No bronze engine should come to board with 6 power

+

rrc

Forum veteran
The strongest and most oppressive bronzes in the game currently are SelfEater and WitchApprentice. These two engines make even the greediest NR engine deck to shame and can't match it (I tried with Shieldwall full engine super greedy decks and still I always lose to Fruits deck). The main reason for this is, the only way to counter/control these bronze are via gold cards. There are no 6 damage bronze cards which can handle these cards.

So, unless there is a 6 damage bronze cards (I wish it doesn't happen), no bronze cards should come to board with 6 strength, basically forcing a gold counter. So, please make SelfEater and WitchApprentice to come to board with 5 power when the enemy gets their turn. The current standard is, easy bronze engines which can get +1/turn comes to board with 4 strength (Magne Division, Vernossil Commondos, etc.) The bronze engines which will need some setup and can get +1/turn comes to board with 5 strength (Warcrier, BoostBy1IfLockedUnit, Peaches, Svalblod Priest, etc.)

So, lets please not have bronze engines that come to board at 6 strength (without any other card or leader's help). This will solve the issue and will actually make many other decks viable.
 
unless there is a 6 damage bronze cards
There are.

Gutting Slash, Stunning Blow, Assassination, Brokvar Archer, Cat Witcher Saboteur, Cyclops, Temerian Infantry, Ban Ard Student, Bloody Good Fun, Slave Driver, and Trophy Catch have the potential to damage a single unit by 6 on deploy.
Granted, not all of them are good cards and none is an unconditional "damage a unit by 6", but they do exist.
Assassination and Bloody Good Fun are able to kill a Selfeater even if it's the only unit on the board.

Dimeritium Shackles is a Bronze lock that any non-Devotion deck can run.


Also, Witch Apprentice does not have a 6 body. It does not count as a "bronze engine that come to board at 6 strength (without any other card or leader's help)". It requires Sabbath to get to 6, and Sabbath certainly requires other cards' help.
 
  • RED Point
Reactions: rrc
Actually, I also think that some of these bronze 6+ engine cards are a problem but other aren´t. I would suggest to only tackle the ones being a problem.

Ancient Foglet: Can easily be a 6+ engine. Nevertheless, I think that this card is needed weather support and should not be nerfed.

Selfeater: I would really appreciate to put him down to 5 body as this would put a lot of tempo out of the engine.

Witch apprentice: Also speak in favor of putting her down to 3 body.

Aretuza Adept: I am really asking myself why nobody talks about her. Of course patience does not really dominate the meta. From my perspective, if you do not face a heavy control deck or able to protect your mages behind a defender the deck is really strong. Actually I am playing Pro and my best performing deck are shieldwall patience mages + Alzur.
It can be a huge engine. From my perspective she should cost at least 5 provision and deserves a body nerf.
 

rrc

Forum veteran
There are.

Gutting Slash, Stunning Blow, Assassination, Brokvar Archer, Cat Witcher Saboteur, Cyclops, Temerian Infantry, Ban Ard Student, Bloody Good Fun, Slave Driver, and Trophy Catch have the potential to damage a single unit by 6 on deploy.
Granted, not all of them are good cards and none is an unconditional "damage a unit by 6", but they do exist.
Assassination and Bloody Good Fun are able to kill a Selfeater even if it's the only unit on the board.

Dimeritium Shackles is a Bronze lock that any non-Devotion deck can run.


Also, Witch Apprentice does not have a 6 body. It does not count as a "bronze engine that come to board at 6 strength (without any other card or leader's help)". It requires Sabbath to get to 6, and Sabbath certainly requires other cards' help.
Theoretically, as you mentioned, yes, every card you had mentioned can potentially do 6 damage. But practically, only Bloody Good Fun can kill a SelfEaterr or PiggyRider, provided there are 2 coins to expend which is easy and also worth it. Cyclops, yes, but it is not a practical card. The other cards can't deal with these cards when they enter the field. Shackeles is a horrible card, but yes, it is a viable counter!

Assassination can't do 6 as Selfeater/Apprentice always will have adjacent units.

Achieving Sabbath needs other cards to be played, yes. But even then coming to board at 6 strength with no practical way to kill it with a bronze is too powerful (at least in the current meta). The only difference between these engines and all other existing engines are, they come to board at 6 strength and can get +2 (or +3 or even more) per turn quite easily. If they come to board at 5 and retain their ability, MO will not be this oppressive.
 
Assassination can't do 6 as Selfeater/Apprentice always will have adjacent units.
"I say it is always so, therefore it always is so", yet in reality it is not always so. Not even almost always.

That kind of arguments are bad because they are opinions (=subjective) and generalisations rather than objective or factual. Not to mention they are, when it comes to this game and like in this case, usually based on something the person thinks is unfair because what they play cannot beat it.

I have no time for, or interest in, arguments like what you're making.
Everything I said in my post was a clear fact that I could easily prove is true. I even considered whether it's theoretically possible to have six locked units before listing Slave Driver.

Your entire thread is also partially based on a clear untruth, stated as if it's a fact. Always a poor premise.
 
To be very honest, I often argued that the biggest problem of MO are their powerful bronze engines. I would really appreciate if there are no +2 engines with 4 provisions / 4 body. In this context I would also consider a nerf of Nauzicaa Sergeant (Maybe reduce body to 3).

Additionally I like the idea of not having 6 body bronze engine cards. And these are currently, the 4 I mentioned above. As already mentioned, I can live with Ancient Foglet as I consider him to be needed weather support. For witch apprentice and selfeater there are no doubts that they deserve a nerf.

Aretuza adept, however, violates both of the rules above. She can be a +X engine with 4 provisions / 4 body and she can be easily a 6 or more after deploy dependent on the number of patience units. Of course one can argue that you need her to make patience/mages competitive. Nevertheless, I would appreciate her to be nerfed and other mages (e.g. Ban Ard Tutor make boost + 5 or add devotion ability, Cintrian Enchantress body to 5 or add a devotion ability) and underperforming Patience PoP Cards (e.g. Tissaia, Istredd) to be buffed. Also Ildiko could deserve a small provision or body buff.
 
  • RED Point
Reactions: rrc
The problem to reduce The selfeater base power to 5 its The player problably will back to Andrega larva again (considering in 5 base power selfeater splits it will be 2 and 2)
 
Last edited:

DRK3

Forum veteran
Really good suggestions by the OP. Sometimes players suggest this type of simple nerfs to OP cards and they're not good, because what makes the card problematic is not their statline (base strength, provisions) - examples are Viy or Foltest.

But nerfing these MO bronzes by 1pt would be huge, putting them into bronze removal range, which is fair considering they are 2/3pt per turn engines, a thing most other factions dont even have.

The self eater at 5, you would lose value if you divided straight away, instead you had to play a relict to get it to 6, then divide to get two at 3pts. And the witch apprentice, keep removal for it, just like its done for svalblod priest (who also had this advantage of "coming up" at 6pts before he was nerfed).

Personally, ive only had luck beating MO relicts reliably with 2 ways:
A) going NG, and locking all selfeaters, while also copying and using their own strategy and OP cards.
B) going SY and trying to control as best as possible with bounties, even then it can be quite tough, the SY player can make no mistakes while the MO player has some leeway for mistakes and might still win.
 
Last edited:
Selfeater should not have his power diminished, but join his Sabbath brethren. The order should only be available if Sabbath is achieved. Speaking of Sabbath, this archetype needs an overall nerf. 25 points is not hard to achieve in 3 turns by Monsters, as they have Thrive engines and big power boys to achieve that. Sabbath should be increased to at least 30. That way it will most likely need 4 turns for it to be achieved.

I am all for Witch Apprentice becoming a 3 base power card if Sabbath stays at 25.
 
  • RED Point
Reactions: rrc
What if Selfeater's order has the following condition "Sabbath: Refresh this unit's order ability." That way, it can get its initial split while leaving the copy open to damage / lock / removal until sabbath is achieved. Also making sabbath 30 would help.

Could also give the order a cooldown instead of the Sabbath restriction.
 
Honestly, if relicts don't get proper nerfs next season I might just skip it, they are currently the fly in the soup ruining an otherwise great game. Agree engines definitely could use nerfs, as long as we don't forget about Mammuna which should be smacked with the nerf bat until she's on the floor begging for mercy (I really hate this card).
 
Top Bottom