With these reworks I believe that there will be slim chances to not have units on rows to damage. Movement is best to disable row locked units. But ok, lets say movement is kept, but at least don't make the damage conditional on moving the unit to a row affected by frost. Do the damage first and then the movement.
Considering the leader buff, I guess you can proc Winter Queen's Thrive 5 times (if it is reworked to 3 power). Conquerors would boost themselves to 8 if frost is on opponent's row. There is also a chance to proc thrive 5 times with Auberon King's passive effect that adds another +1 boost to WH units. Still think that is too good. Not only you can more easily summon it, but you can also thrive it several times.
Exactly my point about Eredin. Most leaders are busted. Unseen Elder, Eist, Hoog, Whoreson, Eldain, but also Jacques (plays for 12 but also a spender with passive ability), Viraxas (admittedly he is good now, he was not always good) are really good and reliable cards to play.
Caranthir, same like Imlerith is an odd-ball. He fits better in other archetypes rather than his own. In the case of Imlerith he fits better in a different faction all together. Reworking them to somehow provide value in a White Frost Wild Hunt deck is a challenge. Thinning is indeed a problem for Devotion MO. Other than Riders and Naglfar you don't have many options but to include different archetypes, Deathwish for example.
Oh yeah, i remember that change for Auberon going around a lot back in the days. Don't think it even got to the devs ears. Or if it did they never said anything about that (as far as i saw at least).
Honestly i agree with you on everything except the Winter Queen part. I think the first card they added to the game with that effect was The Flying Redanian. Back then was like 4 or 5 points (i don't remember exactly) so they nerfed it because it was too much. You have to take into considerantion that back then the cards were much more...tame so to speak. No crazy effects, everything very simple and straight forward.
Since then they added Madoc which has a similar effect but can put tons of points on the board if left unanswered. From what i can tell Gwent is moving in a more creative and crazy point swing meta so i think it's wrong to compare the Winter Queen to The Flying Redenian. If anything, Madoc should be the norm to compare this type of cards and The Flying Redanian should get some buffs.
Now, Madoc can put 27 points in a full 9 round match while Winter Queen if left like you mentioned can get to 8 or 9 at best. Madoc is more powerful because the deck has to be built around him with tons of bombs so it's only natural that he's better. Winter Queen doesn't have that big of a requirement to get her value so i think it's fair for her to go to 9 points at best.
Overall, Winter Queen with 3p and 10pv that can also be summoned from the graveyard and with thrive i think is fine. But that's just me.
P.S. actually no, scratch that. She would be fine if she was played only in a WH deck but i'm sure there will be people who add her plus Ard Gaeth just to get that deck thinning and another thrive unit in mish mash decks with Yghern and all that. So she will get to 13 or so.
No, her ability should also be changed instead of thrive to "at the start of your round boost self by 1 if there's frost on the enemy board". That way she stays in WH decks and won't be an auto include in all monster decks.
Last edited:
Almost every faction has one such cards that in certain circumstances, it comes out of your deck and/or graveyard. MO has Winter Queen. SK has Crow Messengers and Crowmother. ST has Aelirenn. SY has TFR. NR has received one, Hubert or whassisname, which previously was just giving bleed with charges. And of course, there is Madoc. So I do not see why Winter Queen can't be reworked to come out of the graveyard as well under different conditions. For SY, TFR comes out if you have a certain amount of coins. For MO, it will come out if you have Frost on both rows.
I proposed this change to her so that one can justify Ard Gaeth's echo. If it can't be summoned from the graveyard as well, then what's the point in keeping Ard Gaeth in the game when you have Red Riders now at 5p?
Your last suggestion is also good. I think more ideal as opposed to Thrive. Thrive in the first place for Wild Hunt is awkward. I don't think there is another Wild Hunt unit with the Thrive keyword, other than Winter Queen. Boost by 1 if Frost is on opponent's row (any row, no row lock because of RNG) makes sense... I mean she is the Winter Queen LoL
(I'm glad I stumbled upon this thread today. I was actually preparing a write-up about my impressions from Wild Hunt this patch so a lot of the following pieces might seem a bit weird, but it's since this was meant to be a separate thread before I found this current one.)
Last season I tried to construct my own deck based on the Wild Hunt (and Frost subsequentially) mechanics/synergies. Even before stepping into a ranked game I didn't find the end result satisfactory and decided to drop the idea. Since the (heavy admittedly) buffs the deck received with patch 9.1 I decided to give it another try and see how it plays out this time around. While the deck certainly showed potential at times, there was also a general feeling of the deck having blatant weaknesses, and a lot of its synergies (particularly the ones between the Wild Hunt units and Frost itself) being weak.
Admittedly I understand the inherent weaknesses of a weather deck (any engine heavy deck in general, and yes Frost is an engine). Relying on long rounds, getting bled on round 2 or the slow ramp up are all understandable parts of any deck that is engine focused. And I don't really care to focus on those parts since I believe these are all part of a fair and good game. But the issue I encountered that even in long, 10 card, rounds, Frost was outpointed by a wide variety of decks and didn't felt intimidating enough.
Before I transition myself from the intro to the actual discussion of Frost and Wild Hunt, let me just state a simple fact: I utterly lack the qualifications to make any of the claims I will make below. My opinions are derived from personal anecdotal evidence and your experience may vary. I am not a game or card designer, I am not a high ladder finish player, I am just a player that wants to see Wild Hunt become a little better. Now my ideas may be completely rubbish, or insanely broken, or straight up incorrect, but I continue to write this in the hopes of sparking a discussion that would lead to the betterment of the Frost/Wild Hunt archetype (if there is the need to do so).
Now let's march on forward and take a look at our main event for the day, the Wild Hunt. Below is a list of all Wild Hunt cards currently in the game, neatly packaged into what archetype I believe they best fit in.
Package A: Dominance (tall bois)
Imlerith. Imlerith's Wrath, Nithral, Naglfar's Taskmaster, WH Warrior, WH Hound, WH Navigator, WH Rider, Eredin
This package for the most part seems to work fine and as intended. Some of these cards are meant to be more introductory to the concept of Dominance, and as such are intentionally weaker than others (specifically WH Warrior and Navigator, but not to say that are bad cards). Nothing wrong with that of course. Now is probably a good time to address the connection between Dominance and Frost. This weather effect was changed to hit the highest unit in an attempt to incentivize its usage in Dominance heavy decks. The idea is that you use Frost to bring down enemy units so you can keep having the higher unit on the board. A novel idea in itself but one I do not believe works quite as intended. The cards that have seen competitive success that included the Dominance keyword the past couple of months were played in decks that tried to gain Dominance by playing their own high power units (see Barghest in Viy, Nithral, Hound and Taskmaster in Kelltullis), rather than relying on Frost. One possible explanation for this is that these effects trigger on your turn, while Frost ticks at the start of your opponent's turn, leading you to a loss of points in the meantime. Another thing to note is that, as I mentioned, Frost was swapped with Fog a long time ago now, which inadvertently made Frost worse for controlling the board. What do I mean by that? Let's say your opponent plays an 8 strength unit (with an order ability) into a Frosted row. You have Parasite in hand. Back when Frost hit the lowest unit you would use the Parasite and have Frost finish up the unit in question, whereas now you have to wait for Frost to hit once, then use the Parasite. That turn you missed is going to be enough for the opponent to trigger the Order ability. You might say this is a specific and exaggerated example but I felt the whole concept of lowest versus highest unit is worth talking about and that's why I'm mentioning it. Of course you can counter this argument by saying that (besides the Dominance synergy) Frost hitting the highest unit makes it less likely to lose value, cause Fog will overkill an 1 strength unit. After this long write up what is the conclusion for this package? Well, as you can see, my thoughts on this subject are all over the place, but I can't really say that I find something particularly faulty with most of the cards here. Just giving points to some of them for no reason is more likely to lead to problems than solve the current ones.
P.S. There is a card that I included in this package that I didn't directly address and it doesn't quite fit, but I urge you to be patient for now, we will get to him.
Package B: The Cool kids (frosty bois)
Eredin, Ard Gaeth, Winter Queen, Red Riders, WH Bruiser, Naglfar's Crew
This will surprise you but for the most part this package is quite solid aswell. Now your next line is going to be “if package B, which is the frost centered one, is mostly fine, then what is the problem with Wild Hunt?”. Dear reader, the devil hides in the detail. There is one card here that should have been far more intimidating than the others, an actual threat for the opponent and a real boost for the Wild Hunt, but he hasn't been nowhere near as impactful so far. Of course I'm talking for none other than Eredin. The final boss of The Witcher 3, has ended up being lackluster in Homecoming so far. Now that I have the introduction out of the way, I will throw you a cliffhanger and tell you that we are going to discuss Eredin further down the line, when I will present my idea for his rework.
I don't really have much to add for the non-Eredin cards of this package, I really like what all of them do, I think they are strong and provide solid foundation for the archetype in general.
Package C: Wildcards (aka can be played in a wide variety of archetypes)
Auberon King, Naglfar, Caranthir, Ge'els, The Apiarian Phantom, Aen Elle Conqueror
Just to clarify, Ge'els is included here just because you can just play him in a deck that includes Naglfar and Imlerith's Wrath. I wouldn't do it and I don't recommend anyone doing it, but theoretically it's possible. He is a better fit in the Frost package and it is there that you will more than likely see him.
The rest of the cards don't really need much introductions or explaining as to why they are here, since they have seen play in a wide variety of decks across Homecoming's history, and have been largely unchanged since their inclusion in the game (I'm still a bit sad that Caranthir can't copy neutrals but I have learnt to live with that). Before the White Frost buff I would have argued on Auberon getting back his 1 base strength, but now I'm a bit hesitant to do so.
Now that I have -somewhat- addressed every card with the Wild Hunt tag, let's move on to more exciting things, like the proposed card addition and reworks.
Card #1: Eredin Bréacc Glas
Before elaborating on the card itself, let me just say that the numbers here (and on the cards you will see later down the line) are changeable. I'm more interested in presenting the concept I thought of.
The clear inspiration behind this card was Unseen Elder. It's a bit weird to bring Elder as an example considering his archetype hasn't been the most successful lately, but I think Elder himself is a great example of how to implement a big scary card. He brings value on his own and can escalate to the point that can be scary enough that if left unchecked he can steal a game. And that's what I would envision Eredin to be doing aswell. His current version feels like a card that's kinda of in the middle of doing that. Particularly the Dominance part feels like a condition that shouldn't be there. He feels like he should be the one enabling Dominance by increase the Frost damage, and not requiring Dominance to empower himself. If you lack the means to gain Dominance nowadays, Eredin plays like a worse Avallac'h. I think my idea solves the “menacing” part of Eredin, because of the Devotion part. Going Devotion or not for current iterations of Wild Hunt are something for deckbuilders to think about, whereas we are currently pretending to be card designers. I think this card perfectly incentivizes sticking to Devotion, and (at least in my head) it makes sense, flavour wise, when Eredin is empowered since the deck only consists of Monsters. And thus, when Eredin is empowered, he keeps bringing his frosty aura. At least that's how I explain it in my head.
Card #2: Imlerith
Before saying anything I really wanna apologize to all my open beta brethren for the ptsd flashbacks the words Imlerith and Duel in the same card have inflicted upon you.
With this card I am trying to address two things that I believe this archetype is lacking. First is the “under Frost” condition, that was more prevalent in beta (in fact Imlerith himself had a very similar effect to this, but instead of dueling he was dealing 8 damage if I recall correctly).
Before moving on to the second point let me comment on the current Imlerith card. I actually don't have any problem with the card effect, it's just that I don't think it really fits Wild Hunt and that's one of the reasons I would suggest reworking current Imlerith and giving his effect to something that would evoke consume flavor.
Onto the second point. Imlerith's Wrath is one of the few removal cards that Monsters have. Now, I know all factions aren't created equally (and that's fair and fine) but Monsters do seem heavily lacking in that department. And the destruction effect of Imlerith's Wrath is tied to a card no deck that would really wanna play removal, would include. By making an Imlerith that is control oriented himself, you improve the chances Wrath will trigger its destroy condition. Having these cards available in Devotion decks help immensely pushing that idea aswell. Does it push it over the top? I couldn't really tell, I'm hoping that it doesn't cause in my opinion the better control cards (primary example being Korathi Heatwave) aren't available to Devotion decks.
P.S. I haven't forgotten the previous Imlerith iteration we used to have and I hope it returns a day in some form or another since it was really interesting.
Card #3: Caranthir
Closing up this segment of custom cards with another well known Wild Hunt character. This time tho I am not recommending a rework of the current card, but a completely new card since I believe current Caranthir may not be specifically working with Wild Hunt but his card is excellent, fits multiple archetypes and generally, it's great, I love it and it doesn't need to be touched.
With this card I think we maintain the flavour of Caranthir being a summoner, all the while taking advantage of the “Frost on the opposite row” mechanic which I find rather interesting.
Let's close by addressing the second elephant in the room. If you make Frost better (and/or weather in general) do you need to implement more weather counters in the game? Right now your only “real” counter to weather is playing your own Scepter of Storms following it up with Vaedermakar on the Ranged Row. Hardly a counter is it? That said, weather simply isn't what it used to be. It can be countered via gameplay means (ie row stacking, armoured units, shielded units). But if there comes a need to implement a counter I think we shouldn't head towards a binary interaction of a total weather clearance, but something more in terms of how Vaedarmakar operates. Basically a bronze unit, 4-5 provisions that reduces the durations of row effects for 1-2 turns.
In conclusion, I am certainly no expert on the matter, I just played some games with the deck, didn't quite enjoy the way it played and thought on sharing my opinions. Now you might say that I'm not helping make a case for myself to which I reply, good I want you to think for yourself whether you agree with my assessments/recommendations, not just blindly accept whatever I say.
Thank you very much for reading this far.
Last season I tried to construct my own deck based on the Wild Hunt (and Frost subsequentially) mechanics/synergies. Even before stepping into a ranked game I didn't find the end result satisfactory and decided to drop the idea. Since the (heavy admittedly) buffs the deck received with patch 9.1 I decided to give it another try and see how it plays out this time around. While the deck certainly showed potential at times, there was also a general feeling of the deck having blatant weaknesses, and a lot of its synergies (particularly the ones between the Wild Hunt units and Frost itself) being weak.
Admittedly I understand the inherent weaknesses of a weather deck (any engine heavy deck in general, and yes Frost is an engine). Relying on long rounds, getting bled on round 2 or the slow ramp up are all understandable parts of any deck that is engine focused. And I don't really care to focus on those parts since I believe these are all part of a fair and good game. But the issue I encountered that even in long, 10 card, rounds, Frost was outpointed by a wide variety of decks and didn't felt intimidating enough.
Before I transition myself from the intro to the actual discussion of Frost and Wild Hunt, let me just state a simple fact: I utterly lack the qualifications to make any of the claims I will make below. My opinions are derived from personal anecdotal evidence and your experience may vary. I am not a game or card designer, I am not a high ladder finish player, I am just a player that wants to see Wild Hunt become a little better. Now my ideas may be completely rubbish, or insanely broken, or straight up incorrect, but I continue to write this in the hopes of sparking a discussion that would lead to the betterment of the Frost/Wild Hunt archetype (if there is the need to do so).
Now let's march on forward and take a look at our main event for the day, the Wild Hunt. Below is a list of all Wild Hunt cards currently in the game, neatly packaged into what archetype I believe they best fit in.
Package A: Dominance (tall bois)
Imlerith. Imlerith's Wrath, Nithral, Naglfar's Taskmaster, WH Warrior, WH Hound, WH Navigator, WH Rider, Eredin
This package for the most part seems to work fine and as intended. Some of these cards are meant to be more introductory to the concept of Dominance, and as such are intentionally weaker than others (specifically WH Warrior and Navigator, but not to say that are bad cards). Nothing wrong with that of course. Now is probably a good time to address the connection between Dominance and Frost. This weather effect was changed to hit the highest unit in an attempt to incentivize its usage in Dominance heavy decks. The idea is that you use Frost to bring down enemy units so you can keep having the higher unit on the board. A novel idea in itself but one I do not believe works quite as intended. The cards that have seen competitive success that included the Dominance keyword the past couple of months were played in decks that tried to gain Dominance by playing their own high power units (see Barghest in Viy, Nithral, Hound and Taskmaster in Kelltullis), rather than relying on Frost. One possible explanation for this is that these effects trigger on your turn, while Frost ticks at the start of your opponent's turn, leading you to a loss of points in the meantime. Another thing to note is that, as I mentioned, Frost was swapped with Fog a long time ago now, which inadvertently made Frost worse for controlling the board. What do I mean by that? Let's say your opponent plays an 8 strength unit (with an order ability) into a Frosted row. You have Parasite in hand. Back when Frost hit the lowest unit you would use the Parasite and have Frost finish up the unit in question, whereas now you have to wait for Frost to hit once, then use the Parasite. That turn you missed is going to be enough for the opponent to trigger the Order ability. You might say this is a specific and exaggerated example but I felt the whole concept of lowest versus highest unit is worth talking about and that's why I'm mentioning it. Of course you can counter this argument by saying that (besides the Dominance synergy) Frost hitting the highest unit makes it less likely to lose value, cause Fog will overkill an 1 strength unit. After this long write up what is the conclusion for this package? Well, as you can see, my thoughts on this subject are all over the place, but I can't really say that I find something particularly faulty with most of the cards here. Just giving points to some of them for no reason is more likely to lead to problems than solve the current ones.
P.S. There is a card that I included in this package that I didn't directly address and it doesn't quite fit, but I urge you to be patient for now, we will get to him.
Package B: The Cool kids (frosty bois)
Eredin, Ard Gaeth, Winter Queen, Red Riders, WH Bruiser, Naglfar's Crew
This will surprise you but for the most part this package is quite solid aswell. Now your next line is going to be “if package B, which is the frost centered one, is mostly fine, then what is the problem with Wild Hunt?”. Dear reader, the devil hides in the detail. There is one card here that should have been far more intimidating than the others, an actual threat for the opponent and a real boost for the Wild Hunt, but he hasn't been nowhere near as impactful so far. Of course I'm talking for none other than Eredin. The final boss of The Witcher 3, has ended up being lackluster in Homecoming so far. Now that I have the introduction out of the way, I will throw you a cliffhanger and tell you that we are going to discuss Eredin further down the line, when I will present my idea for his rework.
I don't really have much to add for the non-Eredin cards of this package, I really like what all of them do, I think they are strong and provide solid foundation for the archetype in general.
Package C: Wildcards (aka can be played in a wide variety of archetypes)
Auberon King, Naglfar, Caranthir, Ge'els, The Apiarian Phantom, Aen Elle Conqueror
Just to clarify, Ge'els is included here just because you can just play him in a deck that includes Naglfar and Imlerith's Wrath. I wouldn't do it and I don't recommend anyone doing it, but theoretically it's possible. He is a better fit in the Frost package and it is there that you will more than likely see him.
The rest of the cards don't really need much introductions or explaining as to why they are here, since they have seen play in a wide variety of decks across Homecoming's history, and have been largely unchanged since their inclusion in the game (I'm still a bit sad that Caranthir can't copy neutrals but I have learnt to live with that). Before the White Frost buff I would have argued on Auberon getting back his 1 base strength, but now I'm a bit hesitant to do so.
Now that I have -somewhat- addressed every card with the Wild Hunt tag, let's move on to more exciting things, like the proposed card addition and reworks.
Card #1: Eredin Bréacc Glas
Before elaborating on the card itself, let me just say that the numbers here (and on the cards you will see later down the line) are changeable. I'm more interested in presenting the concept I thought of.
The clear inspiration behind this card was Unseen Elder. It's a bit weird to bring Elder as an example considering his archetype hasn't been the most successful lately, but I think Elder himself is a great example of how to implement a big scary card. He brings value on his own and can escalate to the point that can be scary enough that if left unchecked he can steal a game. And that's what I would envision Eredin to be doing aswell. His current version feels like a card that's kinda of in the middle of doing that. Particularly the Dominance part feels like a condition that shouldn't be there. He feels like he should be the one enabling Dominance by increase the Frost damage, and not requiring Dominance to empower himself. If you lack the means to gain Dominance nowadays, Eredin plays like a worse Avallac'h. I think my idea solves the “menacing” part of Eredin, because of the Devotion part. Going Devotion or not for current iterations of Wild Hunt are something for deckbuilders to think about, whereas we are currently pretending to be card designers. I think this card perfectly incentivizes sticking to Devotion, and (at least in my head) it makes sense, flavour wise, when Eredin is empowered since the deck only consists of Monsters. And thus, when Eredin is empowered, he keeps bringing his frosty aura. At least that's how I explain it in my head.
Card #2: Imlerith
Before saying anything I really wanna apologize to all my open beta brethren for the ptsd flashbacks the words Imlerith and Duel in the same card have inflicted upon you.
With this card I am trying to address two things that I believe this archetype is lacking. First is the “under Frost” condition, that was more prevalent in beta (in fact Imlerith himself had a very similar effect to this, but instead of dueling he was dealing 8 damage if I recall correctly).
Before moving on to the second point let me comment on the current Imlerith card. I actually don't have any problem with the card effect, it's just that I don't think it really fits Wild Hunt and that's one of the reasons I would suggest reworking current Imlerith and giving his effect to something that would evoke consume flavor.
Onto the second point. Imlerith's Wrath is one of the few removal cards that Monsters have. Now, I know all factions aren't created equally (and that's fair and fine) but Monsters do seem heavily lacking in that department. And the destruction effect of Imlerith's Wrath is tied to a card no deck that would really wanna play removal, would include. By making an Imlerith that is control oriented himself, you improve the chances Wrath will trigger its destroy condition. Having these cards available in Devotion decks help immensely pushing that idea aswell. Does it push it over the top? I couldn't really tell, I'm hoping that it doesn't cause in my opinion the better control cards (primary example being Korathi Heatwave) aren't available to Devotion decks.
P.S. I haven't forgotten the previous Imlerith iteration we used to have and I hope it returns a day in some form or another since it was really interesting.
Card #3: Caranthir
Closing up this segment of custom cards with another well known Wild Hunt character. This time tho I am not recommending a rework of the current card, but a completely new card since I believe current Caranthir may not be specifically working with Wild Hunt but his card is excellent, fits multiple archetypes and generally, it's great, I love it and it doesn't need to be touched.
With this card I think we maintain the flavour of Caranthir being a summoner, all the while taking advantage of the “Frost on the opposite row” mechanic which I find rather interesting.
Let's close by addressing the second elephant in the room. If you make Frost better (and/or weather in general) do you need to implement more weather counters in the game? Right now your only “real” counter to weather is playing your own Scepter of Storms following it up with Vaedermakar on the Ranged Row. Hardly a counter is it? That said, weather simply isn't what it used to be. It can be countered via gameplay means (ie row stacking, armoured units, shielded units). But if there comes a need to implement a counter I think we shouldn't head towards a binary interaction of a total weather clearance, but something more in terms of how Vaedarmakar operates. Basically a bronze unit, 4-5 provisions that reduces the durations of row effects for 1-2 turns.
In conclusion, I am certainly no expert on the matter, I just played some games with the deck, didn't quite enjoy the way it played and thought on sharing my opinions. Now you might say that I'm not helping make a case for myself to which I reply, good I want you to think for yourself whether you agree with my assessments/recommendations, not just blindly accept whatever I say.
Thank you very much for reading this far.
Honestly i kinda like your suggestion. I only have a few things to point out.
Eredin - From what i can tell, your idea for Eredin is that once you play him the duration of the frost is increased by 1 turn every turn. Which would basically make that frost infinite on that row. I don't disagree that this would make him a threat more or less equal to the Unseen Elder this would also make him an auto include in all decks since you just play him and you have frost on that row permanently if you meet the devotion.
It's a good concept, i like it but this would work if he was in a WH deck only. If you add that effect in mish mash decks with top tier cards it would be a bit much i think.
Imlerith - I also like it but i feel like he's a bit underwhelming for that provision. To his effect i would also add this: Devotion: Gain armor by the total duration of frost effects on the opposite side". That would put him more on par with top tier cards around that provision cost range.
Caranthir - sounds good as well but too easy to deal with. i absolutely despise the idea of 9 or more provision cost cards being killable by 4 provision damaging cards (Natural Selection, Tourney Joust, Gutting Slash etc).
I'd say he should be 5 points with the added bonus: Devotion: gain Veil.
Think of it this way, Francesca is 7 for 10 with veil without any devotion requirement and the same 3 turn counter to get the effect. But when she spawns that spell on the 3rd turn she has quite a few synergies and the points she can put down with that effect can go quite high.
This Charantir's ability only spawns a hound. No synergy with anything, no crazy, high point combo coming out of there just a 3 point engine (4 point if the devs take my suggestion into consideration)
So yeah, 5 points with veil for that effect seems resonable to me.
Overall i like how you think
I always love seeing people coming up with new ways to improve the WH!
Eredin - From what i can tell, your idea for Eredin is that once you play him the duration of the frost is increased by 1 turn every turn. Which would basically make that frost infinite on that row. I don't disagree that this would make him a threat more or less equal to the Unseen Elder this would also make him an auto include in all decks since you just play him and you have frost on that row permanently if you meet the devotion.
It's a good concept, i like it but this would work if he was in a WH deck only. If you add that effect in mish mash decks with top tier cards it would be a bit much i think.
Imlerith - I also like it but i feel like he's a bit underwhelming for that provision. To his effect i would also add this: Devotion: Gain armor by the total duration of frost effects on the opposite side". That would put him more on par with top tier cards around that provision cost range.
Caranthir - sounds good as well but too easy to deal with. i absolutely despise the idea of 9 or more provision cost cards being killable by 4 provision damaging cards (Natural Selection, Tourney Joust, Gutting Slash etc).
I'd say he should be 5 points with the added bonus: Devotion: gain Veil.
Think of it this way, Francesca is 7 for 10 with veil without any devotion requirement and the same 3 turn counter to get the effect. But when she spawns that spell on the 3rd turn she has quite a few synergies and the points she can put down with that effect can go quite high.
This Charantir's ability only spawns a hound. No synergy with anything, no crazy, high point combo coming out of there just a 3 point engine (4 point if the devs take my suggestion into consideration)
So yeah, 5 points with veil for that effect seems resonable to me.
Overall i like how you think
I always love seeing people coming up with new ways to improve the WH!
I was thinking about making a thread myself about this but since we've already got one here, here are my suggestions:
1. Winter Queen - Actually love OPs idea of her summoning from the graveyard, but to balance it I would increase provision cost to 9 or 10.
2. Nithral - This card is pretty garbage when played outside of Kelly decks since he's so easily answered (5p removal, lock, movement), my suggestion would be to simply give him zeal and that way at least he won't play as a 5 for 8 which is often the case as it is now.
3. Wild Hunt Hound and Wild Hunt Warrior - although I'm not onboard with OP's idea of changing dominance mechanic, I agree these cards should be 4 point bodies, due to current dominance mechanic. The fact they are 3 point bodies means that if your opponent played even one card (let's face it 99.99% of the time their opening card will not be below 4 points) you will not have dominance and therefore cannot, or at least shouldn't play these cards.
4. Imlerith - In his current state he is a good card, however, he is only good when combo'd with non-WH units, typically Yghern, but some people even do Mammuna shenanigans with the Griffins. I would simply make it so that if you discard a WH unit he doubles the boost, meaning a conqueror plays for 1 more point than Yghern, and even discarding something like a hound will no longer be the end of the world.
I'll end with saying I don't think WH is "bad" per se, you can definitely beat some of the meta-decks out there, but it's not T1, and the most iconic bad guys of TW3 DESERVES to be T1, all it takes is just a little push and we can get that.
1. Winter Queen - Actually love OPs idea of her summoning from the graveyard, but to balance it I would increase provision cost to 9 or 10.
2. Nithral - This card is pretty garbage when played outside of Kelly decks since he's so easily answered (5p removal, lock, movement), my suggestion would be to simply give him zeal and that way at least he won't play as a 5 for 8 which is often the case as it is now.
3. Wild Hunt Hound and Wild Hunt Warrior - although I'm not onboard with OP's idea of changing dominance mechanic, I agree these cards should be 4 point bodies, due to current dominance mechanic. The fact they are 3 point bodies means that if your opponent played even one card (let's face it 99.99% of the time their opening card will not be below 4 points) you will not have dominance and therefore cannot, or at least shouldn't play these cards.
4. Imlerith - In his current state he is a good card, however, he is only good when combo'd with non-WH units, typically Yghern, but some people even do Mammuna shenanigans with the Griffins. I would simply make it so that if you discard a WH unit he doubles the boost, meaning a conqueror plays for 1 more point than Yghern, and even discarding something like a hound will no longer be the end of the world.
I'll end with saying I don't think WH is "bad" per se, you can definitely beat some of the meta-decks out there, but it's not T1, and the most iconic bad guys of TW3 DESERVES to be T1, all it takes is just a little push and we can get that.
WH not even in tier 2 or 3, deck for the fans. There is no synergy in WH, and as you have already written mostly you need other type high point monsters to trigger their Dominance, and even after that you get a little benefits, mostly aim for Eredins +1 Frost dmg. And a big lose for WH is Caranthir, who absolutely not fits there. Lack of synergy, lack of mechanic combos, etc.
I 100% agree that Caranthir is pretty useless in WH decks. The reason I didn't mention him is because messing with his current mechanic you end up taking away things from the current MO decks that actually do use him. It's the same reason I didn't mention Naglfar even though it should clearly allow you to play any WH unit from your deck rather than random golds. You could just give a new card Caranthir's ability and then begin the rework though of course.
Those things could be easily fixed with devotion.
Like for Caranthir. You leave the ability as it is but you add: Devotion - If the unit is a Wild Hunt unit, don't change it's power.
That way you can get basically another... Nithral, Apiarian Phantom or Eredin. Or a hound but who wants that
As for Nagalfar, same thing. Devotion: Summon any WH unit from your deck instead.
This way this cards can be used as they were up till now but they get some extra value in WH specific decks to get some synergy with the archtype.
I still think Dominance is trash for this archtype and should be changed so that we won't need cards such as Yghern just to make it work.
Nice, if only they understood this.Those things could be easily fixed with devotion.
Like for Caranthir. You leave the ability as it is but you add: Devotion - If the unit is a Wild Hunt unit, don't change it's power.
That way you can get basically another... Nithral, Apiarian Phantom or Eredin. Or a hound but who wants that
As for Nagalfar, same thing. Devotion: Summon any WH unit from your deck instead.
This way this cards can be used as they were up till now but they get some extra value in WH specific decks to get some synergy with the archtype.
I still think Dominance is trash for this archtype and should be changed so that we won't need cards such as Yghern just to make it work.
Like all of these suggestions, although I don't think there is any need for the devotion tag, you are already locked into devotion enough as it is in WH decks.Those things could be easily fixed with devotion.
Like for Caranthir. You leave the ability as it is but you add: Devotion - If the unit is a Wild Hunt unit, don't change it's power.
That way you can get basically another... Nithral, Apiarian Phantom or Eredin. Or a hound but who wants that
As for Nagalfar, same thing. Devotion: Summon any WH unit from your deck instead.
This way this cards can be used as they were up till now but they get some extra value in WH specific decks to get some synergy with the archtype.
I still think Dominance is trash for this archtype and should be changed so that we won't need cards such as Yghern just to make it work.
The reason I like the current dominance mechanic is because I love the concept of breaking down your opponent's biggest units and asserting your dominance over them. It works in great synergy with the frost mechanic, plus WH has a decent amount of ways to both deal damage and boost, even as devotion. I wouldn't mind adding more damage, boost or payoff to WH for the dominance mechanic though.
Well, the name doesn't have to change. It can still be called Dominance but instead of "trigger effect if you have the highest point unit" or whatever the description was, the effect can be "Trigger this effect if there's frost on the enemy board" or something like that.
My point is that WH doesn't really have that many high point units so we have to add other non-wh units to compensate for this mechanic. If the mechanic was WH oriented to synergyze with frost then we wouldn't be forced to add cards like Yghern or any other high point card. We could have just WH decks and that's something that i would like
I’d really like to see Winter Queen become like Flying Redanian. Honestly the new ability is cool and all but I don’t think it fits her, nor is it very consistent since it requires both players to pass. Having her come out even if in the graveyard if both rows are frosted would be great I think. The graveyard summon condition could be locked to devotion to keep her power and provisions the same or make her 3po/9pro like Flying Redanian. Instead, I’d like to see a card like Rhiogan the Undying for frost/Wild Hunt. That way you have a way to get value for “overfrosting”
EDIT: Just thought that maybe Caranthir could get reworked to become like Rhiogan (obviously with a condition other than having to be summon from the graveyard). That way he gets to be part of the Wild Hunt archetype like he should be. And since they really want to keep his effect in the game, they could give it to another card.
EDIT: Just thought that maybe Caranthir could get reworked to become like Rhiogan (obviously with a condition other than having to be summon from the graveyard). That way he gets to be part of the Wild Hunt archetype like he should be. And since they really want to keep his effect in the game, they could give it to another card.
Last edited: