All I need to know I learned from the Tundra Orcs (1-minute)

[Jexik]

Good points.

Looking at the spreadsheet where I've entered all the SWs Units for easy sorting and comparison:

- There are no other ranged 2-2 Units yet, but the 2-1 Units tend to cost 2MP, and the 2-4 Units cost 4-5MP, so a Shaman without his Ability would probably cost 3MP.

- There is one other 2-4 sword Unit (Khan Queso) who costs 3MP. The 2-3 Units also cost 3MP, and the 2-5 Units cost 4 or 5MP, so a Smasher without his Ability would probably cost 3-4 MP.

So that could well be what he was meaning.

Yeah, this is it, mostly. Until the SG Shaman, it was pretty hard to make an argument for any 1-cost ranged Unit but the TO Shaman being the strongest in the game.

But people did. All the time.

And Fighters are 1/1 for 1. As a melee Unit, this is nothing to write home about. Most are 1/2 for 1 or 2/1 for 1.

You're right, that on average, Fighters do 1 damage, and Shamans do 8/9 to 2+ lifers, and 4/9 to 1 lifers. But they also have more life and range.

When it comes to Smashers, there's two ways to look at it- one is as though it gives them 2 free lives or the weakness is worth -2 to their cost, or the way I usually prefer, which is to look at expected value.

When attacked by normal Units, it takes 4 AV to bring a Smasher down. 4 AV does 8/3 ~ 2.67 damage to other Units. So it's kind of like having 2.67 life. At worst, against Slingers/Blagog, it's like having 2 Life, but those Units are pretty rare (and Blagog's 5th AV is wasted anyway). Is 2/2.67 for 2 a good deal? Yeah, usually. Most 2-cost melee Units are 2/2 for 2, or 1/3 for 2. They're a particularly bad Burn target, which is neat.

The Fighter will on average deliver slightly more damage each attack than a Shaman. But even if it were worse, there still might be a natural preference for the Fighter. The Shaman's Special Ability is a dis-ability, and it sure is frustrating to have him do no damage because of one miss, when other 2AV Units would do something. The Fighter's Ability is a bonus, though; it may happen relatively rarely, but it is a joy to behold when it does happen. The Shaman's hitting feels more like a relief than a pleasure. Which actually is unfair, since it only costs 1MP.

This is kind of what I was driving at. There's a fight between rationality, the other raw numbers, and expected success. People get mixed up by their expectations. What if you had a 9-sided die for shamans, and on a 6+, you did 2 damage?

There might also be something in here about how Fighters are inherently better against other 1-life commons, and Shamans are better* against Champions, Summoners, and Walls, and how this affects my perception of them.

*Once you account for their extra life point and their range giving them more options.

[Cleon]

Grognack teaches you that he's awesome.

I laughed so hard when I read this hahahaha great opening sentence.

[MSB]

I'm a huge fan of ice based things so I really wanted to like the TO from the start. I looked through the deck and found it uninspiring. I held off playing it until my second game. The deck won against the SG and towards the end I just kind of sat there and looked at all of the things that lead up to TO's victory and I was really impressed with it. It's definitely what you would think ice would be. It's a slow methodical wearing you out to where you don't even realize it until the end and then it's too late. I don't even know why it played out like it did, but all of the walls blocked off the board except for one spot and I had the TO lined up on the other side for a beat down. I even looked at the board and saw the SG had twice the guys, but I knew it didn't matter. It didn't. I lost a single TO after that point. The faction is a definite candidate for me to play against others or have new players use to start out.