Arena settings

[RoyalRook]

Not going to lie, but ummm this current arena setting, should I dare to say if pretty fuuuunn???? Without all the science out there, science tag feels like science. Underground detonation was actually cute, jov is only complementary, and designed microorganism is a good card? I think I am going to feel sad if we never get another full season out of this non corp era thing. It's too dry, but a really fun setting in practice.

[Erengis]

Prelude is for casuals.

I am not an expert by any means, but I thought that the most popular choices among advanced and intermediate players were in that order:
1. Prelude + Venus + Colonies
2. Predulde + Venus + Colonies + Turmoil
3. Prelude
4. Vanilla

I hardly ever see any other combination played. Prelude while not balanced at all, makes the game a lot more fun.

I agree. I personally prefer Turmoil but this is how I feel advanced/expert games were played on Heroku app, with the caveat that they had some optional drafting/banlist/rules modifications.

On that note, what about Promo cards? How are they treated in the expert-level plays? I personally include them in my deck whenever I play IRL, most games are Prelude + Promo.

[OwnerOfTheIronThrone]

On that note, what about Promo cards? How are they treated in the expert-level plays? I personally include them in my deck whenever I play IRL, most games are Prelude + Promo.

pvco is name for the most popular set of expansions

P - prelue
V - venus
C - colonies
O - promo

I don't know if ppl playing vanilla or base + prelude always include them, but I can't recall ever playing or seeing a game with pvc but without promos. Same if someone is playing with turmoil. Although I know bactoviral research used to be banned in some games back when I played, so maybe some ppl just excluded promos instead.
Also I am not refering to expert level players because it is hard to tell who is expert and who is not. Although compared to casual players they might be viewed as experts.

[SpajderDzerusalem]

I am not an expert by any means, but I thought that the most popular choices among advanced and intermediate players were in that order:
1. Prelude + Venus + Colonies
2. Predulde + Venus + Colonies + Turmoil
3. Prelude
4. Vanilla

I hardly ever see any other combination played. Prelude while not balanced at all, makes the game a lot more fun.

I agree. I personally prefer Turmoil but this is how I feel advanced/expert games were played on Heroku app, with the caveat that they had some optional drafting/banlist/rules modifications.

On that note, what about Promo cards? How are they treated in the expert-level plays? I personally include them in my deck whenever I play IRL, most games are Prelude + Promo.

Promo is very broad as there is large amount from different sources. But people generally used all Promo on Heroku iirc.

[RoyalRook]

Some of the promo cards are just busted. Unless it's rebalanced, they should definitely be out of the game. Fun but horrible, if they are in the game's quality drops off a cliff, but that's with additional post prelude expansions in general.

[lisiaczek]

I also don't think arena should be two player. I feel the true competitive form of the game should be 3/4 (ideally 4).

Much like Agricola arena, I think this game should choose a player count and stick there for all arena seasons. I would recommend 4 player.

4p is overkill, you finish the game in 6/7 gens, so any engine building card is not working (maybe earth catapult, mars uni and ecozone are exceptions), while deimos or gia win games on the spot.
3p is most balanced, but it introduces kingmaking (getting sabotaged - you lose 7, attacking player pays 4 for it, and 3rd is just enjoying the game, same with virus, where 1 player single handedly can decide who gets gardener etc)
2p is sometimes random, but requires most skill imo.

[Papa Sunshine]

I put this same reply in another post, but I'll say it here where there is more discussion.

To be fair, the king-making would be even worse with Corporate Era on (all those "take-that" cards...). Unfortunately I think people have already figured out that dog-piling the last-place person and playing for 2nd is the ideal route to rank up since you still get points for second place.

I'm guessing the admins didn't want arena to be the same 2p game rules every season, so this was the compromise.