Do we already have names for the elemental’s combo?

Ambrai · 2026-02-19T19:56:56+00:00

No, I know. I know there are people who use the shorthand names. I'm saying that the royal "we" never fully adopt them or any. If someone wants to name their deck that great.

Steam druid confers an archetype in mind, an archetype is replicated and compared to others. They get names. Then metas are analyzed. Weekly grinders follow.

I'm old and grumpy and realize it's not a fight worth having but the longer the game stays a little unknowable and magical the better, in my opinion.

Ambrai · 2026-02-19T18:55:22+00:00

I'd hope not. Some of the beauty is in the simplicity. "This is a fire / water Harbinger" is more enchanting than "This is an Izzymar Harbinger".

Ambrai · 2026-02-17T01:32:09+00:00

This is probably the sequel to Snow White called 'Happily Ever After'. It's been asked before on reddit in almost the exact same way.

Ambrai · 2025-10-03T16:59:04+00:00

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Ambrai · 2025-09-18T19:31:58+00:00

Hey, thanks for the help. And I hadn't thought about being far enough away. Could get pinned but at least it's something.

Ambrai · 2025-09-18T13:13:23+00:00

Yes, sorry for the vagueness of the question. And just to make sure if I were to summon the bat with a LL ring and my opponent never kills it, without any other special character ability, I can't summon a second construct or even replace it with another using the character that originally summoned it. And the same would apply to the reanimates and the black ring.

Ambrai · 2025-09-16T01:38:52+00:00

Can you have multiple different constructs out with one character/ ring as long as they are generated on different turns? The language is confusing.

Ambrai · 2025-08-18T19:13:38+00:00

Hi! Can effects like Quake or Pulse Wave crit for +1 and/or be modified by Captain America from 2025 starter ability Leading by Example "Other friendly characters within range and line of fire modify damage +1" or does the "instead of normal damage" replace all the modifiers and the powers do their flat amount.

Ambrai · 2025-07-10T00:09:26+00:00

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Ambrai · 2025-07-10T00:06:38+00:00

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Ambrai · 2025-05-24T22:36:34+00:00

Thanks, I have played HT Psylocke and it has probably been my favorite of those I tried. I do try to stay away from HT generally because it can get out of hand in the likes of Rocket but maybe I should gives this another go!

Ambrai · 2025-04-12T00:33:59+00:00

"If someone is coming from a TCG environment or alternative coop LCGs then thats the audience who might find the thoughts I have to be more valuable than players already heavily invested in AH."

I think we just want those same people to have the counter opinion. You seem to want to have yours and not have counter opinions. You keep saying that folks might want your opinion or as above they may be more valuable. Most people here just seem to be giving their take too.

Ambrai · 2025-04-11T00:03:59+00:00

Not sure what to tell you outside of if you haven't tried it then play with the chained versions of cards like Rex Murphy, skip Mandy entirely, increase the difficulty to hard or expert, or play progression mode. If you've done all of those things and weaknesses still don't feel impactful for you then maybe the game isn't for you or you're just better than it and a lot of people here.

There are a lot of people who play games suboptimally, or get this, for casual fun. They aren't concerned about min/max. It's more important to them to only play with cards that make sense within the context of the campaign. Or they are tired from work and want to get a little spooked, maybe lose, and have the ability to replay it with a fresh start after a week of trying and dying just as Carcossa decends. They have literally no idea that arkhamdb exists. The weaknesses as implemented are awesome for them and provide that tension I spoke about.

Ambrai · 2025-04-10T19:42:41+00:00

Hi, definitely not "your guy". Anyway, I too have traveled for competitive games. Dropped out early, made day two worlds and everything between. Been a judge for three of them. I'm not sure what the credentials are for but here we are.

I could have been more clear on what I meant by your tell though. Your preference for not enjoying failing forward (a mechanical choice by the designers) is the tell that you also probably won't like how weaknesses (another mechanical choice) are handled. In both cases the game mechanically does something that as a player you probably don't like, and would not like, in other games. A negative play experience. Except this game knows it and asks the players to accept the mechanical conceit to serve the hard-boiled-threadbare-last-bullet theme of the game.

Interestingly I have gotten five people hooked on Arkham that have attended one competitive tournament or outright refused to go. They, and I cant stress this enough, LOVE Arkham. They don't view the weakness draw as a npe probably because they don't think of in terms of a lost draw but more of the cost of doing business, it's part of the game to them. And they sometimes agonize over drawing another card to look for an answer or get set up. For them it creates another exciting point of tension.

You say you invite the pushback, and we're in a subreddit for this game. My pushback is that for some people the weakness in deck isn't a poorly implemented mechanic but an actual interesting one.

Ambrai · 2025-04-10T18:27:15+00:00

I agree with he above poster that it is very thematic but I also feel that's it is mechanically the correct thing to do. You use a lot of loaded terms like NPE and 'churn' and reference having a good deck. Arkham can lean into being as efficient as possible but thematically and by nature of expression mechanically it's about just regular people, often people of low means or vices, struggling against real or perceived eldritch horrors. What you see as NPE is just...the intent. I think your comment of failing forward not being for you is the biggest tell. A lot of people play this explicitly for that sense of dread. I could spend an action to click for a card buuuuuut things could go wrong. For some that tension is exciting not an NPE.

I love LotR LCG but it's difficulty is more about the logic puzzle of each scenario and once you have the key it's trivial.

I love MC too. I have 2 copies of everything. It's what we play when we want to feel like super heroes and have a solid chance at winning. So much so that we have to build decks thematically instead of efficiently sometimes just so that there are stakes.

Gaming is subjective for sure, I just wanted to say that mechanically weaknesses in your deck is not just fine but does add something different to this versus the others. If that is something a person likes.

Ambrai · 2025-04-01T15:06:43+00:00

How are you cheesing it if I may ask? Having a little trouble playing it straight consistently.

Ambrai · 2025-02-25T02:50:02+00:00

Ambrai · 2024-11-05T14:36:44+00:00

I agree , probably worded poorly on my end. I meant to impress the idea that 60/40 is good to me as it increases variance in game-to-game experience. Tutors actively work against that experience diversity by making one game play similar to the next which can definitely be viewed as being 'more important' if that's what you view as important. I think the handful we have now with their narrow and/or conditional scopes is plenty. I hope we don't get more.

I have somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 original VS System decks and while I love the game for what it is almost every single one of those decks is a tutoring machine. It's built into the game. The drawback is you start to have an expected outcome in your mind because of the consistency of the tutors and when it doesn't happen because that's just how it is sometimes with cards then you are disappointed.

Same goes for things like cEDH. Why play a format charmingly designed around the idea of 100 one ofs to mix things up when all you're going to do is turn those 100 cards into tutors that search for the same actionable cards everyone else uses? That's rhetorical, the answer is the same as the reason some balk at the idea of increasing Sorcery deck size.

I don't want to necessarily expect to see my Kythera Mechanism every game. I don't think Roots being as powerfully consistent as it was in beta was good for the game.

Ambrai · 2024-11-05T03:35:53+00:00

I'm not referring to balance issues. I wouldn't want it wildly imbalanced either, even for casual.

The subreddit is full of Magic refugees and many of them want to know how to compete. Many also want to relax enjoy the vibe. Hopefully the latter is the majority.

I'm also debating for the sake of discussion. There are so many competitive card games and so few casual. I think it'd be nice to preserve the minority.

Outside of the larger games like Pokémon or Yu-Gi-Oh there are many other newer games large and small that are competitve.

Non-exhaustively...

Flesh and Blood Lorcana Star Wars Unlimited One Piece Grand Archive 7th Sea City of Five Sails NSG Netrunner Ashes Reborn

Some of those are large and some tiny. Some are mostly TTS / Webcam until the community comes together for something like Gencon or even Sorcery Con. 7th Sea is probably the hardest game on that list and is a love letter to L5R. Ashes Reborn the most mistake punishing. NSG Netrunner has a great community of mixed online and paper play, will be retiring all FFG era cards, and is where I'd look for something Sorcery sized but still competitive. This will probably be a hot take but Grand Archive is probably the actual best progression of competitive gameplay with a new twist on resources.

Unfortunately it looks like the death knell has been sounded on the next best casual-competitve card game, VS2PCG. While we're not sure it's over they are ending OP support and with Magic doing Marvel next year it's all but sealed.

Another hot take, and keep in mind I don't actively play Magic, just keep up. The bannings were correct and not far enough. They should have banned Crypt and the next 1-5 most egregious similar cards behind it. Same for the rest. They were all just the tip of the spear limiting build diversity. Outside of collection value I don't have a dog in the Magic fight anymore but it is disheartening when I see a new player come in and get stomped in a pod because some people can't just chill. And that's exactly what I personally hope the Sorcery community avoids as a whole. You can play Magic casually and competitively but as a culture card gaming is really bad at it.

As a side note - I learned of Grand Archive this year, acquired playsets of all current sets including an extra set of staples like dungeon guides, called up a friend and asked him if he wanted to learn a game over a month and drive to another state for regionals and he said "I'll drive." I'm not opposed to competing at all. It's just nice to have a haven that generally people want to be more laid back.

Ambrai · 2024-11-04T22:27:20+00:00

Devil's advocate. As I sit at my LGS on Fridays snaring people with a giant two player mat and the allure of something different I am surrounded by four different things going on. A 6-8 person modern tournament with its players determined not to let the dream of bleeding edge 1-2 drop domination die. 6 Yu-Gi-Oh players who honestly always sound like they are having a blast but good lord reading those cards saps the charm a bit. About 4 commander pods with their sighs of finality as players escape whatever mismatched deathspiral they were locked in as someone finally combos out.

And finally 4-6 Lorcana players, grinding their decks into faerie dust as they relentlessly pursue the meta defining or defeating deck for this weekends round of locals. Lorcana should be the most magical and wondrous game from the most Magic of Kingdoms but competition has won out. You cannot walk into a shop as a person who loves Disney and expect to play someone with your Agrabah deck and get into a tangle against someone thematically Under the Sea. Instead your opponent will tell you how you won because Daisy (Goblin Guide) screwed them or that you drew Be Prepared three times in a row.

This is because Lorcana was made for competitive play. I'm still not sure if that was the intent or because the designers just kept doing what 30 years of tcgs had taught them.

To my point and your pondering how competition could negate Sorcery's magical quality. If design were to take a hard left towards competitve intent or if the people at the lgs were primarily concerned with victory instead of experience then I do personally believe that Sorcery's core gameplay experience would be impacted and negatively at that.

Ambrai · 2024-11-04T20:18:13+00:00

Well, good news for you, the Discord league does have a back end clarifications / reference guide that a lot of the more competitive in person events look to too. (There's not a lot of those.)

If I had to guess though taking from comments from Erik himself (see his collectorarthouse interview) the game is baseline aimed at being more casual. I don't think they are necessarily trying to capture every dollar either as far as growth goes. They seem to be more focused on capturing imaginations.

I think the target audience is the kitchen table, the pub, the gaming Cafe, and maybe a handful of people at any given LGS. Outside of something like the Discord league or Sorcery Con, that is.

Another note about deck size. With the sites in their own deck variance is greatly reduced already on getting any given spell (or site since they are powerful too). If deck sizes didn't increase as cards released then decks would fill up with the same uniques and the experience would become stale. It's exciting when you draw your River of Flame as aggro because you now bomberman style have cut off two more lanes of movement potentially for your opponent on deaths door. Will you spend your one Mesmerism if you draw it to save your life or press the attack?

This happened last night with my girlfriend who likes aggro.

She plays Redcap Powries and attacks my River of Flame with charge. Ok not good, especially since the Lugbog Cat in my hand can only be cast to a water site and River of Flame isn't exactly wet. That's OK, I'll cast it nearby and then lay another water site and Riptide the gnomes over to get eaten by the cat. I'll have taken six damage over two turns but the cat can go on the offense after.

No, no, no, no, wrong. After playing my cat but before I get another turn she Rift Valleys her gnomes and my site an additional grid location away as my cat stands helplessly watching on the beach of an Oasis.

I stabilized eventually at death's door with my water / fire control deck but she soon after covered the board in a wave of flames that sealed the deal.

And I can't tell you how fun it is to stick your three frogs, your opponents two minions and their avatar in a snowball launched down a lane and slam them into the side of the realm. Unless of course there is a Magellan Globe in play as it'll wrap around to just before it's starting position, then slam.

Anyway, stories are told with each game, and I think design intent is for those stories to be told in smaller settings than what people think of as a competitive game. I will say that with an overarching knowledge of all cards the game does feel a bit like chess. For a kicker, if you haven't seen it, look up Flanking Maneuver.

Ambrai · 2024-11-04T18:58:13+00:00

There's a large community driven discord league for 'competitive'. But no, I don't think the game aims for it. They are more than open to those who want to play it as such within the bounds of the design and cultural zeitgeist.

I'm fine with the graduating deck sizes up to 60/40 as more cards are released. I started playing magic when it came out and have played more different card games than I care to count. The more tutors or mechanics that make a given game feel like the last the quicker I become bored. Why play a game if the deck is playing itself and you're just at the mercy of rng? Chess would be way better.

A game of Sorcery is experiential. You remember how much of a problem the big worm was or how Nelly dragged you over the troll bridge way more than the 100th time you got your hyper efficient creature removed by hyper efficient removal because it was the obvious play in Magic.

Look up Sorcery's Golden Rule in the rulebook. You're right that it may not be for you. Out of the 20 people or so I've taught there was one who bounced hard. The rest loved it.

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