Mitigating the Dun Banner abuse
I'm talking about one of the most pervasive spy abuse mechanics currently out there, that's only second to the infamous trio of Brouver-Yaevinn-Cleaver in my opinion.
Back when I first saw the Dun Banner card, after getting into Gwent it seemed like a fun mechanic. Something to help out low tempo decks, something that needs clever maneuvering to trigger. But it quickly became apparent how easily they can be abused by relying on the two most broken RNG crap current Gwent suffers from: namely coin flip and Agents (aka CA Spies).
For the happy few, who don't already know what I'm talking about:
It's obvious how it's way more easy to pull Banners out if you play second as on your turn start your opponent always has already played one more card than you (as opposed to going first where both of you have played the same amount of cards), so he probably has more points on the table. It's even more abusive with Thaler, where you put negative points on the table, effectively creating a 20+ point difference of what normal dynamic would be (i.e. instead of putting down some positive points you put -13). So unless opponent can answer with his own Agent, Dun Banners will come, effectively resulting in a -1pt Agent instead of a -13pt one.
So here's my idea:
Make the card trigger on 15 point difference, but modify this limit by 10 times the difference between the number of cards you and your opponent are holding. (Both numbers are adjustable.)
E.g. I play second so on my turn start I have 1 more card than my opponent, so Banners only trigger on 25. If I then play an unopposed Agent, thus having 2 cards more the limit increases to 35. On the other hand if go first they trigger on -15 and I also got an unopposed Agent played against me, I only need be down -5 on my turn start.
In theory you could say Banners now don't only consider resources already committed but also resources left to play when assessing whether you need "reinforcements". But what's more important is that in practice it would help fighting both imbalances I mentioned. Of course this doesn't completely negate Thaler as the 20+ point negative swing he creates would only be opposed with a 10 points limit increase, but at least it would be mitigated.
An obvious drawback is that the cards text becomes more complicated and harder to understand for new players. It may also result in Banners being so hard to trigger that it wouldn't be worth playing them, but tweaking the two numeric parameters might help with this, if my first guesses won't work. The general idea is the important.
But there's possibly more pitfalls than these, that I just haven't thought about.
So what do you think?
I'm talking about one of the most pervasive spy abuse mechanics currently out there, that's only second to the infamous trio of Brouver-Yaevinn-Cleaver in my opinion.
Back when I first saw the Dun Banner card, after getting into Gwent it seemed like a fun mechanic. Something to help out low tempo decks, something that needs clever maneuvering to trigger. But it quickly became apparent how easily they can be abused by relying on the two most broken RNG crap current Gwent suffers from: namely coin flip and Agents (aka CA Spies).
For the happy few, who don't already know what I'm talking about:
It's obvious how it's way more easy to pull Banners out if you play second as on your turn start your opponent always has already played one more card than you (as opposed to going first where both of you have played the same amount of cards), so he probably has more points on the table. It's even more abusive with Thaler, where you put negative points on the table, effectively creating a 20+ point difference of what normal dynamic would be (i.e. instead of putting down some positive points you put -13). So unless opponent can answer with his own Agent, Dun Banners will come, effectively resulting in a -1pt Agent instead of a -13pt one.
So here's my idea:
Make the card trigger on 15 point difference, but modify this limit by 10 times the difference between the number of cards you and your opponent are holding. (Both numbers are adjustable.)
E.g. I play second so on my turn start I have 1 more card than my opponent, so Banners only trigger on 25. If I then play an unopposed Agent, thus having 2 cards more the limit increases to 35. On the other hand if go first they trigger on -15 and I also got an unopposed Agent played against me, I only need be down -5 on my turn start.
In theory you could say Banners now don't only consider resources already committed but also resources left to play when assessing whether you need "reinforcements". But what's more important is that in practice it would help fighting both imbalances I mentioned. Of course this doesn't completely negate Thaler as the 20+ point negative swing he creates would only be opposed with a 10 points limit increase, but at least it would be mitigated.
An obvious drawback is that the cards text becomes more complicated and harder to understand for new players. It may also result in Banners being so hard to trigger that it wouldn't be worth playing them, but tweaking the two numeric parameters might help with this, if my first guesses won't work. The general idea is the important.
But there's possibly more pitfalls than these, that I just haven't thought about.
So what do you think?