Idea for a conspiracy rework

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Hey, I saw a post on the Gwent Reddit awhile back that I've been thinking about for a bit and figured I'd post it here too. This was a post by Niddeus who I'm just going to quote below:

Credit goes to dtconcus who brought the idea in another thread.

Conspiracy X: Trigger ability if there is X units with spying on the opposite side.

This is flavorful and help build a setup as Nilfgaard. Basically transforming an anti-synergistic ability into a synergistic one. Current Conspiracy just does not work well. You mostly have to kill your own spies or you need to apply spying to a unit first for it to work and it's almost always linked to damage.

With the new Conspiracy, you just need to put more spies on the opposite side and then trigger a conspiracy...which is what spies can do. So the more spies, the bigger the possible conspiracy card. There could be really strong abilities that could require Conspiracy 5 for example.

With this rework, the idea is really to keep your spies in place instead of killing them. They really become a precious resource both for clogging the opposite side and to allow conspiracy triggers.

It also helps the less used spies to become useful since all you need is their body compared to Duchess informant which always need another bronze to work.

Here is a few interactions that could work with this new Conspiracy: - Deliberately holding onto Usurper Order to build up an amount of spies on the other side. - Having a unit with a powerful order ability requiring Conspiracy X, causing a stress to deal with the spies ASAP. - Making Angry Mob an easy to achieve 7 for 4 like many other MM 4prov bronze. - Playing Emissary semi-proactively (require a target on your side) because it does build up conspiracy X. - Playing Devotion Fergus as a huge Conspiracy enabler. - Having coup de grace target any unit but requiring Conspiracy 3 or 4 for example (a bit similar to blood eagle).

It seems like a really cool idea and a way to add complexity to the spy archetype. I particularly like the incentive to keep Usurper's agents on the other side.

Thoughts?
 
That would make sense.
It would act in a similar way to bloodthirst and make a lot more sense.
In that case one would setup a network of spies and sleepers within the opposing ranks and would use them for an actual kind of conspiracy, not killing the own spies to get some questionable rewards by destroying the own spy network.

In this case the ability of Usurper would actually make sense, given that in that case the Agents the Usurper sets up would actually act as Spies, rather than just being pseudo-indirect soldiers.
 
Also would appreciate the rework, but would appreciate if the Echo card does not change.

Coup de Grace: If the target has spying trigger the deathblow activity.

For the other cards:

Rainfarn of Attre: Currently almost never used. Would appreciate following rework:
Conspiracy 3: Increase damage by 4

Amnesty: Currently used but more in tactics decks as in spy decks. Would appreciate following rework:
Conspiracy 2: Increase the maximum power of the unit to be seized to 4.

Angry Mob:
Conspiracy 1: Boost self by 2

Deithwen Arbalest
Conspiracy 1: Damage it by 3 instead.
 

Messyr

Forum regular
It would act in a similar way to bloodthirst and make a lot more sense.
Except it would be 300% more difficult to set up properly. SK bloodthirst works effectively because the majority of the bronze and gold untis support it or actively build upon it. To have similar results, approximately 60% of NGs units and spells should set up spies on your opponent's side, and the rest should more or less utilize them. I'm afraid, even though the concept is good, it just doesn't have the tools available to ever happen.

In this case the ability of Usurper would actually make sense, given that in that case the Agents the Usurper sets up would actually act as Spies, rather than just being pseudo-indirect soldiers.
For this to work, Usurper's spies should have a serious immediate effect on the board, enough to compensate for ~12 points value. A bit clunky if there is a risk of bossting opponent's board by 6 after losing Usurper the next turn.
 
Except it would be 300% more difficult to set up properly. SK bloodthirst works effectively because the majority of the bronze and gold untis support it or actively build upon it. To have similar results, approximately 60% of NGs units and spells should set up spies on your opponent's side, and the rest should more or less utilize them. I'm afraid, even though the concept is good, it just doesn't have the tools available to ever happen.
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Yea, it would be more difficult to set up properly than bloodthirst, my point was just that it would be a similar keyword, counting the number of units meeting a certain criteria.
Of course the balancing would be significantly different and the restrictions would be much lower than comparable bloodthirst conditions.
That being said, setting up Spies would finally have a point that is not just to trigger engines that are at that point already on the board.
In fact it could be similar to the Open Beta Spy deck, in that one aims to setup multiple spies and then play synergistic cards that scale up with the amount of Spies or get a really strong ability, the reason why in Open Beta I almost exclusively played Spies.

[...]
For this to work, Usurper's spies should have a serious immediate effect on the board, enough to compensate for ~12 points value. A bit clunky if there is a risk of bossting opponent's board by 6 after losing Usurper the next turn.
I did not claim one would keep them there.
My point was that currently the ability is just weird from a lore-perspective and with Order units with a Conspiracy condition one could actually synergize with them before pulling them back, although admittedly Enforcers are already somewhat like that.

Honestly I would prefer Enforcers to work like the open beta version, doing 1 damage for each spy already on the board and then doing 1 damage immediately each time a spy appears. At 6p with 3-4 base strength that should also probably be balanced and would actually incentivize the Spy archetype.
 
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