really don't like the change to ciarin

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Redcoat2012;n7719590 said:
Decoy has 0 strength and costs a card, perhaps decoy is worthless?

It is not a dead card after having been played you can trick people by leading them to believe your Toru is a Ciaran, use it as a free discard in Fran decks or play it like a dol blathana trapper.

That's not really a fair comparison. Decoy gives you card advantage in addition to replaying the effect of whatever card you're picking up, and possibly also healing that card in the process if it had red strength. It serves a totally different purpose than ciarin.
 
rajule;n7722140 said:
That's not really a fair comparison. Decoy gives you card advantage in addition to replaying the effect of whatever card you're picking up, and possibly also healing that card in the process if it had red strength. It serves a totally different purpose than ciarin.

Are you sure? I mean you would play 1 card and take 1 card back, not sure that it nets a card advantage seeing as its one for one, the beauty of decoy was its ability to replay effect cards, but in reality the point I was trying to make that calling Ciaran a dead card when revealed was on par with saying decoy is a worthless card.
 
Redcoat2012;n7722880 said:
Are you sure? I mean you would play 1 card and take 1 card back, not sure that it nets a card advantage seeing as its one for one, the beauty of decoy was its ability to replay effect cards, but in reality the point I was trying to make that calling Ciaran a dead card when revealed was on par with saying decoy is a worthless card.

No, that wasn't what I was saying. when you initially play him for card advantage its fine. I don't care if his str is 0 at that point, but because its a 3 round game you can only ever use him for card advantage once. so having him in your hand after he serves that purpose is not very good, but he's perfectly fine up until that point. Yes he does still delay you a turn, yes you can still use him as a fake trapper, but whats that going to really accomplish other than making your opponent avoid that row. you know what else does that? a real trapper with the added effect of actually doing something when they put a card there.

and decoy does yield card advantage because typically every turn each player goes down by 1 card, if you play decoy you're not gaining a card but you're not losing one either where your opponent will lose a card when there turn comes (granting that they don't play a decoy or spy of course)

Believe me I am aware of the various ways to use him after the fact, please don't think otherwise just because I didn't explicitly state all the possibilities in my original post. My point is that lowering his strength to me felt unnecessary. I know his power doesn't come from his strength value, but at the end of the day 4 is still better than 1 is it not? and if his power really isn't dependent on his strength value then why did they feel the need to change it. Thats all I was getting at.
 
Before the change to decoy, decoy traded it for a good card that is placed back into your hand, to use again later.

After the change, decoy no longer gives card advantage, just allows you to activate a unit's ability again with 3 extra strength.

Many comments say they like Ciarin for the advantage increase, and I gave my view point with that above.

Best part of Ciarin is to be able to buff him with dragoons and trick your opponent. (I'm currently playing a goldless rarity version of this with ST)

If you only use Ciarin for tempo, it could win you the game, getting the last say. But getting last say with a worthless 1 strength card won't win you the game often, not as much as another regular worth while card.

The more I think about it, the more I understand why they nerf Ciarin's strength. CDPR doesn't want too much card advantage. I still don't like it, but I use him because he's only 1 of 2 cards that have agility, ambush, and are revealed at the end of rounds.
 
rajule;n7723550 said:
and decoy does yield card advantage because typically every turn each player goes down by 1 card, if you play decoy you're not gaining a card but you're not losing one either where your opponent will lose a card when there turn comes (granting that they don't play a decoy or spy of course)

But you do lose a card - the decoy itself.

 
Redcoat2012;n7737140 said:
But you do lose a card - the decoy itself.

That's true, I keep forgetting the changed it this patch. I don't use it in any of my current decks.
 
rajule

it's becoming clear that CDPR want spies to become a lot more risky to play, or at least cards that give you card advantage more risky.

the actually spy cards that draw you a card, all saw an increase in strength (except avallac'h).
ciaran in this case saw a strength reduction to make him riskier to put in your deck. Meaning you need to have a way to redraw/replace him. (If you don't wan to be stuck with a 1 strength unit, that's the risk)

yes I understand that does make him not a great card later on, or if you draw him too late. but it seems that is the price you have to pay for card advantage.
Now that he does almost nothing beyond card advantage you need to think twice about whether you put him in your deck, and if you do you probably need ways to replace him.

To be honest, this change to ciaran hasn't really done anything, cairan pre-patch was played for his ability above all else, and those who did run him (even at 4 strength) had a way to replace him.

The fact you are questioning his usefulness would make it seem CDPR were sucsessul with you, in making him seem riskier, or not as valuable to put in your deck.
 
Lim3zer0;n7737410 said:
rajule

it's becoming clear that CDPR want spies to become a lot more risky to play, or at least cards that give you card advantage more risky.

the actually spy cards that draw you a card, all saw an increase in strength (except avallac'h).
ciaran in this case saw a strength reduction to make him riskier to put in your deck. Meaning you need to have a way to redraw/replace him. (If you don't wan to be stuck with a 1 strength unit, that's the risk)

yes I understand that does make him not a great card later on, or if you draw him too late. but it seems that is the price you have to pay for card advantage.
Now that he does almost nothing beyond card advantage you need to think twice about whether you put him in your deck, and if you do you probably need ways to replace him.

To be honest, this change to ciaran hasn't really done anything, cairan pre-patch was played for his ability above all else, and those who did run him (even at 4 strength) had a way to replace him.

The fact you are questioning his usefulness would make it seem CDPR were sucsessul with you, in making him seem riskier, or not as valuable to put in your deck.

Despite the saltiness of my earlier posts I do understand the reasoning that you and others are given. I don't entirely agree with that direction, but I understand the motivation behind it.

To be honest I for whatever reason I chose to vent about ciarin at that particular moment, but its not exclusively him I'm disappointed with, but many of the other changes to ST cards.

The deck I had prepatch was an all elf deck that revolved around deception, traps, ambushes etc with the idea of placing down a few small units of my own and denying the enemy there units or buffs through traps, scorch milva etc. I don't like neophyte zerg. I didn't use any dwarves with resilience nor did I ever do any merc clear skies BMC garbage in fact my deck only had one merc and 2 BMC's in it which I usually used to replay traps or dragoons so I could buff toruviel, ciarin or braenn. It wasn't a crazy awesome deck but it was really solid and I really enjoyed the play style because I felt instead of focusing so much on just my side of the board like I tended to do with other decks it made me really focus on what my opponent was doing and me having to really manipulate them well so that I could win and outnumbered fight.

Plus for me it fits the theme of the scoia'tael in the books and games. they're very much about guerilla warfare.

This last patch absolutely gutted the ability to play that theme. with the removal of agility from so many units, reduction in effectiveness of one trap. the other shifting in favor of neophyte spam and less access to removal like aglais becoming relentless. milva ignoring the opposing side if they've passed etc.

from what I've seen the only real viable builds for ST right now are dwarves, neophyte spam or exploiting powerful neutral cards like operator -> toruviel which I don't see as super clever. you can throw operator in any faction and do something ridiculous.

None of these options fit the theme of the scoia'tael as far as I'm concerned so I don't want to play them, but I still really like the faction and am having a hard time just dropping it.

I dunno. I think that's about all I have left to say. I really hope they make adjustments to improve the control/ guerilla playstyle I so enjoyed with Scoia'tael
 
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rajule;n7737290 said:
That's true, I keep forgetting the changed it this patch. I don't use it in any of my current decks.

It was true in the patch before hand too! Decoy never granted card advantage, its ability to replay cards was great but if you used it to take back power for the next turn you was trading what could have been another 10 strength silver card.

I think people often mistakenly thought that because decoy had 0 strength using it didn't cost anything when it did cost a card.
 
Redcoat2012;n7744330 said:
It was true in the patch before hand too! Decoy never granted card advantage, its ability to replay cards was great but if you used it to take back power for the next turn you was trading what could have been another 10 strength silver card.

I think people often mistakenly thought that because decoy had 0 strength using it didn't cost anything when it did cost a card.

Decoy absolutely DID give you card advantage before the patch.

Card advantage doesn't have anything to do with strength on the board its about who has more cards in hand, and from that, who gets to make the last play. This is very important in Gwent

Lets say you have 6 cards in hand and play decoy. Decoy may leave your hand but something else from the board was returned to your hand. You will end your turn with 6 cards. you don't net gain cards from it but you essential pass to your opponent with the same number of cards in your hand that you started the turn with. Anytime time you can pass turn with out losing a card from your hand you are gaining card advantage. unless your opponent does the same thing. There are a few other cards that work this way in certain situations. They don't draw you cards but you gain card advantage by not losing cards from your hand in a turn. For instance if you play Milva when your opponent doesn't have another creature on the board but you do.

The example you give of returning a 10 strength silver card to your hand is a poor example of how to use decoy. In a situation where you are fairly close in strength to your opponent you probably wouldn't want to bounce 10 strength back to your had, just to replay it next turn as to keep up your score.

You are really best served to return a card with an enter the battlefield effect, like Myrgtbrakke. Replaying his damage ability is very strong.
 
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ValhallasChosen;n7745250 said:
Decoy absolutely DID give you card advantage before the patch.

Card advantage doesn't have anything to do with strength on the board its about who has more cards in hand, and from that, who gets to make the last play. This is very important in Gwent

Lets say you have 6 cards in hand and play decoy. Decoy may leave your hand but something else from the board was returned to your hand. You will end your turn with 6 cards. you don't net gain cards from it but you essential pass to your opponent with the same number of cards in your hand that you started the turn with. Anytime time you can pass turn with out losing a card from your hand you are gaining card advantage. unless your opponent does the same thing. There are a few other cards that work this way in certain situations. They don't draw you cards but you gain card advantage by not losing cards from your hand in a turn. For instance if you play Milva when your opponent doesn't have another creature on the board but you do.

The example you give of returning a 10 strength silver card to your hand is a poor example of how to use decoy. In a situation where you are fairly close in strength to your opponent you probably wouldn't want to bounce 10 strength back to your had, just to replay it next turn as to keep up your score.

You are really best served to return a card with an enter the battlefield effect, like Myrgtbrakke. Replaying his damage ability is very strong.

Don't get me wrong I ran decoy in every single deck, I get the power from replaying strength based cards like Myrgt and its sue as a stall, the ten strength card was used as an example purely because it is those cards that silvers strengths are base lined around, replaying one wouldn't make much sense though. As for card advantage perhaps its just a semantics issue, I'd call your example stalling, and always look at card advantage as a net gain in cards; using bran on those clan an crait skirmishers, Milva, the based god avallach, birna etc.

Again though this is semantics, if a neutral exchange is considered an advantage (it could be advantageous to do so) then sure, I stand corrected. I never really read it as such, mainly because if they passed after your decoy you'd gained no lead over the opponent and may put yourself at a card disadvantage to win the round.

 
Redcoat2012;n7746540 said:
Don't get me wrong I ran decoy in every single deck, I get the power from replaying strength based cards like Myrgt and its sue as a stall, the ten strength card was used as an example purely because it is those cards that silvers strengths are base lined around, replaying one wouldn't make much sense though. As for card advantage perhaps its just a semantics issue, I'd call your example stalling, and always look at card advantage as a net gain in cards; using bran on those clan an crait skirmishers, Milva, the based god avallach, birna etc.

Again though this is semantics, if a neutral exchange is considered an advantage (it could be advantageous to do so) then sure, I stand corrected. I never really read it as such, mainly because if they passed after your decoy you'd gained no lead over the opponent and may put yourself at a card disadvantage to win the round.

Yes, that is true that it is situational, and if your just using decoy to then replay a card and your opponent does not then play more cards you are not going to gain an advantage, especially if you are already losing that round. You would be better off passing with a round loss if you can afford to do so. As to not lose card advantage or parody. But gaining card advantage is not always achieved simply through card draw.
 
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