Let's compare bronze Syndicate cards to bronzes in other factions for a good laugh!

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I'll go first!

Dwarven Mercenary 3 strength, 5 Provisions
Order: Damage an enemy unit by 1
Charge: 1
Gain one charge whenever you play a Dwarf

Compared to.......

Witch Hunter Executioner 3 strength, 5 Provisions
Profit 2
Fee 1: Give bleeding to an enemy unit for 1 turn. If it has a bounty damage it by 1 instead.


These two cards are the same strength with the same provisions so one would think they would be at least somewhat comparable in terms of the value they can provide. The first thing to point out here is that the witch hunter card breaks even as soon as it's played. You have 3 strength and instantly profit 2 coins. The Dwarven Mercenary does not do this. You only get the 3 strength played and you hope it stays on the board to get further value. The mercenary will then give you 1 damage tick of value when you play another dwarf card. As someone who plays dwarf decks sometimes (hoping one day they will be decent) I can tell you these cards almost never stay on the board. They are easily killed by weaker cards in most decks and if they stay on the board you can at most get 9 points of value out of them (extremely unlikely).

The Witch Hunter Executioner if played correctly will have a bunch of coins saved up to immediately spend. So you play it and then you can immediately start mowing down enemy units with it. Since you can get all of that value as soon as you play this card it's automatically far better than any engine card in the game that uses orders and has to wait one turn to get any further value. The combination of saving value with coins and then getting a ton of removal with these cheap bronze cards is mind blowing.

Of course anyone playing Syndicate already knew what I just said about the witch hunter cards. But please take a look at the dwarven mercenary and maybe you will laugh at the power disparity as much as I did. :)

Edit: Ok now let's look at some gold cards between these factions!

Whoreson's Freak Show 6 strength, 6 provisions

Insanity
Fee 1. Give an enemy unit bleeding for 1 turn. If insanity was used. Damage it by 1 instead.

Compared to......

Pavko Gale 5 strength, 8 provisions!!!

Order: Damage a unit b 1
Cooldown: 1


Ok so right of the top the funniest thing about this comparison is that freak show has 1 more strength (which is a big deal) and not one but TWO less provisions than Pavko. That is so absurd considering that freakshow is a much more useful card. Anytime you run out of coins with freak show you can still trade damage to kill whatever you want within 5 points and then if you have the healer card in Syndicate you can just heal him right back up. Freakshow's other big asset is an easy way to spend your coins which you can just dish out as much as you want without any cooldown. Pavko Gale doesn't have any versatility. You play him and hope he stays on the board. If he does stay on the board you can achieve a whopping 1 ping of damage a turn. Wow.

Is this an example of power creep or was Syndicate just very poorly balanced?
 
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Power creep confirmed haha

However bronzes are only one part of the problem. I'll post some other ridiculous comparisons later with gold cards.
 
You can compare the Apothecary from SY with the Heymae healer in Skellige or the havekar healer in scoiatel
The apothecary combined with tyhe freak show can make 9 pts for 4cost lol

Or the mage thats deal 3 damage with no conditions if played with the King of Begar or anyway its only 1 coin cost for deal 3 damage, its very easy to get 1 coin
Compared with the huntdog of Monsters, you need to have domination, not always easy or the Wardancer from ST when you need to have it boosted in the hand by 1 get the 3 pts damage (again not always easy)

Anyways its good thats they want to buff the unused bronze cards from other factions, I just don't want them too be "too" strong, they are bronze cards they dont have to make same value as gold cards...
We still need some "slow" tempo
 
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DRK3

Forum veteran
I'll contribute to this, the more noise we make that SY is OP, the quicker the nerfs will come, hopefully.

Syndicate: Arena Ghoul- 7pts for 5 provisions, needs 2 coins (1 with KoB)
Monsters: Ice Giant- 7pts for 8 provisions
Skellige: Disgraced Brawler- 7pt for 5 prov., vulnerable to removal if not BT3

Syndicate: Arena Endrega -5pts for 5 provision, ability instantly available, option to use coins instead of self-dmg
Skellige: Longship - 5pts for 5 prov., needs to wait one turn to have ability

Syndicate: Coerced Blacksmith- 4pt+ 1 profit for 5 prov, ability isntantly available, can be used as many times as you want
Pretty much all other faction's bronze charge units, inferior in every way
 
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Reactions: rrc
Northern Realms: Kaedweni Revenant x1, x2, x3, x4, x5, x6, x7, x8 Gimpy: Smash!

Nilfgaard: Daerlan Soldier x1, x2, x3, x4, x5, x6, x7, x8 Gimpy: Smash!

Monsters: Arachas Drone x1, x2, x3, x4, x5, x6, x7, x8, x9, x10, x11... Gimpy: Smash!

Syndicate: Firesworn Zealot x1... Gimpy: NERF!
 
... Whoreson's Freak Show 6 strength, 6 provisions

Insanity
Fee 1. Give an enemy unit bleeding for 1 turn. If insanity was used. Damage it by 1 instead.

Compared to......

Pavko Gale 5 strength, 8 provisions!!!

Order: Damage a unit b 1
Cooldown: 1...

Is this an example of power creep or was Syndicate just very poorly balanced?
They just do not pay any attention. I believe cards like Pavko are at that strength because of other cards like Alzur's Thunder. Why you make cards where even this RARELY used removal goes obsolete? Remember how in Beta Manticore Venom was dealing 13DMG and was considered bad? Well, a good example of where it was useful is Borkh: he was at 10STR and had 3 Armor (or something like that, he was capping at 13, that's for sure). You could have kill Borkh with 1 hit or gamble and try hit him two times for two turns and in the meanwhile risking to be countered with something like Mandrake or Maerdroeme. Or some potion, whatever. CDPR NEVER used this as a mold to make other (Gold) cards working in this range, so Manticore Venom could be actually considered to include in your deck. In my opinion you should always take into account those Spell Removals when creating new cards. In this regard A-Thunder AND engine cards were better balanced back then - you could shut any engine with it cause the max and engine could go when played was 9. The exact amount of DMG that the Thunder was dealing.

Seems that this is one of the new things that the devs once again kinda forgot, when developing the new cards.


Freak Show is getting nerfed, though, and Pavko is a mediocre gold to begin with.
Both of those are no excuse.
 
Philipa - seize an enemy unit equal to your coin count.

Vattier - Order: Seize a locked enemy unit.

I am using this comparison to show how utterly stupid some of these syndicate cards are. Philipa has a DEPLOY ability that can steal pretty much any unit worth stealing with little to no set-up whatsoever. On the other hand, Vattier has an Order ability meaning you have to wait a whole turn to use it. Oh but wait, you also need to lock the unit you want to steal first! I have seen Vattier ONCE since homecoming dropped. I've seen Philipa in almost all the syndicate decks I've played against. Clearly unbalanced.
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Freak Show is getting nerfed, though, and Pavko is a mediocre gold to begin with.

Freakshow SHOULD be a mediocre gold! It costs 6 PROVISIONS.
 
Philipa - seize an enemy unit equal to your coin count.

Vattier - Order: Seize a locked enemy unit.

Philippa needs a 7 strength unit to break even (or a good engine). Vattier breaks even on 4 strength and doesn't have a hard cap, unlike Philippa. Because of the Vattier's Order ability and his low strength, he is usually paired with Petri's Philter.

I agree that a lot of Syndicate cards are too good, like Freak Show and Apothecary. However, Philippa is fairly stated. In an engine meta, she is good, in a removal meta, she not as good. Overall, she is fine.

Freakshow SHOULD be a mediocre gold! It costs 6 PROVISIONS.

Having lesser provisions doesn't mean a card should be mediocre. Regardless, Freak Show is broken.
 
Philippa needs a 7 strength unit to break even (or a good engine). Vattier breaks even on 4 strength and doesn't have a hard cap, unlike Philippa. Because of the Vattier's Order ability and his low strength, he is usually paired with Petri's Philter.

Philippa is fairly stated. In an engine meta, she is good, in a removal meta, she not as good. Overall, she is fine.

That is absolutely ridiculous. It is too easy to gain coins compared to the 3-turn (or more) combo that Vattier requires in order to steal a unit and that's disregarding the amount of provisions that you're using as well. Purifying also exists btw...and you don't usually lock a unit you want to steal. You lock something that is dangerous to you before it does that dangerous thing. Let me elaborate further, Petri's Philter has NO place in Nilfgaard. Trust me, I've tried making Vattier work. I dare you to actually try to use him with Philter and see how that works out for you. Be careful though or he might die from one fiery mage! :)
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Having lesser provisions doesn't mean a card should be mediocre. Regardless, Freak Show is broken.

No, but they should give you relatively the same value as other cards of the same provision cost.
 
Freak Show is getting nerfed, though, and Pavko is a mediocre gold to begin with.

That kind of begs the question on why Pavko has stayed that way for so long. I wouldn't call him mediocre. He's just bad which is why I never see him played.

Where is the info on what is getting nerfed?
 
I dare you to actually try to use him with Philter and see how that works out for you.

Greedy combos can be punished more easily. For the record, I wasn't saying Vattier is better than Philippa. I am just saying both are meta-dependent cards and Phillipa is more reliable.

More importantly, the OP was comparing mediocre cards in a vacuum with a faction that is currently a bit too strong. Of course the results are skewed. But, instead of nerfing cards left and right, we should look at the faction as a whole and distill the problem to its core, that being machine guns killing bounty.

Where is the info on what is getting nerfed?

A balance patch is probably coming, this week or next week. There is no official info yet, but Freak Show getting nerfed is a given.
 
I've seen quite a few people say that Philippa is balanced (mainly on Reddit), but -
  • How much is the fact that it steals a unit without locking it worth? Engines and unused abilities give more value.
  • How much is the high 9 strength upper bound for the seize worth? Little is out of reach.
  • How much is the fact that you can fine tune the seize amount without wasting coins worth?
  • Reference is often made to how many provisions Philippa costs vs the points she is worth, but what about the provision cost of the card she seizes? If, say, your opponent spent 13 provisions putting Phoenix in their deck, I'm sure they don't just see it as 4 points seized. There was an opportunity cost to them in terms of power of the other cards in their deck.
I'm not saying it is totally OP, but it is very flexible, powerful, unlikely to brick and very difficult to mitigate against. The other seize cards have more drawbacks.

When playing against Ardal, you know you have to be careful playing any engines, resilient or order cards of (usually) 5 strength or lower. Against Syndicate you can't be certain they run Philippa, but have to always factor it in, and for everything up to 9 strength. That's pretty oppressive. It discourages players from playing anything except point slam cards to avoid getting burned too badly.
 
Philippa needs a 7 strength unit to break even (or a good engine.
That's simply not true, as already explained discussing with you here: https://forums.cdprojektred.com/ind...ch-for-relatively-new-players.11009275/page-2
To get a coin, you need significantly less than one provision in general. Compare Philippa with Muzzle for even more clarity. Even if you count one provision for one coin, she's already better than Muzzle when using 5 coins (Philippa 13 points for 15 provisions is better than Muzzle 10 points for 12 provisions). On top of that, she does not lock, so she can seize a working engine. The provision - coin - point exchange rate is a nice trick for power creep.
 
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More importantly, the OP was comparing mediocre cards in a vacuum with a faction that is currently a bit too strong. Of course the results are skewed. But, instead of nerfing cards left and right, we should look at the faction as a whole and distill the problem to its core, that being machine guns killing bounty.
.

I get the "in a vacuum" argument however for it to work there has to be a decent reason why there appears to be a big power discrepancy between two cards. I definitely can't think of one reason why Pavko would be so weak compared to Freakshow. There is nothing in SC that synergies well with Pavko. Syndicate is also not a faction that needs a card like Freakshow to make it work.

I have two big questions when it comes to these two cards....

Why was freak show released if it was obviously overpowered. Didn't they say they had a beta test with this faction?

If Pavko Gale is bad or mediocre why has it stayed in that state for so long?

I do not understand the balancing in this game. It's always been just a free for all on when they feel like balancing cards.
 
Why was freak show released if it was obviously overpowered. Didn't they say they had a beta test with this faction?


The problem with the form of balance is that testers apparently want to always win what they are playing with.

According to something they said in the beta there was a way to interact with the coins or something like that. But nobody liked it and they took it out.
Who likes to have their carryover removed? ........................
 
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