Syndicate is so broken...

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And it comes down to one thing. Coins. A resource unique to them that the opponent has no way of interacting with, outside of playing a very specific faction ability (Lockdown).

Just an absolutely terrible design decision. They aren't fun to play. They aren't fun to play against. Watching a Whoreson's Freakshow deal out 30 points of damage in a single turn, while you sit there, unable to do anything about it, and the guy STILL ends up on 9 coins, is quite frankly ridiculous.

For abilities that can literally win a game singlehandedly, in 1 card, regardless of anything else present on the board, or cards in either players hands, with zero setup (thanks to the GAIN 9 FREE COINS ability, which also doubles as a free 9 point boost when you're at max because it's literally IMPOSSIBLE to play that faction and not have MAX coins all the time, whenever you fancy it).

Garbage faction.

If you're gonna keep coins, then either the PROFIT on most cards needs to be reworked, or the FEE abilities need to be more expensive. I mean, looking at the meta report for the last season is a joke. When certain decks and abilities have a 70% winrate across the board...I mean, come on. I'm 1 game away from Pro Rank, I'll get there easily, but not tonight, because the 5 times I've got to that last breakthrough game, a Syndicate player has outright robbed me and I just have no more patience today.

Like, it's a complete joke. I could craft a Syndicate deck now and faceroll my way to top 100 with a 95% winrate.
 
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Some say coins are the problem, but that's not the full story if you ask me. The most broken thing about the faction atm is definitely King of Beggars. He completely laughs at cards that summon themselves from the deck like Roach or Flying Redanian because KOB plays for way too many points for a card that doesn't even need to be in hand. I don't really know who came up with this at CDPR and I may be overseeing something, but this guy looks just absolutely ridiculous to me. I think coins can exist, but not with cards like this.
 

rrc

Forum veteran
Basically, KoB is a 12 coin bank which doesn't get halved every round. Combined with JP who has no issues with cards over profiting, and keeping 12 coins safely in bank, it becomes too much. Basically JP+KoB has 21 coins at disposal, at will and can use any time.

If not for JP, the coins are actually a hard mechanism and to play properly managing the coins is actually hard and skillful. But JP just makes the ONLY disadvantage of SY (coins management and skill required to properly balance between spenders and profiters) as the biggest advantage (spenders with fee comes to board out of removal range), basically making it super easy. Pirate Clove was super strong before JP because it removed the spender problem aspect giving on demand spenders.

JP should be 11P and KoB should be 14P and rest of the SY shouldn't be nerfed.

But if and when they nerf JP+KoB, they would just leave other OP stuffs like Battle Trance untouched or even buff them a bit and making them the next JP. I really wish CDPR concentrates more on nerfing too. Gedyneth should be 15P, Mushy Truffle should be 12P, Dimwnethra (or whatever she is called) should be 6P, etc. Start nerfing too much OP stuffs CDPR.
 
Well, I would say 1st) Remove that Fee ability from KOB or make Give Vitallity to self for 1 turn. 2nd) Remove Profit from damage cards.
 
I rarely say a card is broken by design, but unfortunately KOB is one of those rare occasions.
There is just no way to defend this concept, where the only possible downside comes from making a bad mulligan and ending up with him in your hands.
It reminds me of the first days of Eist, when he was introduced as an almost zero setup 30 points Skellige finisher.

To start with KOB should only refund points when he is getting played from your deck, and ONLY for that specific Tribute that triggers him, not for every Tribute played. His Tribute cost should stay relatively high (12-15), but the actual payback should be only calculated from the final Tribute. This way at least one should have to try and keep the Savolla combo as a finisher instead of being able to pull him on max profits with every line of action.

As for SY as a faction, there is nothing wrong with them, or the concept. It is really about a few over the top cards/interactions that make or break the picture.
 
KoB has voided the entire Tribute mechanic. The purpose of Tribute was to trigger an ability by paying an amount of coins and as such, it forces you to gather coins in order to pay it. KoB refunds the coins you spend on Tribute, as such this archetype right now no longer acts as spending archetype. Same as Jackpot's secondary ability makes the coin cap and over-profiting irrelevant.

KoB is the kind of card that can never be balanced without completely reworking. Tweaking its power, provisions or counter is not the way to balance it because KoB's problem is a design problem. The only way to balance this card is to rework it by removing his ability to refund coins spent on tributes.
 

Guest 4416545

Guest
Gonna act as the lawyer of the devil since no one never do It with sy: kob its fine.

Yes he is strong without any doubt, but so It is fucusya saskia artaud and i could keep going with similar cards strongest as kob.

But in my personal view i think the problem its the passive of jackpot, It makes some interaction between cards Broken as hell, the biggest example its this salamandar deck which can makes gellart or whatever he is called reach 50 points in one turn, or
just caesar between sigi and jacks making an 8 provisión value more than a regular 12 provisión Card, or the funniest one for me: kob boosting inside the deck.

And well, ofcourse freakshow as a 7 points body out of 99% of removal its a problem.

For me, a possibel solutión (i read It on reddit) Will be that everytime you overprofit instead of boosting the Card It self It spawn a Coín of syndicate token, the same one that the witchfinder spawn, this way at least on the paper Will stop Broken interaction and make jp less autopilot and in need of more spenders just as every other sy decks.

The active could stay as It is i dont see any problem on that one.
 
Syndicate Fee's ability should have a limited number of uses, it's dirt, almost infinite damage after bounty-kill-repeat.
Lider Jackpot boost nerf.
Bounty reward nerf.
Fee's ability must have limitation use.
 
Syndicate just makes me want to just quit this game for good.

I can clear the board of all of their cards, have 20 points up and in one turn they can still take over no effort. What's even the point?
 
Syndicate just makes me want to just quit this game for good.

I can clear the board of all of their cards, have 20 points up and in one turn they can still take over no effort. What's even the point?
Fee's ability must have limitation use, that is why this happens, they can boost self for too many points with it. And coins is always at max, especially with Jackpot.
 
Syndicate is broken by design.
The fact that they can have 9 points/coins ( or more + the 3 point ghost ship card that spawns ) per turn which you have 0 options to interact with is such a bad design. Plus those coins work as carry over points as well so no need for special cards in your deck for that - with Syndicate you have it as a base line. Even "immune" status cards in the game you have some weird ways to interact with but with Syndicate coins there is no chance. Bravo!
With JP things become even worse as the colleague above has written because the only downside of this coin mechanic - overprofiting, is being removed. And on top of that there are cards like King of "Balance" which make 0 sense except for how to make the people playing the game more frustrated.
BTW I remember the time when Ewald Borsodi read 2 dmg for 2 coins and they nerfed it cause it was ridiculous and now we have Freak Show which does, wait , the same for less provision.
And upcoming nerf on King of "Balance" is such a joke. They nerfed a card that does around 40 points ( with Savola combo) with 2 points. It would actually make some impact if they had just increased its provision with 2 points, but no. Good job CDPR, really well done...
 
Yes Syndicate has a lot of problems. My suggestions are as follows to make syndicate games more fair and interessting:

-Reduce Profit abilitys or limit the way to gain coins for Syndicate overall. This brings more tactical depth to the faction. Currently as a syndicate player you pretty much swim in coins and often there is no drawback and little thinking involved on how (or when) to spend them.
You could also
-Have no coin carry over! You achive a similar goal like mentioned before! This could be a good alternative if altering profits would be to much.

I think this would adress many issues players have with this faction. Spending your coins would be more risky but they would not loose much of their potential. Cheers ;)
 
Think I'm done until they remove Whoreson's Freakshow from the game, or at least make the card half way fair.

20 points of damage for free, uncounterable, zero interaction. Kills any engine deck flat.

Just wow. Amazing design, guys. Amazing.

*slow clap*
 
Think I'm done until they remove Whoreson's Freakshow from the game, or at least make the card half way fair.

20 points of damage for free, uncounterable, zero interaction. Kills any engine deck flat.

Just wow. Amazing design, guys. Amazing.

*slow clap*
The damage isn't free, you need coins for that. And while I agree that can be overwhelming for some decks, the current state of the game makes Freakshow a necessity for SY decks.
 
Ideas:
  1. Put a cooldown of 1 turn on Fee mechanics so that it can be used only once per turn per card.
  2. Second idea is for each subsequent use of a Fee mechanic on the same turn, increase the paid fee by 1. Reset the Fee on the end of the turn.
 
If you have not actually tried to home-brew an original Syndicate deck, it is easy to see cards like Freakshow running roughshod over other decks without realizing just how fragile the entire faction is. Balancing coin generation, spending, points, removal, bounties while dealing with vaguerities of draw and match up can be difficult. Any change to Freakshow without counterbalancing changes will not just kill the card, but they will kill the entire faction.
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Just for example, I am not a top level player — I play almost exclusively on unranked, and I always home brew decks. In the current meta, I can create SK decks with virtually 100% win rates. My ST, MO, and NR rates are about 70%. With NG, I am maybe breaking 35% (although to be fair, my NG deck are usually quest filling rather than win seeking). Except when playing the Jackpot leader, I have yet to win with SY this season.
 
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Ideas:
  1. Put a cooldown of 1 turn on Fee mechanics so that it can be used only once per turn per card.
  2. Second idea is for each subsequent use of a Fee mechanic on the same turn, increase the paid fee by 1. Reset the Fee on the end of the turn.
Both would outright kill Freakshow and similar cards. The second to a lesser extent, but still way too harsh.
 
Both would outright kill Freakshow and similar cards. The second to a lesser extent, but still way too harsh.
But that addresses the main issue with Syndicate and Coins, which is that it can be used whenever you want, and with no limitation to the amount of it. I believe the second option with a little balance to the cards in terms of provision/power might fix a few things. Then there's the whole KoB thing, but that is a very specific broken card, and not a whole mechanic/system.
 
Both would outright kill Freakshow and similar cards. The second to a lesser extent, but still way too harsh.
If you're saying the card can't be balanced then maybe the card shouldn't exist in the first place. Plenty of cards from other factions have had to nerfed when they offer too much for too little. Why should this be an exception?

Frankly the coin system needs an overhaul because it can't be that the mechanic is outside the opponents interaction or do a single thing about it except watch it unfold.
 
I'm afraid I can't agree about Syndicate being broken. Jackpot is overpowered - agreed. King of Beggars is questionable at the very least - agreed. Freakshow is a powerful card - absolutely yes and perhaps should be more expensive (8 or even 9 provision points - it typically plays for much more). But putting limits on fees is the shortest way to kill the entire faction. How would even that look like? You put a bounty on a tall unit and you can use your WH Executioner once per turn? You would never get that bounty back. You play Street Urchins and can boost it once per turn? What about Scoundrel, Grand Inquisitor, Sea Jackal?

The problem with Syndicate started when they allowed excessed coins to be turned into boosts with Jackpot- that's basically it. Before it was introduced, Jackpot was one of the least popular abilities in the entire game. Also, if the entire faction was broken, we would see all sorts of Syndicate decks being played. Do we see them? No, this is the latest play rates:


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Jackpot plays for nearly 12% of all games, while 6 other Syndicate abilities COMBINED play for 2.32%. (I'm referring to the play rates in Pro Rank). And none of them has winrate above 50% - is this really a sign of a broken faction? Address the coin cap in Jackpot, turn it into something else and most of the problems will disappear. If the developers don't want to change the cap, then deduct provision points - something like the old Lockdown, 10 or 9 instead of the current 12.

As to the Coin system - I know that many people think otherwise but I don't see any major problem with coins. Typically, cards that generate coins have very weak bodies (Street Urchin, Beggar, Tax Collector, Sigi) or no bodies at all (Pickpocket, Fisstech, Swindle, Shakedown). The problem starts, again, with Jackpot that allows you to boost your units to high heavens (Sigi/Bilzen combo, for instance) with little or no care because you simply drown in coins. Carryover value is also quite limited - you can carry a maximum of 4 coins to the next round. It is certainly something and can be useful in many circumstances but it's not like a recipe for a sure victory.

When I see a Jackpot deck, my eyes roll back, my blood boils and I know it will be another boring game, with exactly the same cards and strategies as in the previous 99.99% of the games. But let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater. Syndicate as a faction is not super powerful and not that popular (with that one, obvious exception, of course).
 
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