I actually dont mind that much haste creatures in games. They usually suffer from a huge value hit they have to pay for having haste. It’s the pace of games I dont like, the fact some games pass the “tipping point” of no return after only 3-4 turns. When I think about why this is, it always come down to the fact orb position being the first thing getting challenged is possible and the defender has nothing to fall back to. That’s always the biggest problem.
Let me give you an exemple of a better way to deal with this :
CURRENT SCENARIO :
Lets say we dont change a thing. It is very easy for the opponent to place a terrain in the “assault” position and then, he starts rushing. Right now, the only move the defending player has (if he gets bad rng with draw) is to turtle on his orb and avoid as much damage as possible until he finds the answers he’s looking for
This is a huge problem for two reasons. First, due to rng, the defending player has an unfavorable position far from Faeria wells and thus, will have a very hard time coming back into the game. Second, due to rng again, he gets behind on board control and his only move is to turtle on his orb and stop as much damage as he can before he finally draws his answers … at which point he’s also behind on ressource anyway and will probably still lose.
In this scenario, draw RNG had a huge impact on the game outcome and the defending player had no real choice in how he could play that game. Decisions were kindda made for him by his opponent.
NEW SCENARIO : Life total becomes 50 (for the sake of discussion, entertain me)
As before, the opponent places a terrain in the “assault” position and then, he starts rushing. The defending player was unlucky with draw RNG and doesn’t have the appropriate answers. As a result, the Rusher establish board control and a strong presence close to your orb.
Now, the Defender with 50 hp still has some breathing room and can choose from two options :
Option #1 : The Defender turtles on his orb in order to avoid taking too much damage. By doing so, he let his opponent control his Faeria wells and gather more ressources, but he will slow down the damage he takes and thus, the defender will have more time to fish for AOE events that will gain more and more value as he gets behind on board dominance.
Option #2 : The Defender lets his opponent control his orb and he spawn creatures behind the enemy’s creature, next to his Faeria wells. By doing so, he will take a lot more damage, but he will have more ressource than his opponent. As a result, he can hope to play bigger creatures and retake control of the terrains in front of his orb, especially if the Defender’s creature move on enemy terrain in order to trade (thus denying the enemy from spawning another creature on that terrain).
Of course, if life total increase, so has the ability for the rush deck to keep the pressure on for many turns with more cards having an additionnal effect when orb damage is dealt. The key is not to make rush faster, but to make it so the pressure is hard to take off by the control player in just a few turns.
I dont know about you, but I find the second scenario way more interactive and fun because the defending player had a choice and because he can also choose to tailor his deck in a way where a choice might be more attractive than the other. Thus, if he gets pressured early on, he will know which strategy to fall back to, he actually planned for it … and even there, maybe at the time he gets pressured, the cards he has in his hand actually favors the other option.
Now, I’m not saying life total need to increase. But I am saying the direction the game developpers should always take is the one in favor of giving both players as many relevant options to choose from in different situations.
That’s what I’m trying to do. I’m trying to make it so games are not decided within the first few turns by random factors. I want players to be able to tailor their deck adequatly the way they want it to be without needing to auto-include too many anti-meta cards. I also want players to be most important deciding factor in a match so they feel even better about winning and can actually learn something from their losses instead of just blaming the loss on RNG and moving on.