Muzzle suggestions

[MaroonJack]

Muzzle suggestions

I think that Muzzle is a really interesting card, but it became a little too prevalent in the current meta, so I'd propose a slight tweak to prevent Muzzle -> Muzzle bounce.

"Move a Bronze or Silver Enemy with 7 Power or less to the opposite row and boost it by 2."

Its removal potential is slightly limited (7 Power instead of 8), but can't be bounced back with another Muzzle and it's still a potential 16 point value. What do you think?

 

[4RM3D]

The idea is interesting, but I am not sure how it will impact the meta. That one strength point difference will cut off a whole array of units. As for the double Muzzle play, I am not sure whether that's actually interesting that it can cancel each other out, or constricting because everyone just keeps playing the card.

:hmm:

 

[MaroonJack]

Another idea: "Move a Bronze or Silver Enemy with 8 Power or less to the opposite row and Lock it".

Notice it's not "toggle the unit's Lock", just Lock the unit. If it's already locked it stays that way. When you play it to hijack the unit, you can't use it's abilities. It's literally muzzled. In this scenario I'd also remove the Spy token.

 

[devivre]

I kind of like the suggestion. Muzzle really seems to be used a lot these days, so a small nerf might be reasonable.

Then again in most situations the +2 boost for the muzzled card will make this gold card even stronger, so I'm not sure that will make it less prevalent. And personally I don't mind the muzzle bounce.



Another idea would be to limit the power to 6 but heal the muzzled unit entirely. In that case you don't have to worry about damaging an opponents card too much but often you will have to damage a certain unit to get it on your side, which also gives the opponent more ways to fight it.

That way cards like Ocvist would be a lot more playable.

 

[frytom]

Muzzle is fine like it is now, no need for any changing. Only the reason, it is used a lot, doesn't imply anything.

 

[4RM3D]

Another idea: "Move a Bronze or Silver Enemy with 8 Power or less to the opposite row and Lock it".

That actually makes sense, logically speaking, because Muzzle is suppose to be doing exactly just that, based on its name. Whether this nerf is warranted, is another question. It could be, maybe.

 

[altaybek]

"Move a Bronze or Silver Enemy with 7 Power or less to the opposite row and boost it by 2."

yes.

Another idea would be to limit the power to 6 but heal the muzzled unit entirely. In that case you don't have to worry about damaging an opponents card too much but often you will have to damage a certain unit to get it on your side, which also gives the opponent more ways to fight it.

what about combine them and make it "6 points, heal if the unit is damaged or boost it by 2 if not damaged"

 

[MaroonJack]

I think 6 Power is nerfing it too much.

Going down from 8 to 7 we lose some removal options, but there aren't that many Power 8 units you might want to shut down (Alba Spearmen, Farseer, Rotfiend, can't think of others at the moment).

Obviously there are some stronger units you might want to damage before playing Muzzle, but going down to 6 Power means that you can't shut down vanilla Battering Ram, Greatsword, CT Skirmishers, Cockatrice, Commando Neophyte, Dol Blathanna Marksman, Mahakam Marauder, Mangonel, Nilfgaardian Standard Bearer, Ocvist, Redanian Knight, Reinforced Ballista, Reinforced Trebuchet, Savage Bear, Temerian Drummer, Trebuchet, Vrihedd Dragoon, War Longship, Wild Hunt Longship or Yarpen Zigrin. That's a huge blow to the usefulness of this card and it would go from auto-include we have now to pretty much useless.

 

[Tir_na_Lia]

Muzzle is a little annoying (I had to put it in all my decks to stay competitive in ladder), but not the end of the world.
Certainly not past versions "Merigold's Hailstorm"'s level.

They will probably change it as soon as they have the chance.

One thing though...something that I realized observing the meta.
Compared to past metas, the addition of a hard removal like Muzzle greatly weakened the power of decks who are built around the spamming of powerful Bronzes (no need to write a list) or repeated use of key Silvers (like Stennis).
It created a more balanced environment imho.
The game feels much less oppressive when you can steal the enemy's win condition.

 

[4RM3D]

The game feels much less oppressive when you can steal the enemy's win condition.

The game feels much more oppressive now the enemy stole my win condition. Ahem, this is a tricky line to walk. Muzzle is a neutral card that can be used in almost every deck with little risk and potentially big rewards. Still, Muzzle itself is not a problem, although I wouldn't be surprised if the card does get tweaked. The problem is the archetype Muzzle can enable. Once you have a viable full control deck, then all hell will break lose and every card with an active ability will be at risk.

I rarely ever see cards like Yen:Con and Triss:BS. Even the new Ale of the Ancestors card, which looks like a lot of fun to use, is nowhere to be seen. (Not thanks to Muzzle, but still.) This is not an ideal situation. The flip-side is that in the age of gold immunity, having Yen:Con ping every card into oblivion with minimal counters was also unhealthy. It's one thing to have a meme card like Avallac'h: The Sage being rarely used because it's suppose to be a YOLO card. That's fine; it allows for some interesting casual decks. However, the other gold cards should have a decent fighting chance.

 

[Tir_na_Lia]

The game feels much more oppressive now the enemy stole my win condition. Ahem, this is a tricky line to walk. Muzzle is a neutral card that can be used in almost every deck with little risk and potentially big rewards. Still, Muzzle itself is not a problem, although I wouldn't be surprised if the card does get tweaked. The problem is the archetype Muzzle can enable. Once you have a viable full control deck, then all hell will break lose and every card with an active ability will be at risk.

I rarely ever see cards like Yen:Con and Triss:BS. Even the new Ale of the Ancestors card, which looks like a lot of fun to use, is nowhere to be seen. (Not thanks to Muzzle, but still.) This is not an ideal situation. The flip-side is that in the age of gold immunity, having Yen:Con ping every card into oblivion with minimal counters was also unhealthy. It's one thing to have a meme card like Avallac'h: The Sage being rarely used because it's suppose to be a YOLO card. That's fine; it allows for some interesting casual decks. However, the other gold cards should have a decent fighting chance.

You put Muzzle in your avatar, I suppose you don't mind it after all .

I agree about your opinion on the dangers of "full-control decks", but it looks like things like old Spell'tael with 3 Dol Banana will not work anymore.
Luckily they weakened control cards, I don't think that kind of deck ("Muzzle Control") will be possible again.

Neutral Golds are often sub-par, but in many ways it makes sense.
If a Neutral works better than a faction-exclusive Gold, there is a design flaw.
Try to compare Imlerith with Muzzle, for instance.
I feel embarassed not to have swapped them asap.

Ale will see play in the future, I'm sure.
Too funny a card .

 

[4RM3D]

Try to compare Imlerith with Muzzle, for instance.
I feel embarassed not to have swapped them asap.

Yeah, I used to run Imlerith, pre-Muzzle.

Neutral Golds are often sub-par, but in many ways it makes sense.
If a Neutral works better than a faction-exclusive Gold, there is a design flaw.

Faction gold cards should enable their respective factions or have an ability that would be too strong in other factions. Neutral gold cards are a different story. Most of them have an ability that can be used in every deck because it isn't limited to a faction's archetype. But even those are stronger in one faction than others, e.g. Yennefer in Swarm or Avallac'h in Mill. It's not that those gold cards are stronger (or weaker) than faction gold cards, but that they (further) enable an archetype of a faction. Another good example (silver though) is Olgierd for Cursed and Discard decks. Muzzle, outside of a pure control deck, is just a filler gold with no inherent synergy, but having an overall good value.

All this is not an argument for or against Muzzle. It's just an observation.

 

[veritasprime]

Change Muzzle to Geralt Axii

Change Muzzle to Gerlat Axii

I thought this was a great suggestion by shikate on the reddit forums.

So I think not only should you replace Muzzle with a body, but then make it a persistent effect, and lower threshold on units from 8 power to 6. Solves a lot of what I think are problems with Muzzle now.

First it preserves the power of the card by making G:Axii a 5-6 strength card (tuning required I'm sure), so the max raw power value is in the 16+ range.

Second, it means you can directly counter it in a variety of ways, not just by using the same card (the way Muzzle is now), plus it hurts you just for the round, not the entire match. You can kill Geralt and get your card back, or lock geralt and get your card back. When the effect ends (either during the round by neutralizing Axii, or at the end of the round, when Axii goes to the GY) your unit comes back to your GY. I haven't given thought to what happens if your charmed unit dies during the round (in terms of which GY it goes to).

Third, it reduces the range of cards the charm will work on.

And as an added bonus, lore-wise it works soo much better than a random spell.

 

[Draconifors]

veritasprime Thread merged.

Also edited the thread title so it's now in plural.