Improving The Mage Archetype (Suggestion Thread)

[MedievalHistory]

As a seasoned veteran of Beta Gwent, with nearly 2,500 wins under my belt over my entire Gwent career I wanted to give some feedback on a specific archetype I enjoy playing.

TLDR: More "mage" tags = more play options.

I have been a huge fan of the Mage Archetype ever since it was introduced to Gwent (playing it nearly exclusively), here are a few of my humble suggestions which should help solidify and bring the Mage Archetype back to the forefront as a formidable play style.

Below is a link to the only deck I am playing in Gwent at the moment. It is a homebrew deck which focuses on tying key abilities together within the Mage Archetype. I have played it for several months now and enjoy it immensely despite it being an overall weaker deck in the current meta.

https://www.playgwent.com/en/decks/guides/30421

I wanted to give some slight feedback on where I believe the Mage Archetype could get a little bump in the right direction. Here are a few suggestions I have come up with which I don't believe would be that drastic of a power creep, but would ultimately allow the archetype to sit at a rather comfortable power level.

Create a card similar to Pellar, but with a "mage" tag, and 1 less strength.
- Deploy: Purify a unit.

Reduce the provision cost of Operator by 2, with 1 less strength: As it stands, there are far more powerful and less risky cards for the same provision cost.

Create a card similar to Prophet Lebioda, but with a "mage" tag, and 1 less strength.
- Whenever you play a card next to Prophet Lebioda, give it a shield

Cintrian Artificer - Just give this Northern Realms card a "mage" tag.
Formation
Order - Give an allied unit a Shield.

Rework the Cintrian Enchantress with a more potent or useful "instant" ability, rather than the current slow drip of vitality. (She could become a mage version of Pellar for instance).

Change Runeward Spell from "Give an allied unit a Shield, then give it vitality for 4 turns" to "Give an allied unit a Shield, then boost it by 2, and give it vitality for 2 turns".

This alleviates the long drawn out nature of Runeward Spell, and allows it to fit into various situations, rather than having to be used rather early to get the full effect.

Thank you for your time, and I really hope the Gwent Team at CDPR sees these suggestions and considers them.

 

[4RM3D]

Create a card similar to Pellar, but with a "mage" tag, and 1 less strength.
- Deploy: Purify a unit.

Create a card similar to Prophet Lebioda, but with a "mage" tag, and 1 less strength.
- Whenever you play a card next to Prophet Lebioda, give it a shield

Regardless of whether or not the Mage archetype needs a boost, I do want to jump on the two suggestions above. Just copy-pasting cards is boring. For Pellar, being a neutral, that can still be okay because we have seen it before with other units (e.g. Cutthroat vs Plumard). However, Lebioda is already partial to NR. Furthermore, Lebioda, with his new twin, might be overkill in a shield archetype. Instead, I rather would like to see cards like...

Change Runeward Spell from "Give an allied unit a Shield, then give it vitality for 4 turns" to [...]

Give an allied unit a Shield, then give it vitality for 4 turns or boost it by 4, if it's a mage.

 

[MedievalHistory]

Thanks for your input 4RM3D! In regards to your first point, I'm simply not qualified or creative enough to come up with entirely unique abilities that would be fine-tuned enough to meet acceptable balance standards, I would leave that task entirely up to CDPR's balance team. However, I thought it might be helpful to imply what abilities already in the game could use a "mage" tag associated with them to slightly bump up the power level of the overall Mage Archetype, if that makes sense.

I believe your second point about dual selection is a reasonably sound compromise, though I am personally partial to the idea of a hybrid boost/vitality ability which doesn't push +4 in either an instant or passive direction (utilizing abilities already in the game). Ban Ard Tutor already boosts an allied Mage by 4 and is a 2 strength unit.