Eternal the Card Game

ronne said:

You've never played magic online then. The shuffler in Eternal is actually far, far more than "fair" and is literally weighted to give you playable opening hands.

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I played mtgo years ago (lorwyn was last set) and it wasn't on par with this, opening hands were worse in mtgo. But eternal has it beat in the drawing department, I've never come close to the amount of mana screw/flood in mtgo that eternal provides.

That's the funny thing, nobody who plays real cards ever shuffles randomly, if you unleash a truly random shuffler on the game, it turns to shit.

I'm curious what will the next set bring

Derpa said:

I played mtgo years ago (lorwyn was last set) and it wasn't on par with this, opening hands were worse in mtgo. But eternal has it beat in the drawing department, I've never come close to the amount of mana screw/flood in mtgo that eternal provides.

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It's not the shuffler, it's the 75 card deck size. It increases the chances of drawing 'clumps' of power or non-power cards in a row. I got involved in a huge debate about it on the beta forums, even had some math guys run some simulations that showed the issue.
Simplest way to think of it is to compare a 10 card vs 100 card deck, with a 50% power to non-power card split for simplicity.

If you have 10 cards, and draw a power first, it's now 4 to 5 chance to draw a 2nd power in a row. If you draw that 2nd in a row, it's now 3 to 5, etc..
in a 100 card deck, if you draw a power, it's 49 to 50 to draw a 2nd one. If you draw a 2nd one, it's 48 to 50. Each individual power drawn doesn't reduce the chance to draw the next one by very much in a larger deck.

Same thing in going from 60 to 75, just less drastic. But, when you have that extra 1% (or whatever it is) chance every draw step, in every game, it leads to more mana screw/flood situations then you are used to. Sure, the opening hand is weighted to be good, but the chance your draws after that are all the same card type is higher in a 75 card deck. This is why I thought they needed more library manipulation effects in the game.

I'm not even really sure why they went with 75 cards in the first place. If you're worried about density of certain cards in a deck why not just go to 3/60 setup? You get the same spread of cards across a deck basically but without all the consistency issues you run in to trying to play with a full 75.

The shuffler for opening hands is a really odd decision to me the more I play this. It's like they've acknowledged the problems of having a 75 card deck, but instead of actually fixing the issue they slapped a bandaid on the opening hands and called it good? A very, very abusable bandaid at that; the way the shuffler weights opening hands is nearly the only reason decks like burn queen can even exist in their current form.

and that was one of the exact arguments I made, the 3/60 thing, as their only defense for the 75 card deck has been it creates more 'variety' in cards used. It was very, very frustrating in beta to not get good communication from Direwolf. It felt just like the way hearthstone dev team doesn't communicate their decisions and I didn't want to get invested in another game that would end up frustrating me the same amount, even if it was for different reasons.

The cynic in me has to believe it's because it costs more stone/cash/whatever to craft 4 copies of things.

ronne said:

The cynic in me has to believe it's because it costs more stone/cash/whatever to craft 4 copies of things.

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The cynic in me says that the MTG people asked them to, to help differentiate the products more. And that's part of how they've worked their way into being part of the MTG: Arena development.

With legendaries/rare being deck defining if not straight up better than commons, they need some variance in the draw otherwise newbies would get their shit pushed in, hard. You need that combination of perfect draw vs shitty draw to make the game enjoyable for the casual player. As it is even if you have the basic decks, you still have a chance to win an odd game here and there. That said, I have no idea why you can play multiple copies of a legendary, double Valla or Tavrod gets straight up stupid and it would keep the power curve at least a little bit in check.

4 vs 3 copies is mostly aesthetics, it just feels better to have more of something. It also creates those weird scenarios "I drew all 4 of these and the enemy got stomped!" that are more memorable.

Made it to master with my silly u/b gorgons and haunting scream deck finally. Now the real jank building can begin.

Lists ? I'm kinda struggling even getting to gold

This is the revision I finished up diamond 1 > master with. The sabotages are mostly flex spots and a meta call; I was running in to a shit ton of armory and chalice control and they are golden there. Taking a harsh rule from those kinds of decks on turn 4 is usually GG. Removal is all relatively flexible as well and you'll want to play with the numbers depending on what you're running in to. I was heavy on feeding time and annihilates because sandstorm titan was everywhere, and where there are titans there are lots of dawnwalkers. Could easily swap to some number of death strikes if you want more instant speed or whatever.

Lethrai ranger vs gorgod swiftblade: ranger races better and applies more pressure, but gorgon gums up the ground like a fucking champ and can hold off teams full of tavrods on his own. I could never really decide between the two so I just ran a 2/2.

Recurring nightmare is the strangest card in the list I think. Sometimes he wins an entire game by himself, other times you wish you'd never drawn him. I don't think you can realistically run more than 2, as having multiples in your hand just feels awful.

Deck takes a bit of getting used to and it tends to play in odd ways. Often times slamming down a beastcaller or fanatic turn 3 is simply incorrect as they'll just die and you'll be sad. You want to do a lot of baiting with your swiftblades/instigators/ravens to thin out their removal if you can. Be very, very wary of silence, it's the one thing that will fuck up your plan above all others. Having someone spend a slay on a a beastcaller is typically totally fine as you can just scream it back later, but having a fanatic/beastcaller get stuffed by a desert ranger is just such a kick in the nuts. Need to be real careful what you run out vs combrei colors as most of them are running a full 8 silences these days.

Remember that buffs persist through zones, so once you scream a beastcaller/fanatic it'll keep charge/flying forever for future dark return use. Similar tricksy things can be done with recurring nightmare and rapid shot; he'll keep the 4 extra attack when his infiltrates if you rapid shot him, which fucks up a lot of racing situations and lets you steal some games.

3 Dark Return (Set1 #250)
2 Levitate (Set1 #190)
3 Permafrost (Set1 #193)
3 Sabotage (Set1 #252)
4 Twilight Raptor (Set1 #379)
3 Annihilate (Set1 #269)
4 Argenport Instigator (Set1 #268)
2 Gorgon Swiftblade (Set1 #377)
4 Haunting Scream (Set1 #374)
2 Lethrai Ranger (Set1 #270)
3 Rapid Shot (Set1 #259)
2 Direwood Beastcaller (Set1 #271)
4 Gorgon Fanatic (Set1 #375)
2 Recurring Nightmare (Set1 #382)
3 Feeding Time (Set1 #381)
4 Minotaur Lighthoof (Set2 #163)
5 Primal Sigil (Set1 #187)
2 Cobalt Monument (Set1 #418)
8 Shadow Sigil (Set1 #249)
4 Feln Banner (Set1 #417)
4 Seat of Cunning (Set0 #62)
4 Diplomatic Seal (Set1 #425)

That's kinda what I was looking for, I had some success with praxis tokens, but it's very straight forward and you can't really do much but hope they don't have Harsh Rule and the card draw is very limited, so this looks interesting.

Aaaand gold.

It reminds me of old psychatog decks

Had a hilarious win against stonescar just now. Turn 4 and 5 they played impending doom. Played devouring shadow on both for -4/-4 (could have done 5 on the second). Long story short they end up killing him in the end lol, they did about 12+ damage to him since I let them live.

Last patch buffed gauntlet rewards a bit, still worse than before, but apparently the original change absolutely destroyed their steam ratings

Derpa said:

Had a hilarious win against stonescar just now. Turn 4 and 5 they played impending doom. Played devouring shadow on both for -4/-4 (could have done 5 on the second). Long story short they end up killing him in the end lol, they did about 12+ damage to him since I let them live.

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I don't run Devouring (I use Walk into Shadow or whatever instead - the AE -4/-4) but I do love that when I get the opportunity.

Vaclav said:

I don't run Devouring (I use Walk into Shadow or whatever instead - the AE -4/-4) but I do love that when I get the opportunity.

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I like how -/- shuts down all kinds of grave fuckery

Made it to diamond ! Desert Marshal can go fuck himself, hate that card

Zaphid said:

I like how -/- shuts down all kinds of grave fuckery

Made it to diamond ! Desert Marshal can go fuck himself, hate that card

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Yea, its why I run it and Slug. I sometimes debate some small ones, but can't justify their slots.

This event is fun and all...

BUT WHY THE FUCK DOES EVERY OPPONENT HAVE 3 SABOTAGES IN THEIR OPENING HAND.

Sorry, needed to vent.

Deathwing said:

Any recommendations for deck sites or streamers?

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RNG Eternal
r/eternalcardgame

I put together a chalice control to get me the final stretch to master and holy shit are the mirrors crazy. Same for matches with other controls, you basically need to count the whole deck when playing. At least vs aggro the opponents get to gg out once they know they aren't winning, you will just be drawing like crazy for the next 5 turns before you bore them to death. I just had a game vs some funky 5 color control with nicotraxian that came down to the last card which was the last channel the tempest to blow up his face, I thought you lose when you can't draw anymore cards, but I won ...