In the pre-homecoming version of Gwent control was just a meme and engines were balanced around "tempo", which was toned down to oblivion in homecoming, you should not pretend that not to be what kept engines in check.
And by the way, engine overload already works, not to mention that Avallac'h exists in case you really want to have a fragile unit like Vysagota be uninteractable.
In Beta Gwent tempo was king, but you cannot say that engines where non existent and were balanced solely on that.
Examples?
Used engines:
-
greatsword and light longship -> interesting because (even if many regarded these cards as braindead, they are not at the high end of skill ceiling) they rise many good dynamics:
greatsword:
- enhance carryover by strenghtening himself (was it balanced? I mean, give it timer 3, give it strenghten 1, tweak here and there, bla bla, that's not the point..), so future plays development (or fodder for vicovaro medic and silver ghouls?)
- can absorb damage (even from opponent's weather or AoE damage)
- has a timer! so opponents has more windows of response (without adding that ugly and inelegant order effects)
- has impact on the turns/rounds pace (how much can I play without greatsword going out of control?)
light longship:
- change points distribution (damage on the left, boost self)
- can be answered immediately or wait until boost is stacked
- vulnerable to reset and sinergies can be stopped with spies positioning
- self alignment danger
- vran warrior and nekker -> another extremely interesting engine mechanic! Extremely high skill ceiling (even if people think not. Go to see ProNeo going through double sweers:
).
- Again, an engine with a timer and careful positioning can set up really nice plays and long term planning
- Timer 2 gives the opponent the chance to answer in 2 turns!
- Timer 2 means that it impact in the turns/round pace... the basic of Gwent!
- pay attention to not go too high
- effective even if I pass, opponent must take it into consideration
- high risk (stacking boosts) high reward
- many answers by moving/spies etc
But we can even look at
- Weathers: spawned mainly by mages, etc, but even here timing and balance were important: when do I affect a row with the weather? How much will the round go on? What about any clear/pass?
- Vrihedd Dragoon
- Redanian Knight elect
- Imlerith Sabbath
- Full Moon/Blood moon
- Spies synergy (sort of triggered engine)
And
control options were common in pretty much all the decks, even if there were no full control decks (beside spellatel? but even that has the dol blathanna sentries as high tempo finishers? does it count as control so?). Also Viper witchers were a tempo-control deck, even if their removal had nice tempo (but it had many weakness that could be exploited in many ways (weather, removal or moving for the ale, etc), has consistency issue with alchemy cards and, strangely enough for a tempo deck, was unable to push deep into round 1 due to resurrections........)
You can even argue that
the vast majority of decks were midrange-like, with a mixture of tempo, engines and control options (but control options were even a lot different! Coral, Mandrake, spawned thunders, etc all answered in different ways and were useful in different scenarios, where engines were balanced to survive only to some types of removal).
Now removal is pretty much all the same: either
1-
damage the enemy (engine?) [
enough to kill it] or
2-
hard lock the enemy (engine?) [
and forget about it] -> why not put a timer to most of the locks, for examples?
Mind that I am not saying that CDPR should implement a pure engine rewarding gameplay!
That would be bad too!
But engines must have a more prominent role and should be interesting: have timers, distribute points (and not merely boost themselves!) having maximum charges to balance them if needed (look at old arachas behemoth), and should work alongside trigger effects.
And giving hard immunity to an engine is bad! That dynamic will always just be abused in a bad way.
Engines should be design with actual indirect possible answers (something like the Beta example I made of answer Beta Archeospore with Mahakam Marauder, while angines can still be occasionally hard removed by specific cards) and with the turns/round pace and passes in mind, so to offer players a meaningful choice that impact the actual core of the game! That's why HC needs to learn from Beta Gwent (from its flaws, because Beta Gwent had many problems!) AND took a step forward: not just take another direction.
Let's not flat issues down pretending everything is fine, please.
