sihil again

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People often says that sihil was binary, but never care to explain how exackly that binarity manifested herself. So as a long time sihil Player, I will explain: Sihil was mainly punish against control decks - so as long as You played boosting decks like NR knights, Kelly, or SK Selfwound - You were perfectly fine against sihil. But when You played control deck on Your own - like SK warriors, NG renfri or others - sihill was killing You mercilessly, Just as You was trying to kill any other deck. Sihil was doing that better than You, and in much more cruel way than you. Thus everytime when somebody was ranting about sihil alleged opressivness, It was alike " thieve shouting: catch a thieve!" Or: "If I will wipe out whole opponents board, its ok. But when opponent will do the same to me, thats not right"
And that is a whole, sad truth about all sihil rants.

First, "playing boosting decks" was never a sufficient condition to defeat Sihil. You needed cards able to either immediately boost or remove any 1 and 2 provision cards your opponent could throw on your side of the board (once Sihil reached about 4 strength, it became virtually unstoppable). All factions that played Sihil effectively had at least 4 and usually 6+ ways to give an opponent junk cards. So, in addition to having these cards, you needed to draw them faster than the Sihil player could draw his "give the opponent junk" cards For most decks, you would have to deliberately include cards you don't want AND you need to keep them in hand when drawn (you couldn't tell a Sihil deck until it started play -- and clever players could disguise it until you are least able to respond). NR boost engine decks were generally not sufficient as their boosts were the wrong kind. Yes, there are decks like MO consume and ST traps that could very organically deal with Sihil, but in these cases, Sihil had no chance from game start. So 90% plus of all matches involving Sihil were totally determined before the first card was played. This is the epitamy of binary.

Second, Sihil is NOT merely doing control/removal "better" than SK warriors, NG Renfri, etc. I am no fan of either of those two decks (heavy removal/control in any game is not desirable as it removes the ability to interact with different cards in different ways), but they were never a guaranteed win in certain matchups and a guaranteed loss in almost all other matchups. They could never completely shut down all possible actions of a reasonably constructed opposing deck the way Sihil could. And they did not attempt to force opponent play into a single style.

I would love to see a usable non-binary Sihil card -- the basic mechanism of causing/preventing kills was interesting -- in the rare cases where both players could evenly contest doing so. The problem with Sihil was first that few decks were reasonably matched in that aspect of play, and second, that success in one aspect of play totally dominated all other successes in other aspects of play. No single card should EVER have abilities so strong that the only option is to counter it or lose; such cards will always be intolerably binary.

My suggestion to give an ability to remove a "dead" Sihil (either because it hasn't proc'ed or because you are out of bronze cards) from hand while giving it a good (but defeatable) bonus if it succeeds will, I believe, make it playable without sole deciding matches. Increasing its maximal value (at least beyond about 4) merely returns it to its former, binary glory.
 
First, "playing boosting decks" was never a sufficient condition to defeat Sihil. You needed cards able to either immediately boost or remove any 1 and 2 provision cards your opponent could throw on your side of the board (once Sihil reached about 4 strength, it became virtually unstoppable). All factions that played Sihil effectively had at least 4 and usually 6+ ways to give an opponent junk cards. So, in addition to having these cards, you needed to draw them faster than the Sihil player could draw his "give the opponent junk" cards For most decks, you would have to deliberately include cards you don't want AND you need to keep them in hand when drawn (you couldn't tell a Sihil deck until it started play -- and clever players could disguise it until you are least able to respond). NR boost engine decks were generally not sufficient as their boosts were the wrong kind. Yes, there are decks like MO consume and ST traps that could very organically deal with Sihil, but in these cases, Sihil had no chance from game start. So 90% plus of all matches involving Sihil were totally determined before the first card was played. This is the epitamy of binary.

Second, Sihil is NOT merely doing control/removal "better" than SK warriors, NG Renfri, etc. I am no fan of either of those two decks (heavy removal/control in any game is not desirable as it removes the ability to interact with different cards in different ways), but they were never a guaranteed win in certain matchups and a guaranteed loss in almost all other matchups. They could never completely shut down all possible actions of a reasonably constructed opposing deck the way Sihil could. And they did not attempt to force opponent play into a single style.

I would love to see a usable non-binary Sihil card -- the basic mechanism of causing/preventing kills was interesting -- in the rare cases where both players could evenly contest doing so. The problem with Sihil was first that few decks were reasonably matched in that aspect of play, and second, that success in one aspect of play totally dominated all other successes in other aspects of play. No single card should EVER have abilities so strong that the only option is to counter it or lose; such cards will always be intolerably binary.

My suggestion to give an ability to remove a "dead" Sihil (either because it hasn't proc'ed or because you are out of bronze cards) from hand while giving it a good (but defeatable) bonus if it succeeds will, I believe, make it playable without sole deciding matches. Increasing its maximal value (at least beyond about 4) merely returns it to its former, binary glory.

First, "playing boosting decks" was never a sufficient condition to defeat Sihil.
I Played with sihil many enough games to know how exackly does it worked, so I won't be arguing about facts. All truth about sihil and sihil rants is in My quoted opinion above, who want to know it can see there.
 
You are not the only person who ever played Sihil. I played it often enough to know that most matches were totally determined by matchup -- and half of those that weren't determined by matchup were determined by card draw. AND I played against Sihil enough to realize just how unpleasant it made the game for the opponent. Player agency was a factor in maybe 5% of all games against Sihil. So I had the ethics to quit playing it.
 
As a 2.6k+ NG Sihil player I'd like to chime in a bit on this. I assume when we are calling it 100% binary we are mostly talking about the SK patricidal fury version? Because in that case I would agree that it applies more as that one was a bit of a one-trick-pony, answer the initial sirens and it is probably game over.

However, when it comes to NG there were only 2 matchups that I found to have the outcome determined from the beginning. I would instant forfeit against every self-wound deck because it was virtually impossible to beat because the entire deck consists of just counter cards. Siege was also in the meta back then and this is a matchup I won every single game except for one, and the loss was against Myamon so big surprise I guess, I also made a significant misplay that game in retrospect. Card draws of course play a part but that is just the bad RNG aspect of Gwent in general, like with any other deck that has big threats you want to draw your answers to.

Ah, and for masking being Sihil, that usually doesn't work against good players because no one else would play patricidal fury back then and for NG seeing wanderers move or opening with a spy was pretty much dead giveaways.

About it being toxic, my honest opinion is that Sihil was one of those cards that was tremendously fun to play at times, but equally frustrating to be on the receiving end. I think the comparison to it being like SK warriors but doing it better than them is very fair, in all honesty. Because the principle is the same, play carryover cards to build damage and then play a card+kill the opponent's card. I would still argue that Sihil was less braindead because setting up Sihil kills is generally more difficult than spamming warlords.

I do miss the card, and I had a specific soundtrack I would play when I would be Sihiling it up, good times=) But as I've said, I can also understand why some players would not like to see it return. Those are my 2 cents on the matter.
 
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