I had tried my best to build a somewhat viable decent deck with Mahakam Forge, the new Trash leader ability, but actually, there is no way for MF to be even decent in the current state. Reasons
So, basically they are tough, they have no control, they have poor/weak engines, extremely risky easily brikcable high provision cards and on top of that, the weakest and the lowest tempo leader in the entire game who has 15 provisions.
How to make it viable/better:
- Pathetic Big Boys (cards above 10+ provisions). Munro is easily bricked. There are only two cards which can provide him Rowdy Dwarfs (Zoltan and Zoltan's company). Even if you draw one of them, there are PLENTY of counters for Rowdy Dwarfs. I had played more games where Munro played for 6 than he could convert 2 Rowdy Dwarfs. Even in the best case (where he converts two rowdy dwarfs and all their attacks land on non-shield non-armor units), he plays for 16 for 12P in four turns.
- Dwarfs have absolutely no control options. Only Yarpen has 3 damage and he plays for 9 for 9 (with MF, otherwise 8 for 9). And that is it. The 4P Dwarf who does 3 damage is the only other control options. Are they at least greedy and can play engines? Or huge tempo plays? Not nearly close enough like other factions. So, they don't do high tempo plays, they don't have strong engines, and they don't have control. In the Rock, Paper, Scissors metaphor (Control, Engine, Tempo), they don't have any strong point.
- A 5 point leader (7 if you have Yarpen in R3) who hardly has any synergy with his high provision cards. Throughout the game, may be he would give more value as every damage gets armored by 1, but he is just as good as playing against Usurper.
- Resilience is a joke. It is only ever useful if your opponent drypass in R2 and you have the resilience card in hand. Otherwise, they are just bad. Zoltan is a 8 for 10 and is only so useful in very very niece situations.
So, basically they are tough, they have no control, they have poor/weak engines, extremely risky easily brikcable high provision cards and on top of that, the weakest and the lowest tempo leader in the entire game who has 15 provisions.
How to make it viable/better:
- Leader: Whenever a Dwarf ally appears on the board (played or spawned) it gets 1 Armor. Spawn and play Tempering. 16 provisions.
- Both Zoltan and Munro should be at 11 provisions. They are terrible for 12 provisions. Munro is an extremely high risk and low to medium reward card.
- Pyro Technician should have 2 armor. In its current state is is just miserably bad. Doing random damage can easily backfire on you and he may even play for 1 point (where it hits a drone) or negavite points if it hits a wrong unit (skeleton, dracoturtle, drakkar, redenian ship). No reasonable player will add Pyrotechnician in their deck.
- That 6 for 6 Dwarf who moves an ally to the other row is just a sad joke. Why in the freaking world will I want to move an ally to the other row? Make it so move an unit to the other row on Melee and Purify a unit on Ranged.