Should the Trap mechanic be abandoned already ?

[InkognitoXI]

Some may remember the trap meta in open beta ... more or less favorably (from hating it to loving it, however I think we can agree that is definitely questionable).
That being said, my question is actually more about the implemantation and the fact the developers are hesitating to allow trap cards to be functional.
Since the mechanic already gets abandoned (see the trap leader rework and the massive nerf on Pitfall Trap) I am wondering if the developers even want the mechanic to be usable.
The idea is interesting, however the implementation has always been more than questionable, usually tends to be binary and luck based for at the very least one side (similar to how people criticize certain create cards) and interesting cards and characters like Iorveth rot as supports for a mechanic, which by itself is similarly bad implemented as the early charge support in the first months of homecoming.
If memory serves me right Vernon Roche: Merciless was a garbage situational card, which was stuppidly binary.
With the rework of Vernon Roche: Merciless and him becoming the backbone of an own archtype, while later being copied by Cerys, I am wondering why Iorveth is currently just wasted artwork and wasted space on a concept, which just cannot work in its current form and which the developers plan to do nothing about.

At this point I am sceptical if the trap archtype will and/or should ever become a thing again, so maybe they should just finally bury the idea in its current form and just release a couple standalone ambush cards without archtype support and rework current support cards into usable cards.

Do you agree or disagree ?
Feel free to elaborate yourself below.

 

[Six-Sided-Prism]

I voted other because I would rather see Traps buffed into a playable archetype rather than replaced with something else. There's a lot of risk playing Trap cards because opponents with even the slightest bit of intelligence can easily play around them, but as it stands now, the potential reward for nearly every single Trap does not adequately compensate for this immense risk. It would benefit the archetype greatly if there were a few more interesting Traps, but even lazily reducing the Provision costs of nearly every Trap (Crushing Trap is already playable) would help to some extent.

 

[wonderboy870]

I voted other because I see potential for traps but I don’t like how they are being handled. I want unique traps, not common ones. For example firetrap is essentially Alzur’s thunder but with less control. Crushing trap is a delayed lacerate. Cards like Pitfall which have a unique effect are the future of the archetype.

Another change is to give dual functions to all trap cards. For example, kill the highest unit when the next special card is played or deploy a special card from your deck. Basically make traps unbrickable and ensure a minimum value of no less than 2 points below provisions and no less than 5 points. Firetrap should for example do 7 with a 5 point if manually sprung. Yet it should cost 6 provisions minimum.

Also having more face down units. Ambush and trap need to share an archetype.

The issue is there needs to be a way to counter it so the face down is balanced rather than broken.

 

[InkognitoXI]

[...]
Also having more face down units. Ambush and trap need to share an archetype.

The issue is there needs to be a way to counter it so the face down is balanced rather than broken.

It is propably possible.
I agree that it should be balanced, rather than broken, the issue with the initial design (open beta) was that there was an ambush card for practically every scenario, resulting in a lose-lose situation, where the opponent could only guess and could not realistically play around all possible ambush cards.
If it would be pushed as an archtype they would have to keep one direction these traps work in and not cover all angles, which only ends in either a "russian-roulette" kind of situation for the opponent or an archtype with too few points.

My point was though that they do not see to even try making them playable, gave up on the trap leader and nerfed the only working trap in Pitfall Trap into being unusable (and Crushing Trap is kind of just a take on a delayed effect, although that might be how they should be designed), so if they have no intention in making them even remotely playable one might wonder if they should just give up on it and use those cards for concepts they are willing to make viable.

 

[DRK3]

I used to love ST trap decks on beta, and i definitely gave them quite a few tries on HC. But in their current state, they're probably the most "memey" archetype that ST has, more than handbuff, and it definitely needs a lot of support to make them viable.

A huge step would be to make them all have alternate effects, with 'spring' option manually, giving a lesser value. It sucks to have a trap on R2 during a bleed and knowing we cant play it cuz if the opponent passes it plays for 0 and you lose CA.

 

[ShinAkira00]

Every faction has mechanics that never see play or near dead. It all comes back to balancing, no idea whether that will ever be a priority for the devs.

 

[Iuliandrei]

I preferred ambush back in beta when they were units, having an archetype with the current traps would be the a really awful idea. I railed against Eldain when it was implemented and really glad it changed.
I think there might be ways to improve upon the beta idea, with units keeping their strength even while face down and limited interaction in this state. Although like this all ambush cards need to have the same strength.

 

[Ulubey0]

What made trap (ambush) cards in Beta so skillful and fun was that they were all units, and in the same faction as Handbuff.
This meant you could buff the ambush cards in hand, and when you played them your opponent had no idea how many points you actually had on the board. It was all about bluffing and outsmarting your opponent. The whole archetype was nicknamed "Ambush Bamboozle" and there is just nothing like it in Homecoming Gwent.

I really think they should turn traps back into units so this kind of interaction can happen again. Ambush Bamboozle was my favorite ST deck aside from Swap Francesca.

 

[InkognitoXI]

What made trap (ambush) cards in Beta so skillful and fun was that they were all units, and in the same faction as Handbuff.
This meant you could buff the ambush cards in hand, and when you played them your opponent had no idea how many points you actually had on the board. It was all about bluffing and outsmarting your opponent. The whole archetype was nicknamed "Ambush Bamboozle" and there is just nothing like it in Homecoming Gwent.

I really think they should turn traps back into units so this kind of interaction can happen again. Ambush Bamboozle was my favorite ST deck aside from Swap Francesca.

I disagree, it may have been fun to play, but since it was all just a gamble for the opponent, who could not play around them I think that was an extremely unhealthy implementation of the idea.

IF they would be returned to units (which seems like the only real way to make them viable) I would prefer them to all have the same strength and show the amount of buffs, whilke face-down, given that otherwise it quickly turns toxic and into metas, which are best left forgotten.

 

[StanislavOZZO]

Enhance both so that it could be a competitive archetype. It's one of the original decks in the mix but nobody plays it.

 

[Barracuda88]

It's not a pro-ladder archtype by any means, but trap decks are definitely playable, even now. I mean, how else are we gonna complete those fun "Play 40 artifacts" quests?
Traps themselves are fine for the most part, I think. Reworking and adding more support cards would be welcome. Iorveth is actually a fine card. Maybe give him a point of boost every time a trap is sprung. Hattori is absolutely terrible, though. Bafflingly bad. Should be 7p Deploy. The scout is fine. Gambit is such a fun card, but it should NOT be 13 freaking provisions. Hawker Support should get a buff. Saboteur should be a trap card. Something like a rot tosser maybe, a spying unit, but with setting a trap on the opponent's side.

 

[OneWhoCravesSouls]

Gambit is such a fun card, but it should NOT be 13 freaking provisions.

I think it's a difficult Card to balance at 12 or 11 Provisions it would probably still be considered bad, but at 10 provisions it would most likely become auto include with two crushing Traps in the Deck.

It's probably best to rework the Card maybe a 2 Point 8 Provision Tudor for Traps or in memory of his glorious OB Meditation skill "Force an enemy unit to Duel an adjacent unit, if you control 3 Traps force an enemy Unit to duel a Unit on the same row instead" .

Hattori should probably get a complete rework in to something different, doesn't really make much sense in the first place that he resurrects Traps.

 

[Barracuda88]

I think it's a difficult Card to balance at 12 or 11 Provisions it would probably still be considered bad, but at 10 provisions it would most likely become auto include with two crushing Traps in the Deck.

It's probably best to rework the Card maybe a 2 Point 8 Provision Tudor for Traps or in memory of his glorious OB Meditation skill "Force an enemy unit to Duel an adjacent unit, if you control 3 Traps force an enemy Unit to duel a Unit on the same row instead" .

Hattori should probably get a complete rework in to something different, doesn't really make much sense in the first place that he resurrects Traps.

10p might be too low for Gambit, true, but we have to also remember that it only works if you have at least 4 traps in deck, so you have some real crazy mulligan work to make sure it pulls what you want it to pull. 11, I think, might be reasonable. There are so many 2-point tutors around, I'd probably just stay away from that, tbh. A different ability but with a trap requirement is interesting, but I'd rather maybe have them add a card like that, instead of changing the Gambit.

As for Hattori, it's true, he shouldn't be repairing old traps. They should bring Cedric to do that, and let Hattori do something cool, like increase elf unit damage by 1 while he's on the board or someting.

 

[4RM3D]

Should the Trap mechanic be abandoned already ?

In the current state, it might as well be. The beta implementation was much more interesting and required a surprising amount of skill to properly execute it. The traps turned the game into something else entirely. Unfortunately, many players didn't like playing against such decks because you couldn't interact with or counter it. More importantly, it was too different from every other mechanic. I don't really mind, but I guess the devs did. Every faction should have gotten their unique mechanic, similar to Coins for SY, but that never happened, unfortunately. And now, traps are dead. Incidentally, the same has happened with the weather mechanic. Another unique feature that got axed in favor of homogenization.

 

[Slizzl]

Much like Assimilate it's one of those decks that shouldn't be top tier or it will absolutely ruin the game.
I'm already facing unitless R3 trap decks that makes me wanna tear my hair out.
Okay, I guess if it revolved more around traps that turned into units it would be more palatable since you can actually interact with them instead of there just being a ton of artifacts you can do nothing about.

 

[Marginal0]

The deck is fine. There are very few other options, but I've won plenty of games with it. It won't work well on the top of the ladder, for obvious reasons. But it's a viable deck to play casual.

 

[Lokiat0r]

The deck is fine. There are very few other options, but I've won plenty of games with it. It won't work well on the top of the ladder, for obvious reasons. But it's a viable deck to play casual.

Yeah, I win a surprising number of casual games with my trap deck whenever I've got an artifact daily quest.

Though the Mahakam Horn is responsible for most of my trap deck wins. No one ever seems to remember that's a thing until it springs for 8 points after they pass.

 

[Marginal0]

Though the Mahakam Horn is responsible for most of my trap deck wins. No one ever seems to remember that's a thing until it springs for 8 points after they pass.

I might've made it sound better than it is, because I obviously lose more than I win, but I guess occasionally you might face a relative newbie or someone who only plays competitively and simply doesn't know the cards.

If you're playing points spam, you will lose 100% of the time. If you play SK suicide, you will laugh as they'll play right into your damage cards. That match-ups might just be impossible to win.

My version is not even competitive as I play Hattori (just for the sake of playing it in some shell).

Imo the "special counter" wasn't too strong. It actually allowed good pilots to counter entire strategies, often leading to (rage)quits. But I get that they reworked it.

opponents with even the slightest bit of intelligence can easily play around them

Sorry, but that's not true. What I see is that people generally play around the 5dmg one, but it often results in sub-optimal sequencing. Often they fail on their 'read' and you just gained 3 points off of bad plays. It remains a gamble. But sure, in the scope of the entire game, knowledge will of course help you and you can simply count all the traps and you'll know what remains.

If the trap sticks a full turn, it's either Horn or the "special" one, which creates the 50/50 where they sometimes hold out on their spells, only to get the 8 points against. To make it more interesting, we'd need a third 'decoy' trap.

 

[Sensimilius]

I don't want traps to be abandoned. If not giving us more traps, I have suggestions about some current ones which aren't so good:

1. Serpent trap - This card ends up playing for 0 points too often to be put in any serious deck, it should get a "spring" (manual activation if the opponent won't trigger the ambush) effect, namely I suggest this: Spring: Damage a random enemy unit by 2 and give it poison.

2. Spike Trap - This one usually plays for 4 or 5 dmg (randomly distributed pings, very weak), so I would suggest making it have a minimum of 6 damage and then extra points for what's left until u reach the provision of the played card. If this is too strong maybe make all the dmg above 6 points be distributed as Bleeding points instead but then it makes it a very bad choice for saving it up as ur last card.

3. Incinerating trap - well this one just has weak points. Maybe if it did 1 dmg to adjacent units it would be considered okay.

 

[Barracuda88]

I think the Serpent Trap is fine in principle. It's pretty rare to run into decks with no specials. The trouble is it needs a unit on the board to find value and that makes it clunky. The way to fix is to have it destroy the highest unit AND the special card the opponent plays before its effect. Actually, that's probably going to make it hilariously strong. Maybe destroy the highest unit, OR if there are no units on the board, destroy the special card.

Spike trap is fine I think. Plays between 4-14 for 6p.

The Incinerating trap should have an added condition : Deathblow: damage 4 (maybe 3) random units by 1.