Duelyst Forums

Another way of looking at decks: Hard / Soft

#1

I was thinking about the Aggro / Control / Combo triangle the other day, and I realised that there’s a different line between the decks I enjoy playing and the ones I don’t.

Whether they’re Aggro or Control or Combo, there are some decks that have a fixed game plan, and try to execute on it. Someone plays a provoke minion? Remove it and then carry on with the plan. Hit them in the face at every opportunity, or remove every minion and heal and grind them down, it’s the same.

"A hard technique meets force with force, either with a linear, head-on force-blocking technique, or by diagonally cutting the strike with one’s force. "

The ones that I like are more
 yielding. They have synergy, not combos. You don’t have to save your combo card because you can’t win without it, but if you can manage to play A+B or A+B+C you get more of the sum of the parts. Perhaps you don’t destroy that provoke, you just work around it or move it. Perhaps you spend the game moving about the board so they can’t actually hit you. Perhaps you buff an enemy minion so that you can destroy your own Aymara Healer that wouldn’t otherwise be able to reach the enemy general so you get the heal you need to survive, or to increase the splash damage that Earth Syster Taygete deals. Perhaps you steal their minions, or you play into a position where they have enough damage on the board for lethal, but because you’ve healed their minions above 2 health, they can’t hit you with both of them, because one blocks the other. I saw a screenshot the other day of someone who’d managed to wall themselves into a corner surrounded by 3 enemy obelysks, so the enemy couldn’t hit them any more.

“The goal of the soft technique is deflecting the attacker’s force to his or her disadvantage, with the defender exerting minimal force. With a soft technique, the defender uses the attacker’s force and momentum against him or her, by leading the attack in a direction to where the defender will be advantageously positioned and the attacker off balance”

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#2

I like the conceptualization, but what would it look like in a deck? Is it the difference between general Arcanyst synergy and something like Enfeeble + Skorn or even the Mirror Meld OTK? Would seem (appropriately) fluid to me.

#3

I get what you’re saying, but I’m not sure it’s too meaningful of a distinction. All aggro decks are going to be hard and all control decks are going to be soft save for perhaps Vanar.

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#4

Perhaps I just like decks without win conditions =)

I’m playing Blood Echoes Sarlac Swarm at the moment at the bottom of Diamond - win one, lose one - and I never know how it’s going to pan out. If I win, sometimes I ping them to death, sometimes Shadowdancer + Skorn swings the game, sometimes a Shadow Watcher goes unanswered, sometimes a Death Fire Crescendo smacks them down. I like being able to / having to change my game plan from turn to turn.

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#5

I prefer decks where the win condition isn’t always the same as well. It’s pretty rough right now since Variax/Obliterate are basically my only options for finishing a game, but I’m hoping that a few more months of crafting will open up another possibility or two.

Finishers feel like hard elements in a soft deck.

#6

Agree with sviel that lots of control deck is using soft approach than having 1/2 win condition.

I also bring soft approach to the extreme with sabotage/thief deck like this:

Rather than using my own deck, I primarily steal enemy unit/spell to turn the tide against themselves :imp:
Although I find the deck a bit all over the place with win rate only 50:50 most of the time :frowning:

#7

I really enjoyed the idea!
I enjoy decks without a certain win condition.
They make each game a challenge, you always have to look for a lethal. I like when my reach doesnt depend on me having a thumping wave or not. Not having a win condition makes every turn different: will I be able to kill my opponent with lucent beam if I destroy his only damaged minion? Or should i go face and hope he doesnt get the answer right now?

Decks without a clear win condition make you adapt as a player, make every game different and unique. This is one of my favourite parts in card games. And for the same reason i dislike cards like revenant,variax and obliterate, which are the most obvious and guaranteed win conditions. Aggro decks have a very predictable and linear gameplan. Hitting face is always better than not hitting face.

But if there will ever be a point when majority of meta decks dont have a win con, i believe that will be the best time to play the game.
Sadly I do understand that decks without a win con are inconsistent and therefore weaker than the decks we have today.

#8

I know EXACTLY what you mean.

My hard deck (combo {pre-update}):
Songhai
Beast master or dagger kiri + 2 inner focus + 2 obscuring blow for 24 damage out of hand (or 16 if your missing an obscuring blow) for 7 mana. No matter how hard he enemy attacked or banged me up I kept replacing (even some times past 9 mana) till I HAD this combo.

Other (soft) decks:
Magmar, get something 5-6-7 mana and use cascading rebirth, prefereably a rebirth minion.

Lyonar, Get a big minion and buff it for a final hi, optimally use divine bond.

Songhai, get to end game and use some combo of whiplash, Geomancer and meltdown to finish the enemy from afar.

The hard deck, when I got it to work with cards to increase the rate of getting what I wanted was Usually guaranteed, but had no adaptability.

The others go with the flow. So even though they aren’t guaranteed, they have a higher win rate.

Is this what you mean? @OP

]’[

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#9

Exactly =)

Furthermore: I think that consistent, high-win-rate, “hard” decks are what people call “Cheese”, and that is what makes a meta feel oppressive. You know what they’re going to do, and you can either stop them by winning first, or they’re going to do it to you. Doesn’t matter if there are 10 equally balanced decks if they’re all “hard”: whichever one you face, if you can’t disrupt their plan, then you’ve got to race them or you die.

Successful “soft” decks are what people call “Skill”, and mind less about losing to, even if every single turn there was an obvious play given the cards available that it didn’t take a genius to spot.

I personally don’t think that any decks - not even the smorcest of facehunters - are zero skill - but I get the impression that some people feel that way. Perhaps CPG already do consider and support this playstyle - they print cards like Eclipse after all, which can give you cause to regret that 25/25 Shadow Watcher that is suddenly running away from a tiny 3/7 minion - but whether they do or not, more is better =)

#10

“I personally don’t think that any decks - not even the smorcest of facehunters - are zero skill - but I get the impression that some people feel that way. Perhaps CPG already do consider and support this playstyle - they print cards like Eclipse after all, which can give you cause to regret that 25/25 Shadow Watcher that is suddenly running away from a tiny 3/7 minion - but whether they do or not, more is better =)”

2 things, first of all, when the meta get tough, the memes get going I have an anti lyonar deck (and had an anti abbysian deck in the past) with things like grove keeper. Thing is, people dont always play meta so its a give and take. (So Ill just add grove to a regular deck or smthin)
2nd: HOLY MOLY IMMOLATION I FORGOT ABOUT ECLIPSE!!!

Im’ma use that with inner focus ASAP~!

]’[

#11

It seems to me like 2 different tipics entirely:

  1. the difference between bad and good positioning/desicion making, dodging attacks, kiting the opponent minions,/general preventing thir plays by positioning that is something that you can do with most deck and factions. Playing an aggro deck doesn’t mean you should always go face, unless you want to lose that is.

  2. is decks with multiple win consitions, main example would be songhai, pre patch they had alnost unlimited amount of possible win consitions, you could just play the best you can and look for a creative lethal.
    I guess other decks could have 2-3 win consitions but not having any win consition usually means you play for tempo advantage, which can end up pretty bad for you.

unfortunately this songhai deck type is dead. There are just many things​ you can’t deal with as songhai unless you play some specific combos and even those aren’t reliable.

#12

I think it makes sense. Combo you MUST follow and multiple win conditions (as you said) should be classified into 2 types of decks IMO.

]’[

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#13

Ha, I had a vet thief deck somewhere
 I used to play it all the time. The primary problem with it is that you do not have a clear win condition. Sure, sometimes the opponent is nice enough to donate his 20/20 excelsior to you, but most of the time, you’ll just get ground to dust by the small fries. Anyways, here are my insights:

  1. The primary spell/unit stealing components are best utilized as supporting units rather than the core. This allows for your own, independent actions to be carried out in parallel as Active Threats rather than reactive damage control units.
  2. Disruption tactics are most effectively utilized in the lategame <9 mana>.
  3. The real value of the mindbender lies not in its ability to steal spells, but the ability to see what spells your opponent has. Thus, when mindbender returns no spells, rejoice.
  4. The less reaction time your opponent has, the better. Example: Mindbender, returns nothing. IMMEDIATELY, the astral phasing needs to be placed on the serpenti, or the primus shieldmaster needs to lock them down. The most damning 5 drop is probably a backline scarab.
  5. This deck is weak to cheap swarming tactics. Spinecleaver solves this problem quite nicely :wink:

Good luck, FeelsJosekiMan

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#14

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