Are (directed) damage engines too opressive

[RaynStargaze]

First of all - unlike boost engines, they dont play into igni/axi/yrden/base geralt and so on.

The ability to destroy other units (fairly consistenly) allows them to stop any and all combos/engines that your opponent would play. If these decks are viable - things like swarm cant be played. Or any deck that relies on combos/having more than 1 card on the board at any given point in time.
^This alone is imo enough reason to change them - The fact that combos can not exist in a meta where these are viable

They are suprisingly good against defenders since they can either kill the defender (especially low hp ones) or accumulate stacks regardless of the defender existing (i.e. play defender first -> opponent plays stacking damage engine - you play your engine - opponent plays purify as soon as he has enough stacks to kill -> he is already ahead in charges/already able to save up for killing regardless of you playing defender).

Properties that make damage engines more opressive:
- can gain charges / charges can be stacked/saved for later
- can be targeted
- deal direct damage (not bleed) - bleed cant be stacked to delete synergy before it comes out
- can produce multiple engines (portal / dwarfes) in 1 turn
- They coexist in decks with other engines (bonus points for more damage engines) - allows to ignore decks playing a reasonable amount of spell removal.

The counterplay options are consistently worth much less to the point where they are bad cards unless they stop engines. Even then they can be a net loss - stopping the zeal order damage unit (NR) with thunder is a net 1 point loss for the guy who played thunder.

 

[InkognitoXI]

To answer you question, the simple answer is yes, if damage engines can be made to stick the round is basically over.
NR damaging engines (especially in charge decks) and dwarves can make it impossible to get any own engines to stick, which is not the point engines should have.

 

[Moors-]

100% Agree. This is one of the fundamental problems, which is not fixed by the Dev team yet.

 

[Pacifixer]

I agree. Engines should not be able to generate charges if they already have charges - gain a charge, spend a charge, no more hard removal with 10+ charges.

 

[StrykerxS77x]

I really see the issue here is more the play 2 cards leaders than anything else. That and general card balancing. Defenders are simply too strong.

 

[Guest 4368268]

Yes. But it's part of their 'Gwent is a battlefield' philosophy. Hell of a lot of fun in Thronebreaker but incredibly annoying in multiplayer. I think this is why control decks have been so popular, getting board wiped is one of the worst feelings when playing the game. So now you have to play heavy removal to counter heavy removal..

When I think of good engines I think of beta Odrin or Redanian Knight Elect or current Anna Strenger and Trebuchet. Terrible engines are all of these Firescorpions, Redanian Archers etc. way too oppressive.

 

[StrykerxS77x]

Yes. But it's part of their 'Gwent is a battlefield' philosophy. Hell of a lot of fun in Thronebreaker but incredibly annoying in multiplayer. I think this is why control decks have been so popular, getting board wiped is one of the worst feelings when playing the game. So now you have to play heavy removal to counter heavy removal..

When I think of good engines I think of beta Odrin or Redanian Knight Elect or current Anna Strenger and Trebuchet. Terrible engines are all of these Firescorpions, Redanian Archers etc. way too oppressive.

I miss Odrin.....