Duelyst Forums

Can we talk about Deceptibot?

#1

I hurts my soul to say this, but Deceptibot is some Hearthstone shit. The degree of value this card gives for simply playing it + Assassination Protocol (and I’m sure there are other examples…It + Aegis Barrier comes to mind) is so far away from good design that I have a hard time understanding how it even made it into the game.

This is the kind of stuff that *could (but I’ll cry for the rest of my days on earth) get me to leave the game. Duelyst has always been (of course examples can be sited in contradiction to this) a skillful game that didn’t really feel like it rewarded simply putting cards on the board…that’s a Blizzard thing to do. Deceptibot feels just like playing Hearthstone with/against the Secret Paladin deck and that kind of design philosophy is exactly why I left that game- low/no skill, high reward mechanics/design that will, in time, encourage everyone to play the same basic things with little variation because you get huge pay-offs for doing almost nothing and you will lose, after putting in much greater effort, if you don’t.

Possible Changes-
The Mech(s) are put into your hand after Deceptibot kills a thing. < what I would do

Change to 5 mana.

Stats changed to 3/5 or 4/4.

Remove from Game. <mostly kidding…mostly

7 Likes
[Experiment] We need a fixed place to gather all the nerf threads
#2

The cardis problematic, because it works when enemies trade into it. I think a good change would be to change the text to ‘‘After this minion attacks and destroys an enemy, summon a random mech from your deck.’’ This way you can still be able to trade into it and not suffer

10 Likes
#3

yes. smart.

15 char

2 Likes
#4

I think the developers should learn that pushing synergies too much is just a bad choice. We have seen it in the Arcanyst meta, now we are seeing in the Mech meta. Hearthstone had the Pirate meta and Shadowverse the Neutral meta, all of which were bad.

Stop pushing synergies over the top, especially on Neutral cards. Strong neutral packages are bad for the game

7 Likes
#5
  • Nerf Deceptibot, it’s obvious cancer
  • Don’t nerf, for some reason

0 voters

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Deceptibot Poll
#6

I actually like what they did with mechs, but i can agree they went a bit over the board. I think Deceptibot was unneeded, and Silver just goes nuts with Mechaz0r on the field.

3 Likes
#7

Played a Tempo Hai List yesterday for like 12 games or something. The deck had both Deceptibot and Thunderhorn to synergise with Protocoll. It didn’t feel all that strong to be honest.

A simple 7/5 without abililtes isn’t really hard to deal with for most decks and Deceptibot himself is usually in ko range for the general after eating a minion and shitting out Silver. I literally had games where my 2 card 5 mana play was entirely nullified by 3 mana and a General hit and that in turn 2. Later in the game the play loses even more in power to the point where it’s pointless.

If you don’t get the combo early, or at all for that matter, the deck doesn’t do much else. It’s also depleting it’s hand very fast sometimes and i still try to find the right amount of draw to compensate for it. Sojourner + Fox doesn’t really cut it. Maybe it’s my deck that’s flawed, i don’t know, but so far i am not really impressed with the combo. I’d say it’s just massivly overrated.

It’s also worth noting that my opponents didn’t even play around it. If the opponent denies you the turn 2 silver by placing his minion defensively you can pretty much throw the combo away for the rest of the game.

4 Likes
#8

I agree with That. The effect should be “put a different mech in your Action bar from your deck”, it would still be good in a mech deck as pseudo card draw but not as oppressive it is right now. But we know cpg love printing in oppressive cards

1 Like
#9

I dislike this meta, yet I love Mechs, the problem is, is they lost their flavour, instead of mech decks being a turbo deck of a strong monster it became a rush down deck with the original strategy on the side.

2 Likes
#10

Pulled 1, summoned a few times (just flung into decks a bit to check it out), never ever had it work (worked fine for the opponent with her Mindlathe though, seemed nice).

Summoned it like… idk, 6 times, answered every time, so I cannot say one way or another.

1 Like
#11

Ah, let me explain.

So what you do is put 3 Deceptibot and 2 SILVER into your deck. On T2 you Deceptibot + Assassination Protocol, and suddenly they have no board and you have a 4/5 and a 7/5 T2.

It ends games, and it ends them very, very fast.

Dude, I WISH I could play 5 mana to remove part of their board, waste most of their next turn on removal (IF they have it, otherwise lose) AND deal 4 face damage. Sounds like a Magmar card

4 Likes
#12

Well if you think the combo is so awesome, make a deck with it and see for yourself how it works in practise.

The big difference between this combo and “the Magmar card” is that the Magmar card is just 1 card instead of 3 that you have to put in your deck, doesn’t require a 2 card combo to have this effect and is useful in pretty much every situation and not just in the highroll case of having the combo available turn 2. Sure the Magmar card is too good anyway but that are some very serious drawbacks you have here.

3 Likes
#13

I’m in no way arguing that it’s overpowered in any way, but I’m currently S19 off the back of a Kaleos Deceptibot Midrange deck I’ve been running since the expansion dropped.

I actually agree with you that it’s far more manageable than is being claimed but I do wonder how interesting games are where your opponent happens to get a t2 bot off, and that’s hardly all that difficult to pull off.

If anything this combo showcases how metawarping cards such as Tiger was since a lot of deck simply aren’t running as many answers to early mana contesting 2 drops anymore.

6 Likes
#14

Arguing in favor a combo because it’s only game-winning when you draw it is absurd to me. That applies to literally every card. It seems tantamount to saying you don’t see a problem with ANY card or interaction unless the player can literally guarantee having it in their action bar at the opportune moment.

6 Likes
#15

I am not saying it’s bad, i just say it’s getting overrated here and we seem to be agreement in that point. It’s an inferior Lavaslasher but that’s still a pretty strong thing to be.

It’s not that easy. When looking at combos there are a bunch of things to consider

First thing is the impact when you use it. In this case the combo doesn’t win the game as you said, far from it. If it goes of early you have a strong tempo lead, that’s it. This can result in a win if the opponent has no answer/you have a strong follow up but as i said, it’s not that hard to deal with it which means it’s unlikely for you to just win the game with it. And this is the best possible case. It means you have to combo at the time where it has the biggest impact and your opponent didn’t just play around it.

If you get the Deceptibot later on, like turn 3+ the combo is far weaker as a vanilla 7/5 isn’t scaring anyone in the midgame not to mention late game.

The last thing is how good are the individual parts of the combo? Silver in a deck without any mechs with Keywords is just plain shit. Vanilla 7/5 for 6 even a Brightmoss Golem is better than that. Deceptibot is a 4/5 for 4 which is decent, but if you already had both silvers he is literally a vanilla 4/5 which is also not that good. (And yes i actually had this situation a few times). Protocol has the redeeming fact that you also have thunderhorn to combo with, but if have neither the card feels really bad as well. And against Songhai/Magmar/Vanar players who don’t even have a board to begin with, it feels horrible because you can’t go face with it.

So the way i see it, i have to dedicate 8 or even 9 deck slots to 3 cards that are mediocre/bad on their own and in the best case scenario give me a Lavaslasher. Is the best case good? Sure. Is the combo overall good? Guess so. But is it even remotely close to being broken? Imo, no it’s not.

An example for what imo is a good combo i could name Drogon + Crypto in Vaath. Both cards are strong in their own right and at any given point of the game and having both of them can just win you games you had no business winning. I’ve won games where my opponent had the entire board, 20+ life and the only thing he didn’t had was his General out of my attack range. That’s what i call a good combo. Ironically nobody ever complained about it…

Ps: For reference i’ve played 15 games with the deck and went 8/7 in S. Though i will say that the record probably could have been better, but my initial version of the deck wasn’t that great so the tweaking certainly cost me a few games.

By comparison my Midrange Ciphiron Deck is at 5/2 right now mostly because of how stupid Thunderhorn + Lost in the Desert are. The deck won games where i didn’t have a turn 1 play as player two while the Songhai deck lost a bunch of games despite having the combo turn 2. This is just my personal experience of course but going by that experience it’s pretty clear for me which deck is better.

2 Likes
#16

Not broken but it is CLEARLY overpowered- be honest. I’ve beaten it, I’ve lost to it. The issue isn’t how OP it is or is not- the issue is toxic design and whether or not we as players are alright with it- and I really just don’t see how it could be argued that this sort of design is good for Duelyst.

Maybe JUST Decepto, but it isn’t just Decepto. And if you can’t hard remove or use face or ping or what-have-you you’re left with what you have on the board and you essentially (almost literally) CAN’T trade into it. This hearkens back to what I said above about this being bad for the game- the board IS Duelyst and if you can’t use it to answer your opponents’ play it is inherently toxic to the play of the game itself.

1 Like
#17

I put the combo in a Kaleos deck the night the expansion was released after Henrykator(?) suggested it and I stomped. I said that day and I stick by it now, in it’s current state it’s power level is between Lavaslasher and Azure Summoning. The fix is: Deceptibot pulls a Mech from your deck that costs 3 mana or less.

3 Likes
#18

So far, this “combo” seems pretty darn easy to pull off. Unlikr Lavaslasher, you can play this turn 2 with mana tiles. So, this interaction hits the board much earlier than the slasher. Furthermore, the extra movement makes it harder to play around than the Slasher. While it does require 3 cards, 2 of the three cards are not all that bad on their own. Deciptibot without rush from protocol is still pretty threatening with Silver in the deck and protocol is already a great card by itself. Silver is the only clunky piece, but the combo encourages you to replace it and you only need to run 2.

Answering this requires either an established board, or for you to skip your turn. The best answer I can think of is Homeostatic rebuke, and even then you have to skip your turn. Sure, you might not draw it every time, but having an interaction in the game where you win if you draw it is really unfun to play against.

My solutions:

  1. Change silver to 5 mana 4/4
  2. Change Deciptibot to “whenever this destroys a minion, summon a Mech that costs 3 or less from your deck” (edit: damn! The guy above me beat me to it!)
  3. Change Deciptibot’s stats to 2/5
1 Like
#19

The best answer to it is to not let it happen in the first place. Just don’t place a minion with <5 health in range of Deceptibot and your good to go.

1 Like
#20

Wow.

Feels nearly appropriate. But now needs to go to a whole new level.

1 Like