To Prelude or Not to Prelude

[bwalsh96]

RoyalRook may have an aggressive tone, but he’s correct. 3p is not the format. It doesn’t matter if the general population plays it. They do that because it is the default for arena. It is similar to public matches in a competitive video game.

The real question that I was curious about, was how does the skill gap change (in 2p) with and without prelude. I have noticed my win rate without prelude is +95% with my only losses coming from “dead hands” where I pass for 4 gens because I don’t have any cards. These games unfortunately occur against low elo opponents and cost me 20 elo points, but that is besides the point. With prelude on, I do feel like lower elo players have a higher chance to win against the higher elo player. I played a low elo player a few days ago with prelude and he SP’d a city first gen - which we all know not to be a good play. Yet, he ended up winning partially because he had a good start in preludes and fell into science game. In other words, prelude lowers the skill gap. I think the mantra is that 2p Prelude is the competitive format because it is the most enjoyable and prevents dead hands - as mentioned before. Do any top players want to share their thoughts on this or is this just irrelevant to the skill gap? I do enjoy the prelude format more, but I also enjoy winning haha. If my prelude win percentage is 80% and without is 95%, I think that says something about the skill gap. Without preludes, you are forced to be more strict with your cash and card selection - a skill that lowered rated players don’t have. What do we think?

Also, my apologies for reposting this topic. I just noticed there was something with the same title a few pages back.

[cranesflyhigh]

I heavily prefer preludes due to the already mentioned dead hand occurrence, but I really have no strong opinion on the 2p vs 3p as I enjoy both. I do however think that the arena should still be what is most popular format, as boardgames are games and therefore played for fun, even if there are ranks involved. There are other ways to compete too, even on this site. I don't want the game become less popular due to a certain format supremacist group hijacking it.

[RoyalRook]

Ha, which supremacist group hijacked a format that running 3 seasons in a roll and turned away a large portion of TM players? No one is stopping your fun, but if you want to compete in the arena setting then it should be done in the most competitive format. Which is 2p prelude or 2p corp era, but hey don't take my word for it right? What does the reigning 3p arena champion know about 3p games, you know better.

Arc Nova is pretty popular here right? Which arena format is it in? Did it turn players away? What's the last time you play 2p Arc Nova with your friends in person, never right?

Bwalsh I will type up something for your question later.

[cranesflyhigh]

*post removed for insults. Please discus your opinions without negativity towards others.

[RoyalRook]

The real question that I was curious about, was how does the skill gap change (in 2p) with and without prelude. I have noticed my win rate without prelude is +95% with my only losses coming from “dead hands” where I pass for 4 gens because I don’t have any cards. These games unfortunately occur against low elo opponents and cost me 20 elo points, but that is besides the point. With prelude on, I do feel like lower elo players have a higher chance to win against the higher elo player. I played a low elo player a few days ago with prelude and he SP’d a city first gen - which we all know not to be a good play. Yet, he ended up winning partially because he had a good start in preludes and fell into science game. In other words, prelude lowers the skill gap. I think the mantra is that 2p Prelude is the competitive format because it is the most enjoyable and prevents dead hands - as mentioned before. Do any top players want to share their thoughts on this or is this just irrelevant to the skill gap? I do enjoy the prelude format more, but I also enjoy winning haha. If my prelude win percentage is 80% and without is 95%, I think that says something about the skill gap. Without preludes, you are forced to be more strict with your cash and card selection - a skill that lowered rated players don’t have. What do we think?

It's much easier for a lower ranked player to beat a top ranked opponent in prelude than corp era, it's because of jovs and prelude disparities. Jovs are ineffecient scoring, but if you hit all the mults then it's just going to work, some preludes help people get the jov going, and not much skill is involved with joving in general, the 5% of time it works it hurts really bad for the higher elo player especially againsting a much much lower elo player, I remember games a player top deck a jov every draft, getting all mults with no card draws.

On the prelude side, Great Aquafer is a much much better prelude at seat 1 than 2nd or 3rd for example, in 2p, a game could be decided on seating with Great Aquafer, we are talking about a priority on Planner and/or Gardener. And some prelude are just far superior and game breaking, like allied banks and biz empire for Point Luna; experimental forest, eco expert for Ecoline. You simply won't run into situation like that in corp era. None corp era is so stable, there is rarely any hit cards besides flood. That's why in the other thread I stated Corp era 2p is the best setting for competitive play, it's not as strict like none corp era where Tharsis just rules with board, tempo and econ, nor too volatile and game breaking with random draws in prelude. I think the steam community got locked in with prelude for competitive setting because of the community is too established and how people are just tired of playing corp era for too long(essentially all pandemic), but they really should just stayed with corp era. We are so new and fresh, and can do anything we want and play the best game possible, so I would love to see 2p corp era for the upcoming arena season.

All in all, from my personal experience, for 2p it's almost impossible for a lower ranked player to beat me in none corp era, a very long shot to beat me in corp era, but have some easy outs against me in prelude.

[DarkBugz]

I definitely am of the opinion prelude reduces skill gap. Which to me is a bad thing so I hate playing with it.