Things that I dislike in the game at the moment.

[dunadan5]

Like what it says on the can. If for no other reason than letting out the frustration that boils within, here's a few things that let's say "make me unhappy" in the current game.

1) The Removal Metas.
There were always removals in Gwent but it used to be limited to a few existing cards that could lock and a few others that could damage an enemy unit enough to kill it in one go. It was a game of bluff where the amount of removals was balanced by how many of them were in the game and you'd try to goad your enemy into using up all of theirs. Currently it's a joke - Nilfgaard especially is leaking removals out of every orafice. There's so many Lock and Poison cards nowadays that effects like Reset (remember Reset, it used to be a thing? the soldier figurine card had that effect?) have been completely forgotten about with the exception of Yyrden.
Because why would you want to play Reset cards which tend to carry a cost that's actually proportionate the the effectiveness of a removal effect when you can use one of NG's vast menagary of cheap removals for a fraction of the cost and get some points on the board as an extra as well.
Yyren is another case altogether. That card is so disgusting to me. It might as well say "if you're opponent is using any boost deck, win the round". And win not because your deck was good or because you played it well. No, win because Yyrden is a thing that exists. Full stop.
The only thing I hate more in Gwent than the existance of Yyrden is the fact that because it exists and because it's so brokenly op, I need to carry this card that I hate in decks simply because not having it is such a debilitating weakness against enemies who do.

2) Pick a Card, Any Card
This at least isn't something that got broken recently. It was always broken and just never got fixed. What I'm talking about here is cards which allow the user to draw ANY card they want or often to draw any unit they want and use that ability on a unit that allows them to play any card sometimes via a third card.
Gwent is essencially limited by three things. Total card costs in a deck, only being able to play one card per round and there being a randomness to which cards you get.
Being able to ignore two of those rules is a pretty damn big thing.
Especially the randomness is a big factor. There's meant to be a balance with cards which are extremely effective under the right circumstances in that if you don't have that card when the circumstances happen or when you have it but they don't then the card becomes useless and its provision cost is wasted.
All these cards that allow you to circumvent that or allow you to play whatever card you like from the deck or to play a card again from the field of from the graveyard that you really shouldn't be able to play again are just bloody frustrating at this point.
And this isn't going to get better with time. It hasn't so far. With every new expansion there's been more new cards which work laughably well with the draw-any-card or recycle-card-from-graveyard archetypes. Without changes it will just continue like this.

3) This Board is My Board
Simply put the cards which don't without even needing to poison or reset your enemies row bring so damn many points onto the board with one or two cards that when you face them you're left going - well frack it, i might as well just end the match now. I either won't be able to match the value or will but it will cost me too many cards or will but it will be a tedius match which will cost me more nerves than provisions and I don't need that kind of "fun" in my life at the moment.
This is generally the quest or journey cards, whatever the name of them was, I can't even be bothered to check right now.

4) Nilfgaard
Yeah I said it. Like so many people, I'm sick of Nilgaard. I'm sick of all the goddamn cheap moves that they can pull. I'm sick of them having the most locks and poisons in the game. I'm sick of all their cards that allow them to craw an extra card, select a card and draw it, replay a tactics twice. I'm sick of their cards and abilities that allow them to steal a card from the enemy (now with a special new ability that allows them to lock AND steal any card including a golden one without even needing to pump their deck full of tactics cards)
I'm sick of all those cheap tricks and more. I know that NG is meant to win by special tactics but they've been out of control for a very long time now and I think we'd all like to see some balance come back to the game. Please and Thank You.

 

[4RM3D]

First you say that removal is too overabundant, then you say that certain cards put too many points on the board. You cannot have it both ways, though. There has to be a balance between the two.

What I'm talking about here is cards which allow the user to draw ANY card they want or often to draw any unit they want [...]

a.k.a. tutors.

 

[Guest 4368268]

I agree with your complaint about the quantity and quality of removal. But I'd say Yrden is a rare, good example of 'control' in current Gwent. It's a card that's meta dependent and risky and above all actually expensive.
Most removal cards are overpowered and under costed. When the opponent removes my things that's fine if he pays in tempo/provisions but in current Gwent that's not a thing. Syndicate, Northern Realms and Nilfgaard games are always incredibly tedious to me. Like you said, 'removal baiting' is non-existent because the supply of removal is endless.

As far as your second point, I take it you're complaining about the consistency of decks? Well, tutor cards are generally pricey at least. Royal Decree is 10 provisions and stuff like marching orders / war council etc. 8 and I don't mind that either.
What I do think is that decks currently have too many provisions available. I was looking at my NR opponents' graveyard a couple matches ago and mid round 2 I see Keira, Baron, Falibor, Philippa, Decree, Reynard, Vissegerd and so forth. Golds, even legendaries, don't feel special when played because you've got half a dozen or more of them. That does bother me.

 

[sfruzz]

Point 2) is what I like about the game.

As for the removal meta, I remember when you had no limit to spell cards: it was 90% removal and than a big finisher (Dol Blathanna Protectors). Not to mention the Sihil removal meta in Homecoming and triple scorch during the beta. All things considered, I think the circumstances have improved.

What I do think is that decks currently have too many provisions available. I was looking at my NR opponents' graveyard a couple matches ago and mid round 2 I see Keira, Baron, Falibor, Philippa, Decree, Reynard, Vissegerd and so forth.

Players (myself included) tend to add gold cards to their decks for the sake of having gold cards. Sometimes it would just be more efficient to have instead a lacerate or another bronze engine. Even when I mulligan, I have a hard time discarding golden cards. The countless time I mulliganed away a bomb heaver or the pellar just to get one useless gold card more...

Golds, even legendaries, don't feel special when played because you've got half a dozen or more of them. That does bother me.

I agree, that's the result of having the silver category removed and the number of bronze copies decreased from 3 to 2. If you decrease the provision limit, you would have a hard time to find enough bronzes that have sinergy with the deck you are building.

 

[RickyPeep]

I just got to playing Gwent about 3 weeks maybe even a month ago. At first i was amazed and hooked on it seeing how this game is tons more new player friendly than Hearthstone (cause you don't have to cash that much). Started with a monster deck, saw i had a shit ton of scraps, started crafting cards that seemed fun and wanted to try em out (deathwish monsters, bloodthirst skellige) and jesus christ was that a mistake. I soon found out/realized you can just go view other people's deck, find some broken ass deck with little to no counterplay and faceroll ranked. Having reached rank 19 i've discovered how "fun" Gwent actually is, as in it's not really that fun being absolutely rolled by those broken ass decks i talked about earlier. Im pretty sick of Nilfgaard aswell. Cause i'd actually like to play the game and not have my 2 rows locked making most of any deathwish, order, boost etc minions useless. The "pick any card" is straight up brain dead seeing how you can pretty much win the 3rd round with a powerful card especially with Nilfgaard, Syndicate, Temeria, Scoiatel. Oh and i'd actually like to think that there are other factions too in this game than Nilfgaard, Syndicate and Scoiatel cause that's literally all i see (i wonder why). Also agreeing with OP that playing more than one card can also just win the round if not the entire game (talking about Vernon, yeah that fun card that plays TWO cards from your deck), nice one!

 

[Bleach25]

In my opinion removal is very punishing against decks that rely on a restricted number of engines, so unless you can do engine overload it becomes very frustrating.

On the other hand engine overload decks crush with points, which isn't nice either.

My solution: decrease engine ceiling and then decrease the amount of cheap removal. Poison in particular requires a chapter of its own.

I can't honestly understand your complaints about tutors though. Old Gwent used to be even more consistent.
I can understand however two cards per turn. That proved to be particularly problematic with scenarios.

Skellige and Monsters have some powerful archetypes, but they're all punished heavily by poison. That's why you don't see them as much. Syndicate is a very troubled faction. I'm not sure, but it's probably something in their design. In any case it seems that whenever Devs try to add something it always becomes overtuned and needs to be dealt with, leading to the usual result ( nerfed into the ground). Syndicate is always swinging between OP and so so.

Scoia'tael is the top dog (Tier 1/High Tier 2)

Nilfgaard enjoys a lot of popularity, but it's probably the most static faction.

 

[Curtiswebs]

I'm a nube at Gwent. (playing for about a week)

I have built what I feel to be a reasonably strong Monster deck....(for nubes like me, you could add the complaint that you're kinda steered into playing monster decks as you start out and early deck-building puts you behind if you decide you want to switch.)

I have run into several games where my opponent seems to be able to pull whatever card they want/need out of their deck as needed. It has me searching for options to get around relying on drawing the cards I need between rounds.

I think your complaints can mostly be summed up by, "The game has turned into outsmarting the system rather than outplaying your opponent."

As a nube, I'm still trying to piece together what cards I need to give myself the best chances to win from game to game. I'm hopeful that once I have all the cards I hope to add to my deck, that the game will become more skill-based and less card-based.

I appreciate your post.

 

[quintivarium]

In my mind, there is one big drawback to allowing “pick any unit” cards (like Royal Decree) and that is that, without any effort on the part of the player), they significantly reduce the risk in playing decks that are totally dependent upon a single card (or single combination of cards). If one wants a variety of decks and different games even between the same decks, it is imperative that multiple cards and combinations of cards be vital to a deck.

This is somewhat offset by the advantage of being able to carry certain generally useless tech cards (such as Bomb Heaver) without having to waste valuable space in one’s hand. On the other hand, I consider single purpose tech cards to be poor and boring game design.

I suppose I do not find Royal Decree too objectionable as it is pricey, and, at present, is one of very few cards able to draw any card from a deck. Thus it at least introduces a tactical decision on when it is best played. Were related cards readily available, they would ruin the game, much in the same way that to prevalent poison does.

I do not find the same issue with cards that select any unit from the graveyard. Reliance on one card remains risky. They only give you access to cards already played (which are usually pretty limited). Freya’s Blessing and Sigrifa’s Rite do have their own drawbacks — they require an opponent to be able to respond to the same threat multiple times and they allow the player to freely use cards with knowledge they could come back (rather than strategizing an Ideal time to commit the cards). On the other hand, they force decisions regarding hanging onto cards that are worthless in the first round for potentially high utility later.

While graveyard can potentially be abused, I think it is vital if there is going to be any variety in SK and MO decks.

 

[Guest 4375874]

I just got to playing Gwent about 3 weeks maybe even a month ago. At first i was amazed and hooked on it seeing how this game is tons more new player friendly than Hearthstone (cause you don't have to cash that much). Started with a monster deck, saw i had a shit ton of scraps, started crafting cards that seemed fun and wanted to try em out (deathwish monsters, bloodthirst skellige) and jesus christ was that a mistake. I soon found out/realized you can just go view other people's deck, find some broken ass deck with little to no counterplay and faceroll ranked. Having reached rank 19 i've discovered how "fun" Gwent actually is, as in it's not really that fun being absolutely rolled by those broken ass decks i talked about earlier. Im pretty sick of Nilfgaard aswell. Cause i'd actually like to play the game and not have my 2 rows locked making most of any deathwish, order, boost etc minions useless. The "pick any card" is straight up brain dead seeing how you can pretty much win the 3rd round with a powerful card especially with Nilfgaard, Syndicate, Temeria, Scoiatel. Oh and i'd actually like to think that there are other factions too in this game than Nilfgaard, Syndicate and Scoiatel cause that's literally all i see (i wonder why). Also agreeing with OP that playing more than one card can also just win the round if not the entire game (talking about Vernon, yeah that fun card that plays TWO cards from your deck), nice one!

Well We see a lot f NG, SY and ST because their meta decks are all the rage right now requiring very little thought...just straight up auto, they may as well be bots. I can literally predict what these players will play once I get matched with them, it gets boring very quickly.

Post automatically merged: May 26, 2020

Like what it says on the can. If for no other reason than letting out the frustration that boils within, here's a few things that let's say "make me unhappy" in the current game.

1) The Removal Metas.
There were always removals in Gwent but it used to be limited to a few existing cards that could lock and a few others that could damage an enemy unit enough to kill it in one go. It was a game of bluff where the amount of removals was balanced by how many of them were in the game and you'd try to goad your enemy into using up all of theirs. Currently it's a joke - Nilfgaard especially is leaking removals out of every orafice. There's so many Lock and Poison cards nowadays that effects like Reset (remember Reset, it used to be a thing? the soldier figurine card had that effect?) have been completely forgotten about with the exception of Yyrden.
Because why would you want to play Reset cards which tend to carry a cost that's actually proportionate the the effectiveness of a removal effect when you can use one of NG's vast menagary of cheap removals for a fraction of the cost and get some points on the board as an extra as well.
Yyren is another case altogether. That card is so disgusting to me. It might as well say "if you're opponent is using any boost deck, win the round". And win not because your deck was good or because you played it well. No, win because Yyrden is a thing that exists. Full stop.
The only thing I hate more in Gwent than the existance of Yyrden is the fact that because it exists and because it's so brokenly op, I need to carry this card that I hate in decks simply because not having it is such a debilitating weakness against enemies who do.

2) Pick a Card, Any Card
This at least isn't something that got broken recently. It was always broken and just never got fixed. What I'm talking about here is cards which allow the user to draw ANY card they want or often to draw any unit they want and use that ability on a unit that allows them to play any card sometimes via a third card.
Gwent is essencially limited by three things. Total card costs in a deck, only being able to play one card per round and there being a randomness to which cards you get.
Being able to ignore two of those rules is a pretty damn big thing.
Especially the randomness is a big factor. There's meant to be a balance with cards which are extremely effective under the right circumstances in that if you don't have that card when the circumstances happen or when you have it but they don't then the card becomes useless and its provision cost is wasted.
All these cards that allow you to circumvent that or allow you to play whatever card you like from the deck or to play a card again from the field of from the graveyard that you really shouldn't be able to play again are just bloody frustrating at this point.
And this isn't going to get better with time. It hasn't so far. With every new expansion there's been more new cards which work laughably well with the draw-any-card or recycle-card-from-graveyard archetypes. Without changes it will just continue like this.

3) This Board is My Board
Simply put the cards which don't without even needing to poison or reset your enemies row bring so damn many points onto the board with one or two cards that when you face them you're left going - well frack it, i might as well just end the match now. I either won't be able to match the value or will but it will cost me too many cards or will but it will be a tedius match which will cost me more nerves than provisions and I don't need that kind of "fun" in my life at the moment.
This is generally the quest or journey cards, whatever the name of them was, I can't even be bothered to check right now.

4) Nilfgaard
Yeah I said it. Like so many people, I'm sick of Nilgaard. I'm sick of all the goddamn cheap moves that they can pull. I'm sick of them having the most locks and poisons in the game. I'm sick of all their cards that allow them to craw an extra card, select a card and draw it, replay a tactics twice. I'm sick of their cards and abilities that allow them to steal a card from the enemy (now with a special new ability that allows them to lock AND steal any card including a golden one without even needing to pump their deck full of tactics cards)
I'm sick of all those cheap tricks and more. I know that NG is meant to win by special tactics but they've been out of control for a very long time now and I think we'd all like to see some balance come back to the game. Please and Thank You.

I agree with a lot of your points. TBH I don't think ROyal decree is so much an issue because of it's cost but there are those cards in SK and ST for example that are way cheaper than Royal Decree or Renew that lets them summon from their deck or graveyard if the card is a specific type e.g. "control only elves" or something like that...which isn't very difficult....that's hardly a restriction lol at least add provision limitations

 

[Philychstk]

My 2 cents imma "noob" btw

Wall of text so random order not gunna address everything:

1. Yrden is a brick higher ranks/ Igni used more
2. Poison spam double ball NG is actually a T2 deck is it OP no hella annoying YES YES YES
3. Do I think ANY faction (3x Gedy) should be able to play a scenario 2-3 times....absolutely not.
4. Every faction can play a scenario 3 times or none its a damn 14 provision card turned into a meme
5. Gwent has the least RNG of any CCG.
6. Passing is 1 of the most important strategies in Gwent, have to learn when to push/ bleed.
7. NG needs rework and the W/L ratio of NG pro rank mains compared to other factions is a joke.
8. That being said, Imperial Formation NG is not the best deck unless meta changed again

Lastly, I achieved Pro rank with MO. I did rank 25-7 with the meme deathwish T4 Deck. Piloting the deck is more important and this late in the season people are responding to the poisons/ locks NG spam.

Still annoying.

 

[RickyPeep]

I forgot to mention "Defender" cards as in the cards that will single handedly win your opponent a round if you dont have the correct removal for a card like that, cause these "fun cards" are always below 9 attack and have armor (7 atck, 4 armor) meaning you can't Geralt it nor can you lock it and this is just like "What the [...]?" for me cause literally the lock effect is supposed DISABLE abilities. Yet it doesn't disable the defender ability??? [...] How [...] are you supposed to play around a card like that/punish your opponent??? I once again lost a final round cause my opponent played a Defender Troll then proceeded to spam all of his stronger minions on that row. Wow what a brainstorm that must've been for him. Really makes me miss the Witcher 3's Gwent, which was so simple and straight forward yet fun [...]. Shame this Gwent is trying to be like Hearthstone with all of it's crazy ass cards, abilities, effects, etc. Oh and i'd really appreciate some insight on how to deal with a "Defender" card if you aren't playing NG, SY, ST.

 

[Guest 4375874]

I forgot to mention "Defender" cards as in the cards that will single handedly win your opponent a round if you dont have the correct removal for a card like that, cause these "fun cards" are always below 9 attack and have armor (7 atck, 4 armor) meaning you can't Geralt it nor can you lock it and this is just like "What the [...]?" for me cause literally the lock effect is supposed DISABLE abilities. Yet it doesn't disable the defender ability??? [...] How [...] are you supposed to play around a card like that/punish your opponent??? I once again lost a final round cause my opponent played a Defender Troll then proceeded to spam all of his stronger minions on that row. Wow what a brainstorm that must've been for him. Really makes me miss the Witcher 3's Gwent, which was so simple and straight forward yet fun [...]. Shame this Gwent is trying to be like Hearthstone with all of it's crazy ass cards, abilities, effects, etc. Oh and i'd really appreciate some insight on how to deal with a "Defender" card if you aren't playing NG, SY, ST.

you could always move the defender to another row. I know that's easier said than done, i'm equally frustrated that I have to add a card to move a unit because not all factions have good solutions. Unless you are NG or ST and can poison your way out of it that's your only option

 

[Philychstk]

Defenders are not an issue and get killed or purify easily.

Part of the game is iunno also predicting what cards ur opponent has and determine if its part of his or her win condition. Every faction has 1-3 cards that deals with defenders its called resource management.

For ex:

NG mains luv Ffion in R3. That means you must always make sure you have a heatwave, move unit card, or engines to deal with him. If u keep going into R3 against NG without tech cards deserve to and should lose. Moreover VS Nilfgard the rule of thumb is to bleed like no tomorrow. Every poison lock they use in R1 R2 is 1 less poison in R3. Loose a battle win the war.

 

[mazeebra]

remember Reset, it used to be a thing? the soldier figurine card had that effect?)

I wish they bring that card back to what it is. Seems like one of the most fun and funny cards in the whole game, ever! The current version is just boring. Bring back the awesome old version!

have been completely forgotten about with the exception of Yyrden.
Because why would you want to play Reset cards which tend to carry a cost that's actually proportionate the the effectiveness of a removal effect when you can use one of NG's vast menagary of cheap removals for a fraction of the cost and get some points on the board as an extra as well.
Yyren is another case altogether. That card is so disgusting to me. It might as well say "if you're opponent is using any boost deck, win the round". And win not because your deck was good or because you played it well. No, win because Yyrden is a thing that exists. Full stop.
The only thing I hate more in Gwent than the existance of Yyrden is the fact that because it exists and because it's so brokenly op, I need to carry this card that I hate in decks simply because not having it is such a debilitating weakness against enemies who do.

Amazing. Yrden has been in the game forever and it has pretty much been the same forever too, and nobody really complained about it until we have a very boost heavy meta.

Suddenly I see alot of people complaining about Yrden, which is so comical and symbolic. In actuality they are complaining about their own boost decks, and secondly that it has a counter. It's outright hysterical.

Post automatically merged: May 27, 2020

I forgot to mention "Defender" cards as in the cards that will single handedly win your opponent a round if you dont have the correct removal for a card like that, cause these "fun cards" are always below 9 attack and have armor (7 atck, 4 armor) meaning you can't Geralt it nor can you lock it and this is just like "What the [...]?" for me cause literally the lock effect is supposed DISABLE abilities. Yet it doesn't disable the defender ability???

Yeah, one of the worst mechanics ever, extremely binary in nature and creating tech nightmare.

I've talked to people on this forum to get rid of the defender altogether, but they disagree. But just when I read your post I thought of a potential replacement (which can be locked).

Geralt: Quen
If this card is on the board shield adjacent units from taking damage. (activate shield on them as long as they are adjacent, reactivate on turn start if removed)..

People are complaining that some cards are always removed from the board and see no value. As a player who tried to play NR forever and always feeling the frustration of that faction, I fully understand the argument. On the other hand, unchecked NR units can get incredible value. This is the kind of risk/reward situation. People want to minimize the risks, while keeping the reward, which I think is completely unreasonable, and alot of those players support the defender card.

I think some kind of alternative removing defender from the game and creating some alternative to defender would be a good compromise.

Something alike to what I describe above would still be good, but not as unbalancing to the game as defender is. And it could be locked, or damaged or moved, or whatever. Wasting damage on armour is such a poor idea, and a further issue with defender.

Before you had the risk/reward of playing a strong card, with say a powerful order ability or engine. With defender that risk/reward changes completely AND forces the opponent to bring a specifically BAD tech card to deal with it.

Further refining the shield and armour mechanic would go a long way in creating a defence for vulnerable units, but with effort and proportional costs rather than a binary solution.

 

[Guest 4375874]

Defenders are not an issue and get killed or purify easily.

Part of the game is iunno also predicting what cards ur opponent has and determine if its part of his or her win condition. Every faction has 1-3 cards that deals with defenders its called resource management.

For ex:

NG mains luv Ffion in R3. That means you must always make sure you have a heatwave, move unit card, or engines to deal with him. If u keep going into R3 against NG without tech cards deserve to and should lose. Moreover VS Nilfgard the rule of thumb is to bleed like no tomorrow. Every poison lock they use in R1 R2 is 1 less poison in R3. Loose a battle win the war.

If purify was such a viable option then NG wouldn't be a problem for most players. It's often better to risk not having a purify unit than actually having one because it's useless more often than not. Especially when you try to remove poison from a defender only for it to lose it's defender status which makes no sense. Perhaps if better cards are introduced but not right now.

 

[dunadan5]

First you say that removal is too overabundant, then you say that certain cards put too many points on the board. You cannot have it both ways, though. There has to be a balance between the two.



a.k.a. tutors.

Bit of a necro here as I didn't have time to actually read or write anything recently, but...
It's that a bit of a dismissive tone? You're effectively saying I'm wrong in one way and wrong in another way and wrong in yet another for not remembering the correct name of a type of card.
You didn't bother to respond positively to anything I said, so I guess I'm wrong about everything else you didn't mention, huh?

Setting your tone aside, I stand by my arguments a month later. Maybe I could have written them in a shorter post but frankly I prefer to use long form to get across what I think and feel and get it just right... which is why it's annoying to take the time to express your opinions as best you can see them brushed off in a post that's short by twitter standards.

In response to what you've said however: I CAN have it both ways. I agree that balance is important. But we don't have this balance at the moment. These cards which in combination provide excessive removal or excessive points not only don't really balance one another out but (because there's many ways to remove value or to add a lot of point value in one move and the two are not an overlapping 1:1 thing) also affect cards from outside these two groups and the game overall - i.e. OP cards which were meant to balance out something broken often end up being just as affective in other situations. That's why I can have it both ways - because I think that both elements of this equation are broken.
Moreover not only does having such extreme flooding and removing in the game fail at achieving a balanced game, it also heavily limits the cards and strategies, which can be considered viable. This is because suddenly all the various "medium" power cards are just not strong enough to contend with the high-power cards an opponent might use.
And so you're left with the current state of affairs where the game is rendered repetetive due to being limited to a couple of decks per faction, which rule supreme and even among those there are clear favourites.

The overall problem here is that there's many cards, which are of have been OP and rather than balancing those cards, new OP cards were added to other factions creating a situation where even if you eventually balance the original card, you now have a few more ones to deal with down the line. And yeah - most of the cards that end up being frustratingly powerful magically end up on the NG decks.

As for the "Tutors" - yeah these cards are just broken and frustrating. Even more so with the addition of quest type artifact cards. It's nice to see that at least the neutral gold resurrection card has gotten nerfed but that's just one case and there's clearly more work to be done there. Asire for one in the short term, but she's not the only card begging for some changes.

Another note on "tutors" - why are they called that? These cards draw, manipulate and control cards at will, they don't tutor anything. That name doesn't make sense to me. Maybe it's meant to be ironic but if so then I still don't get the joke.

 

[Six-Sided-Prism]

Another note on "tutors" - why are they called that? These cards draw, manipulate and control cards at will, they don't tutor anything. That name doesn't make sense to me. Maybe it's meant to be ironic but if so then I still don't get the joke.

The first card that added any card from your deck to your hand in Magic the Gathering was called "Demonic Tutor". After that card was made, they began adding more sorceries and instants that searched for other cards, and they used Tutor in nearly all of their names.

 

[4RM3D]

It's that a bit of a dismissive tone? You're effectively saying I'm wrong in one way and wrong in another way and wrong in yet another for not remembering the correct name of a type of card.
You didn't bother to respond positively to anything I said, so I guess I'm wrong about everything else you didn't mention, huh?

Didn't mean it as dismissive. Sometimes a short response is more powerful that writing a wall of text. Regardless, that doesn't mean you're wrong; we all have (our own) opinions. I just tried to play your arguments against each other.

In response to what you've said however: I CAN have it both ways. I agree that balance is important. But we don't have this balance at the moment.

What you are describing is removing the extremes from both sides, making the game less polarizing. That's one way to balance the game, but you'll have to be careful not to crush everything together. It could make the matches more boring, because you are reducing variance. It's important to note that less variance doesn't automatically leads to better balancing, it just makes it easier to achieve.

Another note on "tutors" - why are they called that? These cards draw, manipulate and control cards at will, they don't tutor anything. That name doesn't make sense to me. Maybe it's meant to be ironic but if so then I still don't get the joke.

Strictly speaking, tutors are cards that can play other cards from your deck, though the term has been more loosely used in other scenarios too.

 

[Six-Sided-Prism]

Strictly speaking, tutors are cards that can play other cards from your deck, though the term has been more loosely used in other scenarios too.

That's not really correct. Strictly speaking, I would say that a "tutor" is a card that's primary purpose is to search one's deck for either any card or else any card of a specific type/subtype in order to place the searched card directly into one's hand.

 

[4RM3D]

That's not really correct. Strictly speaking, I would say that a "tutor" is a card that's primary purpose is to search one's deck for either any card or else any card of a specific type/subtype in order to place the searched card directly into one's hand.

What I meant, but you just explained it a bit fancier.