CRUCIBLE CHANGES AND THE IMPLICATIONS THEY CARRY

With the beginning of the Season of the Hunt, some changes came to the competitive scene of Destiny. How does this affect how we play in the Crucible?

November 22, 2020

As swiftly as it came, Season 11 was gone. With it, it took a lot, ranging from seasonal events to entire planets. But one change that came into effect at the beginning of Season 12 was to the Survival game mode in the Crucible.

In case you’ve been living under a rock, Survival is a 3v3 game in which teams share a collective pool of lives each round. Every time someone dies, their respective team loses a life. Players are knocked out of the game and unable to respawn when their team’s lives reach zero. The first team to win four rounds wins the entire match.

Before this season, Survival was played with four lives per team in each round. With the Season of the Hunt’s debut, however, the amount of lives was adjusted from four to six. Naturally this changes how Guardians will play in the Crucible, so let’s talk about it.

First off, one of the more obvious ones, coming back from a deficit is much harder. Before this season, coming back from zero lives to four was not the most impossible of tasks; with good teamwork and communication, it was a feasible thing to do. Six to zero is incredibly difficult to come back from, however. That’s twice you would have to wipe the entire enemy team, and even with a super on your side, it’s no easy task.

On the topic of supers, they inherently become weaker as the life pool gets larger. Taking out three Guardians with a super isn’t a difficult task. Putting your opponents down three lives was incredibly impactful; taking out all four lives with one super was difficult but also possible. With six lives, however, supers don’t allow teams to take such a large advantage with that speed. Supers have less impact in securing a lead. Their functionality in ending games quickly when life pools are low is still high, but in terms of using a super as an opening play, they’re all a bit weaker.

In the end, I personally think that four lives was perfectly enough for Survival. Four lives carried a fast pace with it, and six lives just tends to drag on, as evidenced by how many matches end with life advantage.