From a practical standpoint you would include the boosts in Sheldon value because, ultimately, the point swing is of greater relevance. Once again, you cannot consider the value of the point swing on Sheldon without considering the value on the point swing of the hand-buff cards to get him there though. Sheldon leads to a large swing, in an ideal case, and the hand-buff cards lead to a sub-optimal swing at the moment they are played. They're both important and need to be considered as such when evaluating Sheldon.
Sheldon isn't exactly unique in the sense he can output value well above his provision cost either. Nor is he unique in his ability to generate a huge point swing. A lot of cards can do one or both. If anything Sheldon would be yet another example of this particular issue. Too many cards end up disproportionately powerful compared to the rest of the card pool when they achieve maximum value (there is even a dedicated thread on the topic). It's not a mystery why a great number of decks flock to these cards as round win cons.
How would this be "fixed"? A slight provision increase isn't going to do it. All that does is make the rest of the deck surrounding Sheldon worse. People will swap a different card out for something slightly cheaper. A redesign could work but that requires... doing something
. It also risks the card getting pushed into unplayable land.
Point swing in a turn. 18 with a minor buff 24 with a major buff.
Value overall could be 6
It doesn't sound like much until it's put into comparison Skaggs played for 6 value (which takes into account the buff cards) is the value equivalent of scorching a 20
The problem being in most other cases there are counters and counters all decks can use Skaggs counters are only in 3 factions and the counters not only aren't Meta themselves (meaning on stuff other than a Skaggs / handbuff deck they're actually mostly useless) they tend to require more skill to play.
Skaggs requires far less prediction / skill to pull off than basically any of his counters some of which require you to literally play them the turn before Skaggs (which could be any time in round 3)
There needs to be some better counter play to the handbuff IMO.How would this be "fixed"? A slight provision increase isn't going to do it. All that does is make the rest of the deck surrounding Sheldon worse. People will swap a different card out for something slightly cheaper. A redesign could work but that requires... doing something
Cards in the hand for the most part are protected in a way ones on the board are not.
A simple solution would be to make Skaggs either
1) an order card so you have to order him
or
2) Make it so he does the damage spread across all enemy units. So he can't just target a powerful / critical unit and kill it so easily.
Coral is also mentioned by novice players, probably more so than pro players. Regis: Bloodlust is just a neutral answer to some common threats, which makes him a quick auto-include in most decks. Still, the banish effect only makes a difference in a handful of cases.
Gregoire is a different case. He is kinda the opposite of Sheldon, interestingly. You put cards into your deck to enable Sheldon, while you put Gregoire into your deck because you have cards than enable him. Solely based on this, Gregoire is a stronger and more problematic card than Sheldon.
The game should be fun for everyone, from rank 30 to rank 0. If a card is oppressing in the eyes of (new) players, it's a problem, even when the card itself is fine. The real challenge is finding a way to solve this. Even CDPR struggles with this.
Yea, it should be fun for everyone, but balanced around playing at the highest level, not at beginners level. Otherwise it will not be a chess-like game, but childish Hearthstone clone.
Still balanced
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Because a lot of strategies start in public and get refined by pros
Also probably not a good plan to balance round the top 1% of players really.
Also Greg is only really giving 3-4 value when pulled off. That's fairly above the power curve but again Skaggs can give 6 and actually gives 4 fairly easily.
At present the lack of Skaggs is more due to the meta than due to him being good or bad.
Regis Bloodlust on a provision level actually loses value unless it kills a unit as it gets 8 value for 9 but banish is the +1 meaning it loses little value or breaks even fairly easily. The true strength of Regis is that he is 4 value which at present is the magic number in Gwent and he deals 4 damage which only 1 other card deals and that's faction specific. With the number of 4 it's a very specific damage number.
Sheldon is the equivalent of scorching a 20.
The strategy is very easy to play.
Very hard and with some factions impossible to counter play.
Also I said they were short term fixes.
Longer term there would need to be re balances to hand buff card or cards put in to counter handbuff more effectively.
By counters I assume you mean a card you can play to hard counter another. There are ways beyond playing a card to counter another card or concept. Something like old Eredin Slyzard or Adda/Meve Hubert come to mind. Obviously, one option in either case was to run a card to directly counter these concepts. Another was to make use of R2 bleeds to force out the win con.
In any case, my point had very little to do with Sheldon. It was more of a general statement. Evidently you think Sheldon is a problem because, unlike many of these concepts, there are fewer direct counters and/or the "counter" consists of something beyond playing a card. I'd argue all of these type of concepts are a problem. Regardless of whether there are direct counters or not. The entire "counter this, play something similar or else" aspect of HC is incredibly dull.
That could actually end up being a buff
. Currently Sheldon only works with hand-buff. If he were on orders he could be used with hand-buff and/or placed on the board, buffed and then activated. How does this address his value relative to the cost though? It just means he loses the ability to smack important engines off the board. Furthermore, it would defeat part of the point in playing him. Unlike certain other factions ST isn't exactly filled to the brim with tall removal (unless you count poison....). Nor does it have a ton of point-slam options (not counting leaders). Sheldon can provide both.
Yeah... not really. Usually when a new patch hits everyone is running all sorts of weird decks. Then a popular streamer hops on, breaks the game and the masses flock to copy them. Next the popular streamer builds a hard counter to their masterpiece for easy wins
(didn't think they built and played decks on stream out of the kindness of their heart did you?).
Dude come on, he is just like Hubert, easy and predictible because you can see it coming easily. You can neutralize him easily if you win round 1 and you have the correct cards.
Tips: Win round 1 and neutralize him with your last move with Geralts, Spores, Peter, Scorch, Leo, Curse of Corrumption, Bekker's Mirror, Pitfall Trap, etc. You can use Shilard too against him. You have a lot of tools in the game to deal with him so stop [edit] netdecking and add these cards if you are facing many Scoia'tael decks with Sheldon.
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Ok then so they've boosted Skags which of the 10 turns round 3 will they be played on?
Skaggs will already be boosted and any-one not a fool will avoid the last turn play and even then Skaggs even if he's killed forced a removal from you and still did 9+ damage
Lets assume you hold onto those cards and they instead last turn an immune dragon.
So to be clear your solution to Skaggs is to predict the turn he will be dropped and hold a number of card in hand that could be useless unless he's dropped
How about rather than tell me to stop netdecking you look at why for most of those strategies it won't work.
Oh and maybe try and understand quite how easy it is for such decks to win round 1 due to the fact to get the boosts in some variants they sacrifice little to no value to pull off said moves. Value easily recouped and overcome with other moves in a turn.
God forbid you can't play you netdeck to pubstomp anymore.
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A couple of posts edited. Please do not insult or ridicule other users. Additionally, it's a good idea to report rude posts instead of replying to them in a similar manner.
Here's my one and only question about Sheldon Skaggs.
Given it is ONE card in a deck of 25, with next to no thinning capability at all, why and how is it possible that EVERY SINGLE TIME I PLAY AGAINST A SCOIATEL DECK, SHELDON IS THE LAST CARD TO APPEAR AND IS BOOSTED TO BUGGERY????
To give you an idea as to why I typed that in BOLD is because I just created a Dana deck with good ol' Sheldon in it - in three matches in a row, the card never appeared for me. I just ended up with Mahakam bricks. Story of my Gwent-life and why I loathe the game so much at times.
Given it is ONE card in a deck of 25, with next to no thinning capability at all, why and how is it possible that EVERY SINGLE TIME I PLAY AGAINST A SCOIATEL DECK, SHELDON IS THE LAST CARD TO APPEAR AND IS BOOSTED TO BUGGERY????
To give you an idea as to why I typed that in BOLD is because I just created a Dana deck with good ol' Sheldon in it - in three matches in a row, the card never appeared for me. I just ended up with Mahakam bricks. Story of my Gwent-life and why I loathe the game so much at times.
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SC have dwarf, dryad and sometimes roach/aerlienn/fauve for thinning. That means you had 16 cards in hand out of ~22. And 7 or 6 mulligans. Thats why Sheldon in 90% plays last card
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Mate, there was no Roach, there was no Aelirenn, no sentinel appeared. Yes, the mahakam did, but this is against Dana decks every time. Hence why I said no thinning.
I use Sheldon myself in an Eithne Control deck and I haven't pulled him in 5 matches in a row. Talk about the opposite. Your move.
My move? You and I are playing doubles - the ball is in CDPR's court to explain the miraculous nature of "opponent" decks from time to time.
Just the last game - fannying around with a low-unit deck - I had on board and in hand a boosted to 16 (with Sangreal) + shield Gregoire and Ozzrel with Speartip Asleep in the graveyard. I'm about 8 behind so think I've got a good chance here, with Eredin as well to boost my Ozzrell.
Oppo's last play? Ocvist removes shield, Skaggs (10) blitzes my Gregoire. Not to mention the oppo also had on the board Willow and Great Oak. They hadn't played a single thinning card, yet that's what they have in their last few cards; they'd of course played an agitator and Hawker round one, King of Beggars and Ithlinne of course in R2. Perfect cards, perfect time, no thinning just the right deal. Happens time and time and time again. Bored to death of it, tbh.
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I think some of the guys defending Sheldon in this thread has a point. It's not a guarantee card. I've seen quite a few times against me, people who have played Sheldon with very low value.
I think this card is somewhat comparable to Hubert Rijk in a way. I mean, they do different thing and work in different ways, but the core of the cards is somewhat of similar, the value and the brick chance is somewhat similar as well. There is even a thread about that card as well, people want it changed. Not sure I agree, perhaps a small adjustment would not hurt, lower his face value to 1 and maybe raise provisions to 9. This would make the card an "either/or" type of card, if the buildup works, the value is great, if not, it's worthless in it's own right.
Perhaps similarly for Sheldon, lower his default to 1 and/or maybe raise provisions to 9. 3 damage for nothing is still pretty good, 1 is not so good. So, currently, he is 8 provision, 3 points, 3 damage. It's not terrible value in itself. 2 points below "expected" value. Hubert is worse at 3 for 8, but he is also not dependent on the opponent having a single high card.
I think this card is somewhat comparable to Hubert Rijk in a way. I mean, they do different thing and work in different ways, but the core of the cards is somewhat of similar, the value and the brick chance is somewhat similar as well. There is even a thread about that card as well, people want it changed. Not sure I agree, perhaps a small adjustment would not hurt, lower his face value to 1 and maybe raise provisions to 9. This would make the card an "either/or" type of card, if the buildup works, the value is great, if not, it's worthless in it's own right.
Perhaps similarly for Sheldon, lower his default to 1 and/or maybe raise provisions to 9. 3 damage for nothing is still pretty good, 1 is not so good. So, currently, he is 8 provision, 3 points, 3 damage. It's not terrible value in itself. 2 points below "expected" value. Hubert is worse at 3 for 8, but he is also not dependent on the opponent having a single high card.
I would prefer to change Skaggs to deal 3 damage, 5 if boosted instead. It removes the high variance of the card and makes him a good value removal. Raising his provisions and lowering his strength means he is a risky card and depends on good draw to get value. He did cost 9 provisions and had 2 strength in the beggining of HC and nobody took him.
Fully agree with Gyg. Sheldon is another high variance card, especially as the handbuff value gets doubled through the damage he does. High variance does not belong in a strategy game and I believe that's the root cause why several people don't like this card.
As solution, don't touch his provisions, but limit his variance. Let him do a max of 5 damage when buffed to 5 or higher. This makes him a 10 pointer for 8 provisions, or 8 pointer with 5 damage for 8 provisions when subtracting the 2 point buff from for example the Dwarven Agitator. That is balanced.
As solution, don't touch his provisions, but limit his variance. Let him do a max of 5 damage when buffed to 5 or higher. This makes him a 10 pointer for 8 provisions, or 8 pointer with 5 damage for 8 provisions when subtracting the 2 point buff from for example the Dwarven Agitator. That is balanced.