| Strong views on mechanics, 1st entry: discussing Warp, with suggestions on options for reasonable buffs to it. Posted: 06 Aug 2021 01:50 AM PDT Hello Eternal players This is an article about how I would like to see Warp improved. It's a good mechanic overall, but underpowered. All Warp cards are great value if warped but pretty bad without it. So let's go right into the action and start the buff suggestion list. Thank you for your time. I'll start with the best Warp card from Set 2 and it was nerfed already. This is a change to make it more valuable, guess what card it is? Tough one... :) - Heart of the Vault - Liked the nerf to 7 cost as it was oppressive against aggro at some points. Not that good now, however. Suggested buff: 6 cost 6/2, keep the rest. Reason: A 6 cost 6/6 is just very strong with those added effects. Making it die to most every burn spell including opposing Hearts makes it balanced while making it a great tempo/value anti aggro play, nuking a small unit, drawing a card with reduction. However, the body being weaker, it can be attacked through more easily by Quickdraw aggressive units and the burn vulnerability helps.
New additional effect for Warp, called "On Warp": (effect). Description - If you warp a card, it has an additional effect. On Warp (from now on abbreviated as OW) effect for Heart of the Vault: HotV gets Overwhelm in addition to the regular effects. Instead of dealing 2 damage once, it can deal either 4 damage or deal 2 damage to one target and 2 damage to different one. Comment: The Overwhelm makes it a better attacker and the 4 damage can be hitting a small unit and, say, pop an Aegis or kill a Relic Weapon. Debating 3 damage instead of 4 but the deal 2 can be really low impact on Turn 6 outside of aggro decks and being able to potentially kill a site is good upside. You have to understand that the actual warping of Warp cards is pretty rare. And you have a huge cost of opportunity. Say you have 6 power and you have the option to warp like a Cinder Yeti. What if you then have another Warp card with cost 4+ or no Warp card? You paid 6 power for a 3/2 that drew a card and exhausted a unit. So you pay 3 power to draw a card, roughly, unless you can Warp another 3 or less cost card or play something for 3 cost or less from your hand. So yes, not the best example. Just saying, the opportunity cost for warping a card can be quite big. So you're empty handed and you warp a Yeti and then brick? Turn over. Hope you can follow this thought. It's high variance and I'm not too fond of that when creating a serious mechanic. Although, truth be told, if you can warp several cards at 6 power, the value is there. It's just not that likely. Alright on with the card change suggestions. Waystone Infuser - The problem with this card is that it's not very sticky. The 6 health is good, but it just dies to any removal. Suggested change: Make it T/F so it doesn't die to Annihilate/Send an Agent and other mono faction removal spells. It's good outside of that and really a core piece to any midrange Warp deck, which Warp decks tend to be, altough aggro approaches have merit. So further changes: 5 cost 0/4 with Entomb: put Waystone Infuser into your deck, 3 cards from the top. OW: change the Entomb text to "put WI into your deck 1 card from the top. This makes the card way more reuseble and makes void blocking more valueable, although effects to recur cards already make that a desirable effect. Silence is obviously a counter. The attack can go down as it's not really there for blocking. 4 health seems like a good spot, as burn becomes valid and it doesn't have to block a lot, it's for giving your power Warp and being able to replay it off the top later is incredible value. Discuss, if you want. All of this is, quite obviously, open to discussion, I'm just putting my views out there. Let's move on to a card that's important with Waystone Infuser in a midrange Warp deck. Talir's Sanctum - Great way to keep playing power off the top. Change suggestion: 2 cost, as it can be a little slow, also I'd love it to be draw 2, discard 1 at random or just discard 1 in general, although that's not really a cost. But that's just a thought. Cost reduction definitely desirable, as spending 3 power for this effect even while cantripping can be quite a tempo hit. Important card, however, even as it is. Ancient Clocktower - Could be a great value card. Change: 3 cost, Warp, +2/+2 for warped units, +4 life for warped other cards (including itself). OW: Scout, then put a card from your hand on top of your deck. Temporal Adept - Great enabler for warp chains. Change: 3 cost 2/3. OW: Scout, then put a card from your hand on top of your deck. Rika, Desert Navigator - Change: 3/4 Overwhelm. Could be a great enabler to get rid of bricks in the warp chain. The 1 attack never did it for me, as you have to hit the opponent. Could be a key card. Discussed making her like a 3/2 Overwhelm with Charge, but you won't be able to play the card if you have not a lot of power left, so I settled on 3/4 Overwhelm. Alluring Ember - Interesting card, not strong enough as is. Suggested change: 2 cost 2/2 with T/F influence requirements, Warp, obviously. Flying. Charge. Entomb: Deal 2 damage to your opponent. OW: Deal 2 damage OR deal 1/1 damage to two different targets. Take 1 damage face and Alluring Ember takes 1 damage. This is a much needed buff in my view and it makes the card stellar in an aggro deck. The damage numbers could be tuned but I always liked the card and it's very good in this version. 2 cost was required. Was debating 1 cost 2/1 and dealing 1 / 1 but stuck with this design. It's a very strong aggressive card, although without Warp it's a 2/2 flier with charge that pings face, so yes, good value overall. Open to discussion. Might consider leaving it TT/FF, but that's just not always possible on T2 with utility powers, the neutral ones or just single influence powers in general. So yeah, T/F, it is. Next. Shatterglass Mage - One of the payoffs for playing Warp, ran it in many decks just for the chance to Warp it for solid stats and obviously killing a relic and "drawing" a card, so at the cost of no hand card, to put it in a better way. This brings me to another general observation about Warp cards and how they play. In many decks, you gain tremendeous potential value from putting in 1-4 Warp cards because you give yourself a chance to have one on top where the "no card used from hand" is good, particularly in aggro. So I always run a few of the best Warp cards in my decks, T/F/P. Ok, back to SGM. The problem with it was always the low health, which is less of a problem now with Torch being slow, but Sear and Flash Fry can still hit it at fast speed, so end of your turn if they leave the 2 power open. It's not that exciting overall, so brace yourself, I worked on this... it's a strong buff. Suggested change: 5 cost 5/4 with Warp and Overwhelm. Needed that 1 point of health to be stronger. Summon: Kill a Relic (I'd rather have the text there say "destroy", but that's me) OR remove Regen from a unit. OW: Gain Regen. Choose one: destroy all Relics OR remove all Regen (including hers) OR do both -> Discard your hand. Obviously, this makes it bonkers good on Warp where you can really destroy all Relics, if need be. The discard your hand seems like a good cost for any strong effect but it's particularly good in Warp because if you're topdecking, you're just so much more likely to build a board. So yes, I would love this change. Debatable, as usual. Regen is very strong, so I'd love to have these options added. SGM only gets Regen on Warp, so that's balanced. It's 5 cost, do take that into account. Onwards. Avirax Familiar - Change: Could be a very good card, ramp is good. It's not bad but I'd make it a 2 cost 1/2. OW: +1/+1 and Charge. Rhinarc Huntpack - Another card that could be huge. Change: 6 cost. Always has Ambush. OW: Kill a unit with cost 3 or less. Would be very strong. Glimpse the Possibilites - Great enabler, not used very much. Change: lasts 2 turns. OW: you have the option to discard your hand for the effect to last 3 turns. Bad News - Change: 4 cost. OW: you may discard your hand, your units get Overwhelm and +2 attack. Short creative parenthesis - I am going to suggest new cards for old underused or underpowered mechanics. I will do this in subsequent mechanic discussion threads. So here's the card I designed for Warp. It's called... - Shatterglass Vaultbreaker - 8 cost T/F/J 4/6 Sentinel with Warp. Summon: Deal 6 damage to everything and deal 2 damage to your opponent's face, in addition to that. OW: Increase the damage by 2 with the option to discard your hand to give it Double Damage and the damage ignores Aegis and Regen. Obviously, it's a very high impact card. It can serve as a finisher, it can clear a stale boardstate, it hits face, but do realize: it also hits your face and Warp decks are struggling against aggressive strategies. On Warp you deal 16! to yourself if you choose to go for DD and 24 to your opponent, through Aegis. So yes, if you warp it at 8 cost, it's a very strong finisher. The cost is huge, though, as killing units might trigger Entomb effects, healing them, damaging you and worse. Also, it's obviously very prone to hand disruption, fast Aegis like Transpose where all you get is like a 4/6 that damages you and eats their Aegis. So yes, it makes face Aegis even more important and that's something I like a lot. It's a powerful card with potentially huge downside. And it's easily disrupted, namely, fast face Aegis, including Linrei's Protection (which could be 2 cost, by the way and PPP). I'm happy with the design and On Warp, the Aegis doesn't matter, but you do need a life buffer. You can choose between 8 or 16 damage to you and 12 or 24 damage to them. Also, it's trifaction, I like those cards a lot. Thanks for your attention, feel free to discuss.
Now on to the less important Warp cards, just small buffs here and there. Recombobulate - 3 cost. OW: Unit put into the deck, 3 cards from the bottom. Reason: on top is always not that great, as you can regain the summon effect. The cost reduction for your next card is great, but it never was a contender as serious removal. Although it was a 2 for 1 when warped, with the upside of cost reduction. At 3 cost, it's very competitive. Put not directly to the bottom is good since then they can't self mill/recur the card. Small touch. Obviously, to bottom is very strong it's a 2 for 1 on Warp with no downside. Does cost 3, though, without Etherforge Laboratory out (Workshop Forge). Hipshot - 3 cost deal 3 damage, fast spell while on top of your deck. OW: Deal 4 damage, deal 1 face. Hipshot without Warp is slow speed 3 cost, deal 3. Not the greatest. OW it's really good. Really bad before without Warp, obviously. Removal is important for midrange decks. Consuming Flames - Change: Deal 4. OW: Overwhelm. Twinflame - Change: 6 cost. OW: Overwhelm. Manufacture - Change: 2 cost. OW: Play 1 Grenadin. Fodder for Consuming Flames, stalling the ground for midrange strategies. Potentially better than Assembly Line, with the option to use the Grenadins as Market fodder. Search Party - I find this card to be very powerful already, so there will be only 1 OW effect added. OW: Play 1 more Explorer, Scout. Blink - Great card overall. Would change to 2 cost. OW: bounce 2 of theirs, bounce of yours, discard a card. Obviously very strong OW, but it's still only a 2 for 1 and they can replay their units. If you have something that gets played on discard or just discard a power, it's huge value, but as I said, you won't be able to warp all the time. Reactivating summon effects seems good. Other options: bounce 1, put 1 on top, put 1 of yours on top, discard 2/1. Just options. On with it. Reality Shift - Underappreciated and underpowered card that can be a real late game changer. Change: 6 cost. Triggers off Warp and Endurance. OW: both Warp and Endurance count for the bounce number. Seems like a very strong option, then. 6 cost, though, mind you. Hidden Shiv - Love the card in theory. Very weak as is. Change: 0 cost +1/+0 weapon with Warp and Ambush. OW: Deadly. So you can essentially play it at fast speed as a +1 attack buff and if you warp it, it's deadly. So it's giving a unit deadly for free, at fast speed, which seems what a Hidden Shiv would do when unnoticed. Good on value units, warped units where you didn't spend a card and Regen units. Deft Strike - Potentially gives Killer without spending a card. Change: 2 cost. OW: +1 attack and also gives Overwhelm. Blinkwolf - Iconic card for me. Change: 3/1. OW: 3/2. Good aggro change, although it was serviceable as a 2/1 when warped, which was rare, sadly. Camp Physician - Lifegain is very good in Warp, so this is a much needed buff, if considered. Change: 4 cost 3/3, gain 3. OW: Gain 3, gain 3. Not much to say here. Strong card after the change. Refreshing Waters - Change: gain 3 per unit. If you have a Camp Physician out, increase this by 2 and an additional 1 for each additional Camp Physician in play. OW: gain 4 per unit base with the same increase for having one or more Camp Physician(s) out. Outlands Brute - Strong aggressive unit, played in many of my decks as a 1 of just for the chance to warp it. Very strong on warp as it can attack for 4, doesn't cost a card and deals 2 damage face when targeted. Became obsolete with the advent of Galai, Shavka's Listener. Change: 4/2 Charge, deal 2 to any target when targeted with a spell or an ability. OW: +1 attack and Overwhelm, change text to deal 2 damage and 2 to your opponent on being targeted. Should be a very strong aggressive unit then. Onwards. Brilliant Discovery - Very underpowered, as is. It's a draw 3 when warped, where, well, you just don't play 1 from hand. Change: 3 cost, draw 2 Fire sigils, draw 2 Time sigils, discard 1 of them, discard another card of your choice. OW: draw a card from your deck. Strong buff, obviously. You can draw either 2 Fire or 2 Time or obviously 1 of each and then potentially get rid of 1 card you really don't need. The other one has to be one of the sigils. Maybe it should be both, but I like the option of discarding a card that you don't need at all so you can have 3 sigils in hand instead. On Warp, the value is very high, which is desirable. Journeyman Armourer - Signature card that I found strong but not strong enough. Change: 3/2, play a +1/+2 weapon. OW: play a +2/+3 weapon OR draw a +3/+4 weapon. Would like a different art for the armour with T/F influence. But the Spiked Helm is ok. Strong card after change. Brenn's Scrying - Change: 0 cost, Scout, Scout. OW: add another Scout. Good card with the change. Meditation - Not a Warp card but it can be quite serviceable as a way to just replay a card you put on top and give it +2/+2. Might be too strong, overall, as the On Warp effects can go nuts, so I'd probably change it to a 2 cost +1/+1 card. Tesya, Omen Shaper - Change: 6 cost. OW: +2/+2 to the team. Better than an Obelisk with synergy. 6 cost still a price, though. Some less important cards: Sauropod Crasher - Change: 4/3 Overwhelm. OW: +1/+1. Plated Goliath - Change: 7/6 Regen, Overwhelm. OW: +1 attack. Awakened Sentinel - Change: 3/5 Ambush, Endurance. OW: gain Charge and Decay. Xumucan, the Surveyor - Change: 7/6. Call to Arms - Change: 2 cost. OW: play one more weapon. Really good with Oni Quartermaster out. It's a 2 cost draw 3 not played from hand (4/2, since Oni Quartermaster costs a card). Locust Hatcher - Change: 5 cost. OW: change text to "play 2 Locusts on casting a spell". Dustblind - Change: 2 cost. OW: Option to discard your hand to exhaust all enemy units. Pouncing Drake - Change: 6/5. Has Ambush while on top of your deck. OW: Overwhelm. Sudden Stampede - Change: +2 attack to the team. OW: +1 additional attack. Mining Team - Change: 3/3 in stats. OW: Scout an additional time. Cannonbearer - Change: 6/6, deal 3. OW: Deal 4. Now on to the Primal Warp cards: Cloudsnake Matriarch - Easily the best Warp card from Primal and the main reason to go three factions outisde of Shatterglass Vaultbreaker, my custom Warp card. Strong on it's own, huge draw engine if left unchecked, albeit a little fragile, as is the case for most of these type of cards. Here's the change I'd suggest: 6/4 statline, keep the rest. OW: Cloudsnake Matriarch gains an Aegis. You have the option to discard a card to give another Cloudsnake Matriarch in play an Aegis. It's important to keep the toughness low if you add an Aegis effect, outside of that, the card becomes even more stronger than it already was. Which is desirable for card that should draw you into a 3 faction deck. Rost, the Walking Glacier - Easily one of my least favourite cards in the mono faction XXXXX cycle. Here's what I suggest as a balancing touch: Statline 6/4. OW: +4 attack. So he will always be relatively easy to kill, he will continue to come back unless you use Turn to Seed, Avigraft or transform effects like Fluctuate Reality (card I like a lot!) or Feeding Time and others. I just find Rost to be very annoying in general and I don't like stat based vanilla beaters, which is sadly what they did with most of the XXXXX-guys. So I also don't like Sediti much, but let's stop at that. Speaking of transform effects, let's discuss... Mass Polymorph - Strong effect overall. Suggested buff: OW: affects opponent's units, too. You have the option to discard 2 cards to make the random units cost 2 more than the transformee (the unit being transformed). Seems strong. Good Idea at the Time - Change: 0 cost. OW: Choose one: change 2 cards, change 4 cards or change 1 card into a random legendary card. Lethrai Soothsayer - This is a card I like a lot. The change I'd suggest is as follows: Give it Warp. OW: put one Premonition Bolt on top of your deck. The main problem I had with it was that the Premonition Bolts are unlikely to be on top in a big deck, which is my go to for now. So this would be a good change overall, mostly for large decks and not a huge change for 75 card decks. Innate Conviction - Probably my favourite Warp card overall, 4x premium craft when it came out. Still a little underpowered, so here's what I would do to make it S-tier: Deal 4. OW: play the Arc Dragon if you discard 2 cards, otherwise draw it as usual. I loved the buff to Arc Dragon, it's really great in a +spell damage deck. So if you get Innate Conviction back with Prodigious Sorcery or give it Double Damage with Touch of Force, it becomes strong very fast. Once Arc Dragon is out, the damage just keeps going up. So I love the card overall, top notch, if you ask me. Can get it off Garden of Omens (Resurface, that is), so yes, I always have one copy in most of my Primal decks. Crushing Avalanche - So I was playing this card for a while and found it to be too narrow to be more than B-tier, unless warped. So here's how I'd buff it: deal 5. OW: +1 damage, both players can't play spells or units for 1 turn each with you having the option to discard 2 cards to make it affect your opponent only. This makes it quite potent. A-tier or S-tier, I'd say, especially when warped. Hold Under - Change: 3 cost. OW: highest attack +3. Resurface - Let's face it, this card is good in a Warp deck. It does need a little help, though. My suggested change: Make it 3 cost. OW: you may discard 2 cards to put another spell of your choice on top of your deck, so 2 overall and also give the following card of your deck (third from top then) Warp and make it cost -2, including power, unless it already has Warp. Obviously, this allows for very strong warp plays, so it would have to be discussed with DWD. But it would make for a spicy card and face it, it's not that good outside of being warped, since it's essentially a bad Vampiric Tutor/Enlightened Tutor (so 1 card lost) for spells only and costing 2 more, 1 with my change. I like the discarding your hand option on all of these since you can play with the top of your deck really well as a Warp deck. Entangling Vines - With all the great stun cards around, Water Conjuring being the best at the moment with the new stun 3 attackers fast spell card being a contender, so 2nd place for defensive decks, Entangling Vines needs help. Here's my suggested change: 1 cost. OW: stun an additional unit when discarding a card. I find stun effects to be hugely underestimated. Sure, Endurance prevents it, but outside of that it's much better than just exhausting a unit. You will stun attackers for 2 rounds (Crystallize? :) ) and when it's for the cost of no card, that's really strong. Defensive stun effects are also very good, fast spells, since your opponent won't be able to attack 2 turns. Obviously, it's not hard removal, but that's why it costs less and it affects multiple targets, normally. Don't forget Icy Gaze, the card that gets played on discard... so you could stun 4 units with one Entangling Vines for the cost of 0 cards. But only on Warp. Let's continue, we're almost done. Only focusing on T/F/P for now. Snowmass Jotun - Change: 7 cost 7/7. OW: Stun 2 units (enemies or not) OR play a Winter's Eye. Terror on the Mountain - Underrated card. Change suggestion: 6 cost 4/4. OW: Stun enemies and Terror on the Mountain with the option to discard 2 cards to play a Permafrost on one enemy unit. Eager Owlet - Change: 2 cost 2/2, Scout. OW: Scout, Scout. This covers all the cards I wanted to cover. It goes without saying that the cycle of 6 cost Warp spells, End of the Line, End of the Barrel, End of the Day, End of the Story and End of Hostilities all are great cards, especially with Tribute. So I do put End of Hostilities into all my Primal decks, great to Tutor for with Garden of Omens and Resurface in general. Obviously End of the Story is next best. Did you know that Chairman's Contract is a good way to activate Tribute in a unit based deck? It matters little. Now that this is covered, here's a final entry concerning a card I'd like to see buffed, it was nerfed and probably was too strong in its original state. I will discuss Valkyrie Warp in a different post. Here's the card I'd like to see buffed: - Heavy Artillery - Change: If you have 2 or more Valkyries in play, play the Raildriver on one of them.
Alright, that's it. I will post good decklists at some point and probably will do some gameplay videos. Take care everyone, thanks for reading. Comments welcome. Best regards Osidan PS: Excavate is an alright card in Warp decks, despite the fact that it gives Voidbound. It costs 2 less than Turn Back Time and it's really only good in Warp decks or if you run like 4 Re-Read, 4 Turn Back Time, 4 Lumen Attendants, which is not completely out of the question. Then, you might run 1-4 Excavates in addition. submitted by /u/Osidan23 [link] [comments] |
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