Board Game Arena

Bender3002 wrote: ↑25 October 2026, 09:31 They played suboptimal moves before the game started? How is that possible?

Jellby is saying that maybe the opponent went first, and rushed through the starting picks because of wanting to ensure not going into red time, and thus not making the most optimal starting picks, and thus feels it is unfair that the opponent does not do likewise.

And, Jellby has a valid point there.

Thanks for the helpful responses everyone. It is interesting to hear that some master level players have made the same plead. And thanks for the advice on watching some card grading videos. Im currently doing the Marsterclass by Bonelessdota and haven't arrived at the card grading section yet . I hope I haven't raised too much of a heated debate. And it is nice to see a different (helpful) side of the TFM community, because the in game chats where either non existent or very unpleasant so far.

Cheers!

FrankJones wrote: ↑25 October 2026, 18:59

Bender3002 wrote: ↑25 October 2026, 09:31 They played suboptimal moves before the game started? How is that possible?

Jellby is saying that maybe the opponent went first, and rushed through the starting picks because of wanting to ensure not going into red time, and thus not making the most optimal starting picks, and thus feels it is unfair that the opponent does not do likewise.

And, Jellby has a valid point there.

Yes this is a valid point and all the more reason to investigate the need for a longer starting timer, right?

Tbh, given the game outcome and in game response from the player I took as an example; I find it more plausible that they didn't feel great about their opening hand and thus pressed the button to get an easy way out whilst winning rating. He also had a chance to explain himself and didn't really go into the morality of it all. In fact, he even went to copy paste his initial response I cited in the original post. Admittedly, I went into a bit of a rant after that because the 3rd player interfered by calling us immature and that was a failure on my part. I basically said I found it pathetic and ridiculed the trigger response of having a button to press. "There's a button I'm authorized to press, so I press it". I said I hoped the person in question wasn't working for the IDF and then asked if player 3 (mr mature) was mature enough to understand that comparison. Like I said: failure on my part. But also; sorry, not sorry.

I agree that there should be a longer time for opening hand compared to all the moves in the game as it's the most complicated decision of the game on average. I believe there was a suggestion raised in bug reports but if I remember correctly they didn't seem keen on implementing it due to bga-side restrictions.

If the reason you take a long time to decide is due to needing to read the cards, I would advise playing turn based or solo mode to get more familiar with them (with the caveat that the dynamics of solo mode are quite different to multiplayer. It should help you get familiar with what all the different cards do though)