Can I get a logical and throughtout answer why red coin is allowed to play his CA spy in the first round (and by the extention second if he lost the 1 round)?
That play leaves only 3 options for the blue coin: a) pass and lose round 1 preserving your spy (if you even have one in your hand); b) play 2 cards down ensuring the usage of own spy in round 2 or 3 or c) spy back and pray that you win this round leaving yourself without the sure option to bleed the opponent (you are not guaranteed to get the card back in 2 round as a winner of 1 without a spy if you decided to play that round or opponent has carryover). That being said, CA spy is the only strategic counter play to the carryover (not counting figurines or locks) - and if the opponent spies back that only counter play completely vanishes.
CA spy should only be allowed to be used by the winner of the first round to bleed the opponent in the second round. Answering CA with CA is a complete rubbish. If you answer the CA spy as blue coin by playing your own CA spy you are basically playing card down because you used your only tool to punish the opponent in the 2 round.
Counterspying in 2 round for the loser of 1 round is a risky but solid play - you simply deny the bleeding option to the other side. What was the point of winning the round one then? Yeah, the opponent will start round 3 first but then again he might as well be card up meaning he will get the last play anyway. What changed? It feels that the first round completely lost it's power and importance with CA spies for both sides. There is no reason to win the round 1 anymore, especially if you have a CA spy in your hand. In the vanilla gwent from the Witcher 3 you at least got some kind of gimmick (like getting the card with nothern realms). Why not include that at last? This additional card is as simple as that - winner of the first round gets 1 card back while removing the CA spies from the game completely. Or keep the spies for more strategic plays (especially considering they are bodies on the field - g:igni, letho-regis, scorch blocking, etc). Counterspying is a complete broken and stupid concept.
CA spy should only be allowed to be used by the blue coin. No matter what round. You start the game on blue? You can use your spy, that's fair. Red coin shouldn't be able to answer your spy with thier own spy. You start the second round with a blue coin (meaning you won round 1)? You can use your spy, that's fair, you have the tool to bleed the round, you are also rewarded in a way for winning round 1. You are starting the round 3 on blue coin (meaning you lost round 1 and won round 2)? You can use your spy to deny the last say for another player, that's fair, since points matter much more in the last round and you also played very carefully to not to blow your spy in the first two rounds which can be really tricky.
CA spy play should involve strategy not a simple "oh, he played his spy, i should spy back" or "oh, I am playing the blue coin, let's spy and hope he doesn't spy back" etc. It's not strategy, that's not tactic - that's a simple abuse.
Make spies bigger bodies to compensate, 13 is a good bronze, spies should be valued as an average silver - 15 points at worst. Make the spy on red coin become a unit that can be played just for the points to compensate. Or different values depending on the coin. Less value spy for the blue and more for the red coin.
Spying back is the worst thing that happened to this game.
CA spy for the blue coin might be the only chance for that player to get ahead in the game and punish the opponent for playing passively (e.g. commiting small plays since he is on red coin anyway). CA spy for the red coin means much more - either a free 2 cards up, guaranteed win on the first round (could be even on even considering the low value on spies) or denying the only punishment tool that the blue player had.
Coinflip may be the problem but it's not the real root of THE problem, the real problem lies in spies and spying back. Make the first round matter again.
The other problem is inconsistency of spies: if one player gets the spy and other don't that often proves to be the game winning factor in that match. Especially considering spy tutors - some factions are more favoured in that situations while others are left in the cold. Because of that alzur's double cross became almost auto-include in most decks - just to pull spy, my guess, that wasn't the intented use of that card. Decks that would be okay without double-cross but with other silver can't afford the luxury if they lack the spy tutor. Why not make spy to be in every starting hand (or just in the starting hand of blue coin side) to remove that incostistency and remove the really hated spy tutoring?
Little off-topic: The solutions are there and they aren't really that complex. Why no moves from the developer side for almost half a year? Homecoming and such, what is the point if the player base which you want to transit into the start of the new "era" gets more and more tired, more and more frustrated, less and less trusting? It's like a perfectionist trying to build a perfect castle out of sand while the ocean waves keep destroying every wall foundations he has built. Homecoming launch - then what? Will there be another open beta test while the product is presented as "complete"? No disrespect - just curiosity.
That play leaves only 3 options for the blue coin: a) pass and lose round 1 preserving your spy (if you even have one in your hand); b) play 2 cards down ensuring the usage of own spy in round 2 or 3 or c) spy back and pray that you win this round leaving yourself without the sure option to bleed the opponent (you are not guaranteed to get the card back in 2 round as a winner of 1 without a spy if you decided to play that round or opponent has carryover). That being said, CA spy is the only strategic counter play to the carryover (not counting figurines or locks) - and if the opponent spies back that only counter play completely vanishes.
CA spy should only be allowed to be used by the winner of the first round to bleed the opponent in the second round. Answering CA with CA is a complete rubbish. If you answer the CA spy as blue coin by playing your own CA spy you are basically playing card down because you used your only tool to punish the opponent in the 2 round.
Counterspying in 2 round for the loser of 1 round is a risky but solid play - you simply deny the bleeding option to the other side. What was the point of winning the round one then? Yeah, the opponent will start round 3 first but then again he might as well be card up meaning he will get the last play anyway. What changed? It feels that the first round completely lost it's power and importance with CA spies for both sides. There is no reason to win the round 1 anymore, especially if you have a CA spy in your hand. In the vanilla gwent from the Witcher 3 you at least got some kind of gimmick (like getting the card with nothern realms). Why not include that at last? This additional card is as simple as that - winner of the first round gets 1 card back while removing the CA spies from the game completely. Or keep the spies for more strategic plays (especially considering they are bodies on the field - g:igni, letho-regis, scorch blocking, etc). Counterspying is a complete broken and stupid concept.
CA spy should only be allowed to be used by the blue coin. No matter what round. You start the game on blue? You can use your spy, that's fair. Red coin shouldn't be able to answer your spy with thier own spy. You start the second round with a blue coin (meaning you won round 1)? You can use your spy, that's fair, you have the tool to bleed the round, you are also rewarded in a way for winning round 1. You are starting the round 3 on blue coin (meaning you lost round 1 and won round 2)? You can use your spy to deny the last say for another player, that's fair, since points matter much more in the last round and you also played very carefully to not to blow your spy in the first two rounds which can be really tricky.
CA spy play should involve strategy not a simple "oh, he played his spy, i should spy back" or "oh, I am playing the blue coin, let's spy and hope he doesn't spy back" etc. It's not strategy, that's not tactic - that's a simple abuse.
Make spies bigger bodies to compensate, 13 is a good bronze, spies should be valued as an average silver - 15 points at worst. Make the spy on red coin become a unit that can be played just for the points to compensate. Or different values depending on the coin. Less value spy for the blue and more for the red coin.
Spying back is the worst thing that happened to this game.
CA spy for the blue coin might be the only chance for that player to get ahead in the game and punish the opponent for playing passively (e.g. commiting small plays since he is on red coin anyway). CA spy for the red coin means much more - either a free 2 cards up, guaranteed win on the first round (could be even on even considering the low value on spies) or denying the only punishment tool that the blue player had.
Coinflip may be the problem but it's not the real root of THE problem, the real problem lies in spies and spying back. Make the first round matter again.
The other problem is inconsistency of spies: if one player gets the spy and other don't that often proves to be the game winning factor in that match. Especially considering spy tutors - some factions are more favoured in that situations while others are left in the cold. Because of that alzur's double cross became almost auto-include in most decks - just to pull spy, my guess, that wasn't the intented use of that card. Decks that would be okay without double-cross but with other silver can't afford the luxury if they lack the spy tutor. Why not make spy to be in every starting hand (or just in the starting hand of blue coin side) to remove that incostistency and remove the really hated spy tutoring?
Little off-topic: The solutions are there and they aren't really that complex. Why no moves from the developer side for almost half a year? Homecoming and such, what is the point if the player base which you want to transit into the start of the new "era" gets more and more tired, more and more frustrated, less and less trusting? It's like a perfectionist trying to build a perfect castle out of sand while the ocean waves keep destroying every wall foundations he has built. Homecoming launch - then what? Will there be another open beta test while the product is presented as "complete"? No disrespect - just curiosity.
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