I don't see what the issue is. Good players want to get together to playtest. That's all there is to it. If the team members have success, you can come up with lots of reasons how the team contributed to it. If the team members have no success, people will say the team didn't do anything for them. In the longer term, you'll see people join and leave the team. You can't just shove a bunch of people on a team and expect them all to be happy with each other for a long time.

My hope is that such a team comes up with new and exciting deck ideas that normally wouldn't be found due to people not having enough resources to playtest individually. Vs. has a lot of deck building possibilities, and it frustrates me that some deck ideas are not given enough attention. By the time people start looking at some deck idea, a new set comes out, and the focus is diverted.

I'm starting TEAM JANK

Who wants in?

:laugh:

Competition makes the game better...

CC

Teams in card gaming in general always have always had thier good points and bad ones and the more popular vs becomes the more and more teams you'll see. Its infintely harder for one person to break a format than it is for 5 or 10 working together. If you don't like the look of how teams are right now, wait a year and there's a good chance the team won't even exist anymore or will have broken into several smaller ones. Thats just the nature of the beast. And just because there are a couple of super teams its no reason to thinks smaller less known ones can't also suceed. TAWC is pretty new and they managed to almost win a PC already. Out of the nine guys that played my teams version of Mental at the PC we sent 7 to day 2 and had a couple people 1 win away from top 8 in the end I beleive. Theres really no reason to get on the Donkey Club about anything. If it works for them, more power to them and if it doesn't, better for the rest of us.

I'm in.

Hope you like playtesting against Darkseid. ;)

They can do what they want.

If they dominate the game then its good for them. If they are a real team I assume they are splitting their winnings somehow and if not then I guess they are essentially just giving people cards and decks for fun. If its the former, sucks to be the winner, if the latter then well, why bother?

hey, i top eighted and didn't receive an invite. i guess they don't allow actual donkies in the donkey club :(

The Donkey Club would sink if you were invited.

There are plenty of dangers in having an amazing team such as the potential for apathy. Obviously the pros out way the cons. Personally I play test against myself and the ocassional hobby league but the meta is still pretty easy for me to predict. I tested x-faces and it just did not stand up to squad. I think it just did so well in large part because the players are amazing and it was unexpected. I still dont think its even the top two MMA decks.
I love to playtest and I enjoy the underdog feel of not having a team. It forces me to know my limitations and streamline my testing. I'm not the best player but I make day twos. I went 7-3 in ATL mostly on the wrong initative. I felt bad for the donkeys who did make day two or the money.

but really I think it only effects players in the top 8. Maybe when I top 8 I will start complaining.

Our version of X-faces slaughtered Squadron in our testing. The key card in the matchup was Other-Earth. On odd initiatives, X-Faces always won. On even initiatives, X-Faces won unless Squad got Other-Earth on turn 5. Which makes it an approx 70% win rate for X-Faces.

I guess the point is that lots of testing isn't as good as detailed and expert analysis. Monkeys can play a matchup 50 times, but just knowing the win ratio doesn't tell you enough to actually fix a build. You need to know *why* decks lose to other decks, and when.

Which makes me think that a team with more experienced and analytical players will perform better than a team with infinite scrubs.

As for solo.. well going it solo would have had me abandoning X-Faces. Without testing against my friends, we never could have tweaked it enough to both survive Avengers and hit hard enough to beat Squadron. Not to mention the play tips that come out when you talk with your opponent through each match and after. Learning when to play each card, or more importantly, knowing when not to waste each card.

JinxM wins the thread :cool:

I agree with JinxM about X-Faces.

I tested with a large enough group of players for Atlanta (Ryan Lockhard, Dan Bridy, prety much all the Germans and any Australian who wanted in) and i was happy with the deck we had. I think it compares favourably with the deck that won the event, as they share a basic template.

Overall however, if i had access to X-Faces i would have played it because i think it gave my opponents more chances to screw up (Squadron may have nuts draws but it is very easy to play well against, even when you lose). The thing was, we just didnt have enough manpower to test X-Faces past its early deficiencies. Now i definitely think that the calibre of player had something to do with its results, and at the same time players i respect like Adam Prosak performed poorly with the deck, but the point is that the deck was a lot better than what we had.

I couldnt get over the loss of so amny cards in the early game. Then i see Donkey CLub memebers using PLant Man and Dallas all day. Mystic Summons was a big part of the deck that i hadnt tested enough. Clearly the Mob Mentality/Brave New World combo was powerful, and i never had the sack to drop cards like Wrecking Crew from the build to accomodate such shenanigans.

This really came down to manpower. We just didnt have the online setup or focused testing that would allow the retuning of decks withourt the most potential. If the deck went 2-8 v Squad. We didnt have the time to run another thirty games with subtle variations, we just dint have the guys. Instead we tuned our Squad decks.

So i think The Donkey Club has a lot going for it. As Dalton mentioned, the biggest issue seems to be losing to teammates (as i have definitely had my gripes over in the past). I saw Michael Jacob beating Adam when they were both close to bubble and i could tell that would have sucked. As long as everyone knows that that is going to happen then i dont see the problem. Personally i couldnt deal with it, so i prefer to avoid larger teams where possible. That said however, becasue of this i came to Atlanta much less prepared than TDC members.

seriously, does it really matter? i don't think so....in the end they will have peeps crap out at tourneys just like anyone else, and will also have peeps do well just like everyone else....they will just place more in both category because they are a bigger group....

More importantly...could anyone stop them from being a team, even if they were somehow "bad" for the game?

Team JANK? I AM JANK. I am so jank I am ur-jank.

you will all fear my Darkseid ELite/ Sentinels deck. You will tremble before my Arkham/Squadron/Negative ZOne build (how cool is EoME?)

My paratroopers will be by shortly. that is all.

p.s. Good for The DOnkey Club. Other groups will rise up and crush tyranny under the boot. It's just good to see willig volunteers who are raising the game to a different level

On odd initiatives, X-Faces always won. On even initiatives, X-Faces won unless Squad got Other-Earth on turn 5. Which makes it an approx 70% win rate for X-Faces.


I think JinxM is very close to correct in this statement. If faces can find shocker on turn 2, and shoot joystick on turn 3 then shoot again on turn 5 you can survive despite other earth. But with careful play (a.k.a. NTZ or producing Melter ) faces wins odd intiative 90%.

TDC- from the inside looking out, I dont think the team is all that impacting on "the game" I mean the players in the club were doing great before it and would be doing great if we disband tonight. With that said, I think modern age events provide the least advantage to a large team. I mean what are there 5 decks, tops in the format. The team's really strength (obsessive manpower) will be shown in new formats with very large card pools (Silver Age anyone?). Here TDC will have more hours in the tank that any team going to unearth some great decks, or at least learn alot about several terrible ones.

Personally I have to admit, I just want someone to help me draft. I mean I went 4-5 day 2 and that was my best performance in the last 2 PC's ! haha!


-anthony j.