There have been a couple of threads in the last weeks dealing with problems of ST and after putting all the ideas together those threads gave me, I want to present concept for a ST rework.
In my opinion ST should be the faction with the highest skill cap and therefore a lot of the abilities are rather complicated in my opinion.
Current Problems
In my opinion ST has quite some bigger problems at the moment. Those are first of all the races. ST has too many cards that focus only on their specific races, which pretty much limits the ways to put decks together.
The second problem is that ST as a control faction has quite a lot damage on deploy effects, which can get great value if they kill something, but because of that were heavily nerved and because of the amount of deploys they lack synergie.
The last problem that I see is that ST lacks unique things to do, which make them special and I want to give them something like that.
My solutions
Concerning the focus on races, I want to let cards mainly synergize with special effects instead of the races elves or dwarves. Of course there can be cards which only interact with a special race, but those should be cards you include, because you already have a deck full of dwarves/elves and not cards you build your deck around.
Dwarves
What currently affects dwarves should mainly concern allies which are already boosted, as that is a thematic a lot of dwarves already have.
Elves
A full elf deck is often a swarm deck, but as such the player will suffer quite a loss of destroyed cards. So, having cards that synergize with dead allies instead of elves will still help this archetype.
Agility
Forest Wisperer was changed in a way to give her a deploy effect on melee and a delayed effect on ranged, such that the player can move her with another card for extra value. I believe that this is a great representation of the old faction characteristic of not beeing row locked and gives players some extra things to do. To allow players to actually use these effects there should be some more movement effects, but those should be really specific.
Deathblow
With all the damage effects ST posses, giving them more deathblows should make the faction more interesting too and will give cards who simply do damage on deploy something else to do as well.
All changes:
Blue Mountain Elite
Changed effect: Deploy: Duell an enemy
Changed Range: 2
The old swordmaster ability. Synergizes well with handbuff, and even if you fail to handbuff it enough it can still give you an additional dead elf, in case that is more usefull.
Dwarven Skirmisher
Additional effect: If this card is boosted gain 1 range.
It makes the card more versatile and adds synergie.
Hawker Healer
Changed effect: the Ranged ability will become "Heal adjacent allies by 1"
Allows the card to be moved for the extra value.
Dryad Fledling
Added effect: Deploy: If the card on the right is a dryad move it to the other row.
Makes the card a bit better without buffing Water of Brokilon
Elven Scout
Changed effect: only buffs itself by 1 when a trap is triggered
Additional effect: At turn end, damage each poisoned enemy by 1.
This way Elven Scout should also work for poison decks and gives a lot of extra value to Treant Mantis in a trap deck.
Elven Swordmaster
Changed effect: instead of reducing the cooldown by 1 whenever an elf appears, the cooldown is reduced by 1 whenever an ally dies on this row or appears on your other row.
Definetly a buff, but requires the player to play his cards in a special way.
Pyrotechnican
Changed strength: 2
Changed effect: Deploy: Damage a random unit on each row by 1. If this card is boosted increase damage by 1.
Removed: Zeal, Order, Cooldown
Swapped what it does with DB Bomber, and gave him synergies with already being buffed.
Farseer
Changed strength: 2
Changed effect: While in hand gain 1 vitality everytime an allied unit is destroyed.
Due to the vitality you can't carry him too long in your hand. The lore justification for this effect is basically: "I told you all along that you will die if you do that"
Vrihedd Vanguard
Changed strength: 3
Changed effect: Melee: Gain vitality equal to the number of elves in your hand.
Additional effect: Ranged: Whenever an ally appears transfer up to 2 vitality.
Vrihedd Vanguard can still be used the same way as before, but can also be used to distribute vitality to allies, thus keeping key units safe.
Dol Blathanna Bomer
Changed strength: 3
Changed effect: Deploy: Destroy an allied artifact and give an enemy bleeding corresponding to the provisions of the artifact.
Swapped the concept with Pyrotechnican and changed the ability to be less dis-functional with Eldain. Also the bleed should help get deathblow effects.
Mahakam Guard
Changed effect: Deploy: Boost an adjacent ally by the number of boosted units on the other row.
Added effect: If this card is boosted, boost allied units by 1 before they are played.
Gave him a synergie with being boosted and other boosted units instead of dwarves. As that is pretty strong, his deploy was changed back to the other row and requires an adjacent unit.
DB Bowman
Changed effect: Deploy: Damage a unit on the opposite row by 2.
Added effect: Ranged: Whenever an ally dies damage a random enemy by 1.
The concept of having a penality for attacking enemies on the melee row is kept, while they got a nice new ability.
Half-Elf Hunter
Changed effect: Deploy: Damage an enemy by 1. If it is poisoned increase the damage by 2.
Added effect: Deathblow: Poison an unpoisoned enemy.
If you can kill it without poison, you can poison something else.
Elven Wardancer
Changed effect: Melee: Order: Damage an enemy by 1.
Added effect: Deploy: If this unit is already boosted give it Zeal.
Added effect: Deathblow: Move to the other row.
I kept the bonus from handbuff, but gave it some great interactions with movement. Though if the player doesn't want to he can keep it melee by not killing any enemy.
Hawker Support
Changed strength: 4
Changed effect: Order: Move an ally to a different row. Charges: 2
Dwarven Mercanary
Added effect: Deploy: Move a dwarf to this row.
Helps Mahakam guard get its effects easier.
DB Archer
Changed effect: Ranged is now an Order
Allows players to get both effects.
Vrihedd Officer
Changed effect: Deploy Ranged: Boost adjacent units by 1.
Added effect: Oder Ranged: Give an ally 3 vitality
Will profit from being moved too.
Yaevin
Changed effect: Deploy: Damage an enemy by 1
Added effect: While in hand increase the damage by 1, whenever an ally dies.
This shouldn't trigger when all units at the end of the round are removed.
Barclay Els
Changed effect: At turn end, boost all allies by 1, which are already boosted at least by 3
Now he synergizes with boosted units instead of dwarves.
Yarpen Zigrin
Changed effect: At turn end if both adjacent units are boosted, boost self by 2.
Make him work with the other dwarves instead of no-unit decks.
Schirrú
Changed effect: Give self and all enemy units with less power than Schirrú bleeding equal to Schirrús power.
I'm not sure if this change is necessary, and if it isn't completly broken, but the idea is to make Schirru less of a finisher as well as allowing Deathblow effects to be triggered easier.
Isengrim Faoiltarna
Changed effect: Zeal. Order: Destroy an allied unit and damage an enemy by 3. Cooldown: 2
Should synergize well with cards that profit from allies dying. Also damaging an enemy by 3 can take out a valuable engine, even though you have to sacrafice an own unit.
Eleyas
Changed effect: Deploy Melee: Damage all damaged enemies by 1. Order Ranged: Boost all boosted allies by 1.
Both effects are better than before and with movement you can still get both of them.
Aelirenn
Changed effect: If during the round 5 allied units died, summon this card from your deck to your melee row.
It should be easier to loose 5 units during the round in particular with Isengrim than keeping them alife.
I know those are a lot of changes, and you probably won't agree with all of them, but would you say about this as a general direction and inspiration for a ST rework?
In my opinion ST should be the faction with the highest skill cap and therefore a lot of the abilities are rather complicated in my opinion.
Current Problems
In my opinion ST has quite some bigger problems at the moment. Those are first of all the races. ST has too many cards that focus only on their specific races, which pretty much limits the ways to put decks together.
The second problem is that ST as a control faction has quite a lot damage on deploy effects, which can get great value if they kill something, but because of that were heavily nerved and because of the amount of deploys they lack synergie.
The last problem that I see is that ST lacks unique things to do, which make them special and I want to give them something like that.
My solutions
Concerning the focus on races, I want to let cards mainly synergize with special effects instead of the races elves or dwarves. Of course there can be cards which only interact with a special race, but those should be cards you include, because you already have a deck full of dwarves/elves and not cards you build your deck around.
Dwarves
What currently affects dwarves should mainly concern allies which are already boosted, as that is a thematic a lot of dwarves already have.
Elves
A full elf deck is often a swarm deck, but as such the player will suffer quite a loss of destroyed cards. So, having cards that synergize with dead allies instead of elves will still help this archetype.
Agility
Forest Wisperer was changed in a way to give her a deploy effect on melee and a delayed effect on ranged, such that the player can move her with another card for extra value. I believe that this is a great representation of the old faction characteristic of not beeing row locked and gives players some extra things to do. To allow players to actually use these effects there should be some more movement effects, but those should be really specific.
Deathblow
With all the damage effects ST posses, giving them more deathblows should make the faction more interesting too and will give cards who simply do damage on deploy something else to do as well.
All changes:
Blue Mountain Elite
Changed effect: Deploy: Duell an enemy
Changed Range: 2
The old swordmaster ability. Synergizes well with handbuff, and even if you fail to handbuff it enough it can still give you an additional dead elf, in case that is more usefull.
Dwarven Skirmisher
Additional effect: If this card is boosted gain 1 range.
It makes the card more versatile and adds synergie.
Hawker Healer
Changed effect: the Ranged ability will become "Heal adjacent allies by 1"
Allows the card to be moved for the extra value.
Dryad Fledling
Added effect: Deploy: If the card on the right is a dryad move it to the other row.
Makes the card a bit better without buffing Water of Brokilon
Elven Scout
Changed effect: only buffs itself by 1 when a trap is triggered
Additional effect: At turn end, damage each poisoned enemy by 1.
This way Elven Scout should also work for poison decks and gives a lot of extra value to Treant Mantis in a trap deck.
Elven Swordmaster
Changed effect: instead of reducing the cooldown by 1 whenever an elf appears, the cooldown is reduced by 1 whenever an ally dies on this row or appears on your other row.
Definetly a buff, but requires the player to play his cards in a special way.
Pyrotechnican
Changed strength: 2
Changed effect: Deploy: Damage a random unit on each row by 1. If this card is boosted increase damage by 1.
Removed: Zeal, Order, Cooldown
Swapped what it does with DB Bomber, and gave him synergies with already being buffed.
Farseer
Changed strength: 2
Changed effect: While in hand gain 1 vitality everytime an allied unit is destroyed.
Due to the vitality you can't carry him too long in your hand. The lore justification for this effect is basically: "I told you all along that you will die if you do that"
Vrihedd Vanguard
Changed strength: 3
Changed effect: Melee: Gain vitality equal to the number of elves in your hand.
Additional effect: Ranged: Whenever an ally appears transfer up to 2 vitality.
Vrihedd Vanguard can still be used the same way as before, but can also be used to distribute vitality to allies, thus keeping key units safe.
Dol Blathanna Bomer
Changed strength: 3
Changed effect: Deploy: Destroy an allied artifact and give an enemy bleeding corresponding to the provisions of the artifact.
Swapped the concept with Pyrotechnican and changed the ability to be less dis-functional with Eldain. Also the bleed should help get deathblow effects.
Mahakam Guard
Changed effect: Deploy: Boost an adjacent ally by the number of boosted units on the other row.
Added effect: If this card is boosted, boost allied units by 1 before they are played.
Gave him a synergie with being boosted and other boosted units instead of dwarves. As that is pretty strong, his deploy was changed back to the other row and requires an adjacent unit.
DB Bowman
Changed effect: Deploy: Damage a unit on the opposite row by 2.
Added effect: Ranged: Whenever an ally dies damage a random enemy by 1.
The concept of having a penality for attacking enemies on the melee row is kept, while they got a nice new ability.
Half-Elf Hunter
Changed effect: Deploy: Damage an enemy by 1. If it is poisoned increase the damage by 2.
Added effect: Deathblow: Poison an unpoisoned enemy.
If you can kill it without poison, you can poison something else.
Elven Wardancer
Changed effect: Melee: Order: Damage an enemy by 1.
Added effect: Deploy: If this unit is already boosted give it Zeal.
Added effect: Deathblow: Move to the other row.
I kept the bonus from handbuff, but gave it some great interactions with movement. Though if the player doesn't want to he can keep it melee by not killing any enemy.
Hawker Support
Changed strength: 4
Changed effect: Order: Move an ally to a different row. Charges: 2
Dwarven Mercanary
Added effect: Deploy: Move a dwarf to this row.
Helps Mahakam guard get its effects easier.
DB Archer
Changed effect: Ranged is now an Order
Allows players to get both effects.
Vrihedd Officer
Changed effect: Deploy Ranged: Boost adjacent units by 1.
Added effect: Oder Ranged: Give an ally 3 vitality
Will profit from being moved too.
Yaevin
Changed effect: Deploy: Damage an enemy by 1
Added effect: While in hand increase the damage by 1, whenever an ally dies.
This shouldn't trigger when all units at the end of the round are removed.
Barclay Els
Changed effect: At turn end, boost all allies by 1, which are already boosted at least by 3
Now he synergizes with boosted units instead of dwarves.
Yarpen Zigrin
Changed effect: At turn end if both adjacent units are boosted, boost self by 2.
Make him work with the other dwarves instead of no-unit decks.
Schirrú
Changed effect: Give self and all enemy units with less power than Schirrú bleeding equal to Schirrús power.
I'm not sure if this change is necessary, and if it isn't completly broken, but the idea is to make Schirru less of a finisher as well as allowing Deathblow effects to be triggered easier.
Isengrim Faoiltarna
Changed effect: Zeal. Order: Destroy an allied unit and damage an enemy by 3. Cooldown: 2
Should synergize well with cards that profit from allies dying. Also damaging an enemy by 3 can take out a valuable engine, even though you have to sacrafice an own unit.
Eleyas
Changed effect: Deploy Melee: Damage all damaged enemies by 1. Order Ranged: Boost all boosted allies by 1.
Both effects are better than before and with movement you can still get both of them.
Aelirenn
Changed effect: If during the round 5 allied units died, summon this card from your deck to your melee row.
It should be easier to loose 5 units during the round in particular with Isengrim than keeping them alife.
I know those are a lot of changes, and you probably won't agree with all of them, but would you say about this as a general direction and inspiration for a ST rework?
Well, never mind, carry on.
