Why don't you play that on one of the scarabs? Let's see if you win the game. XD
Why don't you play that on one of the scarabs? Let's see if you win the game. XD
I find it hilarious that people thought the Fran "nerf" would actually do anything. Dwarf meta all month basically confirmed.
Brouver's the new Fran, I'm already disgusted just seeing his model now. But it's probably the only thing dwarf netdeckers think is original about their deck.
Spoiler: it's not.
Brouver's the new Fran, I'm already disgusted just seeing his model now. But it's probably the only thing dwarf netdeckers think is original about their deck.
Spoiler: it's not.
Some people did. But even then it wasn't much of a nerf was it? Mystic echo is all over the place.
So just consider it as if there was no nerf to that ability.
Big fan of this game. It's my favorite CCG and I wanted to state that first because the rest of this post might sound negative but I;ve been concerned with the direction this game's been going for a while.
I really liked Arachnas queen. It didn't bother me that certain cards were only viable with certain leader powers. It made leaders feel very unique and kept the game fresh when switching between them. Playing my Arachnas queen and Unseen elder decks back to back was basically like switching factions. All the “destroy” cards that were over powered with old Arachnas queen are still going to be overpowered with Gemorcha with the provision buffs. The griffin ghoul combo is now 15 points for 11 provisions and can be done twice per match.
I don’t like this move towards homogenization of leaders and mechanics.
First Vorhis lost the reveal mechanic. It was a unique mechanic that rewarded players for knowing cards in other factions. It rewarded players for revealing their OWN cards for the chance to receive a boost and possible thin their deck. It had the old recruits that compared the power of the units on the top of each player's deck which countered decks with lots of high provision low power tutors,units with good deploy abilities but small bodies, and four provision mulligan fodder. It was countered by tall decks. Regardless of whose unit was larger, both players had the opportunity to LEARN something about the composition of the other player's deck and victory often went to the person who utilized that information better. Hyperthin has till found a way to utilize the remaining reveal cards to boost themselves and allies by Tybor's 13 point body.
What was the big issue with:
the old Fringilla: completely bricked if your opponent wasn't playing a special card but had the opportunity for very high value. Good risk reward and you had the know the special cards by appearance. High skill.
Dalaran soldier: Great for thinning and extra value in but was a compete brick if he ended up in your hand. Again, good risk vs reward.
Sweers was basically Geralt of Rivia for one less provision IF you had been playing reveals all match. Along with Leo Bonhart, Nilfengard had more high power removal than other factions which jived with their vibe of assassins and highly trained operatives. Besides, having a lot of tall target removal only punished decks that played a lot of tall units. Sweers was the only one that could still gain value on an enemy unit less than 8 power. The others bricked with 3 power for 10 provisions. Now, he's just the most boring and least versatile seize unit in a faction that has a better seize as:
one of its leader abilities,
a neutral TACTIC that Nilfengard is uniquely qualified to tutor out, and gain tactic based synergy from
Vattier (now with purify to make used of a seized engine)
Let's not forget the old manogel and arbalest which were great counters to first turn nekkers and, wait for it, Arachnas drones. Obviously the arbelist body would have been buffed with the post syndicate patch so don't bring up that it 4 or 5 value for 5 provision.
Then, Northern Realms was reworked so that charges also counted for one value (until the recent addition of Sheni made that all for naught) and trebuchet was no more. I'll admit I like playing trebuchets in my Daemold deck but there was also nothing more satisfying than playing AGAINST a daemold deck with trebuchets and positioning your units perfectly. That scepter of storms I included in my Ana deck for the added value of the assimilate proc? Play it in the middle of two groups of two units. Same thing with the bloody flail in the mirror match. Now I can make it all the way to turn 7 without ever having to put three units adjacent to each other. It made artifacts so much more interesting to play when their POSITION itself could make or break a game. Position itself rarely matter any more at all. When you play against Nilfengard, you just blindly choose whether to try to counter assassinate or treason, each requiring opposite strategies. Maybe account for the odd rot thrower too. NR and Beserk Skellige benefits from how your units are positioned with regards to YOUR other units but not the enemies.
And as if positioning already didn't matter enough, they then got rid of reach. If reach 1 units never got played, fine get rid of reach 1. But why get rid of Reach 2? Reach 2 is fundamentally different from melee locked because if a card that is melee locked is moved to the ranged row, it can't be used. If a card that is reach 2 is moved to the ranged row, it can still attack the melee row. All of these melee locked two damage engines like Imerlith, Sigvald would still force the opponent to play their units in the ranged row, making them susceptible to lacerate, Geralt: igni, or regis.
Pavol could still be ranged locked because he has arguably one of the easiest conditions to gain 2 value per turn of all of the two damage a turn engines. Syska could remain playable anywhere because her condition for 2 damage a turn is arguably the hardest and in fact impossible to maintain for more than eight turns. Again, this gives Scoilatal unique flavor.
If moving melee locked units with abilities was less devastating to the player whose unit was being moved, units that move enemy units could become more prevalent. False Ciri is the perfect example. Back when imerlith or Sigvald was reach 2, they could be moved to the ranged row by the 5 for 7 False Cyri. Because she had to be on the melee row to do that, however, the opponent still had a five point body they could whittle down to zero over the course of three to five turns.
The completely unneeded nerf to devil's puffball is the final nail in the coffin of actually thinking about where you place your units in relation to each other.
Then, last patch turned Francesca into Dana. I played a lot of Dana back in the day and I can't imagine why anyone would play her now as opposed to Francesca. I played a lot of call of the forest with her back when it required you to swap two units of the same race. That was an interesting and dynamic card.
I could swap a locked treant for a great oak and play the treant boar again later.
I could swap one of the dol blanthanna elves or inthelene, all of which has a large portion of their value in their deploy ability, for another elf, and then use that deploy ability again later.
I could use fauve, tutor out call of the forest, shuffle her back into the deck and play any dryad boosted by two. This was great for getting a second posion right when I needed it or getting an early round harmony card that was durable enough to stick on the board. Then, in a later round, I could play fauve again and tutor out the waters of brokolon. I'd say the new call of the forest is probably OBJECTIVELY better in terms of value. But it is so much less interesting. It allows Frencasca to be Dana, with the flexibility mid match to decide she actually Doesn't want to be Dana this game. It's also of no benefit to me when a card is better because it's better for EVERYONE. It gives me no advantage and just makes the game less interesting.
Francesca herself lost a lot of her uniqueness when she lost the ability to use neutrals specials. The double Ragnorak combo wasn't that powerful. If the opponent played all their units on a single row, it was just two value per turn. Unlike most damage engines, it had no initial value in terms of a body. Also, unlike most damage engines it had very little removal potential because it did very little damage per turn and prioritized the HIGHEST enemy unit on that row. Proper utilization of a double ragnorok deck required use of lacerates and good row switching. Really skilled Francesca players would make power plays using four cost Samum cards to remove a unit and isolate its neighbors on the other row to be quickly picked away. Doing so still require some amount of poor postioning from their opponent. This was fun, dynamic, and skill based. Good Regis plays were also possible here and I always found losing to a well played Regis to be one of the most gratifying ways to lose as it required really top notch play from the oponent. Personally, I couldn't pilot a double ragnarok deck if my life depended on it and I admired when my opponents played it well against me.
Now Arachnas Queen is losing a lot of her uniqueness. If she got too prevalent people could run Gimpy, the new, Lambert, or both. With the prevalence of swarm Francesca, many probably should anyway. Also, why can’t Lambert keep his very rarely used resilience killing ability as a row locked deploy ability?
I like units with one situational deploy that will see play frequently enough but another HIGHLY situational one that rarely sees use. Look at, iris, false cirri, Ida, and Leo Bonhart. in terms of power. The first three have the occasionally useful artifact removal (less so since the summoning portal nerf) with a more frequently useful utility ability (with the exception of Isis, whose other ability is even more fringe. Then you have leo. Tall removal ins very frequently useful. Witcher removal? In the event you even see another witcher, it's often a two to four body unit with a great deploy ability. Not a great target for removal. Point is, why not have Labert: Swordmaster have his old AND new ability.
Anwyays, it's late and I've probably made some spelling errors and points that don't really help my argument. I'll try to edit this later. I've also referred to leader powers by their old leader names but I'll probably leave that in. I haven't learned the ability names yet and wasn't really a fan of that change either.
I really liked Arachnas queen. It didn't bother me that certain cards were only viable with certain leader powers. It made leaders feel very unique and kept the game fresh when switching between them. Playing my Arachnas queen and Unseen elder decks back to back was basically like switching factions. All the “destroy” cards that were over powered with old Arachnas queen are still going to be overpowered with Gemorcha with the provision buffs. The griffin ghoul combo is now 15 points for 11 provisions and can be done twice per match.
I don’t like this move towards homogenization of leaders and mechanics.
First Vorhis lost the reveal mechanic. It was a unique mechanic that rewarded players for knowing cards in other factions. It rewarded players for revealing their OWN cards for the chance to receive a boost and possible thin their deck. It had the old recruits that compared the power of the units on the top of each player's deck which countered decks with lots of high provision low power tutors,units with good deploy abilities but small bodies, and four provision mulligan fodder. It was countered by tall decks. Regardless of whose unit was larger, both players had the opportunity to LEARN something about the composition of the other player's deck and victory often went to the person who utilized that information better. Hyperthin has till found a way to utilize the remaining reveal cards to boost themselves and allies by Tybor's 13 point body.
What was the big issue with:
the old Fringilla: completely bricked if your opponent wasn't playing a special card but had the opportunity for very high value. Good risk reward and you had the know the special cards by appearance. High skill.
Dalaran soldier: Great for thinning and extra value in but was a compete brick if he ended up in your hand. Again, good risk vs reward.
Sweers was basically Geralt of Rivia for one less provision IF you had been playing reveals all match. Along with Leo Bonhart, Nilfengard had more high power removal than other factions which jived with their vibe of assassins and highly trained operatives. Besides, having a lot of tall target removal only punished decks that played a lot of tall units. Sweers was the only one that could still gain value on an enemy unit less than 8 power. The others bricked with 3 power for 10 provisions. Now, he's just the most boring and least versatile seize unit in a faction that has a better seize as:
one of its leader abilities,
a neutral TACTIC that Nilfengard is uniquely qualified to tutor out, and gain tactic based synergy from
Vattier (now with purify to make used of a seized engine)
Let's not forget the old manogel and arbalest which were great counters to first turn nekkers and, wait for it, Arachnas drones. Obviously the arbelist body would have been buffed with the post syndicate patch so don't bring up that it 4 or 5 value for 5 provision.
Then, Northern Realms was reworked so that charges also counted for one value (until the recent addition of Sheni made that all for naught) and trebuchet was no more. I'll admit I like playing trebuchets in my Daemold deck but there was also nothing more satisfying than playing AGAINST a daemold deck with trebuchets and positioning your units perfectly. That scepter of storms I included in my Ana deck for the added value of the assimilate proc? Play it in the middle of two groups of two units. Same thing with the bloody flail in the mirror match. Now I can make it all the way to turn 7 without ever having to put three units adjacent to each other. It made artifacts so much more interesting to play when their POSITION itself could make or break a game. Position itself rarely matter any more at all. When you play against Nilfengard, you just blindly choose whether to try to counter assassinate or treason, each requiring opposite strategies. Maybe account for the odd rot thrower too. NR and Beserk Skellige benefits from how your units are positioned with regards to YOUR other units but not the enemies.
And as if positioning already didn't matter enough, they then got rid of reach. If reach 1 units never got played, fine get rid of reach 1. But why get rid of Reach 2? Reach 2 is fundamentally different from melee locked because if a card that is melee locked is moved to the ranged row, it can't be used. If a card that is reach 2 is moved to the ranged row, it can still attack the melee row. All of these melee locked two damage engines like Imerlith, Sigvald would still force the opponent to play their units in the ranged row, making them susceptible to lacerate, Geralt: igni, or regis.
Pavol could still be ranged locked because he has arguably one of the easiest conditions to gain 2 value per turn of all of the two damage a turn engines. Syska could remain playable anywhere because her condition for 2 damage a turn is arguably the hardest and in fact impossible to maintain for more than eight turns. Again, this gives Scoilatal unique flavor.
If moving melee locked units with abilities was less devastating to the player whose unit was being moved, units that move enemy units could become more prevalent. False Ciri is the perfect example. Back when imerlith or Sigvald was reach 2, they could be moved to the ranged row by the 5 for 7 False Cyri. Because she had to be on the melee row to do that, however, the opponent still had a five point body they could whittle down to zero over the course of three to five turns.
The completely unneeded nerf to devil's puffball is the final nail in the coffin of actually thinking about where you place your units in relation to each other.
Then, last patch turned Francesca into Dana. I played a lot of Dana back in the day and I can't imagine why anyone would play her now as opposed to Francesca. I played a lot of call of the forest with her back when it required you to swap two units of the same race. That was an interesting and dynamic card.
I could swap a locked treant for a great oak and play the treant boar again later.
I could swap one of the dol blanthanna elves or inthelene, all of which has a large portion of their value in their deploy ability, for another elf, and then use that deploy ability again later.
I could use fauve, tutor out call of the forest, shuffle her back into the deck and play any dryad boosted by two. This was great for getting a second posion right when I needed it or getting an early round harmony card that was durable enough to stick on the board. Then, in a later round, I could play fauve again and tutor out the waters of brokolon. I'd say the new call of the forest is probably OBJECTIVELY better in terms of value. But it is so much less interesting. It allows Frencasca to be Dana, with the flexibility mid match to decide she actually Doesn't want to be Dana this game. It's also of no benefit to me when a card is better because it's better for EVERYONE. It gives me no advantage and just makes the game less interesting.
Francesca herself lost a lot of her uniqueness when she lost the ability to use neutrals specials. The double Ragnorak combo wasn't that powerful. If the opponent played all their units on a single row, it was just two value per turn. Unlike most damage engines, it had no initial value in terms of a body. Also, unlike most damage engines it had very little removal potential because it did very little damage per turn and prioritized the HIGHEST enemy unit on that row. Proper utilization of a double ragnorok deck required use of lacerates and good row switching. Really skilled Francesca players would make power plays using four cost Samum cards to remove a unit and isolate its neighbors on the other row to be quickly picked away. Doing so still require some amount of poor postioning from their opponent. This was fun, dynamic, and skill based. Good Regis plays were also possible here and I always found losing to a well played Regis to be one of the most gratifying ways to lose as it required really top notch play from the oponent. Personally, I couldn't pilot a double ragnarok deck if my life depended on it and I admired when my opponents played it well against me.
Now Arachnas Queen is losing a lot of her uniqueness. If she got too prevalent people could run Gimpy, the new, Lambert, or both. With the prevalence of swarm Francesca, many probably should anyway. Also, why can’t Lambert keep his very rarely used resilience killing ability as a row locked deploy ability?
I like units with one situational deploy that will see play frequently enough but another HIGHLY situational one that rarely sees use. Look at, iris, false cirri, Ida, and Leo Bonhart. in terms of power. The first three have the occasionally useful artifact removal (less so since the summoning portal nerf) with a more frequently useful utility ability (with the exception of Isis, whose other ability is even more fringe. Then you have leo. Tall removal ins very frequently useful. Witcher removal? In the event you even see another witcher, it's often a two to four body unit with a great deploy ability. Not a great target for removal. Point is, why not have Labert: Swordmaster have his old AND new ability.
Anwyays, it's late and I've probably made some spelling errors and points that don't really help my argument. I'll try to edit this later. I've also referred to leader powers by their old leader names but I'll probably leave that in. I haven't learned the ability names yet and wasn't really a fan of that change either.
A lot of leaders (now abilities) don't see a play in the game. If you think about it, you see maybe five way too often and others very rare or none at all.
Within each faction unfortunately there is also a dominant trend. Say if it's ST, it's dryad swarm, rarely dwarves and I have not seen an elf deck in ages. Another example of an extinct group is witchers. Traps/artifacts are very interesting but it's not possible to create a competitive deck with those... and so on.
CDPR will keep releasing new cards and promoting it hard because that's how the game can easily gain money. However, I wish that there is focus on adjusting the existing cards to make them playable and the game overall more interesting.
Within each faction unfortunately there is also a dominant trend. Say if it's ST, it's dryad swarm, rarely dwarves and I have not seen an elf deck in ages. Another example of an extinct group is witchers. Traps/artifacts are very interesting but it's not possible to create a competitive deck with those... and so on.
CDPR will keep releasing new cards and promoting it hard because that's how the game can easily gain money. However, I wish that there is focus on adjusting the existing cards to make them playable and the game overall more interesting.
One small correction, while there usually is a dominant archetype and while, in the last season, it were the Dryads, Dwarfs have made their comeback.
You think people need to netdeck dwarfs? Funny.
Yeah that's usually what it's called when people run the exact same list card for card but you're free to call it whatever you want.
Dwarves is a no brainer. Of course people are going to run most of the same list. You don't need to net deck to do that.