Balancing Dwarves Deck in Mid-Winter Patch

[Rawls]

Balancing Dwarves Deck in Mid-Winter Patch

Creating this for suggestions as to how to balance the deck since they're around 40% of the Meta.

I have a few thoughts:

1.) Agitators should be Value 1 instead of 2
2.) Increase strength of Barclays Els to 5 and remove strength boost to target (can't be summoned by Hattori)
3.) Increase Paulie to 5 (can't be summoned by Hattori ... makes it stronger on its own but weaker in chain)
4.) Increase Hattori to 4 & limit rezing to units under his base value. There aren't a ton of value 4 targets in ST anyways.
5.) Pryrotechnician reduce to 4 (lower value at 13 but can now be a target for Hattori)

I think these changes would reduce the amount of chaining the deck can do ... which would balance it without nerfing it to the ground.

 

[Esmer]

Paulie is doomed, no need to buff him.
I think Barclay also needs to be doomed.

Why buff Hattori? He already is a better (usually provides more str from ressurrect) Sigrdrifa in a faction that isn't graveyard centered. If you buff him to 4, he can ress a lot of elves and dwarves with only 1-3 buffs from Dragoon.

 

[Rawls]

Why buff Hattori? He already is a better (usually provides more str from ressurrect) Sigrdrifa in a faction that isn't graveyard centered. If you buff him to 4, he can ress a lot of elves and dwarves with only 1-3 buffs from Dragoon.

The only cards it adds to rez is Roach (would be bad choice), Aeromancy, Ida, Milean, & Panther ... plus Pyro if you shaved a point off. Within ST decks it wouldn't add much, except for a bit of variety in the types of decks that can run it. Comparing it to cards only available in other factions isn't really that helpful, as the different factions give different targets. Also, limit his rez ability to his base value.

Paulie is doomed, no need to buff him.

Forgot that.

 

[BornBoring]

- Ithlinne + Tremors needs to be adressed

- Let Hattori ressurect Items and give Paulie a new ability (seriously, I hate it that they give ST cards, which can res units: What about faction uniqueness?! And lorewise there would be much better options than Paulie and Hattori)

-I'm fine with the other cards tbh, maybe make Iorveth:M. one strength

 

[W12]

Wardancers. Too good for a bronze card:
- uncountarable drypass protection(no lock or graveyard hate). Pevents you from return CA lost after going first R1
- extra 3-9 points (while silver roach is 4)
- Free deck thinning

 

[Pruny]

Hatori should only resurect ELFS !
:rage:

 

[Esmer]

1.) Agitators should be Value 1 instead of 2

2 points is fine (payment for rng), but I think they should be doomed to deny ressurrect value (Barclay should be too).

 

[Khreygond]

- Let Hattori ressurect Items and give Paulie a new ability (seriously, I hate it that they give ST cards, which can res units: What about faction uniqueness?! And lorewise there would be much better options than Paulie and Hattori)

That's the best suggestion. I hate Hattori's ability due to its complete inconsistency with the character.

 

[partci]

I was thinking make Skirmishers do 4 DMG and if not kill the Unit they hit to Strengthen by 2.

3/3 is just too good.

 

[iamthedave]

Hattori should be elf-only, Paulie shouldn't exist.

These are the only cards that make the dorfs deck broken. Hattori into Barclay into Paulie into 15-21 skirmisher is THE play that defines this deck. I even encountered a gimmick version that goes even further, using Mandrakes to buff a played skirmisher in advance so the play on round 3 is a minimum of 20+.

Take those out and the deck is good but not absurd. Skirmishers are among the best bronze cards in the game (guaranteed 12 in all but the most unusual circumstances)... but there's a lot of 12 value bronzes these days, so I don't know that they need changing. It's Paulie, and ONLY Paulie, who makes them broken, via them being buffed by Barclay and then ressing them.

I disagree with a lot of the arguments about faction uniqueness (it's the same fundamentally as colour-uniqueness in Magic The Gathering, but every colour has some variant on other colour's abilities, the key is making it different, which they've mostly done in Gwent), but what is true is that giving these abilities to other factions needs to take into account possible interactions that weren't possible before. The dorfs deck is an example of how this can go nightmarishly wrong.

The alternative, of course, is to massive buff SK graveyard strategies, so they simply get far more out of them than the other factions. As it is... they really don't. Restore into beastmaster gets the SK player a much lower point swing than the dorfs res chain. That's simply not right.

 

[barat]

1.) Agitators should be Value 1 instead of 2

This will be a buff. It's odd number so it will make output from eg. frost -1 on one turn. Also cheaper blocker for Cow Carcass and they will be still reviveable from Hattori after Decoying Dennis Cranmer

 

[slow_cheeetah]

Dwarven Skirmisher: first of all, shouldn't have strenghten ability, he should boost instead! (stenghten ability is really powerful, when you can resurrect it!)
In my opinion he should be 5 str, deal 4 damage, If the unit was not destroyed, boost self by 3.

 

[4RM3D]

This will be a buff. It's odd number so it will make output from eg. frost -1 on one turn. Also cheaper blocker for Cow Carcass and they will be still reviveable from Hattori after Decoying Dennis Cranmer

This is a fallacy. First of all, it's definitely a nerf to Agitators. It just doesn't have an impact when they get Frosted or killed by Cow Carcass. And lastly, the extra Dennis buff is only to compensate for the loss in the first place.

 

[Iuliandrei]

Dwarven agitator still baffles me because i don't understand the point of this card. I don't know what the intention of the devs was but i have a feeling it missed completely. I guess they figured people would play 3-4 dwarves in the deck and this one would pull a random one?
So far this card is a 14 point Skirmisher, so not only that it allows you to put 6 skirmishers in your deck, but half of them get 2 extra points for no reason.

This should have worked like Elven Scout, where the 2 points reward you for taking a risk with randomness. This is how it works in every card game, randomness is cheaper when it comes to card budget. However this doesn't apply to agitator, although it says random it can be easily controllable and it's just free points.

Imo the card should be completely redesigned, there is no redeeming value here, and anything it COULD have been, it's already taken by the Elven scout.


Secondly the silver cards, Hatori and Paulie. Why are these cards in ST in the first place? I understand that CDPR wants more graveyard interaction, but so far interaction is just another word for resurrection. Also all this homogenization from giving every faction resurrections makes the games feel alike aswell, it doesn't matter what faction you play because all play about the same and employ the same strategies.

If you really want GY interaction with Paulie, maybe have it put a dwarf back in the deck and boost self by its power. This would have other synergies with Barclay or Broover.

Hatori also failed miserably with its designed, it was meant to be a support for handbuffing decks yet it's just more resurrection for the dwarf deck. I would rework this aswell, maybe give it an Item interaction because he's a blacksmith. The card was added to the game before the Item tag was introduced so it's time to make adjustments.
He can work well as a "choose one" unit aswell, blacksmithing and cooking.


Lastly some of the golds are quite ridiculous aswell and through no fault of their own.
While both Ithlinne and Aglais have not changed, the game itself changed and everything is connected, whenever you buff A it also affects B but it seems CDPR didn't take this into account.
Tremors no longer hits your own units now, yet it still summons a guardian. WHY? i understand that it used to summon an earth elemental, for flavor, but it's no longer the case and doesn't make sense from a balance perspective either.
This small change alone makes Ithlinne 30+ power.

Aglais was also an underused card and tbh i really liked the "effort" tag on it. It was quite balanced because it was a hit or miss type of card, it could provide good value but sometimes it wasn't that great so it all balanced out. Now in the last patch a plethora of powerful special cards were introduced, many silvers aswell which are quite powerful and run in most decks, making Aglais guaranteed value.
Some of these can reach close to 20 value and you also add 9 on top of that.

TLDR: agitator should be removed/redesigned, tone down the resurrects, have the gold cards balanced around the changes made in Mid-winter patch.

 

[4RM3D]

Dwarven agitator still baffles me because i don't understand the point of this card.

Inherently, there is nothing wrong with Agitator. There are many spawn cards on a stick, like Elven Scout. If you want a more (semi) reliable solution, you can also use tutor cards like Elven Merc and reuse the card with Sage. The problem lies with the complete Dwarven package being too consistent and too synergetic, which includes the support of strong Silver Dwarfs. On top of that, the dwarf deck doesn't require a build up and has no risk or weaknesses (other than Sweers, in some cases). Even so, CDPR still needs to be careful when balancing this because a few minor tweaks can cause the whole archetype to collapse.

 

[StrykerxS77x]

- Ithlinne + Tremors needs to be adressed

- Let Hattori ressurect Items and give Paulie a new ability (seriously, I hate it that they give ST cards, which can res units: What about faction uniqueness?! And lorewise there would be much better options than Paulie and Hattori)

-I'm fine with the other cards tbh, maybe make Iorveth:M. one strength

They really need to figure out what they want from Ithlinne. I mean she has been change many times now and even when all she can use is tremors and alzurs thunder she is still too strong. How many times are they going to have to change her for her to be balanced?

 

[Iuliandrei]

Inherently, there is nothing wrong with Agitator. There are many spawn cards on a stick, like Elven Scout.

Well i explained the major difference between elven scout and agitator and no, not all spawn cards are the same. I don't really know what to compare the agitator to, i guess the closes comparison would be if Dopler would let you choose which card you want and boost it by 2 on top of that, this is the value of agitator right now. But even that would be less powerful because you can res agitator.

I know there are tutors for various cards, but those cards are kinda balanced around this effect, or it's a faction trait that can do something better than others. The agitator is designed as a random spawn card, like Elven scout, while not being random. It just has the benefits without any risk.

 

[Theodrik]

I suggested this elsewhere, but it fits the discussion...

I think all Spawn/Create bronze units like Slave Driver, Elven Scout and also the Dwarven Agitator should be changed so that it transforms into the target, instead of playing it. This way, it won't freely add 2 strength to a bronze move and also they won't be ressurect targets anymore.

This would also indirectly decrease the power of Hattori in those cases when there's no Barclay in the graveyard. Adding 2 strength to Barclay and removing 1 point from its strengthening ability (+2 instead of +3) also would put it slightly off the Hattori res range, requiring the player to actually hand buff Hattori to play that sick combo. Also, maybe changing strengthening to just a regular buff would be a nice move to hit Paulie a little.

 

[Philologus]

Secondly the silver cards, Hatori and Paulie. Why are these cards in ST in the first place? I understand that CDPR wants more graveyard interaction, but so far interaction is just another word for resurrection. Also all this homogenization from giving every faction resurrections makes the games feel alike aswell, it doesn't matter what faction you play because all play about the same and employ the same strategies.

I agree with the rest of your post, but not the above. I play NR exclusively, and I can tell you that NR "graveyard interaction" is practically nil. What does NR have? Shani?

 

[Iuliandrei]

I agree with the rest of your post, but not the above. I play NR exclusively, and I can tell you that NR "graveyard interaction" is practically nil. What does NR have? Shani?

I am aware of that and i'm not saying that every faction right now has powerful resurrects, CDPR started using this term of "graveyard interaction" like a month ago and mentioned this is the direction they want to move towards. They already split Shani into two right now with Sabrina's Specter but if they keep to this philosophy we can expect more Paulies for all factions in future patches.