Duelyst Forums

Thoughts About Mechazor

#1

I’d like to know what other people think about the way that Mechazor currently works, how balanced they think it is, and whether they believe any changes ought to be made to it.

My own perspective is that Mechazor is probably fairly balanced right now, but only balanced in a top-down fashion, in the sense that it will almost always lose to certain decks and almost always beat certain others, and so can be countered out of the metagame if it gets out of control.

However, I do not think it is balanced in another sense, that sense being the sense in which the deck is balanced within the individual games it is played. It either seems terribly underpowered, and never gets online, or it seems terribly overpowered, as it is dropped, and the person has no answer in his / her deck for it.

There are a couple of other problems I also see with Mechazor’s current iteration:

  1. Whether or not you get the cards to build it early or not is highly volatile. It basically just comes down to a “lottery” – will I draw 5 mechazor cards early or no?
    2.It is highly un-interactive. Mechazor has spellshield, ranged and airdrop, meaning that unless your opponent is very stupid, it is unlikely you will have any answers for it or ways to interact with it. The best way to deal with it right now is some sort of silence tacked onto a creature, but airdrop makes it very unlikely you will be able to get to it in time to make a difference.
  2. Similar to shadow nova, mechazor currently limits design space. Not many more good mechazor minions can be created currently without making the deck vastly overpowered.

I’d like to propose a change to Mechazor and I’d like to hear what people think of it.

I propose removing spellshield from Mechazor, and instead making it possible to build Mechazor with 4 minions rather than the 5 currently required (i.e. each minion would build mechazor 25% as opposed to the current 20%). This would make Mechazor easier to kill overall, but it would also make the mechazor strategy less reliant upon luck, as you would not need to draw so many mechazor minions to build it.

Another option might be to remove some stats from mechazor in addition to spellshield, (maybe make it a 6/6?), while removing even more build time from it. A 6/6 air drop ranged that builds from 3 minions (i.e. each builds it 33%) would be nothing to sneeze at. Again, this would have the benefits of increasingly interaction with mechazor decks and decreasing their variability. If only 3 minions were required to build Mechazor, it also might allow games in which multiple mechazors are built over the course of the game. One gets built perhaps, does some damage, gets killed, only to have another come out next turn. Does the opponent have an answer for the second one?

Overall, I just want to see a change to this strategy, as I absolutely despise playing against mechazor decks on the ladder, and even though I own the cards, have little desire to play the deck myself. It’s just not a fun deck to play – for or against.

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Mechazor Counterplay?
#2

Mechaz0r is designed that unless you are down to very low health, Mechaz0r will win you the game, so that is why it is hard to build. Lowering the difficulty of achieving it will lessen the gameplay aspect of gaining Mechaz0r and will lower its importance as a deck archetype

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#3

That’s why you can tailor your deck in a way so it works decently even if you have bad draws. Obviously occasionally you get lucky and get an easy win but the same happens with plenty decks.

lol xd

You don’t know what “design space” means it seems. Also you’re implying how it’s impossible to make a mech card that isn’t too good.

Congratulations, you just made vanar mech deck even better as you can use it with sotw now with a lot more consistency.[quote=“brjuntinaar, post:1, topic:858”]
Overall, I just want to see a change to this strategy, as I absolutely despise playing against mechazor decks on the ladder, and even though I own the cards, have little desire to play the deck myself. It’s just not a fun deck to play – for or against.
[/quote]

Why not just put this at the beginning of the deck so we all know you’re heavily biased before reading the thread that is obviously based on your feelings rather than the facts.

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#4

Care to explain why this is “lol xd”? I don’t think very many people enjoy playing with / against uninteractive decks. If you are going to criticize something, explain why.

Please explain to me how it is that I don’t know that “design space” means? I’m using the term in the same way as it was used by the devs in the last roundtable. But even though you didn’t explain yourself in your criticism, I will try to explain how I was using it so that you might actually reply to my points rather than writing one word / sentence “zinger” replies. By design space I mean the relative ability of the devs to create more cards that use the mechazor building mechanic. It would be limited because mechazor is so strong currently, that strong mechazor cards cannot be added to the game without making the mechazor deck overpowered.

If the thread was based on my feelings alone I wouldn’t have written out a detailed argument against it. An argument uses facts not feelings, and I attempted to use facts to support my points. Hence I wrote something not based on feelings alone.

Regarding bias: yes, I admit I’m biased. You are obviously biased too. In fact, why would anyone make any forum post if they weren’t biased in one way or another? You have to be biased to have an opinion. Being biased doesn’t invalidate an opinion, though. What an asinine suggestion.[quote=“alexicon1, post:2, topic:858, full:true”]
Mechaz0r is designed that unless you are down to very low health, Mechaz0r will win you the game, so that is why it is hard to build. Lowering the difficulty of achieving it will lessen the gameplay aspect of gaining Mechaz0r and will lower its importance as a deck archetype
[/quote]

It will change the gameplay, not lessen it. Yeah, the deck will feel different overall to play. It won’t be subject to the massive swings in gameplay which it currently is. But that’s the whole point of what I was suggesting.

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#5

If the number of mechs required to make mechazor lowers by too much, even if mechazor itself is weakened is a bad thing. Mech pieces themselves are subpar but not trash, if the requirement is too low, most decks can just splash in a couple of mechs and win a few games due to good draws. Interesting suggestion but increasing the consistency of getting mechazor is definitely not the right path to go down

#6

I appreciate your reply which actually engages my points rather than mindlessly flaming me as cough others have done. You might be right…I was just trying to brainstorm ways to make the deck a bit more interactive to play against. Would it necessarily be a bad thing if mechazor became splashable, though? It might add overall to deck variety, and with mechazor lacking spellshield, it is at least a minion that can be dealt with in many different ways.

#7

You’re using the word “interactive”, that’s what’s funny as it’s universally very misused word that people just throw in their sentences because it sounds nice and they think it fits their agenda. Anyway, what people like and don’t like is subjective. Just because you personally hate mechs doesn’t mean they’re universally hated.

So what you’re saying is how every card that is a win con and is in any way reliant on other cards is bad design?

Strong mech cards aren’t supposed to exists just because the mechazor itself is strong. That’s kind of the idea behind if, try looking at the existing mechs. How is that a bad thing? There’s still plenty of ways you can design more mech cards despite that fact, you even indirectly suggested some of the ideas.

Yes you would.[quote=“brjuntinaar, post:4, topic:858”]
An argument uses facts not feelings, and I attempted to use facts to support my points.
[/quote]
“I think this deck isn’t fun to play or play against and as such I believe it should be changed” is not an argument.

I literally told you the same thing with context provided but you decided to ignore it and instead play the victim card. Good job.

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#8

This guy is toxic. He is toxic on Reddit and he has migrated over to the new forum. Don’t take him seriously

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#9

“Let’s dismiss this guy’s arguments because I don’t like him.”

That is definitely not a toxic behavior…

#11

Can we stop the fighting or I will close the thread. The suggestion was made about Mechaz0r, and if you have a different opinion about it, please share it without flaming.

Thanks,
Alexicon1

3 Likes
#12

Making Mechazor easier to get is a pretty bad idea. By making him easier to get you’d have to weaken him substantially or he’d be broken. If you weaken him too much, you throw the basic concept of Mechazor out the window. The parts of Mechazor are decent cards that can be utilized in a few ways but they’re not super powerful because Mechazor himself is. Some people like the idea of using somewhat underpowered cards to summon a large creature that can be devastating if not dealt with. The way Mechazor is now is fine. If you don’t like playing against it, then you’ll just have to learn to play around it. We all have decks we don’t like.

#13

Believe me, I am not trying to pick a fight. You will see the name raqyee pop up a lot and plenty of times you will see it followed by a bad attitude.

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#14

That’s fine, but regardless of who they are, flaming here will not be tolerated. Everyone gets a clean slate here, and people shouldn’t want to start tainting it already

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#15

I get behind the initial statement. In my opinion Mechazor is extremely annoying to play with and against, it is a very swingy strategy that sometimes does insane stuff or basically nothing, it is too luck dependent for competitive play. The Bloodborn tournament has showcased how inconsistent and dumb that strategy was, you can look at the broadcasted game of Jay, he lined up a full roster of mech deck , you can clearly see why mech is not welcome in a competitive environment.

However the change you are suggesting doesn’t solve the syndrome of “you get all or nothing”, with you suggestion getting a turn 1/turn2 mechazor would be super easy and if your opponent as a basic removals spell you are left with a bunch of over costed shit for the rest of the game in your hand and in your deck, in fact it would amplify the problem more than anything else .

For me there is 2 possible paths to take:
-Completely revamp Mechazor so it is more progressive but also easier to interact with.
-Nerf mechazor enough so then it doesn’t see play in high level , the strat would be reserved for fun decks and casual play. (anyway big robots and exodia type of cards are for kids anyway right ;)?

#16

All this change accomplishes is adding more auto-loss matchups to non-Vanar Mechaz0r decks. Mechaz0r should not be answerable with a simple transform spell.

#17

Fair enough.

I think you are right on your ‘two paths to take’-- any idea how it would even be possible to accomplish #1?

Yeah I mostly agree with that. As it is now, you expend quite a bit of time / resources building the thing, so that it ought to be powerful when it comes out. That was why I proposed lowering the time required to crank it out…that at least compensates for the nerf a bit.

#18

Robo-God is fine where he is. Might be because I play Vanar, and Chromatic cold + Aspect is great, but i think he could be far worse.

And the hell do you mean remove spellshield dude!? You tryna get everyone bodied by a mech under a Killing Edge? or one that happened to get Cosmic fleshed? Hell, Divine Bond!

Let’s just uh… leave dude where he is.

#19

Robo-God is fine where he is. Might be because I play Vanar, and Chromatic cold + Aspect is great, but i think he could be far worse.

As OP stated it is not a matter of power level.

I think you are right on your ‘two paths to take’-- any idea how it would even be possible to accomplish #1?

Well instead of the current mechazor, I would give the keyword “fuse” to all mech cards , when you deploy a “fuse” card you can deploy it on the same square than an other fuse card to fuse their states and abilities together. So for example if you deploy a helm on a cannon it would give +2+2 to the canon to create a 4/4 ranged.

Helm would give +2+2 for 1 when you fuse it
Wings would give +1+4 for 2 (airdrop would be usless then unless combined with altar rex, but I guess it is ok since wings is a pretty good body)
Cannon would give +2+2 ranged for 3
Sword would give +3+3 frenzy for 3 (very strong one btw)
Chassis would give +5+4 can’t be targeted for 4
Altar rex would allow you to get in your hand a copy of target mech unit you have on the board (encouraging you to build the biggest dude possible).

This mechanic would be interesting because it would lead to interesting decision making: Do I fuse a mech piece so it can have an immediate impact with it but get blown out if my opponent has a removal spell? Do I create a new body to multiply the threat? Do I create several medium sized bodies or a giant one so I can get value with altar rex? …

Ideally each time you fuse a unit with an other it would change the appearance of that unit (pretty cool uh :D).

Of course this new system would require a lot of testing and some mech piece might need to be changed (for example sword might be too strong and wings too weak).

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Lets Talk #1: Mechaz0r
#20

I’ll preface this by saying I hate Mechaz0r decks with a passion. They are very polarising, if the Mech deck draws well (especially Mech Faie), you lose. No matter what Raqyee says, Spellshield and Ranged are two very uninteractive mechanics especially when done together. You normally deal with Spellshield by trading minions/general, and you normally deal with ranged with spells. The two combined can be devastating, which is why Mechaz0r is the only unit in the game that has them.

That being said, Mechaz0r is a very interesting theme to play with. The actual design of the card set is very interesting with the individual Mech pieces just hinging on being playable enough. It gives newer players a relatively cheap but strong deck to ladder with and there is the ‘cool’ factor in spending the game assembling a big-ass mech.

As for addressing individual problems:

  1. A highly polarizing match. While earlier I said I hate playing with or against Mech decks because of this exact reason, I don’t think the game is affected negatively by Mechaz0r. It may seem like if you draw poorly and the Mech deck draws well there was nothing you could do, but couldn’t the same be said about any other deck in a CCG? It certainly feels like there was nothing my opponent could do if I manage to get out Pandora on turn 2 when my opponent has no answer. Mech decks would be an issue if they were the only competitive decks but it is obviously not the case. Also, while you and I may not like playing with or against Mech decks, there are many players who do not mind playing against it, especially if they manage to destroy Mechaz0r with a teched in Grovekeeper or Crossbones. Besides, having the viable Mechaz0r decks gives some variety and flavour to the ladder.

  2. Highly un-interactive. While Mechaz0r itself is quite uninteractive, everything else in the deck is interactive. It is also not impossible to tech against it - Crossbones will single handedly win you the game and you can save up dispells or minion-based removal in the hopes of destroying it. True, sometimes the Mechaz0r comes out so fast there was no way you could plan against it, but that just leads back to the first point.

  3. Limits design space. I don’t think this is an issue. Shadowcreep itself is a mechanic that could be fleshed out and expanded. One of the Abyssian generals is built around Shadowcreep. There are tons of possibilities of new Shadowcreep cards, but since the current version is too strong, it limits design space. Mechs are a different matter, simply because you aren’t going to get many more mechs. Mechaz0r, thematically, is made up of five different parts - his head, cannon, chassis, sword and wings. There are five cards in the game that build him and not-so-coincidentally, you are required to play five cards to build him. There are probably not going to be more ‘parts’, since Mechaz0r is inherently limited in its design space. There is the possibility of support cards like Alter-Rexx but I doubt the devs want to flesh out a purely-neutral set of cards too much without faction-only cards as support.

#21

Unless your opponent has Crossbones, Pony, Chromatic Cold, Mememorphosis (though nobody runs it these days), Sun Bloom, or for example simply takes the center of the board anticipating it and chains a Shroud towards it.
What people don’t seem to realize is that mechaz0r has a million counters, depending on how it is played. It can really seal the game only if you are super lucky and opponent has none of those answers avaliable to him AND does not outright kill you next turn, or if you simply draw only mechs and more mechs and win the game by having Mechaz0r out turn 3.
The archetype might seem broken, but in my opinion it is just badly designed and needs some tweaks. If we look at the current mech decks, they seem deceptively balanced: on average a mech deck will have about 50% winrate, or so it seems. However that mean is formed by a huge ammount of fringe scenarios: in some games you never draw your mechs, in others they are all you draw and your opponent has zero chances to react, and only in about 30% cases a Mech deck will have those average draws where mechaz0r comes out turn 5-6, is still useful but can be answered. This extreme variance is a sign of poor design in my opinion.
I think the idea is cool, but the archetype needs a rework.

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