Familiar rush too dominant, strong, and boring

[SethLusus]

I enjoy the game. I'm not the best at it, but I do okay (19 played, 15 won, Current season rank 13).

However, rushing familiar (i.e. 14 materia on your familiar board to end the game) is both too strong and makes the game much less interesting.

Point 1: Strategy is dominant
Almost all top player games end not with 7 spells, but with one person hitting 14 familiar on either turn 14 or earlier
Almost all top player games have a 100% contribution rate to familiar (either through daytime default store or daytime spell store action)

Point 2: Strategy is strong
Storing results in an average of 1.29 points per materia stored (18 points / 14 actions)
This is a higher return than most spell learns (level 3 spell slots are usually lower [3 for 1-4] and level 4 spell slots are usually lower [4 for 2-5ish])

Point 3: It makes the game less interesting
Want to build up a cool engine? The game usually ends before it can really get established
Want to use non-store daytime actions? You are left behind the race
...


I'd be happy to hear of strats that are better, but happier still for either familiar points to go down or for the familiar track to be extended.

[Troodebaal]

I completely agree, and I would be delighted to know about equally effective alternative strategies...

[richyfourtytwo]

I only played the game once so far and lost against this strategy. I've been wondering about exactly this since, but was unsure, because what can one know after one game? So thanks for confirming my thoughts, will be intersting to see if there are other views.

[Droxychloroquine]

Hi, I have just cracked the top 10 (332 ELO) and Arena top 15.

I have 54 wins out of 81 games, and I agree that familiar rush is by far the best strategy, which is logical, as completing your familiar costs you 14 random materias if you don't use spells, whereas building 7 spells will cost you 21 materias of specific colors (at a minimum).

I don't think it is a problem per se, because it has downsides:

- It requires you to store pretty much every turn as your mid-day action, which makes it harder to learn spells.
- It forces you to draw two at random more often to make sure you have enough materias to store, which makes it harder to control what spells you are going to learn.

I think the main problem comes from two spells:

- Growth is completely busted and is probably the best spell in the game. Learning it at level 5 early enough almost always means victory.
- Level 3 Communion is pretty busted as well. You get such a lead in your familiar that you'll just win most of the time if you manage to learn it while your opponent doesn't. That spell is so good that you don't even want to build levels 4 and 5 as they are objectively worse.

I think if those spells were re-balanced, the familiar rush strategy would be fine. Level 4 Feast is super strong if learned early as well, but it's not as good if learned mid and endgame, unlike the two cards above. Offering and Focus are strong as well, but they usually require an engine to be strong (whereas Growth and Communion are just good by themselves).

I agree with you though, that familiar rush is so strong that you always want to use your mid-day action to store, therefore making some mid-day spells very unappealing:

- Purification is probably the worst spell in the game. The effect is just too weak compared to storing, and it barely brings you any points.
- Cure has a very nice effect on paper, but again, it's just not worth it compared to storing (too bad it doesn't give you a net positive in terms of materias).

Cards can't be rebalanced, so we'll have to live with that on BGA. However, if you play the game at home, banning or nerfing Growth and Communion (and upraging other spells?) will I think do the trick.

[justandy]

I never thought of this being a "strategy". When I first learned the game I just assumed that choosing to place a token on the familiar board every round STARTS the game as a decided fact. It's just too short of a game to start with taking a single token from the altar. So, you draw 2 material for the first few rounds. I have an internal hierarchy of colors (depending on the set of course)- and I just store the less valuable one. If I drew a green circle and a red triangle for instance with a good red spell on board (most of them are) on round one, I would definitely store the green. On round two, I draw a blue and a purple, I store the purple. This continues until I see a line for completing one of those valuable spells. I can afford to keep storing every round because I have an excess of what I need, that's when the take action becomes fantastic. What I find even more interesting, arguably, is getting to the end of the familiar board. This is where the slow can be hammered in.

Of course, there are many exceptions, rounds I don't get to store anything because I've either planned poorly or bad draws.

I just never thought of it as "unbalanced" in this way- I almost considered the familiar board a "feed your people" mechanic. You get penalized for not doing it by losing the game. a straight 1:1 ratio for points and tokens is far too valuable to consider not doing. There are some spells in the game that I don't ever really craft- either because the game ends too early or because their niche use case is just never usable for my plan. I would love to see more spells offered that would aid these weaker spells (maybe something where you draw 1 every time the opponent takes 1), but I'm still very much enjoying the game as is.

[Babygun]

Hi, I just made a post "Any house rules to play it in real life?" afther checking this discussion. I would like to see your opinion on it as you seem to have much more experience than me in this game.

Thanks in advance

[Kezdown]

I Totally agree and that's the reason I stopped this game, et will never buy it.
It is unbalanced and the game loses all its interest.

Il est mal équilibré et le jeu en perd tout son intérêt.