Yes but NG is supposed to be the control faction. There has to be a way you can control the enemy leader, even if it's not this way, and even if it's not absolute. Otherwise your opponent can just exploit the synergy and there's nothing at all you can do about it.
That's true, people should be able to control the enemy leader, but they shouldn't be able to do it by simply adding Usurper to their deck, there should be more gameplay. A good change would be limiting Usurper to disabling the leader for a number of turns or rounds. My suggestion would be to change him to:
Usurper:
Mulligan: 4
Order: Deactivate the enemy leader until the start of your next turn. Damage the highest enemy by 2.
Charges: 5
This would give Nilfgaard a high mulligan count leader with the flavor of overthrowing the empire and staging a coup d'etat. He shuts down their leaders, and damages the nobles (highest units).
By changing this he would become something which both players have to play around. You gain control over the turns and rounds that you need. You prevent your opponent from using their leader to set up their combo at the start of round 3 if they're playing something like Eredin. Also, even if you don't play against a deck which relies on its leader it isn't a binary case of: oh, well I guess my 1 mulligan leader doesn't do anything. Instead of this you can use the flexibility of the card as a control tool, giving you a tempo advantage if you need it against leaders like Eithne, or letting you get high power engine cards like Avallac'h low enough to the point where you can remove them with your other cards.
Secondly, everyone says Usurper should be changed. I don't see anyone suggesting Morvran, Emhyr OR calveit changed. Why is that? oh so you are only going to change what annoys you? The rest are fine being the weakest leaders in the game then, is that it?
That is because people haven't tested them out. Most people aren't Nilfgaard mains, so they didn't spend much time testing out the leaders that didn't look op. I can give a few suggestions for how I'd buff them though. (Also I think you've mixed up Moorvran and Calveit, he has Calveit's old effect of looking at the top 3 cards and playing one which lets you to play two cards in the same turn).
Emhyr var Emreis: Same effect, +1 Mulligan, Can be used once per round instead of once per game.
(It is important for Emhyr to have multiple uses in my opinion, because otherwise he will always be overshadowed by Moorvran and Calveit due to them having more powerful once per game effects, particularly Moorvran)
Moorvran: Same effect
(I think you're underrating this leader. He's felt pretty solid but has been overshadowed by Usurper recently)
Jan Calveit: Now boosts the unit he returns to your hand by 5.
(Gives this leader more flexibility and power, retriggering a deploy effect is versatile but probably will need a small push to be viable)
It comes down to this:
> NG is currently the only faction that lacks any sort of synergistic leader with any archetype.
> Why is that? Because it is designed as a control faction, countering what the opponent does and plays (confirmed by Burza in the Ask a Dev Thread)
>As long as this is the design line that the game devs take, NG will always focus on controlling the enemy, than building its own value. And as long as that's a priority, it will keep lacking synergistic leaders. Which really only leaves it with the Usurper as the only viable choice.
A counter to leaders is necessary but not in the way in which Usurper currently provides it. In its current iteration it is unhealthy for the game, it auto wins some matchups, removes interactions from the game, and simply feels awful to play against. Additionally even though it is control based that does not mean that it doesn't contain any archetypes.
Changing the usurper as such, will require a radical change in the direction Homecoming is taking, in that the change will need to give NG at least one, if not more, proactive archetypes, and leaders that can synergize with those at least as well as Bran, Arachas Queen, Foltest and the like can do with the archetypes and cards they support.
The main problem is actually the leaders and not the archetypes. Even though I think you can actually make most of the archetypes work using Moorvran.
Also you're probably looking at Nilfgaard archetypes in the wrong way, since it looks like with them more so than any other faction you are going to need to combine the best of two archetypes.
Heavy lock control is a small package which can probably be included in most Nilfgaard decks. It's a powerhouse which is going to make most if not all of their archetypes stronger. The 3 point, 5 provision lock is awesome (especially since most good faction / neutral locks cost 8 provisions or more) and Petri's combined with the Vattier (Order: Seize a locked enemy) is going to enable some op swing turns.
The boost enemy units thing when combined with spies could actually be good, the main problem with it is that it needs Emhyr and other reset cards to be strong which they aren't at the moment. But after Emhyr gets buffed it will constant high power plays and end the round by nuking the strongest enemy unit from orbit. Also this deck has some great synergy with the lock package, because you can boost any unit that you lock and either destroy it with Vanhemar or steal it with Vattier.
The soldiers archetype looks good. As soon as your Slave Infantry hits you're in a really good position. The bronze which does more damage for every adjacent soldier becomes a strong card. Also a lot of soldiers have low base power, so retriggering Slave Infantry's deploy effect becomes really good. The boost all copies of a soldiers by 2 card to make that deck work (and probably also Golden Froth). I actually think this deck could be good enough to see play without any changes since Moorvran can make a solid leader for it, but if Calveit gets buffed then that gives even more options to test this deck out with.
Reveal is a bit weird at the moment. It has some crazy soldier cards (Daelran foot soldier), but doesn't look like a full deck. Mogwai managed to make a spell based control reveal deck work though, and a soldier deck which runs recruits, Daelran and Sweers would be really good, since you can use the soldier which retriggers deploy effects to try to summon another Daelran.
Nilfgaard does seem to have non-control archetypes, it just seems likely that they'll be combined with control elements to make them more powerful. Honestly, if these archetypes need anything its the small buffs to Emhyr and Calveit which I proposed earlier.
Except there is really simply no alternative here mate. Say I want to take literally ANY other leader and make a Nilfgaard deck. What are my options:
Emhyr (worst leader in the game in its current iteration)
Morvran (ok, but still sucks compared to literally everyone else, like Eredin, Bran, Harald, Eithne, Foltest, Henselt, etc)
Calveit (the only decent option, still well below the likes of the aforementioned leaders)
Emhyr: Yes he's weak but with a slight buff he can be used as tech or to promote the enemy boosting archetype, which has potential.
Moorvran: Are you sure you aren't mixing him and Calveit up? Moorvran is good.
Calveit: Yeah he also needs a buff. He is flexible, but needs a bit more power. If he gets buffed though he would make that soldier deck, and possibly the reveal deck, look a lot better.
Even if you change the Usurper, I believe this game needs some way to control the value leaders are getting. And additionally, as mentioned above, NG will not only require at least one, if not more leaders supporting their archetypes, (which right now, are a joke and playing "pointslam" with NG is infinitely more successful and forgetting synergies), but also an expansion OF said archetypes.
In order to change the Usurper into something "healthy" for the game as most people here put it, the entire faction will require a radical shift in direction. And if the devs are reading the feedback, I really hope they know it before they go through with such a change.
Even after being changed Usurper would still be a tool to control leaders, he just wouldn't be as binary. Also rather than having cards which eliminate leaders entirely we should have ones which limit the value they can obtain.
A neutral bronze card which deactivates the enemy leader for a turn would be a fun tech option for example.
Also Nilfgaard's identity isn't created by Usurper, the control element will always be present because of their incredibly powerful, easy to include lock package and because most archetypes have a big removal card. Reveal has sweers, enemy boost has synergy with lock and might eventually be good with Emhyr, giving you powerful resets against some decks. Soldiers have a lot of 2-4 damage cards which give you a small amount of control, and much more of it when you retrigger their deploy effects.
Even without Usurper, Nilfgaard has plenty of control elements which will help it function in the way it was intended to, and most people don't want to remove Usurper but want more counterplay to him. If things go well Nilfgaard will keep their leader counter, it'll just require players to think a bit more.