Defender unbalances the game and other cards and create anti-gameplay while restricting viable deck options

[Six-Sided-Prism]

If the ability of Vincent van Moorlehem was neutral, I dont think anyone would complain about the defender.

I would. There are many ways to make the Defender status not broken, but it is absolutely broken the way it works now. Protecting an entire row from being targeted (only by your opponent, mind you) is just too strong, regardless of how easy it may or may not be to remove the Defender unit. I've been advocating changing the Defender status to only protect adjacent units or even just the unit on the right, but other alternatives could be that all damage is automatically redirected to the Defender or maybe make the other units on the row untargetable by both players, possibly restricting their activated abilities as well.

 

[quintivarium]

This “solution” would preserve the worst characteristic of defenders (their tendency to exacerbate the imbalance of already super powered cards — e. g. Damien, Stefan, Luiza) while eliminating defenders’ positive contributions to the game (allowing creative but marginal and fragile combinations that require multiple units or special set up and preventing NG, ST, and SY from immediately poisoning every decent unit played).

In short, you would preserve the value of defender for the two factions most commonly seen as abusing their power, while rendering them useless for the four factions for which they presently open possible archetypes.

 

[Guest 4375874]

I would. There are many ways to make the Defender status not broken, but it is absolutely broken the way it works now. Protecting an entire row from being targeted (only by your opponent, mind you) is just too strong, regardless of how easy it may or may not be to remove the Defender unit. I've been advocating changing the Defender status to only protect adjacent units or even just the unit on the right, but other alternatives could be that all damage is automatically redirected to the Defender or maybe make the other units on the row untargetable by both players, possibly restricting their activated abilities as well.

Too strong? Defenders are useless right now unless you're playing NG or SY

 

[Footsoulja]

Purify and it's not that big a deal.

 

[Guest 4375874]

Purify and it's not that big a deal.

Only a few factions have purify units that have good synergy with their decks. NG and ST for example. For ST adding an elf to the board or even just in hand boosts other spells and or units. For NG cheap assimilate unit etc which also provides good synergy. As a MO player the cheapest unit with purify is a neutral soldier/human which does more harm than good in most cases because it has no purpose outside of that. It's not just about adding a card

 

[BartonFink]

Defenders do not redirect damage; they prevent units from being targeted. That said, Vissigerd targets units. Are you sure the defender had not been purified or that the damage was not done by some other unit like Tridam Infantry?

Maybe you have an answer to the question that I've been asking here: What does Purify on a Defender do? If it makes the Defender unable to defend, that seems ridiculous. Completely unintuitive and baffling. That ability isn't stated on cards with Purify.

 

[quintivarium]

Purify removes statuses. Since defender is a status, it is removed and the card no longer “defends”. Not exactly logical, but it’s not the only illogical mechanic in the game.