Um… rubbish, in my view. Tesla is potentially strong, but very easily countered… she’s an average troop at best and semi-playable in end-game PvP…
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I can’t disagree with you @Slypenslyde , actually. On one side I see it’s frustrating to lose a match without the chance of a few moves, on the other I realise that some teams and some endgamers cannot be beated in another way than a lethal loop or furious RNG.
Yes, disrupting GW could help, like a better attitude towards losses (a game without losses is not a game).
My position, however, is a sort of “basic game philosophy” , and I still think that there could be better ways to balance a game rather than defeating the player in one move. What ways, I don’t know, and I’m sure it’s really hard to keep such a complex game balanced.
Kyudos for the Devs (not sarcastic, gameplay is 99,9% enjoyable) and a pat on the shoulders to those who, like me, lost GW games without a chance. You win some, you lose some. 
The game already gives points for using unique defense troops, so, take it a step further, if the 24 troops used are less used by other GW defenses then make those points higher.
Right now: You can earn 2000 pts for 4 unique troops, 500/troop
So if Goblins on green day give you a bonus 2000 pts, and everybody is using them, if you field a non-Goblin team on green day then perhaps you earn 750/troop resulting in a total bonus of up to 3000pts for unique defense on that day?
Or, if that is too difficult, devs can just announce that any guild who has all 30 members commit to NON-META GW defenses will be reverted to the OLD LT reward structure!!!
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Yes, but if a wizard bans all of your endgame troops, the old “average troops” become the new “endgame troops”. Tesla is at the top of the “average troops” and a good example of who we’ll 
about when we’re finally liberated from the current “best troops”.
I think a lot about match-3 games and have decided there’s not a way to balance Puzzle Quest variants.
It’s often as bad as, say, Candy Land. That’s not even a game. The only thing that affects the outcome of a Candy Land game is your deck shuffle. After that, dealing cards and moving pieces is a formality: the shuffle has already decided a winner. There are no choices to make.
You may have a board where you have 5 or 6 different choices of move. I think if we had the capability to try moves, rewind, then try again, we’d find that often most of those moves take us to the same place. If they are 3-matches with zero cascades, the impact on the game can be inconsequential. This is especially true if your “best” moves lead to enemy cascades, or when you only have one move, etc.
This happens if you take away extra turns. This happens if you take away abilities. Unless the game’s algorithms are specifically tweaked to try and guarantee you will benefit from lopsided arrangments, you will face boards where your only valid move is “give my opponent 16 mana next turn” several times, leading to an unavoidable loss. In many, many games your choices have no impact on your outcome. Extra turns and troops only shift the percentages, they can never eliminate it.
That’s part of why PQ variants are so frustrating: they don’t just put the noose in front of you, they make you put it around your own neck.
The best teams are so powerful they ONLY lose if they get REALLY BAD luck. That’s why people are cheesed off. “I get really bad luck all the time” is what happens when “I can only lose if I get really bad luck.”
So I’d argue if we make the APPROPRIATE nerfs to the game and “balance” it, then everyone’s going to be losing a lot more in matches that take much longer to resolve. Does that sound like what we want? It’s the alternative to “looping teams that either win or lose fast”.
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Then it means some cards are just too strONG.
Using fun/unusual cards gets you pummeled.
Using strong cards means only bad luck gets you.
There needs an in between…
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If I have the best/strongest cards and know how to play the board correctly… why MUST I lose?
I am perfectly fine with winning every time, and the fact that the only times I DO lose are when the AI goes bat-poop crazy on me is beyond frustrating.
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“I’m using Fox on Final Destination, why am I not winning every game?”
If this is a reference to something… I am not following… sorry…
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And still I have no idea what he’s talking about…
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It’s a not-so-subtle jab at the concept that a game should allow a 100% win rate.
Super Smash Bros. is a game with hundreds of possible matchups and is fun for players of all ages and skill levels. This is because many of the characters have moves with slightly unpredictable effects, the stages have environmental hazards that are difficult or impossible to dodge, and items that can dramatically affect the game spawn randomly. It’s one of Nintendo’s most successful franchises.
Competitive players think it’s garbage, and for a while the joke was they’d only consider mirror matches on one stage with items turned off to be “fair”. The joke was mean to these players: they let you choose one of 3 fair characters.
So in one corner you had people having fun playing a game where sometimes no one has any clue why they are on fire and flying off the stage. In the other corner you have people who only play the game if the opponent agrees to play within the parameters that provide the highest win rate. It’s a sort of fancy version of, “You’re the guest so you can be player 2 and use the worn-out controller.”
Thus, “Guild Wars would be a lot better if I never lost.”
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Thanks for the clarification.
As a beloved fan of SSB, I would still offer this argument:
SSB was designed to be a crazy, free for all, power-up, explosion battler.
GoW was not.
I think of GoW as more of a chess match, and as such, I feel like strong cards + smart board play should = the ability to have a near perfect win rate. I have no problems losing GOOD matches to an AI that manages to box me in a corner but taking 11 turns in a row because RNG chooses that they get explosions and cascades and skull drops… not a good loss.
That’s all…
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Hypothetical game:
You start on a board where your only move is one black match. Nothing on your team uses black.
The match is in the bottom-left corner. It will visibly cause 8 cascades that, after skyfall, grant your opponent 400 mana.
This, and many other unfortunate starts, are possible in Gems of War and we’ll never balance them out. In a game where “getting an obscene amount of mana in one turn doesn’t tilt the board”, then every game lasts 10 minutes as you and the opponent chip away.
You can’t take that out of the game unless you reduce it to “every game has one of these known ‘fair’ starting boards, and the RNG acts predictably”. Only then can it approach chess.
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Ok, so I’ll bite… 
(Just so you understand my crazy brand of logic)
In this example, the board although heavily improbable is a possibility. In this case, after examining the board and seeing that the only play I have is that and knowing what is coming, I make the match. The entire enemies team fills and they cast something that, oh lets me be dramatic, one-shots a piece of my team. I then have a board that is no longer extremely improbable and through smart board play I am able to fight back and perhaps even make a comeback victory, or more likely, given the huge advantage of the starting board and 4 full troops, I lose in a blaze of glory… THIS IS A GOOD LOSS.
Same set up, different scenario.
I take the match and Nobend casts dealing dmg, then Fizzy casts and expodes, then Nobend casts exploding, filling himself and Fizzy, Nobend again explodes again, fills himself, Nobend again dmg, Fizzy EXPODES fills NOBENDS and herself, Nobends cast and reduces attack, Fizzy cast… and EXPLODES??? Son of B! Then Nobend fills again and dmgs killing my team.
THAT IS A BAD LOSS…
Get it!?
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After losing one match, sometimes a little mindless revenge is what you need regardless of points (still was brown day though).
Goblins are still ridiculous as its not like putting gorg and ragnagord in front of a famine and mab or something. You have 2 exploders that have team synergies and do not conflict mana wise with not only each other, but most goblins. Grapple, nobend, and fizz are ridiculous and even if fizz does the buff, hitting nobend or grapples magic makes it just as bad. The problem is these 3 give too much power to goblins and the extra turns just make it so a spell is never a wasted action. In gw outside of brown and yellow days you can try to freeze and silence, but you have to stop them before THEY move as one bad surge or skydrop and at best it’s an uphill battle. I am not anti-luck, but when luck overshadows strategy, it gets annoying. I should feel “heh, I outplayed my opponent” other than “Doubles, I go again.”. Only goblins never have to even go to jail…
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Btw, it is not a dig on this opponent at all, just goblins in general.
I find the best way to beat goblins is use goblins yourself, like try to be quicker at activating Queen Grapplepot’s skill than the AI. However I do still see the issue if it is Guild Wars.
Outside of guild wars they are not as bad. You can fight fire with fire, use mab to freeze etc.
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Guild Wars in it’s current state is more like…
Than any other game known to man.
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First GW battle - guess who? Goblins. I made two moves. Then sat there and watched them loop me to death. No more turns for me. It’s like the movies when the bad guys tie me up and make me watch as they murder my family. 
I may be getting the same feeling as the OP of this thread.
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Similar experience on blue day for GW.
I used Mab of course and Apothecary because they had Mab in last spot.
I made one move, leaving no extra turns. That was my only move.
Why not just give me a defeat before I even enter the battle, it’s already been decided I’m going to lose.
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