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Delta: latest updates and discussion

I played Denrick with the knights recently. It still feels like there's rarely a reason to take him over most of the other champion options and he seems worse than Martial La Hire (who is in the ballpark of 50 points). Does Denrick become desirable for the Knights or Macdirks at 75 points? 65?
 
We’re pleased to announce the November update to the Delta Pricing system. There are 31 cards with price adjustments, plus we’ve added Delta prices for all the Marvel heroes.

You can view the spreadsheet HERE, and I imagine the builder on heroscape.org will be updated within a few days.

Here’s a summary of the changes, broken down into some categories:

Good stuff is still really good, continued
Spoiler Alert!

Raelin could probably go to 150 and she would still see play. She will see play even when overpriced because she is often the most logical add due to universal synergy. The goal is not to make her overpriced, but 135 is not overpriced.

The Raelin bump hurts Nilf a good bit, but the whole package costing 25 more feels reasonable, honestly. With greenscales going down in the last update, and deservedly so, the best uniques need to bear more of the cost. The same goes for Quahon - I have a hard time justifying more than a 5 point gap between the best dragons, even with spiders nerfed in Delta VC.

The oops files, and/or faction reapportionments
Spoiler Alert!

Only a few cards (Deathcommander, Kiova, and Bahadur) are actually bouncing back towards their classic price, but in each case they are part of a larger reassessment of the faction. Kiova is taking a bit more of the price from the now-cheaper Imperium. Arktos has been the value hero pick for the Varks for a while, so we’re adjusting based on that. The Deathborg faction has remained weak in Delta, so we’re giving a discount, and that discount gets even steeper for 9k in classic, where his range boost is much less significant.

Make Mine Marvel!
Spoiler Alert!

The other 5 Marvel heroes enter Delta at their standard prices.

Metagame Beneficiaries
Spoiler Alert!

Cheaper Death Knights and a generally more leveled-out meta made Azazel too good of a value engine - he almost always came back once and that’s all it takes for him to earn his points. Warriors of Ashra benefit from less prevalent special attacks and a more melee-friendly meta.

Common Discount bin
Spoiler Alert!

The Kyrie squads (including the previously mentioned Einar Imperium) all take a small discount. Nottingham Brigands take a small discount due to underperforming. Obsidian Guards are still priced for their performance on VW maps but at 65 they are still probably conservatively priced. Swong Riders have been a consistent underperformer for a long time on modern maps and are probably overdue for a discount.

Unique discount bin
Spoiler Alert!

Skahen, Syvarris, and Nakitas all take a slight discount to put their prices more in line with the Krav/Airborne/Marro Warriors. The three most underperforming unique melee squads all take a price cut, with the NotNW’s cut only applying in classic when Kantono isn’t around. Parmenio is a fair bit worse in Delta where there’s no underpriced Raelin to discipline, and Migol suffers by comparison to the other Dwarf heroes. The rest are a series of smaller discounts (well, other than Dupuis’s) for some relatively weak standalone heroes.

---

Thanks to everyone who gives feedback; at this
 
I am stumped that the Deepwyrm Drow remain at 70 points.
 
Good changes! There's one in particular that I'm curious about though.

dok said:
Azazel the Kyrie Warrior 150 -> 175
Click to expand...

Could you provide a bit more explanation regarding this one? I am aware that death knights with Azazel won Season 48. However, I have no idea how Azazel actually performed in practice because @Dachshund never wrote a single battle report for any of his games. (Despite emerging as the champion). Was Azazel's performance really that strong to justify a 25 point increase?

Also, the last line of your post appears to be cut off; it just reads "Thanks to everyone who gives feedback; at this".
 
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Grey Waves said:
There's one in particular that I'm curious about though.

dok said:
Azazel the Kyrie Warrior 150 -> 175
Click to expand...

Could you provide a bit more explanation regarding this one? I am aware that death knights with Azazel won Season 48. However, I have no idea how Azazel actually performed in practice because @Dachshund never wrote a single battle report for any of his games. (Despite emerging as the champion). Was Azazel's performance really that strong to justify a 25 point increase?
Click to expand...

I'd probably attribute 15 points of the increase to missing value at the previous point total & 10 points of the increase to the 'bad metagame' figure tax (a la Deadeye Dan). Basically some uber-high variance figures have gotten hit with that tax because them being 'equally viable' isn't super-great for the meta.

Thanos' initial rating is also somewhat reflective of that tax, fyi.
 
Leaf_It said:
*65
Should probably be like 55 though. They're only okay vs all hero armies, and pretty bad vs squads.
Click to expand...
Interesting. They were 70 before the update. Dok must have forgot to call out that change. I could see them as low as 45 or 50. But 55 seems like it would be an improvement.
 
are these changes reflected in the army builder software? Thanks for all of this!

yep, they are! thanks!
 
Can't understand how in the world Nilf has a greater point increase than Quahon. I would bet my collection that Quahon record and winrate completely owns Nilf's one.

Fyorlaght point increase isn't strong enough.
Quahon + Spiders stands in "OP Tier" army alongside rats+Q9, Nilf+Greenies etc..
Quahon goes toe to toe with those machups. And imo is better against commons aswell (easier to hit multiples figures than with Nilf or Q9, ability to delete OMs). Spiders are massively underrated, there is a reason why Quahon is played almost exclusively with spiders and not with greenies.
 
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Foudzing said:
Can't understand how in the world Nilf has a greater point increase than Quahon. I would bet my collection that Quahon record and winrate completely owns Nilf's one.

Fyorlaght point increase isn't strong enough.
Quahon + Spiders stands in "OP Tier" army alongside rats+Q9, Nilf+Greenies etc..
Quahon goes toe to toe with those machups. And imo is better against commons aswell (easier to hit multiples figures than with Nilf or Q9, ability to delete OMs). Spiders are massively underrated, there is a reason why Quahon is played almost exclusively with spiders and not with greenies.
Click to expand...

As anyone who knows me is well aware, I'm a firm believer that Quahon + Spiders > Nilf + GWs in the standard point VCheese meta. In fact, I don't think there's any VCheese build that's clearly stronger than Quahon + Spiders.

That being said, I don't necessarily think Quahon > Nilf strait-up. When running a dragon with a non-bonding squad (generally just in Delta), I actually think Nilf is a slightly better option (although I'm not great at quantifying why I think that). For example, if I was going with a Dragon + Cutters x5, I would probably go Nilf > Quahon in that build. And there's some evidence from other top players that they agree (Dysole went Nilf + Cutters in an online delta event, I believe). At the very least, it's almost certainly not true that Quahon > Nilf strait-up when their bonding squads aren't present.

So Nilf being 5 points more than Quahon strait-up seems reasonable to me, or at the very least, not bad.

Now let's look at their points with their bonding squads.

Nilf, GWs x3 - 365 Points (Classic) -> 425 Points (Delta)
Quahon, Spiders x4 - 350 Points (Classic) -> 425 Points (Delta)

I picked those 2 version for 2 reasons.
1) They have the same Delta cost
2) They're both generally the "basis" for building that army in classic scape.

While they have the same delta cost, the Quahon version has actually increased in points more (15 points extra, for a 21.5% point increase v. a 16.5% point increase). That...feels pretty right to me.

The most important thing to note here is that Quahon + Spiders increases it's point difference more (compared to standard) with each added squad because Spiders went +10 and GWs went +5. This absolutely seems good to me, as spamming spiders with Quahon is one of the things that makes her so good. Especially in the VCheese meta, where Quahon + Spiders x5 becomes the standard basis for a top-notch build.

When Spiders were only 45 points originally in delta, this math on the differences wasn't true. And...I won an OHS season with Quahon + Spiders. That got them switched to 50 points per squad, which feels pretty right to me (I haven't run it again in a Delta event yet, so I clearly don't think it's OP anymore).

Anyways, I'm actually pretty happy with the situation where Nilf costs more than Quahon (and has gone up more as a percent increase) but Quahon + Spiders has the higher percent increase compared to Nilf + GWs. And where that tax gets even higher when you up it to spiders x5. It's taken Delta several iterations to reach this particular point combo, and I think it's really solid.

My thoughts anyways, as a frequent Quahon player in the VCheese meta.
 
Chris Perkins said:
That being said, I don't necessarily think Quahon > Nilf strait-up. When running a dragon with a non-bonding squad (generally just in Delta), I actually think Nilf is a slightly better option (although I'm not great at quantifying why I think that). For example, if I was going with a Dragon + Cutters x5, I would probably go Nilf > Quahon in that build. And there's some evidence from other top players that they agree (Dysole went Nilf + Cutters in an online delta event, I believe). At the very least, it's almost certainly not true that Quahon > Nilf strait-up when their bonding squads aren't present.
Click to expand...

I agree with the last sentence. Don't agree with the rest, the 3 defense if Quahon is more problematic in this case but her big pros vs Nilf, more range, better ability to hit multiple figures still stand. But yeah you are right to me they are similar levels as standalone, but the Lighting Breath + Entangling web synergy is what makes the build OP.

To me Nilf and Quahon should have exact same points, or Quahon should be 5 points higher, but Fyorlaght cost should be higher.

Chris Perkins said:
Now let's look at their points with their bonding squads.

Nilf, GWs x3 - 365 Points (Classic) -> 425 Points (Delta)
Quahon, Spiders x4 - 350 Points (Classic) -> 425 Points (Delta)

1) They have the same Delta cost.
Click to expand...

You said it, they have the same delta cost, but play that machup 10 times, the Quahon build will win it 7 to 8 times. It definitely has a clear edge.
Hance it's not well priced.

As as side note to me Quahon release has made Nilf completely obsolete. There is almost no situation where you should pick Nilf over Quahon.
I don't see an opposing army where Nilf is clearly better than Quahon whereas there is a ton of machups where Quahon is clearly better than Nilf.
And for maps, there is very few maps with spots that are allowed to Nilf and not to Quahon whereas the opposite happens frequently.
 
@Foudzing

So, I think that you skipped a lot of the point differential analysis I was trying to convey, which I do think is relevant when working with Delta points. But I've said my piece on that part and don't have a ton to add.

I will say though that the head-to-head matchup between any 2 armies isn't a particularly telling data point by itself.

Instead, I want to explore the theoretical where we made the changes you've described. Specifically:
Quahon +5
Spiders +5

Now:
Nilf, GWs x3 = 425 Points (Delta)
Quahon, Spiders x4 = 450 Points (Delta).

I don't think the Quahon/Spiders version is 25 points better than the Nilf/GWs army. I think they're quite close, and almost certainly closer than a 25 point gap.

Let's view this from a different angle though. That means the Nilf Army has gone up 16.5% while the Quahon army has gone up 28.5% from their non-delta prices. Almost double the percent point increase feels too high for me there.

But there's other side-effects. With that changed, we'd need to drop Wyvern from 75 to 65 points in order to leave the Spiders + Wyvern army unaffected, and Kozil from 115 to maybe 100 to leave that army unaffected. Maybe those would be ok, maybe they wouldn't. I haven't considered them much at all. But the point here is to convey that Delta has to balance points across as many potential different builds involving those figures as possible; it's not about perfectly encapsulating 1 specific build, but making as many as possible viable without one being broken-OP. I do think 65 point Wyvern might be problematic with a very cursory thought process.

This is all secondary to the fact that I approach almost every delta event from the perspective of "can I run one of my best 3-5 armies", which Quahon/Spiders is absolutely in, and I haven't thought Quahon/Spiders was a great choice in Delta for more than a year. And that, to me, says the army isn't broken-strong at it's current point total.
 
Chris Perkins said:
I will say though that the head-to-head matchup between any 2 armies isn't a particularly telling data point by itself.
Click to expand...

It's not in any case, but I think it is in this case cause the armies play out quite the same and have no super polarizing machups.
As I said I don't see a single machup in the whole game vs whom Nilf+Greenies does better than Quahon + spiders and I think you agree with me.

Chris Perkins said:
Instead, I want to explore the theoretical where we made the changes you've described. Specifically:
Quahon +5
Spiders +5

Now:
Nilf, GWs x3 = 425 Points (Delta)
Quahon, Spiders x4 = 450 Points (Delta).

I don't think the Quahon/Spiders version is 25 points better than the Nilf/GWs army. I think they're quite close, and almost certainly closer than a 25 point gap.
Click to expand...

Of course it is, with 12 spiders vs 9 greenies, to me it's more than 25 points better. More like 30 to 40 points better.
Add Marcu+Isamu in the Nilf build, I would till take the Quahon build, vs any machup really.

Oh btw, the Wyvern should definitely be more than 100, it's one of the most underrated unit of the game, moving opponent's units is hella hella strong, the 7move +fly allows you to put key units in very bad positions, the Wyvern always had great great results. It's basically what carried spiders before Quahon. Of crouse now you first play Quahon and then if you still have points left you play Wyvern.

Chris Perkins said:
This is all secondary to the fact that I approach almost every delta event from the perspective of "can I run one of my best 3-5 armies", which Quahon/Spiders is absolutely in, and I haven't thought Quahon/Spiders was a great choice in Delta for more than a year. And that, to me, says the army isn't broken-strong at it's current point total.
Click to expand...

And yet everytime a spider+quahon build is played it has superb results. I swear I think it's the core with the best winrate ever, maybe higher than Q9+rats.
To me you are just pointing out that the build is underrated.

Also the build is kinda powercreep-proof cause the stornger the armies become the stronger Entangling web becomes.
Entangling Web +long range easy to land AOE SA + good mobility is why the buid is doing so good even vs top tier armies.
No matter how good your army is, how good your playing is, all of this doesn't matter if I suceed my webs, or if I roll 4 skulls on my LB.
 
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Foudzing said:
As I said I don't see a single machup in the whole game vs whom Nilf+Greenies does better than Quahon + spiders and I think you agree with me.
Click to expand...

I don't think that's true.

There's some bonding mele matchups, for example, where Nilf + Green is probably better. Certainly Axegrinders, and maybe Knights also. Just picking from A-/A level units here.

If I knew I was facing Axegrinders, I'd opt for Nilf/GWs instead of Quahon/Spiders. In that matchup, GWs get a lot of kills in on Axegrinders and 9 GWs will hold with 4 defense longer than 12 spiders with 2 defense will.
 
Chris Perkins said:
Foudzing said:
As I said I don't see a single machup in the whole game vs whom Nilf+Greenies does better than Quahon + spiders and I think you agree with me.
Click to expand...

I don't think that's true.

There's some bonding mele matchups, for example, where Nilf + Green is probably better. Certainly Axegrinders, and maybe Knights also. Just picking from A-/A level units here.

If I knew I was facing Axegrinders, I'd opt for Nilf/GWs instead of Quahon/Spiders. In that matchup, GWs get a lot of kills in on Axegrinders and 9 GWs will hold with 4 defense longer than 12 spiders with 2 defense will.
Click to expand...

I don't agree, maybe in very narrow maps yeah I can see that, otherwise I think Quahon is better, the fact she has easier time hitting multiple figures, the fact she's still good when engaged vs single dwarf/knight, and finally entangling web being a massive wincon in those machups (well in any machup really).
 
Won in Peoria today with Q9, Nhah Scirh X3.

Just here to report that Q9 is still doing Q9 things at 250 haha. He didn't die today a single time in my games. Not that that means he needs to be bumped even further (as I think there gets a point where it becomes unreasonable)...but I think it's interesting how in Delta good units still seem to be good in matchups regardless of their point value.

Like, even at 250...Q9 still carried the weight of my army in each game and survived crazy amounts of attack dice. I get that the point is to make it so that a unit is more balanced in an equivalent total i.e. Drones X4 (Delta) theoretically should matchup against Q9 evenly...but again...it's just interesting to me that based on statlines and abilities...sometimes changing the price doesn't quite "fix" a units value. That is, the units value also fluctuates in games based on the opposing units AND how that unit is positioned and used throughout the game. For example, if Q9 faces Cutters X4 (Delta), I'd still expect Q9 to win. I think regardless of Delta, some matchups are just always going to be at a disadvantage, especially if the person piloting the unit knows how to use it.

Not making any particular point or call for action...just food for thought.
 
Sir Heroscape said:
Won in Peoria today with Q9, Nhah Scirh X3.

Just here to report that Q9 is still doing Q9 things at 250 haha. He didn't die today a single time in my games. Not that that means he needs to be bumped even further (as I think there gets a point where it becomes unreasonable)...but I think it's interesting how in Delta good units still seem to be good in matchups regardless of their point value.

Like, even at 250...Q9 still carried the weight of my army in each game and survived crazy amounts of attack dice. I get that the point is to make it so that a unit is more balanced in an equivalent total i.e. Drones X4 (Delta) theoretically should matchup against Q9 evenly...but again...it's just interesting to me that based on statlines and abilities...sometimes changing the price doesn't quite "fix" a units value. That is, the units value also fluctuates in games based on the opposing units AND how that unit is positioned and used throughout the game. For example, if Q9 faces Cutters X4 (Delta), I'd still expect Q9 to win. I think regardless of Delta, some matchups are just always going to be at a disadvantage, especially if the person piloting the unit knows how to use it.

Not making any particular point or call for action...just food for thought.
Click to expand...


If a unit gets to this point, at what point should we consider it on the "marvel" level and just ban it outright? Not saying we should but 250 is a crazy amount of points and it's common in our local event to not allow marvel and we could theoretically disallow q9 for the same reasons.


This phenomenon could also be exasperated by the fact that when delta points are used some players might gravitate to sub-par units that don't get to see play in the standard meta. Just a thought. I'm always looking for discounts in units that I love their style but don't get their use in standard ever. (Einar Imperium)
 
Chris Perkins said:
@Foudzing

[...]

Instead, I want to explore the theoretical where we made the changes you've described. [...]
Let's view this from a different angle though. That means the Nilf Army has gone up 16.5% while the Quahon army has gone up 28.5% from their non-delta prices. Almost double the percent point increase feels too high for me there.
Click to expand...


As in this example, I am not sure why, generally speaking, you are reasoning based on relative comparison (to classical point cost) instead of absolute comparisons in Delta pricing only.


The only thing, for me, that you demonstrate here, is that in classical pricing and including Valhalla Customs, the pricing on the Spiders were more underrated than on the greenies.
But from what I understand, the objective is not to minimize the price changes compared to classical but to find the correct changes to balance up everything.

If the Fyorlags were even more underrated and needed +50% price cost ? Why not ! It's not a criteria by itself. The important thing is to compare at a given pricing system if everything is in order or not.


-----------------


By the way thanks for the updates on Delta pricings, I'll follow them up into my spreadsheet. :)
 
GeneralRolando said:
Sir Heroscape said:
Won in Peoria today with Q9, Nhah Scirh X3.

Just here to report that Q9 is still doing Q9 things at 250 haha. He didn't die today a single time in my games. Not that that means he needs to be bumped even further (as I think there gets a point where it becomes unreasonable)...but I think it's interesting how in Delta good units still seem to be good in matchups regardless of their point value.

Like, even at 250...Q9 still carried the weight of my army in each game and survived crazy amounts of attack dice. I get that the point is to make it so that a unit is more balanced in an equivalent total i.e. Drones X4 (Delta) theoretically should matchup against Q9 evenly...but again...it's just interesting to me that based on statlines and abilities...sometimes changing the price doesn't quite "fix" a units value. That is, the units value also fluctuates in games based on the opposing units AND how that unit is positioned and used throughout the game. For example, if Q9 faces Cutters X4 (Delta), I'd still expect Q9 to win. I think regardless of Delta, some matchups are just always going to be at a disadvantage, especially if the person piloting the unit knows how to use it.

Not making any particular point or call for action...just food for thought.
Click to expand...


If a unit gets to this point, at what point should we consider it on the "marvel" level and just ban it outright? Not saying we should but 250 is a crazy amount of points and it's common in our local event to not allow marvel and we could theoretically disallow q9 for the same reasons.


This phenomenon could also be exasperated by the fact that when delta points are used some players might gravitate to sub-par units that don't get to see play in the standard meta. Just a thought. I'm always looking for discounts in units that I love their style but don't get their use in standard ever. (Einar Imperium)
Click to expand...

I ban Q9 from my tournaments for this reason. There are some units that a price change won't fix. I don't think the Raelin bump will change anything either, someone who is also always on my limited ban list. She'll be played just as much because she's fundamentally busted and you can't account for that in points. But the Delta effort is still a really excellent one for 99.5% of units.
 
A few thoughts relevant to the ongoing discussions:

1) Re: Quahon / Nilfheim

The point increase percentage of the armies is relevant insofar as the armies were not terribly imbalanced in the standard VCheese meta absent Delta. Yes, I agree that Quahon/Spiders is better than Nilf/GWs in VCheese, but I don't think it's so extreme to the point that Quahon is viable and Nilf isn't. For some supporting evidence, Nilf/GW made it to finals of VCheese 1. So, to me, the percentge increase shouldn't be drastically different, and I think that percent increase is a useful/interesting metric when comparing armies that are in the same ballpark strength in standard VCheese. By no means is it a perfect metric, and it doesn't always apply well, but I think this is a case where it does.

2) Re: Q9

Q9 fits into a group of figures where their best matchups (low attack / defense commons) are really good, bordering on an auto-win. But Q9 (without Raelin, often without many Rats) isn't invulnerable; there are plenty of armies that have enough attack dice to bring him down. By definition, a 250 point figure is going to be pretty high variance, as it's half of your army locked up (in this case) in a single figure. And Delta has made a lot of the lower dice squads more relevant, which gives Q9 some good matchups. But matchup variance is just a thing, and moreso in Delta than in standard Cheese formats, because you have more total figures that are viable (so more opportunities for extra great and/or terrible matchups). And obviously, if you want to manipulate the meta for any particular reason, ban lists are a tool for doing that. But I don't think we should price Q9 at a point where he is never viable (i.e. the Deadeye / Azazel / Thanos treatment).

3) Re: Raelin

I actually don't think 130 point Raelin is broken. In fact, I've been passing her over in a lot of my builds that I've been thinking through for recent & upcoming Delta events. Sure, +2 defense is always solid, but there does exist a point where adding more of your common overwhelms that benefit. And I don't think 130 point Raelin is an auto-include in most Delta armies.
 
Fwiw I think the current pricing of Nilf/Quahon and their relevant bonding squads is pretty much spot on. Spiders are more underpriced in classic scape than greenscales are, so the spiders going up by 10 compared to the greenscales' 5 makes sense. I also highly disagree with whoever said that there's no reason to use Nilfheim when Quahon exists - Nilfheim has more move, slightly better survivability, and much better consistency than Quahon, and if I have the choice to run either of them as a non-bonding dragon in an army, I'm picking Nilfheim over Quahon 8 times out of 10. If anything, I feel like Quahon is actually very slightly overpriced at the moment - I'm not convinced that Spiders x5 Quahon is 50 points better than GSWs x3 Nilf, and to me the gap between Nilf and Quahon as a solo dragon is closer to 10 points than it is to 5. Ultimately this is kind of nitpicking though, as a 5 point drop when you already cost 225 points doesn't really change a whole lot.

I'm too tired to fully elaborate on this but I also agree with ROTV Raelin's increase to 135 points - she makes some matchups absolutely miserable if the opposing army doesn't have a good way of killing her. My Red Mantis Blade Dancer army was one of the strongest builds in Season 44 but one of the weakest armies in the field in Season 48, and a large part of that was due to the high prevalence of Raelin in the latter tournament. Only having a 20 point gap between the 2 Raelins also felt a bit weird - except for certain swarm-based armies, I always felt that you were better off paying the extra 20 points for the bonus defence dice. Having a 35 point gap between the 2 is much more appropriate imo
 
Re: Raelin the other thing about her is that she helps the worse armies--the ones that are bad because they don't have good survivability. The need for Raelin in those armies is reduced in Delta, but I still wouldn't ban her in that format.

--
@Chris Perkins what about Re: Deepwyrm Drow? :D
 
Colorado events are now allowing the released AoA units (via proxies). I expect we won't be the only group to do so. Has Delta discussed incorporating them into future updates? I imagine it would complicate things a little (the value of certain Unique Squads in VC and the value of Crimson Widow seem quite intertwined, for example).
 
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