Why did Ethereal stop automatically transforming units to demons?

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I know it's a neutral card but there's no other place to post this, I don't think and the card does have good synergy with Mon.

It's a more powerful card when the transformation happens automatically. The last time that I saw it, you had to pretty much order the transformation, which means that it's more able to be stopped.
 
It is very hard to remove two cards at the same time. There are only a few cards that can possibly do that. Therefor, if you removed one Ethereal, the other would still be active and your removal was for nothing. That means it's almost incounterable and too strong. With the order ability this gets fixed.
 
Because the old version was a broken annoying mess that was too many unstoppable cheap/free points with Fruits of Yisgith! Glad it was fixed and actually glad we didn't have to wait 2 months or more for a fix back then lol (like we do now).
 
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Because the old version was a broken annoying mess that was too many unstoppable cheap/free points with Fruits of Yisgith! Glad it was fixed and actually glad we didn't have to wait 2 months or more for a fix back then lol (like we do now).

I didn't play against a deck with this too many times and while I do remember finding the card annoying, I don't remember finding it worth immediately nerfing. There are special cards that you could use against these decks which would work against other factions/decks too.

The nerf makes the card pretty useless to use now.

It's hard to believe that people would have a problem with this unit but not with the new Nor witcher unit which does something similar. And has a shield, just to up the ante.
 
I didn't play against a deck with this too many times and while I do remember finding the card annoying, I don't remember finding it worth immediately nerfing. There are special cards that you could use against these decks which would work against other factions/decks too.

The nerf makes the card pretty useless to use now.

It's hard to believe that people would have a problem with this unit but not with the new Nor witcher unit which does something similar. And has a shield, just to up the ante.
The new NR witcher is one card to shut down, not two. It typically generates two points per conversion, not three. And the big thing is that it requires actual effort an commitment to provide units to convert.

I honestly feel ethereal was badly overnerfed, but the OP interaction with fruits needed to be broken.
 
The new NR witcher is one card to shut down, not two. It typically generates two points per conversion, not three. And the big thing is that it requires actual effort an commitment to provide units to convert.

I honestly feel ethereal was badly overnerfed, but the OP interaction with fruits needed to be broken.

Like I said, special cards could handle Ethereal units, e.g. that card that slashes two points of all units in a row or a unit which damages all copies of its units. Again, you don't think that those factions with endless and insane boosting abilities are far worse? I know which deck I'd rather have nerfed.
 
"I honestly feel ethereal was badly overnerfed" i think too, the change on Caranthir + the doomed status + the order was too much. The order is ok but the card needs Veil at least. Or bring it back as before but with 3 power...
 

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The only major issue with ethereal was the interaction with the Fruits leader ability that provided fodder every turn. Outside of that the card was no more Op than some of these cards from the Witcher expansion. They could have done several things to fix that including row locking it or even the new Adrenaline mechanic. Instead they nerfed Caranthir and several other cards.

It was a poorly thought through card but the devs approach to MO is always.....add something overtuned that has to carry the entire faction because everything else sucks, then nerf other cards and leaders to balance it. think of Viy now...same exact thing. It's a pattern
 
"I honestly feel ethereal was badly overnerfed" i think too, the change on Caranthir + the doomed status + the order was too much. The order is ok but the card needs Veil at least. Or bring it back as before but with 3 power...
Adding Veil to this unit is a change I'd definitely welcome. That, and probably lowering it's provision cost by one.
I believe this way it could again become playable on a reasonably competitive level.
 
Adding Veil to this unit is a change I'd definitely welcome. That, and probably lowering it's provision cost by one.
I believe this way it could again become playable on a reasonably competitive level.
Man I hated that card! I'd be all for giving it veil though, too. Could make it slightly more useful in other token-heavy non-mo decks as well.
 
The cheaper, more synergistic bronze Kikimore warrior is rarely used (and almost always with SY in conjunction with flying redanian — which ethereal would merely transform). Giving ethereal veil will not revive the card — it is still easily countered by removal. And if it is not reasonably countered by removal, it returns to a binary, OP state. I believe the best way to revive ethereal is to restore its original ability, but restrict its target, e.g. to non-doomed units, but definitely to prevent transformation of fruits.
 
but restrict its target, e.g. to non-doomed units
And with that you removed it's main purpose and killed it right there. The whole purpose of this card is transforming doomed units (tokens).

Unless, we introduce a similar mechanic to Cintrian guards - although they cannot copy tokens, but instead with every new Ethereal created, all copies would buff themselves by 2. This way the first Ethereal would start at 4, then both copies get buffed to 6, the third copy buffs all 3 to 8 and so on. Truly a wet Igni dream :sad:
 
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And with that you removed it's main purpose and killed it right there. The whole purpose of this card is transforming doomed units (tokens).

Unless, we introduce a similar mechanic to Cintrian guards - although they cannot copy tokens, but instead with every new Ethereal created, all copies would buff themselves by 2. This way the first Ethereal would start at 4, then both copies get buffed to 6, the third copy buffs all 3 to 8 and so on. Truly a wet Igni dream :sad:
or just let it die lol honestly it's not even a MO card so the thing that irritated me the most about it was following a huge expansion MO players only had a Neutral card to be competitive. I'd rather they spend some time being creative with Mo cards. WOTW was another example, out of the bronze introduced none are used while every other faction has decent cards. Out of the gold cards introduced only Viy is used. 1 card out of an entire expansion. They don't seem to be putting a lot of thought into MO card mechanics.
 
Well, that's not enterely true; koschey is used and chimera too. But I agree with you they lack of power cards when we compare them to others faction new entries.
 
I had a couple of other ideas to attempt to revitalize ethereal without returning it to an overpowered state.

1. Make it transform the card to the left rather than the right. That way spawned units (like fruits) can only be transformed if they are spawned before Ethereal is played. (This might still be too limiting.)

or

2. Give Ethereal the deathwish, “lock unit to the left.” Then, if the rightmost Ethereal is destroyed, it disables the next Ethereal to the left. And locked Ethereal’s cannot just be consumed to free the next Ethereal to the left — unless you deploy something like harpy immediately to the left of the Ethereal that was locked to consume it.
 
. Make it transform the card to the left rather than the right. That way spawned units (like fruits) can only be transformed if they are spawned before Ethereal is played. (This might still be too limiting.)
Very limiting and honestly, an even larger hazard for your own board is your opponent has a simple Move unit/effect. Just imagine this unit moved to your other row and start transforming your 10+ units to Ethereals...

2. Give Ethereal the deathwish, “lock unit to the left.” Then, if the rightmost Ethereal is destroyed, it disables the next Ethereal to the left. And locked Ethereal’s cannot just be consumed to free the next Ethereal to the left — unless you deploy something like harpy immediately to the left of the Ethereal that was locked to consume it.
Might work in theory, but it is getting a little bit too complicated for one single unit. Frankly, not worth it to make such a layered mechanic just to make one card useful.
 
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