I know there have been many threads about this, but...they were usually about nerfing it, or even figuring out what to do about it and I don't think nerfing is going to suffice, or, indeed, that anything can be done about it without a major rework. Unlike stuff like CoC, Vilge or other tall punishes, it has no downsides or conditions. Ultimately, it's a "get out of jail" card that holds the game back in a way no other card does - both on developers' side and on player side. Let me elaborate.
It's very limiting on the development side, because all the new cards are designed with Heatwave in mind, which results in some crazy answer-or-lose ideas that get a lot of value regardless of control and threaten even more if left unanswered and lead to some awfully binary matches and sometimes metas (Foltest, anyone?). On players' side it severely limits the deckbuilding freedom, because of lot of fun potential ideas must remain in the meme world, as building a deck around a single card or combos- such as Artis, Aglais, Melusine or Igor/Townsfolk, or maybe Weavess: Incantation is guaranteed to end in a disappointment. You can purify a locked card, you can revive a killed one, but there's just no options to fight back against Heatwave. Your card is lost, and that's it. Not even a defender can save it (not that I want them to, defenders are also pretty toxic, but they are another topic). But why should it be the case? These cards aren't even especially oppressive anymore, considering how good and easy pointslamming is. Besides, uninteractivity is bad in general, and Korathi is pretty much the most impactful uninteractive card in the game.
Yeah, sure, I fully expect the first month without the Heatwave to be a greedy nightmare akin to early Homecoming, but in the long run, the game would be much easier to balance without it (because overperformes would become much more apparent), and players would need to be more creative about both control and attentive towards their side of the board to avoid getting Gigni'd, scorched, CoC'ed or just Geralted in general, which means a LOT more fun and depth than just expecting to get nuked fatalistically. All in all, Heatwave is a huge killfun card that severely limits the game, and I think that the very act of removing it could potentially inspire a lot of players to return to Gwent and revitilize the game in a way no amount of new crazy cards can.
P.s. obviously, we would need a bunch of new ways to remove artifacts, but factional artifact-busters are something that the game needed anyway, so...
It's very limiting on the development side, because all the new cards are designed with Heatwave in mind, which results in some crazy answer-or-lose ideas that get a lot of value regardless of control and threaten even more if left unanswered and lead to some awfully binary matches and sometimes metas (Foltest, anyone?). On players' side it severely limits the deckbuilding freedom, because of lot of fun potential ideas must remain in the meme world, as building a deck around a single card or combos- such as Artis, Aglais, Melusine or Igor/Townsfolk, or maybe Weavess: Incantation is guaranteed to end in a disappointment. You can purify a locked card, you can revive a killed one, but there's just no options to fight back against Heatwave. Your card is lost, and that's it. Not even a defender can save it (not that I want them to, defenders are also pretty toxic, but they are another topic). But why should it be the case? These cards aren't even especially oppressive anymore, considering how good and easy pointslamming is. Besides, uninteractivity is bad in general, and Korathi is pretty much the most impactful uninteractive card in the game.
Yeah, sure, I fully expect the first month without the Heatwave to be a greedy nightmare akin to early Homecoming, but in the long run, the game would be much easier to balance without it (because overperformes would become much more apparent), and players would need to be more creative about both control and attentive towards their side of the board to avoid getting Gigni'd, scorched, CoC'ed or just Geralted in general, which means a LOT more fun and depth than just expecting to get nuked fatalistically. All in all, Heatwave is a huge killfun card that severely limits the game, and I think that the very act of removing it could potentially inspire a lot of players to return to Gwent and revitilize the game in a way no amount of new crazy cards can.
P.s. obviously, we would need a bunch of new ways to remove artifacts, but factional artifact-busters are something that the game needed anyway, so...
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