Locations, in their current form, tend to be either very overpowered or nearly useless. Perhaps more to the point, I feel that locations have done nothing to help the game. (Though to be fair, I don't feel like they hurt the game either, as long as you put aside the pre-nerf Garina and Sosilo locations).
Essentially, Locations act as a 0-cost card that you can play only after a certain number of turns.
They tend to have beneficial effects for both players. But by in large, the way that locations are designed
makes it very hard for them to be *balanced and playable*. Let me explain.
Except for decks with very strong draw engines, by turn 5 or 6, the typical problem faced with many decks, is that they have plenty of resources to spend, but not enough cards to play. Locations solve the opposite problem. They provide a 0-resource effect at the cost of a card. Hence, it can be incredibly challenging to construct locations that positively impact the meta. Another issue is that locations can so easily be killed (when the opponent plays another location). Even if locations made their way into the meta, the locations, they could never become that prominent in the meta, because they can so easily be removed from play, the opponent simply has to play another location to remove the existing one.
Hence locations almost seem to be doomed by design to be broken, provide free draw at 0 cost, or subpar to other non-location alternatives.
One possible solution to this problem is that:
a. Locations should cost resources and
b. Locations should not be so easily removed from play.
From my understanding, locations were conceived to demonstrate where the battle was taking place. Instead, it makes sense if we allow locations to be 'a base of operations' where we can allow players to take over (or destroy) locations by attacking them with existing allies.
Consider the following locations.
Fire Snake Pit
Shadow Location
Cost: 3
Defense: 5
At the start of your turn, a Fire Snake with Haste is summoned under your control.
(When Fire Snake Pit's Defense is reduced to 0 it is destroyed).
Poison Thorn Forest
Neutral Location
Cost: 4
Defense: 1
Damage from your allies poison opposing heroes and allies.
At the start of each of your turns increase Poison Thorn Forest's defense by 1 to a maximum of 5.
When Poisoned Thorn Forest's defense is reduced below 1, the opponent gains control of this location with defense 1.
Do you think locations should be modified? How so? Do you think these changes to locations would make for a more interesting meta?
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