QUOTE (leefreeman @ November 20, 2007 12:22 am)
[I]t all depends on how you define flaw within the constructs of deck design.

Yay! Now we're getting somewhere. I'm working from the premise that a deck's design is flawed if:

1) The deck does not "play out" to the intention of the designer, that is, the designer intended to create a weak character but the deck result is powerful, or the designer intended to create a powerful character, but the deck result is weak. Simplifying a bit, the deck's actual performance does not match its intended performance.

2) The deck does not meet acceptable playability expectations. This can happen a variety of way: it wins too often, it loses too often, it is only effective against limited opponents, etc. I have conceded that an argument can be made that Vader's deck doesn't win often enough (though I find a 30% win rate acceptable myself) but have repeatedly been assured that his design flaw does not fall into this category.

3) The deck has no PtV, or the elements of the deck do not relate to the PtV. This can also manifest itself in various ways. In the recent Obi/Ani deck thread, Roman (I believe) noted that his deck simply won by being so powerful and not due to any underlying theme of the deck. Pulling disparate elements together does not a good design make.

4) The deck breaks with the trends established for the character's identity. Hags wrote an excellent article about these you can find on the wiki.

5) The deck breaks with any other established norms -- 15 talents instead of 12, two personality minors, using a 4/4 basic card, etc.
QUOTE (leefreeman @ November 20, 2007 12:22 am)
Their whole point was not about the weakness of the deck --- it was about the FACT that Vader's cards effectively weaken each other.

I absolutely agree that the cards weaken one another, and I think it's brilliant design. Here's why: nearly all cards have a certain "value" to a deck that remains constant -- a Taunting is no better or worse at any point in the game than another. Thus, to give a character some cards that are more useful than others, one varies the talent cards: Give Orders is decidedly less valuable than Taunting. In Vader's deck, however, this varying level of effectiveness is varied WITHIN the talents themselves. Quoting an earlier post of mine:
QUOTE (volleyballgy @ November 13, 2007 08:32 pm)
I think the design was excellent -- instead of having six really powerful cards (3x Wrath, 3x Choke), you end up with two to three really powerful cards, one to three useful cards, and zero to two ineffective cards. That's three different levels of usefulness in only two different types of cards! Even more incredible is that they function even better in 2v2 without overpowering him in 1v1.

I still maintain that is great design. As far as the cards complementing one another, I still would argue that they do. Haven't you ever used 2x Wrath and a Choke to kill off Zam, Padme, or Leia? Choke + Wrath to kill Greedo? The fact that they overlap gives the deck better consistency in ridding the opponent of minors quickly, and again I find this a strength in design. The fact that they weaken each other doesn't preclude them from being complementary.

In Italy for thirty years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love, they had five hundred years of democracy and peace. And what did that produce? The cuckoo-clock.
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