Malifaux Masters: A Tier List

[ravenborne]

If the dreamer player wins activation 1st turn he doesn't even need to worry about the grave spirit.

Fly in, kill Nico. Bish bash bosh.

How are you going to do 12 wounds in 2 AP with h2w? My math doesn't make sense of this.

---------- Post added at 01:49 AM ---------- Previous post was at 01:36 AM ----------

Equally, 3), how are you getting off Rigor Mortis with a 16" "base" threatrange, without them having the jump?

Its got a much longer threat range with the right models. About 27 - 30 inches.

In any case it very much does depend on initiative, and what the Dreamer player chooses to do. He can't have it all, either has to choose to try and kill Nico (and likely fail) or his support models. I have found the better US players try to kill his support models before trying to kill him.

[Mike3838]

12 Wds with 2 (often 3) AP with paired and, more importantly, Onslaught, will usually take a hefty chunk if not kill him. Dreamer player will cycle through roughly half his deck in these Strikes, so you better hope he's holding the RJ cos that gives him around evens chance to land it on one of his attacks, and slightly more likely on Damage than Duel total due to probably flipping 3 cards. If he survives, it'll only be until turn 2. The minions are then easy meat.

And let's not forget that launching Chompy at Nicodem is ZERO risk for the Dreamer player.

Also curious who you're targeting at 30" after Chompy retreats. Sending in a vulture? You can't target the Dreamer. And you're gambling on a single card flip. Sending in Nico (somehow)?

Mike

[Rathnard]

So first off, +1 to Lalochezia's last post. For every broken combo someone might find in a book, you can bet your arse there would have been another two dozen identified and fixed during the beta test.

Secondly, the Beta Testers for Twisty Fates aren't that hard to identify - they're listed in the book. ;)

Thirdly, I thought I might make a comment more relevant to the original topic of this thread. :D

I personally think Tier lists like Calmdowns are interesting insofar as it gauges what Masters people feel are disproportionately over- or under-powered. From my perspective, it's useful in that it gives me a broad estimation of what Masters I've no interest in using (eg. Hamelin, Kirai, Dreamer) and those that I think I'd really enjoy (eg. Lucius, Molly, Seamus). ;)

That said, I think Tier lists can be a negative thing in that it gives newer players this perception that Masters on lower tiers are strictly worse than those on high tiers, and will stand little chance of winning in a straight-up scrap. The reality is far more complicated, since this assumes equal skill in a tournament setting where players are using their Masters to maximum effectiveness.

In truth, this doesn't happen in the majority of games, gaming groups or even tournaments. Few people are 100% competitive, 100% of the time, so something like Tiers can be both misinformative and demoralising for a player who takes such a list too literally.

[Mike3838]

Noone's saying lower tier master have little chance of winning against higher tiers, only that you need to be a better player to win that matchup (on average). I don't see why that's controversial.

Poor players with low tier masters will usually lose and the best players using high tier masters will usually win. Then there's a grey area of both skill and tier in the middle where high skill can overcome low tier and vice versa.

Worth saying the the skill differential is much steeper than the tier differential. If you imagine in a completely fair matchup you have 50% chance of winning, I'd say master tier would be around 0.8-1.2 multiplier, whereas skill would be more like 0.1-1.6. Completely pulling numbers out of thin air, but you get my point

Mike

[Q'iq'el]

Noone's saying lower tier master have little chance of winning against higher tiers, only that you need to be a better player to win that matchup (on average). I don't see why that's controversial.

Well, to be frank Calmdown kind of is. :D

[Math Mathonwy]

I find it strange how personally people seem to take these tiers. That the mere suggestion of there being imbalances makes some people fly into full on defense mode. I mean, we've even had people who think that every Master is equally capable and only player skill matters. This is a crazy proposition. It would mean that Wyrd had achieved perfect balance on Masters and minions so a Seamus with nothing but Guild Autopsies should have an equal chance against a Dreamer list with the Twins.

I'm honestly mystified by that level of non-thinking defensiveness.

As for Calmdown's tiers, he rates Collodi and Ophelia way too high and Zoraida too low. Otherwise it isn't bad, though I would personally use fewer categories. Something like

Tier 1: Dreamer, Hamelin, Kirai
Tier 1.5: Collette, Zoraida, Pandora
Tier 2: The ones not mentioned elsewhere
Tier 3: Molly, Kaeris, Lucius

With Seamus being very close to being tier 3 but he really is quite a bit better than Molly or Lucius.

While I do not doubt anyone's ability to remain objective when discussing these "master tiers", I do doubt whether anyone here has played enough games to be able to legitimately claim objectivity.
As has been stated previous in the forums, there are 325 possible master matchups.
Formula is:
26!/(2!*(26-2)!)=325

Standard practice in statistical analysis calls for a minimum of 25 data points per matchup to be statistically valid.
So: 325*25 = 8125 games needed

Of course to be valid you would have to assume that you played someone of the exact same skill every time with the exact same terrain. Of course this would also assume no schemes and this data would only be valid if you played the same strategy every time.

My point is this: I don't care how experienced you are, there is no way you could have possibly played enough games to claim objectivity. The only way we will ever be able to create an objective tier list is if someone creates a Malifaux computer simulation.

Ooh, my formula sees more use!

That said, I don't think that that many games are at all necessary. I think that you can quite objectively say that Molly sucks and that Dreamer, Kirai and Hamelin rule, for example, based on current data. "Objective" in this has to be interpreted as not being overtly influenced by ranking favourite Masters higher than they should be due to performance, for example.

I mean, Dreamer being top tier is subjective, but when 95% of the player base who have tournament experience agree, then it starts to veer into the objective territory insofar as the word is meaningful at all.

And let's not forget that launching Chompy at Nicodem is ZERO risk for the Dreamer player.

Flipping the Black Joker when going for the "All Done" is something of a risk, though rather miniscule, right?

Well, to be frank Calmdown kind of is. :D

Nope, he has quite consistently admitted to the paramount importance of player skill. Of course in an extreme case, like Dreamer vs Molly, the Dreamer player has to suck immensely for him to lose, but that is possible with some strategies, I suppose.

[Mike3838]

Well, to be frank Calmdown kind of is. :D

Nowhere that I can see really. He's definitely saying "If I'm a better player than you and I use Dreamer, I'll probably win". All he's not saying (but I'm sure he means) is "But if I use Seamus, still as the better player, I might not win".

Mike

[Q'iq'el]

Nope, he has quite consistently admitted to the paramount importance of player skill. Of course in an extreme case, like Dreamer vs Molly, the Dreamer player has to suck immensely for him to lose, but that is possible with some strategies, I suppose.

I'm referring to his post above in this thread, where he quite categorically claims Nicodem won't live past turn two bar for luck (or forfeit the game by killing own models just to prolong the agony).

[Mike3838]

Flipping the Black Joker when going for the "All Done" is something of a risk, though rather miniscule, right?

Fair point, a very tiny risk that no rational player would be put off by. And mitigated still further by the 25% chance of flipping a tome on a SS flip.

[magicpockets]

It would if any of you were any good at it

My latest tourney...

Nicodem took first (this player has been playing in the area since 2008 when I started!)

My subjective throw-in. Nicodem is much better than the UK players seem to think

I close my case

Should organise a halloween wyrd tournament that is alternately in US/UK, with ratings taken from both so that it doesn't turn into: Americans only go to the US one because they are dicks about making everyone travel to them =3

If I have a year+ warning, it is easy to organise a trip going around in America, I think that is true of all of us.

I'd be up for this, and I reckon a few others would be too. Also, don't forget how big the US is, if we held it on the east coast it would likely be in the middle for us and many US players.

Unfortunately some of the more outspoken of the competitive gamers from both sides of the pond don't tend to have the best forum etiquette, which will probably get them put on the "Do not want" list.

So, "let's not involve the people who publicly break our rules, put out rules which can be broken, have those same people publicly break the new rules, hate them even more, and have to errata them and/or p*ss of the community"? I'd much rather go with, "we'll they're assh**s but they're willing to help and commit a lot of time to helping and it's better to get them to help us now, that way we get good rules and they won't be breaking them so publicly as it'll be their fault they're in there, which makes everyone happier". Odd way to approach it but if that makes sens eto the powers that be....

[color="#ff00cc"]
Take Bury for example - despite being a Book 1 minion, the potential abuse with Bete Noire and Bury (and Nurse!) wasn't really considered until recently.

That just proves the point. I'm going to get flamed for this but don't care - I never looked at Bette until recently but "broke" her almost straight away (and started the current whole let's bury and abuse Bette idea). I'm not bothered I'm not involved form an ego point of view (genuinely), but I really think players with a knack for breaking stuff should be involved in play testing to catch things like this.

And I also think you guys under appreciate the abilities of Beta testers. I remember distinctly that chain Double Take, Bête Noire+Bury and other such tricks have been extensively discussed shortly after the models become available and in each and every case these were deemed balanced and acceptable.

What I'm trying to say is that even if Beta testers find a very complex synergy and win games with it, it still won't be obvious if such a move really breaks things or is a trick people quickly develop a counter for. But a simpler rules system with results easier to predict and models a bit more uniform in mechanics they use, now that allows both for better predictions and for quicker fixes.

I certainly don't want to downplay beta testers (some of them are friends), but you can't let some of the stuff through that's there and not expect players to criticise you. Alp bombs? Hamelin's whole mechanic? Dreamer sniping? Bury abuse? They aren't complex or difficult to see, they're glaring mistakes on the part of the beta testers and Wyrd.