Changes which help 'Dwarves' in the current Meta: (Pyrotechnician, Geralt: Yrden, Korathi Heatwave, Princess Pavetta, Alumni)

[MedievalHistory]

Faction - Scoia'tael
[Original]
Pyrotechnician
4 provisions, 2 armor, 4 power
Tags, Dwarf
Order: Damage a random enemy unit and self by 4.

Faction - Scoia'tael
[Updated]
Pyrotechnician
4 provisions, 2 armor, 4 power
Tags, Dwarf
Order: Damage an enemy unit and self by 4.
Deploy: If you control a dwarf, gain Zeal.

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Faction - Neutral
[Original]
11 provisions, 2 power
Geralt: Yrden
Tags, Witcher
Deploy: Reset the power of all units in a row.

Faction - Neutral
[Updated]
11 provisions, 2 armor, 3 power
Geralt: Yrden
Tags, Witcher
Deploy (melee): Reset the power of 3 adjacent units.
Deploy (ranged): Boost 3 adjacent units by 2.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Faction - Neutral
[Original]
Korathi Heatwave
11 provisions, 0 power
Tags, Special Card
Banish a unit or an artifact.

Faction - Neutral
[Updated]
Korathi Heatwave
12 provisions, 0 power
Tags, Special Card, Spell
Banish a unit or an artifact with a provision cost of 6 or more.
If a targeted unit has armor, damage it by 7 (ignoring shields, but not ignoring armor) instead of banishing it.
(Korathi Heatwave cannot be tutored from your deck if your deck includes echo cards.)

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Faction - Northern Realms
[Original]
Princess Pavetta
8 provisions, 6 power
Tags, Human
Deploy: Shuffle a bronze unit and all copies of it from your graveyard into your deck.

Faction - Northern Realms
[Updated]
Princess Pavetta
10 provisions, 7 power
Tags, Human
Order: Shuffle a bronze unit and all copies of it from your graveyard into your deck (and give them all Doomed).



One last thing, all 'Patience' cards have their patience count reset upon entering the graveyard, and Alumni (Human, Mage) is changed from a bronze into a gold card which is set at 10 provisions.

 

[quintivarium]

Although I agree with some of what you are trying to do, I would strongly disagree with almost all of these changes.

• Pyrotechnician is already a good, proactive card with a unique, inhibiting effect upon an opponent. Rather than your proposed change (which makes it reactive or proactive and impossible to play around), I would prefer it's ability to give 5 or even 6 damage to offset the power creep of many low provision engines.
• Yrden -- as long as there are ridiculous 6+ point per turn engines like Brouver Hoog and Gezras and Viy and Dracoturtle and Kolgrim and Saul and ..., there needs to be an instant reset. I have no problem with Yrden as he stands. He can be played around by stacking power in different rows and he does not remove units so his power is limited.
• Heatwave -- I hate the present card. But again, massive removal is needed to instant counter mass value cards like Foltest and Dracoturtle and Viy, and Melusine and Brouver and Royal Griffin and Gord and Freakshow and Sigi and She Who Knows and Kikimore Queen and ... We also need reasonable counters to overpowered scenarios and loctions. I just wish that unlimited killing, artifact removal, and banishment did not all reside in the same card.
• Princess Pavetta -- routinely giving resurrected cards doomed make sense to me. It should apply to all cards returned from the dead including Lippy returns. But I think the provision nerf is unreasonable. Moreover, the tempo boost is a move the wrong direction -- if Pavetta is too dominant, nerfing her tempo would make resurrection play far more strategic.
• Patience cards -- these cards derive their value through carryover. Keeping carryover when in the graveyard is critical to the entire archetype. If the archetype is presently overpowered, there are better ways to restrict these cards: resetting patience when the order is used, reducing the card's power, increasing the card's provision, placing restrictions on the use of the order, etc.
• Alumni -- I think even you realize you are overkilling here.

 

[MedievalHistory]

Although I agree with some of what you are trying to do, I would strongly disagree with almost all of these changes.

• Alumni -- I think even you realize you are overkilling here.

I appreciate your feedback! I'm only playing ranked at tier 13 atm, but I'm hitting some huge walls against current meta or popular decks when playing dwarves. They're by and far my favorite deck to play. I've got plenty of other decks in my repertoire which are much stronger (including T1 Syndicate), yet they're just not as fun to play so I get burned out really fast. Rather than attempt to refute your points, I'll just elaborate on my own.

'Geralt Yrden' needs to move away from being a binary card, and instead of just totally wiping out all boosts, it should be more strategic. For a game which tries hard to reduce 'the randomness factor' 'Gwent' needs to reward smart gameplay. For instance, with the 'Yrden' I proposed, an opposing player could throw down a defender card which limits the adjacent cards a 'Yrden' could potentially target. If the 'Yrden' player didn't find the targets palatable, he could instead place it ranged and boost his own units. This could create more 'risk' in holding onto a 'Yrden' up until the last second, and encourage smarter players to use 'Yrden' earlier in the match. Smarter players who would be well aware of the fact that an opposing player could plop a defender card down on the board and make the targets of a 'Yrden' not of the highest point value depending on what adjacent units are near the defender card. Immunity cards could also be of some use here, as a boosted immunity card on its own row with no adjacent units would be untargetable by 'Yrden' with the proposed changes. Only a 'Scorch', 'Igni', or the less expensive version of 'Scorch' (can't remember the name off the top of my head), as well as a handful of other cards would be useful in that scenario. Less binary cards and more 'choice' create interesting 'mini-games' within the game itself, as players try to work out the best and most efficient use of a card. When 'Yrden' is just a blanket 'remove all boosts from a row', there is very little thinking involved, if any thinking at all. The player will just lazily sit on the card till it is their last turn, (tutor it with 'Oneiromancy') and just play it the same way, every time. By giving 'Yrden' some variety, it actually encourages skilled gameplay, basic knowledge of your opponents deck, and a bit of forethought prior to using it during the match.

'Pyrotechnician' is incredibly unreliable, especially if your opponent goes first. At that point, you've only got a 50/50 chance of hitting the target you wish to hit with the 'Order' ability if it is the first card they played and you're on red coin. You have even less of a chance of hitting the target you wish to hit if your opponent adds several units to the board prior to playing the engine card you want to remove. Giving 'Pyrotechnician' 'Zeal' if you have a dwarf on the board, as well as giving it the ability to attack a reliable target boosts its value as an engine removal (something dwarves severely lack). This isn't a problem with elves or other 'Scoia'tael' archetypes (which have plenty of removal tools).

As far as 'Alumni' goes, I've seen some rather savvy players getting stupid amounts of value out of 'Alumni' even when going a card down against me in ranked. It starts with either a 'Ban Ard Student' or 'Aretuza Student' which is followed or preceded by a 'Leticia Charbonneau.' If I can't remove those cards in R1, I usually know I am going to lose the entire game irregardless of if I win R1. I don't often play meta decks, so I don't have the immediate tools to remove patience cards when I'm playing a dwarf boost deck. With 'Queen Adalia' they make one copy of a 4 point Alumni, which in one of my games had (7+) damage/boost through patience cards. Then they get two more copies if they get lucky with their 'Runeword' spells. This can get even worse with the 'Operator' card, or even a 'Raffard's Vengeance' which further compounds the damage you take from all of the mages landing on the board; and who can forget about 'Shani?' In this one match someone had four 'Alumni' (people can get even more if they're lucky) which were all worth over 11 points each (boost or damage, it doesn't matter) as a finisher, it was absolutely insanely strong. I didn't stand a chance going all the way back to the earliest parts of R1. Does it require patience cards to stick to the board, as well as a lot of setup? Yes, it does. Yet the value they get out of the mechanic is way too powerful if you don't have immediate answers to several of their patience cards readily available in your hand. I even banished a few patience cards from their graveyard, and the 'Alumni' still kept all of their max value derived from those cards. Seems a bit broken to me for a '6 provision' bronze card.

In the old days of beta 'Gwent' I remember heavily boosted 'Nekkers' and 'Reaver Hunters', but I thought the game's recent trend was to move away from huge swings or otks (one turn kills). 'Commandos' are also a deck I have a huge problem with, and 'Xavier Lemmens' can't usually counter 'Pavetta' or 'King Foltest' as both cards are generally used outside the graveyard. What 'Pavetta' really needs is to have an 'Order' ability. When I took 'Xavier Lemmens' out of my deck, I got double 'Pavetta'd' in two rounds due to 'Resurrect', and that is why I proposed a 10 provision cost to counteract another player being able to put 8 'Commandos' on the board in 'one or two' turns during both rounds (twice), as 'Resurrect' only works on cards with provisions of 9 or less. I barely won R1, only to get double 'Pavetta'd' in R2/R3. With 'Oneiromancy' they can find 'Roche: Merciless' or an 'Amphibious Assault' which is an instant 'GG' due to the 'Inspired Zeal' leader ability coupled with that amount of tutoring. I don't mind it functioning like the oldschool 'Queensguard' from beta, but 'Commandos' at least need to have a doomed tag (either the first time they enter the graveyard, or through 'Pavetta') to prevent otk (one turn kill) abuse.