You miss the point — lockdown disproportionately affects what are usually weaker but more flavorful and iconic leader abilities. Let me give you an example. My most fun deck is a high-tempo, point-slammy Fruits of Ysgith deck. I absolutely depend upon the leader for two things: a bit of extra boost almost every turn, and a tool to play griffins, fleders, and predatory dives. Giving up the former makes a very reasonable demand on me to adapt my strategy and a fair trade-off for you giving up a leader ability even though your sacrifice is planned. But there is no compensating for the latter. My deck now automatically contains 6 bricks (maybe five on rare occasions where favorable draws/coin flips still allow me value from a predatory dive), and my deck is no longer the surprisingly strategic and consistent deck I love, but is reduced to a binary matter of whether or not I can mulligan bricks without drawing other bricks.Let's just pretend Hidden Cache can't earn money without leader or Ursine Ritual doesn't have ANY ways to self-damage without theirs. Maybe you'd have a chance to win if you didn't instantly forfeit.
Lockdown doesn't have points now that Double Ball is gone, people really shouldn't lose against it. Maybe re-evaluate your gameplan.
And don’t try to tell me I have other options for cheap units to sacrifice. I do, but every one of them gives up consistency (one thing I love about the deck is that every card almost always has value), tremendous tempo (effectively one turn every time I hope to play any of the six aforementioned cards) and some pointslam. I could change the deck further to make better use of low tempo cards, but it ceases to be the same deck. And don’t whine about all the provisions you give up to play Lockdown — you give up one more than I do.
I don’t want to sound like someone upset because my pet deck is adversely affected by a power. Honestly, pointslam monsters matches up pretty well against any control based NG deck. I win more lockdown matchups than I lose. I toss it out as (for me) the most familiar of many possible decks against which lockdown has disproportionate effect.
And finally, don’t ever justify a power by crying about how weak poor Nilfgaard is — a bad card or power in a weak faction is still a bad card. I certainly stand with those who want to see Nilfgaard thrive with a balanced cards and interesting archetypes. But all binary and meta-narrowing cards/abilities need to change.