NG spies need a buff

[1990BW]

Engines are meta it's time to buff the good old Nilfgaard spydeck because it doesn't see play at all.
The obvious card that needs a buff are Impera Enforcers right now this engine plays into all kinds of removal and is too low tempo.
Cantarella is a trash card: bad synergy and too much RNG I'd love to see this card changed to something like poison 2 enemy units in a non-spying unit agent body.
Poison in NG doesn't see play either so by doing this it would be a win-win situation: fangs of the empire and rot tosser playable just by changing one card!
Mangonel is just a senseless card as it is now maybe turning it into a active engine would make it playable.
Something like 4 provisons (because there aren't any for spydeck) and deal 1 damage for each spy you play.
Rainfarn is fine I think he is in line with other faction engines and has a fair provision amount.
Lastly Joachim De Wett his raw value isn't very good yes he thins the deck, boosts an unit by 8 and it can give a charge to enforcer.
But he also plays into tall unit punishment and boosts can be reset so it has major downsides as well.
Cutting a provision of 1-2 would be fair I think.

Who wants NG spies to be a playable archetype?
And what do you think about the suggestions?
What are your suggestions for a NG spy deck?

 

[Lexor]

Rainfarn (the only card you think is fine) is the worst for me.
Impera Enforcers got some indirect boosts in IJ (Ffion and Ramon).
Cantarella is not trash when used with Courier.
There are quite good combos with Joachim De Wett - boost is just one of a few good things.

 

[Allistre]

Spies need more than a buff, they need the kind of synergy their cards had in beta. People loved that deck because every single card synergized with 3-4 others. That's the kind of gameplay I want at least.

Just having impera enforcers interact with spy tag in not enough.

 

[1990BW]

Rainfarn (the only card you think is fine) is the worst for me.
Impera Enforcers got some indirect boosts in IJ (Ffion and Ramon).
Cantarella is not trash when used with Courier.
There are quite good combos with Joachim De Wett - boost is just one of a few good things.

Rainfarn from a value standpoint is ok but because other factions run similar cards it's a bit dull.
Glennis Aep Doernach is quite similar but is better playable right now because there is a larger cardpool.
A bronze agent that can put a spying status on a enemy could definitly help.

Ffion and Ramon are very good gold Soldier cards indeed but they are not quite there yet.
It all has to do with the poor NG midrange golds and bronzes they are not of the same kaliber as tier 1 decks.
But I do like them and they will definitly see more play when NG soldiers/spies become stronger.

Maybe it's just me but Cantarella doesn't appeal to me Courier can but not always improve the value.
But it's very costly 12 provisions -1 point IF you pull them both and the value even then is RNG restricted.
No I don't think it's worth it there are better cards that are cheaper and more consistent.

Joachim isn't bad but because he has significant downsides it isn't very good either.
It's good with Hen Gaidth sword though but that card is a bit overtuned I think.
Joachim alone is a bit to expensive from a provision standpoint if you ask me.
But he isn't the problem in the deck.

 

[Alch1mist]

They don't necessary need buffs as much as they need new cards.

I see three major problems with spies.

The first one is their lack of engine, we only have Enforcers (bronze) and Rainfarn (gold) to carry the entire archetype. It's clearly not enough because if you commit all of your three engines to get one round the rest of your deck falls apart, but on the other hand you can't really take a round without doing this kind of commitment. Which forces you to play with some assimilate cards to complete the deck, until you realize you're better off dropping your spy synergies to play more assimilate.
The archetype needs more bronze engines having some kind of synergies with spies.

The second issue is simply the spies themselves being very underwhelming. Emissary is a 6 for 5, which isn't terrible but it doesn't bring any sort of utility to the deck while playing into resets and tall removal. Informant is pretty good, but plays more into assimilate than spies. Cantarella is awful without Courier, but Courier itself is not a good card so you have to play a bad card to make the other slightly better. Roderick is the only good spy and Joachim leave something to be desired.
The archetype needs more spies that actually bring some sort of utility for the deck.

Another point I'd like to talk about is how the archetype used to be online fairly quickly in beta, you'd play an Enforcer and then you'd play an Emissary to pull more engines from your deck, which would give more "charges" to the Enforcers, so every cards you were playing would synergies and grow your engines every turn. In Homecoming you have to set-up your few engines first, which takes few turn where they're sitting on the board doing nothing, then you can play your spies, which is incredibly slow and clunky and another reason why the deck is outclassed by everything else.
We need better synergies within the archetype, something buffs is not going to bring, only new cards can.