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[redyellowedge]

The issue is not that he goes full chain or full heat or full volley. It's more so the option to play bits of support for each, and for tech/dynamic. Once Matt Striker is in play he basically has no cost to use his ability, and if Tech Shoot is in ring he can make his opponent discard for a successful or a reversed maneuver. It's easy to say well no deck can rely on low F actions, but theres more than enough actions in a deck full of hybrids to bait out those reversals, or more than enough chain help to kill their hand before trying to play actions. I'm really excited to play it but I can see why players would see this as being OP. If it's been play tested properly against the types of decks Keith brought up I'm happy to see it out in the real world, but I can see the concerns of power creep

[Jfman89]

Not sure if the tone and feedback had to be that negative in my opinion. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I would say he is just average at best. Remember we are still taking about Technical and Dynamic, which are extremely weak maneuvers even with all the existing support.

If he goes full chain build, he gets +2D from Chain Reaction, recover 2 for Calgary (if he even plays it) if unsuccessful, or recover 2 for Technically Sound and Brutal (TSaB) if successful.

If he goes full heat build, he gets +2D from Spontaneous Combustion, and if it is successful, he gets to recover 2 for TSaB.

If he goes full volley build, he gets 0D reversals for Opening Volley and if it is successful, he gets to recover 2 for TSaB. And doesn't Takin' a BASH work almost the same as Volley Call, depending on the number of Volley instead of BASH?

They all sound pretty fair to me. The chain build pales in comparison to Freak'n Hero or Junkyard Dog, the Heat build pales in comparison to Snitsky (obviously), and the Volley build pales in comparison basically to any deck that plays Volley.

Well, that's just my 2 cents. Once it is released, we will all have a better grasp of how Johnny performs.

See but this is the thing he doesnt have to go full anything. He can have bits and bobs of everything bar the techs and dynamics and at the drop of a hat his stuff can be anything

So imagine mid game gargano gets a move through then says oh my moves are now heat then he gets the potential to get high powered high risks from ringside.

Or oh my opponent only has 1 card in hand my move is now chain.

As someone mentioned volley call. That could be a near full ringside recovered at the drop of a hat.

There is no need to give him such a wide variety of stuff.

Wheres the downside. All im seeing is good. No balance.

Ive no problem with ellias his ability is good good cards. But he is balanced in my opinion and he has a downside to the good abillity in not being able to pack divine.

[Eric RD]

It's easy to judge cards without having them in hand, or even playing them.
Cards are tested by a team regular players of the game on a casual and competitive level. I've been reading a lot of comments about how good he is, but these all have counters that would prevent them from happening.
Once the set releases I would love to hear feedback about this Superatar set, and others. If there are still large issues then things can always be changed accordingly. Until then, I am going to trust my team's judgement.

[Jfman89]

It's easy to judge cards without having them in hand, or even playing them.
Cards are tested by a team regular players of the game on a casual and competitive level. I've been reading a lot of comments about how good he is, but these all have counters that would prevent them from happening.
Once the set releases I would love to hear feedback about this Superatar set, and others. If there are still large issues then things can always be changed accordingly. Until then, I am going to trust my team's judgement.

See heres the thing. Youre right. There is counters for all that he does. But its easy enough to counter in play testing when you know you are about to play him.

In competitions or in casual play are we just expected to build specifically to counter only gargano in the hope we play him but can put us at odds against other people.

His range is far too wide.

[Keith0913832]

I suppose what we can do as the playing community is to play them first before we give structured ways of improvement, as is with how things should be handled properly. If at the end of the day after the community has playtested this and it was indeed too strong, I don't see how the developers won't step in and make necessary changes. But if it turns out to be the other way round that playtest is giving both wins and loses, then I think its fine.

Regardless, I think it's still too early to dictate whether he's OP or not without playing them at all. I vaguely remember Joe being at this level during the initial release, but when the actual games came, it wasn't too much to handle too.

[Hogtrail]

What's Owen Hart's downside? Or The Blue Blazer? They do similar things to Johnny, but aren't tied to technical and dynamic maneuvers.

And it's also not required that every superstar have a 'downside'. Sometimes they're balanced as is.

Does Kevin Owens have a downside? Samoa Joe? Kane?

Trust me, ALL of these superstars were tested ad nauseam. And, no, I didnt know I would be playing against Gargano at any given time. I never built any of my decks to combat him specifically. I'm not sure I lost to him in any of those games. Maybe once out of 10 or so games?

Settle down, drink it in, enjoy that a new (free) set of Raw Deal is coming out so quickly after the last one.

P.s. Believe me, when the rest of the set is spoiled, Gargano won't be the one you're talking about  ;)

[CRASHER]

I guess we'll be seeing six Gargano's in the next lackey event folks  :laugh:

[Jfman89]

Owen hart does 1 thing not 4.

It just blows my mind.

How nobody bar by the looks of it 3 scottish guys sees how wild he is

Edit 3 not 4

[Tim (From SG)]

Johnny Wrestling looks dope. Like that the supports are making technical and dynamics more protected, and also making Johnny very versatile in his ability and card effects. Versatility is one core concept which makes RD much more fun. Playing restricted moves all day, for e.g. German Suplex TB, Shoot Lock Up, Claw, Precision Sleeper, is known to be the safe route for securing fortitude, but the joy of trying something different just fizzles when one is up against players who constantly play the same restricted moves.

Great Job in moving v10 so fast, which is scheduled very soon, not long after v9's release.
Appreciate the efforts! =)

[MonkeyLord13]

Johnny Wrestling looks dope. Like that the supports are making technical and dynamics more protected, and also making Johnny very versatile in his ability and card effects. Versatility is one core concept which makes RD much more fun. Playing restricted moves all day, for e.g. German Suplex TB, Shoot Lock Up, Claw, Precision Sleeper, is known to be the safe route for securing fortitude, but the joy of trying something different just fizzles when one is up against players who constantly play the same restricted moves.

Great Job in moving v10 so fast, which is scheduled very soon, not long after v9's release.
Appreciate the efforts! =)

Seconded.

I like the idea that Johnny is a jack of all trades, but master of none.

I'm looking forward to trying him out, and I'm looking forward to his DIY partner! (and all of the new blood)

Great job so far, design team!

[Eric RD]

Here's the first of two cards being spoiled on Discord today. These are the only non-Superstar-specifics cards to be found in the set.

Breaking Ground
Reversal: Special
Effects cannot prevent you from moving this card.
When your opponent successfully plays a 10D+ maneuver, or has 10+ greater Fortitude and he successfully plays a maneuver, you may put this card into your Ring from your Hand or Ringside. If you do, after damage is applied from that card, end his turn.
F: 0     D: 2     Unique     Permanent

[the-edge666]

The card looks nice. Will there be some spoilers for the support for older Superstars, too?

[The_Wolfpac]

Just because a card has a high cost doesn't mean it needs to have an amazing effect. Some finishers are terrible and are 20+F. Additionally, reversing any card is good enough in my books for 20F.

As to building him fully anything, that would be stupid, he is clearly far more effective with a full blown mix.

I dont mean to be negative. I just fear that all future sets of raw deal are stupidly powerful.

[ponder505]

Just because a card has a high cost doesn't mean it needs to have an amazing effect. Some finishers are terrible and are 20+F. Additionally, reversing any card is good enough in my books for 20F.

As to building him fully anything, that would be stupid, he is clearly far more effective with a full blown mix.

I dont mean to be negative. I just fear that all future sets of raw deal are stupidly powerful.

Not to call you out specifically, here, but this post reminds me of similar ones made after just about every set was spoiled. Invariably, there's a superstar whose ability lends itself to a "master of none" strategy (as opposed to open-ended superstars like KO, where you can choose any strategy, but you do tend to fully commit once you do), and invariably, people envision a scenario where you get all the benefits from each of the individual components of the strategy, with none of the drawbacks, such as "I'm more likely to have the wrong mix of cards in my hand at any given time, compared to a better focused deck" or "I'm now susceptible, at least in part, to decks that counter any one of the things I do." Every time, people assume the master of none deck is going to be amazing, busted, the dev team doesn't know what they're doing... and every time, the dev team says "Look, we've tested this, and it's really not as over the top as you think it is." And just about every time, the dev team's been right.

If it turns out that we've all missed a trick here, and Gargano's busted beyond belief, we'll fix it... but we've looked for all the busted tricks we could think of, and we've already fixed them. We've done that with all the decks so far (frex, that's why Elias can't pack Divine Intervention.) We're not looking to make every set more powerful than the last; we're trying to contribute to a well-rounded metagame. If we miss the mark, hell, we're human. Humans do that. We'll identify the problem, we'll fix it, and we'll move on from there. That's why we have revisions and errata. We'd appreciate some patience, and some faith in our willingness to make it work.

[Hogtrail]

Just because a card has a high cost doesn't mean it needs to have an amazing effect. Some finishers are terrible and are 20+F. Additionally, reversing any card is good enough in my books for 20F.

As to building him fully anything, that would be stupid, he is clearly far more effective with a full blown mix.

I dont mean to be negative. I just fear that all future sets of raw deal are stupidly powerful.

Next time you play a game, I'd like you to take a look at all of the Fortitude of the cards you and your opponent play. I would hazard a guess that most of them are between 0 and 12F. Sure, if you reverse a TMF from hand with it you get to shuffle in 20 - 30. But that's assuming about 4 or 5 different things happen in that scenario.

A. You need 20F
B. Opponent needs F to play his TMF
C. You need to have candice in your hand
D. His TMF is unprotected
E. He doesn't have Hell in a Cell out
F.  He doesn't know you have Candice in hand

If all of these happen,  then you deserve to shuffle in your cards.

And before labeling Johnny as Stupidly Powerful, perhaps, idk, play a game with him. Us in the dev team have spent the last half year developing and playtesting this set.

And as said above, if we missed something that gets exploited, we will fix it. We can do that. This isnt classic raw deal. We aren't making cards to sell a product, we are making cards to keep this game going, and to keep interest up.

[Eric RD]

The card looks nice. Will there be some spoilers for the support for older Superstars, too?

With how soon this is released after V9b there won't be any support cards for previous sets.

[thebear308]

Rebel Heart
Backstage Card
Your maneuvers with 'technical' & 'dynamic' in the title are considered to have both 'dynamic' & 'technical' in the title.
You may pack up to 1 Chain Reaction, 1 Spontaneous Combustion, 1 Opening Volley and, 1 Technically Sound & Brutal in your backstage. They are Unique and Superstar-Specific.
At the end of the Pre-match phase you may put those cards into your Ring.
Unique        RMS logo     NXT logo

Shouldn't the first part of the first sentence say "maneuvers with 'technical' or 'dynamic' in the title"?

[Eric RD]

Rebel Heart
Backstage Card
Your maneuvers with 'technical' & 'dynamic' in the title are considered to have both 'dynamic' & 'technical' in the title.
You may pack up to 1 Chain Reaction, 1 Spontaneous Combustion, 1 Opening Volley and, 1 Technically Sound & Brutal in your backstage. They are Unique and Superstar-Specific.
At the end of the Pre-match phase you may put those cards into your Ring.
Unique        RMS logo     NXT logo

Shouldn't the first part of the first sentence say "maneuvers with 'technical' or 'dynamic' in the title"?

You're right. It'll be fixed for release. Thanks!

[Kingsantino92]

I appreciate everything you guys take the time to make for us and for keep the game alive. Whatever you guys work on and feel good enough to release then that's good enough for me. I know a ton of work and dedication goes into the cards and I just want you to know it doesnt go unnoticed and its greatly appreciated.

[the-edge666]

The card looks nice. Will there be some spoilers for the support for older Superstars, too?

With how soon this is released after V9b there won't be any support cards for previous sets.

Wasn't it said that V9b was not all the support that was planned and the rest would be in V10, because 9b took so long?

[ponder505]

The card looks nice. Will there be some spoilers for the support for older Superstars, too?

With how soon this is released after V9b there won't be any support cards for previous sets.

Wasn't it said that V9b was not all the support that was planned and the rest would be in V10, because 9b took so long?

Yeesh, that took forever.... haha.  Well, here it is, the end of an era, leading to a new one.  Virtual 9 is finally wrapped up, though with a lighter volume than originally anticipated. 

But we wanted to wrap things up and move on, so a lot of the 'missing' Superstar support that wasn't finished (Drew McIntyre, Roman Reigns, Ambrose farewell card, The Bar) will show up down the road. Some things were ready because they were planned from the start (Jinder's cards, for example) or because they were 'shiny objects' that drew everyone's attention (Becky's I Am The Man or the new Club card).  It'd be great if there were more than 40 new cards, sorry about that.  It should be better in the future.

So here's the link to the full Virtual 9 set list, and the files are all in place and Ready for Downloading.  As noted elsewhere, the Lackey patch has been updated, and <surprise!> I've already loaded the Superstar Guides, so let me know if I missed anything.  (Flickr will get updated soon, probably in the next 24 hours, for anyone who still cares about it, haha)

And here we are.  Enjoy, have fun with the new cards, and revel in the fact that Eric and his team are already cooking up new Superstars for Virtual 10.  :)

No particular date was promised. Those cards will, indeed, show up down the road; we just haven't gotten to their stop yet.

[darkdestiny91]

This is my take on the Gargano fiasco going on. The superstar is OVERLOADED with good traits and maneuver archetypes. Dynamic, IMO, is supposed to be the less protected, but lends for sponge-heavy decks to dip in to recover and stay in the game against aggressive decks, which mainly focuses on heat or volley, with chain in some cases as well.

For Gargano, this is what I see immediately becoming an issue:
1. Ruins the scissors-paper-stone paradigm that the traits had before (aka Chain<Heat<Volley<Chain).
- This means that Johnny Gargano will be able, in the hands of any experienced player, take apart any deck by countering the traits.

2. He literally outclasses so many superstars before him with similar abilities. The most similar superstars I can think of that Gargano clearly outclass are The Showstopper and Gene Snitsky. Snitsky is literally outclassed in every way by Gargano - his ability is literally written in Gargano's current ability. As for Showstopper, he gets everything Showstopper can do, maybe a little less versatile BUT is also an NXT superstar and does not have the Legend drawback for Shoot Lock-Up so people that want to catch up might be completely out of luck here.

3. He gets tons of versatile recovery options that are versatile yet doesn't suffer drawback from his ability.
- Case in point, he can use recover options like Rochester's ACE or Luck of the Draw (if packing Dynamics or Technical) before any drawbacks. The Showstopper had to juggle WrestleMania outside of his turn so he can recover without getting his Ringside sacked.
- He gets a ton of recovery options almost immediately. Gargano gets Chain Reaction, Technically Sound and Brutal in the Ring Area BEFORE outside recovery effects that stack. Calgary, Luck of the Draw x3, New Orleans, and/or other options still stack upon that.
- i.e. I can proc 3x LotD for 3 card recovery, then use my ability to change my maneuvers to Heat, and still get 1 more card from New Orleans. If I go for Chain, and fail to hit, I can recover 2 more for Calgary, I can also take the gamble and use Chain Reaction to recover instead before I try hitting a maneuver.

4. Gargano has free card advantage too - his technicals can do all that I mentioned above, while still netting him another card upon being successful in play.

Currently, Gargano is the only deck i know that juggles Traits along with Archetypes (such as Technical and Dynamic) in one deck. Yes, in practice, he may be a lot more balanced, but I hope we are not normalizing a certain power level in our superstars as the standard bearer going forward because Gargano can become a dangerous precedent.

We all love Raw Deal, we just don't want another Great American Bash set thrust upon us. /shudders

[the-edge666]

The card looks nice. Will there be some spoilers for the support for older Superstars, too?

With how soon this is released after V9b there won't be any support cards for previous sets.

Wasn't it said that V9b was not all the support that was planned and the rest would be in V10, because 9b took so long?

Yeesh, that took forever.... haha.  Well, here it is, the end of an era, leading to a new one.  Virtual 9 is finally wrapped up, though with a lighter volume than originally anticipated. 

But we wanted to wrap things up and move on, so a lot of the 'missing' Superstar support that wasn't finished (Drew McIntyre, Roman Reigns, Ambrose farewell card, The Bar) will show up down the road. Some things were ready because they were planned from the start (Jinder's cards, for example) or because they were 'shiny objects' that drew everyone's attention (Becky's I Am The Man or the new Club card).  It'd be great if there were more than 40 new cards, sorry about that.  It should be better in the future.

So here's the link to the full Virtual 9 set list, and the files are all in place and Ready for Downloading.  As noted elsewhere, the Lackey patch has been updated, and <surprise!> I've already loaded the Superstar Guides, so let me know if I missed anything.  (Flickr will get updated soon, probably in the next 24 hours, for anyone who still cares about it, haha)

And here we are.  Enjoy, have fun with the new cards, and revel in the fact that Eric and his team are already cooking up new Superstars for Virtual 10.  :)

No particular date was promised. Those cards will, indeed, show up down the road; we just haven't gotten to their stop yet.

Sorry, my bad.

[Drywall]

Gargano looks like a lot of fun.

For those with sticker shock: You can only have 60 cards in your arsenal and 24 cards in your backlash. Gargano isn't going to be some multi-trait unstoppable machine. He reminds me of Regal in the aspect of you can do a great many things; question is: Which will you choose?

[niiiiick]

I've fallen into the trap of "X is beyond broken and will run over everyone" during spoilers and initial release....only to find out that it really wont. How about everyone waits until everyone is released and you play the actual game before criticizing and deciding what is "stupidly broken"