Thank you so much for describing your vision of the game in such detail. I think I will change my opinion and agree with you. You have more wisdom and vision for this situation. Indeed, the leader’s rally for a whole round, a not very interesting piece comes out, and when 2 usurpers meet, it’s absolutely impossible to even coin a coin.
I was frightened by your proposal only because of the numbers - judge for yourself 4 mulligans + 6 damage + blocking the leader for 6 moves. The same Harald has 10 damage without any blocking on random targets and only 3 mulligans. Of course, Harald is able to double the number of points at the expense of a special card, but in general I consider the usurper to have 1 mulligan and 10 charges of his ability, which randomly deals 1 damage to the enemy and blocks the leader for 1 turn. The situation, of course, is repeated, you can use it all 10 charges for the last round, but then you squeeze hard in the first two rounds, so most likely you will be forced to click the ability for some opponents, such as Philavandrel, but for Arachna Queen to think when to live through ability. At the same time, of course, everything needs to be tested in order to realistically assess the usefulness of this proposal.
To be fair you can't include every tech card in the game into the same deck, which is why leader disruption is important to some extent.
Leader disruption when done properly, however would provide interesting gameplay which forces both players to consider the optimal timing for the enemy leader.
Fist sentence is precisely the point, you arent supposed to be able to counter everything, you have to pick and choose what threatens your game plan the most during deckbuilding. Pick how many tools you can afford to counter something, weight it against thinning and avoid crippling your own game plan.
Except if you're NG. Then you just pick Usurper.
Leaders are like the last bastion of consistency CDPR left in while purposely reducing others. As i said, you can allready counter leaders with cards, and i dont see how replacing that decision-making process with "Universal" solution is a good thing. If such a mechanic is going to exist, it has to be interactive, conditional.
Spawn a token that block Leader as long as its on the board maybe?
Even then, how do you balance it? Some Leader abilities indeed can lead to mind games, like Eredin. But Dandy elf just need its ASAP, no decision there. I dont much like his ability either, but thats not the point. Leader abilities have different values, so how do you put a price tag on its shutdown?
Overall, such mechanic cant be balanced within Leader system we saw on PTR. Moreover, it straight up contradicts all the effort that went into making Leaders the focal point of deckbuilding.
If it ever goes live, it has to conditional, counterable. Maay-be on a expensive gold card, like a high risk high reward tech. I dont think high risk stuff belongs on a leader, or that such polarizing mechanics belong to faction-specific cards. Beyond all that, i simply dont see a need for universal solution to a problem that doesnt exist outside of "cant be bothered to play or build around something" mentality.
Fist sentence is precisely the point, you arent supposed to be able to counter everything, you have to pick and choose what threatens your game plan the most during deckbuilding. Pick how many tools you can afford to counter something, weight it against thinning and avoid crippling your own game plan.
Except if you're NG. Then you just pick Usurper.
Leaders are like the last bastion of consistency CDPR left in while purposely reducing others. As i said, you can allready counter leaders with cards, and i dont see how replacing that decision-making process with "Universal" solution is a good thing. If such a mechanic is going to exist, it has to be interactive, conditional.
Spawn a token that block Leader as long as its on the board maybe?
Even then, how do you balance it? Some Leader abilities indeed can lead to mind games, like Eredin. But Dandy elf just need its ASAP, no decision there. I dont much like his ability either, but thats not the point. Leader abilities have different values, so how do you put a price tag on its shutdown?
Overall, such mechanic cant be balanced within Leader system we saw on PTR. Moreover, it straight up contradicts all the effort that went into making Leaders the focal point of deckbuilding.
If it ever goes live, it has to conditional, counterable. Maay-be on a expensive gold card, like a high risk high reward tech. I dont think high risk stuff belongs on a leader, or that such polarizing mechanics belong to faction-specific cards. Beyond all that, i simply dont see a need for universal solution to a problem that doesnt exist outside of "cant be bothered to play or build around something" mentality.
I completely agree with you. That's why my rework suggestion was:
Usurper
Mulligan: 4
Order: Deactivate the enemy leader until the start of your next turn. Damage the highest enemy by 1.
Charges: 6
Passive: The enemy leader is deactivated on their first turn.
Overall I had a few reasons for trying to change it to this which you can find in some of the previous posts in this thread.
The TL;DR is:
Usurper needed to not be a counter to every leader in the game, so this change kept the flavor, while removing his ability to single handedly shut down your opponent's entire strategy.
He needed to be more skill based, so by limiting him to a fixed number of turns you actually face a difficult decision on every turn of the game, rather than "Do I add him to my deck or don't I?"
Usurper needed to be more interactive, so by limiting him to turns it becomes this back and forth game, of the opponent and the Usurper player trying to figure out how to maximize/minimize the value that the leader gets.
Leaders shouldn't be binary, so this change had to make him more flexible by giving him the damaging versatility, and had to be usable on specific turns rather than rounds or for the entire game. This was particularly necessary since some leaders are one time uses while others are cooldown based, passive or round based.
He shouldn't be drastically affected by the coin toss (which a lot of proposals for Usurper reworks are), so he would have to disable the enemy leader for their first turn to prevent forfeiting against Filavandrel when he/she/whateverthatbloodyelfis goes first.
Leader disruption shouldn't lock your opposing leader out of the entire game, that's why this version had to be limited to turns or rounds, and honestly it's possible that 6 charges + the first turn might even be too many, but it would require playtesting to figure that out.
Finally, he also needed to be easy to balance. As useful as the mulligan count is for balancing the leaders, it doesn't suffice on its own. Most leaders have not only the mulligan count, but also an effect which places some amount of power on the board through boosting or damaging, because this means that if you want to balance the leader you can either change the mulligan count or power they provide. My version of Usurper allows you to change the mulligan count, charge count or damage value, depending on how impactful he is.
If I forgot to mention anything, or there is anything you dislike / disagree with, please let me know.
Thank you so much for describing your vision of the game in such detail. I think I will change my opinion and agree with you. You have more wisdom and vision for this situation. Indeed, the leader’s rally for a whole round, a not very interesting piece comes out, and when 2 usurpers meet, it’s absolutely impossible to even coin a coin.
I was frightened by your proposal only because of the numbers - judge for yourself 4 mulligans + 6 damage + blocking the leader for 6 moves. The same Harald has 10 damage without any blocking on random targets and only 3 mulligans. Of course, Harald is able to double the number of points at the expense of a special card, but in general I consider the usurper to have 1 mulligan and 10 charges of his ability, which randomly deals 1 damage to the enemy and blocks the leader for 1 turn. The situation, of course, is repeated, you can use it all 10 charges for the last round, but then you squeeze hard in the first two rounds, so most likely you will be forced to click the ability for some opponents, such as Philavandrel, but for Arachna Queen to think when to live through ability. At the same time, of course, everything needs to be tested in order to realistically assess the usefulness of this proposal.
I'm glad to hear that you liked it. And yeah the mulligan and charge count probably is too much, but luckily it should be easy to balance with a bit of playtesting. Honestly, I'm not entirely certain about whether it is underpowered, properly balanced or overpowered at the moment though, since we don't know the value of removing a leader for one turn.
in general I consider the usurper to have 1 mulligan and 10 charges of his ability, which randomly deals 1 damage to the enemy and blocks the leader for 1 turn.
Just ad a point here: Filanvendrel could save his ability to buff a dwarf in 2. or 3. round, if he hasnt it at hand at 1. round. So sometimes you can hold his boost for a better time.
The usurper will have not 6 charges, but 10. Each charge disables the enemy leader on a turn and deals 1 point of damage to a random enemy creature. Of course, 1 turn the enemy leader must be blocked, this is an absolutely correct proposal on your part. I believe that 1 mulligan in this situation should be enough, due to the fact that the usurper will simply usurp the opponent by tempo and not allow him to score too many points. This is an ideal opportunity to control the pace of the game until the charges run out.
Well, a version of Usurper you suggest is that much better than one we had, no doubts about it, and if we saw it in game - i would be ok with it. Hell, id be overjoyed just because it replaced what we had.
One thing i dont agree with is that it creates ongoing effect for one turn. We just dont have that in Gwent ATM, kind of remind me of Loatheb in HS. If you time it well, it can be exceedingly powerfull.
Thats why i thought about it having a token, a persistent body you would need to lock or destroy to free up the leader. It adds an ability for your opponent to counteract you. You might as well boost it up, or even render immune with Avalach and proceed with evil cackling. This way you can get your permanent lockdown, if you want to invest into it. It adds a layer of planning, on how much are you actually willing to invest into it? Out of the gates it lets you punish players who go full-on point spam, or people who rely on something like Eithne alone,but if you want to shut down a leader combo in balanced deck, its gonna cost you as well.
Having that token at idk, 2-3 power with like 2 charges for a game will give Usurper some utility in mirror, or if sweetspot for lockdown is missed.
In this case Usurper gonna read something like:
Passive: Enemy leader is disabled for the first turn of each round.
Order: summon a 2-3 power annnoying little s**t on your side of the board.
2 charges.
Annoying little s**t:
2-3 power
Passive: disable enemy leaders ability.
Alternatively, it can be a "boost by 1-2" effect on allied unit. Point is giving it a body so both sides can affect how long it stays in game by other cards allready in the game. (got to be weaker this way, since you can put that stuff on some tough units)
Overall, if i had to balance this effect (and my task was exactly to balance it, and nor remove it outright, because thats what id do in a first nanosecond), i would go with something like that with like, 2? Probably 3 mulligans.
The usurper will have not 6 charges, but 10. Each charge disables the enemy leader on a turn and deals 1 point of damage to a random enemy creature. Of course, 1 turn the enemy leader must be blocked, this is an absolutely correct proposal on your part. I believe that 1 mulligan in this situation should be enough, due to the fact that the usurper will simply usurp the opponent by tempo and not allow him to score too many points. This is an ideal opportunity to control the pace of the game until the charges run out.
I'm a bit worried by the idea of giving Usurper more charges however, since if he gets too close to 10 charges, then you can use his effect to lock a player out of an entire round which is something I was hoping to avoid with a relatively low charge count. I was also hoping to keep the focus on a back and forth playstyle of manipulating the value of the enemy leader rather than on a high tempo playstyle, since I thought that the previous one was more thematically appropriate.
Also, though 4 mulligans were probably too much, I personally dislike 1 mulligan leaders since you can easily get stuck with a bad hand and have an inability to correct it due to being limited to 1 mulligan.
One thing i dont agree with is that it creates ongoing effect for one turn. We just dont have that in Gwent ATM, kind of remind me of Loatheb in HS. If you time it well, it can be exceedingly powerfull.
Actually we have something similar in the form of the new weather. In the case that you didn't get to see it on the ptr effects like torrential rain are now limited to 4 turns, so I was thinking that it could be implemented in game as an effect which is "on the board" for one turn, but displayed on the UI through a lock symbol on the charge count next to the leader.
For example Foltest shows (x3) next to his leader to indicate that he has 3 charges of his leader ability remaining. When you play Usurper a lock covers that (x3) indicator for one turn to indicate that the enemy leader has been deactivated, and at the start of your turn that lock gets removed.
I'm uncertain about the power provided by this effect since in Hearthstone tempo is a much bigger deal than it is in Gwent, particularly in the homecoming version of Gwent where tempo is discouraged and engine cards are encouraged.
Thats why i thought about it having a token, a persistent body you would need to lock or destroy to free up the leader. It adds an ability for your opponent to counteract you. You might as well boost it up, or even render immune with Avalach and proceed with evil cackling. This way you can get your permanent lockdown, if you want to invest into it. It adds a layer of planning, on how much are you actually willing to invest into it? Out of the gates it lets you punish players who go full-on point spam, or people who rely on something like Eithne alone,but if you want to shut down a leader combo in balanced deck, its gonna cost you as well.
There are a few main things that bother me about this, one of them is that this effect is binary since some decks will have a easy time dealing 2-3 damage making this a 4-6 point leader, while others will cry their eyes out when they realize that they don't have any removal in their hands.
The other thing which might be a silly thing to worry about but still bothers me, is that a leader spawning a token feels a bit weird now that they reworked all of the leaders. Arachas Queen is the only one that does that, but it kind of works since other cards like Arachas Behemoth spawn the token, and it fits the flavor. But something about Usurper being present on the board strikes me as weird (particularly since he doesn't feel like a fighter or a minion).
I actually have a few more things that worry me but I'll leave them at the bottom of this post to keep this from becoming a wall of text.
Having that token at idk, 2-3 power with like 2 charges for a game will give Usurper some utility in mirror, or if sweetspot for lockdown is missed.
In this case Usurper gonna read something like:
Passive: Enemy leader is disabled for the first turn of each round.
Order: summon a 2-3 power annnoying little s**t on your side of the board.
2 charges.
Annoying little s**t:
2-3 power
Passive: disable enemy leaders ability.
The funny thing is that I actually posted a similar card which I'll quote below, as a bronze Nilfgaard disruption tool. Because people were worried about there being too little leader disruption in the game so I posted some suggestions.
Bronze. Nilfgaard. 2 Power. 4 Provision. Spying.
Melee: Deactivate the enemy leader. (This effect is only active while the card is on the board. The idea here is just to have a spy which benefits from staying on the opponent's side of the board. It works well with the enemy boosting archetype, can be used as a tech option and can provide synergy in spy decks. If this effect is too strong the provision cost could be increased. To prevent it from being oppressive it can be killed by 2 or more damage and can be countered by movement. Strays of Spalla OP)
This is actually also one of the reasons why I'm a bit worried about it being a leader ability, because a small unit appearing on the board, with little to no impact in certain matchups felt a lot more like a bronze sabotaging style of card rather than one of the most impactful leaders of Nilfgaard.
Alternatively, it can be a "boost by 1-2" effect on allied unit. Point is giving it a body so both sides can affect how long it stays in game by other cards allready in the game. (got to be weaker this way, since you can put that stuff on some tough units)
I like this version more than the token spawning one, and though I agree that it would be funny to see people combo this with stuff like Avallac'h I still see a few more problems with this.
1. This effect is really binary. I don't think Nilfgaard or the neutral pool have any resilient units (correct me if I'm wrong about this), so this effect would either lock the enemy leader for 2 rounds if they can't remove it, in which case it isn't much better than the current version of Usurper. Or it would be insanely underpowered since your opponent would just remove the boosted unit making the effect arguably worse than boosting a unit by 2-4.
2. If this effect persists for an entire round then it has some of the problems that I mentioned in a previous post replying to Bethowen. Locking an enemy out of a round through this way does offer more counterplay than current Usurper, but still feels horrible to play against, especially because of problem (1) which I mentioned previously.
3. This version is heavily impacted by going first vs second. Sometimes your opponent will simply open round 3 (or maybe even round 1 if he's insane enough) with something like Imlerith into Eredin. In that case your leader would be worth a 2-4 point boost, whereas if you go first in the relevant round, you might find a way to keep this effect alive for the entire round.
4. This version is very heavily affected by the leader you play against. A leader like Eithne really doesn't care, not only does their deck usually run plenty of methods of easily removing a variety of units, Eithne also takes pride in being able to gain incredible value in multiple rounds, and isn't reliant on one of them. Arachas Queen on the other hand cries herself to sleep due to her inability to do anything with her deck since her Glustyworp is a 3 power play and most of her consume value falls apart.
Order: summon a 2-3 power annnoying little s**t on your side of the board.
2 charges.
Annoying little s**t:
2-3 power
Passive: disable enemy leaders ability.
It looks not bad. There is only a minus, for example, the Usurper will not work against Eitne, as well as against Harald, because they have a lot of point damage, which allows you to kill a unit of 2-3 forces right away, and Queen Arachna has no directed damage to kill the unit on the enemy table.
In general, each proposal has its pros and cons, I think now that the 10 charges are very inconvenient in managing the leader.
Perhaps I would change my proposal for the following: 2 mulligans for the Usurper, 3 ability charges - turning off the ability of an opponent leader for 2 turns and causing 3 points of damage on a chosen target (not necessarily on the opponent's table). This is very similar to PeteTheN00в offer, just a little changed in terms of balance and ability management.
It looks not bad. There is only a minus, for example, the Usurper will not work against Eitne, as well as against Harald, because they have a lot of point damage, which allows you to kill a unit of 2-3 forces right away, and Queen Arachna has no directed damage to kill the unit on the enemy table.
Arachas queen is not restricted from drafting removal cards, or locks. It doesnt want to, because it want to max out its point spam. I dont see much wrong with punishing that. And on being weak against control decks - well, you can pump it up with boosts, if you wish to make it more reliable in those matchups. Not unlike you use artifact buffs to protect engine cards. If you cant be bothered - again, its just a leader ability , its not supposed to solve all your problems by itself.
I like this version more than the token spawning one, and though I agree that it would be funny to see people combo this with stuff like Avallac'h I still see a few more problems with this.
Well, to be honest i did say it outright - leader lockout cannot be balanced due to how different are leader abilities in their usage and value. And there is no way that its worth sacrificing leader variety to keep leader lockout as a mechanic.
Long story short - its a design nightmare and should be removed, unless CD project red got some genious backup plan to leave us marveling at the sheer genious of their solution.
Looking at Usurper, Kambi, Viper Witchers, im having well founded doubts that this is the case.
A leader having the ability to remove leader abilities should not be present in the game.
Deck building consists of maximizing synergies, with the leader's ability often playing a crucial role.
Nullifying this reduces the enjoyment of playing a well designed deck.
haha, he adds a different strategy, and he has the huge downside of not having redraws...
Its too soon to say anything, but i do belive he will be very interesting in countering some decks when the meta settle, he is preaty good vs Eithinee already and that seams to be the most played deck.
Not that Eithinee is overpowered, she cleary is not, but she is very easy to build around as it is to build around Sihil. So Usurper already acrescent some balance to the board.
I disagree. I like the direction the devs have brought the game with activated card abilities and the change to leaders, however, it feels like it was released too early and there is not enough synergy/balance yet.
haha, he adds a different strategy, and he has the huge downside of not having redraws...
Its too soon to say anything, but i do belive he will be very interesting in countering some decks when the meta settle, he is preaty good vs Eithinee already and that seams to be the most played deck.
Not that Eithinee is overpowered, she cleary is not, but she is very easy to build around as it is to build around Sihil. So Usurper already acrescent some balance to the board.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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)
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.
They must likely are reading but changing simething to the communities request is another story. We need lots of reworks with factions. I'm hoping now that the base game is released they can now work on balancing and making cards interesting and balanced again
Do NOT change Usurper, i repeat DO NOT change Usurper.
Usurper's like a wake up call to those who build decks that rely so much on leader ability. NG deserve Usurper.
This is a new level of control, the ULTIMATE one.
P/s: tier 1 decks are the one that need to nerf, not a meme deck like Usurper.
So we might as well ay arena then if we want to build a deck around the leader... Isn't this the point of the new concept of the game? A leader takes his army out to do battle. I would expect the units controlled by my leader to work with him
