When the White Frost Comes.. (When ST at last gets decent..)

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rrc

Forum veteran
I want to keep this thread and this post purely for ST and nothing about whining about other factions. As per CDPR's promise, every faction will get reworked and buffed (hopefully to the Gold standard NR's Gold has set). So, when it happens, there are the kind of changes I want to see, which will make ST as strong and as formidable as SK, SY, and NR (and MO which will probably will become this month end).

I don't want to give a huge list. Just a few cards.

ST Movement: Even pre-HC movement was an interesting you-can-win-one-round-and-lose-game kind of an archetype. But now there are a few cards which supports Movement archetype, but need some more love to make it strong. The recent Malena change was good, but not good enough.

Matron: (5 Provisions, 4 Power) Every allied turn, on turn end, move to the right most and boost the end on its left by 1. If Matron is on the right most, move to the other row and boost the unit on its left. (Basically, an engine which can give value even after passing, like plenty of other engines out there). This will strongly synergize with Sentinels. With this change, Movement can be viable.
Sentinels: (5 Provisions, 5 Power) Whenever an ally moves, boost it by 1. Bonded: In addition, whenever an enemy moves, damage it by 1. Sentinels is a card which is on its own useless unless there is another card which can get value out of it. Just like Tridam Infantry, who on his own is useless, but is now formidable due to the support he gets from other cards.
Malena: (6 Provisions, 5 Power) <Same ability as now).
With these changes, movement archetype can be viable and strong competitively, at least in my mind I can see it strong enough.

ST Handbuff: When all the bronzes were buffed, handbuff archetype didn't get any love. It needs a little of bit of love to get cards which need to be buffed on deploy usable.

Smuggler: (6 Provisions, 4 Power) <Same ability as above>. I know handbuff and carry over is strong, but the fact is, not all ticks is going to be a carry over. If you have to play the card that gets buffed, this bronze engine needs three turns to break even. This needs a slight buff in provisions to be as good as the plenty of other engines out there.
Half-Elf Hunter: (5 Provisions, 3 Power) Melee: Boost an Elf in hand by 2. Ranged: Boost two random units in hand by 1. Controlling more artifact is more and more useless and weak and he would probably have < 1% usage. This will make him playable and enable him with Wardancer and Marauder.
Marauder: (6 Provisions, 4 Power): Same ability
Ithlline: (11 Provisions, 5 Power): Melee: Boost a ST unit in hand by 4. Ranged: Boost 5 random units in hand by 1.
Sirissa: (8 Provisions, 4 Power): Harmony. Deploy: Damage an enemy by 2. Deathblow: Gain Zeal. Order: Boost a unit in your hand by 2. After the nerf to her and the boost to all bronzes, she is practically useless. Sweers was buffed because he can't get a target reliably after the bronze buff. She she should also get a buff.

Elf Swarm: After Isengrim's buff, it seemed like it would be awesome, but elf swarm still struggles. Elf Swarm has one power round and nothing else for another round win.

Ida: (7 Provisions, 5 Power). Melee: Destroy an enemy artifact. Ranged: Boost an ally by 2. SirPumpkn came up with an all-elf deck and in that Ida didn't make the cut. Simply because, destroying artifact can be done for free (without provision deficiency) and she needs 4 provision deficiency, which is simply unacceptable. Ida needs to be buffed.
Neophyte: (6 Provisions, 3 Power). Spawn and summon a base copy to the other row. The most important key card to elf swarm archetype is Neophyte as he can give more elves on board. But he is now a bad 4 for 4 which is unacceptable in the current meta and the direction. Also, he is a juicy feeder for all deal-2-damage-deathblow cards.
Ele'yas: (5 Power, 7 Provisions). Deploy: Boost all boosted enemies by 1, and damage all damaged enemies by 1. Eleyas is one Elf who will never make into any good deck and elves need all support possible.

Misc.
Waylay: (4 Provisions). <same ability>. An absolutely unplayable card at 6 provisions. Being at 5 provisions will help Dana to have a cheap tactic card as a filler.
Isengrim Counsil: (6 Provisions) <Same ability>. All tutors were buffed by provisions but not him. Since there is an RNG involved, this card is literally unplayable. At 6 provisions, it may see play.
Xavier: (7 Provisions, 5 Power). Whenever Xavier gets boosted, give a random ally vitality for 2 turns.
Hattori and Yerpen needs a completely new ability.

Leaders:
Brouver should have at least 15 provisions. He is a good leader crippled by the provisions. When other leaders who are much much stronger than him have more provisions, it doesn't make any sense that he has less than 15.
Fila should have 17 provisions. Fila is a good leader on red coin. Most of the times, he gets 7 units to be boosted. His ability by default discourages people to use specials and artifacts. He has so many problems and he is not as strong as many other leaders who have 16+ provisions. At 17 provisions, he would be strong and see more play.
Dana should have 17 provisions. Simply because Calanthe who is a better version of Dana has 16 provisions. It makes no sense to me for Dana having less provisions than Calanthe. She should have more than Calanthe.

There are some of the things I want to see when ST gets reworked.
 

Breli

Forum regular
I like the suggestions. However, I am not a fan of having random handbuffs. I rather have fewer buffs but the ability to choose which units get them. Some more changes I like to see:

- Iorveths Gambit: Either get rid of the condition or the randomness. It desn't make any sense to play traps randomly.
- Aelirenn: Summon with 4 elfs OR 6 Scioatel units on board
- Saskia: Needs zeal at least.
- Pavko: Needs zeal at least. Although a secondary deploy option could be interesting. Melee: like now with zeal. Ranged: Gain harmony and cooldown 2.
- Traps: all of them need a secondary ability. Additionally, I would like to be able to manipulate the timer of some of the traps so that they cannot be played around so easily. E.g. increase the timer on crushing by one.
- Isengrims council: Sees no play at all AFAIK. Change category to Nature card and restrict to golds. May require an increase of P.
- Sage: Two abilities: Ranged: Same as now. Melee: Boost by two whenever your opponent plays a special. Would be great against SY ;)
- Forest whisperer: reduce to 3 strength and remove the ranged restriction.
- Dryad ranger: Combining damage and poison doesn't make sense. Melee: Damage by 3, Ranged: Give poison and gain harmony.
- Hawker Support: completely new ability. I'd like to be able to give harmony to other units for instance.
- Pyrotechnican: completely new ability
- Dol Blathanna Bomber: completely new ability
- Dwarven Agitator: This card is only good in round 1 if you won coinflip and have Skaggs in hand. Otherwise using it means to autolose the round. Most people who complained about skaggs have no idea how terrible Agitators are to play right now. A secondary ability would be good: Melee: Boost two SC units in your hand by 1, or boost three units on the board by 1. Something like that.

Generelly I hope that movement and harmony get some love.
 
Movement
I believe movement is kinda problematic. The more rowlocked cards we get, the stronger movement effects become. In many cases they equal locks and can't be removed by purify.
Therefore, I believe movement should get some rather big changes and should mainly work only on your own cards. But to give movement something to do, there should be more cards that have an order on the ranged row and a deploy on the melee row, such that moving your own cards to get maximum effect from them should be what movement is all about.

Elf Swarm
I really dislike the current design behind elf swarm. In contrast to most other swarm archetypes there are no special mechanics or tasks included and all the player does is trying to play as many elves as possible. Therefore, my suggestion would be a new tag Guerilla . The ST are known to attack their enemies even at the cost of their own health. A unit with Guerilla, will therefore deal one damage to any unit on the opposite row that gets damaged during your turn, but will damage self by 1 too each time.
The idea behind it is, that ST can increase the value of their 1 ping cards with Guerilla, but they have to keep all the Guerillas alife by healing or buffing them.

The next keyword that would go hand in hand with Guerilla would be Revenge. Revenge would be the opposite of Blodthirst and would give extra effects by the number of wounded allies. So instead of healing your Guerillas, the player could just revenge their suffering.


Traps
Traps are pretty binary and they aren't fitting the way artifacts go (guaranteed effect + conditional effect). To fit that direction, all traps should get a deathwish effect and destroy self on use, but at the other hand their effect on the enemy would be a lot smaller.

Dwarves
I'm really not happy with the state of dwarves, as their only synergy is that they are dwarves and hardly anything more. I don't really have an idea, but I would like to see some more resilence as well as some kind of tankiness.
A small idea might be the keyword Sturdy, which would convert any normal damage that a unit takes into a bleed and any boost into vitality. Just imagine a unit with Sturdy and Guerilla. Also Revenge would work great with Sturdy too, as damaged dwarves would stay alife a lot longer.
 

rrc

Forum veteran
I like the suggestions. However, I am not a fan of having random handbuffs. I rather have fewer buffs but the ability to choose which units get them. Some more changes I like to see:

- Iorveths Gambit: Either get rid of the condition or the randomness. It desn't make any sense to play traps randomly.
- Aelirenn: Summon with 4 elfs OR 6 Scioatel units on board
- Saskia: Needs zeal at least.
- Pavko: Needs zeal at least. Although a secondary deploy option could be interesting. Melee: like now with zeal. Ranged: Gain harmony and cooldown 2.
- Traps: all of them need a secondary ability. Additionally, I would like to be able to manipulate the timer of some of the traps so that they cannot be played around so easily. E.g. increase the timer on crushing by one.
- Isengrims council: Sees no play at all AFAIK. Change category to Nature card and restrict to golds. May require an increase of P.
- Sage: Two abilities: Ranged: Same as now. Melee: Boost by two whenever your opponent plays a special. Would be great against SY ;)
- Forest whisperer: reduce to 3 strength and remove the ranged restriction.
- Dryad ranger: Combining damage and poison doesn't make sense. Melee: Damage by 3, Ranged: Give poison and gain harmony.
- Hawker Support: completely new ability. I'd like to be able to give harmony to other units for instance.
- Pyrotechnican: completely new ability
- Dol Blathanna Bomber: completely new ability
- Dwarven Agitator: This card is only good in round 1 if you won coinflip and have Skaggs in hand. Otherwise using it means to autolose the round. Most people who complained about skaggs have no idea how terrible Agitators are to play right now. A secondary ability would be good: Melee: Boost two SC units in your hand by 1, or boost three units on the board by 1. Something like that.

Generelly I hope that movement and harmony get some love.
The couple of units mentioned random handbuffs had alternate ability of targeted handbuffs too. Noephyte had random handbuff pre-HC. You can plan to use the random to your wish.
Aelirenn, I had created more post about Aelirenn than most other members posts about anything. But now, I believe Aelirenn is kind of OK since it is kind of possible to pull her out. If Neophyte gets changed so that he can stick with 2 bodies, she would be awesome.
ForestWhisperer: I kind of gave up on this. It is an insult to ST in general. Just see Seige Support. He has deploy and then order, two different abilities without needing any shenanigans. But Whisperer is kind of useless due to this, they buffed her and still kept her useless, meaning they don't want people to play this card.
Agitators: I kind of agree. Unless you have Skaggs, he is kind of pathetic in this current state/meta.

Movement
I believe movement is kinda problematic. The more rowlocked cards we get, the stronger movement effects become. In many cases they equal locks and can't be removed by purify.
Therefore, I believe movement should get some rather big changes and should mainly work only on your own cards. But to give movement something to do, there should be more cards that have an order on the ranged row and a deploy on the melee row, such that moving your own cards to get maximum effect from them should be what movement is all about.

Elf Swarm
I really dislike the current design behind elf swarm. In contrast to most other swarm archetypes there are no special mechanics or tasks included and all the player does is trying to play as many elves as possible. Therefore, my suggestion would be a new tag Guerilla . The ST are known to attack their enemies even at the cost of their own health. A unit with Guerilla, will therefore deal one damage to any unit on the opposite row that gets damaged during your turn, but will damage self by 1 too each time.
The idea behind it is, that ST can increase the value of their 1 ping cards with Guerilla, but they have to keep all the Guerillas alife by healing or buffing them.

The next keyword that would go hand in hand with Guerilla would be Revenge. Revenge would be the opposite of Blodthirst and would give extra effects by the number of wounded allies. So instead of healing your Guerillas, the player could just revenge their suffering.


Traps
Traps are pretty binary and they aren't fitting the way artifacts go (guaranteed effect + conditional effect). To fit that direction, all traps should get a deathwish effect and destroy self on use, but at the other hand their effect on the enemy would be a lot smaller.

Dwarves
I'm really not happy with the state of dwarves, as their only synergy is that they are dwarves and hardly anything more. I don't really have an idea, but I would like to see some more resilence as well as some kind of tankiness.
A small idea might be the keyword Sturdy, which would convert any normal damage that a unit takes into a bleed and any boost into vitality. Just imagine a unit with Sturdy and Guerilla. Also Revenge would work great with Sturdy too, as damaged dwarves would stay alife a lot longer.
Almost all of my movement suggetions were to support allies. Malena has never survived more than one round in all my attempt; true story. New mechanics/keyword for ST seems too much to ask for. If the existing cards are made usable, I would be happy.
 
How about...
Matron: (5 Provisions, 3 Power) Every allied turn, on turn start, move to the left most and boost the unit on its right by 1. Every allied turn, on turn end, move to the right most and boost the unit on its left by 1.
 
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I like a lot of those suggestions, especially the following:
Hawker Smugglers - down to 6 provisions (7 is crazy for these as they almost always get removed/locked/seized etc at only 4 power. It requires 3 turns to break even and not necessarily on the units you want to buff.)
Saskia - given Zeal
Dana - increased to 16 provisions on par with Calanthe (17 might be too much, but any increase would be nice)

Would also like to see:
Serpent Trap - flip over order - Zeal, give one enemy unit Poison.

Movement is kind of weird since we got reduced to two rows - it never really felt the same as when we had three rows. :/ Nevermind row limits meaning swarm decks completely counter offensive movement by filling the entire board.
Movement would be nice if we could have some cards that put cards exactly where we wanted - not just to the end of a row, but to choose between which cards to line up some things.
 

4RM3D

Ex-moderator
When ST at last gets decent

st-wins.png
Eh, it's a start, I guess. :ok:
 
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