how is enslave [seize] not considered absolutely broken?

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I know there have been lots of complaints even before iron judgement about this ability but now it's just completely broken imo. if teched right you can steal NR defender, ST defender, SK defender (since they usually drop it to 6 to make it an engine). not to mention the [ . . . ] tourney joust/assassination spam in round 1. then you have cards like damien de la tour which with its 5 point body is now even harder to remove thanks to defenders, turning your leader into a potential 24 points. playing against ardal feels even more oppressing and frustrating now. this ability should cap at 5 and start with steal a 2 pt card.
considering that NG is the most played faction this is taking so much enjoyment out of gwent for me right now. sorry ardal players but I dont GG you.

#sorryneeded2vent
 
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There are other NG archetypes I find even more irritating - the "mill the opponents deck", "thin to zero" and anything with Usurper.

However, I don't like it, it feels broken. NG are much better with tactics, with soldiers, spies, and assimilate. I think the whole seize/break the opponent thing is relentlessly dull (as I said months ago) to play against, overpowered and unnecessary - it's as broken as Fran, it's getting comfortably more points value than any other leader, with the added issues that they are the only faction that can refresh the leaders ability.
 
I played against a guy a couple of days ago who managed to mill my entire deck to zero in round 2 when I had 7 cards left. auto-lose. and I didnt even play thinning cards iirc
 

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I think it's funny you'd complain about tourney joust/assassination 'spam' when they remove one engine a turn at most and NR, Syndicate and ST all run two-of bronzes that can wipe your board all round long (Dwarven Mercenaries, Lyrian Arbalests/Redanian Archers, Witch Hunter executioner etc.)

As you said yourself they then try to protect said cards with a defender but then you think it's OP that the control faction has strong answers to that type of gameplay. I understand that from your position it might absolutely be irritating, but calling it 'broken' is just wrong. Look at the playrate as well as win rate of these decks and I'm sure you'd find it's nothing crazy, especially not when compared to certain other factions atm.

NG inheretely techs in a whole bunch of cards to deal with opposition meta, if you think NG is too promiment/powerful for now you could choose to do the same.
 
NG sieze is not as bad as Filippa sieze...

also, NG mill to 0 is not annoying at all, if you keep in mind how fragile this deck is and that it's not about playing 3 mill overall to randomly mill all of your most costly cards
 
I think it's funny you'd complain about tourney joust/assassination 'spam' when they remove one engine a turn at most and NR, Syndicate and ST all run two-of bronzes that can wipe your board all round long (Dwarven Mercenaries, Lyrian Arbalests/Redanian Archers, Witch Hunter executioner etc.)
I dont complain that tourney joust or assassination are OP, only that it adds to the annoyance when you play someone who plays enslave which forces him to play all these tacticals. it's not unusual that a round goes 0/0 for several turns which is irritating. the ability would honestly be less annoying if it just said: steal an enemy unit with a strength of 5 or less.
I would also be okay with it if damien was changed or at the very least had 2 base strength or something like that.

and sorry that I didnt mention dwarven mercenaries in this post, I'd figured the other 20 threads about it were sufficient.
 
I agree with the general idea but I don't think Enslave is necessarily too strong.
It is, however, an incredibly poorly designed effect, at least imo.
You shouldn't be able to seize units as easily in this game and it should certainly not be a leader effect.

The reason for that being, for me personally, being punished for playing a card or an archetype is absurd and it's exactly what happens with Enslave (You want to play that super cool archetype that revolves around a 4 or 5 power engine? Too bad, we made specifically a counter for that). Punish players for making mistakes, not for their choice of deck/card/archetype.

Of course, I fully realize that you can't avoid counters and bad match up in a card game unless you stick to very boring effects but Enslave is just asking for trouble imo.
 
being punished for playing a card or an archetype is absurd and it's exactly what happens with Enslave (You want to play that super cool archetype that revolves around a 4 or 5 power engine? Too bad, we made specifically a counter for that).

Yea like Ruehin. Just the existance of seize makes ruehin unplayable because it's an auto-lose if Ruehin is stolen. Really poor design. I feel like counters should offer an advantage... not an instant auto-win.
 
1 sieze in game that locks and offers bad value, might be fine, or a sieze like old Slave Master was imo fun design. But when a deck can run 3 or 4 op sieze (on a selected target), it becomes stupid, you can't play a bait or in a way to soft counter sieze. But every card from the start is in the danger of sieze so it defies the point of having another effect.
 
There are other NG archetypes I find even more irritating - the "mill the opponents deck", "thin to zero" and anything with Usurper.

However, I don't like it, it feels broken. NG are much better with tactics, with soldiers, spies, and assimilate. I think the whole seize/break the opponent thing is relentlessly dull (as I said months ago) to play against, overpowered and unnecessary - it's as broken as Fran, it's getting comfortably more points value than any other leader, with the added issues that they are the only faction that can refresh the leaders ability.

Mill is completely irrelevant here. Mill is hardly even playable other than a meme.
 
I agree with the general idea but I don't think Enslave is necessarily too strong.
It is, however, an incredibly poorly designed effect, at least imo.
You shouldn't be able to seize units as easily in this game and it should certainly not be a leader effect.

The reason for that being, for me personally, being punished for playing a card or an archetype is absurd and it's exactly what happens with Enslave (You want to play that super cool archetype that revolves around a 4 or 5 power engine? Too bad, we made specifically a counter for that). Punish players for making mistakes, not for their choice of deck/card/archetype.

Of course, I fully realize that you can't avoid counters and bad match up in a card game unless you stick to very boring effects but Enslave is just asking for trouble imo.
exactly. the fact that seize doesnt automatically lock a unit is also nuts. I always mulligan cards like botchling in this matchup. seizing isnt only an incredibly tempo heavy play which also interrupts engines, but it actually adds the engine to the opponent. most NG players dont hesitate to leader seize in round 1 since they can just repeat with defender/damien in round 3. I wish CDPR would just improve other NG archetypes like spies which is pretty unique to NG and change this leader altogether to fit within that archetype instead.
 
exactly. the fact that seize doesnt automatically lock a unit is also nuts. I always mulligan cards like botchling in this matchup. seizing isnt only an incredibly tempo heavy play which also interrupts engines, but it actually adds the engine to the opponent. most NG players dont hesitate to leader seize in round 1 since they can just repeat with defender/damien in round 3. I wish CDPR would just improve other NG archetypes like spies which is pretty unique to NG and change this leader altogether to fit within that archetype instead.
That would also be my wish.
CDPR did a lot of things well in Gwent, the game is great but one thing they failed to do is to build every possible archetypes the game offers in a meaningful way.

As a result we have cards like Enforcers wich could be a strong card if Spy was still in the game (following the same idea, you have Morvudd which is a very cool lord for the Monster beast deck...You know...That super cool Monster beast deck that everybody's playing...of course, or Ciri Nova which could be used in...well...an archetype that doesn't even exist).

And spy was a really cool one, I was so disappointed when they removed it. I understand it's complicated to do with 2 rows (because you can too easily fill up both of your opponent's rows with trash that they don't want, which would certainly ruin the experience of the game) but I'm sure there is ways (like making a unit that adds the spy tag on an enemy unit as an order, for example). This way they could just change Enslave with something of a better design (or what I personally consider a better design, at the very least).

I know it would be kind of annoying, because CDPR keep reworking their cards all the time, but I think that they should take a good look at every card in the game, establish which archetype are playable/healthy for the game/well designed and basically rework all the cards that serve no purpose in the current state of the game for something relevant (and forget about utopian archetypes that nobody play because they have no support whatsoever).

And speaking of which, look at Arachas queen, they changed her so now she doesn't spawn units for killing her own during her turn anymore (you now have to play organic cards)...That's cool and everything but what about Gulstiworp? Forktail?
That was nice you play with you guys, now enjoy your trip to oblivion.
 
I gotta say I really really like the new arachas queen. it's still good imo but it's just not as exploitable. I remember a game against enslave where the opponent tried or faked to bleed me and played roderick (spy) into hefty helge and I played predatory dive which killed both units and spawned a drone on my side. opponent passed. most ridiculous thing was season of the dryad with arachas into double warrior portal.

as much as I like new mechanics and cards, there are SO many cards that just dont fit anywhere or are severely underperforming. gwent will never be at its full potential if they just keep "printing" new cards instead of fixing old ones and establishing functioning archetypes before introducing new stuff to the game. gwent honestly still feels like a beta.
 
As a result we have cards like Enforcers wich could be a strong card if Spy was still in the game

Enforcers are pretty much now part of a 3 card combo (Duchesss' informant, Enforcer and that new armored card that pings every time a soldier gets played). If they saw more play, it would be obvious that the spy enabling it is a broken POS card, since it makes a working copy of any bronze on the opponents side of the board. Fortunately it's just easier to run a full assimilate package with enslave as the leader ability, since the tactics cards that allow the assimilate engines to get their ticks will still allow a 5 point unit to be seized.
 
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Mill is completely irrelevant here. Mill is hardly even playable other than a meme.

I just meant in terms of style of play; I've only faced it three times, won two lost one, but it was the spirit of the matches that left a bad taste. The spirit of enslave is just wrong. As has been said, the most simple fix is make any seize mechanice lock/purify a unit at the same time, so it loses armor, shield, ability, etc.

I won a few games using assimilate, which I can get behind, along with spies (though a lot less powerful). NG can have its fun, but the temptation is always there to just use the OP spoiler cards. Cannot work out how Sweers has dropped to 8 provs when he's guaranteed 9 point play as well as stealing.
 
exactly. the fact that seize doesnt automatically lock a unit is also nuts. I always mulligan cards like botchling in this matchup. seizing isnt only an incredibly tempo heavy play which also interrupts engines, but it actually adds the engine to the opponent. most NG players dont hesitate to leader seize in round 1 since they can just repeat with defender/damien in round 3. I wish CDPR would just improve other NG archetypes like spies which is pretty unique to NG and change this leader altogether to fit within that archetype instead.
I see it all the time. Ardal size [6], good, low provision damage tactics (tourney, assassination, treason), defender, Damien, Helga, Diviners and some tutors make up the core. That’s a solid thinning, damage, control package. Probably the best available. So it is a frustrating Tier 1 meta deck we will play with or against a lot for the rest of the season and after it gets nerfed something new but same will emerge... .
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EDIT: The fix is simple, the size must lock the unit, like Nozzle does! I play at R5, I play against it almost constantly. It’s OP in my view and I reached the point where I’m switching to Arena until new ‘patch’ next month.
 
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The original point of Sieze was to play opponents deck, and locking it wouldn't allow some combos... I suppose...
Nozzle has been working well on steal plus lock. Also, locks can be purified. It will still be quite strong but fair. the temp swing + engine removal + engine gain is too much. Nozzle is 12p for [5] size + locks. The leader ability and Sweers don’t make sense to me mathematically.
 
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