Gods Unchained has long suffered from game-balancing issues. A number of decks prove to be very toxic from the standpoint of player experience and are constantly flagged by players. I wouldn't be surprised if these issues with gameplay experience were the reason why many people stopped playing the game over the years.
Here is a list of more or less consensual toxic decks now:
Magic Coronet combo
Light Vespid control
Light Blade of the Creator / PoP control
These others are considered problematic by some people:
Control Nature
Carvings with ToD cards
Bomb Dragons
Magic Atlanteans with Francesca
Bitter Endings OTK
You can find examples of all these archetypes here.
The rules in place that preclude fixing these problems are essentially two:
Genesis set is evergreen
Locked cards cannot be changed
The Genesis evergreen promise was mentioned many times during the early game, but the easiest written reference is this blog post I link below.
https://content.godsunchained.com/blog/article/the-balance-charter
It also mentions another promise of not creating 'true infinities', but I wonder how does that stand against cards like Crystal Vespid or Necroscepter?... Here is an interpretation from a player, @cryptoniusrex, that is probably in line with the intended meaning of that expression:
https://discord.com/channels/457152051239976961/567957189764055050/1313538693503647867
For a long time the team thought they could balance the game without introducing set rotations. While we now have new game modes where not all cards or sets are available, the main game mode (Ranked) still accepts all cards, including during Weekend Ranked events.
The dev team however was considering alternatives such as establishing a 'Standard' mode as a popular game mode where sets are rotated in and out as new expansions are released, while at the same time maintaining a balanced 'Eternal' mode where all sets are allowed:
https://discord.com/channels/457152051239976961/567957189764055050/1239446980426600500
I fear keeping balance in this 'Eternal' mode is going to become increasingly difficult as new sets are printed over time. But I also think the existing problematic archetypes need to become less popular if the game is to have any chance of being successful and enjoyable by a larger number of TCG enthusiasts.
Some people have suggested unlocking only problematic cards for nerfing in very exceptional circumstances. But going against the 'no changes to lock cards' rule can also have very detrimental consequences for the game. Here is @jfa making this point:
https://discord.com/channels/457152051239976961/567957189764055050/1294733704316588124
Also breaking long-standing promises in itself can have a real detrimental effect on player confidence in the game - we're talking about a web3 game where people own the assets, after all. We already have many cases where expensive and impactful cards are rendered more or less useless as new cards are printed and the meta shifts. Adding on top of that the possibility of actually changing any card at any time could prove to be too volatile and uncertain for a healthy game economy and healthy player numbers. The argument of the supporters of this view is essentially that the digital cards in GU should be treated like physical, paper cards - once printed, they cannot be changed. Any problematic cards would need to be dealt with in other ways, for example:
bans
rotations
printing new cards that render problematic combos obsolete
Discord user hrpoonloue for example proposes to make the main game mode one where sets are rotated out regularly:
https://discord.com/channels/457152051239976961/567957189764055050/1311372309142966302
But this is not what the GU team seems to be going for. The plan is for 'Eternal' to remain the main competitive game mode:
https://discord.com/channels/457152051239976961/567957189764055050/1239444692932886601
Be it 'Eternal' or 'Standard', I would still like to see the current problematic archetypes fixed everywhere and future-proof any other archetypes from becoming toxic or unbalanced in the 'Eternal' game mode. So I came up with an idea that doesn't change the cards per se, but adds a new layer or a new rule to the game:
Every card would have an incompatibility list. So for example Tithe Collector would be incompatible with Crystal Vespid. You can still play Tithe if you want, but you can't play it with Vespids in the same deck. This list would never be locked. The list would be empty for most cards anyway, only a few cases would need to be established.
Whatever doubts people may have regarding this being in practical terms equivalent to changing the cards, I think the upside to the game's health and long-term success probably outweighs the perception that it could constitute modifying locked cards. I see it as a new rule in the game, independently of what the card effect is - ie, card text. It would work more like a soft ban than a card change.
The list of incompatibilities should be added to the API and appear as metadata when pulling card information. This way, marketplaces, deck builders, or other sites displaying card data would be able to show this information to the player.
As for adding too much complexity in the game, this rule would only be noticed during deck creation, and then only in very few cases. Cards with an empty incompatibility list wouldn't show any extra information; the few cards that have incompatibilities could show a tooltip indicating the incompatible cards and a notification when added to the deck. Incompatible cards in the available card list would become greyed out and un-selectable, while also displaying a tooltip that explains the situation.
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My personal perspective. I feel super bored playing against all archetypes with an ability to get 30+ health. I feel the rules of the game have been broken by introducing this mechanics. It's not far from giving people the ability of resurrecting the god. Like, you are winning, you are seeing the Victory screen and, then, a beautiful animation comes with the words "your opponent's god has resurrected! keep playing, babe, keep playing!"
Moreover, games with endless healing are too long.
The devs can kill this mechanics, for example, by introducing new powerful neutral cards working in the way of Lighteater Serpent does:
But these cards should be strong without this ability too.
Another way: creatures/spells that prevent healing gods (like, Lokian Disciple can make the god sleep).
Or spells that destroy healing spells in hand/deck.
If this is possible, why not making a card "Destroy all relics and turn all healing cards into 1/1 Rat in both hands".
If the devs see the problem, they'll find the way. The problem is that they don't see the problem.
Hi, playing a format without toxic decks would be great, nice post my friend.👍👍👍