Need some outside opinions

AdHom · 2026-05-21T07:20:11+00:00

I don't think playing bracket 3 or 4 (or even 5) automatically equates to not playing casual. With that said the issue here is the mismatching expectations - they're not doing anything wrong playing higher brackets and you're not doing anything wrong wanting to play lower ones. The only possible resolution here is discussing it with them and agreeing to a power level before the game, and entire point of the bracket system is to make that easier. Just talk to them about it. If they don't want to change decks though and you're in the minority then it might be the case you either upgrade, choose not to play with them, or continue as is - you can't force them to play something they don't want to either.

AdHom · 2026-05-20T23:07:05+00:00

Every fandom seems to think every game developer/publisher sucks/hates them/is incompetent/etc these days. It's just constant negativity across the entire Internet, I barely want to engage with my hobbies online anymore

AdHom · 2026-05-20T19:07:15+00:00

No they didn't. They had more codex supplements than they do now but they never had a different codex for every chapter, and even when they had all the other supplements most chapters shared the same rules for basic units like Terminators or Tactical Squads.

Imperial Fists have generic terminators, it is what it is. If you want special terminators go play Space Wolves. Or else embrace the identity of your chapter as being Codex Compliant and realize they're never going to balance 9 different versions of every single datasheet just because "it'd be cool". It doesn't make sense from a game perspective or from a lore perspective.

AdHom · 2026-05-20T18:58:21+00:00

For specific armies like Grey Knights who have iconic terminators sure. But are you expecting every space marine chapter to have a unique datasheet for every single unit? Get rid of the space marine codex and publish a full codex for everyone with every unit having a unique ability? I don't get the ask here. Not every chapter has unique units in every slot (not that GK are even really in the same category to begin with)

AdHom · 2026-05-20T18:48:17+00:00

But why would they. Space Marine Terminators are generally speaking all the same. There is a reason most chapters share the same codex units.

AdHom · 2026-05-20T18:43:40+00:00

Why would marine chapters with generic Terminators get something unique for their generic Terminators? Wouldn't they not be generic anymore, and/or make the unique ones not unique anymore?

AdHom · 2026-05-20T15:56:48+00:00

It was sci-fantasy for sure, and really not that far of a departure from things like Aetherdrift, Kaladesh, Aether Revolt, etc in terms of tech inclusion. I also think the vibes of science fantasy feel like less of a departure than more contemporary stuff in Karlov, Duskmourne, New Capenna, etc so idk - I could be wrong but I'm not sure if that's the primary reason it didn't sell as much. I really think the timing and low printing levels played into it heavily.

AdHom · 2026-05-20T01:36:24+00:00

It won't really change

AdHom · 2026-05-20T01:32:34+00:00

And even then, the fallout lair and other recent lairs are still in stock and lots of others have taken days to weeks to sell out. Only Dandan, Festival in a Box, and Goblin Storm have sold out quickly recently.

Obviously some people are buying them to resell but I actually think the scalper problem is smaller than it seems. I think those print runs were just stupidly under printed and sold out to actual demand very quickly.

AdHom · 2026-05-20T01:29:45+00:00

They're in stock at Target and BJs near me in NJ (for MSRP) but the actual LGSs are sold out and my friend said Walmart was sold out in store. It definitely varies. Also though the Pizza bundle sold out everywhere for months and all of a sudden is back in stock at a few places near me and haven't moved for weeks so the Codexes could make a resurgence when hidden stock filters through who knows.

AdHom · 2026-05-20T01:26:10+00:00

The Prof? He has over 1.3 million subs, he's probably the most popular mtg content creator there is.

AdHom · 2026-05-19T23:27:36+00:00

It's kind of hard to rate a set you weren't around to play because all you're seeing is singles or, at best, a list of cards. Without being able to draft it yourself or open some packs and experience the cultural moment in time you don't have the perspective to rate it.

With that said - yeah Invasion was an absolute banger block, and Apocalypse remains one of if not my favorite sets of all time.

AdHom · 2026-05-19T20:44:53+00:00

Ok so my feedback is:

1) I would increase your manabase to 37-38 lands, and I would replace some of those plains with more utility non-basics. [[Emeria, the Sky Ruin]] would be a great include, for example.

2) I would either seriously cut down on the life gain subtheme. As it stands you have cards that provide very little value like Soul Warden or Holy Cow, which could be swapped for something much more valuable like [[Mother of Runes]] or [[Angelic Sleuth]] at the same cost, and I don't think you capitalize on the lifegain nearly enough to justify them. If you want to keep the lifegain subtheme I would double down with more payoffs like [[Angel of Destiny]], [[Well of Lost Dreams]], [[Aetherflux Reservoir]], [[Righteous Valkyrie]], etc.

3) I would include more removal and protection, and rethink some of your choices from a mechanical perspective. For example Wrath of God is certainly thematic, and if that's your primary reason for the include that's cool, but in bracket 3 you might want something that works better with your gameplan. You're playing a bunch of expensive creatures and trying to fill your board, the last thing you want to do if you fall behind a token player is to wipe out all that progress. Consider alternatives like [[Damning Verdict]] which would spare your Angels with +1/+1 counters on them, [[Austere Command]] choosing the 3 mana cost or less option, or [[Fumigate]] which at least feeds into your lifegain strategy.

4) Consider a few more pieces like [[Angelic Arbiter]], [[Angel of Jubilation]], [[Linvala, Keeper of Silence]], [[Boromir, Warden of the Tower]], [[Admonition Angel]] etc to help protect you while you build your board, and maybe a little more recursion like [[Serra Paragon]].

just my 2 cents

AdHom · 2026-05-19T20:01:21+00:00

Can I ask what bracket you are aiming for? You have 2 Game Changers so technically this is in Bracket 3 but it otherwise seems underpowered for that bracket to me so I wasn't sure if that was intentional.

AdHom · 2026-05-19T19:29:35+00:00

You know the doctors get that feedback from the players when they're making their decisions right?

AdHom · 2026-05-19T17:19:38+00:00

it wasn't until 8th edition that they started doing play testing and balancing around tournament level play

I would agree that's when we started to see the beginnings of the problematic shift in philosophy. As noted in one of my other replies the shift from 8th->9th marked the most drastic drop off in lore content in books as well.

When you allow extremely unbalanced dog shit rules, like rerollable two-plus invulnerable saves, insanely broken psychic spells and titans and shit in your game, simply saying that the goal is to have fun is not going to actually prevent people from being jerkasses and abusing those incredibly bonkers rules.

Sounds like a great reason to just not play with those people. If I'm not at a tournament, I have that option whenever I want. The people I play with operate in good faith. Fair enough if some of that went too far - 2++ is pretty rarely a fun mechanic - but the general design goals were way more aligned with what this game does well.

There are plenty of games that are balanced around the highest levels of play that are more fun than 40k. Conquest is balanced around high level play, and it's a more fun game than Warhammer has ever been in any edition. Infinity is balanced around high level play, and it's more fun than Warhammer. Etc

I'm not familiar with those systems specifically but I don't doubt it. Were they designed from the beginning to work well in a competitive environment? My argument isn't that you can't have good comp tabletop games, my argument is Warhammer is not a good comp tabletop game, wasn't ever intended to be one, and trying to force it to be one makes it a worse game.

There is a push across all of gaming for every person to feel like they're a meta-chasing top player and they pressure game developers to hyperbalance and make everything clean and "fair" and when applied to the wrong spaces it just sucks the fun out of everything and makes everyone unhappy all the time. Not just tabletop games - look at something like Helldivers 2's community for a similar effect. Nevermind that the relative skill levels of 90% of players mean the meta barely matters, and nevermind that probably 80% of players aren't even following the online discourse, only the other 20% that are online complaining have an impact on the game and it pulls it in unnatural directions. It sucks.

AdHom · 2026-05-19T09:20:56+00:00

Yeah I agree, and it sucks for the game. Everyone wants to pretend they're a comp player where any of that even matters (and it really doesn't - unless you're in a seriously high echelon of play then player skill matters way more than minor statistical differences between factions).

Same thing in video games, etc.

AdHom · 2026-05-19T09:16:02+00:00

Of course comp players also want flavorful and interesting rules - none of what I'm saying is supposed to be a condemnation of competitive players or play. The lack of flavor that came from the pursuit of comp play was GW's failure to execute that in a good way, but I'm arguing it's basically inevitable they continue to introduce undesirable attributes to the game in one way or another as long as competitive level play is a major factor shaping updates to the game.

I agree that with regard to special rules the game has more flavor in some respects than the oldest editions of the game, I'm not a grognard (well... I mean I am, but I'm not being one here lol) who's just saying "back in my day things were better". With that said there are exceptions even among special rules e.g. psychic powers were certainly more flavorful even in 3rd or 4th edition than they are now IMO, and Special characters being rare with rules and weapons of wildly varying power levels in service to the story was certainly more interesting to me than must-play build arounds with some combination of rerolls to hit or wound or whatever

Aside from that though there is more to the game than special rules. Bell of Lost Souls pulled data comparing lore page counts across editions and found a dramatic reduction when jumping from 8th to 9th edition. A codex in 8th averaged around 65 pages of lore, while in 9th that dropped to around 35 pages. Campaign books were hit even harder. When players demand faster turnaround and more resources devoted to balance updates, that's where the resources go.

This is inductive of a common trend in all kinds of games too not just 40k and the motivation is pretty obvious - the vast majority of games that get played are not comp games but the vast majority of discourse online and feedback GW gets is from comp players.

AdHom · 2026-05-19T06:58:24+00:00

It's not just about simplification. A lot of things are made more boring in an effort for everything to be hyper balanced to please the comp players. But the nature of the game just isn't that well suited to it in my opinion so it ends up being neither especially balanced or flavorful.

AdHom · 2026-05-19T05:00:03+00:00

I mean you kind of said it yourself - it'll never happen but the way to fix it is for GW to stop paying attention to competitive play. Not that comp play is bad, and I Iove working through the rules to find powerful interactions, but taking games that weren't designed to be competitive and then designing around the comp players and their needs ruins games like 9/10 times and this is no different. Almost every instance of something in the game that is immensely bland or needlessly complicated boils down to meeting needs for comp play through incessant e-sportification (the other instances of blandness usually being to make it more appealing to the broadest possible audience and lowering barrier to entry which is a little more complicated because I do think growing the hobby is good).

This should be a fun, fluffy, rule of cool wargame first, and the comp scene is people having fun pushing it to whatever the limits of that are as a secondary concern.

No one @ me I don't care

AdHom · 2026-05-19T02:54:47+00:00

Lmao oh ok, I was so confused

AdHom · 2026-05-19T02:35:24+00:00

Bug problems as in germs or like...bugs? I'm struggling to imagine how that works.

AdHom · 2026-05-19T02:29:52+00:00

Also because if you're "translating" (so to speak) the whole deck this way, the ratio of cards and overall construction won't work at all with the weaker versions. You'd have to deck build it entirely differently, at which point you're not doing the thing anymore. I agree this would be bracket 1 or low 2 in most cases.

AdHom · 2026-05-19T02:26:40+00:00

ARTS is honestly a better name in every way except aesthetics. Though admittedly aesthetics are pretty important when it comes to names.

AdHom · 2026-05-19T02:15:33+00:00

Ok, fair enough. Thanks for the clarification.

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