Saturday Tournaments - Canceled

Saturday Tournaments are canceled until Ubisoft (Blue Byte) will show any interest about the game. Mostly because in current situation, we can't even be sure if prizes for tournament would be given.

[AoL] Ascension of Legends Finals - Stream

If you haven't managed to see yesterday AoL finals stream with commentary by CuCu99 and Uraxor, no worries!

You can find saved broadcast on CuCu's youtube channel.
Second part of broadcast will happen today on CuCu's twitch - 7 P.M. CET.

Announcement about future of M&M:DoC

Finaly we got long-awaited announcement about M&M: Duels of Champions future. However among news there are two types of them - good news and sad news... I don't know which news I should begin with, maybe we should hear out those good ones first? 

Well, looks like M&M: Duels of Champions has future and there are plans for further development of it. Blue Byte will take over M&M: Duels of Champions. Blue Byte is Ubisoft's German studio working on free-to-play games. As we know, they are already working on an update that will feature the draft mode. It's clearly a big change and big changes always seed shadows of doubt in our hearts... will new studio be competent enough to run project with so much potential as M&M: Duels of Champions has? I don't know, but for sure I'll stay with game to see if winds of change will bring for us anything good.

Now it's time for sad part. Our guide, our lighthouse and the most amazing among all Community Managers which ever were associated with M&M:DoC - Kimmundi, will be no more. May all baguettes of this world be with you in your journey across universe...

Road to Nowhere...

After short, really short stream with Sanctuary I've went insane... and promised not to play/stream DoC in near future with exception of Saturday Tournaments, because I've no more joy in playing in such imbalanced metagame. What's wrong with game balance in current Duels of Champions?

• Lack of equality. Even if factions got creatures with same stats:cost, that doesn't mean they are equal. For example all Inferno heroes got access to Fire, which makes Succubus much more powerful than Neophyte Lich, Kabuki Sentry or Arcane Sharpshooter. Conlusion: creatures among factions require rebalancing with taking into account all possible tricks and threats all factions have.
• Superior abilities reserved for certain factions, for example only Inferno is allowed to discard or deal direct damage which is just wrong. Both of those make Inferno superior to any other faction in multiple of scenarios. Conclusion: we need more important tools moved from certain factions to neutral section.
• Importance of early game. Without reliable early game resets (Earthquake, Forbidden Flame) and raising power of early game creatures, many games are decided already in early game (it's much less true for heroes with Fire or Earth). For example I consider Hatchling Breeder and buffed Lurkers in the Dark much more opressive in early game than Dark Assassins and Wolf Captains used to be year ago, yet we have less answers to those new threats. Conclusion: early game threats should be rebalanced or we should get more answers for them as fast as possible.
• New starting rules we got together with Dragon Crystal made in my opinion more harm than good. First, Invokers got overbuffed and are way too superior to other heroes. Second 1/1/1 heroes are pretty obsolete while going 1st with new rules (you can't even raise stats as 1st player). If we add previous point to this, we can judge outcome of many games just by seeing which hero player is playing and if he's going 1st or 2nd. Conclusion: 1st player should be able to raise his stats, Invokers need to be rebalanced again.
• With so much direct damage which can't be avoided we lack any proper healing. Conclusion: rebalance healing, and better make it neutral so games won't be decided just by faction picks.
• Fortunes are super crap compared to Spells. Conclusion: we need more strong fortunes, which would be on pair with spells.
• Lack of balance between spell schools. For example Fire is super strong, while Light is super weak. If we take into considernation that Fire is basic spell schools of Inferno and Light is basic spell school of Haven heroes, we may notice why Haven is much worse than Inferno, however thare are many other reasons in this case. Conclusion: rebalance power of spell schools, mostly buff stuff in weaker ones.
• In closing. Dear devs, you need to rebalance old cards, not just make new ones, because that won't ever fix our problems and game will continue its road to nowhere.

Downloads

I've added "Downloads" section, where you can find useful tools (actualy links to official threads on forums about those tools), which are:

• Replay Manager by Aranarth78
• Zenity's Modding Tool by Zenity Alpha

Deck Tech with hectoring - Ignatius

Hectoring published another episode of Deck Tech, this time featuring Ignatius.
I encourage you to check it out!

Popular Decks

I've added new page on blog called "Popular Decks". You can check top20 the most popular heroes based on Metagame Overviews with some example decklists for them. Hope this new feature will be useful for you guys!

Saturday Tournaments

Due to positive feedback of players participating in last Saturday Tournament, those will happen every week. You can find always updated info by entering Saturday Tournaments page. I've also added Hall of Fame, where entire top3 of each tournament will be memorized.

Metagame Overview [17/11 - 1/12]

You can download data gathered here. Keep in mind that this time post is based  on 1800+ replays.
		Kal seems be a bit less popular compared to how much popular he was two weeks ago (24,19%, now only 15,69%). However it's still the most popular champion.
		Since meta slowed a bit Ignatius  gained more popularity. It's mostly because his ability can give pretty decent amount of unavoidable damage.
		Shaar represent agressive Stronghold with ability to clear board with Insect Swarms and/or Arkath's Wraths. She can be played also in more defensive way with Stone Shields, clearly much better pick than Kat.
		I think Namtaru gained in popularity mostly due to performance of MnM_vs_Smarties during Road to Paris. It's decent hero with good spell schools to control the board, which like Kal has ability to finish with Time Jumps.
		Nahla is losing popularity due to rise of Ignatius, however I would also blame clunky gameplay of Time Lock.
		Not surprising that Kiril is played less and less, since control Kiril never was good in first place and in more controlish meta, Ignatius seems to be much better choice than Kiril in terms of agressive play.
		What really surprises me is Invoker Namtaru, for me completly overnerfed and overshadowed right now by her second personality.
		Same as Kiril, inferior to Ignatius in current metagame, which may explain popularity loss.
		Morgan seems to be natural counter to Ignatius. So I guess the more popular Ignatius will be, the more popularity Morgan will gain.
		Much less versatile than Shaar, has only one way to be played which is super agressive and has no ability to comeback after falling behind.

Quick Tournament - Saturday (29.11.2014)

I would like to invite all of you to take part in Saturday Standard Tournament, which will start at 3:00 p.m (CET).

 

Registration:

Registration will start hour before tournament (2:00 p.m. CET), on my twitch channel - all you've to do is show up there and tell you want to join tournament.

Rules:

- Single elimnation.

- Best of 3 (bo3).

- Hero lock. You can't change your hero during tournament. However you can change up to 10 cards between games against your opponent to make games more interesting and fair (to avoid hard counters). Sideboard pool is unlimited, only limited is number of cards you can change per match.

- Top 5 of the most popular champions (based on last meta overview) is banned: Kal-Azar, Kiril, Nahla, Deleb, Sandor.

 

Rewards:

If we get minimum 16 participants, Kimmundi offered us such amazing rewards:

1st : 400 seals + 2 SoB SP + week of mercs alt + banner

2nd: 200 seals + 1 SoB SP

3rd : 100 seals

Deck Tech with hectoring - Kal-Azar

If you liked previous Deck Tech with hectoring, then I encourage you to take a look at new one too.

Do you even Belias bro?

This time I would like to share with you guys my 39 card Belias. I think it's the most consistent and powerful deck in weekly format. Due to small deck size, you nearly always can get perfect hand and once you get Thrall of Hatred on board your free Altar of Destruction engine is ready to blast off. If you're curious how was it working, you can take a look at my last Belias Stream.

4 Mana Storm / Week of Austerity

4 The Great Hunt

4 Maniac

4 Succubus

4 Hatching Breeder

4 Lurker in the Dark

4 Thrall of Hatred

2 Caller of the Void

3 Bound Succubus

4 Altar of Destruction

1 Delve into Madness

Deck Tech with hectoring - Mother Namtaru

Hello fellow champions! I've great news for all of you! Hectoring made another Deck Tech, this time about Mother Namtaru Asha's Nightmare, I encourage you to check it out and subscribe to his channel if you like such content!

Modifying Gamedata

I've been modifying my Gamedata with Zenity's Modding Tool, if anyone of you is interested in my Gamedata with all changes I've made to it, you can download it here. Bellow you can take a look at those cards with changed arts.

All you've to do is replace your gamedata with new one, however don't forget to make backup.





Post Patch Metagame Overview

Introduction

Like previously I would like to thank everyone who contributed to this overview - thanks guys, it would be impossible to do without your help! You can look at gathered data here. In this post we will try to compare pre patch and post patch metagame. However this time I've divided it into two MMR ranges: 1000-1800 and 1800+.

1000-1800

The most played faction after patch is still Inferno (37% up from 34%), which means that even after tweaks to Spell Stealer Heretic and Lava Spawn, Inferno is more popular than before. Necropolis (13% down from 20%) is on 4th position (previously was 2nd), overtaken by both Stronghold (19%, previously 16%) and Academy (13% same as before, but still slightly ahead of Necropolis), followed by Haven (12%, previously 9%) and Sanctuary is far behind everything (6%, previously 9%).

		Kal-Azar (11,43%) was the most played champion last week and replaced overnerfed Namtaru as Prime aggro-control hero.   Can't play fast Lava Spawn or Lurker, which is minus when we compare him to Kiril.  Good starting stats allowing easy balancing between Might and Magic, so Kal can have access to early removal without sacirificng tempo. Ability isn't amazing, but may be useful, especially in getting board control early. Has Prime.
		Kiril (7,17%) overtook Deleb as rush representant, since he can use Lava Spawns more effectively after nerf than our dear Princess of Pain.    Good starting stats for creature based decks: can play Lava Spawn on 1st turn or turbo Lurker in the Dark. Better stats than Deleb, because Magic is more vaulable than Destiny. Good spell schools for pushing damage and controling board if we decide to go midrange route. Amazing ability for swarming board
		Nahla (6,81%) is old-new top deck. Was known before patch, but since meta slowed, she is much more viable. Has access both to Fire and Prime. First allow her to control the board with Arkath's Wrath and the second is enabling Time Jump lock together with Time-Bender Djins.
		Deleb (6,61%) was previously second the most popular champion, however due to Lava Spawn changes is much less viable as rush with explosive openings.   Good starting stats for creature based decks: can play Lava Spawn (well you still can do so, but it's not that good play anymore) on 1st turn or turbo Lurker in the Dark. Ability can give us some tempo, e.g. we can replace Lacerator with Hellfire Maniac/Bound Succubus for only 2 resources.
		People understood that Sandor (4,70%) is better than Toghrul, because Toggy ability was barely useful and it's always nice to have Dark. Has very good combo of magic schools, but thats all.
		Kat (4,70%), tied together with Sandor. She can offer a bit more diverse build, however Im not really conviced that in slower meta we really need those fortunes more than Dark. Two starting Destiny, which allow surprise enemy with Broken Bridge and/or Campfire tempo gain. Earth, which gives access to Insect Swarm.
		Ignatius (4,48%) is kinda new guy around. Pretty good at disturbing and poking slower magic based constructions with his ability. Ability which can give us loads of free damage in longer matches.
		The most agressive among Stronghold champions Acamas (4,14%) is still around looking for fresh blood, ROAR! Two starting Might plays well with Stormrage Hunters, also only Acamas can use Goblin Mentors as 2nd turn drops. As fortune based hero can be really wild due to Might of the Tribes.
		Dhamiria (3,02%) is losing her popularity, it's weird because she prefers slower meta than fast ones, maybe too many Time Jumps? Access to Earth and Fire, which is the best combo for board clearing. Ability which can ruin any control/stall.
		Let me repeat - After Dragon Coin's introduction Garant (2,91%) is much worse than it was before and he seems to be inferior to other Inferno heroes in Standard, so really - I can't understand such popularity.

 

 1800+

What we can notice here compared to <1800 is even higher Inferno (Kal-Azar) dominance, however top10 of the most played heroes ismuch more diverse than on lower MMR.

		Kal-Azar (24,19%)  is the most popular and also twice as popular as on lower MMR, however I believe he's overrated and has many weaknesses we could observe during Road to Paris finals not so long ago.
		Nahla (9,32%) is a bit more popular than on lower MMR, mostly because she performs very well against controls and midranges, however she isn't good against rushes or Stronghold.
		Kat (6,41%) seems to be still one of those decks top players like to pick, however as pointed previously I don't see any reason to play her currently. I would pick between Acamas, Shaar or Sandor if I would have to play Stronghold.
		Ignatius (4,95%) seems to be right guy in right place, much better in dealing with decks built around magic than Kiril or Deleb. However since he's much slower, he's not so good against rushes... but isn't 'this' meta full of Kal and Nahla? ;)
		Kiril (also 4,95%) as rush not good enough to butcher thru multiple Arkath's Wraths and as midrange not good enough to fight with Magic Steals and/or Time Jumps.
		Shaar (4,08%) is indeed very interesting choice... Due to 'bad' starting stats can't use Stormrage Hunter. Has very good spell schools in terms of board control. Ability can make games end pretty fast, it's like free Might of the Tribe everytime you need it.
		Myranda (3,49%) is played like suicide deck (using MtG terminology), good creatures with drawbacks supported with spells seeking fast finish with Time Jump. Good starting stats for agressive Academy hero. Prime which is equal to Town Portal, Magic Steal and Time Jump. The most amazing artwork in game?
		Deleb (3,20%) clearly not good enough anymore to shine as super fast rush.
		Ariana (3,20%) may be as good choice as new Namtaru which MnM_vs_Smarties picked during R2P Finals. Good point removal due to Dark. Ability to clear board due to Earth (Insect Swarm). Magic Steal and Time Jumps to deal with controls. Ability which can punish Stronghold a bit.
		Acamas (2,91%) is good in dealing with Kal or Nahla, so can be good pick if those two are dominant, and they are quite dominant.