Isn't Kambi Kind of Broken?

[OG.laloquaint]

So I've noticed this card can pretty much guarantee that your opponent is unable to play a card. For example, I just finished playing a game against a Discard/Beast deck. I pushed Round 2 because I knew he'd beat me with those over-powered Round 3 Bearmasters. We went down to 1 card vs 2 cards and he plays Kambi. I am unable to do anything because my card is discarded. Of course he benefits from this because he is playing Bran. But two things happened: My card does nothing, obviously, and because I have no cards in hand, I am unable to use my leader as well. I know Discard is overall a very powerful archetype but I mean, how do you counter this? Only Pit Trap would stop a card like Kambi. Don't get me wrong, Kambi has a very interesting ability but it feels wrong to completely stop your opponent from playing something that is in their hand while whoever uses Kambi benefits from it.

If anything needs to be balanced in Discard Skellige it's this card, I'd say.

 

[BrokeCiri]

I think Kambi is okay at 4 power 10 provisions and his ability affects both players. He only becomes beneficial to the user if: the user is ahead of points, has last say, or the right most card is a discard synergy. If you think about it, Kambi (hand), Pitfall (battlefield), and Viper Witchers (deck), have similar abilities with different applications.

 

[OG.laloquaint]

I think Kambi is okay at 4 power 10 provisions and his ability affects both players. He only becomes beneficial to the user if: the user is ahead of points, has last say, or the right most card is a discard synergy. If you think about it, Kambi (hand), Pitfall (battlefield), and Viper Witchers (deck), have similar abilities with different applications.

Aaaaand I really dislike Viper Witchers due to their randomness and ability to banish something crucial to your game-plan. Kambi on the other hand, if played right, can completely eliminate a player's last say.

 

[OG.laloquaint]

If something is not done by this August update I will lose hope on this game.

I totally feel you. Going up against Discard is so annoying. Literally none of my units survive the first three turns. Everything just dies. On top of that, they have at least 15 points on the board by the third turn as well lol.

[Sard Edit: swearing chopped from quote]

 

[BrokeCiri]

He was at 13 provisions where he should have been left, but SK players were lazy and didn't try to make him work.

Personally speaking, I tried making Bran work before he was still at 13 provisions and Coral has still 3 charges without the zeal. I made versions of him in gwentup (Bran Warriors and Bran Reveal, i also had a Lippy deck but i guess it only becomes popular/meta if a streamer uses it) but i guess he was only known for Beast Discard before. I don't use him now because i hate using meta decks/leaders, feels like a normie.

 

[MysticJoey]

you missplayed EOT

Post automatically merged: Apr 19, 2019

Overall, SK Discard is the fking abomination of this game. I can talk on and on and on about this. How the fk does Bran have 16 provisions when he has access to all the freaking gold cards and he can do 9 damage on an average just by his ability (2 Skald, Birna, Coral, and his +3) over all and thin 3 cards? Isn't it fking ridiculous when you think about it? He was at 13 provisions where he should have been left, but SK players were lazy and didn't try to make him work. So, they boosted him multiple times and now we have.. this.. a leader having more provisions than most of the leader while having access to all his gold card, doing 9 damage and thinning by 3, and along with Coral who can kill any engines or immune cards.

If this is not an indication of CDPR's unconditional love on SK and the extreme care and bias on SK, what else could this be?

Just watch any pro streamers.. Pumpkin (SK Ambassador) or McBeard (NR ambassador) FreddyBabes or Spyro or WatchFlake or anyone. They all play SK or MO and they face SK or MO 90% of the times. Once I watched Spyro's stream in which he faced some 8 or 9 Bran/SK out of 10 games when he played MO. It is fking boring. If the stats are so skewed in the pro rank where everyone wants to play only two of the five factions, how is this game fair? If something is not done by this August update I will lose hope on this game.

His provisions were not right, it's coral that pushed him to the top not the provisions.
In pro ladder everyone has to play at least 4 factions and they usually do so until they reach certain amount of points, and i'm pretty sure pumpkin plays ST the most, so that's biased.
But yes bran (SK) and woody (MO) are the strongest again, so some balance changes will probably come next month.
If they want to keep coral with her current ability she should be REALLY expensive, at least 12p, maybe even 14, that's how good she is IMO.

I checked faction stats for you: Pumpkin 310 ST, then NG 127, SK and MO least played. Freddy pretty much all the same, ST least. Spyro SK 246, MO 244, ST 167, NR 149 so he is more of a meta slave but still that's not that huge of a discrepancy. Watchflake only played monsters but he isn't active at all, and played 0 SK games.

 

[BrokeCiri]

If they want to keep coral with her current ability she should be REALLY expensive, at least 12p, maybe even 14, that's how good she is IMO.

12p or 14p has too much value shortage

I think 10 provisions is the most optimal solution. 4 (body) + 2 (discard/draw/thin) + 4 (pings) = 10:10 and 6:10 if her passive ability is not triggered. Also, make her passive ability "Whenever Coral discards a special card, damage a random enemy unit by 2" this way Bran and other discard units won't benefit from her passive ability. Then lower Brina's provision cost by 1

 

[MysticJoey]

i don't think 12 is value shortage at all, even if you only discard two specials it will be 8 points and 2 discards outside of bran (and i don't really want to see her outside of bran). With bran that's 10 points and 2 discards, if you discard another special with bran that's 12 points and 2 discards (not counting bran's discard and 1dmg here).
That way you would have to MAKE SURE you have those specials in hand, so you will probably put more of them in your deck, maybe cutting skirmishers, so your entire discard package loses a little bit.

 

[OG.laloquaint]

No offense @BrokeCiri and @MysticJoey but this thread is about Kambi and not Coral. I understand the frustration of this card but I'd like to discuss Kambi instead and not Discard as a whole.

 

[BrokeCiri]

@OG.laloquaint Kambi is fine at 10 provisions. He relies heavy on draw sequence, sometimes I brick Kambi because of the the positions of my hand cards and end up playing him last (4 point finisher) or just simply manually discarding him.

 

[MysticJoey]

Well it's rrc that went in with the SK Discard and you liked his post xD also we both already stated that we disagree with you and kambi is fine, it's pretty much only played in beast deck, very rarely included in other decks. If it was OP it would be played in every deck, it's expensive, and it's easy to play around it.

 

[BrokeCiri]

Well it's rrc that went in with the SK Discard and you liked his post xD

and commented

 

[OG.laloquaint]

@OG.laloquaint Kambi is fine at 10 provisions. He relies heavy on draw sequence, sometimes I brick Kambi because of the the positions of my hand cards and end up playing him last (4 point finisher) or just simply manually discarding him.

I personally wouldn't want the card to have a change of provisions but I would like to see the ability get reworked so that there's a different way to counter it besides leaving a crappy card at the right-most spot...

Post automatically merged: Apr 19, 2019

Well it's rrc that went in with the SK Discard and you liked his post xD also we both already stated that we disagree with you and kambi is fine, it's pretty much only played in beast deck, very rarely included in other decks. If it was OP it would be played in every deck, it's expensive, and it's easy to play around it.

and commented

rrc is cool

 

[BrokeCiri]

I personally wouldn't want the card to have a change of provisions but I would like to see the ability get reworked so that there's a different way to counter it besides leaving a crappy card at the right-most spot...

The only way to counter Kambi, Pitfall Trap, and Viper Witchers is to sacrifice a crappy card. As for the rework idea, it would be cool if it actually synergize with Hemdall, like in Witcher 3.

 

[Restlessdingo32]

Short answer, nope.

The play around of Kambi is to use leader abilities and high value cards before you anticipate it being played. Otherwise the situation you described occurs and you get cocked out of a high value card and/or leader ability. If this occurs it means you didn't make the proper read and recognize Kambi as a legitimate threat. Thus, you got punished for it. Respect the memes.

There are various tells of Kambi too. Case and point, it's common to try and pair it with Morkvarg since discarding him grants points. So if it's late R3 and Morkvarg hasn't been played it's a good bet to suspect it or, at the very least, plan for it's existence. He is also a beast so, uh, it's not a stretch to play it in a Bearmaster deck.

All of that said... While I don't think it's overpowered it could be argued as bad due to the RNG characteristics. You could run Kambi and arbitrarily play it at any point in a game when you have a bad card in the correct spot beside it and get lucky. So it's somewhat in line with VW, Traheaern and concepts such as create. Interesting, sure. Does it fit with a "skill based" CCG? Ehh....

 

[BoYoDes]

Short answer, nope.

The play around of Kambi is to use leader abilities and high value cards before you anticipate it being played. Otherwise the situation you described occurs and you get cocked out of a high value card and/or leader ability. If this occurs it means you didn't make the proper read and recognize Kambi as a legitimate threat. Thus, you got punished for it. Respect the memes...

So I use my high value cards in advance thus losing points on them cause there is this card that falls from the sky and is cutting me one card short of playing without any chance for me to interact with it. You know, just like Coral - you drop it on the board and with a snap of your fingers get huge value from it without any repercussions or fear of wasting your Provisions, while in other factions such cards have at the very least Orders.

Yeah, absolutely nothing wrong with the design there.

 

[rrc]

I personally wouldn't want the card to have a change of provisions but I would like to see the ability get reworked so that there's a different way to counter it besides leaving a crappy card at the right-most spot...

Post automatically merged: Apr 19, 2019

rrc is cool

Well.. thanks a lot @OG.laloquaint. I never expected to receive a nice compliment from fellow forum members (especially after I am named after a dangerous disease called "rrc flu" and some other incidences where I had to request the mods to edit few posts which are too aggressive or insulting directly towards me tagged with me).

 

[Iuliandrei]

Aaaaand I really dislike Viper Witchers due to their randomness and ability to banish something crucial to your game-plan. Kambi on the other hand, if played right, can completely eliminate a player's last say.

And that's good imo, i mean to a degree you can say the same thing about pit trap. I'm all for combo disruption although it's a bit weird in the situation you described that it also disables your leader ability.

 

[C7Racehead]

Kambi? Really?

Come on now. I'll meet you guys halfway for Coral & Bran but saying Kambi is broken is just a sign of pure frustration with little objectivity.

 

[Restlessdingo32]

So I use my high value cards in advance thus losing points on them cause there is this card that falls from the sky and is cutting me one card short of playing without any chance for me to interact with it.

If the choices are to get nothing from your high value card or less value then yes, play it early. I think I can count the number of times I've been burned by Kambi on one hand. Know what they all have in common? I didn't play around it.

You know, just like Coral - you drop it on the board and with a snap of your fingers get huge value from it without any repercussions or fear of wasting your Provisions, while in other factions such cards have at the very least Orders.

Are you really comparing Kambi to Coral? Coral is a thinning tool able to break even or exceed the provision cost when it achieves an ideal case. It's also discard, which offers the ability to correct a hand. Kambi isn't nearly on the same level.