What the title says:
1. It restricts viable deck options and narrows viable tactics into less cards and less options (yet another forced tech-card to bring)
2. It unbalance other cards, making OP cards out of cards that on their own are ok, because they have a carefully balanced provision/body/ability (defender unbalance this equation)
3. It creates situation where people just hide behind a defender and plays their moves, with no counters (upsetting sequencing also)
4. All in all, considering 1,2 &3, defender creates and imbalance many places in the game overall, making less viable cards more viable and already strong cards even stronger
As someone who has lived with the previous very bad frustration of playing certain Northern Realms tactics, I fully understand how useful a defender can be, however, despite that I think the defender is a pretty bad thing for this game overall. I'm not saying the idea is all wrong or bad, perhaps it is even viable under some circumstances. But for 9 provisions this card creates great imbalances in the game.
Without changing anything about the defender, just re-valuing the provision vs defender ability from 1 (currently) to say 3-5, which is the actual value of the "defender status", I think it would be reasonable to have the defender cost somewhere between 11-13 provisions instead of 9. Probably 12 is the very best number, but I don't know. So why 11-13? Simply, it will reduce the use of defender, and make it a card one only plays in certain kind of decks (at an additional cost).
I think at 11-12 it is still a viable card, but at 13 it starts becoming less viable. Currently at 9 is ridiculous, with armour, body etc, this values "defender status" at 1 provision, which is WAY too low. The card being so cheap also makes it more of an auto-include in certain kind of decks, which is quite annoying.
The body of certain powerful order ability cards are calculated, I guess, so there is a chance to actually counter those cards, not making their ability an automatic one. This goes for many factions, and not only order ability, but also turn-by-turn abilities.
I simply think the defender need some re-thought and in it's current state it imbalance the rest of the game quite alot, which is a bad thing. The rest of the game had a certain balance, but this was thrown out of whack with the introduction of the defender...
1. It restricts viable deck options and narrows viable tactics into less cards and less options (yet another forced tech-card to bring)
2. It unbalance other cards, making OP cards out of cards that on their own are ok, because they have a carefully balanced provision/body/ability (defender unbalance this equation)
3. It creates situation where people just hide behind a defender and plays their moves, with no counters (upsetting sequencing also)
4. All in all, considering 1,2 &3, defender creates and imbalance many places in the game overall, making less viable cards more viable and already strong cards even stronger
As someone who has lived with the previous very bad frustration of playing certain Northern Realms tactics, I fully understand how useful a defender can be, however, despite that I think the defender is a pretty bad thing for this game overall. I'm not saying the idea is all wrong or bad, perhaps it is even viable under some circumstances. But for 9 provisions this card creates great imbalances in the game.
Without changing anything about the defender, just re-valuing the provision vs defender ability from 1 (currently) to say 3-5, which is the actual value of the "defender status", I think it would be reasonable to have the defender cost somewhere between 11-13 provisions instead of 9. Probably 12 is the very best number, but I don't know. So why 11-13? Simply, it will reduce the use of defender, and make it a card one only plays in certain kind of decks (at an additional cost).
I think at 11-12 it is still a viable card, but at 13 it starts becoming less viable. Currently at 9 is ridiculous, with armour, body etc, this values "defender status" at 1 provision, which is WAY too low. The card being so cheap also makes it more of an auto-include in certain kind of decks, which is quite annoying.
The body of certain powerful order ability cards are calculated, I guess, so there is a chance to actually counter those cards, not making their ability an automatic one. This goes for many factions, and not only order ability, but also turn-by-turn abilities.
I simply think the defender need some re-thought and in it's current state it imbalance the rest of the game quite alot, which is a bad thing. The rest of the game had a certain balance, but this was thrown out of whack with the introduction of the defender...