Hotfix on Brouver beeing able to play silver Spy needed?

[Tschjo]

Hotfix on Brouver beeing able to play silver Spy needed?

Change his ability to only play loyal units.

This blows my mind honestly. Brouver can use his ability to play his spy which means that whenever he goes second in round 1 you will be 1 card down in round 3 by default. The normal way to get out of the disadvantage set by going first round 1 is to win round 1 and then play a spy round 2 so you will be on even cards in round 3 no matter what. Against Brouver though this is impossible as he can counterplay his own spy and add +4 power to his side of the board which means that the Spy againt spy play goes in his favour thus hes ahead by 1 card in round 3 by default.

Brouvers ability therefore reads: DRAW A CARD (as long as you play -1 silver card). Which is INSANE to have on your leader. Draw a card and 4 power is one of shupes modes and requires a full deck restriction and some RNG while brouver just laughs at this while playing a normal deck always beeing one card up.

 

[AVK1995]

I don't think this is a problem. Many other leaders can do this as well:
1. Calviet into Cantarella is a 13-5 = 8 pt spy, 1 less than broover
2. Cahir into calviet into canteralla
3. Emhyr into cantarella and pull something in hand like 1 pt vico medic or cellach into hand - this is also more powerful than broover
4. Rainfarn + roach into canteralla

List goes on...
All these decks are balanced despite their spy abuse because spy abuse has a cost - it either requires you to dedicate your most powerful card - your leader to a negative point play or it has other consequences such as not being able to use broover to pull out other key silvers later in the game like barclay or hattori. I know you are complaining because of Swim's coinflip abuse dwarves but it is not at all a problem. You can easily beat it 1 card down in round 3 because that deck has absolutely 0 round 3 power. Just bleed them and take them to a short round 3 - they lack any strong finishers and can't achieve their power without an elf swarm on board. Apart from the barclay into cleaver combo that deck has got nothing.

Good luck!

 

[Tschjo]

I don't think this is a problem. Many other leaders can do this as well:
1. Calviet into Cantarella is a 13-5 = 8 pt spy, 1 less than broover
2. Cahir into calviet into canteralla
3. Emhyr into cantarella and pull something in hand like 1 pt vico medic or cellach into hand - this is also more powerful than broover
4. Rainfarn + roach into canteralla

List goes on...
All these decks are balanced despite their spy abuse because spy abuse has a cost - it either requires you to dedicate your most powerful card - your leader to a negative point play or it has other consequences such as not being able to use broover to pull out other key silvers later in the game like barclay or hattori. I know you are complaining because of Swim's coinflip abuse dwarves but it is not at all a problem. You can easily beat it 1 card down in round 3 because that deck has absolutely 0 round 3 power. Just bleed them and take them to a short round 3 - they lack any strong finishers and can't achieve their power without an elf swarm on board. Apart from the barclay into cleaver combo that deck has got nothing.

Good luck!

All the examples you listed arent consistent though while Brouver is. He will always hit that spy which is a huge difference. And since when is the leader the most powerful card? The leader usually is an engine card but far from beeing the most powerful thats why not everyone is running uma

And no im not complaining because of that i dont even know what you are talking about. What i will point out though is that the ability to play your spy got removed from reinforcements which should indicate that a general rule for the game should be that cards cannot tutor for spies.

 

[overcold_ice]

All these decks are balanced despite their spy abuse because spy abuse has a cost - it either requires you to dedicate your most powerful card - your leader to a negative point play or it has other consequences such as not being able to use broover to pull out other key silvers later in the game like barclay or hattori. I know you are complaining because of Swim's coinflip abuse dwarves but it is not at all a problem. You can easily beat it 1 card down in round 3 because that deck has absolutely 0 round 3 power. Just bleed them and take them to a short round 3 - they lack any strong finishers and can't achieve their power without an elf swarm on board. Apart from the barclay into cleaver combo that deck has got nothing.

The thing is, that list is not absolute eventhough it might be seen everywhere. I made a spy-abuse brouver but also with finishers, and that worked pretty well for me.

I think CA spies should exist in different form than it is. Atm, it kind-of worsen coinflip problems that exist even without them spies going on about. Plus it kind-of forces players to run them in every deck just to counter your opponent's spy. ADC is even involved for this reason.

 

[4RM3D]

The problem is silver spies in general, not Brouver's ability to pull them reliably.

 

[partci]

I was always baffled how he can target Yaevin. Alas, we had to come to this point for more people to realize it is a problem.

Also I seem to recall there was a familiar Brouver deck like, six months back (with Eskel and Royal Decree as a mean to kill Yaevin), but was held down because of other things and you had to also consider two Gold slots for that combo, which you can now distribute for way better options.

And please, do not compare a Leader (which is always there to play) with a Gold Card (which you must search). The thing that Cantarella should absolutely be at least couple of points above all the other Spies is completely another story and the balance between Silver Spies a third one (what is the draw back of playing Thaler or Yaevin, compared to Udalrik (discard a card), Cantarella (put a card at the bottom of your deck) or Frightener (by far the worse of the bunch, but maybe the most fair as a CA mechanic).

 

[Tir_na_Lia]

The problem is silver spies in general, not Brouver's ability to pull them reliably.

Yup, and more precisely, CA or Coinflip in general.

We are getting at the root of the problem, each patch a little closer.

This time we got Silver spies to be Single-use (created out of the blue to balance them) and banned from Create and copy cards, a huge improvement from Midwinter mess.

I'm very curious to see what the next patch will bring.

 

[StrykerxS77x]

The problem is silver spies in general, not Brouver's ability to pull them reliably.

I'm starting to think they should be removed entirely.

 

[Khreygond]

I mean, I am ok with them, generally, but the coinflip is the issue for me.

 

[MaximumSquid]

It's Brouver bugged right now? His cards says "Dwarfs", but I can pull elfs with his ability

 

[4RM3D]

It's Brouver bugged right now? His cards says "Dwarfs", but I can pull elfs with his ability

He can pull silver units or dwarfs.

Play a Silver unit or a Bronze Dwarf from your deck.

 

[Tschjo]

The problem is silver spies in general, not Brouver's ability to pull them reliably.

Disagree. The spies arent the problem since you can just run your own well you kind of have to but you would also always want to. If then there should be more cards that can play with your opponents spy for example a card that lets you trigger your opponents units should the be on your side of the board. That would let you play a lets say 8 power unit which then you could use to activate their spy to draw a card yourself and fight their CA.

If spies were to be removed everyone would just jam some weird carry over cards to be able to pass a round and then win in CA by default. Removing spies would make the coinflip even MORE important since atm just very small points of carry over can beat out your opponents spy.

On Cantarella: The revealed swap scout needs to only be able to target loyal units (your opponents loyal units and yours) first otherwise it would actually a buff to reveal since they hand you a 1 power spy every time anyway. Just making it target loyal units only would prevent this.

 

[DannyGuy]

It's a neat trick that not all players utilize. I agree that it's strong, but I'm personally fine with it. I think that limiting Brouver to not be able to play silver spies is a bad move.

 

[4RM3D]

Tschjo

Carry-over is countered by removing it or having more carry-over. An alternative counter is using a silver spy, which can be countered by also playing a silver spy. It's a binary choice that doesn't require tactics or thought. The only upside is that the matches are a bit more diverse when you have carry-over and spies to gamble for getting back card advantage. The coin flip is the main offender, silver spies can make the situation even worse, though other times they can be used to close the gap instead. Either way, they are part of a bigger problem that needs to be fixed as a whole, instead of dancing around with its parts.

 

[Tschjo]

Tschjo

Carry-over is countered by removing it or having more carry-over. An alternative counter is using a silver spy, which can be countered by also playing a silver spy. It's a binary choice that doesn't require tactics or thought. The only upside is that the matches are a bit more diverse when you have carry-over and spies to gamble for getting back card advantage. The coin flip is the main offender, silver spies can make the situation even worse, though other times they can be used to close the gap instead. Either way, they are part of a bigger problem that needs to be fixed as a whole, instead of dancing around with its parts.

On the coinflip i can agree on obviously. The thing is im an NR only player and now tell me what kind of carry over i can use. None cause NR just doesnt have any thats also why the silver spy is very important for them to have. What i would prefer are more cards that interact with spies in meaningful ways like Dun Banner.

 

[4RM3D]

now tell me what kind of carry over i can use.

Olgierd or Adrenaline Rush (yes, that's actually a card), but I see your point. The thing is, a spy is still not going to save you, when the opponent can counter spy it, with a bit of carry-over on the top. You either have a spy or you don't; it's binary. With carry-over there are at least different flavors: Wardancer (bad), Cursed Bran (less bad), Barbegazi (good). Don't get me wrong, I wasn't judging the strength of those cards, but rather their implementation of carry-over.

 

[Mancoon1980]

I think card advantage spies should just be changed or removed. They were ok in old Gwent , maybe make them half value resilient due next round. Then you'll have to think of consequences before playing one.

 

[Theo_FP]

I sincerely hope that CDPR is looking into removing the silver spies from Gwent, seeing as these cards are limiting the way that people can play the game.

 

[TrompeLaMort]

Silver spies are alright; they are not the problem at all. And they take good skill to play correctly. The problem is the coin-flip. The proof is that if I ask you to name all cases where a spy seems unfair, all of them the person using the spy is the one going second. When I go first I'm always worried about spies, when I'm going second, I don't mind them at all.

And while playing Harald, against some decks I simply go: opponent plays anything, I spy. And if my opponent doesn't have spy, then I feel really bad for him, because he just lost. I really don't think that I've ever lost a game this season with Harald in which I went second and played a spy unopposed. (I have about 70% win-rate in red side, and exactly 50% in blue side, a 20 p.p. difference. But as I said numerous times here, the worst about coin-flip is not the win-rates.)

The moment CDPR fixes coin-flip, they will automatically fix the silver spies.

Anyway, even with broken CA as right now, I think Brouver pulling spies is fine. If anything, he should be nerfed in regards to pulling any silver, it takes away the dwarves synergy and makes him simply better than all other ST leaders. (Such so that he is played in swim's elves mulligan deck, which is 50% of the meta right now.)

 

[overcold_ice]

Disagree. The spies arent the problem since you can just run your own well you kind of have to but you would also always want to.

If spies were to be removed everyone would just jam some weird carry over cards to be able to pass a round and then win in CA by default. Removing spies would make the coinflip even MORE important since atm just very small points of carry over can beat out your opponents spy.

Having to auto-include CA spies is a very bad thing that can happen in deckbuilding. So, that 6 silver slots we're seeing is actually 5 silver slots?

Carryovers should have their own fix that doesn't require anyone to include CA spies. It's very simple really, basically just make the losing player go first in the second round.

For coin-flip, just make the player that went second can't declare a pass after the first player just declared a pass (only applies on the first round). The player that went second can never win with even-cards this way. Some minor second player advantages are still there (and so does first player's disadvantages), but a pass from the first player can be an advantage on its own.

Those won't fix CA spies, but since the things that CA spies tried to fix are already fixed, just remove them CA spies. All problems solved, but after this carryovers should get some tweaking (I'm leaning more towards Mahakam Defenders here).