Michelazz;n9535401 said:
According to some streamers , dagon now is the 2nd best leader after NR leaders ( mainly henselt).
I know exactly who you're talking about and saw those arguments. The thing you need to realize is that those comments are mostly based on statistics(mostly from GwentUp as we don't have access to CDPR's full statistics) and these arguments all fall into the classic trap of statistics as a whole: statistics may show a correlation but never present the reason for said correlation. What this means is that statistics can show Dagon is still the most popular leader and that Dagon Monsters is still the most played deck. What these statistics can't do however is explain why Dagon is used over the other leaders(though we all know the answer using common sense) nor how large Dagon's impact on the deck actually is. This thread is talking about Dagon as a leader, not his entire deck. Dagon as a leader is still the most popular Monsters leader and leader in general in certain ranks, that much statistics do tell us. However when you try to think about the reasoning behind this you realize that Dagon is so popular because he's the only option. Unseen Elder has been completely destroyed with the gold immunity removal as that was its sole reason for existing in his current form. Eredin is strictly for Wild Hunt decks, so if you're not running Wild Hunt the only viable leader you have is Dagon. So far we've yet to talk about Dagon's actual power, only explained the statistics in a way that doesn't include his power level at all, which by itself says a lot.
So, lets go back to Dagon's actual power under the new patch. Dagon still does the same thing, pull Fog from your deck(or a different weather under very rare circumstances). The only difference is that Foglets got nerfed but it's still incredibly powerful(still basically a Roach that you can repeatedly summon even from the graveyard and as a Bronze rather than a Silver). Foglet is still the problem, the Fog itself nor Dagon. It's just that Dagon(and also Woodland Spirit) abuse Foglets by adding a second body and thus a significant tempo gain on top of the recurring weather damage the Fog provides. Previously I discounted Dagon's power due to the fact that many Monster decks also ran Fog as a stand alone card due to how the old Foglets worked. Now that people only run a single Foglet and it's at 4 strength(thus not vulnerable to the likes of Lacerate which in itself is no longer being run) there is no longer a reason to run Fog as a stand alone card thus Monster decks rely on Dagon and Woodland Spirit as their only sources of Fog, which in turn increases their power level. Dagon now, due to Foglet rather than itself, is basically like Coral, a powerful effect(2 Bronze cards in this case as opposed to 1 silver) tied to a body to keep up in tempo, which is indeed powerful. The question still remains however whether this effect is powerful by leader standards, not ordinary gold card standards. I've just compared Dagon to Coral which is a gold card not a leader, so that comparison while pretty accurate in my mind still doesn't tell the whole story. Most leaders either have unique effects that can't be replicated by other cards or take an effect other cards have and empower it. John Calvey is a great example of the former, with no other card barring Cahir(which triggers your leader ability) having its effect. Henselt is a great example of the later basically being a 2 Reaver Scout plays in the same turn with more strength. Dagon's effect is neither of those examples, the closest comparison I can make is to Radovid which is basically an Auckes for a different faction but with more damage and a gold leader rather than silver card. Dagon would be the equivalent of Coral albeit with a different effect which in turn(when used on Fog as is done in the vast majority of situations) pulls an additional card from the deck. Again we're at a crossroads as pulling a silver spell(formerly Merigold's Hailstorm now Artifact Compression) is supposed to be stronger than pulling a bronze spell(Fog) but Fog has the interaction with Foglet which arguably makes it stronger. So how much of it is Fog+Foglet and how much Dagon? I'd still say more on the Fog+Foglet rather than Dagon itself as pulling any of the other 2 weathers is a rather weak play for a leader. Thus in the end I still stand by my previous stance that Dagon on its own is not particularly powerful, certainly not at the level of the actually powerful leader effects, however it enables the interaction between Fog and Foglet which arguably got even stronger this patch since players are disintevized from running Fog as a stand alone card now.