Elder Scrolls: Legends What does "over-statted" mean, exactly? A critical examination.

What does "over-statted" mean, exactly? A critical examination.
Grandmaster TESL. Remaining 1 day to start 3nd Open Qualification .
End of season vs new season
TESL nowadays is more of a simulation sandbox than a competitive game
The Worginator - Animal Scout Deck
Why are they not nerfing goblin decks? You shouldn't be able to win this early... By the time it was turn 4 I was already below 10 health

What does "over-statted" mean, exactly? A critical examination.

Posted: 04 Jun 2021 07:05 AM PDT

Simply put, the term over-statted refers to cards which have higher than expected stats relative to their cost. Common examples are Young Mammoth (3 cost 4/4), and Bleakcoast Troll (4 cost 5/5). I've been intrigued by this category of card for quite some time, and have experimented extensively with decks which rely heavily on over-statted creatures/cards. These type of cards can be thought of as decent/high value without relying on other card interactions - it's like they are buffed automatically, without needing an item, support, or other creature to boost their stats. But what exactly qualifies a card as over-statted? Is there a precise definition?

Based on the Young Mammoth and Bleakcoast Troll examples, one could deduce that over-statted means that a card's stat total (power + health), must be >= (card cost + 1) * 2. For example, Young Mammoth is (3 + 1) * 2 = 4 + 4, Bleakcoast Troll is (4 + 1) * 2 = 5 + 5. For a while, this was my working definition of over-statted. It started with the realization that power and health are essentially equivalent/interchangeable. A 3/6 should theoretically cost as much as a 6/3, and so on. Power directly trades against health. A 2/3 creature and a 3/2 creature trade against each other perfectly, as does a 3/4 against a 2/5. In practice however, certain power/health distributions can be more advantageous than others. Bog Lurker (a 4 cost 9/1) would be considered over-statted by this definition, but there is a reason the card rarely sees play outside of combo decks - 1 health is a huge vulnerability. This entire subject (power vs health) could warrant its own post/discussion. I'm hoping to kind of highlight this power vs. health concept without going too in depth, and work with the idea that power and health are "essentially equivalent" in terms of card value. Even in the Bog Lurker example, the stat distribution doesn't necessarily make the card bad, it just makes it much more specific. In the right setting, a 4 cost 9/1 is great.

Next, I want to look more closely at the link between card cost, and stats. Its helpful to start at the lowest cost possible, zero, and work our way up. Without even considering the concept of "over-statted", how should a zero cost card be statted? If you were a game designer, what would your thought process be? In my opinion, a zero cost card is valid, a zero cost creature is valid, and therefore, a zero cost creature would need a minimum of 1 stat point, otherwise it would have a 0/0 body (and be completely unplayable in most cases). So, if we allow a zero cost card to have 1 stat point, we could either have a 0/1, or 1/0 body. 1/0 is just as unplayable as 0/0, so for the most part we would be limited to 0/1. Next, there is the concept of card effects/bonuses. If a card has some powerful effects or keywords, those effects should contribute to the cost. If a vanilla 0 cost creature should be 0/1, what does that leave us with? If we wanted to give a 0 cost creature guard, we would have to start trading stat points to maintain the card cost. But a 0/1 body doesn't give us any stat points to work with. My intuition is that a 0 cost card should at least have a 1/1 body, a 1 cost card should at least have a 2/2 body, and so on. This matches the Mammoth and Troll examples. With this, we can print a 0 cost vanilla card with 1/1, and a 0 cost guard with 0/1 - we have some options when it comes to balance.

Stemming from this last point, I would actually consider a zero cost 1/1, a one cost 2/2, a two cost 3/3, etc, to be *fully statted*. I would not even qualify these as over-statted. These are the base stats a vanilla card should have to justify its cost. However, Young Mammoth is fully-statted, and also has breakthough, while Bleakcost Troll is fully-stated, while also having a slay ability. In this regard, Young Mammoth and Bleakcost Troll can perhaps be thought of as "over-powered". Perhaps "over-statted" is the right term to use as well, their stats are higher than expected considering that they also have a keyword/slay. But I think things can start to get really muddy when discussing card value. How can we precisely determine a card's value based on complex abilities, like keywords, summon abilities, slay abilities, etc? This discussion is trying to determine what "over-statted" means, so we may need to kind of focus on stats and not get too side-tracked. We need to look at examples of what people consider over-statted if we want to create a rigorous definition. Imagine a 4 cost creature with a 1/1 body but with the summon effect: destroy an enemy creature. Unconditional removal costs a minimum of 4, so could this creature also be considered overstated? Its stats are higher than expected compared to its overall value. I don't think this should be considered over-statted, or at least, the definition would be too broad if this creature was considered over-statted.

My final hypothesis is that card cost and card stats are not actually a perfectly linear relationship. The example I keep citing (power + health >= (card cost + 1) * 2), is actually a simple linear relationship. By this formula, an 8 cost card should be 9/9, a 9 cost card should be 10/10, and so on. In actuality however, the game does not follow this. Aspect of Hircine is a 9 cost 12/12 with guard, and Frost Giant is an 8 cost 10/10 with regenerate and aura effect, for example. Another observation is that Blood Dragon is a 5 cost 5/7 with a powerful effect, and CVH has made a comment in the past (in reference to Blood Dragon), that 5 magicka in practice is about the most you would want to pay purely for an over-statted creature (paraphrasing a little bit). I think there is definitely a more quadratic relationship between card cost, and stat points, but its very difficult to precisely specify. Many many game mechanics go into this (such as the cost of common removal cards). We also have some odd examples at the lower end which should be mentioned. Septim Guardsman is a 0 cost 1/2 with guard, Midnight Trespasser is a 1 cost 3/3 with consume. I usually justify these cards by the fact that 0 and 1 cost cards are just unattractive in general (I am mostly just paraphrasing some frequently made points about 0 and 1 cost cards, so will try to avoid going too in depth here).

To wrap things up, I've been very interested in over-statted cards for a while, and have a lot of interest in the theory of game design and card cost calculations. The subject of card costs is incredibly complex, and I feel like my points are all over the place and not completely well formed as a result. It feels like I would need to write a dissertation to include all relevant details. Nonetheless, I was hoping to share some of my thoughts to see if anyone else has similar ideas, or can help me determine a more precise definition for over-statted. Thanks, and cheers!

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Grandmaster TESL. Remaining 1 day to start 3nd Open Qualification .

Posted: 04 Jun 2021 07:52 AM PDT

Hello everyone!

Here is the link for registration in 3rd Open Qualification of Grandmaster TESL tournament event:

https://battlefy.com/grandmaster-tesl/grandmaster-tesl-3rd-qualification-506/60b8d0eddaf92c09c387565a/info

Matches will be casted on twitch.tv/mraquaman88

We already have 4 Grandmasters:

EndoZoa (winner of content creators stage)

CoreData (winner of content creators stage)

Leo333333333 (winner of 1st qualification)

Vlad22092004 (winner of 2nd qualification)

2 more Grandmasters will be winners of 3rd and 4th Open Qualifications

2 more Grandmasters will be winners of cybersportsmen stage (it will start next week)

Prize pool now $50+ from me and community

To rize prize pool https://www.donationalerts.com/r/aquaman88

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End of season vs new season

Posted: 04 Jun 2021 10:55 AM PDT

So I started playing again at the end of last month for the first time in a long time. Ended up hitting Legend for the first time in years, with a ridiculous win rate. I think I only lost 3 or 4 games total.

I forgot how much of shit show rank 5 is at the start of the new season. This sucks! Thought I was hot stuff for a minute, nope! I suck again.

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TESL nowadays is more of a simulation sandbox than a competitive game

Posted: 03 Jun 2021 05:55 PM PDT

The central theme of The Elder Scrolls series is role-playing, and TESL as a card game had been doing a great job in this department. As someone who regards the TES world as almost a sacred place, I found great deal of immersive pleasure in playing TESL with role-playing intentions. This includes but is not limited to playing tribal decks and meme decks. The process of refining a theme deck into a decently competitive deck with underplayed cards and interactions which I then pilot to a high rank, brings me immense satisfaction. The main reason "meme" cards are underplayed though, is consistency, and I'm not even talking about strict rng - some fun interactions are simply harder to pull off than others. That's why I sort of stopped playing for win in TESL, but to simply enjoy the flow of each game with no expectations from the view of a tryhard pro who'd complain with every missed two drop, every first rune prophecy etc. Then I found the game to be beautiful and greatly fun. They really did a good job of capturing the soul from the Elder Scrolls world. If I happen to pull off my planned interactions and high rolls, great, if not, no need to be salty of how goblins are op or how little thoughts you need to put in to pilot an invade deck. View them as a simulation of directed happenings with tons of out of control factors. We're just here to see how cards interact with each other to create some beautiful green and red numbers on the screen, aren't we.

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The Worginator - Animal Scout Deck

Posted: 03 Jun 2021 04:59 PM PDT