Leader Changes

[Iuliandrei]

Leader Changes

Among the many changes the new patch will bring we currently have a sneak peek at 4 leaders for a day now and i'm curious why there is no topic about it, seems that most discussion happens on reddit or other forums.

So for those who don't know:

1) Brouver Hoog
Minor change, now beside the ability to play a silver unit he can also play a bronze dwarf. This would help in cases where you draw all your silvers and your leader ends up being a dead card.

2) Emhyr
Order reversed. Now you have to play a card and then pick one up.
Basically you can no longer instantly use the ability of a unit already on the board but he can become a 6 STR gold with the deploy ability of any unit in your hand. It's also a buff for mill decks.

3) Radovid
Now has crewman tag. To me this makes no sense. His deploy ability is reactive but the crewman is proactive, they don't mix well unless you use him for a pure 13 point play. Also this ability would fir better on Foltest, i always thought this game lacks flavor, this imo is a missed opportunity to make Foltest the siege leader.

4) Harald the Cripple
Completely redesigned, now a 7 STR body, deals 6 random damage similar to Draug AND has a passive effect that deals 1 damage to the lowest unit on the opposite row. Not sure if it hits multiple units like rain. Also the damage ignores armor, which i hoped it wouldn't be a thing in the future.
Overall it's a good change, it seems quite powerful, not sure why give him 7 STR body on top of that but this might be subject to change until release. It's not really impressive because it's not unique, i mean we already have Draug and Rain but this change quite fits him and i really like this idea of passive leader effects cause until now everything was on deploy.

 

[frbfree]

Emhyr
Order reversed. Now you have to play a card and then pick one up.
Basically you can no longer instantly use the ability of a unit already on the board but he can become a 6 STR gold with the deploy ability of any unit in your hand. It's also a buff for mill decks.

It is most decidedly NOT a buff for Mill Decks. I'm so tired of the assumption being that a Mill deck needs to break and bounce Avallach to be successful. I nearly punched my monitor when I heard Swim imply that this change somehow makes Avallach better. In fact, if anything, this slows down my Mill Deck by preventing me from playing Sweers in back to back turns.

Also, I'd like to know if it changes the order of operations for Golems. Because if I have to play a card from my hand before Emhyr summons the Golems, then this card becomes garbage, since it hurts Emhyr's self-thinning ability as well as his milling ability.

Losing the ability to immediately bounce a card is not a buff. In any way, shape, or form.

 

[Iuliandrei]

First of all you can still play Sweers back to back but you have to play Emhyr first, like i mention Emhyr because "Use the deploy ability of any unit in your hand".

Secondly sometimes you end a round with a card, like Peter for example but you want him on the next round aswell. Let's say you play against consume monsters and they have a big buffed unit and they pass while being ahead by a lot. Currently you can take it with Peter but if you want it next round aswell to banish a Nekker you have to play 2 cards, Peter himself and Emhyr to take it back and play something else.
With this change you can use Emhyr to deal with that big buffed thread (Emhyr also has a bigger body than Peter) and still keep Peter in the hand for next around.

 

[Mau_91]

Good read thanks op, btw any news on new leaders? Haven't been reading the forums or news much

 

[fostdecile]

Lets see, we can play axeman + longship + harald and look at all the control decks being confused :O.

 

[ResoundingBuahaha]

Opening with Harald actually shuts down every NR opening I can think of..no matter it's sergeants or siege support. It's more than enough to cripple any NR archetype.

A wide range of first go advantage cards like Mongonel , war long ship and Dragoon also would be shut down by Harald. So without context my first impression is broken and painful to play against.

 

[partci]

Let's see... SK gets a nice, fat BUFF again, ST get a decent one, NR kinda OK one and NG got the axe (no pun intended) again.

Bravo.

 

[ResoundingBuahaha]

Let's see... SK gets a nice, fat BUFF again, ST get a decent one, NR kinda OK one and NG got the axe (no pun intended) again.

Bravo.

I think NR crewman ability on leader is useless unless machine ability is improved....meh...

 

[fostdecile]

Opening with Harald actually shuts down every NR opening I can think of..no matter it's sergeants or siege support. It's more than enough to cripple any NR archetype.

A wide range of first go advantage cards like Mongonel , war long ship and Dragoon also would be shut down by Harald. So without context my first impression is broken and painful to play against.

Let's see... SK gets a nice, fat BUFF again, ST get a decent one, NR kinda OK one and NG got the axe (no pun intended) again.

Bravo.

I just hope they don't make these changes to harald. At least make it a 1 str unit so the new Shackles can at least destroy it after damaging it. 3 axemen on the board is 22(?) power swing at one time which is ridiculous!

 

[ResoundingBuahaha]

I just hope they don't make these changes to harald. At least make it a 1 str unit so the new Shackles can at least destroy it after damaging it. 3 axemen on the board is 22(?) power swing at one time which is ridiculous!

I'm fine with axeman, a couple of Madrome is enough to counter, but shutting down that much opening is really discouraging experience, let alone Skellige already have Donar and Coral... If this change is real I'm gonna stick to my NG total skellige hate deck.

 

[OG.laloquaint]

Among the many changes the new patch will bring we currently have a sneak peek at 4 leaders for a day now and i'm curious why there is no topic about it, seems that most discussion happens on reddit or other forums.

So for those who don't know:

1) Brouver Hoog
Minor change, now beside the ability to play a silver unit he can also play a bronze dwarf. This would help in cases where you draw all your silvers and your leader ends up being a dead card.

2) Emhyr
Order reversed. Now you have to play a card and then pick one up.
Basically you can no longer instantly use the ability of a unit already on the board but he can become a 6 STR gold with the deploy ability of any unit in your hand. It's also a buff for mill decks.

3) Radovid
Now has crewman tag. To me this makes no sense. His deploy ability is reactive but the crewman is proactive, they don't mix well unless you use him for a pure 13 point play. Also this ability would fir better on Foltest, i always thought this game lacks flavor, this imo is a missed opportunity to make Foltest the siege leader.

4) Harald the Cripple
Completely redesigned, now a 7 STR body, deals 6 random damage similar to Draug AND has a passive effect that deals 1 damage to the lowest unit on the opposite row. Not sure if it hits multiple units like rain. Also the damage ignores armor, which i hoped it wouldn't be a thing in the future.
Overall it's a good change, it seems quite powerful, not sure why give him 7 STR body on top of that but this might be subject to change until release. It's not really impressive because it's not unique, i mean we already have Draug and Rain but this change quite fits him and i really like this idea of passive leader effects cause until now everything was on deploy.

1. I kind of like this but he most definitely doesn't need it.
2. Well honestly, I think Emhyr is perfect the way he currently is. I don't see him getting changed to that.
3. I'd be okay with Foltest having the Crewman tag but only if he had a lower base strength. I think it'd be better to have a completely new leader that has the Crewman tag and is able to replay two machines from your side of the board.
4. There's a card in Skellige that has the ability to "Every turn, at the end of your turn, Damage by 2 every Damaged Enemy with 2 Power or less." That's kind of similar to the passive ability you suggested which Harald doesn't need. There was this suggestion on one of my posts for Harald that basically kept his current ability but if you targeted your own units, they would get boosted instead of damaged. I think that's better than your suggestion.

Edit: I'm retarded, I thought these were suggestions and not actual changes lol. Sorry about that.

 

[Mnorojo]

I wonder if you can pick back up the card you just played with Ehmyr. In that case it might be advantageous, because the opponent would be unable to counter a card such as Sweers or Peter by lightning it on their turn. I could also see it working well with reveal decks. For example you could reveal a card with the alchemist such as scorpion, get its passive effect, play the scorpion, then return alchemist to hand to use again.

 

[frbfree]

First of all you can still play Sweers back to back but you have to play Emhyr first, like i mention Emhyr because "Use the deploy ability of any unit in your hand".

Secondly sometimes you end a round with a card, like Peter for example but you want him on the next round aswell. Let's say you play against consume monsters and they have a big buffed unit and they pass while being ahead by a lot. Currently you can take it with Peter but if you want it next round aswell to banish a Nekker you have to play 2 cards, Peter himself and Emhyr to take it back and play something else.
With this change you can use Emhyr to deal with that big buffed thread (Emhyr also has a bigger body than Peter) and still keep Peter in the hand for next around.

I don't think you understood what I was saying. Let's say I'm playing against Henselt, and my opponent opens with a Kaedweni Sargent. I drop Sweers to banish his other two Kaedweni Sargent. If he plays a Reaver Hunter on the next turn, then I can play Emhyr (currently) to bounce him back to my hand, and then IMMEDIATELY play him again and target the Reaver Hunter.

With the change, I have to play a card, and put Sweers back in my hand, making me wait another turn to play him. In the meantime, he can Henselt the other two Reaver Hunters out of his deck, where before I could have stopped him from doing so.

 

[Exoclyps]

You can still play Emhyr, dropping Sweers and then pick Sweers back up again. Then you can play Sweers again next turn.

True that you need to think ahead a bit more now, but you can still do what you're describing.

 

[frbfree]

You can still play Emhyr, dropping Sweers and then pick Sweers back up again. Then you can play Sweers again next turn.

True that you need to think ahead a bit more now, but you can still do what you're describing.

Right. I have to open with Emhyr on the first turn in order to do it that way. The problem lies in, I don't know if there is a good second target for Sweers until I see it. And if one never appears, I'm stuck with a less than effective Sweers card in my hand, where before I could play the Sweers and if I needed to bounce him right away, I could do so with Emhyr, and if no second target presented itself, I could use Emhyr to get Peter or Albrich or another card back instead.

 

[partci]

... True that you need to think ahead a bit more...

Tremendous against all auto pilot decks that do not care about planning ahead and are just smashing you when you've been left a play behind, because your card was nerfed again.

 

[Mnorojo]

The downside is if you drop a card and pick it back up, you are telegraphing your next play. Plus, you may noy need that card again. Or it may turn out that picking up another card later on is a better option. As for boomeranging back golds, that might be good. But in the next patch shackles will do 3 damage. So it will come at a cost. But I'm sure players will still think of nasty gold replays. The only effective one I can think of right now is Vitters for a reveal deck though

 

[Mnorojo]

Its a shame. In the last patch they nerfed Calveit and this time its Ehmyr. SK and NR get buffs in the meantime

 

[sbxsat]

Why do they keep buffing the effing dwarves! Where is the elf/dryad love?!