Ranged will counter pretty much every strategy. The only way to stop ranged is to dispel it or counter with ranged. Everything else is at a disadvantage. Infinite range in ANY game is overpowered and is never a good idea. My proposal to solve this is to make range able to attack 2 or 3 squares away. That way you have to take some risk. All reward with no risk should not be in a game.
Please, Counterplay, live up to your name and balance range.
Ranged minions tend to be understatted… What did u go up against to make you think this?
They do appear strong at first, but once you leave bronze you realize they’re really not.
Okay. Not to rain on your parade but ranged is for the most part, fine as is. The main reason that ranged can seem oppressive is that ranged ignores some of the core elements of combat math. The main tradeoff for this ability is generally lower than average stats for the cost.
So how to deal with ranged minions? Common answers are dispel and rush minions. Sabrespine Tiger is a perfectly good answer for most scenarios as it will trade up for the most part. Dispels like Sun Bloom and Siphon Energy work as well, despite not killing the minion off. For the most part, when a minion loses ranged it is positioned so badly that it is effectively dead and can be removed at leisure.
Really, ranged is fine. If you are running out of answers before they are played I would recommend that you add additional draw power (Blaze Hound, Sojourner) and practice a more conservative use of your resources.
How could they have infinite range? The entire board is only 9 spaces wide…
The counter to ranged is to move close to them. Your melee minions generally outclass ranged units because of their poor stats for the mana. Also, dispel. Also, provoke. Also, airdrop. Also, spell damage. Also, Crossbones. Also, sometimes you can straight up ignore ranged units and go face.
There are plenty of ways to counter ranged.
Raqyee never fails to dish out hot roasts.
It’s not a roast really. I also thought that ranged units are powerful when I first started playing and I’m sure I’m not the only one here. It’s even easier for people who never played any tactical games of this sort to think so.
I’m looking at the advantages vs disadvantages to ranged as it is. And as it is, unless you can chase the minion down and kill it before it pecks you down, you have to have range to counter range. And if the only thing that can fight range is range, then it is overpowered.
What happens to range after you get out of bronze? Because I’m rank 18 and it looks the same to me.
The stats don’t matter if you can’t touch them. Ok you have 2 hp. You can kill pretty much anything before it can reach you. As for managing resources, there is literally someone who spawns ranged attackers. You can only burn so much control before you run out and at that point, drawing doesn’t help you.
Because they can hit anything anywhere. But ok lets break it down. The weakest ranged attacker, 1/1 is 9 squares away. You can only chase him at 2 squares per turn. That’s 4 damage before you can even try to touch them. Not to mention other minions in your way. Keep you archers on the edge of the board and protect them. Then they can just deal damage without any risk at all. And yes you can completely ignore ranged and go for face. Mean while, you’re losing units because ranged doesn’t have to risk anything.
Actually, yes. Playing ranged means you have to give up a LOT of board control in order to protect your ranged units.
You grab mana tiles later, you’re weaker at controlling and pacing your opponent’s movements, and you’re at the mercy of Songhai. (Seriously, songhai is a nightmare when you play ranged.)
Direct damage, rush units, dispels, provoke decks, Crossbones, other ranged or blast units: the weaknesses of ranged are countless. If you feel like facing ranged is your current hot spot, maybe you should try these strategies, or share your decklists with the community so that we can counsel you on how to overcome the cracks in your armor.
I’ve noticed a trend in duelyst card design, in that there seems to be an aweful lot of snowball cards compared to other ccg. Ranged is a really snowbally mechanic. Basically, there are three ways to counter snowball cards:
Snowball harder. If you can flash reincarnate out a silithar elder or go chakri avatar into mana vortex + mirror meld + mana vortex + mirror meld you can get your snowballing rolling so hard that whatever value the enemy can generate with their ranged won’t be able to keep up.
Pressure hard before the snowball starts rolling. As been mentioned ranged units are below the stat-curve. This gives you a window of oppertunity to seize the board before your opponent can start picking of your stuff with ranged atacks. Pure stat sticks generally perform badly against ranged since they are so easy to block, but if you can use cards like maw, dancing blades or plop down a primus shieldmaster on his ranged chances are you will win out in the end.
Spot removal. Use phoenix fire, natural selection, martyrdom, chromatic cold, ephemeral shroud or saberspine tiger to shut down his ranged threat straight away.
If you often find yourself losing to ranged there is a chance your deck either don’t have enough removal or you lack early game drops to contest the board. Always try to mulligan your opening hand for at least one out-of-hand answer to any early threats your opponent may put down.q
Drawing always helps.
Then you make positioning errors.
Other example: If your General stands on the middle square of the board you can theoretically reach every corner with a rushed minion.
Yes, but I’m not assuming the other player is dumb. I’m assuming they positioned their archer, which they know I’m going to be rushing, behind a wall of hurt on the farthest square from me. If you have someone who can attack without consequence you’re not going to leave them out to be mauled.
Usually, people get to know the weaknesses of ranged around silver - and most importantly, get the cards to play around them. And, even more importantly, they start to learn how to board control. Let me quote myself.
There should be a badge for self quoting.
I didn’t say it’s weaker when you get out of bronze. I said how by the time you get out of bronze you should have basic game knowledge to realize how they are weaker. That’s why I said you’re special, because you’re rank 18 and still didn’t realize it.
Thankfully, you have bunch of people here, who have lots and lots of experience, explaining you why ranged minions aren’t as powerful as you think and it’s in your best interest just to listen to them rather than trying to use counterarguments when you, like mentioned, don’t have sufficient game knowledge to do so.
It’s a good thing to think with your own head rather than just take everything people say as facts. But in this specific scenario it’s rather unhealthy because you have no idea what you’re talking about and you don’t realize it. So please, just take our word for it and drop it.
The reason Songhai is a nightmare to ranged is because ranged is the only way to reliably counter ranged. And Songhai is where most ranged gets used. Otherwise there is no penalty for using ranged. True you can’t go out and corner your opponent and get in his face, but he won’t have units because your ranged will pick them off. Ranged has no consequence to attacking. You have to rely on drawing the right spells or your own ranged units.
So, if Ranged minions are so op, why is no single one of them used outside of Revas BBS and now after Shimzar Ki Beholder? (And mechazor?)
I don’t count Jax(i) since its pretty useless now due to Skorn imo. (and Vet finally has own good 2 drops)
A Saberspine Tiger will do just fine. Or a Bloodtear to kill that 1/1. And if their general is in peril the range minion can’t protect him/her much so he/she is playing a gambit there.
Or Spirit Harvester, Blistering Skorn, Mankator Jeebus, x1 Crossbone if you happen to hate Mechaz0r.
Decimate!!! Sky Burial, Onyx Bear Seal, Phoenix Fire, Twin Strike, Chromatic Cold, Cryogenysis, Tempest, Martyrdom, Siphon Energy, Sun Bloom, Natural Selection, Plasma Storm, Aspect of the Fox (and watch that little fox run run), Daemonic Lure, Breath of the Unborn, Dark Transformation, and some more Shim’zar Shenanigans that I can’t fully remember. There’s a lot of them out there. My GOD this game has so many removal spells :’((
I hope you will fare well against those pesky decks. Good luck!
If you’re facing some deck/mechanic that you can’t handle, start using it yourself. If you lose, you get to learn the weaknesses of the deck/mechanic, if you win you’re getting closer to gold.
Range gets weaker and weaker in general as you get to higher ranks because not only will you be a better player with access to more cards but deck lists will be tighter and more efficient.
This is not to say Ranged minions can’t be good, but the ones that see play are either free (Reva BBS) or are one-turn burst win conditions and not used for value (Jax Truesight). I think Jaxi might be the only ranged minion in the game that sees regular play and even he is declining quickly in popularity due to things like blistering doing a 3 mana 1 damage aoe.
Right now your deck lists are slow and cheap so ranged minions can plink away from a distance for value but this will change quickly. Later on when you develop your fire spitter they will drop a Nimbus and you can shoot it over 3 turns generating him three free minions while he is smashing your face in. That is assuming he doesn’t simply clear your minion with Ankh or AoE or leave it basically useless on the far side of the board with a siphon energy. This is just one common matchup at high ranks (Vetruvian) and you can already see the cracks beginning to show.
What if you are facing Vanar? A faction that can leave your buffed ranged minion useless or dead for 2 mana from anywhere on the map. Or can simply pull it over with hearthsister to kill with a general hit or Faie’s BBS.
Cassyva? She’ll be dropping creep all over your creatures and lasso’ing them back and forth while laughing at your pitifully slow deck as she builds up to the inevitable game ending burst. Lyonar will be happy to airdrop that ironcliffe on all your understatted ranged minions and watch as they flail impotently trying to kill it.
Don’t even get me started on songhai. Half the cards in a spell songhai list can answer ranged minions with little worry from Juxt to Mist Dragon Seal to OBS to direct damage. Or baconator combo will just ignore your low pressure ranged minions and build up a 1 turn lethal.
Bottom line is ranged minions are understated, slow, and vulnerable to removal and dispels. You might argue that dispels are strong against many things and you’d be right, but using a sun bloom on a Kron leaves a 4/6 and a 2/2 (14 worth of stats) behind while dispelling an identical mana cost rogue warden leaves a pitiful 4/3 that is usually on the other side of the planet from where the action is happening.
Its not that easy to put a range unit safely behind.
Usually you have to move a bit back first. If you have no front-line because you are putting minions at the back then the enemy will use their front-line of minions to push you back. When you are at the back wall your range minions are now at melee range and are easily killed.
If you are surrounded there is no safe place to summon a weak range minion in melee range.
Possibly at higher ranks people have decks that can apply greater constant pressure that pushes you back or surrounds you quicker. They also have more removals to deal with things that get out of hand like a range unit that successfully got placed in a safe place.