Tweaked Rules - What's your perfect Balance?

[atomikala]

Originally Posted by krichaiushii

@atomikala - your method allows a canny deck-builder to just sit on his City Token until he has a combo in hand/play, discard the City Token, and win. The many against one intent of AE should be enough of an advantage unless you are regularly playing 2-vs-1 games.

Cheers!

Well, AE as a format is pretty much completely dependent on fair play and gentleman's rules, so I don't think that's an issue any more than it normally is. And losing extra Some Tokens for each additional City Token would punish teams who let one player sit in the city for too long.

[ParadigmShift]

Originally Posted by atomikala

Well, AE as a format is pretty much completely dependent on fair play and gentleman's rules, so I don't think that's an issue any more than it normally is. And losing extra Some Tokens for each additional City Token would punish teams who let one player sit in the city for too long.

What you're describing is effectively a form of Respawn Magic. I think giving the 'heros' as much time as they want inside the bubble is a bad idea. Check out the link to see how it's done normally. Now, I could totally see a variation on this for Archenemy, where the heroes just keep respawning and it's just a matter of time until they finally succeed. In such a format, you'd want to keep score of how many times you'd knocked a player out, and probably rotate the Archenemy, to see who could score the highest.

[atomikala]

I'm familiar with respawn magic. However, I'm just worried that without any protected time it would be too beneficial for the AE to just keep bashing the first guy he beats over and over before he gets a chance to build up any defenses.

[krichaiushii]

Originally Posted by atomikala

I'm familiar with respawn magic. However, I'm just worried that without any protected time it would be too beneficial for the AE to just keep bashing the first guy he beats over and over before he gets a chance to build up any defenses.

Presumably, the time the AE initially spent putting someone out meant time the AE did NOT spend on the other players, so these other players and their boards would draw more attention to themselves..

Given gentlemen's rules and typical AE games, I could almost see a round-robin effect as the AE takes out hero 1, then 2, then 3, then 1, then 2, etc. Perhaps not in that precise order, but I trust you see what I am getting at.

If respawning, give the hero 3 turns - this provides some protection, while at the same time sets a limit on letting people get set up.

Cheers!

[celebrist]

we tend to do a central scheme deck (super villians) and I am going to suggest the scry tweak next time in order to keep the killer shcemes from being wasted.

[Sabett]

Originally Posted by ParadigmShift

My suggestion (and what we'll be trying next time we play in my group), is for the Archenemy to have a 'scheme hand', that is, a number of scheme cards that he can chose one from in any given turn. Testing will have to be done to see what the appropriate number is, but I'm thinking of starting with 3 or 4. Maybe give them the ability to pay a certain amount of mana (I would say as a sorcery, to lessen abuse) to put one on the bottom and draw a new one, or shuffle the whole lot away (as that might be better than letting them stock more powerful ones to chain).

I want to try this out, idk about the hand cycling though, just having a 3 scheme hand is probably enough to downgrade the topdeckness of AE while also keeping the AE's power level low enough to deal with.

[celebrist]

we are finding that a max scheme hand size of two allows one to save the really effective late game schemes but forces one to play one scheme from round three on and this works well (one scheme per turn max) for the supervillian format

[Raikou Rider]

All our group does for Archenemy is scale the life totals as per the number of opponents (20 per player in the game, so 2v1=60, 4v1=100, and so on. However, once you get up to more than five heroes, you almost have to have multiple Archenemies.

The way our group handles it is an Archenemy wins if he is the only player left at the table--meaning he has to eliminate other Archenemies. The team wins if all the Archenemies are eliminated. This causes some interesting gameplay in that the AEs often work together early on to deal with the heroes, but also have to consider whether they can deal with the other AEs after eliminating the heroes.

[Blind Piper]

My group has been tinkering with Archenemy on and off for the past few months. We had two major problems, one on each side of the table:

If the team contains any dedicated control, the Archenemy will struggle.
Random schemes are fickle.

After shifting to more casual decks with a focus on turning creatures sideways, the first one was solved. At that point, hitting schemes that fizzle wasn't as big a deal, as the game felt more tilted towards the archenemy. The problem was when there was a first turn Embrace my Diabolical Vision. Below is our intended variant, which we will hopefully get the opportunity to test in the near future.

Whenever the first scheme is revealed in a turn, the team may decide to counter it. If they do, the Archenemy draws a second scheme and puts it on the stack. Then the Archenemy may either draw a card or search his library for a basic land and put it onto the battlefield.

As mentioned, this is not designed for a highly competitive environment, but for a casual group looking to establish boards on all sides. The benefits for the Archenemy were chosen because the scheme deck needs to help the Archenemy keep up with the team's card advantage. He still gets a scheme for the turn, but he also gets to ramp or keep his hand size up.

[christhein456]

After acquiring almost complete set archenemy schemes minus 2 Plots that span centuries I've been trying to get a few archenemy games going at my local and I've found that archenemy combined with EDH works out the best. It went pretty smooth with having the archenemy randomly chosen and given 20 life x the number of opponents.

[Alythe]

I like the idea of the Archenemy having a "Scheme hand" of 3. My playgroup has found that all too often, you get the wrong scheme at the wrong time and it's pretty much useless. The alternative being the Archenemy draws 2 and chooses one to resolve.

As for the life issue, it's a tough call. Certainly starting with a little more life helps, however more often than not it seems like it's just a matter of board position. We use fairly powerful EDH decks so once the Hero's are established, it doesn't really matter how much life the Archenemy starts with.

Mostly this game seems balanced when it's 3v1, again for my playgroup. Morep layers after 3 heavily favors the Heroes to win against the Archenemy. Any suggestions on how we can balance this out for more players without changing the amount of life each player starts with?

[bone_doc]

We usually have the enemy start with 10 cards in their hand, with a maximum hand size of 10.

[Wildfire393]

I'm trying to come up with a rule set to more or less balance 1v4 Archenemy, specifically for EDH. Why 1v4? Because if we have 3-4, we'll probably play regular EDH, but at 5, it gets a little awkward.

The existing problems with Archenemy are this:
1) The fact that schemes are flipped entirely randomly really skews which schemes are useful. Any of the destruction schemes, since they involve opposing permanents, are dead or near-dead flips in the first turn or two. Meanwhile, a turn one Embrace my Diabolical Vision or Perhaps You've Met My Cohort for a powerful planeswalker is basically game over, especially in EDH where the curves stray a little higher. Games basically devolve into whether or not the Archenemy can flip one of those two or Plots That Span Centuries into a bunch of early-game resources
2) The fact that most of the schemes have a "when set into motion" trigger means that they are vulnerable to being Stifled, which I find to be incredibly bad form. These are supposed to be diabolical masterstrokes, why can the Allies just brush them off with super-cheap spells?
3) The fact that the Archenemy has to deal with four opponents, while all four opponents can focus their efforts on thwarting him, makes it inherently difficult for the Archenemy to win a long EDH game. This means that well-tuned Ally decks can just counter every card the Archenemy plays, while still having multiple cards to play threats of their own. It's very easy for the Allies to land something cheesy like an infinite combo or a Sorin Markov and just close out the game.

Here's what I'm thinking:

1) The Archenemy starts with X Scheme Cards in his "Scheme Hand", where X is the number of opponents, in this case likely 4. This is also his maximum scheme handsize, which no card can alter.
2) Each draw step, the Archenemy also draws a Scheme Card. During the cleanup step, if he has more than his maximum handsize in schemes, he must discard down to his maximum handsize.
3) During his mainphase on an empty stack, the Archenemy may, once per turn, set a scheme in motion. Setting a scheme in motion and the resulting triggered ability both resolve without using the stack. This is to stop Stifle effects from hosing the Archenemy, and to improve the power of the removal schemes by making them split second. The fact that he plays one from a hand helps to improve the power of the removal schemes by letting you save them until you best need them, rather than flipping them up first turn to a worthless effect.
4) At any time the Archenemy has priority, if the Archenemy has at least X (his maximum/starting handsize) schemes in hand, he may set any one in motion face down to exile any one Spell, Ability, Emblem, or Permanent other than a basic land. This is untargeted and does not use the stack. This is to provide the Archenemy an out for infinite combos and other cheese, but at the cost of having to skip setting a scheme into motion if you want to do it again. Additionally, as this could feasibly be used twice during the Archenemy's turn (if he enters the turn with a "full" scheme grip, draws one, and does not use any), it provides the Archenemy extra protection against a set of Allies trying to Counterspell out every play he makes.
5) The Schemes "Perhaps You've Met My Cohort" and "Embrace My Diabolical Vision" cannot be set into motion for the first N turns, where N is 6 minus the number of opponents. So in a 4-opponent game, they may not be set into motion on the first or second turn. In a 3-opponent game, they may not be set into motion on the first through third, and in 2-opponents, not on the fourth either. This is to prevent the complete blowout of a turn one (or even two) Embrace/Cohort, especially given that much larger chance to have one
6) If playing EDH, the Archenemy's General cannot be tucked. If the General would move from any zone to the Library, he may instead be placed into the Command Zone. The Allies' Generals may be tucked as normal.