Making Eldain (at least remotely) playable!

+

rrc

Forum veteran
If I simply quote verbatim what pros and streamers tell about Eldain, I would probably get banned or get a permanent warning. He is such a pathetic leader and is the worst and weakest leader in the game. Even if more cool traps are added, he would still be the weakest leader in the entire game.

So, my idea/suggestion to fix him would be:
Idea 1: "Mark a face down trap, which when triggered summons a Deadeye". Charges: 3

This would give him the chance to generate tempo without needing to play a turn if necessary. And can make the important traps to be resurrected by caretaker or Hattori. Also, this can synergize with Half Elf Hunter and Pyrotechnician. A Trap leader should synergize with every card that is linked with Traps. Currently Eldain kills Pyro and Caretaker which is just wrong for a Trap leader.

Idea 2:
"Play a bronze trap from your deck. On round start, if you have two or more traps in your deck, refresh the ability"

Idea 3: "Play a trap from your hand and draw the top card from your deck"

Idea 4: "Play a trap from your deck"

In terms of ability #1 would be cool and very powerful and it may even make him a competitive leader, at least I think so. But the coding and implementation may be hard.

#2,3,4 would be easy to implement and would be Powerful in that order with #4 being a little underwhelming.

But anything is better than the current ability. If none of that can be done, at least his charges and Provision should be increased.
 

Breli

Forum regular
I am with you here, rrc. Ironically, the "strongest" deck with Eldain so far is this Ciri Nova Special Card non-sense ...

Idea 5: Spawn an Elven Deadeye (Body 2) next to a trap without banishing the trap! Get two charges each round ... (edit: not refresh, but that maybe too much)

Some more traps would also help a lot. Something like

Forest stash, Bronze, 4 P
Activate the next time units on this row are damaged and boost two random units on this row by two.
Idea/concept: Elfs have hidden stashes in the forest that help them to survive dire situations …

Whirlwind, Gold, 7 P
Order: Move 5 random enemy units to the other row
Idea/concept: A trap that should synchronize with the movement archetype. This allows to disrupt row locked units. Synergizes with Sentry.

Eldain needs some love ...
 
  • RED Point
Reactions: rrc
#2 Seems too strong to me. That would likely allow the player to use this ability in round 1 and 2 and thus creating an easy card advantage due to the way most traps work.
#3 Seems too weak on the other side. You are completly bricked if you don't draw a trap for some reasons. Furthermore you can't even mulligan the drawn card, which makes it likelier that this cards will be useless.
#4 Would be probably be ok, but is really boring.

In general I'm not that fond of Eldain being able to play a trap, as incinterating and Pitfall trap both can mess up the enemy strategy quite a bit and might allow players to play those at the same time as a really strong engine, which can't be countered then.

#1 would be ok for me. As a variation it might be cool too, if he would just get charges to spawn those Elves, and could keep them. He would get a charge whenever he plays a trap for the first time in a round. That would fix the problem that you are screwed if you only draw 2 traps in the last round.

Idea 5: Spawn an Elven Deadeye (Body 2) next to a trap without banishing the trap! Get two charges each round ... (edit: not refresh, but that maybe too much)
If it doesn't refresh and thus stacks, keeping all 6 Elven Deadeyes till the last play, and then using Golden Froth on the last turn, would be far too strong.


Forest stash, Bronze, 4 P
Activate the next time units on this row are damaged and boost two random units on this row by two.
Idea/concept: Elfs have hidden stashes in the forest that help them to survive dire situations …

Whirlwind, Gold, 7 P
Order: Move 5 random enemy units to the other row
Idea/concept: A trap that should synchronize with the movement archetype. This allows to disrupt row locked units. Synergizes with Sentry.
I like that both aren't really damage based, as there are enough damage traps already in my opinion. Though Forest stash looks a little bit weak. It needs two allies on the row an enemy that damages them and even then only gets its provisions back.

Allso, I'd like to add #6:
Give a trap in your hand resilence.
This way it wouldn't be that bad if a trap isn't triggered in a round, because it would just stay on, or it would allow some other interesting plays.
 
Last edited:
  • RED Point
Reactions: rrc

Breli

Forum regular
If it doesn't refresh and thus stacks, keeping all 6 Elven Deadeyes till the last play, and then using Golden Froth on the last turn, would be far too strong.

You are probably right. The thing is, right now we have 3 additional elves with 9 points and that is simply too weak to compensate for the other shortcomings of Scioa'tel. The gold card body is very weak in comparision with at least 7-8 cards that are completely unusable, the whole faction suffers from fragmentation ...

Fun fact: out of 159 decks (!!!) of the open qualifiers, only 7 were Scioa'tel (5 Brouver, 1 Fila, 1 Eithne) if I counted correctly. That says something doesn't it?
 
  • RED Point
Reactions: rrc
I think idea 5 could be good. I would change it so that Eldain doesn't get two charges every round though. Instead I'd make it so his ability refreshed on a trap triggering. This way he can't hold on to charges but it's still a strong ability.
 
Eldain isn't necessarily bad. I think the issue is the green faction simply isn't very good. The ability on Eldain is an extension of why it's not very good. It's predictable, inflexible and requires more work to have any hope of achieving similar results to other factions. As long as this holds true changing the leader isn't going to amount to much.

The main issue with traps themselves is some aren't very good, there isn't enough variety and they don't add or remove points from a board until they trigger.
 
The thing is, right now we have 3 additional elves with 9 points and that is simply too weak to compensate for the other shortcomings of Scioa'tel. The gold card body is very weak in comparision with at least 7-8 cards that are completely unusable, the whole faction suffers from fragmentation ...
I don't really think that it would be good, if Eldain would compensate for all the shortcomings of ST by being himself overpowered while the rest of the faction is bad.
Just compensating one shortcoming can be ok, but even then it should be done by utility and not by raw points in my opinion.


Eldain isn't necessarily bad. I think the issue is the green faction simply isn't very good. The ability on Eldain is an extension of why it's not very good. It's predictable, inflexible and requires more work to have any hope of achieving similar results to other factions. As long as this holds true changing the leader isn't going to amount to much.

The main issue with traps themselves is some aren't very good, there isn't enough variety and they don't add or remove points from a board until they trigger.
 

Breli

Forum regular
I don't really think that it would be good, if Eldain would compensate for all the shortcomings of ST by being himself overpowered while the rest of the faction is bad.
Just compensating one shortcoming can be ok, but even then it should be done by utility and not by raw points in my opinion.

And I agree with you. However, right now, he is simply close to unusable. The same is true for a large amount of faction cards. Tinkering around with Eldain will not solve the problem, though.
 
Been playing Eldain exclusively since he launched. He's definitely something different, but I would not consider his power the weakest in the game.

To make him work, you need to have a very good knowledge for deck builds, and that can make climbing ranked a nightmare.

My deck Has about 60% win rate with him (It took some experimentation to get the build right).

But now almost always able to set up a last round play of 5 Elf Isengrim + Aelirenn Draw.

9 from leader
9 from Isengrim (Min)
5 from Aelirenn
24 swing is decent.

Worst match up is definitely MN. NR & NG are very favorable, SK is even.

Pros
Strong Archetype Thinning (That has Synergy.)
Strong Finishers (Isengrim, Iorveth & Pitfall Trap)
Strong Row Damage (Pitfall Trap)
Strong Engine Removal (Fireball Trap)

Cons
You need a very good sense of anticipation.
Consume has too many tall cards.
Very weak against mid length round. (R2 Push after R1 Loss)

If CDPR adds 1 more Trap that boosts, adds point Values to Serpent Trap & Pitfall Trap if manually turned over.

That's all I could ask for really.
 

rrc

Forum veteran
Fun fact: out of 159 decks (!!!) of the open qualifiers, only 7 were Scioa'tel (5 Brouver, 1 Fila, 1 Eithne) if I counted correctly. That says something doesn't it?
That says everything :p:p:p. I can also guess that MO was used by every single participants and every single MO deck had Old Speartip, Ozzrel, Wild Hunt Rider. Also, every single SK deck has Morgvag. And so on.
So, it is officially, logically proved by the community that ST just sucks and is left in pathetic condition and weaker than NR.

Even those seven decks from ST would have been the deck that made them lose the game.
 
If Blue, almost all. (Depends on Mahakam Horn / Sage draw)
If Red, i'd say 35-40% off the top of my head.

Taking the L in R1 is a toss up depending on draw though.

Bled in R2 still not that often due to most decks being built around long rounds. But Consume MN will usually push in R2 due to setting up ghouls for R3.
 
If Blue, almost all. (Depends on Mahakam Horn / Sage draw)
If Red, i'd say 35-40% off the top of my head.

Taking the L in R1 is a toss up depending on draw though.

Bled in R2 still not that often due to most decks being built around long rounds. But Consume MN will usually push in R2 due to setting up ghouls for R3.

Interesting.... Yes, R1 depends on too many variables. Match-up, draws, flip result, etc. I'd just think pushing R1 and then bleeding R2 would be rather effective against Eldain. Perhaps not a full bleed but enough to split up the round power. It yields similar results against certain Brouver and Fila decks. Any ST in the right circumstances, really. Probably because, beyond Saes, double Pitfall, Aglais (meme card) or something like a buffed card, it lacks in the short round department. Most of those aren't exactly point slam.
 
Top Bottom