Month: August 2020

This Saturday, August 22th, at 12:00pm noon EDT (11:00am CDT), I will compete against John Tatian in a modified No Burn/Lifegain showmatch. It will be best of 7 with a relaxed banlist where we both bring 4 decks. First person to defeat all of their opponent’s decks wins. I will be streaming it at https://www.twitch.tv/tomsepicgaming and John Tatian said he would look into streaming his side at https://www.twitch.tv/johntatian

**Edit: The saved videos can be found here.

No Burn/Life Gain Recap

The first No Burn/Health Gain tournament didn’t have much turnout, but we did get these three games:

• AoE Corpse Bounce
• Wild Breakthrough
• Evil Token Control

My curiosity for a burnless*/health gainless* format is far from satiated though. Therefore, I’ve reached out to John Tatian, and he has agreed to my proposal of a modified No Burn/Health Gain showmatch. (Additional showmatches in this format are a possibility.)

Format

Both players will bring 4 decks that can’t have 30+ of the same cards in common between any of the two decks. After each game, the winner will remain on their selected deck, and the loser will swap to one of their remaining decks. Once a player has defeated all 4 of their opponent’s decks, that player wins.

Updated Banlist

While building lists for the first tournaments, I felt like the banlist was too restrictive for deck archetype diversity. So, I have unbanned all of the Righteous cards (Avenging Angel, Gold Dragon, Justice Prevails), Soul Hunter, Plague Zombies, and Thought Plucker/Muse (although I’ll probably regret those last two). Essentially, I’ve added back my personal vendetta cards and Situational Burn/Health Gain while keeping Direct burn and Health Gain banned. (Drinker of Blood remains banned, however, for its displayed potential for infinite duration mirror matches.)

Full List:

Good (17)

1-cost Cards (12):

Absolve
Angel of Light
Angel of the Gate
Avenging Angel
Breath of Life
Ceasefire
Chamberlain Kark
Gold Dragon
Inner Peace
Justice Prevails
Royal Escort
Vital Mission

0-cost Cards (5):
(Blind Faith)
Brand, Rebel Fighter
Mobilize
Priest of Kalnor
Priestess of Angeline
Second Wind

Evil (13)

1-cost Cards (8)

Dark One’s Apprentice
Devour
Drain Essence
Drinker of Blood
Plague
Plague Zombies
Soul Hunter
Zannos, Corpse Lord

0-cost Cards (5):

Consume
Corpsemonger
Heinous Feast
Unquenchable Thirst
Villify

Sage (10)

1-cost Cards (4):

Blue Dragon
Helion, the Dominator
Storm Dragon
Thought Plucker

0-cost Cards (6):

Disappearing Act
Forcemage Apprentice
Fumble
Lightning Elemental
Lightning Mage
Muse

Wild (22)

1-cost Cards (16):

Ascendant Pyromancer
Draka’s Fire
Fires of Rebellion
Flame Strike
Flood of Fire
Forked Lightning
Hunting Raptors
Lightning Storm
Polar Shock
Pyromancer
Pyrosaur
Rain of Fire
Savage Uprising
Scarros, Hound of Draka
Strafing Dragon
Whirlwind

0-cost Cards (6):

Fire Shaman
Fireball
Flame Spike
Flash Fire
Forked Jolt
Javelin Thrower

I sent out this form to finalize some of the details for the first tournament in the No Burn/Health Gain tournament series, and I will go over the results below.

Start time is Saturday, August 8 at 1pm CDT

(No one mentioned a conflict for that time nor had a preference for a different one.)

Battlefy and Discord

I’ve hosted the tournament on Battlefy: https://battlefy.com/toms-epic-gaming/epic-no-burnhealth-gain/5f2ce461d1baf1347f4ed64c/info

Any discussion needed during the tournament will be done on the Epic Card Game discord: https://discord.gg/QTJjTER

Targeted Direct Damage Champions, Banned

86% of respondents believe champions that can deal targeted direct damage should not be allowed (Pyromancer for example). So, they are banned.

One Game Matches

There was not a consensus on number of games:

Since I was not planning on allowing deck changes for Bo3, I am counting the purple vote for Bo1. While I would personally prefer Bo3 (which technically evens out the votes here), I’ll yield to the one game voters. I figure playing it safe for round time is probably not a bad thing for a brand new meta.

All Cards Asked About are Banned

Ceasefire and Fumble were unanimous bans. Gold Dragon, Justice Prevails, and Soul Hunter had over 70% support for ban. The rest were close.

I am going with the majority for Thought Plucker and Avenging Angel, and I am casting the tie-breaking vote to ban Muse.

Full Banlist (Includes Plague)

**Important** I forgot to include Plague in the first list. Since it can deal direct damage to a player, it is banned.

Good (17)

1-cost Cards (12):

Absolve
Angel of Light
Angel of the Gate
Avenging Angel
Breath of Life
Ceasefire
Chamberlain Kark
Gold Dragon
Inner Peace
Justice Prevails
Royal Escort
Vital Mission

0-cost Cards (5):
(Blind Faith)
Brand, Rebel Fighter
Mobilize
Priest of Kalnor
Priestess of Angeline
Second Wind

Evil (13)

1-cost Cards (8)

Dark One’s Apprentice
Devour
Drain Essence
Drinker of Blood
Plague
Plague Zombies
Soul Hunter
Zannos, Corpse Lord

0-cost Cards (5):

Consume
Corpsemonger
Heinous Feast
Unquenchable Thirst
Villify

Sage (10)

1-cost Cards (4):

Blue Dragon
Helion, the Dominator
Storm Dragon
Thought Plucker

0-cost Cards (6):

Disappearing Act
Forcemage Apprentice
Fumble
Lightning Elemental
Lightning Mage
Muse

Wild (22)

1-cost Cards (16):

Ascendant Pyromancer
Draka’s Fire
Fires of Rebellion
Flame Strike
Flood of Fire
Forked Lightning
Hunting Raptors
Lightning Storm
Polar Shock
Pyromancer
Pyrosaur
Rain of Fire
Savage Uprising
Scarros, Hound of Draka
Strafing Dragon
Whirlwind

0-cost Cards (6):

Fire Shaman
Fireball
Flame Spike
Flash Fire
Forked Jolt
Javelin Thrower

Any Questions? Let me know!

I have recorded a video of my first thoughts on how I think the meta might shake out. This will be posted with other content at the end of the tournament series. I will also be streaming my matches at https://www.twitch.tv/tomsepicgaming

First off, I will be streaming the Epic Legend series at https://www.twitch.tv/tomsepicgaming starting in a few minutes

To get answers for questions such as

• general tournament series questions
• banlist
• 1st tournament start time

I have created a google form at: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSe_5SyyeEQnW7rSY3ZvLzYYk3JSgeQ26QPTv5eOaBSJR9pZrg/viewform?usp=sf_link

Feel free to fill it out there or supply your answers here for discussion:

No Burn/Life Gain* Tournament Series (General)

This survey is to figure out the general banlist for the entire tournament series (http://www.tomsepicgaming.com/no-burn-health-gain-tournament/) as well as specifics for the first tournament. First the general questions

* Required

1.

Should champions that can deal targeted direct damage (Pyromancer but not Pyrosaur) be included with an agreement not to target the player? *

Mark only one oval.

Yes

No

No Preference

2.

How many games should a match be? (If we do, we will have to determine how to handle it later.) *

Mark only one oval.

Best of 3

1 game

2 games

No preference

Other:

3.

If we don’t do one game only, should there be a sideboard? *

Mark only one oval.

Yes

No

No Preference

No Burn/Life Gain* Tournament Series (Ban List)

The idea behind the bulk of the banlist is to see what happens when Burn and Health Gain are removed. There are some exceptions though which we’ll go through card by card. I have no problems with tweaking this list. (Blind Faith is not in app so is banned.)

Current Banlist

4.

Ban Ceasefire? (Banned by WWG, incredibly efficient at disrupting attacks and drawing cards) [I lean towards ban it but could go either way.] *

Mark only one oval.

Yes

No

No Preference

5.

Ban Fumble? (Banned by WWG, incredibly efficient at disrupting an attack and replacing itself for 0) [I lean towards ban it but could go either way.] *

Mark only one oval.

Yes

No

No Preference

6.

Ban Thought Plucker? (I’m tired of playing against this card, and I feel like it has done too much to warp the meta around it in the past. We are losing some strong answers to it, but gaining some as well from Duels.) *

Mark only one oval.

Yes

No

No Preference

7.

Ban Muse? (Same reasoning as Thought Plucker) *

Mark only one oval.

Yes

No

No Preference

8.

Unban Avenging Angel? (While it does gain the player life, it has to deal damage in combat to do it, and there are multiple effective ways to interact with it for every alignment) [I currently have it unbanned] *

Mark only one oval.

Yes (Keep Avenging Angel unbanned)

No (reban Avenging Angel)

No Preference

9.

Unban Gold Dragon? (It is similar to Avenging Angel, but it doesn’t personally need to attack to gain health, and it threatens too much health gain. That being said, champion based Good decks have needed all the help they could get in the past to be viable) [I currently have it still banned] *

Mark only one oval.

Yes (unban Gold Dragon)

No (keep Gold Dragon banned)

No Preference

10.

Unban Justice Prevails? (Similar to Gold Dragon in that it threatens a ton of health gain, but there is a lot of setup required for a one-turn effect) [I currently have it still banned] *

Mark only one oval.

Yes (unban Justice Prevails)

No (keep Justice Prevails banned)

No Preference

11.

Unban Soul Hunter (Even though I considered adding it back in since: it needs at least 1 other card to combo with it to deal the damage immediately, it doesn’t deal that much damage at first, and there are multiple ways to interact with it, ultimately, I decided to keep it banned because Good and Wild have no way to interact with it if it is discarded and then continuously broken immediately at the start of its controller’s turns when it returns to play.) [I currently have it still banned] *

Mark only one oval.

Yes (Unban Soul Hunter)

No (keep Soul Hunter banned)

No Preference

12.

Are there any other cards you actively think should be banned/unbanned? (I have thought of multiple others for banning, but decided against all of them for now, and in an effort to not overly influence deck building, I am not mentioning them myself. Cards to consider unbanning can be mentioned freely though.)