At least in my experience, this is not true. I can’t speak for Syndicate as I've not played it, but SK, NR, and MO can play around defender through untargeted abilities and multiple engines that do not require interaction to trigger; NG does not have these abilities. NG does have exceptional removal ability, but most of its removal (including Vincent) requires two cards for each removal. Except for poison, the strong removal cards (Vincent, Vattier, Yennifer’s Invocation, Vilgefortz) are expensive.
Part of the strategic fun of Gwent is anticipating what your opponent might hold, and finding ways to work around it. If you predict Vincent in your opponent’s deck, you can’t directly counter it, but you can often trick it or force it to be used against a lesser target. And you can definitely avoid giving it extra targets. While Vincent can be annoying (so can Alzur’s Thunder when it destroys an important unit), I rarely find it dominating.
I don’t have experience to say that minor nerfs — such as raising provision to 12 or reducing power to 4 — would be inappropriate, but I don’t believe Vincent needs major change, and would be disappointed to see it.
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I fully agree with this; my argument is not that NG can’t handle cards like defenders, but that it seems far more dependent upon big destruction (such as Vincent) than the other factions I have played.
Well, in my experience, I can't really understand what you're referring to here. Assimilate and spies laughs at defenders. Mill doesn't care. Poison (double) ball takes the defender out in 2 moves. Enslave/Helge destroys it with tactic cards. IF Soldiers has the same untargeted abilities you mentioned in other factions. What NG strategies Vincent is so necessary to save?
Yen Invo is another card that can not only immediately remove your defender, but use it against you a turn later, and it's most definitely NOT expensive for what it does.
I'm willing to bet a lot more "strategies" are ruined by instant defender removal (including NG's Damien/Skellen, etc) than by defender's presence.
The fact that Vincent doesn't auto-win you games and that you can play around it doesn't mean the card isn't too good at what it does. That neither it, nor Yen Invo require "two cards," is basically the whole point of this discussion (veil removal). It should require two cards, meaning only unit with "negative" status should be removable by it.