Yeah, but who techs these cards for Saskia alone? Even if you counter them, you sacrifice either consistency or power in order to tackle Saskia alone. While Saskia is a bitch especially in R1, no-unit ST does not rely exclusively on her. There are other cards that can handle her, such as Delirium or Treason, although Delirium can miss taking her out.
Tbh my decks always include some weather cards. (The good old Gwent style) With Vaedermakar and Scepter of Storms you (can) do a bunch of damage for nearly "free". Plus I like the effects. A bit sadistic perhaps, but I like seeing those annoying netdeckers struggling a bit because they often have no idea what to do with their decks against a more "colorful" one as they obviously just play their Top-Tier-Faction-Decks.
I have never seen such badly designed deck as Milva. It's a [...]. no point in getting into details. Everyone knows whats it about. No point in playing the game really if you not playing Milva or specifically anti Milva deck.
I have never seen such badly designed deck as Milva. It's a [...]. no point in getting into details. Everyone knows whats it about. No point in playing the game really if you not playing Milva or specifically anti Milva deck.
We all feel the same. But patches come once per month if even that often (if we lucky (I don't count updates that fail to resolve critical issues as "patches", those are just justifications, like some work has been done, so they can put something "on paper" even though it doesn't fix anything))...
In addition to the leader charges, ST usually has at least another 6 ways to move something during a match. Each time you move an enemy you're instantly doing 1 dmg plus 2 more on order.
Now 9 x 3 = 27
********************************************************* 27 OF DAMAGE/REMOVAL POINTS! *********************************************************
+ another 2 from her body = 29 points total.
That's if we take that they did 6 move orders during the game, NOT INCLUDING THE LEADER.
Now this is a conservative value as they can usually do even more moves.
Let's say, on average they do 10 moves of enemy units (including the leader), during a game.
Now it's 10 x 3 = 30 ********************************************************* 30 OF DAMAGE/REMOVAL POINTS!*********************************************************
+ another 2 from her body = 32 points total.
Ok, so then that's 32 points TOTAL FOR 11 PROVISIONS?!?!?!?!!
Pls someone come tell me how this is balanced lol.
30 points of removal value FROM ONE CARD, then all the other cards combined = NOTHING LIVES!
We all feel the same. But patches come once per month if even that often (if we lucky (I don't count updates that fail to resolve critical issues as "patches", those are just justifications, like some work has been done, so they can put something "on paper" even though it doesn't fix anything))...
In addition to the leader charges, ST usually has at least another 6 ways to move something during a match. Each time you move an enemy you're instantly doing 1 dmg plus 2 more on order.
Now 9 x 3 = 27
********************************************************* 27 OF DAMAGE/REMOVAL POINTS! *********************************************************
+ another 2 from her body = 29 points total.
That's if we take that they did 6 move orders during the game, NOT INCLUDING THE LEADER.
Now this is a conservative value as they can usually do even more moves.
Let's say, on average they do 10 moves of enemy units (including the leader), during a game.
Now it's 10 x 3 = 30 ********************************************************* 30 OF DAMAGE/REMOVAL POINTS!*********************************************************
+ another 2 from her body = 32 points total.
Ok, so then that's 32 points TOTAL FOR 11 PROVISIONS?!?!?!?!!
Pls someone come tell me how this is balanced lol.
30 points of removal value FROM ONE CARD, then all the other cards combined = NOTHING LIVES!
My first instinct after reading this post is that you have probably NEVER actually played Milva. While I agree she is overpowered in certain specific decks and and matchups, she generally plays for something much more modest (I would guess 15 points of removal to be an over-estimate) -- and she is never easy to just slam for removal. What you neglect to mention is that returning Milva to deck requires a deathblow. Skilled players may make it appear that meeting this condition is easy, but in reality it is not. Yes, moving enemy units 10 times with ST is easy, but getting deathblows with two points of damage afterward is not. And if Milva does not get her deathblow, she is done. If you hold her damage charge for a later opportunity, she will likely be destroyed. Most ST movement comes with no damage -- which means it can target 2 or 3 power units to give Milva a target. Very few cards play in this range. Except for the 3 leader charges, almost all remaining movement (the exception being the sabateur's) does 4 damage -- allowing the targeting of 6 to 7 point units to set up a death blow. Again, few units will tend to be in this range. Only the leader ability generally finds easy targets (4 to 5 power units). Complicating the need for the right size target is the possibility of stranding your hand with only movement cards that have no suitable targets -- which either forces a pass or likely loses Milva for the rest of the match. And then, the movement cards that summon Milva generally play for poor value without her.
I believe Milva to be a much more subtle card than you seem to realize. Unless very carefully done, a nerf will likely render her unplayable.
We all feel the same. But patches come once per month if even that often (if we lucky (I don't count updates that fail to resolve critical issues as "patches", those are just justifications, like some work has been done, so they can put something "on paper" even though it doesn't fix anything))...
In addition to the leader charges, ST usually has at least another 6 ways to move something during a match. Each time you move an enemy you're instantly doing 1 dmg plus 2 more on order.
Now 9 x 3 = 27
********************************************************* 27 OF DAMAGE/REMOVAL POINTS! *********************************************************
+ another 2 from her body = 29 points total.
That's if we take that they did 6 move orders during the game, NOT INCLUDING THE LEADER.
Now this is a conservative value as they can usually do even more moves.
Let's say, on average they do 10 moves of enemy units (including the leader), during a game.
Now it's 10 x 3 = 30 ********************************************************* 30 OF DAMAGE/REMOVAL POINTS!*********************************************************
+ another 2 from her body = 32 points total.
Ok, so then that's 32 points TOTAL FOR 11 PROVISIONS?!?!?!?!!
Pls someone come tell me how this is balanced lol.
30 points of removal value FROM ONE CARD, then all the other cards combined = NOTHING LIVES!
I would strongly suggest you to play a couple matches with Milva and you'll soon realize that you are grossly overestimating her damage output. Try filling your deck with cards which move units and you'll soon find out how awkward she can be to play due to the deathblow requirement. As @quintivarium mentioned, she is much more nuanced than she first appears. Having said all that she does need a slight nerf but hopefully they don't end up killing the card.
I don't understand the thought process behind this new Saskia card. Did anyone ask for more ST Immunity? It just seems so out of the blue.
This would've been the perfect time to help out Harmony, and at first glance I actually thought this card was supposed to do that. It is the archetype revolving around having many different categories after all, and Saskia's character fits it.
I won't commentate on how well it performs since I haven't played much lately, but it feels like it's a balancing nightmare waiting to happen that nobody truly asked for. I'm disappointed the devs chose to prioritize such a card over Harmony support when in the same announcement they said they would focus on buffing older archetypes (again).
Is the new card Saskia: Commander overpowered? And if it is, what ought to be done about it? These questions are the intended focus of this thread.
So, let me start with my analysis of the question, “Is Saskia over-powered?” There is no doubt in my mind that Saskia is a significant part of a highly toxic, high removal / low unit deck. But I’m not certain Saskia is the essential element of that deck, or even a major contributor to the toxicity of the deck. As I have said elsewhere, I believe the root of the problem is Milva interacting with too many movement cards as well as with Madoc providing too much removal without possibility of interaction. Of course, the existence of bigger problems does not necessarily mean that Saskia is not also a problem.
So far, I have not gained enough experience either playing or encountering Saskia outside a Milva deck to have a strong sense of her power. But I can do some theoretical analysis and comparisons. If played turn 1 and conditions for summoning are met, Saskia summons bronze units on turns 1, 3, 6, and 9 for four possible summonings in a long round. And Saskia has a four-point body of her own. By comparison, scenarios play for 0 points and (if played round 1) would spawn bronze cards in rounds 1, 2, and 3 if conditions are met. I have long held that scenarios play for too much value in a single card – only now with a couple years of power-creep have they been reduced to powerful, but not ridiculously OP cards. Major differences are Saskia’s much slower rate of playing cards, differing requirements to proc the effect, the number of possible procs, and the variety of cards that can be called. The only relative drawbacks to Saskia are the difficulty of her requirements to draw a card and the time required to fully proc. Overall, the requirements to proc Saskia are not much harder than those of scenarios – especially when specials and artifacts are heavily present in a deck (which avoids duplication of the unit tags on the board which in turn prevents certain units from being summoned). To play for substantial value, Saskia does require longer round – but 6 turn rounds in Gwent are common. Based on this analysis, I expect Saskia will prove overpowered in general unless changed.
In addressing the second question, “What can be done about it?” I hesitate to give a specific solution – the developers seem to prefer to come up with their own “solutions”. But I very much want to comment on what should NOT be done. But let me begin with some basic principles:
When interactions are broken, it is the interaction that should be nerfed, not a randomly chosen “victim” card or power.
No card should be so powerful that not removing (or otherwise countering) it is a lose condition. Making a card more vulnerable to removal without reducing its potential impact on a match simply creates binary play.
No rebalancing should remove a card’s unique, defining characteristics or reduce its tactical or strategic complexity. The game already strongly favors tactics (short turn interactions revolving around a single card) over strategy (long range planning impacting the game flow). Moreover, there are already plenty of blah, interchangeable cards.
Knee jerk responses supporting the common hypocritical attitude that “My opponent should never be able to remove all my cards; fix it by allowing me to remove all his” are damaging to the game.
So, I strongly maintain that “fixing” Saskia should NOT involve removing her immunity. It should NOT involve removing her summoning (or rendering it useless). It should NOT turn her into another Scenario or Portal. And I don’t think a simple strength or provision nerf is adequate to address the excessive potential power. Viable options would be to reduce her interaction with no unit play and/or slowing her summoning ability which allows strategic answers (such as avoiding long rounds). My suggestion would be to only allow units to proc her counter. Reducing the variety of what she can summon might be necessary for future design space, but that is a different issue – I don’t think it a problem right now.
They just should not renisialite her compter after summoning the second unit exactly like the portal, btw saskia cost 13 portal cost 12, for one point provision cost saskia too overpowered, there absolutely no way to won the round if you don't use your leader ability or your strongest card, and even with that it not sure you won, because with milva all what he need to do is to move your unit with a bomb and summon milva and madoc, he can kill a unit with 7 point strength just with the ST bomb 4 by the bomb 1 by milva when he move it an 2 with milva order, and if saskia has summoned the dol bathana defender or the cat school witcher he can make 8 point dammage, it just too much, and he can repeat it, he can move your unit each round, and do as much dammage each round, the probleme is that for second turn they keep their traps eldain and the sabertooth, they have greater chances to have them because saskia has summoned many bronze unit, so you already lose the round, really i don't know why they are creating such cards, saskia is to overpowered she should cost at least 16 or more or not existe at all
There is less and less logic in the game, just an exemple aglais and sheldon, they are pretty the same thing, one make dammage equal to his boost the second boost itself by the same point she was boosted, ok but aglais has a strength of 4 and cost 10 Sheldon has a strength of 6 and cost 8, just how !!! Sheldon is stronger and cheaper ?!!
Also They still didnt underststend that making dammage is much more intresting than boost
Aglais should have the invulnerability status instead of Saskia
Other thing the cat school saboteur and the tracker griffin witcher one have a strength of 5 the second strength of 2 the first one the first one move the a card in a line and make 1 point dammage by each card she pass and the second boost itself by 1 for each unit in the line, so one can make make 9 points dammage max and the second 9 points for the same recrutement cost, but for no reason they decided the griffin school witcher should be weaker, in fact i'm sure developper hate NR every time new card are added NR got the worses abilities, exemple the gold witcher unit, is there a shittiest gold witcher than coen ? Dont know why they do that, because coen is a friend of ciri and geralt he trained in kaer moreen too why making him in a suck weak card, also the master school witcher erland is the weakest one compared the the others master, the only usefull witcher in NR is keldar
Just take a look to the to last card added NR got king henselt while ST got saskia for the same cost and NG got the cheated card ardal daep dahy
Developper doesn't want to make all the factions equal they have preference for NG, ST and a little for MO , skellige are ressisting, while NR and SY can go die
So if saskia is overpowered ? If she was in NR she will be considerated like that, but as she is in ST she is not, honestly i will be not surprised if in the next patch thay add a new card that can make the opponent pull 9 card instead of 10 in the begining or allow you to destroy 3 units or something like this in ST
I would strongly suggest you to play a couple matches with Milva and you'll soon realize that you are grossly overestimating her damage output. Try filling your deck with cards which move units and you'll soon find out how awkward she can be to play due to the deathblow requirement. As @quintivarium mentioned, she is much more nuanced than she first appears. Having said all that she does need a slight nerf but hopefully they don't end up killing the card.
First, You don't need to make only cards that move ennemi unit in your deck, that all
Second you can kill an unit with 7 point strength in a row with just the ST bomb, 8 if you have the dol bathana defender in the front ligne, and bring madoc also, it just too much, milva it not the probleme itself but it the association with saskia, madoc, eldain and traps, sabertooth ...
Just exemple, you put sabertooth so i should play unit in the same ligne to not take dammage, but you use your bomb to move one of my unit you will be sur to do the 4 point dammage instead of bleeding because i putted all my units in the same ligne to avoid the sabertooth, and you will repeat it each round, there's no chance i could win if you have played that round saskia, eldain or sabertooth
So no he is not overestimeted her power, if you don't found it overpowered, it just because you full you deck with card that move ennemi unit so each round you try to found a way to kill ennemi unit without letting milva out, just don't full you deck with moving cards, and try to play other faction to see how powerlles some decks are against that Kind of gameplay,
honestly i play them all and i can make a ranking of them from the most cheated one to the forgoten one, it like that ST, NG, MO, SK, SY, NR
However strong Saskia:Commander is as a card, she has to be thought of in the context that she's realistically in.
One, she is part of a faction that's not the most popular. Giving a less loved faction a strong card is how these things get switched up.
Two she has the element of randomness to her, which can work against you as easily as it can work for you.
Three, there's plenty of Nilfgaard cards that have continued to be very strong for several expansions now and there's no uproar about them but god forbid ST gets a good card.
Four - wasn't this supposed to have been a thread about both Saskia AND MIlva? Because all I see are comments about the former and not the latter. And for me at least Saskia is fine but Milva is the problem as she's caused a reappearance of the no-unit decks which are very frustrating to play against and which have already caused plenty of grief to the game in the past.
But honestly even aside from my dislike for Milva, I still think these new npc inspired cards are great. Are they OP? Yes, kind of. But that's the point of them. They are meant to shake things up. They are meant to give people new fun tools to use. I for one think that they've done a good job of doing just that. And again, yes. I do also agree with the point that it should be more allowable for the less popular factions to get the more OP new cards.
PS. I'm enjoying Hidden Elder a lot. This card has gotten me playing Monsters for the first time in a long time.
Problem with those ST Decks is that it contains jumping witchers, madoc, saskia, milva, sabertooth and super annoying trap-bricks which is like a broadband antibiotic where all you do as an opponent is trying to keep it under control. Super boring, exhausting and annoying.
However strong Saskia:Commander is as a card, she has to be thought of in the context that she's realistically in.
One, she is part of a faction that's not the most popular. Giving a less loved faction a strong card is how these things get switched up.
Two she has the element of randomness to her, which can work against you as easily as it can work for you.
Three, there's plenty of Nilfgaard cards that have continued to be very strong for several expansions now and there's no uproar about them but god forbid ST gets a good card.
Four - wasn't this supposed to have been a thread about both Saskia AND MIlva? Because all I see are comments about the former and not the latter. And for me at least Saskia is fine but Milva is the problem as she's caused a reappearance of the no-unit decks which are very frustrating to play against and which have already caused plenty of grief to the game in the past.
But honestly even aside from my dislike for Milva, I still think these new npc inspired cards are great. Are they OP? Yes, kind of. But that's the point of them. They are meant to shake things up. They are meant to give people new fun tools to use. I for one think that they've done a good job of doing just that. And again, yes. I do also agree with the point that it should be more allowable for the less popular factions to get the more OP new cards.
PS. I'm enjoying Hidden Elder a lot. This card has gotten me playing Monsters for the first time in a long time.
it saskia that cause the reaparence of the non unit deck, saskia throw the bronze unit out of the deck at least 3 or 4 unit the perfect combo is to play the cat school witcher the dol bathana defender and the dryade, the first round there's really few decks that can manage this ech three trurn you will play 2 unit, for the second turn you keep your traps the sabertooth and all what you need to have is eldain that you put in the end and you have more chances to get maximum traps the second round because saskia has throwed 3 units or more in the first one, milva is just here to make the deck more and more toxic but she is not the cause of non unit deck, it saskia
Second ST is the most used faction after NG and that was true even before milva and saskia apparition dont say the faction isn't popular because it not true,
That is exactly what NG players says when you tell them they have cheated leaders ability and cards in their factions, so i agree with you in that point.
See what are the trop rank players and see wich faction they play you will see it ST or NG always who are in the top sometimes there a MO or SK players, SY and NR are in the bott
This is actually very funny and weird, to keep discussing about these two cards (S:C and Milva) and GT leader, when the actual OP and Tier 1 decks are Battle Trance and Double Cross. Nothing comes close to the power levels of these decks. It may be debatable which is the third strongest, SY or ST. But Battle Trance and Double Cross are unbeatable by ST whether it is complete no units or partial no unit or anything.
As long as these BT and DC decks are not toned down, most other decks can't shine as these decks' power level are at a different level. But sure, lets keep discussing these two cards.
Noone wrote it was unbeatable. It's just Super boring, exhausting and annoying for the opponent and sucks any fun off the match.
Okay, looks like I am the only one playing it for "fun" and for the sake of playing. Even if I am at Rank 1 right now, I seriously don't care as long as I have interesting matches in which I see at least a bit of creative deck building. Any netdeck doesn't get GG anyway as it has nothing to do with creative playing - you just take a powerful deck someone else built and play it. Yay.
This is actually very funny and weird, to keep discussing about these two cards (S:C and Milva) and GT leader, when the actual OP and Tier 1 decks are Battle Trance and Double Cross. Nothing comes close to the power levels of these decks. It may be debatable which is the third strongest, SY or ST. But Battle Trance and Double Cross are unbeatable by ST whether it is complete no units or partial no unit or anything.
As long as these BT and DC decks are not toned down, most other decks can't shine as these decks' power level are at a different level. But sure, lets keep discussing these two cards.
It is overpowered, but it hard to play due to theirs conditions also others deck killed it like vampire deck or NG tactical card milva killed Keltullis deck that cool because i hate it even if it wasn't that strong
BT and DC are not the strongest deck for me.
I'm waiting when are they going to fix NR we dont see that faction in hight rank anymore
Noone wrote it was unbeatable. It's just Super boring, exhausting and annoying for the opponent and sucks any fun off the match.
Okay, looks like I am the only one playing it for "fun" and for the sake of playing. Even if I am at Rank 1 right now, I seriously don't care as long as I have interesting matches in which I see at least a bit of creative deck building. Any netdeck doesn't get GG anyway as it has nothing to do with creative playing - you just take a powerful deck someone else built and play it. Yay.
Been happening for always truly, ever since people got proper internet to be able to access and copy information.
One can bash netdecking, but truth to be told, even streamers and pro level players keep copying where it gives them an edge - and since this is a competitve game, unfortunately the urge to reach better results will always overwrite the part where you get creative. Well, at least if you want a positive win-lose ratio, that is.
A bit sadistic perhaps, but I like seeing those annoying netdeckers struggling a bit because they often have no idea what to do with their decks against a more "colorful" one as they obviously just play their Top-Tier-Faction-Decks.
