I loved seeing these graphs.
Now the challenge is to create some competitive teams not using those top troops. Should be fun! 
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What’s baffling to me: the continued high presence of goblin troops, even on the 500+ lists. Jeez people!
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Goblins are the ultimate in turn control.
In my opinion they are not. It’s very hard to loop goblins. You can usually manage to get several turns out of them, and occasionally via smart Boar Rider or Goblin Rocket play you can get a short loop going with Goblin Shaman, but the others are designed for turn extension and not looping.
Alchemist/Hellcat or Green Seer/Giant Spider are much better at turn control.
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Honestly, I respectfully disagree with all of your “balance” changes - heavy handed nerfs. I think that most of them would be too much of a nerf than deserved. If they get touched it should be very slightly and only for early game. Perhaps make them scale worse (which helps very beginners) but ultimately have the same stats.
I don’t think they should be touched at all (and I’ve never used any of those teams you specifically listed - other than valk)
The problem is that none of these troops are overpowered for invade or defend, just popular. Goblin teams can be nasty, though, I will admit so maybe a bit of tweaking is justified.
But the win rates are absurd. People don’t really lose in this game. There’s no need to nerf teams that are used defensively unless it’s causing problems. There is no problem here other than the fact that people use the team…
I think that more troops need to be added that the AI can handle and we will see more diversity. Let’s not discuss nerfing things until we see more troops that can be used with the AI reasonably. Then we should talk more about nerfing troops that aren’t actually OP
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The real 
Yeah… People use them and complain about them for the exact same reason: they’re disproportionately good. Higher level players are more likely to have all the troops, have the resources to max them out, and have put in the time to understand the game, experiment, and find the best options.
That’s both sort of true and ridiculously false. The game incentivizes certain behavior. The people who continue to play the game long enough to reach high levels are people who find the game’s structure agreeable. It’s not the people themselves, but the game that attracts and retains certain kinds of people. It makes no sense to blame the players for playing the game exactly how it communicates to them that it should be played by rewarding particular behavior. It’s the developer’s responsibility to shape the game to encourage desired behavior, not the players’ responsibility to ignore the game’s reward structure.
Either the troops are balanced or they’re not. Just because not everyone is using something at its maximum potential is not a good reason to ignore that maximum potential. Balance changes, if done well, can bring the top end down without affecting non-exploitative uses.
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Others have “tried” to answer this, but I believe the real reason is because she’s a blue transformer in that role on defense. People keep thinking she’s just good for souls when she actually can potentially power any blue troop, regardless of soul gain. And since she’s pretty easy to power up herself… the AI can get a tiny loop going that’s better than nothing.
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Honestly, I think people are using Goblins because they have REAL synergy.
Because you’re right, there are better looping teams. But the Goblins have a theme and synergy and that IS a draw for a lot of people.
Sorry, my wording could have been better. It’s not player BEHAVIOR (although this game, like any other, will have its share of bad apples) its the mechanics of being a high level player in general. From the economy to the match-making system, the game is built on acquisition of new cards and leveling, the two things a level 1000 player cannot do. The level cap flattens everything at the top, preventing them from really doing anything meaningful other than trying to get to Rank 1.
[quote=“Spherix, post:87, topic:10681, full:true”]Balance changes, if done well, can bring the top end down without affecting non-exploitative uses.
[/quote]
On this point, we fully agree.
Why? Noone said they weren’t used, everyone you argued with about this issue tried to explain to you these troops are not used because of their power. I repeatedly told you they are used for other reasons, this is not a balancing issue.
I have 20 team slots and they all break Goblins, Rock worms and Coronet teams with ease.
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Yes chimera is good but nerfs to treasure maps turns means i have to use valkrie more and nerfs to daily tasks giving gems instead of souls means valkrie more valkrie and more valkrie if i want souls ._…Sigh.
Please ,Please increase the available souls drop rates either from daily tasks or treasure maps or pvp . Please change the weekly reset payout to 1500 souls instead of the lowly 300 souls we get weekly . Thanks
At level 1000 it is 90 percent of the teams you go up against.
Which is around 100 people.
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Which indicates that the problem is actually high level players (or more correctly, the level cap and economy) rather than a problem with Maw himself.
What do you imagine drives their “popularity” other than power? I promise you if they were not incredibly strong, no one would play them. There have been many cycles of buffs and nerfs in the past that have drastically altered what gets played. Webspinner, Centaur Scout, etc. Do you imagine they disappeared from use bc they suddenly weren’t fun? Popularity is like 95% correlated with power.
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For most people, I imagine power IS fun.
This is, after all, a casual gem matching game, not a competitive multiplayer sport.
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No one is going to use something that sucks. It seems to me those troops were over nerfed to the point where they are very niche.
If something loses so much power that it doesn’t feel viable anymore… Of course popularity is going to go way down
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I see it a lot (I’m level 525 give or take). I’d say 80+% of middle and difficult games have either Maw/Mercy, Mab/Valkyrie or Crescendo/Bat combos.
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So, uh, any chance we could get a least used troops list?