Keywords

[Bleach25]

[ I know there is an expansion on the way and that many things are going to change, but as it stands my analysis is, I believe, correct]

There are currently five keywords: Assimilate, Harmony, Thrive, Intimidate, Resupply. However Thrive and Harmony completely stand apart from the others as there is a functional difference that make them stronger: let's consider Assimilate, for instance.

Slave Hunter is supposed to be one of the best Assimilate cards. When it's played it provides value in the form of its deploy ability and also adds an engine to its side of the board. Now let's compare with ST trainer Hawk: it has a similar effect, but on top of the aforementioned, it also procs preexisting Harmony engines on the board without much effort. It's a three points action that only Harmony and Thrive can perform.

Now of course with Thrive it's more theorical because there aren't really any Thrive focused decks, but it's still an important characteristic to point. In the current state of the art Intimidate and Assimilate can build semi-decent decks, while Resupply is just dead (I've seen only 1 Resupply deck)

We know that Harmony, the strongest keyword, is going to get an overhaul to work with dryads, but I think that other keywords need more support and possibly slight tweaks to include more options.

Given that I don't like to just complain, I'll use Assimilate as a mechanic, as it's the one I'm most familiar with.

Assimilate can be procced by either create or "morph" with cards such as Dudu and Letho: Assassin of kings

This feature could be used to great effect on bronze cards. An example could be something like " Assimilate. Damage a bronze enemy unit by X amount, then morph into a copy of it" . Of course deployments can be more original than my example, but you get the point.
Another possibility is to buff the raw value of these cards. Hunter (and therefore Lyrian pikeman) could be a 4 str damage by 2, ducali guarda and Ard Feainn could receive one point each and so forth. A somwhat similar pattern could be applied to Resupply and Intimidate.

 

[DRK3]

Interesting points, here's my take:

- There are obviously way more than 5 keywords, but you are addressing the specific keywords related to a faction-exclusive boosting mechanic.

- Thrive and Harmony are definitely the best two. However you say that there aren't any "thrive focused decks". Are you serious? For months in early HC this game was dominated by tall monster decks, where the first half of each round was usually spamming thrive units, then building a "ladder". And many Gernichora decks are just spamming thrive units, and getting them all to as high as they can, they are as simple as it can be (to avoid the 'brainless' subject), and they're quite formidable if left uncountered.

- Assimilate is not as bad as you say. There have been amazing Assimilate decks outside of seasonal, but players learned to avoid a long round vs those, because they spend a lot of time setting up the assimilate units before starting to trigger them. Yes, this is a disadvantage compared to Harmony or Thrive, however assimilates have ways of triggering several times a turn, while Thrive and Harmony generally dont.

- Intimidate and Resupply are a joke. I've tried both and they are definitely not viable, its those that probably need a serious buff. They're not both on the same level of bad - Intimidate is just bad, but it can work sometimes, and its quite fun and versatile. But Resupply is reaaaaalllllyyy bad, the war-something NR specials dont even work well together, some are good for soldiers, other for machines, they need to be more coeherent.

 

[4RM3D]

You are assuming every faction "keyword" needs to have the same strength. However, this isn't actually required. Considering how certain keywords trigger and the (lack of) support they carry, it's difficult to balance that without looking at the faction as a whole. So, yes, some factions have stronger keywords, while others have stronger mechanics in another area/archetype.

 

[Bleach25]

You are assuming every faction "keyword" needs to have the same strength. However, this isn't actually required. Considering how certain keywords trigger and the (lack of) support they carry, it's difficult to balance that without looking at the faction as a whole. So, yes, some factions have stronger keywords, while others have stronger mechanics in another area/archetype.

I actually considered this possibility, as maybe the devs don't want all the keywords to be on the same strength floor, but then what's the point of cards like Lyrian Pikemen, that is only useful if you build your deck around the keyword? I mean, archetypes have become more fluid in HC, but it seems to me that this kind of cards don't really make sense unless we assume the aforementioned explanation as true

Post automatically merged: Apr 13, 2020

Interesting points, here's my take:

- There are obviously way more than 5 keywords, but you are addressing the specific keywords related to a faction-exclusive boosting mechanic.

- Thrive and Harmony are definitely the best two. However you say that there aren't any "thrive focused decks". Are you serious? For months in early HC this game was dominated by tall monster decks, where the first half of each round was usually spamming thrive units, then building a "ladder". And many Gernichora decks are just spamming thrive units, and getting them all to as high as they can, they are as simple as it can be (to avoid the 'brainless' subject), and they're quite formidable if left uncountered.

- Assimilate is not as bad as you say. There have been amazing Assimilate decks outside of seasonal, but players learned to avoid a long round vs those, because they spend a lot of time setting up the assimilate units before starting to trigger them. Yes, this is a disadvantage compared to Harmony or Thrive, however assimilates have ways of triggering several times a turn, while Thrive and Harmony generally dont.

- Intimidate and Resupply are a joke. I've tried both and they are definitely not viable, its those that probably need a serious buff. They're not both on the same level of bad - Intimidate is just bad, but it can work sometimes, and its quite fun and versatile. But Resupply is reaaaaalllllyyy bad, the war-something NR specials dont even work well together, some are good for soldiers, other for machines, they need to be more coeherent.

- Yes, I admit the title is misleading
- But I suppose that those don't exist anymore atm.
Here I must clarify myself, as Kikimore Queen decks and cards such as endrega larva are rather formidabile when not dealt with just as you say. What I meant was that full in Thrive decks right now aren't as common as Harmony, but Thrive is still an important component of Monster decks

- I've experimented with Assimilate quite a lot. My findings:

- it's possibile to win, particularly if the deck is weak or doesn't really fare well in a long round (and doesn't have many control tools)
- In a long round it just gets smashed by most engine decks
- Assimilate engines are precious are get smashed very easily
- I agree they're really bad and need support even more than Assimilate. Resupply particularly. Still I'd like them all to receive more support