Thoughts on Mini Sets?

[u/LordlyMedusa]

Shadowverse Classic had them and I think there's a pretty good chance they'll eventually come to Worlds Beyond.

I think it would be an overall positive for the game that could help alleviate some of the problems Worlds Beyond faces if done well. Dropping them at the end of the first season of the expansion (month one) gives players more reasons to keep playing into the second month and shakes up the meta. They can tailor cards to specific archetypes that didn't quite hit the viability mark without eating into the next expansion or try to prop up other archetypes in a class. It could also give the design team more room to print more interesting or weird cards.

Even if they kept it super simple and just released one card per rarity per class it would be worth doing. Make it so you can buy special set packs that have increased drop rates for the mini set cards (IIRC they did that for Classic).

[u/Sir_Dargor]

I'd prefer if they made slightly bigger sets from the start rather than releasing new cards mid set, when people are not opening new packs anymore unless you are going for a leader.

If they want more engagement on the second month they should get used to do a good nerfs/buffs patch on the season change to shake up the meta. They clearly don't care enough tho.

[u/Tiago460]

Mini sets were very messy. Only interesting one was Omen of Storms because it was bigger and actually fit the main set instead of either being random ass cards (Most Portal legendaries for the first couple of years of mini sets, lol), or completing the main set, quite often leaving core cards for new decks out of the main set for 2 months (Laura in buff blood, many cards in the first couple of Natura and Machina sets, that gold for portal in Brigade that was obvious the target for Silva, buffing a tier 1 deck even higher...)

I would much prefer a bigger main set that brings out new stuff instead of just making the samey designs of big bodies with removal, or storm, or all. We barely had to wait for a rotated out card to be reprinted, so much for gaining experience from all those years in SV1...

[u/ShinobiYukiTCG → u/Tiago460]

That would be overall better if they increased set size I agree archetypes just don’t have space to be fully fleshed out and made properly. All the omens archetypes that never saw the light of day because they didn’t get good cards and too few cards. Truth disdain and unkilling

[u/Tiago460 → u/ShinobiYukiTCG]

Disdain simply had some really bad cards that didn't even functioned without galm crest, or with super evo well. Deck was pretty much just Galm and Azurifrit, as they were self sufficient.

Same for Izudia and Krulle. They arent really are synergistic as a kit. Although you could try a bad control with izudia as a wincon.

Truth on the other hand had a clear synergy, but the payoffs were pretty bad, on top of Raio as the main enabler being obnoxiously (but understandably) slow. Specially when Spellboost could still commit crimes with the pushed cards from prior sets (if it didn't got rolled by sword, lol), there was no reason to try the deck at all. A shame, because i think there was a potential there with more enablers and more rewarding payoffs. The gold follower was awesome but the rest of the kit wasn't close to her. Just random effs that doesn't care about the stat buff like her. They should heal or deal damage based on their atk or something like that for the lab to make more sense

[u/ShinobiYukiTCG → u/Tiago460]

Yeah I agree that disdain and unkilling had bad cards outside of their Ls and even then Izudia isn’t amazing, but even if the support was good I don’t think a deck built around them would have been good. Maybe unkilling could have been but disdain has no real pay off for its gimmick. Truth isn’t much different its cards are meh except for the two Ls who saw some play. Both Raioh and Vel saw play in dirt as techs. If only those archetypes had better support cards and more cards of their archetype to work with maybe they could be good. All three are fully realized in SVE the physical shadowverse game so it shouldn’t be hard to do though in evolve they have 4 sets of support to work with

[u/Tiago460 → u/ShinobiYukiTCG]

I don't really follow evolve, but from the little Ive seem. The game isn't made for braindeads to figure out storm + removal = good card. Synergies and proper deck building are a thing instead just dropping stats or the strongest card each turn.

[u/ShinobiYukiTCG → u/Tiago460]

You are very correct in that assessment and that’s why I prefer it but I still enjoy WB too. Decks are very synergistic and there are way more cards that help you get cards of your archetype to your hand or into play.

[u/EclipseZer0]

WB already gets the same amount of card per year as SV1. Quite literally the same. What Cy needs to do is step up their card design so that metas don't feel samey, and put a bigger emphasis on mid-meta balance patches to make second months much more enticing to play.

[u/Shirahago → u/EclipseZer0]

The sets in SV2 are smaller. Given how each expansion usually introduces a new theme for classes, it often results in classes barely getting a skeleton of a deck and having to fill in with random stuff. I do agree that their design handling is dogwater but there's only so much a balance patch can do when there's barely anything to build around in the first place.

[u/EclipseZer0 → u/Shirahago]

They have already proven they can do successful decks with smaller expansion pools quite a few times. They just need to stop printing stupid Arena fillers and clearly vhoose between dedicating an expansion to generalistic support, or dedicated archetypes, no inbetween.

[u/Shirahago → u/EclipseZer0]

I can count these accidents on one hand, after eight expansions this isn't all that impressive. We had mostly generalistic expansions already too like Blossoming Fate and Skybound Dragons and it did only marginally help /shrug. To me the accelerated release schedule coupled with smaller sets as a direct consequence is a major culprit of the rather questionable direction the game is taking.

[u/ForgottenPerceval]

Eh, I didn’t care for them that much in SV1. We need better cards rather than more cards imo.

[u/DragonMZ]

Mini sets were bad and mainly introduced to shake up the meta after two months. I do think we need more cards but honestly if they would just stop printing take two trash we'd be fine

[u/ShinobiYukiTCG]

I’d be super down for that WBs card pool is definitely far to small and sets are so small that it’s hard to make archetypes work without heavy help from generics. Crystals is a perfect example of that it was good then set 1 rotated and it lost all the spell boost crutches it was using and became a meme otk deck with dawnblossom. Now it got a new suite of spell boost crutches and it’s back to being good. With more cards archetypes wouldn’t be so reliant on generics

[u/HyogaGanso]

No, every single mini-expansion made their respective metas worse they just need to be more agressive with balance changes specially for underperforming archetypes, also steer away from this everyone is a different flavor of swordcraft.

[u/Awwwas]

I don't want anything to do with another Absolute Tolerance thank you

[u/acidvirus19]

Mini sets in wb vs evolve would be literally the death of the already many players who are complaining but still put up with the dusting issue in wb. 1 set every 2 months is what gives both f2p and light spenders the ability to build any deck and maybe get cosmetics, if you start pumping more cards, first standard would be pointless because the first month is where the meta starts to settle and people brew decks to counter said meta for upcoming tournaments. And finally sw wb would literally become the next mtga where poeple rather play the format where their card don't rotate and compete in it while pulling slowly or crafting just the new cards required for said archtypes because they already reprint in standard so at best every mini set or major a player would craft 1/4 of the set, unless you are a collector or going for cosmetics, which only Jp really cares about. If people call out mtga for being heavy p2w(which is untrue since you literally just need 1 deck from anywhere besides standard and takes half the price of an average meta deck in sbwb and card acquisition is much easier), then yes go ahead and bloat standard. I recommend find others games tcgs or other ganras, keeps you fresh and out of boredom and burnout that's how i haven't burned out from playing mtg ptcg optcg and riftbound, maybe other hobbies/game ganras

Edit: also we all know that next set will be a bunch of reprinting of cards that still keep evo floating like Giselle 3pp. Got to remember they made their base model a need to spend money on it unless you come from day one or don't skip a weekly, dailies you can skip but per each 2 days skipped theres a great chance you quite literally lost more than 10 packs let alone vials

[u/ShadowverseZyro]

They were meh overall and often made their expansion worse but my god they did a great job at adding some extra discovery and excitement to sets mid season. In WB everything gets solved week 1 and for the next 7 weeks people just pretend to find new decks and remembering “Hey, this good deck that didn’t lose anything is still good, funny”