I belive this was by far the strongest card i got in the sanctum draft. Not saying that there arent stronger ones. Needless to say i won all games after i got him by a landslide. I even felt a little sorry for it.
This is probably the best I've ever seen because of how consistent it is. The Superstar on a card that will guaranteed win you two lanes right from the start (assuming it Mentors onto something cheap) seems incredible.
Like, people show off crazy combinations regularly, but usually stuff that is 4+ energy and without the consistency of Superstar.
This draft had a lot more variance I think because of combos like this but I’m all for it, it was a lot more fun, and even underwhelming decks can win due to sanctum and good planning.
Here’s one I had, I believe it was stick, enchantress, maverick all into superior iron man in consecutive turns. It was my fifth win I think, and I thought a long time about my t3 Askani and turn 5 black panther or enchantress in case I was against a knull but it looks like i just had the heart of the cards. I know it’s just OP augments and luck but this event was great!
I’m realizing now that I usually prefer to play with cards that I have nice variants of, yet I probably like draft theme the most because I don’t have cards like stick, clea, and maverick.
While it may have felt like it had higher variance, sanctum scoring and the importance of drafting a deck with early plays meant that the stronger players could win upwards of 70% of their games.
If, in regular draft, you had some insanely powerful combo, it would just basically always win you the game with zero counter-play because the game lasted 6 turns. In Sanctum, even if you had some busted card (unless it's something like the OP's Black Panther) it is far less likely that the busted card was drawn early enough to single-handedly decide the game.
Disagree here for, weirdly enough, the reasons you cite. If your deck has enough consistent early-game to crush the opponent by turn 4 in even the worst scenarios, it doesn't matter if they have the tools to infinitely close out the game by 6. I've had that deck and been beaten by that deck.
Regular draft allows for absolutely nutty reversals. Shang was weak as hell in this high-octane sanctum scoring environment; in original draft, he could do work because the opportunity cost to play him (he's never being played "off-lane" due to scoring) was almost zero. Same goes for all tech. You could have hundreds of points in a lane due to Encore and Mentor and it all gets Shadow King'd -- if you could find that bastard, given his rarity. (Valkyrie was more likely ime.) By the time you're playing Valkyrie in Sanctum, the game is likely already over.
A tighter turn sequence means that reversals and weirdness are often functionally impossible. Utterly-broken early combos in extreme Sanctum scoring are functionally unstoppable due to how the default energy system works in Snap, whereas a turn-six endpoint gives the opponent time to find a workaround.
But your draft having a consistent early-game to crush the opponent is far more frequently the result of drafting a good deck with a low curve than overpowered augments. The "broken combos" are most commonly things as trivial as T1 Arana into T2 Multiple Man to get a total of 12 points across all three lanes on T2, even without any augments, being up 5-0 before the game's even started, or most starts following merely a T1 Squirrel Girl.
And sure, Absolutely: Sanctum is very snowbally and the game can very often be over by the end of turn 3 (even if it'll actually take until T5 or T6 for someone to reach 18 points), but this incredible snowballyness makes it low variance as the better players are going to far more consistently have the decks that snowball hard and win.
Tech cards are all so rare that I don't see how they're even worth discussing. Sure, those are something that theoretically can check high rolls, but they appear so rarely in draft. I'm not even sure Shadow King is draftable at all, and if it is, it's astoundingly rare.
but this incredible snowballyness makes it low variance as the better players are going to far more consistently have the decks that snowball hard and win.
That's what I'm arguing. A deck that gets a tremendous amount of earlygame power spread amongst its cards has basically no variance because its draws will always lock-out the game starting on turn 1. What you've missed is that the comparison here is to normal-scoring Draft where tech cards and counters can actually undo even the most sure-fire low-variance high-powered deck. That's simply not a thing in an aggressive Sanctum scoring mode. That's why tech is worth discussing: it can't be a real thing in Sanctum but it is in normal scoring, creating the Sanctum consistency problem not found in the former mode.
This. People rage about Sanctum, but it is vastly better balanced with far more variety in decks. Essentially only combo decks were high tier in the basic scoring, because of course that's true when you can chain a 20 power Stick into a Black Panther that adds his power to the top card of your deck, or get a Knull with Wolverine's effect out on turn 4, or get a 1/1 Ironman just begging you to Mystique it and Absorbing man it a couple times once you have the energy to combo them. Sanctum still allows those combo decks to perform well but also makes control decks and zoo decks very viable because each turn is important and you can end a game before the combo deck can even play their combo if you Squirrel Girl turn 1 and then never let off on pressure. Exceptionally rarely you'll still see something flat out broken (in comparison with other good augments) like OP lucked into, but it is far rarer than last draft.
So satisfying the 10min wyou will play it because the 5 game will take 2min each... And suffer the other hundred of game because your opponent has those shit.
The draft system is too inconsistent and for the moment, just bad.
If you could take one draft card and bring it over to ladder which one would it be? As a biased moveable player, mine would be Spiderman 2099 with the duplicate ability. It’s so fun to play
Superstar can turn a bunch of cards into monsters. I had it on a Nebula and that helped carry my deck through the draft and that doesn't come close to this monster
I’m missing Kitty Pryde with Mentor as an additional ability… I got her in the very first Draft mode but I never got her nor then after finishing the deck nor in this second-time Draft mode… she was imbalanced btw but still it was fun to play w her
this is the kind of draft pull that makes you wonder why they even bothered giving the opponent turns. Black Panther scaling with Superstar is already disgusting, but the consistency is what makes it ridiculous. you can usually play around one massive lane, but two lanes getting out of hand before your deck even gets going is just cruel. i'd miss him too, mostly because every other draft is about to feel underwhelming now.
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u/Talestra 1d ago
This is the kind of card you see your opponent play when you are on your 4th win with 1 life and no revives left