. The coin is specifically designed to make you FEEL more powerful, but you aren't.
So basically everyone going second is going to be able to swap to first if I'm reading this right (if you have the coin, you can choose to go first instead and give hte opponent the coin). OR if their deck is, in the rare cases, advantaged going second, they can choose to stay that way instead. There's also some mulligan situations where yu are better off going second (if you don't have a 1 drop but you have 2 2-drops) which you now get to manipulate since you get to see your mulligan before your choice.
So by this you gave one player basically the ultimate advantage of setting up first/second based on their situation while the other player is SoL.
No. Just NO!
The first/second situationi doesn't need to be fixed with changing the system. It used to be almost completely even between going first and second. The recent card additions, especially the 1 drops, have made Tempo such an important factor that going first is just that much more powerful. But that's created by the cards andd, thus, can be fixed by the cards. It's also dangerous to change the fundamental system since another set of cards can shift the balance yet again to something uglier.
And even if we are going to make a change, giving the person going second so much power is insane.
I thought I made this clear enough, so I'll explain again. You offer your opponent the coin to go second. It is something you could offer, not force on the player originally slated to go first. You're not forcing your opponent to do anything but think on an offer.
I thought I made this clear enough, so I'll explain again. You offer your opponent the coin to go second. It is something you could offer, not force on the player originally slated to go first. You're not forcing your opponent to do anything but think on an offer.
OH.
Then that doesn't really affect anything beyond tricking the occasional newbie. Once you know the ropes you know if you're first you keep going first unless you specifically gain an advantage going second, and that's for VERY specific decks and mulligan starts.
Thus the folks who will actually accept your offer going second you actually do NOT want to let go second. Everyone else will stick to first.
It's a newbie trap to accept a disadvantage or let someone gain an advantage they didn't already have and it's a pretty involved piece of code to do it (since the system isn't designed efficiently right now to 'swap' who gets what and isn't designeed at all to take the 4th card in a mulligan and push it back into the deck. It can be done, but there's not much benefit to it.
I stand by my other statement. Tone down the high powered 1 drops or give value players a good reason to hold 1 drops instead of playing them on curve. Also offer more swing cards that let you steal tempo away from the opponent. Both of those will do a better job at balancing first and second since the core mechanics offer a far smaller divide between the two than most games out there.
Seeing as there's not much of a way to balance going first vs. having the coin, why not let the player with the coin have access to an option that offers your opponent the coin and puts the fourth card back in your deck?
What do you guys think?
I think a better option might be for each player at the beginning of the match to have the option to go first or second. If both players choose first or both players choose second then its determined randomly. If one player chooses first and one player chooses second then they go in the way they chose.
But I think Blizzard would never do this because initial position is part of the game's RNG and some decks have a decent advantage depending when they go. For example, check out this article:
Seeing as there's not much of a way to balance going first vs. having the coin, why not let the player with the coin have access to an option that offers your opponent the coin and puts the fourth card back in your deck?
What do you guys think?
I think a better option might be for each player at the beginning of the match to have the option to go first or second. If both players choose first or both players choose second then its determined randomly. If one player chooses first and one player chooses second then they go in the way they chose.
But I think Blizzard would never do this because initial position is part of the game's RNG and some decks have a decent advantage depending when they go. For example, check out this article:
Actually that's not that bad an idea. Honestly if both sides really want to determine 1st/2nd then why not just give it to them, then if they both want first or second then it works just as it does now.
Thing is if this was just a physical game and it's just a matter of two people agreeing on things then yes let's do it.
But this is a computer game so making ANY change means a good bit of coding and debugging. And it sounds like it's a nightmare to add things to the game (according to Kripp's recent video, changing just one card requires a full game update which then requires a month's long approval process as it goes through Apple/Google's update process). And the change really is just a small quality of life bonus.
There's a lot of things that would be great to add if it was easy to add it. But the limits of computer games is that it's not nearly as easy to change a computer game as it is just some random folks in a room.
Hey, thanks everyone for stopping in and leaving your thoughts. I see what a lot of you are getting at. Personally, I don't mind going second, as I tend to play decks that are more reactive, which is part of the reason I wondered about this in the first place.
Seeing as there's not much of a way to balance going first vs. having the coin, why not let the player with the coin have access to an option that offers your opponent the coin and puts the fourth card back in your deck?
What do you guys think?
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You mean the game should start with a die roll. Higher roll chooses to play first or draw/coin BEFORE you see cards
How should that work?
You start the game with one more card because you are going second. Then you give away your bonus card and coin for going first. Now your opponent gets a coin.
So your opponent starts the game with 3 cards (NO bonus card) and goes second?
Sounds not like something that brings balance to the game. It actually increases the problem.
Edit - didn't see the part where you offer the coin. But why would anyone accept that offer?
Everyone would go first unless they had a deck that leveraged the coin as a spell, like Miracle or Exodia, then they would never trade the coin.
Edit - didn't see the offer part - the offer would be generally declined.
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With going first being an advantage nobody would ever want to go second unless their deck could make use of the coin in some way (as mentioned before in thread) but then your opponent even has to be so "stupid" as to give your deck that fringe advantage of the coin. It's basically a choice that is no choice at all and only there for the peace of mind of some. It's pretty much just the illusion of choice.
One does not simply walk into Mordor,
unless they want to be the best they can be.
Come visit my Card Emporium. Strange things, you will find inside...
Come take the test, if you're daring. Feel free to show me your results in a message.
OH.
Then that doesn't really affect anything beyond tricking the occasional newbie. Once you know the ropes you know if you're first you keep going first unless you specifically gain an advantage going second, and that's for VERY specific decks and mulligan starts.
Thus the folks who will actually accept your offer going second you actually do NOT want to let go second. Everyone else will stick to first.
It's a newbie trap to accept a disadvantage or let someone gain an advantage they didn't already have and it's a pretty involved piece of code to do it (since the system isn't designed efficiently right now to 'swap' who gets what and isn't designeed at all to take the 4th card in a mulligan and push it back into the deck. It can be done, but there's not much benefit to it.
I stand by my other statement. Tone down the high powered 1 drops or give value players a good reason to hold 1 drops instead of playing them on curve. Also offer more swing cards that let you steal tempo away from the opponent. Both of those will do a better job at balancing first and second since the core mechanics offer a far smaller divide between the two than most games out there.
One does not simply walk into Mordor,
unless they want to be the best they can be.
One does not simply walk into Mordor,
unless they want to be the best they can be.
Hey, thanks everyone for stopping in and leaving your thoughts. I see what a lot of you are getting at. Personally, I don't mind going second, as I tend to play decks that are more reactive, which is part of the reason I wondered about this in the first place.
Come visit my Card Emporium. Strange things, you will find inside...
Come take the test, if you're daring. Feel free to show me your results in a message.