Let's talk about Yellow (Hear me out)

General
#1

So there has been a lot of frustration recently about rush decks. In particular Yrush decks. I’m not here to give options as to how to beat them (there are many guides and good videos out there that can explain it far better than I) but I’d like to look at the types of cards Yellow has. Yellow has a lot of cards that allow them to move around the board really quickly with things like Haste, Jump, Flying, Charge. It can also summon creatures close to the enemy with cards like Khalim’s Skyguard, Windgate, Flash Wind etc. They also have a lot of cards that gain buffs from hitting gods, Khalim’s Prayer, Khalim’s Follower, Oradrim Templar, Zealous Crusader, etc. So the cards are specifically tuned for getting to the enemies side of the board as quickly as possible while also rewarding players for doing damage to the enemy god. They even have a couple cards that can’t collect Faeria at all. This creates the perfect recipe for decks centered around quickly rushing the opponent and ending the game quickly.

You may disagree with me but I believe the biggest problem with Yellow is that it is overtuned for rushing. The cards only really work when you are hitting the enemy god and don’t really have any other interesting mechanics aside from that. This coupled with the fact that a lot of their cards only have 2 health means that even if you don’t want to make a rush deck, you are almost always making an awful trade with your opponent. A Camp Fire and Farm Boy, any 1/1 and a falcon dive, Steamforge + low cost creature, Tiki Caretaker, Flamespitters, Seifer’s Wrath, Flameburst, all these cards can be used to easily take out yellow minions. So why would any Yellow player bother hitting anything other than a god?

This leads to most people who play against Yellow players experiencing some sort of rush deck due to Yellow’s lack of diversity. I don’t believe people would be so frustrated with Yrush if they didn’t get the “feeling” that they were playing against a rush deck every time they played against a mono Yellow. I want to stress that point. Because of the type of cards Yellow has it always feels like you are playing some sort of rush deck. If that deck happens to be particularly powerful when used correctly, it can feel overpowered. If someone puts a desert down and your immediate feeling is “Oh another Yrusher” then the dimensionality of the color has gotten too narrow. By increasing the diversity of the deck types that Yellow can play, it will reduce the overall occurrence of Yrush, making it a little less oppressive for players. I still think Yrush will recieve a nerf due to the amount of outcry it has been getting. The only thing that I’m worried about is that once it happens, an entire color of Faeria will be essentially be removed from the game.

I’m not a particular fan of the Yellow playstyle but I don’t want to see the color go away. One of the things I think would be cool to add to the Yellow repertoire is debuffs. Having productions cards that reduce the attack or health of creatures on the board by 1, sapping your opponents stats and giving it to your minions, reducing movement of enemy flying creatures or jump creatures are avenues I would explore with new Yellow cards (I know that Yellow in its current form would be way to Op if it could restrict enemy movement while retaining it’s current set of mobility cards). I think that the debuffs idea would be cool because it doesn’t just remove your opponents cards from the board (like Doomsday, Choking Stand, Last Nightmare, etc) and still allows your opponent to potentially destroy the debuffer and regain control.

Anyway I’m curious to see what everyone has to say about this. Thanks for reading my post.

#2

While I feel that your heart is in the right place, I think you’re kind of wrong tho.

Yellow can rush really well, sure. But it’s really not the only archetype tha you can find in mono yellow. Yellow Archer or Yellow Event are played and successful in their own right.

The reason people complain about yellow rush is because people usually dislikes aggro in card game.
I think the reasons for it are that :

  • Aggro decks are disruptive and force a response from their opponents. A lot of people feel frustrated because they can’t play the usual strategy of their deck.
  • The match-up versus Aggro decks are usually tricky. One bad decision can decide the outcome of the game and people feel too much pressure.
  • Since most of the people who complain about Aggro don’t really play Aggro themself, they often overestimate the simplicity of Aggro gameplay. Thus the match-up seems unfair to them.

I think that Y Rush is a really good deck. But IMHO the deck isn’t OP at high level of play.

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#3

All games see people complain about rush. Doesn’t mean if it’s a mono-color or even if games do have colors.

Not all of these games even have cards.

Rush is not about color. Rush is about people wanting their huge armies clashing in epic duels, and not being able to acknowledge not every game will end like that. It’s a fact of life and nature that rush will beat greed, any color, any game. This is why it’s the rush that gets the public hammer - while greed is VERY much the same thing when it comes to balance. Both are polar opposites of the same sin - dictating tempo and length of the game.

The reason you see people complain about Rush, and not about Greed is because it’s much more common people gravitate towards the dream of huge armies or huge creatures. These people see their imagined armies being snuffed out before they even begin, and they scream OP instead of learning. Doesn’t matter that said armies would fall against any other deck but other lame Greed, it’s the Rush that takes the fall because it’s the most spectacular punish for these.

Any deck needs a prep up. Rush too. People don’t acknowledge it and blame the counter instead of building against it. They don’t prepare the prep up and their Greed fails. Simple as that, color not included.

And don’t get me wrong. I hate rush. I played some of it and it’s tricky against good players. I played against it and I congratulate people when they pull out these sick combination moves. I’m getting better in defusing it, too.

I love greed. And I pack plenty a taunt for the ride to make it through. Color not included.

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#4

Along with Yellow rush and event decks, there are also the more niche Yellow flying decks and Yellow control with Altar of Souls, which was pretty popular about a month ago.

Rush is more popular than other Yellow decks because it’s about as strong as the other decks and the games are faster, so the perception is that it’s better for grinding Ranked games.

The overall popularity of Yellow rush, though, doesn’t have so much to do with the perception that it’s stronger than other Yellow decks as it has to do with the perception that it’s stronger than other rush decks.

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#5

For me, the main advantages of yellow rush are:

Amount of land you need to build is much less than the other colours, 4 or 5 turns and that’s it. You can use the remaining turns to draw a card or +1 faeria, which mitigates the lack of faeria harvesting.

Yellow cards are very cheap, especially if you sacrifice. There are many targets for sacrifice. If you have an Annoying Gnat, there is always going to be a target to sacrifce, for 2 damage but it’s ok when your opponent is stuck at the other end. Lord of the Waste 7/3 for 5 faeria but only 2 if you sacrifce, that is insane value. Wind Soldier is made for sacrfice too.

Most creatures costs 4 faeria or less, it’s easy to summon a creature every turn even without faeria harvesting. There are a couple of cards that give +2 faeria for 0 faeria, incredible value.

It puts opponent under immediate pressure. 1 mistake or a bad draw and the game could be over.

#6

I agree with you @MrMint. it isn’t OP at high level play, but I see it getting a disproportionate amount of frustration from the community. It will get nerfed if enough people complain about it, regardless of whether it is as bad as people say. That’s one of the things I’m worried about. Appreciate your reply though!