for me it is because i had to face them all the time, losing multiple time in a row, enraging my soul when all i want to do is relax, have fun and give something to my guild. there come time when i throw all decency away and go out of my way to assemble a team to make people miserable. i don’t have to win, but they must suffer whether they are winning or losing. if you can’t beat them, join them. be part of the problem. it is a shitty attitude, but this game has open me to it, and i kinda like it.
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I think most of troops that seems “broken” now are just symptom of new AI. What broken is new AI with its cascades and skydrops.
I mean before Unity, those meta (wisp, kraken, mab, psion, etc) are existed but they were all still manageable. Yes they were annoying and tough to deal with sometime but you could still pull a comeback when you’re behind. How often you pull a comeback in a game after Unity updates? From my experience, it’s now very rare.
Last week I lose a battle in GW because of insane cascades and skydrops. I didn’t even made a mistake. All I did was matching a single 3s on my first turn. Never saw another turn. Smarter AI? I don’t think so. Luckier? Yes.
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Your way is so different from mine. I used the retreat button and didn’t ‘suffer’ through battles if I didn’t entertain them. Now I don’t need to anymore (only Mab pisses me off nowadays).
Come back into the light.
Leave the rage and hatred behind you. It chains you and you’ll be better off without.
It’s just a game. A game with and for other people.
Take a step away and enjoy it again.
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Yeah, a lot of my losses now are the same. It’s not possible to identify a better way to have played, the AI just “got lucky”.
My feeling is that the players are just supposed to lose more often, regardless of the reason, and it’s unfair. I think the intention is to slow the players down so they can’t farm gold or trophies too fast, but this also punishes players who either can only play a few hours a week or who don’t care about speed and are willing to strategize their moves to maintain a high win rate.
I won’t share my team but it’s a good defense team and already saw some copycat with no imagination taking the same team 
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I have coined and adopted the phrase GOWSA-certified, Gems of War Sportsmanship Association. I would like it adopted by 1, 2 or more players and hopefully it will spread.
Sportsmanship - fair and generous behavior or treatment of others, especially in a sports contest.
“he displayed great sportsmanship in defeat”
Eventually a discord channel with 1 member from each of the top 50 guilds would discuss and vote on the GOWSA rules. Currently “winning at any cost” has soured the game for me and many others greatly.
As President Obama likes to say, “Better is good.” I don’t need everyone to adopt it, but perhaps it will catch on. If it helps vary the defenses weekly just a bit, will improve the game greatly for everyone.
A PVP and GW defense team that is GOWSA-certified:
- Must have at least 2 troops from Event of the Week, e.g. this week, two of your team must be from Dragon’s Claw or a Mystic
- Only one of each troop allowed (e.g. Kraken x 3 Forest Troll would not be GOWSA-certified)
- No broken troops due to bugs (e.g. Kraken, Kerberos, Maw due to current Impervious bug)
- No grief troops as agreed by GOWSA members (e.g. Wisp, Psion in 1st position, Famine)
I dream of a week where more players use troops from the event week, as I believe the game was designed. Where players recognize a broken troop like Wisps, and don’t inflict it on others.
The Devs have failed to make sure the game is balanced and fair and I blame them 51% for the current state of the game. The Players have failed to play with sportsmanship and they get the other 49%.
For my part, I can only make sure my defense teams are GOWSA-certified and hope that a few will join me at making the game better for everyone.
Here are the current stats for my GOWSA-certified defense team this week. My team last week was also > 50% wins. It can be done.
Be kind to each other.
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It may be a bit pie in the sky, but you’ve got my interest.
I’m a colonel in a top guild, I’ll bite.
I will attempt to abide by the above GOWSA rules.
Here’s hoping… 
Oh and… FIRST! 
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For me it is because my defense teams don’t stick anymore as I set them, since I don’t remember each update. And I have got fast tired of trying to make them stick. So now I only use my first slot.
On Mondays my defense team will usually be related to the week’s event to help people collecting snotstones.
The rest of the week it will mirror the teams of my opponents in GW so that I can practice against them. So it is annoying and unoriginal.
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Not sure about you - but I do not want anyone who has no idea what works, in any bed. Period.
You see - most people with those defenses just do-not-care. The game is bugged on so many fronts, that in order to make sure your GW defenses are right, you have to set your defense team as 1st in the tab (that way, GW defenses will take that team by default at the beginning of the week).
…
Also - as a player who has spent more than tens of hours (of pure time) testing defense teams - I do believe you have no idea who comes up with those teams and how much energy does it take to find the best one.
All the hours just to have it copied by the first bloody mammal passing by.
P.S. Man, it feels good to rant it all off 
I know why you people do that. Shall we grab some 
afterwards? @moons
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I’ll buy the beers @peterix !
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Thank you, if this gets enough interest I will post a separate topic…as I am a bit too polarizing a player, if anyone wants to champion this, be my guest.
I found this interesting:
“The idiom pie in the sky, referring to something that’s pleasant to imagine but unattainable, comes from an early 20th century song called “The Preacher and the Slave,” penned and popularized by labor organizer Joe Hill. The song parodied the hymn “The Sweet By and By,” which promised a heavenly reward after death. Hill’s song sarcastically made the point there’s need for help here on Earth, too.”
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If the snotstone hunt requires me to change my defence I do accordingly. To help other players out. If not it stays whatever it last was.
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That’s what I do. I’m too lazy to change my defense so I only do so on weeks that are particularly annoying to cap snots.
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When I cannot be arsed to come up with something interesting to see on defense, you will see this:
Lately when it comes to putting up event hunting defenses, I’ve been throwing out four of whatever seems the least griefy. They still win sometimes. Those that are winning a good amount of defenses should also realize that a good portion of your defense wins come from players much lower level than you - there is a reason you can have a 30-50% defense win rate and your peers all have 90%+ without even trying. Your copy pasted defense isn’t standing out and raking in the wins because it is “better” than the guys standing next to you, especially not when it is the same team.
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Going to be a tough climb, 48 of my last 50 pvp matches had devour troops (Kerb, Maw, Kraken). Seems to be the opposite of sportsmanship.
And I am losing more tonight than all week, just cascade after cascade after devour…I have set a 1 minute timer, if the match doesn’t look winnable I retreat. Just obnoxious tonight.
Reminder: You can put an effective defense team without using broken troops. Wisp and Kraken are just obnoxious on defense. Be kind.
Yeah there’s a heck of a lot of Krakens swimming around right now. Kraken is the new Kerberos. At least barrier protected you from Kerberos devour. Not so with Kraken.
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I’ve had the same defense team for a long, long time (I cycle between playing a bunch and taking breaks). I’m level… 600? Almost?
The team is called Zhul’Kari, named after the first kingdom I 5-starred:
Spider Queen***
Reaver***
Dark Maiden***
Webspinner*
+2 Green banner
This team used to be a 5000 score team, when I first made it. Now, through ascension, traiting, and kingdom leveling, they’re almost 7000! It’s a nice feeling.
Queen lowers armor by 20 something, webs and drains mana. In my opinion, she should Web on skull matches, not poison.
Reaver does 24 damage or so to the first 2 enemies, +8 if they are webbed.
Dark Maiden gives the first ally around 15 life and converts gems. She has nature link, too.
Webspinner does around 11 damage to all enemies and poisons them.
This has remained my defense team outside of certain events for… a year or longer. If I get 1 more copy of WS, he’ll be my first card to ascend to mythic status from legendary. Same for Kerb, despite me… never using him… (I got 4 Kerbs in a row from a bunch of VIP chests, trying to get a weekly mythic. I was mad.)
Of course, I have better teams now, but this one has a special place in my heart. It will always be the team in my first slot.
My second-favorite team is my Wulf team.
Wulf**
Ranger***
Fenrir***
Totem Guardian***
+1 brown, +1 blue
I like how, once Wulf is fully traited in ten years, Fen will give him 40 life and attack. For me, that’s a ton, and I’m excited to see it happen. I’m still a little bummed that my Hero can’t be two races at once, that’d be great… I’ve had this idea where you get one race from the class’ kingdom when the class hits level 20, and one optionally from its perks. For example, a Warden would be a Wargare-Beast-Hero. I really wish this was a thing, because I love building around racial and kingdom team bonuses…
also, having 2 classes be Knights (Knight & Deathknight) and 2 classes be Giants (Warlord & Titan) is just a bit of a waste in my opinion, like why would they do that when there are so many races in the game to choose from.
Sorry for the long post, especially since I rarely post anything. I just thought a mid-level player’s homebrew teams & thoughts would be interesting to see.
when I look at the top players in the leaderboards, it gets old seeing the justice league and the same psion/famine team on every defense. This thread’s original post just kinda spoke to me.
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Not getting into whether your arguments are valid or not… who are you to tell anyone how they should play?
People use the defences they use for various reasons. Usually because they work, sometimes they are too lazy to change them every week or they forget or whatever. The bottom line is it’s their game and their way of playing it. So at best they are going to treat your post as whining at worst they will see it as attack on the way they enjoy their entertainment. So outside of letting you desalt it is not going to achieve anything positive.
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Please forum moderators, stop the trolls from turning every thread into the same “I must have the last troll word!”…they are just poison.
Who am I? Why I’m the same as you…just some random player expressing his opinion in the relevant forum and generating some discussion and critical thinking. That’s the funny thing about opinions, everyone has them. And that’s why we have forums, to express opinions.