I know that Cygames is really pushing the game to cater more to a more " casual" beginner friendly direction l. But I hope they print more interesting cards like Shakdoh having to built your deck a certain way or milteo drastically changing the rules of the game. Zooey buying you another turn. the new Ceres which have a cool effect. Yurius has some interesting lockeddown concept but failed due to Odin and Oulon which coin flips the game(this is ragebait). Archetypes as well like MJ with alternative win cons, as as I hate crest I love that unique playstyle. Because this set feels like play me then I destroy 1 or more thing or deal x amount to x or summon a lot of me. What I am also baffled is majority of the classes have new storm finishers. Seems like there is 1 or 2 Odin like cards per class. I just hope they balance it by not printing new cards that just do some generic things and push more of an archetype. I don't know if Cygames value class Identity that much having played a lot of CCG where they stick to their identity most of the time.

The changes in the meta over the past two weeks are interesting. Many players have become skilled at dealing with dragon. And Rune and Portal have risen to Tier 1 thanks to their flexibility in dealing with various decks.

Is it likely they will revert Returning Slash's cost (2pp to 1pp) back when Omens rotates next month? Or is it likely some future-proof nerf with set 9 if they were to bring back loot architype?

Is this the first card they nerfed that is leaving rotation?

Edit: Forgot Benison.

I faced 2 chess rune, 1 mode abyss, 1 Evo Haven, and 1 Evo/storm portal. 0 crests we're banished.

All quite heal-heavy opponents besides portal. Counter play mostly devolved into planning 1 or 2 high burst damage turns. Saving cards like Zoe, sandal, sweetness of voracity, disenchantment, and fate of the world let me out damage their burst healing for a short timeframe.

Was most worried about mode as they tend to run bahamut, but kept pressure up to force them to heal instead of baha

In case anyone is wondering, Sandal is at 12/15. Would be something if I can get Sandal shooting at t7. One can only dream...

Odds of this (0.25^3) is the same as getting a specific exchange ticket from packs btw :):):):):):):):):):):):)

For me, it seems that control decks are the hardest to pilot. Anticipating your opponent's line for efficient removal, wincon management, and matchup knowledge are all especially important to this archetype. It seems inherently harder than say, rally sword.

This matches with my experience that amulet Haven, Evo Crest, egg, and mode are all "harder" decks to master.

Also curious about if this was also the case for SV classic--I only played in the first ~10 sets of that game.

Dragon, Dragon, Dragon, Abyss Mode, Abyss Mode, Dragon, More Abyss Mode... All of them with such optimized control builds that literally nothing I tried worked. Because they simply wiped away everything I did, and even when I managed to cause some damage, it didn't matter, because they simply healed back to 20, as if nothing had happened.

Seriously, I really don't understand why Cygames keeps printing decks like this. It's not fun, and it's not even interactive, since its cards have mechanics like intimidate, with huge stats; it's...It's just Crest Haven againAgain and again.

They took an important step with storm bosses, in this expansion, but it's not enough, because at the same time they bring cards with aggressive, the others with cures equally strong remain, so what's the point??

Why try to speed up the game when cards that heal absurd amounts of health, like Erntz, or the various Abyss cards, are still in play? I really don't understand why they insist on this type of gameplay.

So, how was the Gran Prix for you?