The ICC Raid

[kallistosprom]

Dear one and all,

My friends and I have really enjoyed the other raids that have come out before but looking at the new ICC raid details on the website it seems they have changed raids...

http://www.wowtcg.com/products/assault-icecrown-citadel

Will it still have the bosses to defeat or is it just the lich king churning out allies which are the bosses? that sounds awfully boring...

How much more powerful are the hero decks heros? ie do they have huge amounts of more health so it would be impossible for a normal deck to join as the lich king abilities would auto kill them?

No event deck it seems so won't the lich king just die to all the stun lock and dispel that now floats around so commonly?

I'm rather concerned as my friends and I enjoy putting out the giant cards, seeing which boss is next and the special rules they have? We were hoping for something quite new and creative from the new company making wow tcg.

I hope it doesn't end up shockinly bad like magic the gathering raiding which was utterly pointless.

any help or discussion would be most greatfully recieved

Jules

[Trajian]

I have not seen this until today. Let me get this right. They GIVE you three decks to play with instead of rolling up in there with your own shit, to take down the lich king?

60 Card LK deck seems a little odd. I'm slightly confused on the bosses and such.:confused:

[Trajian]

By the way, if raids start turning out like this, then I am quite honestly just going to start playing the community made raids instead. These are starting to feel as if they may have a little more flavor.

[Frikilangelo]

I have not seen this until today. Let me get this right. They GIVE you three decks to play with instead of rolling up in there with your own shit, to take down the lich king?

Yep, one is Lich King, and the other 3 are Jaina, Sylvanas and Tyrion
Perhaps they see raid decks are easy countered by control decks =P... but i think you can still use your own deck, but i don tknow how it will work...

[Kyoden]

Well, I like the idea of adding 3 playable decks for the raiders. So basicly one player could buy it and introduce his friends easily to the game, BUT the raid part sounds rather odd. 1 Deck? I think it goes the mtg archenemy way or sth.

Let's see how it works out. I just like the idea of 3 ready decks ot play with, but if the rest sucks ... well. There is plenty of stuff out here :)

[Frikilangelo]

My idea its that the allies from players decks are the heroes of all other expansion (imagine heroes like Warrax, Blackice, etc convert to allies :3)

Ofc, i will be Tyrion >:3

[kallistosprom]

big preview of ICC Raid

http://www.wowtcg.com/articles/2011/02/18/assault-icecrown-citadel-raid

[kallistosprom]

10 turns to kill the lich king or you die...

This is not a raid, considering the cost of those allies.

And i'm really not sure about the Artwork for Jenia, she looks deformed

If allies can be removed from play you'll see Shadow Priests just fearing the large allies...

Other Posts I found from looking around forums:
Each of the decks come with 2 rares, x2 Crusader Entari for Tirion's deck, Counterspell and Frost Nova for Jaina and I can't remember the rares from Sylvanas. The commons and uncommons are probably cards that are too crappy for constructed. (Oh yeah there's Bancroft in Jaina's deck lol.)

Treasure Pack cards are decent, an Ability card for each class, Muradin Bronzebeard, Highlord Tirion Fordring, Saurfang, King Terenas II, and a bunch of equipment and 3 quests. Total cards in the Treasure Packs are 30.
From Xyrophobic

Treasure Pack Contents:
http://www.coolstuffinc.com/world_of_warcraft_tcg_search.php?s1=&s3=&s2=&s4=&s5=&s6=&s7=&s10=&s9=&s26=&s8=&s20=eq&s21=&s22=eq&s23=&s24=eq&s25=&scs_197=1&s11_loot=1&s11_PO=1&s11_E=1&s11_R=1&s11_U=1&s11_C=1&ua=s&submit=Search

Full Pictures
http://s1198.photobucket.com/albums/aa451/lionspaced/icecrowncitadel/

Flip abilties for the heroes
Jaina, flip for 8 -> Search your deck for 2 allies and put them into play. When you deal damage with an ability you deal that much +2 instead.

Sylvanas, Flip for 7 -> Your hero deals 7 damage to target Scourge Ally or Hero. Heroes and Allies in your party has assault 2.

Tirion - He get's mend 2 I believe, Tirion can search for his Ashbringer weapon when he flips.

Comprehensive Look at Icecrown Citadel Raid Deck (Pre-Release article)

Introduction
ICC is one of those raids that we've always assumed will be in the card game. This raid differs from the five before it. In the traditional sense of the word (and I fear stating this before I set forth in the Citadel) ICC is not a raid, but a separate game from raids and the card game. "...So what?" some people might say. According to tradition, each boss had a mechanic, a raid had trash, and various other elements. ICC works more like a traditional WOW TCG match, with a few positives and negatives:

+ May eliminate long raids, because by turn 10 everyone fries.
+ Pre-built decks come with the raid, allowing me to get new people into the game easier, and with a whole lot of fun.
- May take away some of the complicated mechanics people enjoy, such as a unique way in fighting a boss.

That negative is no reason to shun ICC before trying it; it is a new raiding format that I guarantee (without playing the raid) will top Dedicated Few. It should be a lot of fun- it is DIFFERENT, but if you get enjoyment out of the thing, then it was money well spent. For those who just can't go without complicated raid mechanics- turn to homemade raiding. Already our playgroup is finishing Forge of Souls and is working on Ulduar.

The Heroes
The Lich King is a scourge hero, not a scourge boss. Unless the rulebook says something different, you can technically "turn his powers off" and mess with him in a manner of ressurecting things from his graveyard to fuel a ghoul factory.

With Tirion, Sylvannas and Jaina, there will definitely be some strategy involved with this raid, because every scourge ally hits like a TRUCK. Sylvannas has long range, and Tirion has mending... I wonder how the raid will play out.

Fun versus Ruling Technicalities
The game should be made fun for both the boss AND the raiders: so certain cards shouldn't enter the game if all players agree (Ultimately, the boss makes the final call).

Cards like detect traps won't wreck the Lich King deck like it did to other raid decks, but there is a point where players must choose between "I will play that" and "I can play that, but I will make the game more challenging by finding another way". Crutches should be avoided.

I for one don't want to be locked down by [Orderkeeper Henley] + [Ice Barbs] + [Voidfire Wand], or any combination that will pwn my face off. We have to face it: The allies in the Lich King deck are no pushover, but they aren't what they used to be as "bosses". The question is, should we make them immune to targeted destruction with custom raid decks? I think it's fair.

From Falcon

[Kyoden]

Bah, I'm dissapointed.

[Frikilangelo]

/agree with the deformed Jaina xD

For now, i dont like the idea of 10 turn -> kill... until i paly the raid, this will be the main incovenience for me

[Kyoden]

10 turns is not really a problem in my eyes. Most raids tend to get unbeatable after a certain time anyways.

Just the "normal" Deck feeling completely sucks in my eyes. I also don't know if some of the comments are official, but "For those who just can't go without complicated raid mechanics- turn to homemade raiding" is actually a comment I dislike as it tells the community to keep the game going.

I think its great to have 3 decks to play with, but if these 3 decks are starterlike in power and "playthought", I'm rather dissappointed.

[kallistosprom]

My friends and I useally get through BT in 13 to 15 turns.
Naxx is a bit more difficult as it keeps resetting.. usually 8 turns a quarter, sometimes less depending what people get out.
Onyxia very much depends on how many board wipes she keeps doing or whether we can kill the whelps in phase 2.
Maggy is about 12 to 15 turns, sometimes more depending if we get tons of infernals or he gets his armour out.

Overall this is a lot shorter.

[kallistosprom]

Just went into my local Forbidden Planet and picked up the ICC Raid.

This post contains spoilers about the raid so if you don't want to know whats in the Lich King deck then STOP READING!!!

Ok...

Opening the box it comes with the 4 heros as giant card forms, including the lich king, still don't like the artwork of Jaina, even the side where she flips. Just because she shows clevage doesn't make it any better.

This is before play testing with my group but looking at the 35 health of each of the heroes except the lich king (whos on 60), I would say this would work with 4 normal decks happily, hardcore mode 3. (edit - see end as i've changed my mind)

The lich king deck contains 16 quests, which act just like normal players quests. Nothing exciting.

Did I mention that there are no additional rules for this raid? Things do exactly as they say on the card. shame :(

Lich King Deck
2 pieces of equipment (see earlier post for link to the article detailing them) needless to say equipment destruction is pointless for the raider decks. (unlike against maggy)
20 Allies (these are all the bosses from ICC and some 1 to 2 cost small things, most of them have coming into play abilities especially the 3 vampires which I do like, considering the standard of the raid.
One disappointing ally was Valithria Dreamwalker - the heal dragon boss, Really boring card, 0/10 ally cost 2, comes into play with 3 damage, Emerald Vigor: At the start of your turn draw a card (thats the lich king drawing cards) if she is damaged. She cannot be attacked or attack... They could have done soo much more with this card.
20 abilities - nothing really origonal and in fact if you play allies in your normal deck prepare to get them stolen or destroyed.

Jaina deck -
Protectors, frost and fire (1 Frost Nova and 1 Counterspell being the rares), 26 allies. Alternate artwork for the abilities (18 of them) are nice with much better artwork of Jaina.
Best Raiding Cards in Deck: counterspell, frost nova, Hulstom Servant of light, Wynnd the Spry,
Her Own Artifact allows her to play an additional card per turn for free including a resource, nice but nothing exciting.
Overall rather boring dps deck with some healing and some protectors. Its trying to do too much, even if it is for new players.

Highlord Tirion Fordring deck-
basicially full of the argent crusade uniques
Rares: Crusade Commander Entari x2
Ashbringer is a sick card - cost 4 6/0 weapon that cannot be destroyed or be targeted
Best Raiding Cards in the deck: blessing of trials, blessed defence, hammer of justice (though only 2 :-( ), Apply this twice a day, A tale of Valor, Ashbringer!
As pally decks go it's not bad but the heals in the deck are rather small considering the damage that the allies of the lich king dish out. It really can't dedicate heal, even with Tirion's mend 1 or flip mend 2.

Dark Lady Sylvanas Windrunner
Horde hunter with no pets or traps and only 12 abilties... its all about the allies
Rares: Multishot x2
Artefact weapon: Double damage on damaged scourge - I like it :D And it's long range! Only 3/0... oh... it was almost good and it's 5 cost... meh
Best Raiding Cards: Jonny Rotton, Lifemender Dorn (depending where you sit on the table), Zugna, Windseer Apprentice. Enemies, old and new (removing counters is great in this raid)
Overall rather boring deck with no immagination and no useful abilties.

Summery of Raid before Play
Rather boring looking with a poor difficulty, Easily could be 3 manned with useful decks. Very disappointing considering what they could have done with the ICC raid.

Sorry Cryptzoic.

But i'll play it over the weekend and we'll see.

[Trajian]

I am playing this raid this sunday :) I'm playing as Jaina

[Kyoden]

Well its different and I actually wouldn't really want to play it against anything but the 3 original decks I guess.

I have not really decided if I like the raid or not.

The boss deck seems like a solid boss deck, but instead has very tough allies to play. (2 5/5 protector, 1 4/2 can be played from grave, 3 6/5 destroy ally when it comes into play). Most of the allies are totally awesome and undercosted of course.

Item destruction can be worthwhile (alot more in my eyes than ability destruction) as it basicly deals 5 damage or costs him an equivalent of 3 resources (1 resource times 3 as there are 3 players against him).

About the 3 decks:
(keep in mind that they are build to play against ICC and MAYBE as a core legal deck ... wtf?!)

Jaina is the one I like least. No real theme in there and if she should be more of a spellslinger they should have added more spells. A polymorph would have been nice as well (not sure if it is legal though). Turn 8 flip seems strong, if there would be anything in there to get catched .... Even if you flip you will only have 2 turns of an increased Aura of Brilliance effect. I guess Jaina should "DOT" the Lichking and use her damage spells to take down one or 2 allies.

Silvanas on the other hand is truly only aber her hero ability. +1assault makes all those suckers really good. 2/1 long range allies are strong especially as the ICC almost has 0 aoe damage (2-3 cards I think). The bow is very strong in her hands as it deals 8-10 damage to the boss each turn. Her spells are not really worth playing though. Arcane shot has 2-3 interesting targets in the whole deck (not counting that 1 damage to kill sth of course).

Tirion is the only deck I could image someone would want to play in core (well to start with that is). Synergies in there without a needed gold hero to boost them. He heals a total of 12 damage if you flip on 6 (which u should). So its not much, but I guess it will be harder to kill him that getting killed until turn 10. Only thing I can't understand is that he runs 18 quests and has the biggest redraw of them all.

Things to note:

- Game will end only on Turn 11 if the boss player drops a resource each turn + basicly skipping his 10th turn.

- why would someone want to play those decks at core legal events? I know they are better than starter decks, but still .... no way...

- I think it could be fun to play these decks against Naxx (just define all boss cards as scourge cards and ignore the single card limit). Especially as the ICC box has enough space to fit both raids.

- You have to see ICC raid as a standalone game. Nothing compared to the older raids. It probably will be beaten by any regular raid deck


I'm not really conviced with the new way to make raids. It is good for someone wanting a new tcg experience. For the cost of a board game you get a card game for 3-4 players ready to play. That sounds fine to me, but the game does not offer anything besides that. As far as I read, they didn't mention anything about customizing either of the decks nor did they say that you could play it against other decks. Optional rules could have been included as the last 2 pages are not really used anyways.

[kallistosprom]

http://forums.wowtcg.com/showthread.php?t=6216

Very mixed responses to ICC Raid.

[Frikilangelo]

So... fail raid??
I dont play the raid yet, but your comments are no good to try buy it...

[Trajian]

Just tried this raid over the weekend. Honestly its an interesting take in my opinion on raiding and the decks you are handed are specifically developed for this raid and everything is quite equalized nicely.

Now, with that being said, I do not favor Jaina's deck. Without spoiling anything for the people who have yet to play it, she's a fucking mage with little abilities. She relies on allies more than you'd think. Each raider has a weapon, one.. and out of 4 games, I never got it.

It's an interesting take on a raid, but will not stand to be my favorite.

However, the fact that the minibosses like Festergut and such was interesting because we never went up against the same boss encounters twice in a row, though this does not follow the theme of the actual raid in the game.

Also let it be known that the princes are the most overpowered bullshit bosses in this raid, which I think is ridiculous.

[Frikilangelo]

A question... from Lich King view... who will be the most dangerous of the three decks? who will you focus first?

[Trajian]

::SPOILER::

A question... from Lich King view... who will be the most dangerous of the three decks? who will you focus first?
Basically here's the deal. Sylv will be able to dish out quick bursts of damage and was usually killed in our raids first. Jaina however can get somewhat decent if she can find both fireballs and attach them to Lich king, and have a few allys out with inspiring presence. But her deck sucks, leave her for last. Tirion however needs to have special attention focused on his allies. Do not let him get too many out or you will get overwhelmed. His allies buff eachother and need to be taken care of decently well, but Tirion by himself isnt much of a threat because alot of the abilities require allies. His weapon is nice though. Pretty much our kill order went like this

Sylvanas > Tirion > Jaina (With special attention focused on Tirion allies. If he is low on allies, continue targeting Sylvanas.)

[kallistosprom]

just played with our custom decks. Absolutely nerfed the lich king with the following

Warlock - Removed Shadowmorn from the game and then the helm
Shadow Priest - Kept making the LK discarding cards
Pally - Hammers and Green Dragon allies with 20 Green hills of stranglethorn, complete a quest draw a card and make someone heal 2 each time with Unquie allies a bit like Tirion

We were taking a beating for 3 turns until shadowmorne got removed from the game. After that everyone just kept laying allies and the lich king couldn't cope. Lack of Ally board wipes meant even the big ass allies and the vampires couldn't do much except die or be removed from the game.

[Kyoden]

To be honest, did you expect anything else?

There is a reason why those cards aren't in there ...

There is like 1 card in the whole deck which does AOE damage. Playing ICC without anything else but preconstructed decks is rather lame/boring/waste of time. The only modification I would suggest is to add more ability removal + change 2-3 quests to make them playable vs Naxx.

Sorry, but your post was really really obvious even without trying it.
(<--- is in a bad mood)

[Trajian]

The only modification I would suggest is to add more ability removal + change 2-3 quests to make them playable vs Naxx.


This would be interested except for the fact Jaina's deck sucks ass. I didn't have much fun playing the damn thing. Lol.

[kallistosprom]

I agree Jaina's deck does suck and we only wanted to see what the ICC limitations were.

We tried other games with different kinds of decks (we have like 30 different built decks to choose from) and wanted to see what it was possible to win with against the lich king.

What was evident was the boxed hero large cards that come with ICC make the difference, the huge life total, a little, but mostly the undead ranger abilitiy of all her allies have assault 1.

Speed dps is one way to kill the lich king but we wanted to see if there were other ways, except just blowing up the lich king's resources. Plus as a lich king player we wanted to know if it was possible to win efficently without dropping a resource every turn. In other words, does the lich king suffer from the same problem as lots of people have when playing their normal decks: Just unlucky draws?

Answer is maybe. With frostmourne out the lich king can hold his own and cause huge amounts of damage and with the helm out, not take much back in a 3 player game (thats 3 raiders and one LK player). The lich king's deck is very ally dependant, which unless you draw the vampires can get really stuck against a lot of decks, even just a tank standing in the way with some armour (Would explain why tirion's deck doesn't come with any, or any abilities that make him a protector).

Yes, the 3rd custom game we had (with the decks mentioned above - lock,SP,pally) would have destroyed most raids but it also showed the limitations of not having dedicated ally deck or ability deck or mass removal. Something which the previous raids had.

You could argue that ICC was built for newbies or built in mind that you only use the decks that come with it, but then from a business point of view whats the point in buying more cards when I have all the cards I need in the raid box? Maybe I would enjoy the raid so much that I go on to buy some cards and play pvp, but when the market is flooded with pvp card games (such as magic and yugioh) why not use the WoW card game to it's advantage, which is raids?

I agree with what has been said both here and on the official forums that the game needed optional rules for experienced raiders in the manual or a list of cards, that were from the scourge block, that could be added to the LK deck yet still be fast enough for the lich king to still be efficient. Maybe even addon gold boarded loot cards (one per loot booster) that could have added more to the LK deck. Some of the loot cards seem really overpowered as it is (rogue and DK abilities are grim and shadowmourne in the Tiron deck is just funny). Why give really over powered loot cards (with the game, not just bought separately) that if used in the raid will just break it?

Just some thoughts as it nice to see from a custom raid view point. Especially if you're building your own.

As an edit:
If anyone knows of any cards that are resource efficient enough to give to the LK deck that have been released please do say.

[Trajian]

Quite honestly, this is why I am glad the whole custom raids were started here. The community can play against shit that they enjoy playing against without Jaina decks. Lol, god I hated playing that deck.

[Kyoden]

I would rather suggest adding an additional deck for the Lich king. A scourge deck with its associated hero etc. Could turn the tide as he can focus on different things and still would fit the theme.

While we are talking:

I NEED HELP WITH THE GRAPHIC FILES!!!

I have 2 finished raids sitting in my shelf. They are cool and want to be played. I just need someone helping with the graphics ...

[Frikilangelo]

well, for my birthday, my friends gave me the ICC raid
We play 3 games, 2 goes for the Union and 1 for Lich
Things I see:
- The Silvanas Bow its very overpowered, can kill with 1 shot most of lich allies, and allies with 1 cost are so storng aganist Arthas, this last doesnt have any AoE for allies killing
- Jaina its the best choice for killing scourge allies, her Whiteout pwnd 2 times Princes, and the Scorch take away the Drudge Ghoul
- I play with Tirion... i dont see anything good, but the two times i play Blessing of Trial Arthas uses his counter... for other side Blessed of Defense its the best card in this deck, it give me 1 of the games with a +10 ATK Veteran Crusader Aliocha Segard xDDDDD
- And for last, Athas... well... any AoE for killing allies, bad thing. In my view, Arthas MUST use Justice of the Grave to take out Jaina and SIlvana weapons, or use Soul Reaper for counter them. Best idea for the deck its use Helm+Ghoul combo for killing allies

And the games... around 1 hour, that was nice for playing a quick match, if no we have Black temple or Naxx =P