Deck slots

Magic: The Gathering - Puzzle Quest MtGPQ General Discussion
1

So deck slots are coming! That we know. At some point in the future. But definitely. In this thread I’d like to discuss what we want from them.

Deck slots are a thing that we the players have been craving for a long time in order to make our lives more convenient. The biggest elements of the MTGPQ metagame are currently objectives, and these often require completely different decks to achieve.. you can’t expect to use the same deck to win both a ‘Use 0 supports’ objective and a ‘Use >=8 supports’ objective! Different nodes in the same PvE events often require radically different decks, and sometimes we get 2 or 3 events running concurrently.

In theory, providing us with deck slots should be a move which is met with a positive response from the player base, which would be a bit of a change from the constant stream of negative feedback which exists currently. I personally wouldn’t mind them being monetized provided the price is decent and they provide the kind of functionality that I’m looking for. As the web series Extra Credits once said: “paying for power is bad, and paying for convenience is good, so quit it with selling Barals and large wadges of Jewels and let us pay for something we don’t feel is going to destroy the game!”.

Let me show you how I save my decklists at the moment, so you can get some idea of the functionality of deck slots which I’d like.

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It’s a pretty obvious way to keep track of my decks, and I’m sure that some of you are doing the same. My concern is that when deck slots are implemented into the game that I will lose a lot of the features that I’ve grown used to, and thus a new feature added to the game, supposedly for my benefit, will provide me with more frustration and joy, which, knowing me, I’ll probably come and grouse endlessly about here on the forums.

Let me spell out exactly what I get from my currently filing system. There are, of course, downsides to saving all my decks as screenshots, but here are the positives:

  • Editable, long deck names
  • Organisation of decks in folders
  • Cut and paste deck lists to other locations
  • Export decklists to share with other players
  • A permanent historical record of all my decks

It’s a pretty short list, tbh, and that last one may not be feasible under a monetized system (or even required by many players), but I can see potentially every one of these things left out of a simplistic implementation of deck slots that gives me AJANI A and AJANI B as my slots and means I have to open them and wait for the decks to load to see what’s in them.

So finally let’s talk about what will happen if the implemented system of deckslots is inadequate to my needs… and the answer is obvious: I will barely use it. The fact is that I’m used to working around not having deck slots, and while the systems I have in place for myself currently are somewhat inconvenient I’m very used to using them and I’ve grown more comfortable with them over time. I have over 20 PWs, and more will be coming in the future, so I have over 20 deck slots already. Some of my planeswalkers may be rubbish, but they’re fine for particular levels in currently active events (e.g. Chandra1 for RatC 1.1, or Jace1 for RatC 1.2), and I’ve already had these decks in place unaltered for a few weeks. Ob Nixilis currently requires a lot of switching around, but the introduction of Tezz2 will put less pressure on his slot, and even though I use Ob for RatC 2.2 and 3.3 atm with decks that are only 60% similar, I’ve gotten very good at swapping those 4 cards around out of practice. Sometimes I know that a current deck in a PW slot isn’t quite right for a level I want to play, but I play it anyway because I know it’ll be fine, and because the prizes for events are so sucky these days that losing a few points here and there doesn’t make much difference. The penaltys for being too lazy to change a deck are very, very low.

Deck slots should be an opportunity to give something back to the players after taking so much from them. If you give me something I want, I’ll be grateful for it, happy to use it, and even happy to pay money for it, or other elements in the game. This would be a great peace offering to the Not.Another.Dime. movement. If it’s done right.

2

I would love for each planeswalker, for each event, to have a deck slot.

The first time you use that planeswalker for that node, you have to build the deck. but from then on, it will save it for you. even editing decks outside of events wouldn’t be necessary.

QB you ask? well, your default deck for each PW should probably be set for QB anyways.

3

Similar to you Shteev. I track my decks. I have a spreadsheet for deck history. There is a tab for each event where I not only track my deck list but that decks performance issues.

I also have a tab that summarizes all previous decks and potential new decks that I’ve seen others play. Currently I am tracking over 100 decks across all my PW.

So I really doubt my personal obsessive desires for deck lists will be fully addressed. However what I would like is the ability to have at least one deck list stored in game for each node of each event. That would save me the time of needing to rebuild decks between nodes. This would be especially helpful during events with many nodes RATC. Or when multiple events are running at the same time. Also having a fed slots for QB available is helpful since I know many people play QB between node refreshes.

4

Please, for the love of whichever deity you ascribe to, don’t give them ideas or vindicate their clear and obvious patterns of greedy behavior.

I agree with this, 100%. But they need to prove they’re willing to listen to their customers and that they care about what we have to say before they get any more money from us. This would be a nice olive branch for them to extend to us. If they want to charge crystals for them then I have less of a problem with that, as long as they’re not exorbitantly priced (like the entry cost for the Trials events, for instance). To be clear, I’m not against spending money on the game. I’m against spending money on a game where the experience I get for that money makes it feel like I’ve been taken advantage of. This game has progressively turned more and more into that kind of experience. If they want my money, they’re going to have to prove that they’re trying to make this a symbiotic experience rather than a parasitic one.

I like the list of conveniences you’ve included. I feel like being able to edit the names is a no-brainer, but I have overestimated them before so I’m not holding my breath on that one. The ability to share with other players would be especially cool to have. Unfortunately, given past history, I don’t see the system looking much like this. I’m worried it’ll look more along the lines of their current method for listing PWs, or possibly how they list individual cards. Guess we’ll have to wait and see.

I couldn’t have said it better myself. I picked Sorin for black on this last NoP event completely by accident, but I didn’t bother changing his cards out because it would have been too much of a hassle. In the end, I only lost 2 points because of that decision, and I still ended up placing high enough to get the rare card (it was another dupe, but that’s a topic for another thread).

5

I will put money on the fact that they’ve long since brainstormed how they can use implementation of deck slots as an opportunity to rinse us for cash. Some bright spark has probably already stood up in a meeting and said ‘What if we retroactively charge them for the deck slots they already have?!’ and is right now enjoying his new office with a window in it.

Always assume the worst of D3 and you won’t be so disappointed when it happens.

6

I cant wait for them to be implemented. I would like to see deck slots added at the Planeswalker level. Lets face it, most of us are crazy deck brewers. I know that the objectives are the metagame, but they shouldn’t. I wouldn’t want a deck slot system strictly build around that. Still hoping for some type of standard format. But I think we should have a set amount of slots, no less then 5 for each PW. We brew for all sort of reasons, tribal, set, ect.

Then when you get to an event, it should be as simple as picking your PW then the Deck Slot:Name, then a conformation (SET or Ready). Off we go!!

7

Why a fixed number, though? This thread should be about what we want, not what we are prepared to put up with. An open file system would allow as many decks as you want for each PW. Android/iOS no doubt have whole file handling librarys for that the dev team could incorporate into the game very easily. (I’m quite sure, however, that they won’t use them).

8

It would be funny though if they weren’t actually going to charge for deck slots ( roll your eyes, fine icon_razz.gif
) but seeing several people offering to pay for deck slots they would now. I dont see the option for deck slots as an additional service that we should pay for but something that should have been there by default since the start and was lacking.

9

I’m not overly optimistic that deck slots will be a thing I want to use. I currently don’t want to use their system for scrolling through and selecting my PWs but I have to use that system to even play. I don’t expect deck slots to be any better.

10

Honestly, anything that stops me from swapping out 10 cards so that I can simultaneously play RatC and um, the weekend event with fixed planeswalkers whose name I’ve forgotten at the moment, will be fine. Even if I have to scroll through a secondary set of 10 planeswalkers, saving me the editing process will be invaluable.

I suspect we’ll get an extra deck slot for free for each planeswalker, and then pay runes for additional ones beyond the first.

11

Why client side? That opens the possibility for invalid (read: hacked) decks and matchmaking will need access to these.

They’ll likely be stored server side like now. If so, the number per player will be limited.

12

Why server side? The last thing I want it to do is connect to the server and load every single deck individually. Can you imagine what a pain in the arse that will be? This should be an addition to the game which is being done for the convenience of the players, not the programmers.

The problem of invalid decks is utterly trivial to solve.

So what if matchmaking is a little out of sync with player’s current decks? For one thing it’ll make it harder for people to change their decks on the fly for their friends and teammates. And we’re constantly being mismatched against decks far above or below the power level of our own already.

And why would the number of deck slots be limited if the decks were stored server side anyway? 1s and 0s are cheap.