Rebalance Everything to a New Standard

+
Gwent's state now is quite ridiculous. One must abuse the strong cards, then counter this with that, etc. To the point that we no longer have much choices about things. Games are about crushing or get crushed. Some match ups are really better done with insta-forfeit, saving time and what not. And here I am just expressing my thoughts on a way to draw a line of balance.

ENGINES, CONTROLS, GOLDS AND BRONZES​

Right now, just the bronze engines of some decks can grow exponentially if left untouched, as opposed to linearly like how it used to. Thus, the need of controls. But in the contrary, control tools have become too strong that gold cards easily fall victim to mere bronze cards. And so our card choices get limited. This is the first issue from my perspective.

Changes:

1. Any bronze removals can't deal more than 4 damage with no set ups. This protects most Golds from getting outright killed by bronze cards. Cards that can increase kill-range like the new Milva are to be addressed separately, in accordance to this rule.

2. Bronze engines that can consistently output more value every turn must stay at no more than 4 power when the other player gets their turn. Thus he still has the option to remove it with a bronze removal. Gold cards, leader abilities, and some set ups are ways to work around this.

3. Bronze engines must behave themselves by not generating exponential or overly huge value in quite a short time. They're just bronze cards.

4. Gold cards should not generate overly too much value if left untouched. They got to have their limits, and should not depend on a player's pass for a counterplay (due to exceedingly high value generation). This is important to prevent or lessen coinflip-abuses, and to make supreme removals like Korathi Heatwave not mandatory.

5. As gold cards are going to behave themselves, gold removals like Korathi Heatwave and Yennefer's Invocation need to be tweaked. As such removals are rather "godly" and can't really be played around aside with Defender, a problematic status. Speaking of Defender, it also needs a tweak.

6. Gold cards can directly "control" other gold cards, but bronze cards no longer can. So, bronze cards can't freely lock gold units, or seize them, or control them in some other ways, unless with some set ups. They're fine damaging or inflicting non-disabling statuses.

7. Provision-wise, bronze engines mostly will fall within the 4p zone, as do bronze removals. This is done to make the nerfed removals able to kill them outright. Some lesser engines, those that generate lesser value overtime, can have higher provision cost along with better survivability, possibly avoiding bronze removal range. The higher an engine's provision cost is, the higher its survivability, but the lesser its overtime value can get.

FACTION STRENGTHS, WEAKNESSES, IDENTITY​

Some factions (or decks actually) can have significant advantage over another, so I believe this issue also needs to be adressed properly.

All factions should have around the same power level of these:
a. Engines, Tempo, Carryover.
b. Control tools.
c. Consistency.

Factions have their own gimmicks, but they shouldn't excel in any of those aspects more than the other factions do.

Bronze engine standards:
- A 4prov engine should only generate around 1-2 points per turn. And they must be able to consistently do so.
- Damaging engines should be less powerful the more freedom it has, to avoid easy ways of increasing bronze removal range.
- A 5 or 6prov engine may start with 5 points body or have some starting protection, but should have less consistency in generating value. It also should generally output less value than a 4prov one in the long run. This should be called a semi-engine.

Bronze tempo standards:
- Cards with true vanilla effects according to their faction should generate 6 points for 4prov. For each 1prov above that, it generates 1 more value. They rarely have any real synergy with anything.
- Cards that summon another copy of itself from the deck should have 3 points for 4prov, or 4 points for 6prov. Notice that together they make 6 points for 4prov, and 8 points for 6prov.
- Cards whose effects make a similar result as above should mostly output the same ratio of points per provision. This is considered a combo, requiring to output 2 cards for points.
- Cards that potentially synergizes with other cards generate 1 less point than a vanilla with the same provision cost.

Consistency:
- There should be bronze tutors for each faction. This is to lessen games where one player manages to play all golds, while the other only some.
- Tutors should no longer be restricted to gold cards. And gold tutors should have less provision cost, especially faction ones.

Leader Ability standards:
- 15prov Abilities provide around 12 points total, including points they make from synergizing with the deck.
- Passives are also counted towards that.

Faction Carryover:
NR: Deck-buff.
ST: Hand-buff.
MO: Consume (tweaked), Evolve (new).
SK: Veteran.
NG: Deck manipulation.
SY: Coins, Bank (new).

Most effects can no longer mess with gold cards in the opponent's graveyard. However, no overly strong graveyard effects should exist.

KEYWORD TWEAKS​

Resilience
No longer appears on units, nor do effects give them.

Heal
"Remove a unit's Poison and Bleeding. Then reset its power if it's damaged. If Heal does nothing to it, boost it by 2."
("Heal X" no longer exists.)


Unlock
"Remove Lock from a unit."

Defender
"Your opponent can't target cards directly adjacent to this unit that don't have Defender."

Poison
"At the end of the round, damage this unit by half its current power, rounded up and ignoring armor. This also triggers when another instance of Poison is applied to an already poisoned unit."

Veil
"When a status would be applied to this unit, prevent it by losing Veil."
 
Last edited:
Top Bottom