Duelyst

[Rob Zacny]

Three Moves Ahead 379:

Duelyst
Our Patreon patrons have spoken, and the winner of our "Let's talk about an online CCG that's NOT Hearthstone" poll was Duelyst. Rob and Julian have a very un-3MA discussion in which all parties agree that the game at hand is pretty rad. Duelyst takes the best parts of Hearthstone and adds its own mechanics and flavor to create a satisfying game that has kept Julian occupied for the better part of the year. Good job, Patreon backers. Good job.

Duelyst, Hearthstone, Magic: The Gathering

• Listen on the Episode Page
• Listen on Soundcloud
• Listen in iTunes
  

 

[Michael]

I really enjoy Duelyst. In addition to all the points made in the show, I'd like to add that the sound design for this game is stunning. The music is forgettable but the sound effects and creature sounds are some of the best I've heard in any game. It's very, very impressive.

[Arathain]

Thanks, I enjoyed the episode. I've bounced off Duelyst a couple of times now- either I get a bit bored grinding the AI to unlock starter cards, or I get frustrated at one of the puzzles and assume I'm not going to be any good at the game. I'll try to get playing against some people. I've read enough praise of the game that I can be sure it's worth pushing through the initial barriers. 

 

To clarify something you were wondering about Hearthstone, rarity works very similarly to how you describe it in Duelyst. Rarer cards are not generally more powerful, but rather tend to do something a bit more exotic. There are plenty of legendary cards that are total trash, and plenty of commons that are staples. However, you correctly identify the way ranked play works- for any given expansion the community rapidly identifies the viable decks for each class, and if you don't have the cards to make those decks ranked is a very frustrating place indeed. You can craft cards in exactly the way you describe for this game, although that's a slow process if you need epics and legends. 

 

I prefer Hearthstone's draft mode, Arena, which requires a different set of skills. The menu suggests Duelyst also has a draft mode that I can't access yet- is that correct?

[moooo566]

You can access Duelyst's draft mode after a certain number of ranked matches (I think it's 20, but it's been a while). The community on that mode is pretty small and dedicated though, so be prepared for a brick wall built from the people who've been playing it for eight hours a day for a year.

 

As a huge Duelyst fan, seeing the name turn up in my podcast app was super exciting, and it was really interesting hearing from people who aren't that into netdecks and watching the meta to climb the ladder, because that's where I'm hitting the game from. I'll stop myself from going through every query you had during the episode, but there are a couple of things I want to mention.

 

Firstly, you said you came around to the minion fight thing, but I still think you're underselling the extent to which the board gives you more things to think about. When there's such a mix of instant value and longer term effects, protecting the right things is a big question - I know Magmar could throw out a 4 damage AoE at 6 mana, what do I protect and how do I do that effectively? The act of committing your general is another big one - such a big token, even before you've buffed, is way too powerful to keep off the board, and it's a very delicate balancing act on working out when you need to hang around and when you need to back off for safety, as well as planning how to do that. The extra Chess flavour of maintaining safe yet threatening positions is what elevates it so far above it's competitor card games in my view.

 

I've also got a question: am I correct in inferring that Hearthstone neutrals aren't that important? Because there's no question you should be putting neutrals in your Duelyst decks. No faction has enough good 1/2-mana minions to get a full set of opening options, and neutral has some of the best stat lines and effects there are. Likewise, for some factions, the best removal is actually just to put in some cheap neutral dispel. There's neutral cards I'll put in every single deck I make except weird gimmick decks, which are never as good as more standard ones.

 

I guess what I'm saying is that I'm really happy this was a positive episode

[Arathain]

On 12/28/2016 at 8:55 PM, moooo566 said:

 

 

I've also got a question: am I correct in inferring that Hearthstone neutrals aren't that important? Because there's no question you should be putting neutrals in your Duelyst decks. No faction has enough good 1/2-mana minions to get a full set of opening options, and neutral has some of the best stat lines and effects there are. Likewise, for some factions, the best removal is actually just to put in some cheap neutral dispel. There's neutral cards I'll put in every single deck I make except weird gimmick decks, which are never as good as more standard ones.

 

 

 

No, there are many very powerful and important neutral minions in Hearthstone. Class specific minions tend to be a bit more powerful on average, but it's extremely rare not to have some neutral minions in a deck. Besides, some neutral minions do something so specific there's no substitute class specific minion.