Balance Council - Share your picks for Oct-Nov Season

[Raja_Rajan]

Share your picks as part of the Balance Council. You can give an explanation or thought process behind your picks. But, please lets not argue with why someone has picked a card to be nerfed/buffed. It is every individual player's choice. If the Sun suddenly rises in South West and someone's opinion/explanation makes you change your pick, feel free to do that.

These are my picks:

Power Buff:
Oak Critters: One of the ST's many dead on arrival cards which can be made playable with a simple power buff. It would play for 10 in 4 turns on devotion decks.
Hawker Smuggler: In this era of "carry over? no problem" this card is one of the worst and most powercrept card in the game. Any bronze in 6P should be seriously powerful. So, this card, I have picked for both power and provision buff. It should be a 5 for 5 to trick ST players to play a few Handbuff games.
Malena: She has a decent ability which can be used for moving allies for synergy. Movement sucks and this can help to suck a little less

Power Nerf:
Calveit: One of the most OP and strongest ability in the entire game. I wouldn't want a provision nerf, 8 power is not needed for such a powerful ability
Sergent: With so many synergies, it is basically in every single NG deck. It should get the spotter treatment and be made 3 power.
Rosa: 'But it is a card on order' doesn't apply to her as she is basically Seltkirk who can play the card he kills without taking any damage.

Provision Nerf:
Mutagen Generator: This is unlockable Hawker Smuggler on 1 ton of steroids. Can easily play for 30+ points of carryover. Trades with Heatwave fairly.
Battle Stations: Play 2 engines, thin your deck by 2 with added tactics synergy calls for a minimum 12P
Precision Strike: This is actually a buff. When we have Onslaught at 16P which is basically better than this in every possible sense with tons of added synergy, this leader is unfairly kept at 14P for doing 5 damage.

Provision Buff:
Forest Protector: With cards like Bride Of Sea and Lydia at 8 and 9 provisions (with the 8P card having the potential to play a gold special), this card is kept at 11 unfairly.
Hawker Smuggler: Same as above as Power Buff. It should be a 5 for 5 to seem decent.
Circle Of Life: Severely power crept card. Not sure even at 4P it would be playable. It should boost by 3 to be good/playable at 4P in current meta. But still, at 4P some poor souls can consider adding this card.

What are your picks?

 

[Jannay]

 

[quintivarium]

Power Increase

Artis​

Saesenthessis: Blaze​

Ciri​

Power Decrease

Vanadain​

Eredin Breacc Glas​

Sigvald​

Provision Increase

Operator​

Reaver Scout​

Slave Driver​

Provision Decrease

Villentretenmerth​

Kambi​

Schirru​

General Rationale
I am focusing my votes around two ideas: reducing viability of binary garbage while focusing buffs on cards that utilize significant strategy.

Specific Changes
Power Increase:

Artis — Artis changes the dynamic of an entire round in ways that force players to actually think differently about their play. Unfortunately, he is typically just removed. The buff gives him durability closer to other cards around which entire strategies are built (most of which are 7+ power, while Artis is presently only 5 power).​

​

Saesenthessis: Blaze — The dragon’s weak link, a card that almost never plays for value. It has an interesting strategic ability, but one that cannot be developed in dragon decks because dragons burn too many provisions, and one that can’t be developed specifically for Blaze, because without lineage he cannot generate nearly enough value.​

Ciri — Vanilla Ciri adds an interesting dynamic to round one with her threat of gaining card advantage. Unfortunately, if not drawn in round one, she plays for too little to justify the provisions. While a better fix is to simply make her appear in a starting hand, that option is not available.​

Power Decrease:

Vanadain — In a way, this nerf is a shame, because Vanadain alone is not really the problem. The issue I have is with the whole Vanadain / Waylay / Simlas interaction (exacerbated by Heist). The simple, best fix would have been to limit Simlas to playing at most three copies of the chosen bronze special. But that opportunity has passed. In my opinion, the best alternative is to nerf Vanadain (the most dispensable of the offending cards) to oblivion. At least a reduction in power reduces the difficulty of the binary, “must remove Simlas” requirement.​

Eredin Breacc Glas — when not countered, Eredin plays for too much value. Ideally he would get a provision buff to offset the power nerf, but one change at a time. I can’t argue that Eredin is the biggest offender, but he is one near to the current meta.​

Sigvald is a neat card concept, but one easily abused. I think a one power nerf will sufficiently reduce the effectiveness of his interaction with the likes of Knut and his own order ability that he will no longer feel OP.​

Provision Increase

One of my biggest complaints with Gwent balance is the ease of duplicating certain cards. Even a slight imbalance in a card gets multiplied when the card is copied. And multiple copies of cards like damage engines grow exponentially oppressive in the number on board. While there are many culprits in this, I am starting with the bronze ones because the impact more cards and have a greater proportional effect on provisions. Operator, Scouts, and Drivers all have the ability to cheaply copy dangerous cards.​

Provision Decrease

Villentretenmerth — This card has significant tactical interaction. But it is least interesting in a dragon deck. Unfortunately, the hideously awful lineage ability basically limits all dragons to dragon decks. Fortunately, dragon decks are bad enough that there is a little space to attempt to make the interesting dragons viable in stand alone capacities.​

Kambi — a card that reduces round length is strategically interesting (even if it is high RNG). Presently it is far too costly to ever play for adequate value.​

Schirru — Schirru is a very interesting card that actually forces a player to adapt to the opponent’s play; I want to encourage its use. And while (in a rare moment) I agree with rrc about Precision Strike (which is far more the right home for Schirru than Guerilla Tactics) I think there is room for both buffs. Unfortunately I could not vote to support Buffing Precision Strike because I need the slot for nerfs that were higher priority.​

 

[LeticiOrel]

There are my picks. It's not a final version, I may change it a little, but I'm quite certain about some of them at this point.

 

[WhiteWolf4207]

 

[WhiteWolf4207]

My final changes.

 

[LeticiOrel]

So, these are my final picks. Can't wait to the results!

 

[EduFerraz]

These are mine

In fact i want to decrease leticia provision, but i already puted 3 cards on there, so i decide to try a Power buff


In my provision buffs o wanted some cards that are almost didnt played (with The excession of boat).

In my prpivion nerf i Will always put madoc untill it is nerfed, because i simple hate that Card

 

[Gemueseknolle]

great thread!

i would have so many things that i would balance, so i really didnt even know where to start.

so here is my suggestion, more even random than sorted by importance:

 

[Jannay]

My final thoughts.

 

[Gemueseknolle]

ok, the council happened, and i already found some good changes....

however some summary would be nice after the voting has finished.

 

[Jannay]

Well, It looks like the community killed some archetypes and revived some toxic stuff, like Nekker pirates.
And reavers don't work anymore.

 

[GABRIEL.LEPAK]

Too bad there's no summary on the changes. But from what I can see, some changes are quite "interesting"..., for example decreasing power of reavers (cannot use order anymore?) or decreasing power of Sove (like it changes anything.. 20 power before, 19 now)

 

[Lexor]

Too bad there's no summary on the changes.

There is.

 

[Gemueseknolle]

ah, now there is a summary. seems it appeared only later....

the icons look wrong to me (shouldnt it be the other way round?), but ok:

my comments:
* power increases: i basically agree with all power increases (well, saskia wouldnt need any, but ok)
* power decreases: torres is pretty pointless, reavers is unplayable by this change, very good the changes on eclipse deacon and imperial marine
* provisions increases: good to me. lets see how they will turn out
* provisions decreases: imperial formation was pretty strong in my opinion, i do not get why the community made it even stronger. the larva change might be dangerous, but let's see

generally, all in all: good changes, let's see where this is going.

 

[Barracuda88]

ah, now there is a summary. seems it appeared only later....

the icons look wrong to me (shouldnt it be the other way round?), but ok:
View attachment 11372359

my comments:
* power increases: i basically agree with all power increases (well, saskia wouldnt need any, but ok)
* power decreases: torres is pretty pointless, reavers is unplayable by this change, very good the changes on eclipse deacon and imperial marine
* provisions increases: good to me. lets see how they will turn out
* provisions decreases: imperial formation was pretty strong in my opinion, i do not get why the community made it even stronger. the larva change might be dangerous, but let's see

generally, all in all: good changes, let's see where this is going.

How do you get to the summary? When I try to click on Balance Council it says temporarily disabled, voting starts in like 20 some hours

 

[Jannay]

Ball and aristocrats, Acherontia, reavers, NG soldiers RIP.

 

[Gemueseknolle]

How do you get to the summary?

just close the game and restart it.
at the beginning of the game (after loading splash screen and before menu) there will be a news pop up showing the results.

Ball and aristocrats, Acherontia, reavers, NG soldiers RIP.

they might come back. a little decrease doesnt hurt for them.
ball does still work btw, it just became a little harder (and more balanced imo)

 

[Jannay]

they might come back. a little decrease doesnt hurt for them.
ball does still work btw, it just became a little harder (and more balanced imo)

The Ball is dead. Admiral + provision, Philippe 5 power, Battle Stations + provision, 2 Thirsty Dames 6 provision (!). No one will play it.
And of course, Masquerade Ball can't survive the Nekker Pirates.

 

[Barracuda88]

Found it under news. Happy overall with the changes, since NG got rocked pretty hard. Maybe, just maybe, we'll see a bit less of it on the ladder. Kind of amusing about the reaver hunters, but not sure how or why reaver scouts got cheaper. And roach and compass being back in the nekker decks.