What is the craziest thing you have ever done in deck-building to counter a single card?

[rrc]

[Mandarake for Imlerith:Sabbath is not an acceptable answer. Mandarake is the most versatile card which incidentally is extremely useful for I:S and various other situations. Your answer should be either inclusion or exclusion of a card to counter a particular unit.]

For me, it would be to remove Ida from my Silver pool. What I added doesn't matter. My Silver pool has only two non-agent units which are Roach and Arelline. The reason I did? It should be obvious now, but it is to counter Hym. I loved and needed Ida, but Hym just creating my Ida to remove weather or kill my Dragoon was too much. So, I sacrificed a versatile Silver card just to counter Hym.

[And it had worked wonderfully. Many many times. It is such a satisfying thing to see a Hym playing Arelline, totally 9 points worth Gold, that I am OK to lose many other games because I didn't have Ida.]

 

[dragoonzen]

I don't think 1 card can win a whole match. But I got to Grand Master by building a deck to counter greatsword and the ships they play. The deck I build loses to other archetype but I didn't care as long as I can beat greatsword consistently.

 

[Khreygond]

Swapped out Muzzle for Seltkirk, and Dethmold for Margarita in my Henselt deck to counter Sabbath That was back when Sabbath was just all the rage and you'd see all in sabbath decks all the time.

As for Hym, imo it is the most broken gold in the game. So yeah, I get that choice.

 

[Pruny]

Because i hate nekers i used Whoreson in my swordmasters deck.

 

[Khreygond]

Because i hate nekers i used Whoreson in my swordmasters deck.

I remember, I faced you many times with my baseline consume Luckily it didn't rely on consuming the nekkers to tutor them xD

I hate the spam version as well

 

[kombucho]

you think hym is bad ?

what about dijkstra ? the value you can get from that card is insane !

 

[Pruny]

Dude hym Create is abomination, had to drop germain from my cursed deck.

 

[Khreygond]

you think hym is bad ?

what about dijkstra ? the value you can get from that card is insane !

Yes but a card is not all about Value. Every card has a significant aspect called consistency. Dijkstra's randomness can make or break you in many situations. I've had an opponent pull about 40 points with Dijkstra while I was on blue coin and forcing me to allow him to win on even or go 2 cards down. But that, as much as I hated it when it happened, was a fringe case.

Hym is broken on the other hand, not because it always gives you insane amounts of value, but because of how consistent its pulls are. It's hellishly flexible, capable of huge point swings (Hym - Skjall - Cursed unit, along with Roach for example), tutoring spies, AND disrupting the opponent's strategy by reliably creating silvers from your opponent's deck, (which often also nail you respectable value i.e. Ozzrel eating the spy your opponent was planning to eat. That's 21 points plus how many points you denied your opponent, which would be the difference between what your opponent's ozzrel was originally planning to eat - the spy, 13 points. And what they did eventually eat.).

 

[FG15-ISH7EG]

Never wanted to include Mandrake, because it feels to mainstream. So when I looked for a similar card, I choose Vandergrifts Sword.
And while it feels bad to have a silver card that you don't want to draw at all against most decks, it does wonders against Nekkers, Sabbath and in particular Greatswords.

 

[BILBO.BAGGINS]

For me, it would be to remove Ida from my Silver pool. What I added doesn't matter. My Silver pool has only two non-agent units which are Roach and Arelline. The reason I did? It should be obvious now, but it is to counter Hym. I loved and needed Ida, but Hym just creating my Ida to remove weather or kill my Dragoon was too much. So, I sacrificed a versatile Silver card just to counter Hym.

[And it had worked wonderfully. Many many times. It is such a satisfying thing to see a Hym playing Arelline, totally 9 points worth Gold, that I am OK to lose many other games because I didn't have Ida.]

This. Couldn't have said it better myself.

Also, i on and off use SC, which is usually rather useless ( though, sometimes, it results in hilarious matches, e.g. 4 Fake Ciries on the board ). My sole purpose is to copy Assire and put crap in the opponents deck ( or put something back in my deck, depending on the situation ). I would say it's as satisfying as the Hym+Aelirenn combo.

 

[partci]

Removing First Light tech from my Eredin/any Weather heavy deck cause Triss: TK.

Removing Silver Mages from the same decks because of the aforementioned Hym (and to a WAY lesser extent Caretaker).

 

[GregXXXX]

Using Vandergrifts blade + Kiyan on an NR deck instead of Natalis and Marching order to counter those ridiculous Sabbaths.

 

[thetruerenter]

If you call Hym a broken card you should consider calling all weather effects as broken cards. If you do not desire to adept yourself into someone's weatherdeck by putting anti-weather cards in deck, which can usually only stop weather one time after all, Hym can be a good counter in that. Better then the silver mages which do drop down speed in your deck.

Now the craziest thing to stop one card? I'm not that crazy but at this moment all decks I run have Mandroeme against Letho ( a really broken card ), reset him and boost him with 3.

 

[Khreygond]

If you call Hym a broken card you should consider calling all weather effects as broken cards. If you do not desire to adept yourself into someone's weatherdeck by putting anti-weather cards in deck, which can usually only stop weather one time after all, Hym can be a good counter in that. Better then the silver mages which do drop down speed in your deck.

Now the craziest thing to stop one card? I'm not that crazy but at this moment all decks I run have Mandroeme against Letho ( a really broken card ), reset him and boost him with 3.

Right so Letho is broken, when he's only used in a bad combo (try it yourself if you don't believe me. No leader using that combo has a winrate more than 47% or so in the higher tier MMR. source ). On the contrary, Hym which can:

1) Tutor CA Spies
2) Tutor Cursed units
3) Make CA spies worth 5 or even 1 point
4) Pull any silver from your opponent's deck (Ida, Assire, Ozzrel, Sweers, Joachim De Wett, Prince Stennis, Henry Var Attre) with INSANE consistency (Hym's second option was used against me thrice or four times when I was playing my Moonlight Deck. That deck's silvers are all units, and 3 of them are the Crones. The other 1 is the spy, which means out of 5 options, only 2 were actually ok, only one of which was good for the bears deck the opponent was playing. Ruehin. Guess what they pulled all 3 - 4 times)
5) Very often generate a truckload of points with said silver (like in the case of the aforementioned Stennis and De Wett)
6) Disrupt your opponent's strategy better than anything in a gazillion of cases
7) Provide deck thinning
8) Has no cost to invest in at all

Is FINE.

The unavoidable reality is that while Letho can be annoying, it has a very heavy cost and the combo is seriously underwhelming in the majority of cases. The cost being, you HAVE to take Regis. You have to commit 2 golds out of 4 to a bad combo. I am saying that and I just lost to that combo at rank 19 yesterday because my Ge'els had 3 options and chose to pull Mandrake before I played Whispess: Tribute (I had card advantage, so I was planning to mandrake regis after my opponent's played him). That is the entire problem with all cards like Letho, Dijkstra, Villentretenmerth and every other gold or silver that can be insane. It can make or break you. The only exception? Hym. Hym only makes you. Never breaks you.

 

[rrc]

Dude hym Create is abomination, had to drop germain from my cursed deck.

So, many people have removed the card they love because of that stupid junk Hym. Glad to know that I am not alone.

This. Couldn't have said it better myself.

Also, i on and off use SC, which is usually rather useless ( though, sometimes, it results in hilarious matches, e.g. 4 Fake Ciries on the board ). My sole purpose is to copy Assire and put crap in the opponents deck ( or put something back in my deck, depending on the situation ). I would say it's as satisfying as the Hym+Aelirenn combo.

Summoning Circle for Assire! Very nice. Crazy enough!!

Removing First Light tech from my Eredin/any Weather heavy deck cause Triss: TK.

Removing Silver Mages from the same decks because of the aforementioned Hym (and to a WAY lesser extent Caretaker).

Very true! T:TK is insane and if you run a weather deck, it become absolutely mandatory to remove First Light to counter T:TK and remove your Silver mage to counter Hym.

Post automatically merged: Aug 28, 2018

you think hym is bad ?

what about dijkstra ? the value you can get from that card is insane !

I didn't want to start the argument as which Gold is strong. I wanted to know what crazy thing you did in your deck-building to counter a single opponent card.

Post automatically merged: Aug 28, 2018

Because i hate nekers i used Whoreson in my swordmasters deck.

Nice! A 12 point weak Silver which can counter some really strong cards like Iris, Nekker, Spectral Whale, Rot Tosser, or even Incinerating Trap.

Post automatically merged: Aug 28, 2018

Yes but a card is not all about Value. Every card has a significant aspect called consistency. Dijkstra's randomness can make or break you in many situations.

It happened today in Arena. On Red coin, when the opponent needed a point swing, he/she deployed Dijkstra and pulled out Cahir and Iris. Totally a -6 points point swing and a disastrous move.

Post automatically merged: Aug 28, 2018

That is the entire problem with all cards like Letho, Dijkstra, Villentretenmerth and every other gold or silver that can be insane. It can make or break you. The only exception? Hym. Hym only makes you. Never breaks you.

I have broken the Hym by making a huge sacrifice from my deck building. I deploy White Frost or Dragoon and see the opponent immediately play Hym and waits for some 5-10 seconds to digest the fact that the max they can get is Arelline. Such a satisfying moment. Invariably, every single time I taunt "Thank You" even if I am anyhow going to lose the game. I lose with a satisfaction that I have countered the card I hate most and took revenge.

 

[thetruerenter]

Letho is unblockable if you're cards down. Letho doesn't require regis. Theres tons other ways to destroy him after he collects. Hym in fact is a keycard in my Cursed Skellige deck. Silver mages don't fit in it since the slots are needed for cards that are actually usefull for the combo, it also can draw out Houndsnout or even better, make a copy of it from the opponents deck. You think copying silver cards that break combos to win, instead of creating combos themself to gain points to win, is a broken card? It's just eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth. It's not Hym who started to play those cards in the first place.

 

[Khreygond]

Letho is unblockable if you're cards down. Letho doesn't require regis. Theres tons other ways to destroy him after he collects. Hym in fact is a keycard in my Cursed Skellige deck. Silver mages don't fit in it since the slots are needed for cards that are actually usefull for the combo, it also can draw out Houndsnout or even better, make a copy of it from the opponents deck. You think copying silver cards that break combos to win, instead of creating combos themself to gain points to win, is a broken card? It's just eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth. It's not Hym who started to play those cards in the first place.

Yes but if you go on a short round 3, it's useless. You open with a 6 point unit, Opponent plays Letho. You play something else, Opponent plays Regis. That's 2 gold cards for 12 points. 6 points per gold card. It's really useless in a short round.

Besides if it was that "broken", it would be at least capable of winning more than half the matches, wouldn't it? Granted, there's no actual counterplay, but there ARE workarounds. You can push the round a lot if you suspect Letho - Regis. In general you SHOULD always push rounds 1 and 2 against Reveal decks as you can easily win even a card down, on a short round 3.

As for Letho being good on its own, It really isn't. Say Letho destroys and consumes an 11 STR bear and a 13 point Spy, that's him sitting on 25 points. You then kill him with Menno, or a Mandrake. That's 33 in the former case, and 25 in the latter case. Divide that by the 2 cards that you played (Letho first - Menno or Mandrake later) and you get 16.5 per card or 12.5 points per card in each of the 2 cases. I am sorry but that's not good. It's not a value for 2 golds. It's not even a good silver value.

It totally is a broken card. Why? Because you are not playing your opponent's faction. Your opponent is playing those silvers because they are playing that faction and because they committed the silver slots. They play Assire or De Wett because they play Nilfgaard and they have a whole Nilfgaardian deck. You on the other hand can just spawn them, giving you access to combos that your opponent paid for, at least in some ways. Your opponent added those silvers to their deck and committed a silver slot, and even then runs the risk that they might simply not draw them! You do not. Assuming you draw Hym, you can pull them more reliably than your opponent and they are in your opponent's deck! I've had opponents play Toad Prince or Ozzrel when I hadn't even drawn mine, despite that my deck is great thinning-wise (I end most games with 1 - 2 cards in my deck)

There is a reason some cards are not available to some factions. Hym just breaks that barrier and does so insanely consistently. Not even the Caretaker can do that.

 

[thetruerenter]

The only reason a reveal deck wins against mine swarmgaard deck is Letho. All other minutes ingame they are not even a equal match to my tactics. And I do need to put cards like Mandroeme in my deck to stop him, you don't need to put cards in your deck to stop Hym. So my opinion is that you are overreacting on Hym. For me it's a tool to get houndsnout and I don't use Fett with that, I only copy your silver cards if you try to damage my combos, in order to bring back balance in the game that was vanguished because of other cards. Such as maybe for example Sweers. I played with Letho to test it, it's boring as hell, I like my decks creative, fast and challenging. Hym is in my cursed deck the only protection/vengeance card against your annoying silver combobreakers, it restores balance. While I'm not playing with the opponents faction, I do know all cards very well of all factions, so maybe the opponent should think which cards they shall use before blaming Hym for getting back what they sent.

 

[4RM3D]

The only reason a reveal deck wins against mine swarmgaard deck is Letho. [...] And I do need to put cards like Mandroeme in my deck to stop him, you don't need to put cards in your deck to stop Hym. So my opinion is that you are overreacting on Hym.

First of all, if a certain card (combo) is destroying your deck, it doesn't necessarily mean it's too strong. Usually, it's just a rock vs scissors kind of thing. You just dislike Letho + Regis because you cannot counter it. And yes, it's difficult to do so, but not impossible.

More importantly, you (and ser2440, for that matter) are comparing apples with oranges. Hym is all all-round solid card with too much flexibility and too little downsides. The card is too consistent and too strong. However, it's potential doesn't reach that of the Letho combo and therein lies the important difference. Letho + Regis needs to be build up and it can fail because of numerous reasons, but if it doesn't, it usually wins you the game. Hym is the opposite, it rarely provides a power swing that big that single-handedly wins you the game, but it always provides amazing value to push you ahead of the opponent.

 

[Khreygond]

First of all, if a certain card (combo) is destroying your deck, it doesn't necessarily mean it's too strong. Usually, it's just a rock vs scissors kind of thing. You just dislike Letho + Regis because you cannot counter it. And yes, it's difficult to do so, but not impossible.

More importantly, you (and ser2440, for that matter) are comparing apples with oranges. Hym is all all-round solid card with too much flexibility and too little downsides. The card is too consistent and too strong. However, it's potential doesn't reach that of the Letho combo and therein lies the important difference. Letho + Regis needs to be build up and it can fail because of numerous reasons, but if it doesn't, it usually wins you the game. Hym is the opposite, it rarely provides a power swing that big that single-handedly wins you the game, but it always provides amazing value to push you ahead of the opponent.

More or less exactly what I've been saying. Hym is broken not because it's insane. See my first post. It never gets you the same value as a good Regis. Or even a good Dijkstra for that matter. But it also never gets you the value of a bad Dijkstra or Regis either. And that in my opinion is the problem with this card. It's like, Dijkstra and Letho - Regis can be from 6 points to like, in fringe cases, 60 - 70 (less for Dijkstra), but Hym is always 14 and upwards, with disruption options, thinning, sometimes good strong options, spy tutoring, like there's no single point in the game where you are screwed if you have Hym. If you draw Letho and don't have a way to kill him, or Regis, boy you are SCREWED. While Hym, early on, later on, as your last card, it will most of the time get you some value that is respectable regardless of what has happened or what your deck is. It depends a bit on the enemy deck, granted, but your opponent is gimping themselves against every other faction, if they remove good silvers to counter Hym.