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« on: January 02, 2013, 04:15:32 PM »
I never found 2nd move to be as much of an advantage as most people, but I was both an experience chess and MTG player before I started Spiritwars. There are a lot of things you can do with strategy and deck construction to limit the effectiveness of Gold, but they are learned skills. Gold is easier, but they both have their strengths. I thought at one point Randy produced some stats of the win % of each colour and they were close, but I could be mistaken. (These results could also be skewed as better players would more commonly be playing with first move.)
There is definitely an issue in that the advantage of second move seems insurmountable to most new players. New populations generally have far too few answers to gold archers. I think a "first strike" skill would be too good for first player, but I think there are several ways, using existing mechanics, that balance could be increased.
More stationary units(energy/defenders) with better vision, though not as powerful as Oracle. Some 2 def 2 vision, or 1 def 3 vision energies. This would allow better scouting for first player, and to put enemy units in range for spells. Very few people ever used their energies offensive/defensively though. The flip side...more scouting energies makes it tougher for the first player to set traps for the second player.
More 2+ range first turn defend defenders. Most defenders are useless. A few more good defenders could buy the attacking player the extra time they need.
More removal, even if it's conditional. Clinging Vines, Sloth, Flame Strike, Weakness, Dark Curse, spells that increase the move/maint or reduce the attack/move speed all work. Keeping the universal removal rare is a good idea.