Less Artifact Removal Good or Bad?

[ShinAkira00]

I don't think that they removed artifact removal variety to make decks and how they play less binary.

Since it's introduction *Devotion* as a concept has been really weak and patch 7.3 made things a little bit more fair.

Imo they removed artifact removal to boost the whole *Devotion* concept.
Before that patch, (again imo) the best decks were neutrals (obvsl besides SK and NR) cause people could play neutral and have both scenario and Korathi.
This can still happen ofc but now scenarios are a bit safer to play since people might need to save that Korathi for another target depending on the strategy they have in mind.

People were and still are complaining about "too much" removal plaguing the game and they are right...this makes things a little bit more balanced I believe.

Now...in saying all that, I wouldn't mind if scenarios where removed from the game but... (a huge BUT) if they do that, some factions must be rebalanced from scratch cause a lot of cards have been balanced around how scenarios play out.

Definitely gotta disagree there. If that was their thinking then the game will truly never be balanced. I don't see this affecting devotion one way or another. SK and NR will continue to play how they've been playing...and almost everyone else has gone back to Scenarios not devotion focused. What's more since Heatwave is the only answer to Scenarios then devotion will certainly not be anyone's priority.

All this change accomplished was make the game more binary which they claimed was what they wanted to prevent. Why leave heatwave? Because scenarios are too powerful, there has to be an answer...these cards shouldn't exist and they know that, they just haven't figured out how to deal with it hence the increase in provision and other changes that they added. They need to just remove them.

The devs are unfortunately slow to acknowledge when they've made a mistake.

 

[quintivarium]

Now...in saying all that, I wouldn't mind if scenarios where removed from the game but... (a huge BUT) if they do that, some factions must be rebalanced from scratch cause a lot of cards have been balanced around how scenarios play out.

I think you are probably right (though NG needs rebalancing regardless). But I think it is a grave developer error to balance factions assuming any card is automatically present.

 

[ya1]

But did this really decrease binary interactions? It might have but only from the point of view of one 4 for 5 brick. But bricking the Heaver has always been a lesser concern then letting a scenario go unanswered. So the greater issue got even more binary. Where you had an option to multiply your chance at drawing an artifact answer, now you have to draw your one Heatwave and that's it.

What's more, it made nice mess globally across the whole game. The whole set of interactions between greed and control just got even more binary. Now that Heatwave is taken by the scenario, you need extra tall removals for extra tall targets. Extra chances to play rock-paper-scissors for the autowin.

 

[NxZsolt]

There should always be an option. Otherwise, the game will be very one-sided. Which leaves room to the [...] decks. And it's boring.

 

[fil_faniki]

You would think making Ball doomed would warrant a provision buff, not a nerf lmao. Poor NG